Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • Goddamn Animals!

    Last night as I was cooking dinner, I realised I had been yelling at Seven to stop barking for an awfully long time. Strangely enough, she was barking near the house, normally all barking occurs at the property line as she protects us from strange people trying to post letters or answer mobile phones.

    So, I did what anyone would do. I yelled some more and then headed outside to investigate. Lo and behold, what did I find but an echidna! Quite common in Tassie, not so common on my actual property.

    echindna

    The poor little thing was terrified and had buried itself in the hay up against the house.

    I called the dog inside figuring that the echidna would trundle away once s/he wasn’t scared anymore.

    However, 17 hours later? The echidna has done nothing but burrow into the hay more, creating itself a little tunnel and hidey hole.

    Now I have NO problems with an echinda taking up residence in my backyard. God knows that we have enough ants about the place to feed an army of echidnas and Amy thinks it’s fantastic. The cat and Seven however? Are less than impressed.

    Seven seems to think that she needs to protect us from the spikey burrowing thing and the cat isn’t sure whether to ignore it, or to spend all it’s time wandering around eyeing the moving hay uneasily whilst puffing up to 3x her normal size.

    [An impressive feat when you consider that the cat is due to have kittens any day now and is therefore as big as a basketball]

    So to the disgust of my domestic pets, we have an echidna living in our yard now. Ner ner.

    Unfortunately Seven can’t seem to stop barking at it. I wonder how long until my ears start to bleed?

    ****

    Also last night, [not while I was cooking dinner] Nathan discovered why Seven barks at apparently nothing.

    There is a possum, living in the giant pine tree nearby.

    This possum likes to come into our yard and run in circles taunting Seven to chase it. When Seven obliges, the possum darts away up the nearest tree where Seven can’t get to it.

    Sort of like how your younger siblings used to taunt you when you were a kid, only as soon as you went and told on them, they promptly looked all angelic and you got into trouble for making things up? Or as soon as you went to chase and hurt them, they ran behind your mothers knees to hide?

    Yeah, the possum has been doing that to Seven.

    ****

    So an echinda making a home in the backyard and a possum that has learnt to tease the dog.

    What will be next?

    ****

    Also, what is the world coming to when spellcheck doesn’t recognise the word ‘echidna’? It’s not like I am talking about some kind of exotic animal here. Sheesh!

  • Twelve Days of Christmas

    On the first day of Xmas my toddler gifted me
    A kitten stuck up a tree

    On the second day of Christmas my toddler gifted me
    Two yowling cats
    And a kitten stuck up a tree

    On the third day of Christmas my toddler gifted me
    Three stolen biscuits
    Two yowling cats
    And a kitten stuck up a tree

    On the fourth day of Christmas my toddler gifted me
    Four headache tablets
    Three stolen biscuits
    Two yowling cats
    And a kitten stuck up a tree

    On the fifth day of Christmas my toddler gifted me
    Five minutes peace
    Four headache tablets
    Three stolen biscuits
    Two yowling cats
    And a kitten stuck up a tree

    On the sixth day of Christmas my toddler gifted me with
    Six loads of washing
    Five minutes peace
    Four headache tablets
    Three stolen biscuits
    Two yowling cats
    And a kitten stuck up a tree

    On the seventh day of Christmas my Toddler gifted me
    Seven overnight wake ups
    Six loads of washing
    Five minutes peace
    Four headache tablets
    Three stolen biscuits
    Two yowling cats
    And a kitten stuck up a tree

    On the eighth day of Christmas my toddler gifted me
    Eight soiled underpants
    Seven overnight wake ups
    Six loads of washing
    Five minutes peace
    Four headache tablets
    Three stolen biscuits
    Two yowling cats
    And a kitten stuck up a tree

    On the ninth day of Christmas my toddler gifted me
    Nine metres of tinsel
    Eight soiled underpants
    Seven overnight wake ups
    Six loads of washing
    Five minutes peace
    Four headache tablets
    Three stolen biscuits
    Two yowling cats
    And a kitten stuck up a tree

    On the tenth day of Christmas my toddler gifted me
    Ten minutes of screaming
    Nine metres of tinsel
    Eight soiled underpants
    Seven overnight wake ups
    Six loads of washing
    Five minutes peace
    Four headache tablets
    Three stolen biscuits
    Two yowling cats
    And a kitten stuck up a tree

    On the eleventh day of Christmas my toddler gifted me
    Eleven sticky cuddles
    Ten minutes of screaming
    Nine metres of tinsel
    Eight soiled underpants
    Seven overnight wake ups
    Six loads of washing
    Five minutes peace
    Four headache tablets
    Three stolen biscuits
    Two yowling cats
    And a kitten stuck up a tree

    On the twelfth day of Christmas my toddler gifted me
    Twelve sloppy kisses
    Eleven sticky cuddles
    Ten minutes of screaming
    Nine metres of tinsel
    Eight soiled underpants
    Seven overnight wake ups
    Six loads of washing
    Five minutes peace
    Four headache tablets
    Three stolen biscuits
    Two yowling cats
    And a kitten stuck up a tree

    ***

    Thanks to Xbox for the idea.

