some zodiacal mirror gazing

I'm a goat sign, earth goat to be exact.
i'm constantly going "uhuh, yep, yep that" as i read.. it's all so true!

Personality
Occupying the 8th position in the Chinese Zodiac, the Goat (or Sheep) symbolizes such character traits as creativity, intelligence, dependability, and calmness. Comfortable being alone to ponder the workings of their inner minds, Goats enjoy being part of a group, but prefer the sidelines rather than the center. Their nurturing personality makes Goats excellent care-givers. They’re quite and reserved because they spend much time absorbed in their thoughts.

Home and alone is where Goats feel most comfortable. There they can express themselves artistically, whether it’s by painting, cooking or participating in whatever artistic endeavors they enjoy. Goats prefer the couch because there they can relax and explore their minds. They don’t need elaborate furnishings; only items reflecting their desire for art.

When traveling or seeking entertainment, Goats prefer groups or venues that hold many people. Goats spend money on fashions that give them a first class appearance. Although Goats enjoy spending money on the finer things in life, they are not snobbish.

Health
Perhaps because Goats are basically serene, they tend to have fewer health problems. Their fragile exterior hides the fact they’re typically very healthy. When they’re happy, they’re healthy. When Goats become unhappy, especially as a result of romance, they quickly become sick.

Relationships
Goats tend to be private, so it can take effort to get to know one. The Goat is the one who will decide when and with whom it will share its personal life. As a result, most Goats have few “close” friends, yet they’ll work hard for those they love.
Career

Goats at work prefer being part of a flock. Power and status aren’t important. Goats will only assume leadership roles when asked directly, they’ll never volunteer. Good career choices for Goats include: florist, interior designer, daycare teacher, pediatrician, actor, editor, hair stylist, illustrator, musician, and art history teacher.

Stable with feet firmly planted in the ground, Earth Goats are conservative, independent and practical, but not very confident in themselves. Most important in life is the family and they truly enjoy all that life has to offer.

--------------------------------
and this is dandan. we'll wait and see i suppose, without predisposing

Personality
Occupying the 11th position in the Chinese Zodiac, the Dog symbolizes character traits such as loyalty, compatibility and kindness. Dogs frequently offer kind words and useful advice, always listening and lending a shoulder when necessary. Dogs often become deeply involved in others’ lives and are sometimes perceived as nosy. Ensuring others are happy is more important to the Dog than wealth, money or success.

Dogs are determined individuals; always wanting to master a new subject before moving on and always finishing what they start. Dogs value friendships; they’re loyal, honest, trustworthy and reliable and have strong morals and ethics.

A well-kept, organized home is very important. Keeping a clean home and helping at work stems from the Dog’s need to be active and involved. Dogs spend money wisely, passing on luxury goods in favor of practical items. Dogs also prefer saving money to cover future expenses.

Dogs at times can also be temperamental, narrow-minded and stubborn. When this happens, the Dog takes off alone in order to make things right again inside its head. Dogs can benefit by learning to relax and being more rational. (- this is what i'm trying to teach him, already!)

Health
A happy Dog is a healthy Dog and it’s easy to tell by the Dog’s sad or depressed appearance that it’s not feeling right. Dogs are resilient, especially when fighting illness.

Relationships
Although Dogs are trustworthy, they have trouble trusting others. It can take a long time before a Dog feels at ease with another person. When Dogs don’t build trust they’re judgmental and rough towards others.

When it comes to romance Dogs often have a tough time. Others are often scared off by the Dog’s insecure, worrisome and frequently anxious nature. Dogs are known to be cold emotionally and critical.

Career
Coworkers can always count on Dogs to help out, especially if it means the Dog will learn something new or alleviate the workload of others. Dogs are seen as valuable employees. Good career choices for Dogs include: police officer, scientist, counselor, interior designer, professor, politician, priest, nurse, clerk and Judge.

(no musician?? hopefully he'll transcend this horoscope here then.
although i do like the sound of politician, if his politics are good..)

Fire Dogs are true leaders. Others enjoy being in the company of Fire Dogs. They’re sexually attractive, charismatic, vibrant and confident and they always prefer to be on the go.
(- this bit is all totally true!!!
as for the sexually attractive part, well it's obviously too soon to tell, but older girls are always falling all over him)

some little tears

sometimes i miss things so much i feel a literal heartache.
i miss old friends....

a couple of years back, when i was really really active in church (like my church community was all the community i had), we had a little bible study group, 5 women all up, and we became incredibly close, sharing everything and anything, and talking and laughing and eating chocolate for hours; some weeks we'd get together every few days. and we loved each other dearly.

we still love each other now, but our lives simply moved us on, as people got married, moved away, had children(!).. we simply aren't in that phase of life where we can really walk together in life, as it were, merely keep in touch.

it was just such a lovely time... and i feel grief for the passing of it.
my heart is not made to let go of loved ones, it does not understand the concept of seasons and a time for everything, it does not stop loving.

interestingly,

ribena is made by glaxo smith-kline. you know, big pharmaceutical.

interesting huh? like maybe, drinking ribena may make you eventually more prone to needing pharmaceutical drugs?
AND they also make toothpaste and other products for teeth sensitised by gum disease and thinned enamel. and a denture adhesive.

interesting!

maybe i should stop drinking ribena. i did buy a juicer after all, why don't i use that?

it's 2am, i'm up... so i'll blog, why not

i would, more often, if i felt i could post all sorts of random crap and one-liners. but i figure if i can't be bothered going through the signing in to post it, then it's probably not even worth someone else reading it.

anyway...

today's beautiful moment..
dandan and i on the trampoline. we fall over, we look at the sky, we kick our legs in the air, he inquires about the clouds. it's an amazing view, from that very exact spot on our trampoline. the sky is always much bluer from there, the clouds ridiculously fluffier and white, the leaves and branches from my lovely tree forming a perfect edge to that picture.
he's finally learnt the joys of lying back and looking up. i had to push him over a few times and make lots of "oooh, beauuutiful sky" sounds to get us here today.

then he put on my red shoes, and ran around the trampoline in wobbly exultant circles. super cute, i laughed so much. i wonder if as an adult, he'll probably always associate a strange joyous mirth with cross dressing, and wonder where that came from.
i don't know that it would be such a bad thing if he were to grow up a cross dresser? i'm sure his dad would have other thoughts on this.

----
and we have blueberries! i netted them and am leaving them on to increase in sweetness. what a bounty!

and my no-not-dead-after-all report is really taking off, to my great astonishment. i almost feel like bacchus or some other god of growing abundance, or like nalin. maybe it's cos i started the charlie carp, on her good advice..

The No-Not-Dead-After-All report :
- a potted blueberry which i let dry out and die, all brown and crispy - when i sat it in a dish of water and cut all the dead bits off, has completely revived and thrived, all bushy and green, new branches and all!
- some potted roses (yay for reservoir self-watering pots), were so dead that i took all the excess soil out for something else. i had left the rootball soil intact just-in-case - and it paid off, cos it's a full rosebush again, with actual roses and everything! and i didn't do anything... the wonder of it all.
- gladioli which i actually bought and tenderly planted the bulbs of; had yielded nothing except some weak stems, not to speak of flowers. that was over a year ago, and one had even flopped over onto the footpath and was constantly nagging at us with its "i'm SO dead, pull me up, you're always stepping on my corpse anyway, you're such a failure".
well i never got around to pulling that up, and wonders of wonders, it's perked up again so miraculously, it's like popeye and his spinach pump. AND, some of them are flowering, full multi level spears of blue gladioli flowers! i'm gobsmacked.

----
on the flip side,
you're right, clel, i was assenting as soon as i read your comment, but didn't really know how to express a suitable reaction.
and what do i do about it anyway?

i don't know who i am, i don't know how to answer those perpetually nagging unrest questions. i feel like i'm perpetually seeking an identity, which sucks as i fall across so many different types.
i have eco values and thoughts, but i'm also a rabid consumer. i'm AP, but i have too many prams. i'm AP, but i leave my child to work in an office. i believe in wholefoods and raw foods in theory, but i eat crap. i feel strongly against vaxing my child, but i feel like i'm sitting on the brink of rushing out in a few months and getting him vaxed for everything anyway. i love parklands and trees, and i love the city streets. i have feminist values and ideals, but i don't know how to fit any of that into my actual relationship.

and while i work that out (what do i actually believe? what do i actually choose for myself?), i wonder about how i'm connecting with people and whether this has much to do with it.

i've always wondered a lot about how i'm connecting with people. it's being so introverted, combined with not having a strong value or sense of self/identity.
i was going to say that it's a tricky combination, but i guess whether extrovert or introvert, any person needs to be grounded from a place where they know who they are and what their value is, internally..
i really feel that need greatly, and can feel how unhinged and insecure i am (or any person would be) without that.

since a child, i've always craved external feedback, people telling me who i was, what i was like, and what value they perceived in me.
(a more emotionally complex version of "good girl" i suppose!)
i craved it, sought it.. and actually, got it a lot, even when not sought.
i was fantabulous in school without ever trying (in fact i worked very hard at not trying, because my value was in being naturally high achieving without working at all. which is how i bombed so dramatically at uni, you don't get very far there without working. i'm pretty sure alfie and his like talk about how praise sets you up for a greater fear of failure.. i lived that).
and friends, people i cared about, people i admired, have in the past all spoken of me glowingly. people have loved me, liked me, thought i was amazing.
and whevenever they did, i could feel a little something inside me relax and smile and go "ahhhh".. like receiving a fix of some drug.
but like an addict, that high would only last a short while, and i would soon be left feeling as hungry and empty and shaky as i ever was.

