Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • Cocktails at Naptime

    Emma from Mommy has a Headache was one of the very first blogs I ever read, and she was one of my first commenters. So when I heard she’d written a book with Gillian and was looking for reviewers, I waved my hands wildly in the air (okay, I might have emailed her) and asked for a copy.

    And?

    It’s brilliant. The best parenting book I’ve ever read. I was giggling before I’d even finished the first chapter.

    They declare it to be a ‘woefully inadequate guide to early motherhood’ and they’re right, insomuch as NOTHING can actually prepare you for childbirth and the sudden responsibility of a baby. They send you home without an instruction manual for gods sake. How are we meant to know how to stop the kid screaming?

    Some things hit home – like ‘was a student midwife having a go at sewing you up afterwards?’ because um, YES. My vagina was not right for years after that. It wasn’t a student midwife, but a student ob/gyn who while she wasn’t doing her first set of stitches, was doing her first episiotomy. Add in my tendency to skin tearing and she pulled those stitches out three times before she finally gave up with a ‘that will do, sigh’. I mean, c’mon!

    It answers questions you weren’t even game to speak aloud, like ‘will I ever have sex again?’ and ‘will I ever WANT to have sex again?’ as well as telling you how to avoid early onset ‘mumitis’ (when you turn into your mother.) Sadly, the mumitis information comes too late for me, as my garden and rapidly growing menagerie catapult me firmly into Mum territory. Of course, I’d argue that I’m merely being creative with my money, but no matter.

    It’s definitely the book you want to be reading if you’re a real mum: aka, not a celeb mum. It includes a handy exercise guide (weight lifting! your baby will only get heavier and will want to be thrown in the air. Ski training! Someone has spilled yogurt all over the floor and you need to clean it up, without falling in it) and a guide on how to make mum friends (don’t try to bribe them).

    Cocktails at Naptime is the perfect book for new mothers because we all need to laugh about how messed up our vagina is after pushing a 3.kg blob through it.

    For more info about Cocktails at Naptime, check out the website, with links to where you can buy a copy and info on the authors. OR you can do what I do and check out their blog. Every book needs a blog of it’s own.

    AND! If you’d like to win a copy of your very own, then leave me a comment and let me know your funniest/stupidest/worst parenting moment. The winner will be selected via Random.org.

    Annnd, the winner is!

    Kim! I’ll email you Kim.

  • Spring Gardening

    It’s Spring finally and I can begin to plant all the things I’ve been waiting all winter for. I love gardening. There is something about playing in the food I am growing that gives me some peace and helps when I’m feeling panicky. If all else fails, I go and get my hands dirty.

    Some things have been growing all winter and are now waist high, leaving me wondering if I’ve got room to dry strings of broad beans for winter.

    This is about 1/8th of the beans I’ve got growing. Amy *might* have accidentally dropped 200 bean seeds into a freshly dug patch of garden and picking them up was too hard, so I just dug them in. This is what happens when you’re a lazy gardener.

    So I have a metric shitload of broad beans growing and I am really not a fan of them. Although I can imagine drying them and adding them to casseroles and soups next winter will be fantastic. Dear family, be prepared to have loads of beans shared with you.

    I’ve also got growing my standard things – kale (two types, russian and tuscan), lettuce greens, celery, beetroot, leeks, spring onions, garlic, cauliflower, radishes, capsicum, potatoes, parsley, chives, silverbeet, rainbow chard, strawberries and peas.

    Planted but not yet sprouting I have carrots and beans (4 different types) and some sugar snap peas. Plus coriander, basil and mint.

    We moved the A-frame that had been used for pulling out car engines by our houses previous owner into the garden too. I’m hanging my herb baskets on it in the hope that sunlight convinces something other than cress to grow. These baskets hold the aforementioned mint, basil and coriander.

    The a-frame also gives me something to run our soaker hose over. Soon I’ll be planting strawberries in hanging baskets too and hoping it works. The plan is also to grow climbing beans up the frame, to hopefully make the frame part of the garden.

    I went seed shopping yesterday which always makes me happy. I came home with purple runner beans, cucumber (2 types) zucchini, rockmelon (2 types, an experiment), corn and kohl rabi (another experiment).

