Week Four

This week saw me lose my shit over the neverending washing and go off at the kids about their constant food wastage and mess.

I can't help myself, I get stupidly angry and yell.  Alot.  I'm a bit of an arsehole if I'm honest, but fark!  I repeat myself over and over again and literally nobody listens to a damn word I say. 

I have tried being calm.  I have tried to keep my shit together.  I have tried speaking at an acceptable volume and asking nicely.  Nothing seems to work.

I use cloth nappies, this is not news to anyone, and I don't love washing and I use them anyway.  But doing washing sucks balls and for some reason I am the only person who does the goddamn washing.  Who decided I did all the washing?  I don't remember having a team meeting?  I don't remember being nominated!  I don't remember the part where Juffin said, hey babe, you do the washing and I'll mop the floors.  I wanna mop the fucking floors!  (Incidentally we did the floors twice this week which I'll talk about later but you get my drift). 

I've even considered going on a washing strike and only washing my own clothes but I still have to do the kids.  I mean I tried to get Mushroom to hang clothes out but he's just too short.  He can't actually reach.  So it's pretty redundant if I'm washing 3/4 of the clothes and leaving that one's out.  Vindictive much?  

We've had fights about it.  And he does heaps around the house.  He very rarely does the washing unless I command it.  And it shits me. I don't know what the solution is but Juffin if you're reading this, hang the washing out/bring the washing in/fold the fucking washing!!  

We have tiles.  Which is great.  And shit.  At the same time. 

The kids have snacks in the lounge room all the time.  The joys of open plan living right?  FARK!  There is food all over the place, ALL THE TIME. 

I have tried to enforce an eat at the table only policy and it just falls the fuck down.  I cannot maintain it. And it's futile anyway with an almost 2 year old waving her hands about and showering food in a 5 metre radius around her.  I mean she's practically in the lounge room anyway!  

I had the week off work whilst Mushrooms settled into school.  On Wednesday I did the floors, vacuumed and mopped, did under the couches, put all the toys away.   Putting the damn toys away and picking up all the food scraps literally takes 45 minutes.  

4 5 M I N U T E S!!!

WTF?!  

There was an apple core under the TV table that wasn't there last week when I did the floors and it was nearly unrecognisable. 

You guys think I'm gross now don't you? 

Whatever.  Judge away. 

So on Saturday morning, Juffin decides to do the floors again.  

My kids were at school and daycare on Thursday, they have literally been home on Thursday afternoon and Friday and the floors were an abomination.  Usually we can get away with doing a sweep out but they needed to be vacuumed and mopped ALL OVER AGAIN. 

I tried not to get upset and take it personally that I had done them only days before and he was doing them again but when he started pushing the couches out of the way and tsking I had to leave the living area.  

Like do some washing dingus! Fold some clothes!  Mow the lawns!  Don't tsk at my apparent half arsed attempt to do the floors.  I felt like I shouldn't have even bothered on Wednesday! 

Yesterday they decided to raid the leftover pizza in the fridge and eat that at 7am.  I don't know how many pieces they ate, but there was pizza all over the damn house. 

At 8 they were complaining about being hungry so I offered to make porridge. 

Me: Does anyone want porridge? 
Kids: Yes.  Yes!  YES!!
Me:  Will you eat porridge? 
Kids: Yes Mum!  Yes! 
Me: Are you sure you want porridge? 
Kids: Yes! 
Me:  I'm not making porridge if no-one eats it.  I'm serious. You have to eat it.
Kids:  Yes we want porridge.  We'll eat it.  We promise Mum. PORRIDGE!  PORRIDGE!  PORRIDGE! 

Can you guess what happened?  Can you?

NO-ONE AT THE BLOODY PORRIDGE.  THE PORRIDGE SAT IN BOWLS TILL THE PORRIDGE WENT HARD AND COLD.

Juffin threw the porridge out after it sat there uneaten in their bowls for over an hour and then Molly said

MUM!  WHERE MY PORRIDGE GONE?

ARGH!  

I'm back to work tomorrow so I'm now going to prepare the lunches and pack the bags etc so I'm not up at 10 tonight doing it. Being organised just makes life easier but I don't like it.  I think I spend hours each week baking, packing lunch boxes and washing up tiny reusable containers.  

Mum life is awesome. 

Laying on the floor after cleaning them

PS Adulting!  We went out, had burgers and saw a band!  Like pre-children days!  It was a great night with friends, and Philadelphia Grand Jury and Art Vs Science were awesome.  The kids slept over at their grandparents house and Juffin and I slept in till 9.30!! AMAZING!

PPS Yes.  I just used excessive exclamation points but that shit rarely happens.  It was totally amazing.     

Four

This post is a bit of an update post because my daughter is already four months old.  Four whole months!

Huh?!  Four Months!!  

Even worse, the Mushroom is turning four in October. That's four YEARS old!!

It seems ridiculous.  Unfathomable even.  Time is literally evaporating in front of my face and my kids just keep getting bigger.

Molly moved into her own room over the weekend.  Unlike the Mushroom, there was no decision made.  There was no discussion, no umming and ahhing.  I just put her in there for day sleeps to see how she went and when that was successful, decided to pop her down in there one night and that was that.  She's gone from two wake ups to one.

I haven't taken the hammock down yet.  That seems too final.