(it's very interesting too, as a side note, how i then married someone who accepts and loves me just as i am, but who never notices or mentions or displays any appreciativeness of my slightest attribute or feature or person).

i desperately need to develop, at my core, and by myself, a strong sureness of - this is who i am, and this is why i'm fantastic.

it's interesting that this is all resurfacing now... for the first time in my life, i had a real holiday from these demons, in the way of motherhood. every question was answered resoundingly by my motherhood of my baby, every need was slaked and filled. i guess i always knew it was temporary, so i'm not disappointed... just glad to have had that time of quiet.
and while i'm still suffused with joy of my child and still sure of what kind of mother i essentially am, i still am faced with the task of coming to love myself.

blue

i am blue... blue, blue blue.

that sounds right, but not really so visually. blue's a nice colour, rich and deep and calm and sure.
i am some murky shade of green with purple swirls and lots of grey hazing.
i am whatever colour existential angst is.

now this is all a bit of a blast from the past..
i have always gotten the existential angsts big time.. almost a physical pain from them. like teething pain i imagine.
of course, motherhood, when it turned up, completely bowled me over, and knocked me sideways into a beautiful rich world. and part of the reason i'm so incredibly chuffed with my baby, is that the many clamoring voices and the yawning hungry chasms finally were silenced and filled with the sound of bells.

and granted, even these days, now that the angsts have returned and i feel like a homeless person, i still find some peace when i'm with him.

and yet.

it's a yucky thing, the Existential Angst.
i've always had such big questions that, you know, eat away at your insides and leave you with no peace. the questions you get late at night when it's quiet and dark. such as.. i want more. but what? there has to be more. but where? and how? there has to be more, there has to be more. and then i lie there investigating all these different threads of possibilities, living virtual lives stretching away into the future and hoping to find happier endings. in the end my conclusion is always the same, that it all seems like mighty big gambles from where i'm sitting now.

often, over the years, it has been the one question. should i leave my relationship? over the last 12 years, since i was 17, this question has seldom gone away, even when i did finally pack up and leave for a little while (one month).
i have never managed to get an answer, other than - maybe, or maybe not; surely i must; surely i must not.

these same questions, same answers, endlessly; the only constants are the sick feeling of dread accompanying either yes or no.
i feel so stuck.

the best answer, would be - yes, but not like this. if i could keep this little home together but also have a partner who was more... more of someone with whom i didn't always feel so lonely and unhappy and as if i was missing out on the adventure of life, life itself.

little happinesses

in no order, just leaping around the room:

***
the new nappies work, and work fantastically! i won't say what they are except that they're an all-in-one with a pocket opening to add more, and velcro up.
i left one on him literally from 9am to 8pm... because i am a bad mommy and also to see if it would work. well, it did, with no leaks or wicking, although his skin was damp where normally it'd be dry, and he had a bark chip inside from the playground.

i can't believe i've finally found what seems to be the perfect nappy.. after all this time, and only for $18 from an ebay store.
it goes on stupidly easy (as easy as a disposable, as people like to say), is no fuss to stuff/boost, fits comfortably and easily and well, and doesn't leak even potentially overnight.
if i were impulsive and irresponsible, i would buy a full stash of just these for the next few remaining months of nappy use, and chuck my million other assorted nappies into deep storage. but would i be that foolish a consumer?
only time will tell.


***
i had the most beautifulest day yesterday..
- a fun toddler music session (including laughing at a very un-alfie session leader who literally said to a baby "Good Looking at the carpet!"),
- a brief playground spell, (a brief sookiness at leaving the playground early, but let's not record that)
- a cafe-ing with lovely mama friends (and i do mean so lovely),
- a buying of 3 (3!!) tall and bushy and confident blueberry bushes (at a mere $11 each, which is a joy in itself)..
i have a good track record with blueberry bushes - as the one i put in 2 months ago is actually alive and even growing... this is how i know i should buy 3 more right away. and i lovelove blueberries. to me the appeal of a self-sufficient life is having a pigful of blueberries to live on, i imagine anyway.

and then, a long luxurious lovely lie around on a bench under olive trees in the empty ceres marketplace, while my boy talked to chickens (and a crowing rooster, and an asthmatic sheep), a whole 80m AWAY from me for easily 10 minutes at a time (as clel said today, i didn't even know what to do with myself).
it was a beautiful moment, and it made me feel/see that my life was beautiful beyond words.

i live in a very paradise. have i said that already? what could heaven be if not a world of sunshine, trees, chookies, loving friends, and baby kisses?

***
and i have holidays to look forward to...
there's a tassie camping trip on the cards, DH and I's first one ever post baby.
and another one with mama friends soon..
and in just a few weeks, a friend who works in tourism has organised a cheap deal at a fancy new resort in phillip island, lots of floating on a pool while the menfolk take the children golfing, i imagine. and we'll get in some lovely walks, i hope, maybe at churchill island or something (there's a farm there too?!).
and my favouritest beach of all time, a wild surf beach at the foot of rocky cliffs. my friend died there years ago, when a large group of us ran right into a rip tide when on a camping trip. it's an emotionally intense place for me, maybe hence my favourite place in all the world. when i sit there, i feel like i am at the beginning of the world, where life and time began. and i can feel something recharging my soul and core (ions?). there's something eternal about sitting alone beside a wild ocean.

zen report

currently; definitely experiencing a period of zen.

re: the last period of un-zen; it seems like i should've been able to take into account the fact that he was going through physical troubles*, instead of angsting and going crazy. btu i couldn't? even though i knew this was an unusual time for him and therefore a temporarily difficult period.

it just speaks to my limitations as a human being. but i'm glad it's passed for now.. let's see how i do for the next one if/when it comes.


*he definitely was! even looking through our photos... we went through a month and a half without sharing any of our photos, cos he was so troubled-looking in all of them. distant, internally preoccupied, kind of blue looking, while still going through all the motions of play. the poor boy.. what must have been happening inside his little body.

right now

i'm sucking on a baby bottle filled with ribena...
it's hard work! how does he do it? or rather, why, when there's sippy cups and poptop bottles aplenty...

i'm just testing it out.... i got dan some BPA-free bottles at the baby expo (where strangely there were no babies for sale at any price) for his grandma days, but mum says it was leaky and refused to use it...
i think the valve was just loose, cos it seems fine now. after i sent the company an angry email and everything.. oops.

***

i've become an irate customer! i do that quite often now.. like yesterday, tapping on the glass door of a closed bank, demanding my money back from the defunct ATM (i got it back, yay).

i used to be so civilised and docile as a consumer.. since i became a mother, i've become all angry lioness ("you owe me free postage on this gazelle!").
i think it's because i don't have time or space to care about what people think of me anymore; plus, my time and money seem to belong to my child, so i get really angry if businesses take them unfairly.

***
my mum.. grr.. i'm sure she deliberately refuses to try anything i want to implement for her time with dan..
she's put her foot down on cloth nappies, cos they sometimes leak (cos she'll only use the slim all-in-ones) and cos this brand we once used gave him a chafing leg rash (look for a soft leg casing, people), and i guess cos some of them take longer to put on (my favourite fitteds + liner + cover).
i got some new all-in-ones with a pocket for added boosting... no chance of her using them now, but perhaps andrew will use them. he's not opposed to them, just finds it easier to grab a sposie.

***

ooh, speaking of peeing.... i've been getting dan bare-bottomed when we're playing outside.. even on a cold day, with wool legwarmers and a fleecy jacket. and he pee-ed twice! i was so excited, dancing around and singing about weewee coming out from his peepee (surely the neighbours could hear me..). he seemed pretty absorbed by it, making an interested "ohh" sound and trying to step in the puddle.

andrew is seriously objecting to this semi-naked outdoors state... his objections range around "but he might get an infection", but they're so vehement that i think it must be about him as a male feeling indignity on his son's behalf.. the indignity of his peepee being exposed and vulnerable.
so, only when with me. and probably only around our own property, or a quiet park, or people who wouldn't get all silly about it.

