Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • Wits End

    Are you at your wits end? (Yes!)

    Are you contemplating beating things into very small pieces with an iron bar? (Oh god yes)

    Have you seriously considered locking your children in their bedrooms? (or the closet… Just for a little while. But yes.)

    Have you got things going on in your life that you can’t blog about, but you are seriously thinking of murdering people? (Please tell me I am not the only one…)

    Has your toddler been so fucking clingy and needy lately that you are ready to send them outside with nothing but a stick? (Yes. Yes and yes. Or maybe I will sell said toddler to the Gypsies. I haven’t decided yet.)

    Do need some time out? (I would kill for some time out)

    Well let me be your wits end sponsor!

    I will bring you chocolate when you need it. (Everyone needs chocolate sometimes.)

    I can run interference while you go to the toilet/shower/eat in peace. (Because damn, what I wouldn’t do to poo/shower/eat by myself)

    I know where the good cheese can be found. (Even if I can’t eat it right now)

    I will hold your hand as you cry over that thing that everyone seems to think you should be over by now. (Because god, hurting over something is SO last year. Especially when that something is huge and life changing.)

    And I have a good store of wine in the bathroom. (That I can’t drink. I actually bought it to cook with)

    I am skilled at the bedtime song and dance routine. (And that person who has an angelic sleeping angel (who falls asleep easily every. single. fucking. night. can just go get fucked)

    I know all the methods you can use to not smack the toddler. (These are very handy if you have a toddler like mine, who just LOOKS at you and then determindly does whatever she got in trouble for again.)

    I am becoming very good at NOT strangling the dog. (Things which I will happily pass on to you in your hour of need, because GOD FUCKING KNOWS, if I have to clean up one more crap, or rewash a whole basket of washing because it was pissed on, I might just need you to counsel me.)

    And all these skills for the everyday low price of NOTHING! Yes, that’s right, NOTHING. Nothing to pay, nothing to spend, absolutely nothing.

    I will do all this for free because I love you. Honest. Just one condition…I need you to do the same for me.

  • Idealistic

    An ideal night would be:

    – Having someone else make me roast lamb with gravy. Then that someone doing all the dishes afterwards, dressing Amy for bed, placing her in bed and not hearing anything from her until 9am the next morning.

    – It would include a house that was warm, someone to bring me tea and toast so I didn’t have to move (or maybe hot chocolate) and a foot massage.

    – TV shows that weren’t shit.

    – A warm bed when I chose to dive into it and a restful 9 hours sleep before I had to arise in the morning.

    It would NOT include:

    – Amy throwing her dinner all over the highchair table, sitting in it, fingerpainting with it and then refusing to get clean. (It was pumpkin soup)

    – Amy refusing to go to bed, despite her bed being being warmed with a heat pack. Screaming for 30 mins while she protested the indignity of a gate that she couldn’t move and then throwing her cup full of milk away numerous times before finally falling asleep.

    – Weather so cold that they were thinking of closing our road (we made it home, but it is snowing).

    – A toilet that is outside in the -3C weather when I am pregnant and needing to pee 3 times an hour.

    – A dog that barked over nothing and woke the toddler. A dog who is on her VERY VERY last chance before I start putting her in the shed overnight so she can’t crap on the floor.

    – A toddler who then needing resettling eleventy hundred freaking times before falling back asleep and honestly, I am not holding my breath yet.

    – Writers block.

  • Snippets.

    Seven? Stop eating my goddamned underwear! If I get out of bed in the morning again and find all my underwear chewed I swear I will shove it down your throat. (Yes, it would probably help if I had folded and put away the clean washing, but whatever). At least they were clean.

    Amy, I love you, but can you please help me evict the Two that has suddenly taken hold of your toddler body? I want my non tantrumming, non squealing, TALKING toddler back. Also, not climbing for a while would be nice. Mummy’s heart can’t take anymore climbing and leaping ‘Tatch Me!-s’.

    I bought my first article of Maternity stuff today. A pair of knee high boots with no heel. Oh so gorgeous and oh so comfortable. Also some tights so that I can get through winter on a song and a prayer while wearing my stretchy material skirts (that are so much sexier than the stretchy material pants).

    I also bought more underwear (Seven, you keep away from it you hear me!) because I was getting to the point where I was going to have to go commando. And honestly with all the increased *ahem* (TMI) mucus you get in pregnancy, I really didn’t want to be going commando. Especially not in winter.

