Sleepless Nights

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  • Twitter and Tasmanian Politics and I was blocked for the very first time.

    I don’t get political here very often, although there is no doubt I am green at heart.

    It recently came to my attention that there is a law in place silencing discussion of the upcoming Tasmanian election by people on blogs and twitter. We’re not allowed to write about them anonymously, or comment on them anonymously. And in this case, anonymous means not having your full name and home address at the bottom of every single post or comment. For clarification, this is the definition of the ambiguous ‘electoral matter’.

    This same law recently caused outrage in South Australia – why are we not seeing the same outrage in Tasmania? This law, it’s been in place for SIX YEARS.

    Six years.

    Of course, this is the first election where the Internet and social media are in heavy use by the voting population and it seems that no one actually knows what the precedent is.

    But you tell me, if you’re making comment about our election, do you really want to have to add your full name and home address at the bottom of that comment?

    No. Me either.

    It’s a safety issue for one.

    I don’t see our esteemed Premier, Mr David Bartlett giving out the address where his children live.

    Why should I have to?

    Don’t worry though, the writs aren’t in place for another 5 days, so for now, I’m safe.

    I’m half tempted to write about the election anyway, just because I can.

    I should clarify first, before you read the rest of this post, that this is not David Bartlett’s law. He didn’t create it and pass it and he wasn’t Premier when it went through.

    ****

    On twitter, I follow a lot of our political leaders and enjoy having the backwards and forwards with the politicians. It’s my opinion that having to answer to us personally on twitter keeps them honest.

    However, I clicked over to see what our Premier was up to today and discovered I wasn’t following him anymore.

    Strange I thought, and pressed follow.

    Oh you can guess what happened next.

    Remember, this is our Premier. The leader of our state. The man who makes all the decisions that impact on me personally.

    And he blocked me. On twitter.

    I thought you had to have a thick skin to get into politics?

    Not be a wussy cry baby who worries about twitter and being made accountable.

    Now to be fair, I have disagreed with him. The state of the midland highway is atrocious and I wanted him to answer me as to why it was left looking unfinished. I heard nothing from him by the way.

    I have questioned his policies, but then, I assumed that as Premier of Tasmania, questioning his policies would be something he was used to.

    And yet, he blocked me.

    What a sook.

    Feel free to tell him what a sook he is if you like.

    Heh. Appears my soapbox is getting a bit of work lately. I might just keep it out, just in case.

  • Snoring

    No matter what the provocation, it is illegal to murder your partner.

    So at 11.30pm the other night when I was seriously considering murdering Nathan, I got out of bed and walked away.

    No matter what I did, he kept fucking snoring.

    I poked him.

    I prodded him.

    I swore at him.

    I kicked him.

    I shook him until his teeth rattled.

    I stole his pillows and beat him with them (small step to considering suffocation).

    I squeezed his ribs, hard, and at least this one made him roll over.

    But he didn’t stop snoring.

    When my final two ploys failed – pulling his leg hairs and then his pubes – I bailed out.

    I’d exhausted all of my for-the-love-of-god-stop-snoring techniques and I was left trying to work out which would be better, a pillow, or a knife. Not great options either of them, considering I really prefer him alive. But oh the fantasy, it was tempting.

    I grabbed my pillows, hit him with them for good measure and went and slept in Amy’s room with her.

    I’m not sure what was worse, the band saw snoring, or Amy poking me with her feet all night.

    She’s very poky.

    All I can say is thank goodness she has a double bed and thank fuck Nathan doesn’t snore like that most of the time.

    Because otherwise, he’d be lucky to live through another night.

  • Unicorns and faerie dust and all that.

    Phew! after the fallout from my post admonishing Domino’s for false advertising, I think I need something shiny and pretty to talk about.

    Or maybe a unicorn. Actually, if I could be bothered, I could try and stick a horn on one of the horses, but I doubt they’d be impressed and I’m not really sure I’m prepared to chase horses around the paddock all day with a camera.

    Anyway

    ***

    It’s been a hard week, this last week. I’m due for my period, my joints keep forgetting that they’re meant to attach to each other and sleep has been restless and broken.

    Nan’s house sold and new people moved in. I thought I was fine with that, but it turns out, seeing their car in her driveway was a bit too much to bear. I cried a lot that day.

    I miss her. So much. I would have liked to hear her perspective on Domino’s and I know she would have been watching the comments as closely as I was.

    I watched a documentary on Palliative care last night. Brilliantly done. It follows four patients through their end of life journey. I cried the whole way through it, but if you’re interested, you can view it online here.