***

we've discovered the sublime bliss of public transport! been taking the bus from the end of our street into the city, trains and trams all around... it seems like seriously, we could go absolutely anywhere we wanted to, without even thinking about the car (sometimes i get andrew to drive us back home from the bus stop in the evening, the last 400m of our journey seems impossibly long when it's almost dark).
i've even started looking at buses to bring us around the local suburban area, to libraries and shops etc. it's all there, and so easy! who would've thunk it.

it's amazing.. contrast with the angst of getting into the car, into the car seat, staying in the carseat while we drive... each one of these steps require a whole gutful of angst and waiting.. just to make the simplest of trips.
but there's nada stress and hassle with public transport. none! just one fun thing after another; a fun walk, a fun bus ride, a fun tram ride, more fun walking...

the first time, i did it with a massive pram.. i guess cos we were doing lots of walking that day. and an ergo for the getting on/off bits.
the second time, with a tiny umbrella stroller, and the ergo. the stroller turned out to be a great pain in the bum most of the time, and was handy only for one period where he sat quietly and ate a sushi while we walked..

i'm unsure about whether he would've done that if we were sitting somewhere together without the stroller.. (he goes into this zen glazed out state when he eats, and any opportunity to play or do something breaks that.. so he needs to be stuck in a seat or zoned out by tv, it seems?)

but the next time i'm going to just head out sans stroller, just me and the ergo and a very nifty backpack. i look all laden up, but i feel very light and mobile and carefree.
carefree! that's more than any mother can ask for

and we had such a beautiful day yesterday..

the children's farm with a friend (dan mostly played with 2 small birds and a red chair in an empty field which he'd led me to, despite being on a farm with oodles of animals and crazy kids. maybe he doesn't like big crowds either? maybe, despite being such a charmer and talker, he's actually also the introspective type? it seems so, right now.. he's always focused on tiny little private games, or off in his private world of silly fun, even when with other children), sitting on lovely grass in the lovely sunshine..

then a cafe with some other friends, with a play area for children. a bit vexing, being around really mainstream friends... they're always so stressed and harangued by naptimes, trying to get fussy babies to sleep in a pram, and moving from one discipline regime to another ("we tried the naughty step for a month. then smacking. then smacking with a chopstick, cos mummy's hands are for loving. but he still hits a lot.. he only hits mummy and daddy though, no one else, i wonder why.")

bloody hell. everything they say and do is absolutely riddled with stupidity and poorly-thought out concepts. they're not stupid people, but why do they do things that make no sense nor are based on any good evidence?
i always leave such encounters thinking - man.. i got to stop hanging out with these people. i'm so glad i have other friends.

anyway... then off to the riverside in the city. i bought him a sushi and me a vegie pastie, and a big issue magazine, then blissed out on the grass by the river..
i got to lie around and read while he ran around me singing and playing to himself and his invisible audience, and playing around and with trash (literally, like gelati paddles, and bottle tops. is this a bad thing?)

..boats going by (lots of singing "row, row" by dan), birdies galore (the manic seagull kind), people on bikes, lovers canoodling at a respectable distance away.. glittering water, beautiful buildings/skyline... and again, lovely sunshine, luscious grass.. being with a child is truly like living in a paradise.


it's funny, cos left to my own devices, i would keep heading to shopping centres and the internet... even though they bum me out.
but raising a child forces me daily to head to the beautiful outdoors, because i can see how nurturing that environment is to his mood and spirit and mind. and so i'm accidentally reaping for myself the benefits of something so plainly good, because i'll do it for my child, but not for myself. funny, eh?

raising a child IS the best form of therapy.

field observation

the Asian culture is very big on obedience, on appropriate behaviour.
So traditionally, children are expected to:
- be quiet and docile (unless they're boys, then a degree of liveliness is allowed),
- be very polite, with all the social niceties,
- not question or challenge, ever (the latter immediately warrants a direct slap in the face by parents, teachers, or an equivalent by your boss/authority figure),
- not be disruptive or noisy,
- work very hard at school and not to waste time on any frippery activity that doesn't translate to career stability later on.
- and not to display emotional outbursts at any age.
- and, to realise that the world, and life itself, is a fearful fearful place; where only the foolish do not develop and cherish fears, as they often come true.

The parenting methods are mostly disapproval, either a quiet one (especially if you're not actually the parent; projected towards those children and their negligent parents); or a throaty sound of warning. Also, scolding and nagging, and occasionally a loving and angry smacking (haha).
And lots of praise and guidance (ie being told exactly what to do, and continually assessed).

This is the old-school, of course, but generally, we're the first generation out of the ranks of this (ie we were raised this way, and are basically the first adults that might decide that we might want something different for our own children).

I also realise that as first/second generation migrants, we have the luxury of making these choices anyway where previous generations did not... so a quick aside of gratitude and recognition.

Still, not many of us make the leap. Most asian couples i know maintain these standards / parameters, changing only to remove (sometimes) physical (ie violent) forms of punishment, and toning down the fearful-factor a bit.
Certainly DH and i have hurled ourselves right out of the asian solar system.

I thought all this might be interesting to mention, because DH and i still live in the asian subculture, and we often get this vibe from members of my family, friends, and in public.
Which actually, might explain my barrage of uncertainty. I'm a pioneer! (well, really, in a way, i am actually); with travelmates who are more familiar with this way, but myself being new to this land.

we went to a singapore festival today at the sidney myer music bowl, and it was just interesting to observe a million (or whatever) young singaporeans in one place. a lot fo young children too, as a bonus.

for instance, every time a child lurched 2m from his parents (in a gigantic fenced field), a passerby would literally hurl forward with arms making straight barriers, out of genuine concern.
and every kid strapped into a pram firmly, even the ones who clearly could walk.
and just the orderliness.... no children running around, all quietly hovering around their parents' picnic mats.

anyway, we were with asian friends with toddlers, and on our way back DH and i observed that, sweet and quiet as they were, they just didn't have that sparkiness that dandan and other children have in their eyes..
the thing is that; we could see in their eyes a wary worriedness, even at the age of 1 and a bit, the constant questions there of "Is this alright, what i'm doing/how i'm being, now? What about now, is this alright?"

i just love than dandan's eyes had no trace of that. Sureness all the way baby, even if the thing he was sure about sometimes made me tired (like wanting mommy, or to feed her soup, or for boob again).

This is one of those things that makes us feel we're basically doing the right thing, a signpost on a overgrown track.

Q & help-for-A

I'm having lots of questions right now..
I guess i always have, but because times are a-changing so quickly (ie. he's jetting through toddlerhood issues), and because i haven't had the time to read-up ad nauseum on toddler parenting the way i did on baby-parenting (while pregnant and then holding a baby),
So i'm just flooded with questions about why? how come? why is he..? am i? how should i?
and like Lily, i'm looking for answers. (*ask clel about this)

Some of my current active questions:

(there're lots, mind; forgive my neuroticism. i don't really know why i'm publishing this.
But they run through my head constantly, causing me general unease and some distress.
I need a steady stream of answers; failing that, an exorcist)

- Why does he wake so often through the night, still?
Does he really want boobing, or does he just take it as i'm offering? Is there something else he really needs, like a chance to express some angst from the day?
Or does he just lack the ability to self-settle (this questions shits me up the wall, but what if it's true?)?
Or what if he's waking from hunger as he's not eaten hardly any food during the day (again, shits me, but could well be true as he sometimes sleeps better after my mum feeds him a meal)?

- Is he dodgily underweight? i can see the shadow of a ribcage. He's got a very slight torso, only a 17.5" waist.. and no rolls anywhere. But, he's about average height, and sometimes he has a fleshy under-chin. And, almost every asian toddler i meet/know is also very slight, plus we're not a race given to largesse. And he is definitely active and "happy".

- Why does he not eat food, or hardly more than a mere skerrick?
Is it cos i spoon fed him the first day i gave him solids at 6mo, and tried to a few more times after that? Is it cos i got a bit pushy with the spoon a few times back then? (a gentle but nonetheless nudging open of his lips with the spoon tip, before he knew any better).
Is it because he gets spoonfed at all? (cf Gill Rapley's BLW theory of spoonfeeding)
Is it cos i/we don't sit down to meals at table, nor have regular mealtimes?
And why is his grandmother (my mum) able to spoonfeed him a whole bowl of mushy porridge, but i could never dream of such a feat? Is it because i have the boobs? Or is it because of technique (she allows for the initial spit-out rejection, then goes back in after a minute. and sits him in front of tv, during, making use of his distracted out-of-body detachment)?
Also, my mum says it's because i "taught him to feed himself" ie holding food with his hands, or "letting him play with his food" eg with his fork or hands. I'm not even going to dignify this with a question mark.
Is it because he's breastfeeding so much? Should it be less, really? Other big boobing toddlers i know are a) bigger, and/or b) eating much more food. I'm so tempted sometimes to wean him just to see if he eats more, and regularly, then.

