pillow talk

I spend so much time in bed these days, but so little of it sleeping.

Last night I kept Stella in bed with us after her first wake-up (on the dot 2 hours after she'd gone to sleep). I'm not a fan of co-sleeping with anyone other than a) my husband, b) my cat or c) a very small newborn (or d) George Clooney, but that goes without saying right?), but I thought it worth a shot to see whether she slept any better.
Exactly 1 hour and 55 minutes later she started twitch, rouse, stretch and ... mewl.
Sigh.

Also, dear insomnia. Please fuck off. What makes you think it's okay to haunt a woman driven nearly demented by lack of sleep as it is?
Thanks.

One night recently Husband came to bed after me. I didn't stir. But when I next woke with Stella I brushed his arm with mine as I got out of bed and my heart stopped. His arm under the warm duvet was ice cold. I nearly puked from fright.
Turns out just before bed he'd been out at the pool, wrestling with the filtration system, up to his shoulder in the icy water. He'd obviously fallen asleep minutes before I'd woken up and I was not, thank god, lying next to his handsome corpse.

The best thing about breast-feeding? The reading. As long as I'm able to hold it with one hand (Kingsolver's Lacuna is going to have to wait a while), I'm feedin' and readin', readin' and feedin'.

The song playing on continuous loop through my head in the mornings:
Tears for Fears - Mad World

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had

You gotta wonder right?

And finally, a short list of Consumables Enabling me to Survive this Trying Time:
- white chocolate, especially if its got Smarties innit
- coke, or sadly Tab, as satisfying in its black fizziness but failing dismally in its distinct lack of sugar and caffeine
- coleslaw - maybe it's the crunch, maybe it's the mayo, but its working for me
- an effervescent energy booster at 3pm sharp - a minute later and we're all crying by 5
- water, water, water, water
Numbers 1, 2 and 5 often get consumed in bed. Coleslaw not so much and if I were able to be in bed at 3pm I wouldn't need the f*king energy booster would I?

Lordy I can't wait for the day I'll read this post and laugh.

more dog bum

It's not a new joke - laughing at abbreviations for 'assorted' goods. It's not a new joke but it's still a funny one.

Especially with reference to this hook* we bought to put up in the bathroom for our hairdryer.

*dontcha just hate it when people import truckloads of stuff from IKEA to sell in IKEA-less countries? I mean, that was so my idea ....

Of course, Frieda insists its an elephant.

this time in november

We have this place we go, I've mentioned it before.

We usually go for my Mum's birthday weekend in March. This year we went in Feb due to an expected arrival in March.
Despite so much having happened since then I still find it weird how little I recall of that weekend in February. I know I was enormous. I remember I napped a lot. I know I took a packed hospital bag with me just in case we did a mad dash back to town. But other than that I'm hazy.

So I was really pleased when my parents took the house for the week last week and invited the girls and I to join them.
We ate. We napped. We enjoyed having Stella there (ex-utero) for the first time. The girls spent quality time with their beloved grandparents and in the evenings I got to hang out with my Mum & Dad, just the 3 of us.
A rare and special occurence.

It's a funny old house. We're a funny old family. A good fit.

2/10 things I lovetohate that you do

These boots. Can we talk about them?

These reinforced steel-plated biker boots exclusively designed to protect your toes.

Can we talk about my toes? And the semi-permanent damage done to them by falling over these boots countless times?

Can we talk about putting these goddamn boots AWAY? Like, in a CUPBOARD?

Thanks babe.

hola chicas

Don't you just love Blogger's Stats thingiemajingie?

This is what a mention on Design*Sponge does for one's blog traffic:

That's a whole lot of nobody.

I like me a graph.

like sand through the hourglass

Friday afternoon.
Cabin fever.

I haul the girls across town following a lead on Husband's Christmas present.

I pack light, it's a short trip. A couple of nappies and some wipes.

There's a sign on the shop door. Back in 5 minutes. No problem, we'll pop across the road to the shopping centre, buy some milk for home, come back in 5 minutes.

I get Stella out her car seat. Big smile. Big stink. Evidently a big frikkin' problem that I didn't pack a change of clothes.
I'm doing what I can to clean her up, wedged on the front seat with limited wipes when ....
Mum, I need a wee.
Right.

With Stella in a clean nappy, stained vest, wrapped in my sling pouch, we negotiate our way across a busy road and into the mall.
Dash to the loo. Crisis averted.

There's a Pick 'n Pay in the centre, with a small clothing department. We go shopping for Stella, change her in the fitting room, pick up some milk on our way to the till.
The queue's 5 people deep when ...
Mum, I need a poo. Badly.
I look down into the eyes of desperation.
Right.

We can't abandon the queue 'cos Stella's wearing the produce. You got to hang in there baby, can you hang in there?
The eyes are watering but she keeps it together.
Dash to the loo. Crisis averted.

Where's the milk?!
Back to the store where luckily they kept it for us.

Aaaaaand back to the first shop.
We get the gift. I've got the giggles and can see Frieda doesn't quite get the joke.
Unlock the car.
Arghhhhhhhhh. Hot car. Stinky nappy.

