21 Jan 2014

Poo Fingers

Last night the Mushroom refused to go to sleep at bedtime.   This only happens once or twice a month but it drives me nuts.  I always have better things to do than fight to put my crazy overtired child to sleep.  Like shower, watch Breaking Bad, pack lunchbox, do washing, sit for 5 minutes and be alone.  You know, important 'I work too hard' Mummy stuff.

It was a normal evening.  We had play time outside for an hour and then came in whilst I finished off the spaghetti.  We did our usual routine, nothing out of the ordinary.  Juffin entertained the shroom whilst I drained the pasta and put aside some mince to cool.  After a week of fussiness, he finally ate a decent dinner (I may have used In the Night Garden as a distraction tool whilst I shovelled pasta into his mouth*) and then had his usual yoghurt for dessert.  Afterwards we do bath, book, booby and bed.

Except this time he wouldn't go to bloody bed.

Mushroom has discovered how fun it is to climb up and down the recliner.  But it's not fun for us.  It's supposed to be quiet reading time with Daddy when he is reading stories before bed.  Not 'look at me I'm training to be in Cirque De Soleil' time.  Accompanied by these acrobatics is also complete evacuation of the books from his shelf.  He likes to pull each and every book from extensive library off the shelf one by one and take them over to his father to read.  This action is accompanied by loud 'OOO's' and 'AHHHH'S'.

To paint a picture: wriggle down legs of parent onto ground over to shelf, grab book, exclaim 'OOO' loudly and take book back over to parent then climb back up and repeat process.  No listening to the story.  No attention being paid to parent telling child to listen to the story and stop climbing.  No co-operation whatsoever.

Unaware of the demonic type behaviour I enter the bedroom to take care of the booby business (Yes.  I am still breastfeeding my 15 month old son.  Get over it!) and he's all sweaty and riled up from climbing Mount Blue Recliner.  Not ideal Juffin, thanks very much.  I take my place in the recliner and as shoot daggers at my fiance and try to wrestle the clammy Mushroom into submission I start to realise that it's going to be one of those nights.  

He won't feed, writhes around trying to climb down the recliner, laughing, hitting my face with his hand, headbutting my chest, laughing some more, pulling my shirt down and trying to have booby from both sides at the same time, don't even ask me, but it frickin hurt.  In the end I shove the dummy in his mouth and pop him in the cot, crossing my fingers.  Hopefully he's worn himself out enough to just pass out.

And he's up.  Running around the cot.  Throwing toys out the side.  He stands over the railing and starts swinging back and forth.  He takes his dummy and throws it across the room, cackling with glee.  If I attempt to leave the room, full on meltdown mode.  I talk to him.  I sing to him.  I repeat ad naseum 'shhhh, sleepytime, sleepytime for Max, quiet time now'.  Nothing works.  He is a child possessed.  If I get up and lay him down he just writhes around for ages then stands up, chucks dummy and bear out and starts the whole process again.  This goes on for nearly an hour.  AN HOUR!

I start speaking very sternly.  My Mother is coming out of my mouth and I can't stop it

"Enough is enough young man. You are going to sleep. It is nearly 9 o'clock at night.  9 O'CLOCK!  One year olds are not up until 9 O'CLOCK AT NIGHT!  You are being very, very naughty and Mummy has had ENOUGH!"

Whilst I'm having my own meltdown I have a little Mummy brainwave and decide to check the nappy.  How does one check a nappy at night time, why they stick their finger in there of course.

You can guess what happened next.  I mean the title of the post is Poo Fingers so you know what I ended up with right?

Massive shit.  Biggest turd I've seen come out of that child for a long time.

I literally washed my hands of it and called in the tactical response team of Juffin, Juffin and Juffin.  After dealing with that lunatic for nigh on an hour and then getting shit on my hands I was at breaking point.

10 minutes later, the clean bummed, freshly nappied, decidedly lighter after evacuating the entire contents of his stomach, Mushroom happily goes off to sleep.

I feel pretty bad about it.  I nearly yelled at the poor child.  And he was trying to tell me.  I mean honestly, I couldn't sleep if I had a giant shit in my pants either!


