I am trapped in some kind of parenting hell.
The Littl'un has contracted a stomach bug, which is just lovely. She has been spectacularly sicky and pooey for the last few days, and was so horribly sick all over her face and her last clean sheet last night, that she ended up sleeping in my arms, which always makes me uncomfortable and cross. And Husband's at work, so I can't even go to yoga to work all my kinks out. Bah.
At least the bug has coincided with a few days of nice weather, so I could hang the endless loads of washing out (although I end up having to hang it up inside to finish drying anyway, thanks to my neighbours' unhelpfully tall fence which blocks all the sun from my garden). There's been so much of it, because the bug has also coincided with the probably slightly premature decision to put The Littl/un in the next size of nappies, which aren't an entirely perfect fit, and really cannot cope with the paces The Littl'un's arse is putting them through. It's delightful.
And if you read my last post, you'll know this has all come hot on the heels of me stopping breastfeeding. Well, in retrospect, there were signs of the bug emerging just before I stopped, but I'm not about to let a little detail like that get in between me and a nice big whack of parenting guilt. The guilt is both stupid and two-fold. The first lot of guilt is the totally irrational feeling not that I have caused it exactly, but that it is some kind of karmic retribution for having given up for my own, pretty selfish reasons. You don't have to tell me how stupid that is (and indeed some of you have already tried), I do know on most levels, but breastfeeding guilt is a strange creature. The second lot of more rational guilt comes from the knowledge that the easiest way to deal with a poorly baby is just to shove a boob in its mouth. I know that plenty of people deal perfectly well with ill babies without their boobs (well, not without their boobs, they still obviously have their boobs. Oh, you know what I mean) and I know that I have before and no doubt will have to again, but I do feel a little bit bad that if I had just kept going for a few more days, I could be giving her milk that's easier to digest, with a really comforting manner of delivery. It's probably not too late to start again if I really wanted to, but I don't think I want to that much, which makes me feel a bit more guilty. Like I said, strange creature.
The final thing that the bug has coincided with is the apparent decision by The Toddler to practise her audition piece for Britain's Got Whingey Toddlers. Judging from what I've seen, she's a shoo-in. Her principal party piece is the repeated insistence that she is either tired, or hungry. If I tell her she is not one, she claims to be the other. She has told me she is hungry whilst holding a biscuit, and told me she is tired while lying down. EAT THE F'ING BISCUIT OR GO TO SLEEP THEN!!!!!!!! She is driving me utterly demented. If she is not whingeing at me, she is either doing something she shouldn't be, or pulling on some part of my clothing or anatomy. Husband had to remove her from my presence this afternoon as I was growling with barely suppressed rage at her attempts to drag me across the kitchen by my beltloops.
What with the irritating Toddler, the spewing and crapping Littl'un, the washing machine that has just beeped to tell me it has finished yet another load of washing that I have no place to put, and the fact that due to Husband's stupid shifts I have to do both breakfast and bedtime on my own again tomorrow, this glass of wine in my hand is the only thing standing between me and a nervous breakdown. It's not even very good wine (it was free when we renewed our Costco membership), but tonight, it is my life ring. Cheers.
Monday, 12 March 2012
Friday, 9 March 2012
The End?
I think I might have done my last breastfeed. For a couple of reasons, The Littl'un had formula before bed tonight. It was much less cozy and calming than a breastfeed (there was more shrieking and glasses-grabbing), but I did enjoy the fact that the thing she was gnawing on and shaking about as if she was an over-excitable puppy was not my nipple. I may go back to breastfeeding tomorrow if it makes her sleeping worse, but as I'm not sure how that could possibly happen (FOUR HOURS she was awake for on Tuesday night), then it could very well be that me and breastfeeding are over and done.