These are the days of our lives.

oh my

I quickly have to blog this so that any new visitors here aren't assaulted with all manner of expletives describing my lack of sleep recently.

MY SOFA MADE IT ONTO Design*Sponge!!

That, plus a semi-decent night's sleep and I think it's shaping up to be a Good Friday.

Thank you Heather and Kate!

have I mentioned how tired I am? have I?

Seriously. So. Fucking. Tired.

Stella will be 8 months old this month. Which means for 4 months I've been sleeping really, really badly. According to some crack pediatrician I saw at some point babies often do a radical sleep pattern adjustment at around 16 weeks.

Frieda went from multiple wake-ups to sleeping blissfully through the night at approximately 14 weeks.

Stella's gone from a really good newborn sleeper to wake-every-3h-horrendo-baby at yup, about 16 weeks.

I know I've gone on about this before. Forgive me for getting a bit obsessive. I mean, it's just sleep right. Not essential for our physical, emotional and mental well-being or anything.

So two things have happened since the last time I had a bitch.

First, Stella decided waking up every 3 hours was so passe. My Mum has a theory that just when you can't bear something a moment longer, it changes. This has mostly proved true. Like now, when a week ago Stella started waking every two hours. Short wake-ups granted but every. two. hours. (I talk in single word sentences a lot these days).
4 or 5 nights of this and I was about ready to die. It's like my nights are made up of a (short) series of afternoon naps, never sinking into that deep sleep supposedly so imperative to your physical, emotional and ... etc etc etc ...

Then the second thing.
Stella got a horrible chesty flemmy coarse and painful cough.
And stopped sleeping all together.
(Ok not altogether, that would be exaggerating. She sleeps if strapped to my chest with me in an upright position. Very comfortable position for me. No really.)

It's been 2 nights.

My thoughts are as clumsy and sluggish as my writing. My humour is as dark as this post is almost-unpublishable for it's incredible boringness. My brain is as vacant as, well, a vacant thing.

The worst part about this brand of sleep-deprivation is there's no one to blame. Not the neighbour with the faulty car alarm. Not the cow waitress who clearly brought you a regular coffee and not the decaf you ordered. Not the big sister who gave the baby the cough in the first place.
And not Stella. She's not a small pink nobody anymore, she's my small girl, my daughter, my nearly-8 month old friend, and she's suffering.
And that hurts more than my dessicated eyeballs.

Chest-monkey just coughed herself awake.

This too shall pass. This too shall pass. This too shall pass. This too shall pass.

1/10 things I lovetohate that you do

For how many years has the dude been opening packets of wet wipes of various shapes and sizes?

His said he was 'holding a baby'. Since when has that been an excuse not to be able to multi-task?

wild life

Visiting game parks is really so very cool.

You drive through the gates, impressively arrayed with giant wooden spikes and topped with electric wires, and immediately your instincts narrow and hone.
An honest-to-god dangerous predator could be lurking behind every bush. To alight from your vehicle could mean certain death. Your eyes re-calibrate, searching the landscape for the slightest movement, any faint change in colour or shape which could reveal one of the beasts listed on your park guide.
Lion! Elephant! Rhino!

And then, hey - dung beetles! Monster black armoured bugs rolling huge balls of poo down the middle of the road. They stop and stare aggressively at the Jeep, some of them marching over as if they've hit the giant poo jackpot.
And, wow - black-backed jackels! Scuttling round an open field, flipping over rocks and licking up the creepy-crawlies underneath. Yipping to each other and scanning the horizons with narrow foxy eyes.
And, look, look - warthogs! How incredibly weird are they? Digging up plants to get to the roots, standing on their fore-knees to lazily munch grass.
And, omg - yellow miercats! A breeding pair, foraging, scuttling around, no doubt close to an underground burrow.

In nature, as in life, it's easy to be seduced by the headli(o)ners, the big names, the big 5. But the sight of these smaller animals and insects (and so many more - ostrich, blue crane, falcons, monkeys, kudu) up close and personal, viewed through a windscreen, if that, and not on a flat screen, is incredible.

And the anticipation of possibly spotting a big guy any moment just adds to the adventure.

On our first morning there, we were hanging out at a water hole, idly watching ellies mooching around on the hills around us. We knew they'd get thirsty soon enough and were happy to wait for them (patience is a game-viewing virtue).

And it paid off. Soon a large family group, mums and babies, adolescents, a big tusky male bringing up the rear, came trundling down the hill towards us. Stella woke up, we started getting cameras ready and then something happened which we'd not anticipated at all.
Frieda freaked out.
She climbed from the front seat over to the back, then over again to the way back, trying to hide behind the stuff stowed back there. 'I want to go home, let's go home now. Drive Daddy, drive away!'
In all our excitement and Friedawilllovethis-ness we'd not stopped to think that elephants are f*cking big and maybe, in real life, just outside the car, a little freakin' scary. Poor poppet.
I took her on my lap and talked her round, pointing out the babies, and the mums with their big milk filled boobs (so like a human's), we laughed at the naughty big sisters, jostling and bumping each other, and chatted about the Dad, coming up behind and making sure they all behaved.
Soon she calmed down and then just loved them. As we knew she would.

They're very big.

And a little scary.

Ahem.

But what's not to love?

We miss them.