The day sleep was fine.  For the Mushroom.
Not for poor Bernard the Bear.  Damn.



13 Jan 2014

Fusspot

For the past 24 hours my usually munchy little man will eat nothing but yoghurt and rice crackers.  Uh oh, not the greatest.  This is weird as he is generally very adventurous and will eat just about anything.

It started yesterday around midday.  Had an unusually large sleep in the morning so clearly hungry but wouldn't have a proper meal.  Tears if we put him in the highchair.  So lunch consisted of taking spoonfuls from my bowl as I sat munching on the couch, and he was cruising around the lounge room.  

In an attempt to appease his suddenly fussy tastebuds, last night I made a delicious shepherds pie.  Savoury mince topped with mashed potato, baked in the oven with some melted cheese. Two of the Mushroom's favourite things, mince and potatoes, and nada, wouldn't even have a bite.  He also voiced his strong opposition to the highchair yet again by displaying some pretty impressive back arching and vocal theatrics.

I know he was hungry because he goes and gets a bib and starts waving it around at both of us yelling the whole time when he wants to eat (note to self, must get that on video!) which he was doing for about 10 minutes whilst we waited for his dinner to cool down.  

After the initial refusal we tried the 'wow this is the greatest thing I've ever put in my mouth routine'.  You kno the one.  Where Juffin and I were eating our dinner and doing the whole "Mmmmm yum yum" and "Mummy likes her Shepherds Pie"m  "Daddy can't wait to put this in his belly, mmmmmmmmmmmmm".  Smiling and nodding and doing the over the top spoon to mouth gestures.  You get the picture.  Ridiculous but necessary with small children.  Mushroom wasn't having a bar of it.

In an attempt to get him to eat something, we then tried a vegemite sandwich, spaghetti, more crackers, and he wouldn't eat a thing.  When we tried a banana, our go to never fail food and instead of delightful 'Nana' and sticking it in his gob, we got a mega meltdown!  What the hell? My Mushroom will NEVER turn down a banana.  

Confused, I ended up getting the yoghurt tub out of the fridge and as soon as he saw it there was silence.  I spooned some into a bowl and he eagerly scoffed the first spoonful offered.  Juffin sneakily rescued the banana from the floor and mashed it into the yoghurt so it was a least a little bit more substantial.   

We were concerned but not overly as sometimes he'll go through a fussy period, but only for one or two meals then back to normal.

Delicious Weetbix 
This morning he slept through until 5.20.  Slept through and a twenty minute sleep in!  Woohoo!  Sometimes I can booby him back to sleep but not this morning.  So we were up.  At 5.30 rolling around in bed and being a noisy one.  

Around 6.30 he was getting cranky so I popped him in the highchair and got the same reaction as yesterday!  What is going on with this boy?  Sat him on my lap and tried to coax him into eating some weetbix. 

It didn't happen.  I offered half a banana.  Threw it on the ground.  So we now have tears, obvious hunger but irrational hatred of all offered foods.  

I'm not going to bother cooking eggs etc to have them thrown on the floor and he's not having bloody yoghurt again, so what the hell could I feed him?!  It was then that I had a brainwave!  I will blend Weetbix, banana and some milk and make breakfast smoothie!  The Mushroom loves smoothies!  

Banana & Weetbix Breakfast Smoothie
Success!  He doesn't really get that it's a straw cup so you don't have to tip it up but he drank it all down so at least I know he doesn't have an empty belly.  I wonder how much longer this is going to last?!  


Afterword 
For those that care, my son has only eaten unsweetened greek yoghurt from about 6 months old.  He loves it and we now buy the 2kg pot each fortnight.  










10 Jan 2014

Unwell

On New Year's Day I woke up with wretched cold.  Unlike New Year's past, excessive drinking/cigarette smoking had nothing to do with me feeling like crud.

It was awful.  I had blocked up nose, headache, red scratchy eyes, I was aching all over and so very tired.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, I still can't decide which, the Juffin was home from work so he could look after the little one.  The majority of the time this involved hanging out in the lounge room making as much noise as possible (lounge room adjacent to master bedroom) and having the TV too loud.  Intermittently there would be periods of silence followed closely by bangs and crashes, hysterical crying, cooing and then into the bedroom for cuddles with Mum.