- Is he spending too much time away from me?
Could this, horror of horrors, be a reason for his superlative clinginess?????
(He always parts happily and calmly and waving sweetly, though upon return he shrieks with excitement and/or clamors for boob).
This is his weekly timetable of awayness (it's either dangerously unacceptable, or ridiculously as-it-should-be):
Mon - 7.45am to 5.15pm with my mum (9.5 hrs)
Tue - 3-6.30pm with my mum (3.5 hrs)
Wed - 3.30-7.30pm with DH's mum (4 hrs)
Thu - none or 2.5 hrs with my mum (0-2.5 hrs)
Fri - 11am to 7.30pm with DH's mum (8.5 hrs)
Sat and Sun - about 4 to 8 hours total (4-8 hrs).
= 30-36 hours weekly!
Oh god, it seems like so much!
But it still feels like a necessary level, for me. reduce it (as it did a few weeks back due to visiting relatives), and i start to literally fall off the edge.
Here's my justification (i run through this frequently, to myself. And in my head whenever people say how lucky i am to have the grandmas. Which i am!, But... read on):
- I'm still doing night-duty bigtime.
- He often sleeps very late giving me zero downtime in the evenings. We're out a lot during the day, so naps are on the fly, no downtime for me then either.
- When i am with him, it's 100% attention, as he chucks a fuss if i don't comply and come with him or stay right there. I can't do anything, no housework or computering, or barely even eat and dress myself, without a major whingey fuss. I can read, knit, tv, and sit and think (hence these overwrought blog posts). I definitely can't go to the shops. I can hang out with people, though, if i also get to be pulled away often by him.
- We go out a lot as he gets cabin fevery, which gives me an added tired level.
- Even when DH is home in the evenings, dandan still remains all "no-no daddy, want mummy only" then.
So the time away, i use to remain human..

(and this here, is a big one...):
- Why is he so sweet and easy-natured with his other carers, and more demanding and fussy with me?
god, is he ever FUSSY, with me. he'll ask for something, and start to whinge and cry that very second, even though i'm going and reaching to get it for him, and telling him so! This literally drives me off the edge....
By all recounts, he's not like this with his grandmas/daddy..

So, why is he like this?
Is it some magic mommy-factor (ie a good thing, because he feels emotionally safest with me)?
Or is it because I get internally angry and frustrated right away, and he picks up on that, whereas others remain emotionally controlled inside?
Or, is it because he needs something from me that i'm not giving? Like.... MORE time together? More emotional safety? (I usually try to.. as far as i know, i'm trying to do this?)

Or, should I provide more boundaries? Am i too permissive?
(I'm the most permissive of all his carers... i'm trying to find my stance on giving him boundaries and authority, as opposed to autonomy and respect. So, excepting safety issues, I'll let him explore and initiate any activity he wishes, and usually negotiate things I want to do / timing of our leaving somewhere).
This is one of DH's theories, that kids without clear authority and many boundaries, feel unsafe, and therefore are fussy and whiny. And will continually test and push (and test and push) to find those lines for themselves.
Is it so??
Surely there're good books on this? I have and have read through a few including Unconditional Parenting, but am probably due for a reread..

- And why so clingy???? Why?
Some have suggested it's the boobing factor... and that when that stops, so will the clinginess. how tempting..
But on the other hand, maybe without boob (and AP, in general), he would be even more clingy (and fussy). After all, DH and I were both exactly like him as toddlers, and DH wasn't breastfed at all (and I only to 4 months). This makes me cling to keep breastfeeding, as a natural and ideal aid to the regulating of a child's emotional turmoil..
But, goddamit. Most other children aren't this clingy, even the non-APed ones. it don't seem fair.
(Although, ok, voice of reason... Sometimes i'll seek out people with officially declared "high needs" children, and they were all like this in their toddlerhoods, and just grew out of it in time. So i maybe just have a high needs child, that's all).

i would love to be confident and assured, like so many amazing mummas i know.
Some have given me many reassurances in the past. But i can't help but think that sometimes, surely something is off here, and if they only knew the extent of things. But it's hard to get into that in a normal conversation..

So i long long long for more answers. I think i'm asking for help here...
See anything that might be problematic? (Apart from my overthinking and lack of confidence, i already know that =))
Any suggestions on what might help here?

about my blogging

i realise it's currently a big spate of whinges, sorry =)

although there's a lot in our lives now (as it has since dandan arrived) which is delightful and magical, almost daily;
and there's almost always everyday some pat-on-the-back observation / conclusion we can make about dandan in relation to other children/human beings that makes us feel sure that we're basically on the right parenting track;
i just tend not to get around to blogging about these things!

i blog to think out loud, or to vent, or sometimes to revel rapturously in some superlative moment (but mostly the former two..)
just as i did when diarying through my younger angst-filled years.

just to provide some context for the negativity =)

i get to have another baby!

no concrete plans yet, mind!

but, i just had this convo with DH a few hours ago.

i was telling him about meeting hayley today (loved it H!) and how a high needs child can grow into a manageable child and allow the family to have a second child..

and how, for me to have this option for the future, is a dear and cherished and important thing.. even maybe a sort of dream.

and he said "of course. i definitely want to have another child"; and i fell backwards in a startled surprise.

you see, i'd gotten the firm impression that he was "done at one", given the great costs and devastation that dandan's exacted in our lives (only to replace it with great wonderment and delight, of course, but still..), especially his having "lost his wife" as he often puts it.
and he'd often expressed concern that he didn't think we could cope... etc.

and it was a bit of a sticking point for me, in our relationship... i'd come to view him as a sort of killer of precious dreams, the wet blanket to my vision of crunchy mamahood ("but you need so much time alone?...", "but i want to live near the city..").

anyway, it was great... he explained that, yes, dandan is quite a challenge, but also that he's simply never met anyone as sparkly and amazing and special as dandan, and that he is such a surprise especially as he grows up.. to see his amazing personality emerging, and a real specialness...

of course, we're biased... but i reckon lots of people have pointed out his superlatives as well =).

and i need a thesaurus =)

so, yay, in maybe 6 years? (or 2, hopefully), dandan will have reached this whole new grownup level of not needing me as much and being much more regulated in his emotions etc.... and i can have me another BABY!

i hope it's a boy just as much as i hope it's a girl..

tonight dandan and i hung out with his dolly baby (called Baby), and i taught him how to soothe a crying baby (he can pat pat, hug, rock, put it to MY breast, poke it in the eye, and say "sleep, sshhh")

anger issues

any of my recent posts make it abundantly clear that i have big issues with anger.
i'm like a toddler, big emotions raging inside me, overwhelming and consuming, that i have no idea how to deal with.
i feel like i need a mother, who will hold me lovingly and say "you're very angry. that's anger you're feeling inside you, it's very big. you're disappointed and frustrated because ---. it's okay, you'll be okay, i'll show you how to get through this."

in fact, dandan has better emotional regulation than i do, except that mine are all (mostly) silent and kept inside.
the other day he spilt his bottle of bubble solution while we were outside with it. he looked a bit surprised, then splashed around in its puddle making surprised sounds. me? inside me, i was flinging myself on the ground having a full blown tantrum, consumed by rage and disappointment and frustration. i could actually hear screams and heartbroken sobs in my inner ear "it's gone, it's all gone! aaarrrghhhh! look what you've done! how could you do this, it's gone". i put my face in my hands briefly, and took a while to silently quake.

even before i became a mother, i've often had, when alone, massive tantrums to let a bit of my out-of-control emotions leak out.
once i was wrapping some christmas present, awkwardly shaped things, and very fragile wrapping paper. i ended up slowly and methodically but fiercely and intense-staringly tearing the entire roll up into small pieces and flinging them into the air until the whole room was littered with them. i later cleaned it all up and related it to DH when i was feeling better.

and once when i was a child, my sister broke my very favourite glass by accident, and in my heartbroken rage i threw the pieces at her. a neighbour came over to bring her to get stitches in her forehead, while i went to bed to sleep it off.

i dunno. where does it come from? i'm an emotional person, and i think that's fine, but somehow i never learnt how to process them when they come up. i don't even really logically know how other adults do it. obviously there are many like me with even less self-control, who throw phones at receptionists or assistants, who shoot other drivers in bad traffic, who hit their spouses, or their children. it's all worryingly close to the bone.. if i didn't love dandan with all my heart like i do, perhaps i would've hit him by now, or thrown him against a wall.

growing up, everyone in my family was angry. i remember lying in the dark in bed, and saying out loud "there is anger in the walls of our home". my dad was always raging and shouting and fighting and hitting. my mum was always silent and detached and escaping into tv. my sister was spiteful and self-righteous and judgemental.
and i had many loud passionate rages, all of which were studiously ignored by everyone. some of them were about big things, like "why don't you love me, how can you treat me like this?" to my detached mum.

anyway..
i might look into this, someone else recommended it and it seems interesting: www.k-state.edu/wwparent/courses/fireworks/ "FireWorks: a Wonderwise parent course on Anger Management".
or maybe see if i can get some bulkbilled sessions with a counsellor.