    I’m starting to wonder if maybe I need a larger garden – because I still have to plant enough tomatoes to make sauces with and I want to plant another 20 pea plants so I can freeze or dry some peas for winter.

    It’s all very demanding and amazingly relaxing, especially when my social anxiety is playing up. Bring on the gardening. Just please, let’s not hide any snakes in there.

    Unrelated: New theme! I bought Thesis, so I’ll probably have a play with the colours and stuff soonish. My brother’s girlfriend is drawing me a header in black and white, so I’ll have a graphic to pop up soon too. Until then, thoughts on colours, sidebar arrangements, things you’d like to see more of? Or we can talk about gardens and Spring.

  • When good things come in small packages

    This post sponsored by Nuffnang

    ***

    When Nuffnang rang me and asked me to participate in this campaign, I was happy to oblige. Of course, then I had to really think about times when something good came in a small package and that’s where I got a bit stuck.

    The cliched thing of course is to talk about the children. At 7lb6 and 7lbs respectively, they were rather small, delicious and lovable. Of course, then Amy started to scream and scream, so she was less a ‘good’ thing and more of a ‘god I love this kid, but why is she the only one screaming’ kind of package.

    And Isaac, well, it’s probably not fair to compare them, but he didn’t scream as a baby, so comparisons are hard not to make.

    But hey they were small, cute and when I swaddled them, they looked like little packages.

    Sort of.

    I kept thinking and really, all I could come up with was baby animals (have you see the ducklings?!) and stuff like that.

    Not exactly things in packages. I’m not married and not engaged, so I can’t tell a story of a ring in a  box – well I could, but I’d be lying – although it would make for the perfect good things/small packages story.

    I can’t do it though.

    I think that maybe, my best good thing in a small package is always going to be a book. Inside of a book, I get an entire world, someone else’s life and a great story, all in a small package. That counts, right?

    Anyway.

    The point of all this?

    Cottees Cordial is reducing their cordial sizes from 2ltr to 1ltr, but the smaller bottle is merely more concentrated. It all makes up to the same amount of cordial.

    Now, I’ve been tempted to blog about Cottees before and just never gotten around to it. Simply put, they are the only cordial I have found that has natural colours and doesn’t send Amy off the rails. I can’t vouch for the other flavours, but the orange coloured ones are all coloured with turmeric and carmine, lovely natural things that don’t send Amy batty.

    So Cottees are the only cordial I buy anyway. And now they’re getting smaller, which means they’ll fit in the cupboard better and I’ll be able to stock up when they come on special. Win win I think.

    ***

    Now comes the fun part.

    Nuffnang and Cottees are offering $1000 cash to the person who shares the best ‘When good things have come in small packages’ story. Obviously I’m not eligible, but YOU are my lovely readers.

    In the comments, share your best ‘Good things/Small Packages’ story and I’ll select the best 3 to go into the draw. The responses across all the participating blogs will be read and the best response will win $1000 for themselves. There is nothing random about this competition, with winners selected on how well their story is told.

    Terms and Conditions

    Nuffnangs blog post

  • A fucking snake

    We just found a snake. Inside my house.

    A white lipped ‘whiptail’ snake.

    Not the best photo, I was shaking too hard to get a good one.

    It was curled up underneath the fridge. Only that Nathan had decided to mop the kitchen and moved the fridge did we find it. It was about 12-14 inches long and asleep, under my fucking fridge.

    Anyway, with much swearing it was relocated and hopefully we’re snake free now. A timely reminder that we need to be wearing shoes outside ALL the time and that the kids MUST have boots on, all the time.

    I might still be a little panicked. Enough that I’m considering blundstones for inside the house and having a minor panic attack with every footstep. Yeah, I have anxiety issues. Small ones.No one said I was being reasonable.

    A snake! Inside my fucking house.

    Excuse me while I go and hyperventilate. And possibly complete the panic attack I put on hold because everyone is awake.

    And I might even change my animals category to ‘goddamned motherfucking animals’, just to make my displeasure clear.

    (At first glance I thought it was a baby copperhead, but the photos showed me differently. Still very freaked out.)

  • What’s down there?

    What's down there?

    Alternate title: Holy CRAP I have a FOOT!