Sleepless Nights

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  • I can’t breastfeed a pretzel.

    You know what Isaac? If you bend yourself backwards like a pretzel when I try and feed you, then you’re not going to be able to find my boob. Flailing about like a dying chook and hunting for a nipple somewhere in the vicinity of my thigh is not going to cut it. Milk does not come out of my thigh, your left shoulder, or my belly button.

    If you’re a passerby in Tasmania any time in the near future and you see a slightly frazzled mother, telling her baby to ‘please for the love of god just bend in the freaking middle and FEED already’, then wave at me as you back away slowly. Don’t come and say hello, not unless you want to catch a glimpse of my breast as we talk. Because it probably will happen.If you don’t mind the sight of nipples, then definitely stop and I’ll say hello. We all know about the thousands of bloggers you can find in Tasmania anyway. Heh.

    Amy. If you pour your entire glass of water into your bowl of dinner, don’t whine to me that you are hungry. I will drain the water out and you can eat the soggy bits of dinner you have left. I’m warning you now. I love you, but I’m sick of your antics at dinner time. There is no dessert. There is nothing different and you are not going to be granted a sandwich or a whole different meal before bedtime. I cook one dinner, you guys eat it, or you don’t. Easy. When you’re old enough to cook your own meal, you’re allowed to be slightly fussier. Cooking your own meal comes with a side of clean the kitchen up afterwards though.

    My shoulder. Please, can you just stay in place for a little bit? You’re not allowed to get broken, you attach my baby carrying arm to my body. Yes, I know that my arm goes a pretty purple colour when you sublux, but I’ll take normal and working over pretty and purple any day. Please. I promise I’ll rub you with pretty smelling stuff if it would make you happy. Or something.

    Dear Sales Assistant. Yes, I know, it sucks that Canon won’t cover my camera under warranty. It could have something to do with the fact that my daughter gave it a bath. Maybe it was a special present to me [I’ll just make Mummy’s camera all SHINY and CLEAN while she feeds my brother in the bedroom…], but who knows really? The good thing is, I have spoken to my insurance and they will cover most of the repair cost. All you had to do was send me the invoice from Canon. Was it too hard to not scan the invoice into the computer upside down? It made things difficult when I tried to see what they were charging me for everything. Thank goodness I’ve got a laptop. Yes, I may possibly have turned my computer upside down in order to read the damn document. Shut up.

    Canon. I understand that you don’t cover water damage, or corrosion caused by such. However, a repair bill that is $900.03? What the hell is the 3 cents for? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just write that 3 cents off and charge an even $900? It just seems like an awful hassle for an extra 3 cents. Sure I know that for every 1000 repairs you do with that extra 3 cents added you make $30 but still. 3 cents. Really?

    Apparently, the world is out to get me. I shall thwart it by giggling maniacally. I mean, what the fuck else can I do?

    Sigh.

  • Home

    And we’re home, with no one the wiser as to why Isaac was such a sad baby. There is no evidence of a hernia, so they’re thinking that it could possibly have been a intussusception of his bowel.

    An ultrasound was inconclusive either way, they didn’t see an intussusception, but neither could they rule it out. However Isaac is like a different baby this morning. We’ve not had any episodes of screaming today and he looks happy, if a little tired. They are concluding that it’s possible it self-cured overnight, or that it was something else entirely and we might never know.

    We’re all a little tired.

    We’ve been given strict instructions to head to the hospital immediately if it happens again. I’m not sure I have the emotional reserves left to deal with any more screaming, so we’ll just cross our fingers that he is better.

  • More drama than we need.

    Hi, it is Veronica’s Mother, Kim aka frogpondsrock here. Vonnie has asked me to write a quick post explaining what the universe has decided to throw at us now.

    We had all gathered at the hospital for our family meeting with Mum’s doctor when Isaac woke from his nap and started to scream.

    And scream and scream and scream.

    To cut a very long story short. Isaac has been admitted to hospital overnight with a possible strangulating hernia.

    Veronica is exhausted and dislocating and subluxing all over the place.

    I am too tired to write anything else.

    SEND CHOCOLATE…

  • This Shit Sucks

    Mum had to have Nan admitted to hospital on Saturday. [read post here]

    Amy says ‘My Nanny is very sick’.

    Nathan says ‘But your nan is my friend!’

    And I say ‘This shit sucks’.

    I don’t think she’s getting out of hospital. [And if she does happen to get out of hospital and gets better and reads this and growls at me and says ‘ner ner’ then it will be so worth it that I won’t care that she is growling at me.]

    Today, for the third time, we will make the trek into The Hospital with two children in tow. We will walk Amy up and down the halls and let her play hide and seek in the Chapel. We will sit in the room and talk to Nan while I wonder how many more times we will do this. She is very very vague now and confused. We’re hoping that the medication they gave her to reduce the calcium levels in her blood will reduce the confusion by Friday.

    I wonder, did we take too much for granted? Did we take her strength and her verve and her spice for life for granted? Even though we knew this cancer was terminal, did we not realise that once the true decline started, then everything was going to go to hell? I look at my Nan and don’t know if I can do this.

    I’ve heard people say ‘a terminal illness gives you time to prepare, time to deal with it’. Hell, I’ve even said it myself. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to prepare for the kick in the guts feeling you get when you see your loved one tucked up into a bed, looking progressively smaller by the day.

    So I say it again. This shit sucks.

    ****

    I was 14 when I moved out of home. I left Mum and Dad’s house and headed down the hill to live with Nan. I let myself in after school most days (the days when I didn’t have soccer, or go to my boyfriends house), mucked around a bit with music and school work and then started cooking dinner for when Nan got home from work. Her spare room became my bedroom, with my stuff in it and my stuff on the walls. (No, not posters, it was mostly all my artwork from school)

    Moving out was great. It gave me and my parents the space we needed from each other to have a good relationship. My childhood was far from horrible, but sometimes, things were very very strained. There was a lot of stress. We needed space from each other. I love my parents, but living with them was hard. We need space from each other in order to cope.

    When I tell people ‘My grandmother is sick; dying even’ I don’t think they realise just how close we are. I love my mother, but Nan? She is like a second mother to me. Who on earth am I going to complain to when my mother is giving me the shits? My Nan is my go-to person when I am stressed. Unlike Mum, she is not likely to cackle at me (why YES, my mother does cackle. In a good way you understand) when Amy is driving me up the wall.

    We are close and I’m not sure how I am going to cope with this. I’m as close to Nan as I am to Mum and I don’t know how to get through this.

    So, this is not just my Nan tucked up in a hospital bed. This is my friend.

  • Muddy Cuddles

    Muddy Cuddles

    It’s been raining here a lot and Amy loves the ‘muddy cuddles’. She would spend all day running and jumping through them if she could.

    Serious Baby

    Nom nom nom.

    Happy!

    Blurry, but he’s happy. Very happy.

    Sorry about the crappy photos, my good camera is still at Canon being fixed. I miss it terribly. The point and shoot sucks.