How do I feel about that? Pretty ambivalent, to be honest. Which is a bit of a surprise. I had thought, especially given how pro-breastfeeding I have somehow become since I had The Toddler, and how much more I've enjoyed it this time around, that I might be sad about stopping. A month or so ago, when it was doing my nut in, I thought I would be ecstatic. I am neither of those things. I suppose a little part of me might be a bit sad - I'm not having any more babies, so I won't ever breastfeed ever again. And there is still a tiny bit of me (the bit that spends far too long on ScaryParenting.com, where these kind of things seem to be disproportionately important) that feels, somehow, like I shouldn't be stopping, because I don't really have a reason to. But maybe the ambivalence itself is a reason. The magic has gone. That makes me sadder than the actual stopping. I used to LOVE breastfeeding, now I don't really feel anything about it. I suppose there's no actual reason why that matters, after all, it's only giving your baby food, why should you love it? But it's nice to enjoy something. Especially if that something has meant that you've had to wear ugly bras, watch your wine intake, and spend hours of every day stuck to the sofa.
I rambling now, and have no idea where this is going. So, in summary, woman has no interesting feelings about something which is nobody else's business anyway. This is groundbreaking stuff right here.
Oh, but on a totally unrelated and annoyingly gushy note, The Toddler has grasped the fact that she used to be a baby, and keeps pointing to photos of herself and saying "Is that me? When am I tiny?". It's very cute, and even the grammar pedant in me hope she says it like that forever.
How do I feel about that? Pretty ambivalent, to be honest. Which is a bit of a surprise. I had thought, especially given how pro-breastfeeding I have somehow become since I had The Toddler, and how much more I've enjoyed it this time around, that I might be sad about stopping. A month or so ago, when it was doing my nut in, I thought I would be ecstatic. I am neither of those things. I suppose a little part of me might be a bit sad - I'm not having any more babies, so I won't ever breastfeed ever again. And there is still a tiny bit of me (the bit that spends far too long on ScaryParenting.com, where these kind of things seem to be disproportionately important) that feels, somehow, like I shouldn't be stopping, because I don't really have a reason to. But maybe the ambivalence itself is a reason. The magic has gone. That makes me sadder than the actual stopping. I used to LOVE breastfeeding, now I don't really feel anything about it. I suppose there's no actual reason why that matters, after all, it's only giving your baby food, why should you love it? But it's nice to enjoy something. Especially if that something has meant that you've had to wear ugly bras, watch your wine intake, and spend hours of every day stuck to the sofa.
I rambling now, and have no idea where this is going. So, in summary, woman has no interesting feelings about something which is nobody else's business anyway. This is groundbreaking stuff right here.
Oh, but on a totally unrelated and annoyingly gushy note, The Toddler has grasped the fact that she used to be a baby, and keeps pointing to photos of herself and saying "Is that me? When am I tiny?". It's very cute, and even the grammar pedant in me hope she says it like that forever.
Monday, 5 March 2012
And Again....
As you all have already been told, numerous times, The Littl'un is rubbish at sleeping. I thought I could see some small amount of progress, once I stopped insisting she wasn't hungry at night. So although we were having to get up in the middle of the night and blunder around with formula, we were at least not being subjected to hours of demented screaming. So that was good. The Littl'un even started sleeping until 5am before waking for her feed, an hour which, pre-children, I used to consider horribly uncivilised, but now seems like a miraculous time if I've been able to sleep until then.
And then one night it was 4am. And then 3am. And then 2am. And then half-past bloody one. What is this child trying to do to me???!!!
So, I decided to try a change of tack. If sometimes The Littl'un was capable of sleeping for a long stretch, and then a short one, why didn't I try and change it round? I'd never had much luck with a dreamfeed before, but surely it was worth a try, before I threw her out of a window? It seemed like such a simple idea. I spent the day in a state of desperate excitement that I might actually have found The Thing That Could Work.
So, Night One, I hauled The Littl'un out of bed at 11pm, put her weird cup/bottle hybrid-type thing (only thing she can drink milk out of without spitting it all back out all over herself) to her lips, and watched her sleepily guzzle her milk. It was quite cute. Settled her back in her cot without a murmur of complaint. Perhaps this would be OK after all.