  • I keep trying to write…

    But then something inevitably happens.

    Amy runs up and shuts my laptop lid, meaning that I get distracted.

    The tiny little kitten climbs my leg, meaning that I swear like a trooper and have to shut everything so I can pry his needle like claws out of my skin. His destination is generally my hip or shoulder, anywhere where Amy can’t throttle him and he is hard to dissuade.

    There are cries of ‘bootiful Mummy, look! it’s bootiful. Pretty shiny bootiful!’ as Amy pulls the tinsel and beads off the tree. It’s all about the pretty shiny bootiful here people.

    There are requests for food and drink and then tantrums when the food and drink wasn’t exactly what was requested. A little voice telling me ‘Still HUNGWY Mummy, still HUNGWY, please Mummy Amy still HUNGWY’ even when their is food right in front of her. Somehow the difference between chicken sandwiches and chocolate is made astronomically clear when you are Two and actually requested chocolate. How could Mummy misunderstand so badly?

    Then once Amy is mostly occupied, there I things I realise that I should be doing. Christmas baking; washing walls; swearing about the carpet stains; washing everything that isn’t tied down. I might be nesting, but goodness knows having Christmas coming up compounds my stress levels something fierce. Things that I could leave for a few more days all need doing right! now! because damn if there isn’t only 6 days until Christmas (and 36 weeks), then there is New Years to get through, then we have 3 weeks left until my due date. If the baby decides to hold on that long.

    If.

    There are big things left to do, like buying a car that will actually fit 2 car seat, buying a car seat, moving the bedrooms around so that ours will fit a cot, cleaning the carpets (Nathan’s job) and making sure that no one falls through the dining room floor in the meantime.

    There are Braxton Hicks contractions to breathe through; not painful but definitely intense. There are ribs to be kicked and I need to try and remember to shower so that I’m not found at the end of the week, unwashed with tangled hair and a scrubbing brush in my hand.

    And at the end of the day when I am able to sit and relax and not have to shut my laptop lid eleventy hundred times, there is a bed calling me.

    None of this is conducive to writing blog posts. (so that you know, I have been interrupted 12 14 times while writing this much already)

    But we’re all good here. Busy and a little stressed and it’s hectic, but we’re holding up. Nathan is working long hours so I’m not getting any backup and we’re just hoping like mad that he doesn’t have to work this weekend, or over Christmas.

    Everything is on the countdown. 6 days until Christmas and 34 days until I’m due.

    Eventually I will have time to stop and take a breath. Until then you can find me pottering (slowly. v v slowly) around my house, cooking and cleaning and ignoring requests to watch the Banana’s in Pajama’s DVD for the thousandth time.

  • And we’re off to see the Wizard!

    Or more correctly, the geneticists at the Hospital.

    My GP who admitted straight away that he didn’t know anything about EDS – and then asked me how to spell it so he could google it – was a little hesitant to agree that I may or may not have EDS, because there is normally a family history associated with it.

    That is, until my Dad* stepped in and mentioned that him and both his sisters had all had very similar symptoms as teenagers and that one of my aunts still suffers from CFS like symptoms.

    All of us with no solid diagnosis. Although that may have something to do with the fact that Dad and his sisters were never taken to the doctor for any of this.

    What can I say, my Gran is a bit … strange – and not in a good way.

    So, once my doctor heard that there was indeed a strong family history of similar symptoms (Gran was sick as a teenager too and as an adult, although Dad says she whines so much about everything you never know what is really going on) he was more inclined to believe that EDS is a distinct possibility.

    And we’re back on the medical roundabout in the hope that something shows up this time. Sigh. I have no idea how long it will take for me to get seen because as of next week all the clinics at the hospital will be taking 2-3 weeks off. My doctor isn’t hopeful for an appointment being before the baby arrives, but hey, maybe that is for the best.

    I had to laugh, the doctor mentioned that ‘I would have thought that if one has EDS and is super stretchy, that child-birth wouldn’t be super easy’. He did look slightly abashed when I told him that I didn’t have a hard time birthing Amy at all. I wasn’t game to mention the fact that my Aunt had one of her babies in her own bed just as the Ambulance arrived. Yeah, we don’t have trouble birthing babies at all.

    Not to mention the fact that I ended up at the physio for a pelvis that was separating and twisting about 10 weeks earlier than it should have. (Pelvis has been hurting for about a month+ now for anyone counting down the weeks and wondering why I said 10 weeks when I have only 6 weeks ish left to go).

    Oh yeah, only 12 more sleeps until Christmas! Have you got it all together yet? (I don’t).

    And that horrid baby widget thing that I refuse to put on my sidebar, but still occasionally check on with my due date tells me that I only have 40 more days until my due date. We’re on the count down now baby.

    —

    *Dad had an appointment at the same time, so I asked him to come in with me while I talked to the doctor. I suspected that the doctor probably wouldn’t take me seriously unless I had Dad there to mention about him and my aunts and whoa, I was correct.

  • Just Checking

    Just upgraded to WP 2.7 and am just checking that everything still works okay.

    Ignore me over here, okay?