Sleepless Nights

Blog

  • 27 weeks and still not capitalising on my extended girth.

    It’s a shame isn’t it, that pregnancy is so exhausting. Apparently if I’d thought this through before the vomiting and the exhaustion and the waist expansion, I could have made this into rather a money spinner.

    Instead, I am celebrating the beginnings of stretchmark growth and elasticised support underwear that come up to my boobs.

    Way back when I first started taking pregnancy photos, I had this idea that they’d all be taken in the same spot, in front of my blackcurrant bush, and through Summer, Autumn and Winter, anyone paying close attention would be able to see the changed in the bush that mimicked the growth of my stomach.

    Of course, now that it’s actually Winter, that idea seems like a terrible one – especially when I headed outside to take the 27 week photo, only to be hit by icy cutting wind and a desire to go back inside Right Now.

    Then the problem was finding somewhere inside my house to take the photos. Nathan recently bought new creamy coloured curtains – so score. Playing around with the camera to actually get a photo that wasn’t a mere silhouette, or terribly blurry – that took a while.

    So! I have a new stretchmark and that is the most exciting thing to report for this week. It’s not really “new” in that it’s a continuation of an old stretch mark left over from the last time I put myself through this. I’m thinking though, if I’m really lucky, it will cross over my belly button and leave an interesting looking cross in the middle of my stomach.

    It’s the little things.

    Nothing interesting to report. The uterine dweller continues to mimick an octopus, my blood pressure continues to sit at a ridiculously low level and my pelvis continues to fall apart.

    Pregnancy is boring.

     

  • Crap, my children are growing up. I’d best hurry up and have another kid in order to keep my blog running

    Internet! Why didn’t you tell me that I was doing it all wrong? Here I am, firmly up the duff and yet I didn’t have a sponsored post and giveaway announcing the pregnancy, nor have I managed to effectively monetise my bump.

    And don’t think that I am talking small sidebar advertising – no, I want branded maternity wear and a whole new wardrobe for this kid. Not to mention, a new cot and pram and assorted fripperies.

    I hear that fripperies are the absolutely latest thing in baby fashion and I want to know why I’m not being drowned in offers to fripperise my nursery. Babies only need somewhere to sleep, boobs and clothes? PFFT. They need the latest FRIPPERIES I tell you.

    I’m 27 weeks pregnant now, my blog should be nothing by All Baby, All The Time. I need to throw out all of the toys that my children keep in the spare room and turn it into a tastefully decorated nursery, complete with mobiles and a thousand dollar rocker (that some nice sponsor will gift me).

    Pregnancy is the best thing that can happen to a mummy blogger, according to everything I’ve ever read, and I just want to know why it isn’t doing anything for my page views. Is there not enough drama? Am I too busy retching in the garden and collapsing into bed to actively seek out these opportunities?

    Will I look back on this pregnancy once my kid is born and regret bitterly not capitalising on my fertility while I had the chance? This is going to be my last pregnancy ever, surely I should be leaving the world of child bearing with a bang, rather than a whimper?

    I absolutely will not take responsibility for my own pregnancy and buy anything myself. It should all be laid on for me. The baby clothes that I was planning on putting on this child are (GASP) third-hand now and have been well loved prior. This isn’t good enough, Internet and I want to know why nothing is being done.

    And are we forgetting my poor autistic children. Surely I only gave birth to them and their quirks in order to monetise them effectively. They don’t make me laugh regularly, or cover me with kisses – no, they’re merely blog fodder.

    Don’t you know, it’s all about the page views? Pregnancy, babies and children with extra needs are all big business and I can’t help but feel that I am missing out on a giant opportunity here. Not to mention my broken joints. Surely I only blog about those for the extra attention, not for the education factor. Who wants to educate people about autism and hypermobility? Not me. I just want free shit.

    Obviously, I am doing it all wrong and ought to be kicked out of the club.

     

  • This photo pretty much sums up my parents

    This pretty much sums up my parents. I’ve just stubbed my toe and am sitting on the ground crying at Nan’s. Dad is patting me while he tells me to be tough, it doesn’t hurt that much (HOW DO YOU KNOW? IT WASN’T YOUR TOE!) while Mum stands in the background, trying not to laugh at me.

    And people wondered why I was weird.