Or maybe not. Maybe she would wake at 4am, full of the joys of spring, wanting to play. Maybe we would eventually give up trying to get her to go back in her cot, and bring her into our bed, where she would gleefully spend the next hour gurgling and sticking her bewilderingly pointy fingernails up my nose.
After a few nights of this, I did have some success in at least getting her to go back into her cot to do the gurgling. And then, two nights ago, I was stunned to find that after her feed, she slept in her cot all night, only crying once for her dummy. I would have been ecstatic with that, had The Toddler not chosen that night to have an epic screaming fit at 3.20am, for reasons unknown. But still, did this mean I could approach last night in a spirit of cautious optimism....?
Come on, you know the drill by now. Of course not. Last night I had the dubious pleasure of seeing every hour of the clock, scrabbling around in the darkness to try and find where the hell her bloody dummy had gone. Perhaps I should have held off to see if she could settle herself, but I don't think I actually wake up enough to be able to make that decision until I'm out of bed. I find myself standing by the side of her cot without really knowing how I've got there. Husband went one better though. He did not only not know how I got there, he completely failed to notice I'd got up at all. Grr.
So anyway, that's where we are. Still no sleep. Are you bored of these stories yet? I am. I feel I must apologise for the tedium - Bad Mammy wants sleep, tries something, it almost works, and then it doesn't, so she whinges. Repeat, and repeat, and repeat. Hopefully, if The Littl'un ever does decide that I can be allowed to complete a sleep-cycle, my writing will improve. Or at the very least, I'll have to find something different to complain about. Let's all look forward to that day.
And then one night it was 4am. And then 3am. And then 2am. And then half-past bloody one. What is this child trying to do to me???!!!
So, I decided to try a change of tack. If sometimes The Littl'un was capable of sleeping for a long stretch, and then a short one, why didn't I try and change it round? I'd never had much luck with a dreamfeed before, but surely it was worth a try, before I threw her out of a window? It seemed like such a simple idea. I spent the day in a state of desperate excitement that I might actually have found The Thing That Could Work.
So, Night One, I hauled The Littl'un out of bed at 11pm, put her weird cup/bottle hybrid-type thing (only thing she can drink milk out of without spitting it all back out all over herself) to her lips, and watched her sleepily guzzle her milk. It was quite cute. Settled her back in her cot without a murmur of complaint. Perhaps this would be OK after all.
Or maybe not. Maybe she would wake at 4am, full of the joys of spring, wanting to play. Maybe we would eventually give up trying to get her to go back in her cot, and bring her into our bed, where she would gleefully spend the next hour gurgling and sticking her bewilderingly pointy fingernails up my nose.
After a few nights of this, I did have some success in at least getting her to go back into her cot to do the gurgling. And then, two nights ago, I was stunned to find that after her feed, she slept in her cot all night, only crying once for her dummy. I would have been ecstatic with that, had The Toddler not chosen that night to have an epic screaming fit at 3.20am, for reasons unknown. But still, did this mean I could approach last night in a spirit of cautious optimism....?
Come on, you know the drill by now. Of course not. Last night I had the dubious pleasure of seeing every hour of the clock, scrabbling around in the darkness to try and find where the hell her bloody dummy had gone. Perhaps I should have held off to see if she could settle herself, but I don't think I actually wake up enough to be able to make that decision until I'm out of bed. I find myself standing by the side of her cot without really knowing how I've got there. Husband went one better though. He did not only not know how I got there, he completely failed to notice I'd got up at all. Grr.
So anyway, that's where we are. Still no sleep. Are you bored of these stories yet? I am. I feel I must apologise for the tedium - Bad Mammy wants sleep, tries something, it almost works, and then it doesn't, so she whinges. Repeat, and repeat, and repeat. Hopefully, if The Littl'un ever does decide that I can be allowed to complete a sleep-cycle, my writing will improve. Or at the very least, I'll have to find something different to complain about. Let's all look forward to that day.
