No. Apparently the dirty washing pile is the best place for a nap.

He slept for almost two hours.

Not a literal bus, a metaphorical bus.

It could also have been a metaphorical UFO, or a metaphorical flying cow – I was too busy crawling towards the safety of my bed to look closely at whatever it was that hit me.

Regardless of metaphorical object, I am finding week 9 of pregnancy very exhausting and very very nauseating and something horrible keeps happening with my blood pressure. All of this means that I have spent a lot of this week sleeping, trying not to puke, or laying down with my ankles firmly above my head.

Pregnancy is so attractive, don’t you think?

In lieu of a proper post, I present you with photos of my children.

Because they’re cute.

In other news, it is Frogpondsrock’s birthday today (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!) and she is going to be shaving her head in the Leukaemia Foundation’s World’s Greatest Shave.

She would LOVE if you could donate a few dollars towards the cause, because as we know, Cancer is a Bastard and deserves to be cured. Until then, the Leukaemia Foundation is using the money to fund research and to help out patients.

Don’t tell my husband, but I just stole his last pair of clean trackpants to wear. Not that I should be needing to steal his trackies at this early stage of pregnancy – no, my belly is not large enough to make my pants uncomfortable yet. The problem is that apparently, I keep buying comfy “round the house” clothes for my family and forgetting that maybe, I need some pajama pants of my own.

WOE IS ME.

As I was stripping off my skirt and leggings in the bedroom, Amy was chatting to me and I told her she absolutely was not allowed to tell her father that I was stealing his pants.

Of course, she told him. I think I’m quite proud of her honesty (considering he would have noticed in a couple of minutes anyway).

So, there. My daughter doesn’t lie all of the time (thank god) and I am wearing stolen pants.

This is my glamorous life.

***

I am coveting a wheelbarrow load of chook poo.

I KNOW, INTERNET, POO AGAIN.

My garden is looking a little worse for wear, so today, we braved Bunnings with two children to firstly, buy new septic joiners (MORE POO) so that we can move our toilet inside (EVEN MORE POO) and secondly, buy mushroom compost (MUSHROOM POO!) and potting mix.

Now all I need is Nathan to walk to the other side of the paddock with a shovel and the wheelbarrow and return, bearing gifts of chook poo. (POO)

It’s not even like it’s hard – the chooks rather nicely piled it up for him. Of course that was before the dog tore them all to shreds, leaving only one chook alive, but you get that. (Now I’m adding DEATH and GORE to the mix.)

But it’s raining and sadly, there will be no garden safe manure for me today.

***

We were in the Supermarket after Bunnings, with two bored and hungry children. This could have been a recipe for disaster and whining, but, it was … okay. Not fantastic and not amazing, but okay.

Yes, they whined (pleasepleaseplease can we have blueberries? please mummy, look, there are grapes!), but the content of the whinging was wanting fruit. You know what? I can deal with that.

For the record, they got what they wanted.

At the same time I noticed, just how nice it is to have kids that are reaching the older end of the “little kid” spectrum. Five and three? So much nicer than three and six months old. Really really.

Today you are three and we couldn’t be happier.

Tomorrow, my son turns three.

This is a huge milestone for me, as well as him. When I was 24 weeks pregnant, I got an infection and started to bleed. After a positive fetal fibronectin test, I was given steroids to mature his lungs just in case.

Nothing else had gone right during my pregnancy, so I had no reason to believe my pregnancy would. I distanced myself from him, even as I sobbed in the hospital room at 2am, trying to breathe through the crampy contractions.

Eventually the antibiotics did their job and Isaac stayed in utero for the recommended number of weeks, before being born in a hurry, screaming his displeasure at the world.

Oestensibly it was a happy ending, but the months of my pregnancy had been spent so close to cancer and death that I couldn’t quite convince myself that it was all going to be okay. I spent a lot of time waking up with a racing heart, before laying my hand on my sleeping son, holding my breath and feeling his chest move.

Five months after he was born, my grandmother died and for a time, it felt like the spectre of death was hanging over us. There was no rhyme, nor reason to death, so why should I expect to be spared any more heartbreak?

It took a long time to stop worrying that Isaac was going to die, even longer to accept that it was my anxiety and depression causing the fears, not anything realistic. Of course, it didn’t help that he was a boy, prone to breaking his bones and smashing his head against sharp objects.

Three years later and finally, I’m pretty sure it’s all going to be okay.

My anxiety and depression have eased and while I can’t predict the future, I can stop myself imagining everything bad that might possibly happen.

It feels like we’ve finally reached a period of calm.

It’s rather nice, actually.