  • The very beginning of my problem with leeches

    Growing up, we lived in a dry area and so I’d never been exposed to leeches. Even the dams that were close by only held frogs, tadpoles and the occasional snake.

    This meant that when I went away to “Old Macdonald’s Farm” with my grandmother, I was completely unprepared for the horror that was about to befall us.

    Old Macdonald’s Farm was a B&B type thing, with cabins on site, animals and various fun things to do. At least, that’s how I remember it, but I was only seven at the time and my memory may be flawed.

    Honestly, it was great fun. BBQ’s, play equipment, farm animals and plenty to do.

    I think this is also where I learned to be very very wary of cows, but I can’t really remember, so I’ve probably blocked that memory out. I can tell you that I have a healthy respect for cows now and that there is no fence between me and that calf, so draw your own conclusions.

    On the second morning, we woke up and Nan declared that we were going on the rainforest walk. This was exciting, because I loved bushwalking and rainforests.

    It stayed exciting, right up until 15 minutes into the walk when Nan realised that she had a leech attached to her ankle and three more climbing up her boots. She very calmly turned me around and picked another couple of leeches off my trouser legs, while I shook like the girl I was.

    We stopped every two minutes on that walk to pick more leeches off our boots and I never really recovered. Despite pulling my socks up over my pants to protect my ankles, I was terrified that a leech would make it’s way up the back of my leg unseen and attach itself somewhere else on my body. Like my armpit.

    I can’t really remember, but I suspect a lot of that walk was taking up with me frantically spinning in circles, trying to see my own back.

    I’ve never been so grateful to get out of a rainforest before and I still harbour a major distrust of anything that wants to attach to me and suck my blood.

    IT’S JUST NOT NATURAL.

    And that’s why leeches creep me out.

     

  • I understand now why my coordination is so bad. Not so much then.

    Not only was I the weird kid in my school, I was also chronically uncoordinated, falling over my own feet with alarming frequency. This meant I was usually the kid that no one wanted on their team in sports and that I regularly came last in every event at the athletics carnival.

    I remember my father helping me learn to ride a bike and throwing his hands up in the air before declaring that I was THE single most awkward child he’d ever watched try to ride a bike. I was secretly quite proud of that, because at least it LOOKED as difficult as it felt.

    Speaking of bike riding, I didn’t actually learn to ride a bike until I was nearly eight years old – long long after all of my peers were zipping around their suburbs in groups. It didn’t help that I lived on a steep hill, with gravel roads and a gravelly stone filled driveway. It just wasn’t safe, and frankly, I was happier inside with a book anyway.

    That was, until I went away on a community trip with my grandmother.

    I frequently spent most of my weekends with Nan already, so when a community holiday was organised, obviously she was going to take me along. You can see why I miss her so much now, when I spent all of my spare time in her company growing up.

    Nan knew that all of the kids were taking bikes along with them and hey, wasn’t it lucky that she’d bought me a bright pink bike just that Christmas? A bike that I had completely failed to master I should say.

    Nonetheless, the bike was packed up, along with everyone else, before a whole group of us headed off for a week away.

    I was the only child older than four that couldn’t already ride a bike. I think I ought to point that out.

    But, if nothing else I was a determined kid and I was determined that they wouldn’t get to make fun of me this time.

    There were big long grassy hills at the holiday destination and I could just picture myself sailing down them with ease. Until I actually tried it, and promptly fell off. Again and again I tried, wobbling my way down the hill and crashing more times than not.

    One of the fathers finally took pity on me and considering his just-turned-five-year-old had finally mastered riding without training wheels, he attached her training wheels to my bike.

    Can you see my dignity dying?

    Two days and plenty of skinned ankles later (training wheels are vicious) and I was able to remove the training wheels and declare that I’d mastered my bike. I quickly progressed to riding everywhere with the other kids, pointedly ignoring the fact that they’d all seen me falling off again and again in the first few days.

    I even managed not to fall off too many more times – but I wouldn’t recommend that a beginner bike rider tries to ride over a cattle grid. That one was nasty AND I broke the bell on my bike. Devastated.

    We even managed to get Nan on a bike – although I suspect she was just showing off here and trying to make me believe that it was “easy”.

    When did you learn to ride a bike? Are you as terribly unco as I am?