    Winter? You can fuck off. I am sick of being cold and depressed and sunlight deprived. Thanks.

    Dear my Freezer, I would love if you could magically make things appear inside yourself that I felt like eating. IE: Frozen strawberries (that are too expensive to buy) and yogurt. Yes, I KNOW this would make you a magical freezer and it would mean that I would have to pet you a little each day, but honestly, I am good with that.

    My skin has gone to shit. I look like a teenage pizza face again and nothing I am doing is fixing it. Sigh. Time to bump up the Vitamin C and fish oil I think. Also, I need to stop being lazy and wash my face more. With CLEANSER.

    Dear Nightmares. Go away.

    Dear blood pressure. Please rise, I am sick of feeling dead. (Yes, the doctor did check my blood pressure yesterday and he did say it was low, but he didn’t seem too concerned. Hmmmph). I am drinking a metric ton of water/cordial a day and it seems to help, but….

    Seriously, I am sick of needing to pee every 30 minutes. Uterus, any time you want to move away from my bladder is good with me. Honestly, I won’t be upset or anything.

    Oh and tonight? I can’t seem to string anything coherant together. Can you tell?

  • I Never Thought A Nose Was So Cute Before

    Baby at 13 weeks
    Baby at 13 weeks

    So, I had my NT scan today to check for Downs Syndrome (I am going to call it an excuse to see my baby’s heartbeat again).

    The little one kicked and wiggled it’s way into many and varied positions (none of which the sonographer wanted, but all of which were very cute). Luckily I had the patient guy who is willing to answer questions and he spent alot of time smiling at the little one and pointing things out to me.

    Like the nose, as seen above.

    I am so very relieved to have seen the little one so active and to see a nice strong heartbeat (165bpm for anyone interested).

    AND even bigger news! I had thought I was feeling flutters for a while now, but was also telling myself that it was wishful thinking, today the ultrasound confirmed that I can feel about 70% of the moving the baby is doing (I was feeling and watching at the same time. Very cool).

    So all is well in my world today.

  • It’s Hard

    I find it hard to write lately.

    Not because there is nothing to write about, but because it is hard sitting here putting words on a screen and wondering how they will be received in real life.

    My Mum reads here.

    So does Nan.

    And it must be hard for them to read that I’m coping badly sometimes. That all this is hard for me too. Not to mention that as you leave comments Nan is reading them too.

    So it is hard. I can imagine they are pulled between protecting me ‘their little girl’ and letting me deal with it exactly the same as they are. The hard way.

    I find that I am walking a fine line between being honest with myself (and writing it) and not wanting them to worry about me, or how I am coping. The last thing I want Nan to feel is that she has to protect me and hold my hand. I don’t want to put that kind of stress on her, because at the end of the day, this isn’t about me and how well I am dealing with it.

    It isn’t even really about how any of us are coping with it. It’s all about how we can manage to pull through this together and survive emotionally to tell the tale.

    I am writing this because for the last 2 days I have been steadfastly not coping. I have been teary and exhausted and catatonic on the couch. I have been not coping at all.

    And by not coping I feel that it kind of puts me at a disadvantage. I don’t want to be protected, I don’t want to have people worrying about how I am.

    I will be fine. Honestly.

    I want to be able to not think about it until I need to. I want to be able to place it in the ‘do not open’ section of my brain and leave it alone until the 28th. I want to be able to be superwoman and turn off all my emotions for a bit.

    It doesn’t work like that though, so I vent to my blog. And don’t doubt it, this is venting. I don’t have a close girlfriend I can ring and cry to. Most days I don’t even get to leave my damn house! So I blog and vent and cry and leave myself wide open to the interpretation of the internet.

    Aside from Nan, there is other stuff going on at the moment. It all makes for a great deal of stress and a good deal of unbloggable material.

    And dammit, I am pregnant too! It took me 16 fucking months to get myself knocked up and I am so so scared that I will be thrown back into the TTC pool without a live baby on my hands. I don’t talk about it much, but somehow, when getting pregnant has been so hard, you realise just how fragile it all is and you worry just a little bit more about things.

    I hit 13 weeks tomorrow so I know that my chances of a miscarriage have dropped alot, but I still worry; probably more than I should.

    Repeats after me, everything will be fine in the end. everything will be fine in the end. everythingwillbefineinthend.everythingwillbefine…