I’m the oldest child in my family. My brother was born when I was five and a half, so I was old enough to help out a good deal when David was a baby. I remember trailing him around the property when he was toddling, making sure that he didn’t wander into the bush, or fall into a nest of jackjumpers. I can’t say I was always successful at avoiding the jackjumpers, but I never lost him when I was meant to be watching him.

I can only imagine that having a big sister is very much like having a little brother. Equal parts lovely and please-just-make-me-an-only-child-again. Not that I think that way anymore – my brother is 17 and old enough to not pull my hair or destroy my makeup. He just eats all of my food instead.

At the end of the school year, Amy’s school threw a large picnic at a park, and parents and siblings were invited. We took Isaac along, despite me being very slightly nervous about how he was going to cope with 150+ kids of varying ages.

But we took him, first to the pool to watch Amy swim and play and then to the picnic.

I wasn’t sure how Amy would cope with her little brother trailing her while she played with her friends, but she was brilliant.

She looked after him, made sure he was safe, that he played with her and everyone and it was just really great to watch.

Amy is, frankly, a fantastic big sister. Yes, they fight (because Isaac is definitely everything a little brother should be), but they play and chatter and giggle and of an evening, when I’m at the end of my tether and really just need them to go to sleep, they will lay in bed and talk. And because my house is made of tissue paper and hope, Nathan and I can hear everything, which makes us smile.

I remember bringing Isaac home for the first time and Nathan and I were wondering out loud how Amy would cope to the new family addition. I remembered what one of my blog commenters had said (and I cannot remember who it was – it was 3.5 years ago now) “Give her two weeks and she won’t even remember what life was like before him.” In the first few days of transition and chaos, I held onto that.

It’s true though. Amy didn’t remember what life was like before him and they fell in love, just as hard as Nathan and I did with them.

It’s nice, to watch the relationship between my children and to know that somewhere down the line, they will rely on each other as much as they rely on Nathan and I.

I’m not quite sure why I expected my children to be “normal”. With quirks all through the family, they were doomed from the start.

On the flip side, if they are even a little bit as brilliant as my parents, then I’m sure it will be okay. How long until we can teach Isaac to play guitar? Or build houses?

Yes, this is my father, lining up cars alongside Isaac. They were all very neat and tidy.

Dad and Isaac are incredibly similar, and Isaac adored playing cars with Dad on the floor.

And, the box full of matchbox cars from Mum and Dad were definitely the highlight of Christmas for Isaac.

Christmas is just around the corner, although I am a little stunned at just how fast it’s snuck up. I think school not finishing until the 21st contributed to the turn-around-and-smack-there-is-a-holiday feeling that I’ve got, but there you go and here we are.

My Christmas shopping is done and we’re not planning on leaving the house again until sometime after the holiday insanity is over. We’ve (rather selfishly) told our families that we are no-way-no-how going anywhere with the children this Christmas day and that everyone is welcome to come to us. I’m just not prepared to deal with tired, over-excited children in someone elses house.

What’s been nice though is the couple of weeks of smooth sailing we’ve had. Sure, my body hasn’t quite cottoned on to the fact that I am no longer pregnant and my uterus is still feeling annoying and sure, I’m puking more than I would like, but it’s only three and a half weeks. It will calm down eventually. Hopefully.

But there are good things happening.

I was gifted a kitchenaid from the ever lovely Stephen who won one in a food photography competition and thought I might like it. Once I’d stopped being struck dumb by his generosity, I was able to accept it, while quietly falling apart in excitement.

This meant that I was able to pass my stand mixer on to Catherine, who is an amazing baker (she did my wedding cake) and didn’t have a stand mixer of her own. She tells me that she’s in the process of setting up a facebook page, so I’ll link you all up once it’s live.

Frogpondsrock came up with an idea and the Internet pulled together and organised Annie an iPad. The Internet is amazing.

Amy has grown a huge amount this year and jeans that I didn’t think would fit her for another year, she is wearing now. Her phobia of flying things (beetles, bees, insects) continues, but that is mostly manageable. She can recognise all the letters of the alphabet and can write her name. She can also copy any word you write down, but she cannot read yet. Phonics are not her thing, so we’re looking into flash cards for teaching her words by sight. I seem to remember that that is how I learned to read, by sheer memory.

We have no doubt that Amy’s memory is spectacular and so this is probably the easiest way to move forward with helping her to read. She remains hugely interested in any and all electronic devices. We thought about buying her a Nintendo for Christmas, but decided against it because Isaac would have demanded one also and we’re not convinced that he is ready. It is in the works for her birthday in September now.

As well as growing inches and seeming to get very big in her manner, Amy’s joints have gotten bendier and I’m having to relocate her ribs more often than I would like. She complains a bit of leg pain and we’re managing that with massage, heat and panadol as necessary. She is very hypermobile and I worry about her. We’re aiming to start swimming with her in the New Year, in order to help her build some muscle tone.

