31 Aug 2013

Seriously?

The Mushroom has done four adult sized turds today.

Four.

What the hell is going on?

Last count the boy only weighed 8.47kg (two weeks ago) I think today alone he has lost a kilo in poo.

To reiterate, he's not sick.  It's not diarrhea, it's actual solid, sticky, stinky poop.  And it's disgusting.  And it stinks to high heaven.  And now my whole bloody house has this faint pooey odour.  It's seeping down from the laundry and permeating through the entire house.

Couple this with a man who refuses to shit in the toilet and keeps doing number two's in the ensuite, making no escape from the poo smell in the bedroom either.

I keep going to have a chew on my fingernails and then realise there's probably crap under there that I can't see.

Gross.

How someone this cute make such disgusting messes in his pants?  
I am beat.  I'm hoping that tomorrow is a poo free day just to make up for today.

Ewwww.

29 Aug 2013

Bad Mother

My sister turns 30 next month.  I'm so excited.  There's just one catch.  She lives 1300km away.  This means I have to fly down to the big smoke to celebrate with her for her birthday.  Big deal, you may say.  And it's not really but we're always tight on cash, so that's why I've decided to do a 24 hour stop and go, BY MYSELF, so I can go and see her and celebrate with the family.  Does this make me a bad mother?

My plan is to fly out of Townsville at 12ish, get into Brisbane at 2ish.  Meet up with the family, head to the Gold Coast, have a great night out, brunch in the morning then back to the airport and fly out at 2 to be back home by 4pm Sunday.  Can I do it?  Can Juffin do it?

As I'm still breastfeeding, I'll take the trusty Medela with me and express when I can so I can keep my milk supply up and make sure the Mushroom has plenty for the 24 hours I'm away.  It really shouldn't be an issue as he'll be 11 months and eats lots of food but I just keep thinking of all the things that can go wrong, which is me all over.  The Juffin has assured me he'll be fine, and he did do a whole afternoon and evening alone last weekend when I was at a work conference thing, but my concern is mainly being so far away.

What are your thoughts?  Am I a bad mother?  Should I just pay the extra $500 odd to have them come with me, or just suck it up and go?  I know that I will be thinking of them the whole time, but I would if they were there anyway................

Could you leave this face for 24 hours?!  

28 Aug 2013

Before Mushroom

When you have a child, things that used to be easy, are now hard.

Fuelling up the car
Filling the car with petrol on the way home was no biggie.  Now I have to time fuelling up with whatever is going on in that AHR Meridian in the back seat.  Great filling up times are: after drop off to daycare, after leaving work on the way to pick up child. If these times aren't convenient then you can definitely try when child is awake and co-operative, child is very asleep so able to be moved successfully, or partner is in the car also.  Other contributing factors include: is there enough money in the bank account, mobile reception so can access money in bank account, purse in vehicle, able to locate purse in cavernous nappy bag.... exhausting!

Sleep
I know, I know everyone says it but goddamn!  My boy is still not sleeping through and we've had a couple of tough weeks lately.  It's amazing how little sleep you do need to adequately function.  This is exponentially increased by your access to hot water as you always feel more active after washing your lack of sleep away. What I wouldn't give for 7 uninterrupted hours.....

Eating
When you're single, or childless, you can eat whatever you want.  If you want to eat popcorn for dinner, you can.  If you're too lazy to cook, you can get takeaway.  When you have a child, you can't do either of these things.  Which sucks.  I mean you can get takeaway for the adults to eat but you still have to provide your child with a healthy, nutritious meal to fill his tiny tummy.  This usually involves cooking so you may as well cook yourself and your hubby a nice meal anyway.  And FYI this doesn't mean that you lose weight.

Going to the Toilet
I now have an audience when I go to the toilet.  Enough said really.

Dashing to the shops
There's just no such thing really.  Any outing is an expedition.  Nappies, wipes, bottom balm, change of clothes, dummy, toys, chew ring, food, bib, hat, sunscreen, sippy cup, tissues to wipe snotty nose.  And then there's my stuff!  Purse, keys, green bags, shopping list... inevitably I will leave the shops with everything but the one thing that I went up there to get and have to turn around and go straight back.  Today I went to buy lettuce and left $40 poorer and still no lettuce!  Still waiting for someone to open up a drive thru convenience store so you can just drive thru and get your bread and milk without waking the child in the back seat!

