Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • Venturing into the great outside

    I’ve been hibernating since Evelyn was born. I know this, and accept it. It’s easier to stay home when you have a baby who requires naps and a certain amount of normality. But somewhere in the middle of hibernating, I stopped going anywhere except for necessary things. Hospital appointments. The supermarket. School.

    Which is fine, it really is. I’ve been working a lot, and writing a lot, and that is all much easier when I’m at home.

    But I’d underestimated how much sanity can be restored simply by leaving the house.

    Evelyn had a neurology appointment yesterday afternoon. It was a Student Free Day, so Amy was home from school, and the original plan had been to have Frogpondsrock watch my children while Nathan and I headed to the appointment.

    By 11am I was ready to eat my children. Just up and eat them. NOM. The two big ones woke Evelyn from her nap five minutes after she fell asleep, someone destroyed something and there was more screeching than I thought humanly possible.

    I ran away. Convinced Mum to come and get me, and we left Nathan at home with the two big children, while I escaped to Kmart of all places. You know you’ve been hibernating for too long when Kmart feels like a luxury freedom resort. I didn’t even buy anything amazing. School shirts for Isaac to start Kindergarten with, a new belt after the dog chewed mine to pieces, a present for a birthday party we’re invited to, a helmet that actually fits Isaac.

    Then Evelyn and I shared a hot chocolate and a toasted sandwich, and I realised that I hadn’t been anywhere for almost 18 months that didn’t involve pressure, or stress, or screeching banshee children.

    It was nice, you know. Evelyn is (mostly) lovely to take out in public, and I can’t keep hiding at home. That’s the problem with working from home too, it’s easier to just stay home, because going out means you’re playing catch up on things you should have done at lunchtime, at midnight.

    Neurology was happy with Evelyn, by the way. She has a theory that babies with severe sleep myoclonus (the twitching that aren’t seizures) are wired differently. Wired higher. She promised me that Evelyn is going to give me hell as she gets older.

    I look forward to it.

  • So much normality in one little bundle.

    Evelyn is sick. Not in a special snowflake “oh god my baby is SICK” way, but in a normal “every baby gets a bad cold” kind of way. Despite the snot and the two hours of inconsolable screaming last night, it all feels very normal. Eve is sick, and she’s acting like a sick baby and I am tired, and bored from walking around the house patting her on the back while she wails.

    I’m even typing this from bed, while she drapes her small sad self across my tummy, snuffling and grumbling about the indignity of a spring cold.

    Things have happened, things I haven’t written about because, turns out, having three children is a bit of work, and toddlers are more intense than I remember.

    Evelyn learned to walk. Like, properly walk. She totters around the house all day, throwing herself at any furniture  available to catch her unbalanced form. She’ll drop down to a crawl for a few metres, before deciding that height beats speed any day, and clambering back to her feet. She’s wobbly, and her right knee needs strengthening, but she’s off and walking.

    She says thank you (dug’nen) when you hand her things. It’s one of her few functional words and is probably one of the cutest things she’s done since the last cute thing she did.

    We saw the geneticist and left with a diagnosis of Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. This was expected. It might be causing her feeding issues, it might not. We’re told to stick with pediasure and see how she does. As long as she doesn’t lose weight, we’re all good.

    Life continues. I’m writing fiction, waiting for November and NaNoWriMo to start, growing a garden and just being.

    It’s all very nice, and normal, and pleasant. Except for the snot. The snot and wailing isn’t pleasant.

  • The juxtaposition of my crisis, to their crisis.

    Advertorial

    This morning Evelyn brought me a head band. I put it on her, and she waited, patiently, while I told her how pretty she was. We repeated this three times, before she crawled off happily, head band holding back her curls.

    This morning, I helped Amy dress for school, packed her lunch, brushed her hair. I kissed her goodbye and sent her off to learn things without a second thought. Tonight she’ll catch the school bus, and we’ll walk home along the road, with no fear for our safety.

    This morning, I made Isaac breakfast, clucked over his black eyes from a bike accident, patted his head and helped him build a house in Minecraft.

    There are no bombs here, no insurgents, and the only fighting is about who sits at which place at the table. Or who gets dinner first. Or who wants that toy.

    My children are happy, healthy and safe. Our fridge is full of food, and we aren’t scared for our lives.

    My crisis this morning was spilling the milk. My crisis last week was running out of tea. Of needing to pay the power bill. Of a child falling off his bike.

    It’s not the same everywhere.

    In Syria, children are displaced. Families are torn apart by violence.

    From UNICEF:

    The conflict, now in its third year, has seen Syria’s economy collapse. Stores are closed and food is scarce. Access to healthcare is incredibly limited: more than a third of all hospitals have closed.

    Children are innocent victims of war. An entire generation of Syrian children is at risk, growing up traumatised. They need shelter, clean water, medicine, food and education.MORE THAN NUMBERS -THE SHOCKING STATISTICS2 million: the number of Syrians who have fled their country and sought refuge in neighbouring countries (Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and Turkey) and North Africa.
    4 million: the number of children that need humanitarian assistance.MORE THAN A WISH LIST – A SURVIVAL LIST
    UNICEF needs your help to provide:
    Food.
    Clean toilets.
    Medicine.
    Schooling.
    Safe places and shelter.
    Trauma counselling

    I’ve been watching the news, holding my babies close, thanking my lucky stars that I was born in Australia. Because that’s all that separates my situation from the situation of a Syrian family. Luck. I was lucky to be born here. A fluke of conception, a fluke of luck, and I am sitting here in a warm house, with an internet connection and privilege, watching families across the world suffer on the TV.