Today i just felt at such the end of something, my ability to cope. i said to dandan, quietly, "i'm not coping. i'm not coping. i'm not coping."

today

today was terrible at first, and then wonderful. (perhaps then, the best representation of my typical mothering day!)

so he's been teething, poor thing. points at his cheek and says "teeth", won't eat or even drink. i woke up this morning with a massive right boob, engorged and painful. i kept suggesting and offering him some, which he eventually did thank goodness.
but that, and the early morning full sunlight (drat it!) woke us both very early, 6am as opposed to 7 or 8. so we both were grumPY.

dandan started off the morning quite happily, but as DH prepared to leave for work, i slumped on the couch and described a bleakness (towards any possible other activity besides slumping on the couch, cos dandan will whine as soon as i move off for even a second, so why bother?).

then as mid morning approached, dandan got really crabby (as he got sleepy i now realise), whining and crying and having rages if something didn't come the second he asked for it. and i felt so completely unable to deal with it, such despair, such helplessness, such rage. i was overwhelmed by it.. i wanted to break him, to scream in his face, to smash great big things against the wall, to walk off and leave him sobbing til he vomited (which i actually did do; i went to bed while he followed me sobbing, wanting a book read on the couch instead).
so i put the tv on for him to watch, then fell on the couch and buried my face in a pillow and sobbed, great wrenching heaves. i looked up a few times to see if he was scared, but he was lost to tv. i thought about how funny a picture this was, and if it was repeated in living rooms across the world; a mother sobbing into a pillow while her child watched the teletubbies.

then he napped for an hour and a half, which made me realise he was tired earlier. i slept on the couch in the meantime, and as soon as he woke i whisked us off to the car to go to our lovely playgroup.
which was beautiful, a bit of paradise. sunshine, a circle of grass, playing beautiful children all together, happy gentle women, food and water (i was thirsty), chickens, watermelon seeds (i bought some for our garden).

later i dropped dan off at his grandmas, and went to buy blockout curtains. hopefully they work for tomorrow morning?! i can still see tree shadows in moonlight on the curtain....

me and my motherhood

there are times when i feel like i'm doing pretty well as a mum, and it's clear that my child is delightful and sparky and happy if not because of, then at least not in spite of my parenting.
and then there are weeks where i do not, where i lose my zen, where i feel like a failure.
right now, obviously perhaps, it's the latter.

my motherhood journey seems to be all about being either in the former state or the latter.. it's like i'm constantly assessing myself as a mother, using every other mother i walk past or meet or spend time with to feed into that judgement. a constant "so, how am i doing?" questioning of myself.

it kinda sucks.. and a subset of that is that i hold my child up against other children, constantly. "is this child easier or more difficult than dandan?", "does dandan seem to be coming along better or worse than this child right now?" - because answers to these questions are vital to the self-assessment.

perhaps i constantly am looking for reasons for why i'm struggling so much. i am constantly wondering = "is it me?" or "is it him?" - would other mothers, faced with a child as spirited/difficult as mine struggle just as much? because if yes, then that would mean that i'm not a failure.
i'm so sure, after all, that he does present much more a mothering challenge in his personality, than most other babies or children i know. i'm sure of it, and i seem to always be gathering proof of that from every child i come across, and hold these proofs to my chest as a kind of comfort ("see, dandan would never have spent all that time just sitting there as sweetly and quietly as her at that or any age.."; "people who know him seem to agree that he is extraordinarily clingy.."; "no way i could have done all that housework/baked that cake/had a shower while my child played by himself, like she could.."; "ah, she naps for 4 hours, then sleeps at 7pm..". = "that's why i'm not coping, of course.").
i need these constant comforting comparisons, because if they weren't true, then the simple answer is that - i am simply not making the grade. am a failure.

here are my glaring proofs of having abjectly failed somewhere:
- he won't eat. this sucks big time.
often he'll eat a whole meal with his grandmothers, whether a handheld sushi or a spoonfed mush, but often my constantly-available offerings go rejected or ignored.
and i know he's hungry, he boobs ravenously, even after they're depleted. tonight he left bed at 9pm to go to his daddy, saying something like "mummy no na-na" (na-na = boob), because he finally must have twigged that boobs had been pretty empty all evening. he then took a whole bottle of milk, before toddling back to me in bed.
on his grandmothers' days when he comes back fed, he often sleeps better and just seems a bit more settled. big proof of mommy-failure.
- he won't take baths anymore. i can sometimes shower him with a handheld, but usually only if i boob him at some point during his shower when he gets upset, unless it's a super fast one. usually i just let his grandmothers try to bathe him, and i just wash his lower half after poos.
this makes me sad too, i loved bathing him, seeing his little naked body, splashing happily in a tub.
and what kind of mother can't even bathe her kid?
- he won't lie down for nappy changes, pretty much since he started standing (around 9 months old i think?). we nappy change him either while he stands, sometimes while he walks around, and often on my while i boob him, otherwise he's squirms out. i've not known anyone else to have to do this.
- we have no daily household rhythms/routines. we don't even have mealtimes; DH eats when he eats, at the table; i just eat off my lap wherever i have to be. so dandan never has mealtimes happening when he's with me... which probably explains the not eating thing.
anyone can see that this is seriously screwed up.

the daily rhythms thing is partly the fault of my personality; i've never had much of a daily rhythm; pre-motherhood, i've always headed straight out of bed to some introspective activity (reading, net-surfing, craft etc) and stayed there (often crouched in the same posture, always in the same PJs) until it was time for bed again, emerging only for necessities and to get food, then retreating to scarf down my food while i resumed my activity; unless i went out for some reason. i did this for years, and it was great for gathering information, thinking, studying, creating.. not so good for social interactions, being part of the human race, gathering experiences, or living life. i was like that weird cerebral race of futuristic humans in the Time Machine movie. but it suited me, and it fitted my research/studying occupation.
this has obviously changed somewhat by necessity having a toddler who needs the outdoors and activity, but i still pretty much try to fit my weird caveman proclivities in amidst his needs.

DH has a full morning routine going; coffee, toast, sit at table for brekky, brush teeth and get dressed. he takes dandan out of the bedroom when he wakes, and lets me sleep-in, and the two of them go through this morning routine together.
so this is how i know that dandan, like any other child, thrives on routine - on days where DH leaves home early, dandan will request my assistance to run through this same routine; he switches the coffee machine on by himself (no real coffee), and gets bread from the bag to put in the toaster (even says "pop! bread, pop!"), and messes around with cups and tupperwares, not moving on until a breakfast-length of time has passed.

but it's not like i don't want a household routine. i would love to have family mealtimes, i even got a cut-down family table to fit dandan's little chair (is that the problem? would dandan stay a bit longer if marooned in a high chair?) but it's just too damn hard.
i would love love to be able to do houseworky stuff while dandan entertains himself.. and the routine DH has set up now allows me that breakfast time. but i can't get that at any other time. because,
- he's just so damn clingy. he's just so full on with needing my attention and physical proximity literally 100% of the time, and i literally can't get anything done.
if i surrender to it and just sit by him all day, we often have a pretty good day.. but i feel like - it's been 2 years, he should have grown out of this now, everyone else his age or even younger has; so what the hell is wrong here?
- and because we're always out. out and about. he's always happier and calmer when we're at a park or a playgroup or something; often at home he/we degenerate into a whiny mess; plus i hate having to go into the yard with him and stand around and wish i were inside, while he plays. we're out all day as soon as i can get things together to go, and we don't come home for as long as i can manage.

