Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • Invasion of the garden eating monsters.

    Nathan and I were playing Minecraft the other night when we heard a scream. It echoed around the entire house, leaving us listening for the sound of a baby waking up, or a terrified child.

    [Related, yes, we play Minecraft together. It’s not just a game for children. Shut up.]

    When no one woke up, we looked at each other and sighing, headed for the torch.

    “It was, wasn’t it?”

    “Yep. It was a possum.”

    I knew we had a possum, because the other night, she was dancing an irish jig on the roof above my bed at three am. Later, I prayed for her death, while wondering how wrong it was to hope for something that inconveniences me personally to, you know, DIE.

    We headed outside to our one large gumtree on the property and started looking. BANG, there she was. I glared at her and she chittered at me anxiously as I shone the torch in her eyes, wishing that my torch was actually a laser so that I could get rid of the destructive fucking thing.

    Not that I’m bloodthirsty or anything.

    (I am.)

    It’s no secret that I don’t like brushtailed possums. My wish for them to pack up their bags and move far far away from my house is well documented and loudly voiced. They’re destructive. They kill my baby trees. They break tree branches. One fucker has been stealing my chicken eggs.

    I am not impressed to have yet another one living near my house.

    However, if I’m really lucky, this one will also get hit by a car, at which point I’ll do a little dance of glee, before composing myself and celebrating internally.

    I am such a bad person.

    This is why I need a protective ring of triffids around my house. Not only will they take care of marauding possums, but I can put them to work hunting down the mice that are currently eating all my seedlings. Sure, they might kill me too, but DETAILS.

  • I’m all covered in snot and sadness

    Hey to all my new visitors coming from The Bloggies website. This post is about my baby Evelyn, who is ever so slightly complicated. If you’re interested in her issues, you can find more back story in my About page. Also, have a look around and vote for me if you like what you see.

    —

    There. Now that that’s over and done with, I can get back to the Very Serious Task of telling all of you, my regular readers, how Evelyn is doing. I’ve been a bit overwhelmed by The Bloggies, and apparently when I’m overwhelmed I hide elsewhere and do other things. Silly, I know.

    ANYWAY.

    Evelyn has had a cold and the trickle down effect has been interesting. Not only has she been very sad and insisted on wiping snot in my mouth at least twice a day, but she’s also forgotten a lot of her previously learned skills.

    Being sick, and the slight sleep deprivation it’s caused, has made her seizures increase again and thus in turn, her hand control has gotten terrible. She’s forgotten entirely how to roll over and holding onto most toys is now beyond her.

    It’s hard to watch, as her mother. I know that logically she will relearn how to roll over (again – it will be the third time so far) and that her babbling will start again and that one day soon I won’t have to fend off snot covered flailing hands, but it’s still hard. Her head control is a bit crap, to be honest and she wobbles like a bobble head sometimes, which has been made worse by her generally clogged state.

    It’s made her very sad, which in turn means I’m either breastfeeding her, pacing the floor with her, or rocking/patting her to sleep.

    And oh, the breastfeeding. I’m a little annoying that our next Paed appointment isn’t until May (MAY!) because we need to discuss this child’s feeding issues. Namely the fact that anything that isn’t tiny tastes of nectarine upsets her stomach. Also the fact that at seven and a half months she still has quite a strong tongue thrust. It’s bothersome, to be honest. She wants food (oh, the anger of this baby when I don’t share my food with her) but her body can’t quite keep up with her mental development and thus, no food for her.

    Thank God for breastfeeding – even if her increased need for calories means that I have porn star breasts, akin to those days shortly after she was born. It could be fun, if they weren’t so leaky.

    In any case, I know the cold will pass eventually, even if it’s taking her a lot longer than the older two children to fight it off. When it does, we’ll work on re-teaching her how to roll over and how to use her hands again.

    In the meantime, does anyone have a spare tissue? My shoulder is all soggy.

     

  • Unsolicited free stuff, a serious complaint.

    This morning I received unsolicited free products in the mail. My children were excited – since I stopped saying yes to PR stuff, the packages here have dropped off and they’ve been unimpressed with their lack of free stuff. Even when that free stuff was a handcream I was never going to blog about.

    We opened up the box and discovered Kellogg’s new liquid breakfast drinks.

    Now, I need to state, Kellogg’s have, in the past, been incredibly good to me. They’ve sent me cereal when Isaac wouldn’t eat anything except cereal. They’ve sponsored me to attend conferences and flown me around the countryside.

    But this time they’ve missed the mark. In fact, they’ve missed it by so much that they’re no longer even playing in my ballpark.

    Firstly, the two breakfast drinks I was sent were CocoPops and Nutrigrain. Both cereals I refuse to buy because they have too much sugar to not enough good stuff ratio.

    Secondly, we’ve recently started Isaac on the FODMAP diet. Kellogg’s didn’t know this, so they get a pass. In fact, hardly anyone knew this yet, because I’ve not really spoken about it. So while I wasn’t going to give the sweetened milk drinks to my children for breakfast, I was kind of hoping they could have them as a treat. I’m not averse to treats. I have them all the time.

    I read the ingredients though and was a bit flabbergasted. Firstly, low fat milk? LOW FAT MILK? Geez. I know we’re currently in a food culture swing of “fat is bad, OMG FAT”, but it’s not true. Children especially need fat for their brain development and therefore, in my opinion children should always eat full fat dairy.

    The second ingredient on both products was sugar.

    Head, desk.

    You know that there is something wrong when we’re removing fat from food and replacing it with sugar.