    Boat arrivals are increasing in Australia, propelled by global violence, and our government pretends that it isn’t happening. A cone of silence surrounding the reasons that families put themselves onto a boat and flee here, to our Lucky country; and we pretend that we don’t know why.

    I’d flee too.

    The crisis in Syria isn’t set to end any time soon, as much as we’d all like it to. The Syrian children – who are exactly like our children, except for circumstance of birth, are growing up in a war torn country, where violence is normal, and death is common.

    I can’t fix the violence, from my living room. I can’t change the world, and signing a petition, as much as it makes me feel good inside, does very little to help Syrian families on the ground.

    Unicef are on the ground in Syria, helping families, providing aid. You can donate to Unicef charity to help a family in need. As little as $50 can help buy clothes, blankets and other family essentials for a family forced to flee.

    SyriaImage: Sana/Handout/European Pressphoto Agency via NYTimes.

  • When is sunshine not really sunshine?

    This morning I woke up when Alfred, the half grown cat who ought to be grateful that I didn’t leave him to die of starvation in the middle of winter, bit me on the elbow. Hard.

    It was unexpected, and I yelped, loud enough to wake Evelyn, who looked less than delighted to be awake, and promptly crawled over to take advantage of my boobs. She was nearly back asleep when Alfred nibbled on her fingers, making her yelp, and waking us both right up.

    Alfred is not meant to sleep in my bed. Sometimes though, he sneaks in stealthily, and curls up like a hot water bottle at the base of my back, which feels so nice that I am loath to throw him across the room. He’s like a boomarang anyway, in that he always comes back, and he’ll probably take my face off when he does.

    So we were awake, and the sun was streaming in through the window. Well, that part is a lie. I could see that there was sun streaming outside, but my window faces the wrong way for morning sun, which is probably a good thing. And anyway, it was windy, and cold looking, despite the sunshine. You should never trust sunshine that you can’t feel on your skin because it’s probably only pretending to be warm.

    I checked my clock, expecting – because of the sunshine, and the eager kitten, and the awake baby – it to be at least 7.12am, owing to the clock change last weekend meaning Evelyn wakes up at a time that isn’t horrendous on the clock.

    It was 5.58am, which, if this had happened a week ago, would have made it 4.58am, the thought of which made me cry.

    But onwards and upwards.

    I’d like to say I threw myself out of bed with vigour, greeting the sunshine (that isn’t really sunshine, because it’s not warming anything up) and grabbing the day by its testicles.

    I’d be lying, again, because instead I pulled the covers up to my chin, tucked Evelyn into the curve of my body and mumbled into her head in the hope that I was actually chanting some mystical spell that would put her back to sleep.

    It didn’t work, and she let me know it wasn’t working by gleefully trying to feed me a feather that she’d picked out of my ageing doona, before poking me in the eye and wiggling so much that at one point, she was sitting on my head and bouncing.

    The day continued to be daylike and I was forced out of bed.

    The benefits of being out of bed include: the ability to sit in a puddle of false sunshine, music, hot tea, and the fact that none of the cats urinated in the basket of washing that needs folding before I had a chance to throw them outside.

    The downsides of being out of bed include: I am awake and so are all my children.

    I fully expect the day to improve with the application of brownies and tea. Probably.

    In the meantime, Alfred is meowing at me from the kitchen window and I think Evelyn might be trying to eat her brother. I can’t see from here. The false sunshine is blindingly bright.

    Evelyn chaos creator

  • In my defence, I didn’t mean to throw a spider at him

    Two nights ago, I was feeding Evelyn at some godawful hour, when I felt the pitter patter of tiny feet scurry across my forehead. I reached up and grasped something with too many legs and way too much exoskeleton for my liking. With minimal freaking out because Evie was asleep on my chest, I grabbed the spider, flinging it across the room.

    Or at least, that’s what I tried to do.

    Instead of the spider flying across the room, I threw it onto the bare chest of my almost sleeping husband, making him do the spider dance in the dark.

    It wasn’t my finest moment.

    On the bright side, neither of us got bitten and in the light of day, it’s amusing me. Even if I am now checking my bedding for stray spiders more than is healthy.

    —

    I’ve been writing a lot of things lately.

    At Ramp Up:

    My Disabled Body, My Choice

    Family photo 039

    Although eugenics is widely condemned today, the practice of shaming disabled women for having babies continues.

    Recently I was the victim of a comment implying that because I am disabled, I should not have had children. I’ll leave aside arguments like the fact that I also pay taxes, and instead focus on the implication that I should not have had children because I have a genetic mutation that causes issues with mobility. Read more.

    At The Shake:

    Perception is more important than reality.

    A few months back, I set up a new account on twitter, in order to promote some of the genre fiction I’m writing under a pen name. It’s been a hard slog, but today I can let you know that my pen name has twelve followers. Thirteen if we count the one tumblr follower I have. Read More.

    Breastfeeding and Supplemental Formula.

    Two weeks ago I put my fourteen month old daughter on supplemental formula under the guidance of a Dietician working through the Royal Hobart Hospital.

    I remember reading somewhere, back when I was pregnant with Evelyn still, that formula will not poison your child and breast milk will not make her fly. I chanted that as a litany in my head when, as a neonate in special care, she required formula through her NG tube as my milk came in. Read More.

    What are you afraid of Mr Prime Minister?

    Tony Abbott’s behaviour is not that of a man confident in his leadership, or his power. He’s been elected to the office of Prime Minister, but instead of grabbing the job with both hands and doing it for Australia, he’s been hiding away in an office, refusing to let the people of Australia see him have an opinion on anything. Read More.

    —

    How are you, Internet? Any spider stories to share?