i'm just so tired of everything being put on hold. goddammit.
- the house is still stacked with packing boxes from having moved house a year ago, i'm buying things i already own but are packed in boxes somewhere. visually, my home environment is chaotic, and it bothers me. (and meanwhile, our wardrobes/cupboards are all still empty, because we haven't unpacked of course).
- we can't establish sit-down family dinner time, because it's just easier to eat in shifts while he demands attention. and when it's just him and I
- i can't do the grocery shopping with him, because i can't control him at the store and he'll have a meltdown if i try to stop him from poking holes in the meat trays.
- i can't cook with him around, it's simply impossible. i can barely get my crappy meals to the microwave, and retrieve them, without his fussing at my being unavailable or having strayed more than 1m from him for more than 10secs. not cooking makes me feel like a failure, and somehow unfulfilled. and i miss eating decent food (or any dish not 4 days running), it gives me a funny empty feeling in my spirit.

and yes, i get breaks from his grandmothers. but because i'm exhausted (and hungry) by then, my rest breaks are are just enough to rest to feel halfway human again, then grocery shop, and do some primitive housework; then he's back home again in the evening for more wrangling, and a night's-long of boobing (another thing i feel like i've been dealing with for too long already).

i need an overhaul of the way i do things.
but some things i'm reluctant to let go of, like things i feel i need/want for myself (eg i could rest less and do more housework on my breaks. i could try to read less when i'm with him.)
and other things are just a daunting process to tackle:
- like nightweaning (dauntingly difficult/painful, and requires the right timing..)
- or, a home-overhaul (just a long process which needs to be kicked up a gear). i did go and get a whole bunch of storage boxes, to start to organise our chaos into something livable. i'm starting to unpack things properly a bit at a time. surely when this is all done (and then some basic decorating), it'll be a big relief?
but then most of the problem still remains. i have a difficult child (surely.?), and maybe i'm not doing very well as a mother.

(long before i was a mother, from some things i came across, i once believed that most motherhood challenges could be solved and sorted just by leaving a tshirt with your smell on it with your child - in your baby's cot, or as a lovie with an older child. how simple, all sorted)

when i'm in a good place, i can feel like - sure, he's clingy, but it's because he's so mentally agile, and just thrives on and wants a high level of interaction, and because what he wants to play at often requires some grown-up assistance. all good things.. inherently, i really like the person that he is, right now as well as projected to adulthood. intensity is a great trait, as is passion, emotional vitality, and being highly involved in your work. it's just that these things make parenting very full-on.

i recognise that i'm good at some of the mothering stuff. i occasionally have a good attitude towards parenting, even some wisdom, some insight. and i cerebrally recognise that to be harassed and angry just means that you're not coping, and that it's not your fault.
but then surely if i had more of what it takes, i would be coping better?

or maybe it's just about doing things a different way. i'm so fascinated with how other women run their households and mother their children.. apart from comparing and damning myself and my child, i suspect that i simply just don't know how to run a household. if it were socially acceptable, i would grill women about all the ins and outs of their household, how it's run, organised.. i'm always surreptitiously looking around when at others' houses, seeing how things are done there, and wondering how they manage to get things so cool and together (easier children, is always my first answer; then, bigger homes). i'm always reading blogs trying to get this information/insight, but they always make it sound so simple, and seldom seem as lost and overwhelmed as i feel.

i was never taught how a household was run, you see. i was raised a bit like colonial children in those novels, where the parents go to india and the child is left with an ayah and boarding school. in my case, my parents worked 70 hour weeks, while we had a maid to receive us at home after school (straight home, we weren't really allowed to go anywhere else by ourselves. sometimes we'd sneak out to go to the bookstore, that's the kind of kids we were). i had a brilliant school career and even friends, while being completely introverted and living inside my head. my sister and i spent our after-school hours milling around our flat and its private park, and making up amazing games which horrified the maid and trashed the house.
the maid took care of all housework, back there in that half of the house where things happened. certainly as family members we'd never approach any housework, it just always got silently done. but dad would come home of an evening and get angry and yell at us about things being messy.
when our parents were around on the weekends, we'd go out and do family things like shopping or the zoo, or else we'd stay home and have massive fights. we'd have the fights when we went out, too.
and always, my mum would be detached and separate and unavailable, always reading a book or watching videos, lost in her private emotional world.

now that i'm recalling this, perhaps some things are starting to make sense.

pissy cranky vent

these last couple of days, my inner monologue has been little else besides a string of dark red expletives. i seem to be bursting with a seething mass of petty and violent rage. i'm at what they call the end of my tether..

there's a simple explanation, i suppose;
dan has the flu (or some generic brand of viral throat infection), and my last few nights have been consistently broken by large bouts of crying and howling, or else a constant pawing at my boobs and a small child unable to sleep unless he'd heaved his entire body on top of mine.

so my weariness is palpable as a constant heavy pain in my head.

and he is CRANKY, boy is he ever cranky. he's reverted back to a pre-verbal state of whining and crying, even throwing his body on the floor and sobbing, for little to no reason at all. his ability to wait up to 2 secs for something he's asked for has disappeared, so there's a split second gap between his asking for something and his having a fit about it.

and there's none of my usual relief from grandmas around, as his crankiness is such that he is impossible around others...
i've made the mistake, repeatedly, of trying to get some relief by hanging around my sister/mum/MIL with him, but that's in some ways even more difficult and frustrating than if i'd just brought him to the playground by myself.

some of my recent inner rages:
- i waited 55 minutes today at the GP for my appointment, with a toddler in tow. almost 1 hour!!! that strikes me as totally unacceptable. it turns out that "an emergency" cropped out for my GP, but even so no one had said a single word to me, just let me wait there for an hour with a toddler while the waiting room emptied around me, and not even cared.
he was ok with the wait, thankfully, though we did go outside and play on the steps for a while. some kid coughed right into his face though, while his dad watched indulgently; i grabbed a baby wipe and tried to sanitise dan's face.
i felt all sorts of murderous rages towards the receptionists. i signed out without a word, and tried to hurl the pen down as pissily as i could, and even tried to make the door slam on the way out (it didn't, only hissed slowly shut rebelliously). i envisioned hurling a rock through their windows, denting their cars, running over random innocent pedestrians. truly i did, this is the ugliness of my inner darkness.

- watching my MIL constantly grabbing dan's upper arms in death grips, as he WALKS around, "in case he falls". FOR FUCK'S SAKE.
what drives me up the wall, though, is that because of this constant tussling, he actually does fall quite frequently at her place, and only at her place. he's always trying to get away, and does things he would never do normally, like climb things and take big weird steps, or just be clumsy in general. and today he slipped on her oily kitchen floor, and got a raised hard red bump on his forehead, just to satisfy her underlying fears.
he would never normally fall like that... so my blaseness is constantly battling with her over anxiety, i can feel the tension in the room, and imagine all sorts of unspoken accusations about my laxness as a mother.
i absolutely and wholeheartedly believe that if you're constantly telling a child he's "going to fall", and gripping his arms with deathgrips (not even his hand FFS, but his upper arms!), he's going to switch off the part of his brain that evaulates how to do things safely, and he's just going to go hell for leather towards as much as he can get away with, just to attain that vestige of desperate freedom. it's anti-enabling at its best.

besides, everything in her home is designed to be treacherous for a toddler anyway. he always has to wear shoes indoors there, so he doesn't have the normal traction of bare feet or even flexible soft soles. the floor is tiled, and often oily. there are small steps everywhere, every living area indoors and out are at different heights. the garden is liberally scattered with concrete blocks and terracotta pots and raised uneven conrete edges everywhere.
and these are people who have their toddler grandson over 3 times a week, every week. simple things would make big changes, like putting a soft non-slip rug
at the single stair between the 2 living areas (which he crosses 1000 times a day, each and every time being accompanied by her frantic run and then The Grip), or even a small handle in the doorframe for him.

drives me up the wall, i tells you. of course i appreciate her involvement and help... but the costs seem big.


