Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…

    I keep repeating to myself. I will NOT have a panic attack. I will not. Nope, not at all.

    It’s not working of course, but I’ll keep repeating it anyway.

    ***

    When I was little, Mum and Dad slaughtered a pig in the middle of summer. Only to have their refrigerator and freezer die that same day. Much stress ensued and much pork was eaten.

    Mum is planning on slaughtering her pigs this weekend. We’ve been discussing it, knowing that a fair amount of the meat was going to be stored in my freezer.

    ‘How’s your freezer?’ asks Mum this morning.

    ‘Fine’ I said, ‘waiting for the pigs!’

    HA! HAHAHAHAHA. HAAAAA.

    HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

    UGH.

    This morning, after I spoke to mum, I opened my freezer.

    And everything was defrosted.

    Everything.

    Seems that the power surge we had a few days ago has blown my freezer up. The lights are on, but the temperature is not frozen. Sigh.

    I rang my insurance and yes, it will be covered, just jump through these hoops, stand on your head and spin three times.

    Fine, I can do that.

    Everything was fine.

    FINE.

    Fine.

    Until we started to do the washing.

    Now, the washing machine is plugged into the same power point as the freezer. Most everything else we own is plugged into surge protected boards. Thank God.

    Half way through a wash, the machine stopped. It started playing up, all the buttons flashed and it refused to spin anymore. Fine. Stop/restart. Same issue.

    Finally we got a load of washing finished.

    And then everything went downhill.

    It’s a front load washing machine, which means that it has a door lock, to prevent the door opening midcycle.

    Seems the door lock is electronic and has forgotten how to disengage.

    On top of the machine not wanting to spin or wash or WORK.

    Broken.

    I rang my insurance again, and got the now broken washing machine added to my recent claim. They’ll repair it, or replace it, depending on what the electrician has to say.

    Fuck. It just never rains does it?

    ***

    In other news, Panic Attacks. The Reason For.

    Go and read this post. Go on, I’ll wait. La. lalaalaa. Laaa.

    Right, you’re back?

    Hello.

    The hospital rang today.

    We have an appointment in about 3 weeks, to see the Paediatric Coordinator (the head honcho) about Amy and Isaac’s genetic test results.

    I’m worried because when the orders for the Coeliac genetic screen was put through we were told that our regular Paed would give us the results. Then, we were told to ring for the results. Then, we were told the results were too complex and involved to be discussed over the phone and could we please come in for an earlier appointment. Oh and by the way, you’ll be seeing Dr B, the big boss guy.

    Today, the nurse rang to let me know about the sooner appointment. She made a point of telling me it would be with Dr B, and not one of the Registrars.

    Shit.

    So I’m a little stressed.

    A teensy bit.

    A whole lot.

    So, Dear Internets, what do you think? Stressing for no reason, or justified? Where you are, would you have to see the Boss Guy just for a simple Coeliac Gene Screen?

  • Food, eating and broken tongue ties.

    So, my son. He of the not swallowing and the tongue tie and the issues.

    He turned around the other day and poked his tongue back out at me. I was stunned, in a good way. I prised open his mouth, which was harder than it sounds, and checked. No tongue tie. The frenulum that I used to be able to see easily, gone.

    I don’t know if he bit it, or snapped it somehow, but it’s fixed. Suddenly, instantly, he can swallow properly and poke his tongue out. He is talking heaps more and trying to have conversations with me. The issue now is trying to work out what the hell he is saying before he gets frustrated with me and gives it over to yelling or screeching instead.

    It’s insane.

    It’s fantastic.

    He took 2 steps the other day too. Wobbly ones and after two steps he threw himself at me, content that I would catch him. I did and we giggled. He is still very wobbly and can’t manage any more than 5 seconds standing unsupported.

    Now that he is standing alone though, I’m noticing more issues. His left foot turns out, badly. Like, 90 degrees badly and when he steps, it doesn’t straighten.

    With my untrained eyes, it looks like the turn is coming from the hip, but I’ll ask the physiotherapist about it next time we see her. I don’t know what impact it will have on his walking, but to be honest, I’m not expecting him to walk any time soon. It’s enough that occasionally he lets go with his hands, and walks holding my hands. Both things that Amy was doing at 11-12months. And I KNOW that you’re not meant to compare, but really, I can’t exactly compare him to ‘normal’ children with their development, can I?

    Can we just come back to the fact that he is swallowing? Properly? Thank GOD.

    ***

    In unrelated blogging news, I’ve been updating my food blog again, after months of …. um …. not. I’m enjoying it and maybe you will too.

    There are new posts up on the other blog. I mean, one new post. You’ve probably seen it already. [yes, this is me telling you to go read my other blog. now. make me feel better about the lack of readers over there, okay?]

    Also, I want to address the sponsored posts issue. Yes, I’m doing sponsored posts here for Nuffnang. Mostly because being a poor penniless writer doesn’t appeal to me and Nuffnang doesn’t pay badly. Funds are tight here, Nathan is my full time carer, so he doesn’t work at the moment. That might change as the children get older, but my body is failing and I need him home. So any money I bring in from writing goes towards the household and things like that.

    Sunday, I will be announcing the winners of my advertising competition. Maybe sooner – I’ve made my decisions and some of you have been notified already and some haven’t. Please, bear in mind that if you didn’t get a free ad spot at this time, I will probably be offering spaces again in a month. And I love every single one of you who entered, so thankyou so so much.