Isaac went through a tough phase for a few months. We had near daily meltdowns and his stimming got worse. He stopped eating anything except warm milk and dry cereal and ended up hospitalised for a flu that knocked him for six. But we’ve come out of the other side of that phase now and he is talking more and has also grown inches! In hindsight, the tough patch was a large developmental leap and I am loving watching him chatter with Amy and learn new things like a sponge. He is also very electronics focused, which can provide excellent bribery at times, but can also make him scream blue murder.

Toilet training has started, but his various medical and sensory issues make this harder than it should be. Intensive therapy starts in the new year and we’re hopeful that we can get his digestive system functioning in some sort of order by then. If not, we’ll be stomping our feet and demanding referrals to doctors who deal with gut issues and hoping that we can find some answers.

He will be three in three weeks and I cannot fathom where the time has gone. The days are long, but the years are certainly short. I expected that we would have another baby on the way by now, but alas, my body refuses to co-operate.

This is the first Christmas since 2007 that I’ve not felt the spectre of death hanging over us, so I’m trying to make the most of it. I miss Nan terribly, but feel like we can celebrate this year without feeling the wind whistling through the gaping hole that her death left. The terrible thing about death is that it’s so final and nothing can bring them back, or change the reality that death inflicts upon you.

Both children are old enough this year to ease the ache a little, even knowing that the kids won’t remember her, and that she won’t get to see them grow up. That is the hardest bit I suspect.

But like I said, there are good things happening and after the chaos of the weeks surrounding our wedding, it’s nice to find a semblance of peace. The New Year is going to be busy, and I am really looking forward to it. I’ll be starting Clomid in January and hopefully I’ll be able to announce a pregnancy early in the year.

So, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and festive holidays to all of you. Thank you for sticking with me this year and for reading Sleepless Nights and supporting us.

Isaac ran out of the bedroom, uttering something akin to a warcry. Feeling rather like I was asking to be bulldozed, I opened my arms and he hit me in the middle like a cannon ball.

“You’re meant to be in bed, kiddo.”

“Yis. I am. But Mummy, I needa KISS you.”

And he proceeded to hold my face between his hands and kiss me, first on the eyes, then the nose and cheeks and finally, one last kiss on the lips.

Standing, I swept him up and snuggled him, as I walked him back to bed.

It was probably the 10th time I’d put him back to bed that evening, but I can’t say I minded.

Could you resist this face?

How far we have come.

My HCG levels came back yesterday afternoon with the spectacular number of … 31.

Yes, I’m not missing any numbers there, 31 it is and I suspect it’s falling, judging from the paling lines on the pregnancy tests that I have been torturing myself with. On the upside, I bet I can squint at a pee stick with the best of them. Downside is, you know, no baby.

I’m okay though – tired still and very overdrawn on “spoons” from the wedding and the fortnight we’ve had, but okay. I’ve got an appointment on Monday to be jabbed with a needle again (are doctors just vampires in disguise?) and Tuesday we should know what is going on.

Waiting, waiting.

—-

Let’s talk about Isaac. Specifically, Isaac and food.

Now, last time we spoke about this (was it to you, Internet? or am I confusing you with our speech therapist?) Isaac had issues swallowing food, but seemed to be okay with things like yogurt, soft fruit, ice-cream, cooked soft vegetables and various things that didn’t require work to swallow.

This meant that the list of things he refused to eat, or couldn’t swallow vastly outweighed the list of things that he would/could eat.

And then of course he got the flu, refused to eat for days and days, got hospitalised, lost weight, etc etc etc.

Here I was hoping that once the flu disapeared, he would get back on track.

HAHAHAAAAAA.

I am an idiot.

I can safely say that he is eating dry cereal, cooked pasta, cubes of peeled pear and not a lot else. He might have eaten a few mouthfuls of jam sandwich yesterday, but I can’t be sure, as the chewed and spat bits were everywhere.

I am thankful that his cereals of choice are at the very least “good” cereals with less sugar and more grains – but you know.

He’s refusing yogurt (even my favourite expensive kind with blueberries that he used to love), ice-cream (what kind of kid refuses to eat ice-cream?) and most other things I can think of to offer.

He has managed to find a packet of smarties however and is steadily eating them, so there is hope for the sweets side of things yet.

Just not for my sanity.

We even trialled some “baby food” that the kind people who represent Rafferty’s Garden sent out. He refused to even look at it. Sorry guys. I was hopeful that baby food would be our saviour, but it seems that we’re back to dry foods again.

Sigh.

—-

I think that’s it Internet. I’m still exhausted and all I’ve done lately is read books and drink tea.

A nice change from before maybe, but I would like to not be exhausted just having a shower.