---
on that note, me and parenting / me and dan are definitely going through a rough patch.
yesterday i even actually shouted in his face, saying loudly "WAIT!" cos he was carrying on for the TV and i was getting it on as fast as i could.... he backed away and cried while looking at my face fearfully.... that is absolutely the pits.

i've been at that point so much recently, when he goes into a big carrying on demanding cryey whinge. like shouting while driving and hitting the wheel.. he got a bit scared and cried a little while hitting his knees in that same forceful way. or just swearing loudly and throwing my book or whatever it was i was trying to do. and that was all bad enough as it is.. but today was the first time i directed that anger right into his face.

it's just wrong that all my frustrations and anger seem to leak out toward him, the only person and thing i care about and above anything else in the world, yet i seem to be fighting the urge to throw him against the wall more and more, and the explosions of rage toward him are becoming more frequent.

and then there's the TV. i hate it, i hate i hate i hate i hate i hate i hate it.
granted, he's sick, so this is more intense than usual. but i don't know, maybe he is like this all the time as well?

it's:
him clamoring for the TV constantly, first thing when he wakes up (sometimes it's in the middle of the night if it occurs to him when he wakes), and he absolutely can't be talked out of it or distracted, he'll howl and cry heartbrokenly until he has it.
and occasionally he'll break away to play with his toys... but after a while he'll remember it and start up again. sometimes he'll go for ages without asking for tv again, other times it seems like we'd just turned it off.
sometimes the tv watching goes for 10 minutes before he goes off to play; other times, like today, it's non-stop...
any time we're at home, this'll happen, no matter what time of day/night.

we seem to only have good days when we go out, spend all day out (eg a music class, playground and park, a bit of shops or library), and even then the mornings and the evenings at home are rough.

i hate it so much. any time that questions of TV watching are raised, i always think - of course i don't want him to watch tv, of course i would prefer if he played or read or did something else.
but it started because a) he was having howling fits in the car, at even the smallest journey. the day i got the car dvd player, i had earlier pulled him out of the seat, thrown him into the front passenger footwell, then carried on driving while he sobbed standing there, almost losing his balance with every turn the car made, and me shaking in rage and wanting to drive us both into a large wall.
and b) the tv watching at home, because i found it bought me spaces in the day to sleep, get a meal, brush my teeth, or do whatever, because otherwise with him i was literally unable to do a thing, and i was losing my mind.

anyway then he's become more and more addicted to it, and our days became slaves to the dvd player. and now it's becoming more specific, it used to have to be the fucking wiggles, and now it has to be dorothy (the dinosaur), no one else, just dorothy, so i don't even get a break now, but have to slowly advance every dvd to catch the dorothy bits and only the dorothy bits.
and he's like this at the grandma's too. which makes me wonder, when he's there, is he just watching tv the whole time? i'd much rather fend for ourselves than that, but will they tell me the truth? and will i just make them as stressed as i am, imposing this on them?

and in the car, he'll clamor for it the instant he goes into his seat, can hardly wait for us to get into our seats and start the engine; every single car ride.

i've absolutely had it.

today when we reached the GPs, while he was still in his seat but refusing to come out because I hadn't let him watch any TV in the 4 mins it took to drive there; i wrenched the dvd player and its mounts off the seat, and threw it in the trunk while saying "No.Nore.TV, do you understand? TV.is.Gone.". not quite a shouty angry mummy, but definitely somewhere in that neighbourhood, and his face had the slight tinge of fear, but only just.

i'd like to really put my foot down more about tv at home.. though i'm not sure how and to what extent, and how much is reasonable anyway. and, should there be exceptions because he's sick right now?

i don't know if other mums who don't do the tv thing are just doing something obvious and simple and wise that i'm not, or whether they just don't have children like mine, demanding to a soul-draining sort of extent.
it feels like a combination of the 2.. surely i have a more difficult child than probably 95% of the population. but also it feels like surely i've made a million mistakes. i must have, or else it wouldn't be like this, right?

i shouted at my mum and made her really sad. she's seen very little of him recently because her family has been visiting. and missed out a few times because he's been so cranky. and when she's here with me present, he refuses to even look at her, i suppose in fear that she'll then take him away from me.

ovulating-time nesting

i'm so sure i'm going through or starting a fertile phase.
did you read that so called research on women?, when observed without knowing what was being observed, paid much more attention to their outfit and appearance during their ovulating phase than otherwise.. obviously that primitive peacocking to invite potential mates to give us a baby.

anyway, here are the signs:
- my mind is packed with circular obsessive incredibly trivial thoughts (all this shopping bizzo, my hair, my clothes, the fine scratches on my glasses, dandan's bad haircut (DH did it quickly, so now he has a blunt high fringe, grr)).
(i have had the occasional non-trivial thought.. today i wrote an email to the dr phil show who's doing a show on homebirth).

(dandan says: q2wqqqqqqzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzg; all while boobing)

- my stomach is gigantic. it's as it was at 4 or 5months of pregnancy, firm and round even, disproportionate to the rest of me which is fairly normal sized (though i'm definitely a bit chubbier in my key areas). it's the fluid retention, i get that with ovulation.
hence the clothing obsessions. how does one dress to hide a pregnant belly? how very grace kelly.

strangely, this little tummy of mine makes me feel a bit misty eyed and sentimental. i spend a lot of time standing there caressing it, pushing it out, smoothing my shirt over it and pushing my waistband below it.. rubbing it and looking in the mirror (ooh i'm showing already! my little baby inside..)

it's highly disturbing... i suppose it's a form of ovulation-time nesting.

- and the most troubling, is that i start again considering what kind of partner i could be with instead. i imagine the characteristics this imaginary partner might have, flesh him out with notes taken from hearing other women speak of their partners (the good and the bad), and wonder if i'd be happier and better with someone very different to what i have.
i've always done this... hence the trouble we've always had in our relationship.
i feel he's great, really appreciate all that he is and does, and i like the kind of life we have, plus he's a great dad to our boy... but.. some part of me feels sure that i've had to shut down many parts of who i am, over time, just because they didn't fit with this person or this relationship. i feel like i would be more with someone completely different, more of who i intrinsically was, maybe.
which is why i'm just ignoring our relationship right now, cos now that i have dandan who makes me so happy and brimming with so much love, i just can't be bothered making all that effort to sustain our lacklustre relationship right now.

today i bought

.. maternity jeans!

and no, i'm not pregnant (more on that later)..

i seem to be on a theme here of shopping-confessions of some sort. well heck, if it's what's going on right now..

anyway.. i bought maternity jeans today.
they're black denim, skinny leg; make my bum look a bit flat (it is, very), but my calves look skinny (they are)... so they're really just ok as a clothing item.

and why? because they're comfy, of course.
i always think the big deficit in my wardrobe is that i don't wear jeans. almost anytime i see someone and think - ooh i'd love to look like that, how cute (they can be male* or female**, that's how i am), they're often in jeans.

and i have some normal ones, but i don't wear them much, cos - they keep slipping and i have to hoick them up with a big jump in the air (i don't see anyone else doing this so i don't know what's wrong with me), and then, when i sit they're too tight and dig into my gut which makes me crabby after a while.

so of course the logical answer, is maternity jeans with their high and deliciously stretchy waistband. it makes so much sense i'm surprised not more people do it. (this thought makes me worry that i lack a certain key something in the way i think).

the sales assistant asked me when i was due. so of course i had to lie and say "next year". i quickly and surreptitiously did the math on my fingers in case she asked which month (i would have said february, i decided as i left the store).

---------
*if i were a man, i know exactly what i'd want to look like. it'd be this guy i once dated briefly but thought was so incredibly cool, a supercilious and trendy and funny and clever and arrogant art director. (i generally always am attracted to arrogant self-centered clever men, except the one i actually married)

i'd wear red-on-black hightop Cons, distressed jeans, lots of cool bangle bracelet things and wacky watches, funny vintagey Ts, vintagey jackets, and punky knitted scarves; and carry a guitar on my back everywhere i went.

**if i can look like any sort of woman, i'd have white blonde hair, or even snowy white hair, and be very pale, and quite thin and flat chested. i'd only wear white or silver or shades of pale green, loads of colourful makeup or none at all, and never a bra.
sometimes i'd backcomb my hair into a big diaphanous cloud.
sometimes i would put in a million little braids, and colour a few of them all different colours.
mostly i would keep it very long and straight and flat, like a shiny sheet hanging down to my tiny pert bum.
i don't know why i fantasise about looking like a doll..

Traitor! Sellout!

"The Crime":
I.bought.a.PRAM..

I!, who am the biggest advocate and devotee of babywearing, still toting my 19mo around town in an ergo, breastfeeding and napping, for hours on end.. and loving it!
And always looking to (and successfully in quite a few cases) convert even the most mainstream of mummies into at least part time babywearers, with a sort of religious or activist zealousness..

And not just any pram, but one of those ludicrously expensive european ones..
Have I become one of those latte-sipping toorak yummy mummy types, with docile or aggravated child consigned to a far away pram. Have i become one of those mums?

Well even if i haven't, i'll certainly look like one now... I'll be a crunchy mama in mainstream clothing.

Here's the crime scene..

"Oh, How Could You?"
Well first of all, i got it second hand for much less than retail. Although, ok, it's still much more than your basic umbrella stroller, and arguably much unnecessarily more.
But my recent paid employment makes this possible, without having to justify it to DH or ask him nicely for money, even if i'm entitled to it.

Okay, i'm just going to launch into my justification for this.
We'd all agree that a wheeled device for toting your child around is sometimes a necessary and useful contraption (eg neighbourhood or park walks, grocery or market shopping, long trips to a shopping centre, full days out in town).