    The lady with breast cancer, her attitude reminds me of Nan so much.

    I miss her.

    ***

    Photos!

    My children play well together. Except when they don’t, and then I fear for my own safety as I wade into the fray of hair pulling and toy throwing to separate them. The house is in a permanent state of disarray, but we’re all having fun. Except for Nathan, the mess makes him twitch.

    Susie is settling in well. She’s such a smart puppy and she learns so fast, that aside from normal puppy behaviours, we’ve not had any issues.

    We just won’t talk about her penchant for chewing books.

    Naughty dog.

    ***

    Again on the Domino’s thing – I rang the ACCC and the government body who deals with food safety and labelling. They’re very interested in Domino’s; as the ACCC says, it’s deceptive advertising to call something Gluten Free and then add a disclaimer that it might not be completely gluten free.

    Please forgive me for not knowing which government department exactly I was speaking to, I was passed through 4-5 before I got the right people. It’s someone in the Health Department and they deal with food labelling laws and issues arising from mislabelled food.

    Anyway, the guy I spoke to at the Health Department, he says that Domino’s cannot have it both ways and agrees that yes, they are breaking the law in claiming Gluten Free, but then adding a disclaimer. He was lovely and we discussed the issue, including the response I got from the Coeliac Society and Domino’s.

    So I can let it go, at least on the internet.

    It’s being investigated by the relevant officials now.

  • Minor Technical Details –

    To everyone clicking through your feed reader to my latest post and getting a 404 error, I’m sorry, I’m having some small technical issues with a post that wasn’t meant to go live for a while.

    I got a WP error in the middle of scheduling it to post later and then everything went wrong.

    Argh!

    So uh, don’t mind me. Just pretend you didn’t see it, okay? I’ve just rescheduled it and resync’d feedburner, so it might not even be an issue yet.

    xx

    love me

  • Have Your Say: Food Issues

    Okay, so here is the deal. I want to start doing a ‘thing’ where I’ll talk about something and you can all chime in with as much advice as you like. Normally mothers get annoyed about unsolicited advice, but this time, I’m asking for help.

    Also, I will be about in the comments, so if you want to ask something and have people chime in, even if it’s just to say ‘my kid did that too and grew out of it’ then please, do so. We’ve got a community built here, we may as well utilise it.

    ****

    Now, on to my issue:

    Isaac, he doesn’t swallow food. I feed him and he chews the food, but doesn’t swallow, just spits it out again once it’s chewed.

    If I give him pureed or mashed food, he might swallow a mouthful maybe, before he realises that I’ve deposited it in his mouth, but mostly, he’ll spit it into his hand and try to feed it to me. Failing that, he’ll just drop it. He’s not a fan of spoon food.

    If I feed him finger food, which is his preference, he chews it and then spits it out without swallowing. I can give him half an apple and come back and the apple will be gone, but really, the apple is sitting in a giant circle of chewed pieces around him.

    Peas, well, he’ll eat a few peas, before chewing and spitting the rest. The same for most of his other vegetables. Actually, considering I don’t count the peas, he is probably just chewing and spitting all of them. I haven’t seen any come out the other end.

    He will eat soft fruit: cantaloupe, watermelon, pears, nectarines. He won’t eat the skin of nectarines or pears and once he gets near the skin he starts spitting. If I peel them first, he still mostly spits the food out.

    He will drink milk or water from a bottle or a sippy cup. He is down to 1-2 breastfeeds a day and as of right now, I haven’t breastfed him for 15 hours and I’m not likely to feed him again for another 12 or so hours.

    He doesn’t appear to be losing weight, but I don’t have any scales here to check if he is gaining weight either.

    He is drinking a full bottle at bedtime and naptime, but I know he is hungry when I give him solid food to eat, so it’s not a hunger issue that I can see.

    Oh and he is just over 12 months old.

    My questions:

    Does anyone else’s child do this?

    Does anyone have any good ideas that I can try, to get him to start swallowing the food?

    And, to my readers with experience in Ehlers Danlos Syndrome – do you think this could be EDS related? We don’t have another specialist Paeds appointment for another five months, but if he continues to not swallow, I’m prepared to push for an earlier appointment.

    Finally: Does anyone else have any questions they want answers to about kids and food? If so, leave them in the comments section. Commenters, read the comments, someone might be dealing with your exact same issue. This might work really well, or it might flop. Frankly, if it helps me get Isaac actually swallowing solid food, then I don’t care.

    Kids! Sheesh, but they’re stressful.