Sometimes whilst I was half delirious I'd feel a sticky hand on my leg and grunting and had to stop myself from giving a knee jerk kick back.  Towards the end of the second day of Jess' plague, Mushroom could not be ushered out of the bedroom for love or money (read apple rice crackers or bananas) and just hung out annoying the f out of me whilst I was trying to rest.  Climbing all over me demanding breastfeeds and kicking me in the face is not my ideal sickness recovery situation.

I suggested halfheartedly a few times that the two of them piss off and leave me the hell alone but it was so hot out and that would require putting pants on, so stuck with them I was.

By Saturday I was feeling better.  Not 100%, but better.  I'm a mother, I'll be tired for the rest of my life, but I was feeling okay to face the world.  We went out and did some shopping, got some food, stocked up on toilet paper, you know, the essential stuff. Ready for another working week.

Except my body had other ideas.  This week, my health decided to desert me.  I'm not going to share the details of my illness, because a) it's gross, b) my sister told me not to because see a and c) I think I share way too much online as it is so I'm going to keep this private.  For once.  Needless to say, I have been very sick and that stupid cold last week was just a trial run.

And no, touch wood, praise diety, I do not have cancer.

Nor am I pregnant.

My first visit to the Doctor was on Tuesday, prescribed antibiotics blah blah blah.  Got up for work on Wednesday and did not feel good at all.  Decided to pull myself together and push on through so hauled ass to work. After two hours I was back at the Doctor who prescribed more medication, gave me a medical certificate and told me to go home and REST.  Very strenuous on the rest part.  I rang Juffin in tears because it was all too much for me.  I was feeling awful with a capital A, tired and stressed, and worried about the Mushroom.  My stupid roly poly body was just about to break down and all I wanted to do was cry, sleep and vomit all at the same time.

Thankfully my lovely Juffin saw that this illness would require actual rest and recuperation.  It was just a little bit more serious than a head cold so he arranged for his Mum to watch the Mushroom for a few days whilst I got some sleep.  My Doctor ordered rest, so who was the Juffin to argue?

This week was the first time I have been alone in my house since before I had the Mushroom.

On Wednesday I slept for 4.5 hours straight.  During the day.  Uninterrupted.  It was amazing.  I got up and ate some dinner prepared by Juffin, read the Mushroom a story, tucked him into bed, and went back to bed myself.

On Thursday Juffin took the Mushroom to his Mum's house, and I went back to bed and slept for another 4.5 hours.  During the day.  Alone.  Uninterrupted.  I even slept in the middle of the bed.

Amazeballs.

I have a few more days off to recover, and I'll probably need them.  I had the Mushroom today and he ran me ragged so I'm ready for bed and it's only 9pm.  Verdict is, I still feel like crap and I still look like crap but I'm so thankful that it's nothing more serious and in a few days, or even next week, I'll feel so much better and I'll make a full recovery.

I hugged my little boy a bit tighter tonight as I am so grateful for my family's good health.  The older I get, the more I realise how precious every moment is.  To appreciate the little things.  To savour the cuddles I'm lucky enough to have with both of my boys.  Some people don't have anyone to cuddle.  Some people who are fighting illness won't recover.  Some people will never feel well again.  I'm just thankful that I will.

So grateful for this little kook!  




6 Jan 2014

Chinny chin chin

I'm going to regret this post later but here goes...

Ever since having a baby, my body has been all over the show.  Lactating, frustrating, extra wobbly and super exhausted.  Weird aches and pains, twinges in places that never twinged before.  I can deal with all of these things and move on.

The one thing I can not deal with, is the single black hair that has taken root upon my chin.

Yes.  A hair.  On my chin.

Commence jokes regarding witches and my coven now....

Should I just pack it in and join the circus?  Start my new life as a bearded lady?

I'm regretting this post already.  Where are my tweezers...

If you look really closely you can see it... oh gawd!