    Listen, I’m not anti-sugar. In fact, I happen to adore sugar. But having sugar as the second ingredient in a product designed to be a kids breakfast drink?

    No. Just no.

    The ingredients then go on to list a whole host of other things, including stabilisers, flavours, added minerals and vitamins (FYI, adding extra calcium and vitamin D doesn’t get you past the sugar debacle) “flavours” and acidity regulators. All this in something that is essentially chocolate milk. For breakfast.

    I mentioned to Mum that it was terrible, but that I wasn’t going to say anything because let’s face it, Kellogg’s has spent a lot of money on me in the last 2 years. But then, she asked, doesn’t that effectively mean that they’ve bought my silence?

    I don’t want to be that person who plays down the negatives of something because of brand loyalty, or fear of opportunities passing by later down the track.

    So, Kellogg’s, hear me out.

    I think these breakfast drinks are a ridiculous product. You’d be better off marketing them as pure chocolate milk, rather than something nutritious and suitable for breakfast every day. That’s my honest feedback and you’re welcome to it.

  • Not recommended: Getting stoned before visiting a medical professional.

    It’s not a new thing for me to get carsick when we travel. What is new is the increasing severity of my motion sickness and the limited amount of travel it takes to make me want to puke. When I was a kid, provided I had eaten breakfast and we weren’t driving for more than an hour, I would be fine.

    Post third baby however, I feel like throwing up a mere 10 minutes into our drives. Bear in mind that we live at least 30 minutes from the supermarket and even further away from our myriad of doctors. You can imagine where this is going, can’t you?

    Yesterday I knew that we needed to travel an hour into the city to see Isaac’s dietician for the first time. He’s starting a low FODMAP diet for various issues and we needed to put a plan in place. I was already feeling queasy at the thought, so I made myself eat buttered toast and a piece of fruit – my go-to cures for a wobbly tummy. I also rather sensibly took a maxalon (anti-nausea tablet) that I’m prescribed.

    But then, I was stupid.

    Self, I thought. Self, you’ve got some travel sickness pills in the medicine cabinet.

    I really didn’t want to be puking sick for the first time meeting a professional (I save that for visit three) so I read the directions. “Take 1-2 tablets 30 minutes before travel.”

    Seems sensible, right? I popped two tablets (my first mistake), finished my cup of tea (probably my second mistake) and finished getting ready (definitely my third mistake.)

    By the time we were thirty minutes into our car trip, my mouth felt weird. My fingers were tingling and I had the driest throat, ever. I was having a hard time resisting the urge to squeal “WHEEEEE!” around all the corners and my inner ears were so messed up that while I had a headache and a bit of dizziness, I was not feeling sick in the slightest.

    By the time we parked the car and headed to our appointment, I was smashed. I wanted to giggle at everything. EVERYTHING. THAT TREE IS SO FUNNY OH GOD KILL ME NOW.

    Our wait time was 30+ minutes and I was hoping while we were waiting that I might start to come down. Oh yeah, laugh at the stupid stoned girl. The baby was fussy so we paced the waiting room – Evelyn sadly chewing on my shoulder (omnomnomnomnom) and me trying not to walk like an astronaut during the moon landing. I also had to bite my lip to keep from dying laughing when Evie grabbed Nathan’s cup of water, spilling it all over his pants. It wasn’t really that funny, in hindsight.

    During the appointment I tried to keep my brain on task, carefully listing all of Isaac’s liked foods and listening intently to all the things he can no longer eat. I promptly forgot everything. Luckily she wrote notes for me all over the information package she handed to us.

    In the car on the way home, I fell asleep. I haven’t slept in a car since I was ten years old (and thinking about it, probably high on the same travel sickness pills).

    I was in bed at 7.30pm last night, unable to stay awake any longer. Things weren’t funny anymore. Actually, things were decidedly unfunny. (GO TO SLEEP CHILDREN, FOR THE LOVE OF GAHHHHHH MUMMY IS DYING)

    This morning I have a hangover.

    But hey, I didn’t puke in the car.

    Next time though, I am taking half of ONE tablet. Stupid tablets.

    Internet, you’ve been warned. I do these things so that you don’t have to.

  • My house is being invaded by chickens

    There’s a certain sound a chicken makes when it walks onto a linoleum floor. It’s kind of a cross between a nervous cluck and the sound of their tiny little chicken brains exploding because of the cracker crumbs on the floor.

    I was curled up in a chair earlier reading while the baby napped when it happened:

    My kitchen was invaded by chickens.

    We’ve been on a month long chicken training program, which sounds stupid – but trust me, if you start shooting your chickens with a pump action water pistol every time they come near your back door, they’ll train super fast. Anyway the training program was going swimmingly, until today, when I was invaded.

    I bounced out of my chair, which was no mean feat considering how contorted I was, and shooed them outside, wishing for a secondary water pistol. They ambled out slowly, acting like they own the place. And really, if you poop on something, I’m inclined to let you keep it. Unless that thing is my kitchen floor. Or my shoe. Ask me how I know.

    Five minutes later,  they were back inside looking innocent and pecking at a tuft of hair that had collected in the corner. Postpartum hair loss is a very real thing you guys and I’m kind of happy to be shaving my hair off just to combat it. Even if I am worried about bald patches.

    I digress.

    They wandered back inside and out I chased them, again, slamming the door in their little beaky faces.

    I swear, they fluffed their feathers and looked at me like “FINE” before they wandered off in search of bugs and beetles. Which is exactly what good chickens would have been doing in the first place.

    Stupid hens.

    buff pekin bantam hen

    Fine. You’re not going to share your kitchen? We’re going to hide our eggs where you’ll never find them.