Category: Life

Firstly, I can’t promise that I’ll give this post my whole attention, because there are cowboys on my TV. Cowboys, wearing chaps and riding bucking creatures. In all honesty, I’m writing this post in the ad breaks, spending the rest of the time staring at the chaps.

And the bums. Let’s not forget the bums.

Yes. I do have a small thing for cowboys. Shush.

It’s also pouring with rain, so I’m not even able to hear the cowboys properly. That might be a good thing though.

Anyway.

Updates:

I spent all day baking, levelling and freezing the layers for my BIL’s wedding cake. It was fun. I miss baking with proper flours and not having to weigh and measure and count 4 different types of flour to make things work.

Now I’ll I’ve got to do is make a ganache (a few days before), make some buttercream, source a large cake platter and get a giant list written up of things to do.

My children are sick. Snotty and grotty and I’m fairly sure Isaac is cutting another tooth. I’m sleep deprived. But then, that’s what I get for calling my blog Sleepless Nights.

I’ve also been writing an awful lot. Like, submerging myself in the writing until I dream my characters and spend hours having imaginary conversations inside my head. It’s not made me a great mother or partner that’s for sure.

I was thinking last night: Bravery is sticking your nipple back in the baby’s mouth once you’ve been bitten. That? Takes balls. Isaac is going through a bitey nibbley stage. He’s also spending a lot of time crawling up to me just to lick my leg or arm, and he loves licking my laptop, so I’ll suggest that these teeth are the problem. Either that or he just likes tasting things.

‘OOH! LOOK! A BATHTUB! SOME WATER! AN APPLE! A SHOE! YUM!!!’

He does everything at high volume too, just like his sister.

Tomorrow we have a Memorial being held by the Palliative Care people here. It’s going to be shit. I’m taking a box of tissues. Think of me at 3pm EST. Or you know, in about 18.5 hours.

And that ends my updatey time post. Sorry about the drivel.

But you know, chaps  and cowboys and stuff.

Yesterday, I headed into Gallery 71 in Hobart to take photos of Mum’s ceramics as she set up for her exhibition. I had a ball and got to snap some photos of the other work there.

After I spent all day editing and shaking children off my legs, you can see the finished results here, on Flickr. (Go on, click! It won’t kill you!)

I’m hoping to get to photograph some of the work there at the opening Wednesday night, because oh there is some beautiful stuff. And I’ve only seen a small part of it!

My son wakes from his nap. I can hear him in his cot, gooing and giggling at himself. I creep up the hallway to see whether he is likely to go back to sleep, but he hears me instead. I can see him wiggling and smiling, just waiting for me to come and get him. I pick him up and kiss the softness of his exposed skin, he doubles himself up into a ball and laughs, long and loud.

Smiling, I carry him out into the lounge room and lay him down on the floor. A moment later, I lay down too. I kiss his stomach while he laughs at me and we roll around and around, playing and laughing. He loses interest and starts to climb up against the couch, standing on his two feet. Racing to grab the camera, an idea for a blog post pops into my head ‘Mobility in pictures’.

Setting up the camera, I snap a test shot or two before Isaac notices me. He drops to all fours and crawls towards the camera. Slowly I crawl backwards, however it’s been a long time since I crawled and my son, he is much faster than I am. Giggling madly he catches me and I have to hide the camera as he tries to eat it.

I distract him, trying to get him to stand up so I can photograph it. He obliges, just as the camera goes dead.

Flat battery.

As Isaac hauls himself to standing again and looks around for his praise, I’m rummaging through my handbag, looking for the spare battery I know is in there. Successful, I snap it into the camera and turn it on.

Nothing.

I suspect this battery is dodgy, seeing as how it was in the camera that got a bath.

Sighing, I give up on the idea of a photo blog and instead find the battery chargers so that I can take photos tomorrow.

I sit down to write and Isaac spots me, crawling up to stand at my knee and whine while I write. After he bites my knee for the second time, I give up (again) on the idea of getting any work done. Soggy knee’d, I lay back down to play.

My children clamber all over me while I write blog posts and chapters of books in my head. Sadly, I can’t magically transport the words from my head to my computer and so later, when they’re sleeping, I will have to transcribe them.

But for now, we’re playing on the floor.

Dear lady in the blue top eating lunch at Eastlands today.

Hi. I was sitting just behind you with my partner and our baby. I don’t even think you noticed me, you were interested in eating your lunch and talking with your friend. I’m thankful for that, truly I am.

I was eating my lunch and sharing bits with my wiggly son. Eventually he cracked the shits with his stroller and started throwing food around. So I did what anyone would do in my situation, I gave up on solid food and breastfed him instead. He must have been thirsty, as he wiggled and snuffled and drank like a parched baby.

This is where you came in.

You see, when my son decided he was finished with his feed, he grabbed my breast and ripped it out of his mouth, giving it a squeeze for good measure. I had no control over this mind you, I didn’t make him do it.

In the middle of him giving my breast a good squeeze, I may possibly have shot a single line of milk in an arc. I watched, horrified, as it landed on your back. I could almost see the line where it hit.

So, dear lady in the blue shirt, I’m really really sorry. I didn’t mean to squirt you with breastmilk and I would have apologised if I thought you’d realised. As it was, some things are probably better left unknown.

But if you so happen to be one of my blog readers (unlikely, but it could happen) please accept my sincere apologies. You didn’t need a milk bath. I didn’t need to watch it arc across the food court, hoping like fuck no one else saw. It seems I was safe and the only one who noticed.

I still feel bad though.

Regards,

The lady in the grey shirt, sitting behind you with the wiggly baby.

***

In other news, the 2009 Weblog award nominations are open. Go over and nominate your favourite blogs in their categories and nominate yourself while you’re there.

And, if you’re so interested, I did an interview over at Murray Newlands’ blog. You can find it here.

Just oh dear.

He pulled up on the couch for the first time a few days ago. It was a wobbly start with plenty of falls. Today though, he has his feet sorted and he is upright and standing at every opportunity. Even if the only thing to pull up on is my hair, he is managing it.

He’s still so tiny! He’s meant to be my baby, not my upright mobile toddler.

Shit.

***

Update: In other news, remember that ChupaChup challenge I did a few weeks back? I would love it if you could head over HERE and give me a thumbs up? (It’s a facebook photo). In case the link decides to stop working (Facebooks permalinks are really odd) mine is the photo with Barbie in it.

Please?