    So that’s me! How have you been?

  • I can do it my own self!

    This post is sponsored by Nuffnang.

    ***

    Just let me do it myself! she exclaims, holding the mouse like a hostage.

    I wasn’t trying to take the mouse off her, but she is impatient and frustrating and she assumes that that is what I was going to do, because that’s what I did when I was 10 and teaching her how to navigate a computer for the first time.

    Okay, let me talk you through it. Click on the email icon.

    Where is the email icon?

    In the start menu.

    Slowly she navigates to the start menu, me sitting at an opposite desk.

    Where is it? I can’t see it.

    I click through on my computer and look.

    There, at the top.

    Her frustration rises and so does mine. This is the most annoying thing I’ve ever had to do and she just won’t listen. She’s like a toddler, yelling I can do it my OWN self, and I just want to calmly state that yes, of course you can, but geez, you need to listen to me talk you through it!

    This was how it started, all of it. When I started college, my mother came with me as a mature age student. She’d been wanting to go back to school for a while and I’d been nagging her. Finally, it paid off and there we were, on opposite sides of a desk in the library, glaring at each other.

    Never mind, she snapped. I’ll get S to show me later.

    I can show you now Mum, you just need to listen!

    I stood up, to stand behind her.

    Veronica! She growled. I can do it myself! Don’t take the mouse off me!

    Again, it was like a hostage situation.

    I wasn’t going to take the mouse. I was going to point to where you needed to click.

    ARGHHHH!

    Eventually, we decided that instead of killing each other, we would let S show her how her email worked. S did, and Mum wasn’t worried about having the mouse wrestled from her grip. Not that I was going to anyway.

    (And not that I did, although she claims otherwise, I maintain that her memory is flawed by the fear of having the mouse taken off her. I might have had to sit on my hands an awful lot, but I didn’t take that damn mouse away.)

    5 years later and while she will still ring me up to get me to talk her through something tricky, Mum is pretty much a computer expert. When I started this blog, I nagged her into starting one of her own. Over 2 years later, her blog is still going strong. In fact, she was one of the finalists for Best Australian/NZ Weblog 2010.

    I don’t think she’s ever gotten over the fear of having me take the mouse away though.

    ***

    It seems we were ahead of our time, with computers and blogging. I was teaching Mum how to use a computer 10 years ago and we nearly killed each other.

    Nowadays, there are things like The Digital Mums Campaign: helping to teach mothers how to use email, the Internet and social networking to keep in touch with their children in today’s online world.

    I would have killed for something like that, it wouldn’t have gotten me sent to my room nearly as often! Mum and I might be ahead of the times, but I’m pretty sure other mothers are still sitting in front of their computers, holding a mouse hostage and telling their children to just let me work it out myself!

    The Digital Mums Campaign is active over on Facebook and they talk about mothers, social networking and keeping in touch. I wonder if you’d like to click over and become a fan? You can probably find me over there, talking about my mother who has managed to outshine me in the digital world this year!

  • Trees, forests, silence and animal deaths.

    So the protesters are doing their thing and shouting about the annual duck season. AGAIN.

    ‘Scuse me for a minute while I laugh a little.

    Okay, protesters? You know who is out of a hobby if all the ducks get shot and can’t re-breed? The duck hunters. So don’t you think, that maybe they’re invested in the well being of the ducks as a whole? Just a teensy little bit invested?

    And yes, there might be cowboys who are shooting for the sake of shooting. Screaming at them and disrupting the hunt is probably not the way to go about reeducating the idiots. Personally, if it’s the idiots you’re targeting, you couldn’t pay me to stand in front of them and whistle and dance while they try to shoot ducks.

    So they’re probably not targeting the idiots.

    Surely, just surely, there are worse things involving animals and turning them into food (because trust me, if you’ve gone to all the trouble of dodging the protesters and shooting a duck, you’re fucking well going to eat the thing). Like maybe, OH I DON’T KNOW, commercial pig farming? Just MAYBE, we ought to be protesting at a pig farm, or a battery hen farm. Or for those of you in the USA and Canada, the horse slaughter trade and auctions. Because it’s not that the animals are slaughtered, it’s the way they do it and how the animals are transported in the first place.

    So MAYBE, just MAYBE, we have bigger issues than the fuzzy wuzzy ducks and cutsie wootsie wallabies being killed. Wallabies btw are vicious little things, invested in the serious business of garden and fruit tree murder. I’m pretty sure if you look at one wrong they’ll stab you with the knives they keep in their pouches. Kill em before they kill you is my theory [so long as that death is quick and humane. Please don’t try to suffocate one, or shoot it with little darts and a blow gun. Please].

    Also, for the record, if a wild duck or two dropped into my yard, they’d be dinner, pretty fast. (My actual plan is to breed and eat Muscovy ducks, but that’s not happening. YET.)

    ***

    Quick question: If a blogger posts a post on a Sunday – and no one reads it, does it still exist? Enquiring minds want to know.

  • Fern

    I know I pointed you towards Fern shortly after her daughter Robyn was stillborn. Anyway, she started blogging again and so now, I’m pointing you towards her blog and today, her daughter’s birth story.

    Go and surround her with internet love, okay?

    xx