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Domestic Goddess. Ha.
If you were wandering past my house at about 1.30 this afternoon, first of all, why didn't you come and say hi? Second of all, you might have glanced into my kitchen and seen a delightful picture of domestic bliss. Mother and toddler in co-ordinating pinnies, mixing, stirring and measuring the ingredients for Nigella Lawson's banana bread, while a cake-mix spattered baby gleefully bashed a spoon on her highchair tray. You might think (although you probably wouldn't) "Family baking time. Now there is a mother who has got her shit together."
You would be quite, quite wrong.
The baking was fine - I forgot the vanilla essence (again. Every bloody time!), we made a massive mess and The Littl'un ate a LOT of flour - but apart from that today has actually incorporated a not-insubstantial amount of fail on my part.
I knocked half a glass of Diet Coke over my living room carpet. Ironically, while talking about carpet cleaning. The Littl'un has also thrown up on it in approximately 796 seperate locations.
I inadvertently taught The Toddler how to go to the toilet on her own (I actually did this yesterday, it's only today that I've noticed that it was a slightly silly thing to have done). Until this point, she has been out of nappies, but not ever asking to go, and just waiting until I notice her clutching her pants and dancing around and take her. Now, however, she wants to go every 24 seconds, and I am not allowed to go with her, and she wants to wipe her own bum. And when I say "wipe", I mean "wave a third of a roll of toilet paper in the vague direction of her nether regions". And she's still demanding jellybeans.
I didn't get the chicken I was going to cook for tea out of the freezer last night, deciding that I would do it first thing in the morning. First thing in the morning came and went in a haze of porridge and "No! I don't want that cup!", and by the time I realised the chicken was still in the freezer, it was nearly 10 o'clock. I got it out anyway. This is the thing about my newish habit of planning meals for the week - I save a fortune at the supermarket, but my brain can not cope with any ad-hoc changes to The Plan. Realised about half an hour before it needed to be in the oven that it was still resolutely frozen. Plonked a protesting Littl'un in bed, and The Toddler in front of Bubble Guppies, and set about trying to defrost it. Soon realise that you can't really defrost a whole chicken in the microwave, and that it most of it is still icy, but the wings are almost cooked. Ask Google. It tells me to put it in a bag and submerge it in cold water, which I do, before remembering what happened the last time I tried to defrost something in two different ways (24 hours of crippling stomach pains). Hum, hah, phone my mother, and decide to give the children pasta with Philadelphia and frozen spinach. Again. Hum and hah (or is it umm and arr?) for the next two hours about whether to cook it later when fully defrosted. Google again and come up with something about "heat-stable endotoxins", which sounds scary. Throw whole bloody thing in bin.
"But the baking"! I hear you cry (only in my head, granted, but I can hear it). "Surely the fact that you took the time to do such a wholesome activity with your children negates all of this chicken-silliness and means you are, in fact, a SuperMum?" Well, you'd think, wouldn't you? But actually, the baking hides a multitude of sins. We bake quite often in this house. It's often, as it was today, a pasttime I engage in as a substitute for leaving the house and doing anything proper. I had had notions of going to the park, or taking The Littl'un to get weighed (she's fallen off her stupid line again), but could be arsed to do neither, so baking was a way of feeling like I had done SOMETHING with my children. It also made me feel slightly better about the fact that The Toddler had spent a large portion of the day transfixed by the televsion, and The Littl'un had spent it sitting on the living room floor, trying to crawl (and failing) and chewing on a sock (she wasn't even wearing socks today, so where that came from, I have no idea).
