Category: Life

Dear Nathan,

Thankyou for taking every second turn settling Amy this afternoon for her nap. I know that she still isn’t asleep, but hopefully with both of us working on her she will go down soon.

Thankyou for not undermining me when I decided that today Amy stops having dummies full stop. I am sick of her being so attached to it, and her talking is getting a little bit lazy because of this.

I know it’s hard for you when you have to re-settle her and she is asking ‘dummy please? Please?’ and you have to tell her no. I think I am more relaxed because I have already weaned her from breastfeeds over night (by myself) and then from breastfeeding full stop. God knows it’s much pleasanter when I have you here to take turns.

Thankyou for taking extra turns when my body suddenly decided that while I might have been feeling too sick to eat all morning, the fact that I hadn’t eaten meant that it was going to stop working so well for me. Thankyou for settling her while I forced down some fruit and waited to stop feeling dizzy and nauseous.

She’s getting closer to being settled now, I haven’t looked in there for a bit so I hope she hasn’t found a stray dummy. I know that it has been nearly 2 hours of wailing and crying, but she is so close to being worn out, she should be asleep soon.

God, I hope she goes to sleep soon.

Thankyou for being supportive this week while there has been stuff going on. I know that you are hurting just as badly as I am, you just don’t show it. We will get through it together and hopefully it won’t be as bad as we anticipate.

You’re starting to accept the fact that I am pregnant a little more readily now. I think you were aloof in the beginning because I had had the bleeding and as far as I can tell, you didn’t want to get attached if it wasn’t going to work out. However we have seen a heartbeat now and my stomach is poking out more and more and you are more willing to talk about it.

Not to mention we tried for so long to get here, it’s hard to hope that it will all be fine.

The noise from the bedroom is lessening, we have gone from crying/wailing/screaming to talking and singing, and now to finally the occasional loud sigh. I think we might be getting there.

I know I don’t blog about you much and I think you prefer it that way, but it seems that sometimes people forget that when I am whinging about a bad time getting Amy down, or numerous poos in a row, that you are here doing this with me. I might be a stay at home mum, but I am not alone in this and that means the world to me.

I find it funny that the other night when I went out (family dinner) I was asked often where Amy was. When I replied she is with her father, I then get asked if we were still together. Do you think alot of people equate young mothers with single mothers? I don’t think they realised that you were older and very much ready to settle down when I fell pregnant.

And so was I. That is why this worked for us.

There is no one I would rather be doing this with. I love you oh so much.

Veronica

So I need you to do some imagining.

Last night:

First, you have a toddler and that toddler gets into the sugar bowl at 9.30pm, 2 hours after bedtime. Then that toddler suddenly had all! this! extra! energy! and discovers how to break out of her gated bedroom.

Then you have to imagine various levels of toddler chaos until midnight, when she finally settled enough to fall asleep for me.

Then she wakes a few times between 12am and 7am. At 7am her world needs to end and she needs to come to bed with Mummy for a few hours, regularly kicking Mummy in the back.

She then spent the day out with my Mum (thankyou!) and came home in a slightly clingy, but mostly happy mood.

She fingerpainted with guacamole, all over the carpet. She refused to eat her dinner, but sat next to me and ate all mine quite happily (seriously, how does that reasoning work?).

Then I puked. And got a splinter. And trod on a bead and swore to high heaven.

So, I did what I always do on shitty days. I turned on the music really loud and danced and sung like an idiot. Can you picture me dancing and singing like an idiot with Amy on my hip? Amy thought it was hilarious. So did I until I looked down and realised that she had pooped all over my hip.

So, here is my song for bad days. It needs playing up REALLY REALLY loud.

Sometimes I just get so angry that I could happily beat things to death. Especially at bedtime.

Amy is never the reason I am angry, I accept that some nights she has trouble falling asleep and needs me to go and cuddle/resettle/kiss her eleventy hundred times.

No, I get angry at things that are preventing Amy from falling asleep.

Like when she will have just settled, and then the dog will insist on dragging the cat around the house growling, while the cat yowls and then, when I finally have them separated, Seven will bark and Amy will get out of bed just to tell Seven to ‘Shhhhh Dog!’.