Unlike Mushroom, I am not keeping track of the time as closely.  I think little Miss is 19 weeks tomorrow.

Molly has started rolling.  When she can be bothered. And loves laying in the middle of the lounge room, nappy less, kicking herself around so she can see what her brother is doing.  You know, pushing up with her legs and wiggling along on her back.  She's pretty fast too.

She likes chewing her fingers, her rubber fish, blankets, Mummy's clothes.... She drools a lot but there's no sign of any teeth just yet.

Sleeping is hit and miss.  We swing from 3 hour day sleeps to 40 minute power naps, and there's no rhyme or reason with how the day will go. We have learnt to just go with it.  You may remember some stress on my part regarding sleep with my son and while I worry that she's not getting enough sleep sometimes, she's  generally a very happy little girl.  Ahh the lessons I have learnt!

We have lots of smiling but still no laughter.  Juffin, Mushroom and I are trying our very hardest but all we can muster is a squeak.  She's very, very close!

Unfortunately for Juffin, I think Molly is going to be just as chatty as Mushroom and myself.  If I leave her line of sight there is major attitudal squawking, and as soon as I return, big cheeky smiles.  She burbles and gurgles to herself non-stop and loves yakking away with Mushroom who likes telling her big bullshit stories.

No idea where he gets that trait from...

We haven't started solids yet and probably won't for another month or so. We did baby led weaning with the Mushroom and I'd like Molly to be able to support herself sitting before we try real food. She seems very interested in dinner time and we make sure she is right next to us so she can see what's going on.

I'm still breastfeeding exclusively and we haven't tried a bottle yet.  Stupid I know but it felt like there was plenty of time to try and now we've entered the 'fuck it's going to be a shit fight' stage so too hard basket.  I know that she'll take one if she's really hungry... We've also been too broke to go anywhere anyway so really no need to attempt bottle feeding, hah!

At her four month check up last week Miss Molly weighed in at 5.25kg, and measured 58cm in length.  Only 100cm more and she'll be as tall as me!  We're still in 000 for clothes but not sure we will be for much longer, especially over her cloth nappy bum.  Can you say teletubby?!

So here we are, two kids, both in bed sound asleep, me in bed, not far from sleep, a kitchen which needs cleaning and a partner who's focused on his maths homework...

Sidenote; Juffin commenced university study a while ago and is fucking killing it.  I'm so proud of him.  He's the bees knees when it comes to maths and science!

This guy!  Heart eyes!

Anyway, I knew that life would change going from one to two kids, but I didn't realise how much.  I thought I would have time to study, to exercise, to play.  But it seems that I don't have much time at all, despite not working.  The endless cycle of cooking, cleaning and washing doesn't seem to stop.  My attempts at exercise have been feeble at best and walking with a 4 year old on a balance bike who likes to stop dead in front of you every 20 seconds is frustrating as fuck!!

Molly's face!

I barely speak to my partner without little ears listening these days and most of the time we end up texting each other during the day so we don't get interrupted, or I try to stay up late so we can have a proper adult conversation.  I know you're supposed to make time for each other for the sake of the relationship but that seems nearly impossible at this point. We're doing okay though, and even though I miss him a little bit, I know that he's working hard for our future.

If I'm not preparing food, I'm cleaning up after the eating of food and then preparing food for the next meal.  I shit you not.

We do cloth nappies, which means there's always washing.  Hanging, taking off the line, folding, putting away... Molly is a bit of a chucker so there's her multiple outfits everyday and my spewy tops.  The other day she spewed on my shirt and because of the angle it wasn't anywhere near my face where I could smell it, so I just didn't bother getting changed.  I wore that spewy shirt for the rest of the afternoon.  That's real life right there.  At least I've trained the Mushroom to put his clothes away now, that's one male in the house who does....

So life is a bit hard of late, and the money thing is stressful.  I worry that I don't play enough with the kids, that I yell at Mushroom too much, that I give in too easily when faced with coffee, chocolate and/or tantrumming three year olds, but I know that we're lucky and that's all that matters.

Where it all started... 

Baby Brain

When will it end? I keep doing this one stupid thing over and over again and it's driving me nuts!  It involves a bucket, a tap and a huge dose of forgetfulness.

I have a giant old pickle bucket that I use for my nappy bucket.  It sits in the sink in the laundry.  Every morning I tip the contents into the washing machine and do my nappy wash.  I then put a lidful of napisan in the bucket and fill it up with warm water.  It's a pretty big bucket, so I turn on the tap and go and hang some washing out or go and wash my hands or wander off and do something else for a minute or two.

Except it isn't a minute or two.  It's like ten.  Then I think to myself, what's that running water noise and I realise that I've left the tap running.

And the bucket is overflowing.

Again.

When will the forgetfulness baby brain stupidity end?  Honestly?  You'd think every time I refill that bucket I would say to myself, don't walk away this time, or remember to turn the tap off but it doesn't happen.

Please bear in mind that this doesn't happen everyday, or even every week, but it's happened enough for me to be worried about my mental state.

I figured if I wrote about it, it might make it easier to remember next time....  

The bucket in question.

Footnote: Yes, there is a Womble over my laundry sink.  He makes me happy whilst I'm doing my least favourite household chore, washing. I'm a true child of the 80's.