It is also a measure of how selfish and lazy I am that baking is the only real chance my kids get to do messy play. If I'm feeling particularly energetic and/or The Toddler has been watching a scary amount of TV, I might break out the finger paints, but otherwise flour, sugar and bicarb are their playthings. I'm just no good at messy play. I have no imagination, and no patience, and spend the whole time thinking about cleaning it up again. I need some kind of tangible, and preferably edible, end result to persuade me into it. Messy play is one of those hidden things that parenthood throws your way that you're meant to somehow be able to do. Sod breastfeeding workshops and hospital visits where they show you what the epidural needle looks like (clue: big) - what expectant parents need is a crash course in making play-dough and spaghetti play.
So, a mixed day, all in all. Oh well, at least, at the end of it, there is cake.
You would be quite, quite wrong.
The baking was fine - I forgot the vanilla essence (again. Every bloody time!), we made a massive mess and The Littl'un ate a LOT of flour - but apart from that today has actually incorporated a not-insubstantial amount of fail on my part.
I knocked half a glass of Diet Coke over my living room carpet. Ironically, while talking about carpet cleaning. The Littl'un has also thrown up on it in approximately 796 seperate locations.
I inadvertently taught The Toddler how to go to the toilet on her own (I actually did this yesterday, it's only today that I've noticed that it was a slightly silly thing to have done). Until this point, she has been out of nappies, but not ever asking to go, and just waiting until I notice her clutching her pants and dancing around and take her. Now, however, she wants to go every 24 seconds, and I am not allowed to go with her, and she wants to wipe her own bum. And when I say "wipe", I mean "wave a third of a roll of toilet paper in the vague direction of her nether regions". And she's still demanding jellybeans.
I didn't get the chicken I was going to cook for tea out of the freezer last night, deciding that I would do it first thing in the morning. First thing in the morning came and went in a haze of porridge and "No! I don't want that cup!", and by the time I realised the chicken was still in the freezer, it was nearly 10 o'clock. I got it out anyway. This is the thing about my newish habit of planning meals for the week - I save a fortune at the supermarket, but my brain can not cope with any ad-hoc changes to The Plan. Realised about half an hour before it needed to be in the oven that it was still resolutely frozen. Plonked a protesting Littl'un in bed, and The Toddler in front of Bubble Guppies, and set about trying to defrost it. Soon realise that you can't really defrost a whole chicken in the microwave, and that it most of it is still icy, but the wings are almost cooked. Ask Google. It tells me to put it in a bag and submerge it in cold water, which I do, before remembering what happened the last time I tried to defrost something in two different ways (24 hours of crippling stomach pains). Hum, hah, phone my mother, and decide to give the children pasta with Philadelphia and frozen spinach. Again. Hum and hah (or is it umm and arr?) for the next two hours about whether to cook it later when fully defrosted. Google again and come up with something about "heat-stable endotoxins", which sounds scary. Throw whole bloody thing in bin.
"But the baking"! I hear you cry (only in my head, granted, but I can hear it). "Surely the fact that you took the time to do such a wholesome activity with your children negates all of this chicken-silliness and means you are, in fact, a SuperMum?" Well, you'd think, wouldn't you? But actually, the baking hides a multitude of sins. We bake quite often in this house. It's often, as it was today, a pasttime I engage in as a substitute for leaving the house and doing anything proper. I had had notions of going to the park, or taking The Littl'un to get weighed (she's fallen off her stupid line again), but could be arsed to do neither, so baking was a way of feeling like I had done SOMETHING with my children. It also made me feel slightly better about the fact that The Toddler had spent a large portion of the day transfixed by the televsion, and The Littl'un had spent it sitting on the living room floor, trying to crawl (and failing) and chewing on a sock (she wasn't even wearing socks today, so where that came from, I have no idea).
It is also a measure of how selfish and lazy I am that baking is the only real chance my kids get to do messy play. If I'm feeling particularly energetic and/or The Toddler has been watching a scary amount of TV, I might break out the finger paints, but otherwise flour, sugar and bicarb are their playthings. I'm just no good at messy play. I have no imagination, and no patience, and spend the whole time thinking about cleaning it up again. I need some kind of tangible, and preferably edible, end result to persuade me into it. Messy play is one of those hidden things that parenthood throws your way that you're meant to somehow be able to do. Sod breastfeeding workshops and hospital visits where they show you what the epidural needle looks like (clue: big) - what expectant parents need is a crash course in making play-dough and spaghetti play.