Or, when she is just falling asleep and then a cat will jump into her bedroom, prompting cries of ‘Kitten! kitten! Here pleasey!’ from Amy, again with her needing to get out of bed.

And then again, when she is finally settled and all the animals are outside so that I don’t kill them with my rolling pin, or god forbid, my bare hands, the kittens will hear her in her bedroom (she sings herself to sleep) and jump onto her window sill and meow.

And then she will get out of bed, and then Seven will jump up against her gate whining and Amy will spend all her time trying to climb over her gate, so she can hug Seven and then I will finally get Seven AWAY FROM THE FUCKING KID and I will get Amy BACK into bed and settled and everything will be sweet until Seven decides that she needs to pee and scratches to go outside, right outside of Amy’s bedroom.

So, I will put Seven out, and put Amy back to bed, then Seven will scratch to come in and bother Amy A-FUCKING-GAIN and I will curse the person who put 2 of the bedrooms right near the outside door.

THEN, I will bring Seven inside and wonder why the fuck I bothered because she obviously didn’t need to go outside in the first fucking place BECAUSE SHE IS PEEING IN MY CLEAN FUCKING LAUNDRY A-FUCKING-GAIN.

And then, Seven will settle and Amy will settle and I will stop visualising murder and death and a padded room….

And then…

Amy will have a bad run of diarrhoea needing me to change her nappy 4 times in 20 minutes.

And I will repeat everything ALL OVER AGAIN.

Hi, My name is Veronica and this is MY LIFE.

I was 14. I was sitting in a toilet, at school waiting for a pee stick to show one line or two. I sat there, waiting, watching the second hand on my watch click. Tick. tick. tick.

I waited the allotted 3 mintues, peering at the stick intently. Turning it on an angle, just to check.

At the end of the 3 minutes, the pee stick was negative. I could breathe again. The next day, my period started.

Now, at the time I was in a steady relationship and I was on the pill. We were however, busily involved in exploring the differences between girls and boys and because I have a latex allergy, well, you know how things go.

While I was with him, I spent an awful lot of money on pregnancy tests. Luckily, my pill worked beautifully and I didn’t get pregnant. Not to him.

I think the nerves I felt when I was waiting for that first pregnancy test to show a result, were the exact same nerves have felt waiting for every single pregnancy test to show a result.

Counting the clock seconds, watching the stick and angling it, just in case I wasn’t looking at it properly. Perfecting my pee stick squint, years before I needed to have it perfected.

I remember peeing on the stick that told me I was pregnant with Amy. I was 17 and it was Christmas eve. I held the stick in my hands, leaned up against the wall and slowly slid down, until I was sitting on the bathroom floor. I sat there with my future clutched in my hands, while Nathan waited in the loungeroom watching TV.

I watched it turn darkly positive before even a minute had passed. I looked at it and then rushed to show Nathan. We hugged, kissed and then I promptly rang a friend.

I might have been only 17, but we knew how we wanted our life to be and having children young tied in with our plans.

After the positive test thrill with Amy, I went many months without the need for a pregnancy test. Until we started thinking that having the children close together would be a good idea.

I got negative after negative after negative. All with that same feeling of nerves and fear/excitement in the pit of mt stomach.

So, after we had been trying with concerted effort for months, I swore I wasn’t going to buy anymore pregnancy tests. I had one test that sat in the bathroom cupboard for months, unused. I just couldn’t handle the thought of seeing another negative again.

So, it took a lot of courage for me to be able to take a pregnancy test this time. I took it and waited. My second line didn’t show up for a few minutes and when it did, it was faint. I spent the entire day, picking up the test and looking at it. I still do.

It just feels so surreal, a positive result finally, after so many negatives.

A good surreal, but surreal all the same.

I have an appointment for an ultrasound on Wednesday afternoon, hopefully I will be back with half decent scan photos to share with you.

Amy – eating something she shouldn’t be (a battery to be precise).

Me – ‘Spit! Spit it out, Spit!’

Amy – spits

Me – ‘Thankyou. You’re being very naughty right now, you know that?’

Amy – ‘No I not!’

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Better content to follow later this evening when I have had time to actually craft something.