Before Mushroom I could do all these things, and more, with relative ease.  I could also read lots of books, watch lots of mindless tv, bake and cook without an 8.5kg obstacle dogging your every move, hang out with the Juffin and sleep until 11am, smoke cigarettes and drink lots of beer and vodka.

Life was pretty boring and predictable, and I guess it was easy.  Now, every day something exciting happens.  The Mushroom has added technicolour to our lives.  And though I miss being able to sleep in till 11, I wouldn't trade the Mushroom for any of those things. Not even the sleeping, or the vodka.  And I really like vodka.  And sleeping.  In that order.  (insert smiley face here!)

Mushroom - 10 months




9 Aug 2013

Tired out

This afternoon after I got home from work, the Mushroom and I did some laundry, chased a ball around the lounge, looked at the dishes in the sink then decided to have a sleep.

Sleeping Mushroom Lion 
I find that if we both have a little nap together he will sleep a little longer and I can catch up on some zz's as we're still waiting on the top teeth to come down and I think they're causing some havoc as we're having a few more wakeups but will settle quite quickly with a few cuddles. Hooray!

Ridiculously we slept until 5.  That was a 2 hour sleep.  Juffin must have worn him out this morning by getting him to work on cars or something.  He's now up and full of beans when his bedtime is 6.45pm.  Whoops.   Oh well, it's Friday night.

Also any tips on how to get the Mushroom to stop wanting to climb all over me whilst on the toilet?  This afternoon I was trying to do my 'bidness' and I had a very unwelcome visitor who wanted to get up on my lap, um, no dude.  Toilet time is for Mummy's only.  I have tried to shut the door on him but he just screams outside it until I open it and I mean scream, my boy's got some lungs... the joys of motherhood.

8 Aug 2013

Absence

I have many excuses for my lack of posting of late.  Some of these include the following:

  • I work now, that takes up my mornings.  Being a Mum and working is hard. 
  • My day seems to disappear rather quickly.  By the time I think about blogging I'm tucked up in bed barely able to keep my eyelids open long enough to turn the lamp off. 
  • The Mushroom demands my attention 24/7 so if he's awake then I'm chasing after him to make sure he doesn't kill himself.  Possible causes of death include: electrocution, choking on any number of items (plastic bags mostly, have no idea where he gets them as I do regular sweeps to make sure there's none around but alas), death by stinky shoe eating, salmonella (eating bits of crusty what I assume must be food off the floor but is no longer recognisable to human eye), head injury (trying to move too fast for his little arms and faceplanting the tiles), crushed by books (started pulling all our books off the shelf and we have many) etc etc blah blah blah you get the picture.  Everything is a hazard.   
  • I couldn't be bothered.
  • I downloaded the Tetris app on my phone so that takes up a lot of my previous blogging time.

    Ok the last two were probably the most legitimate reasons.  Sad, I know. I'm addicted to Tetris and I just couldn't be bothered blogging.  Even more sad is that I haven't had any complaints as yet but here's an update for those readers who have been wondering what the hell has been going on!    

    My Mushroom is now around 8.75kg, I haven't been able to measure how long he is yet as he just won't stay still long enough and I'm always by myself when I try to do it.  We have abandoned trying to use the change table and now just do it on the floor, not as dangerous and much less stressful for me!  He is babbling constantly, saying Dad Dad Dad a lot, zooming around on hands and knees, trying to stand independently and needs to be upright at every opportunity which can be very annoying/dangerous when I'm trying to cook dinner!  He is sleeping much better, breastfeeding a lot less, eating lots of different food and generally being the bestest, baddest Mushroom on the block.  He spends his mornings with his Meme on Monday and Thursday, family daycare on Tuesday and Wednesday's and Friday mornings are Juffin and Mushroom time.

    The weeks are flying by and my days as a stay at home mum are just a fond distant memory.  The thought of returning to work filled me with dread and anxiety initially but I find I'm a lot more organised now and seem to be getting shit done.  Obviously the downside is missing out on spending time with my boy, but he also seems to be adjusting just fine.  He's been extra clingy on Wednesday's when we have an early start but hopefully this will pass soon.  If I put down all the things I miss about staying home with the Mushroom I'll start crying like I did last night watching Offspring and I'll end up with an aching head, puffy face and eyes that look like pillows.  Like everyone else in the universe, if I could work out a way I could stay at home and make enough money then I'd be doing that.  But I can't.  Sob.


    Mushroom - 9 months