So, a mixed day, all in all. Oh well, at least, at the end of it, there is cake.
Friday, 24 February 2012
Overwhelmed
It just doesn't stop. It's relentless. It doesn't matter how I'm feeling, or what else is going on, it never, ever ends. I just want a break. I want to be able to take one day off. Please, can no-one give me that?
Not motherhood. The washing.
Not motherhood. The washing.
Sunday, 19 February 2012
1 Week.....
That is how long it has been since...... The Toddler had a nappy on during the day.
A whole weeek of big-girl pants. Big-girl pants that have not had wee in them. THIS IS NOT A BIG DEAL. DO NOT GET EXCITED. I am absolutely not ready to even suggest that she might be toilet-trained, for several reasons:
1. She still poos in her pants, swiftly and secretly, and then waddles around telling me she needs a wee
2. She still doesn't ask to go, and it's only because Husband and I have actually somehow remembered to take her for frequent loo visits that the wees have happened where they should.
3. There's still an awful lot of bribery going on, with new toys, star stickers, and many, many jelly beans
4. I'm scared that if I do suggest it, it will suddenly cease to be remotely true. In fact, I'm seriously questioning my decision to write this, in case I jinx it.
So yes, we are - perhaps, maybe, possibly - Getting There. She is no longer throwing herself off the toilet in a tantrum every time we sit her there, or weeing on my carpet every half an hour, or at least, she hasn't done it this week, so even if we've got a long way to go, I'm feeling cautiously pleased, and less of an utter failure about the whole thing.
You watch, I'll be posting tomorrow saying I've had the 1001 out again.
A whole weeek of big-girl pants. Big-girl pants that have not had wee in them. THIS IS NOT A BIG DEAL. DO NOT GET EXCITED. I am absolutely not ready to even suggest that she might be toilet-trained, for several reasons:
1. She still poos in her pants, swiftly and secretly, and then waddles around telling me she needs a wee
2. She still doesn't ask to go, and it's only because Husband and I have actually somehow remembered to take her for frequent loo visits that the wees have happened where they should.
3. There's still an awful lot of bribery going on, with new toys, star stickers, and many, many jelly beans
4. I'm scared that if I do suggest it, it will suddenly cease to be remotely true. In fact, I'm seriously questioning my decision to write this, in case I jinx it.
So yes, we are - perhaps, maybe, possibly - Getting There. She is no longer throwing herself off the toilet in a tantrum every time we sit her there, or weeing on my carpet every half an hour, or at least, she hasn't done it this week, so even if we've got a long way to go, I'm feeling cautiously pleased, and less of an utter failure about the whole thing.
You watch, I'll be posting tomorrow saying I've had the 1001 out again.
Thursday, 16 February 2012
I'm Crap At This
Blogging. Not motherhood. Or maybe motherhood as well.
Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. It has been 10 days since my last bout of blithering. Don't worry, you're not missing anything. It's all been pretty much like this, except everyone's had colds, The Littl'un's turned into a limpet, and I've swapped their bedtimes round so I'm no longer rushing The Toddler through her stories while The Littl'un tries to eat my face. I'm really not sure why it took me so long to figure out that might be a good idea.
Anyway, more soon. Hopefully I can report some progress with various things. That'd be nice. If unlikely.
Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. It has been 10 days since my last bout of blithering. Don't worry, you're not missing anything. It's all been pretty much like this, except everyone's had colds, The Littl'un's turned into a limpet, and I've swapped their bedtimes round so I'm no longer rushing The Toddler through her stories while The Littl'un tries to eat my face. I'm really not sure why it took me so long to figure out that might be a good idea.
Anyway, more soon. Hopefully I can report some progress with various things. That'd be nice. If unlikely.
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