There are times when even if you have a great carrier permanently attached to your hips, occasionally you'll want your child off your body for a while (say 1 hour in 3?), especially when he's fallen asleep.
No matter how well distributed the weight is, it's still 11 kgs on top of my 52kg frame (that's just under 1/5th of my weight!), and after 4 hours, i'm just exhausted, especially if i have to carry the groceries + nappy bag as well!! (Sometimes plus a small dog on a leash.. What can i say, we all love our outings).

(We've never had any luck with a normal pram/stroller, as he'll decide he's had enough after 20mins, and never go back in again.. more on why in a minute).

We go out for half-days on end, walking all around in his little red trike (parent handle and steering) at the park or suburbs, getting several kms under our feet. If we go shopping, he'll sit in a shopping trolley.
In both cases, he'll sit happily for hours, looking around, talking to me, eating snacks.
Meanwhile, I'll always be wearing the ergo carrier, and when he's sleepy, i'll carry him around while he naps, while pulling along a childless trike or supermarket trolley... and feeling quite physically burdened after an hour or two.

So, why this pram then?:
I've looked at his trike and the supermarket trolley, and wondered why he'll stay in those for hours, but not his usual pram.
And i extrapolated..: in both, he's physically and visually exposed, not physically constrained (or much restrained) by anything except a thin bar. He feels fairly free, I suppose, important for a feisty one like himself.
And in the trolley, he's right up there where all the cool stuff is, and close to me. We talk, sing, play, kiss, all throughout our outing (just like in a baby carrier).

Whereas in a pram, he hates the semi-reclined position they all have, and feeling so enclosed by the pram walls, and being so far away down on the ground away from everyone and everything.

So i looked for a pram which has these same features, and found that this was the only one..

It has a very high seat, as you can see, and is reversible, so he sits facing me at my chest level.
It sits very upright (not seen in the pic), so he's completely sitting upright, not reclining in the least.
And there's nothing around his head or body, no fabric or seat frame to make him feel enclosed (that hood you see folds way back, and even the bar is optional).
= ie. he'll probably be quite likely to travel happily in this one!

Plus an added bonus for me: it goes up/down stairs! (the wheel struts fold up to become like a 2wheeled dolly)

So i figure... this pram, if it works for us, allows us:
- some of the benefits of babywearing - staying connected and interactive, child can see all goings-on and be part of adult interactions, no stair hassles;
- plus the benefits of a pram (not having to carry him while he sleeps; not having to stop if he wants to sit by himself and snack; not having to carry groceries/diaper bag).

and of course i'd still bring the ergo to carry him for his frequent-boobing or boobing-to-sleep (which is generally the only times he wants "up!")

And if it turns out not to work, it should resell for what i paid for it.
Okay, I've gotten this off my chest and conscience =)

my current projects

outside - i repotted a lovely little tree outside our rumpus window, a potted courtyard tree that the previous owners left as it had totally grown out of its pot and had sent big roots out the bottom and under the brick paving.
it's a pretty little thing, delicate and slender and very flowery (imagine the prettiness of its dryad!), so i didn't want to lose it. it went deciduous for the winter and i thought it had finally carked it. but lately it had put out promising little buds, so i thought i'd better save it while the time was right.

so i lifted the bricks from around its base, removed the paving sand, shattered the pot with a hammer (this was fun), marvelled at how big the roots were which had burst out from the confines of the small pot.. then made a high collar from edging plastic, added lots of yummy new garden soil, mulched it,.. and now it's sitting tucked in the comfiest snuggest high bed, sitting in clover (figuratively, although clover is an excellent nitrogen fixed green-manure).

i did the same thing to a big climbing rose in our driveway bed; then made its whole area into a new raised bed by carting 14 bluestone blocks from a secret stash i'd discovered in our courtyard.. (those things is heaVY!) and popped in some new nursery-bought plants - passionfruit, blueberry, bare-rooted blackberry, and ornamental pear tree (for shade and prettiness). and dumped in a trailerload of new soil.
i have big hopes for my new plants....

next is 2 barerooted plum trees (greengage and king billy) and an apple tree (fuji), and barerooted raspberry plants which i planted last month but should redo in a raised mound.
also seedlings in the vegie bed i made, onions and shallots and broccolini (there's already new strawberries and parsley and garlic and baby spinach).

i have big hopes, but not a terribly good prognosis. when it comes to plants, i do lots of reading, but i hope and dream more than i execute or understand..
so i've given them good soil and water.. mother earth will have to help me out now.

(hehee, dandan says: "cxxxv fvd55")

Knitting projects..
i finished the loveliest raglan jumper for dan; the body is this beautiful handspun variegated dyes yarn (Noro!) in blues and purples with the odd rust and green hue; the sleeves are very dark purple.
i finished it (quite an achievement!), but the neckline was too big, a bit off-shouldery. he wore it anyway, goddammit, but needed a scarf to protect his necky bits.
so anyway i popped it back on the needles to add a textured shawl collar. it's almost there! fun times...

and for myself (heck i deserve it), a bright red shrug in bamboo yarn; maybe short sleeves, maybe elbow length, i haven't decided yet. it would have matched my previous black hair; here's hoping it goes with this brown.

and i bought 2 big skeins of pure cashmere online ($36 for 150g!), a lush thick aran yarn; one pure black, one dark heathery grey; either one will go into my next scarf project - a lush fat overly fringey neck wrap with a badass button/badge.

our re-zenification

i was a working mum all of last week.. i actually kinda enjoyed the work part, except that it meant i saw so little of him. i missed him greatly, and was very glad it was just for one week..

But the first few days back into our normal routine was hard.. Whenever something becomes optional, it instantly becomes much harder than otherwise.. just cos when things get rough (in our case it's whininess or general difficulty getting anything done, duh on me for even trying), you immediately find yourself thinking "arghhh.... maybe i could send him to grandma's.. I don't have to be doing this".
Without the option of checking out, you instantly try to find ways to make it better, better approaches, better attitudes. You start the day with a determination to enjoy it no matter what happens.

Anyway we found our groove again (ie motherhood zen..).
Yesterday was fantastic..
We went to the toy library and filled up on bulky and expensive toys which we'd never have bought ourselves (they're toys with a short shelf-life of high enjoyment, but take up half your living room and are $200 of plastic). Then dan napped in the car while we parked by the river; i knitted and watched mothers and their babies at the cafe.

Then we walked by the river - the aforementioned duck play, playing with leaves and twigs and talking to trees (which i love him doing and have actively encouraged and modelled; i want him to become a tree hugging hippie) and even finding a fat green caterpillar, so picturesque it could have crawled right off the pages of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" (which i can recite verbatim now, try me anytime).

Then we found a great big wooden playground. dan's still so non-independent; he wants to literally hold my hand for everything; walking on the ground, climbing little stairs, crossing a bridge.
i feel so mean-mommy for frequently extricating my hand from his little soft paw, and saying "dandan can walk by himself" (i picture him looking up at me and saying "how come you never want to hold my hand, mummy?").
because i secretly love holding his fat soft warm little paw; and i secretly prefer seeing him walk up and down steps like an adult because i'm holding his hand, than having to wait while he dirties his woolly pants sitting and shuffling down dirt steps.

forget everytime i've complained about him. i just crazy love him to bitses..

what i did yesterday

Well.. i coloured my hair! It's been virgin black for the last year, so much that 3/4 of my hair is actually in that state.. which is big when you realise that i haven't had more than 2 inches of regrowth virgin hair since i was 17...
Over the lifetime of my hair, it's been bleached pale yellows and even a bright orange once, lots of bright punk colours (purple, red, pink, blue) allover or just in sections, lots of society highlights of caramels and beiges, many shades of mahogany or auburn or some vivid reddish brown, and all the flat browns of the spectrum.

Now it's just a boring medium brown... but i feel a visual relief when i look in the mirror now; black hair and paleish skin might have been cool in a sleek dramatic sort of way, but it made me feel so washed out, and i'm sure i looked tired and unkempt (which i was, don't get me wrong).

duckies

Right now i'm obsessed with ducks..
Dandan and i went to the riverside yesterday, and hung out with a gaggle of duckies all crazed by being fed by friendly visitors.
People would turn up every 30mins with a half bagful of bread (and expensive bread like wondersoft at $3.50 a bag, fresh and fluffy... that makes the frugal side of me twitch. even i only buy home brand for my own family..), and the ducks would flock around and peck at their hands and pockets, and literally tear the bread out of their hands. It was great fun to watch, and dandan had such a blast..
But. this one guy was telling me how they come every week now to do this, as now that it's winter the ducks are literally starving. "See how it's grabbing it out of your hands? it's desperate, starving. that's biology".
I made suitably alarmed and sympathetic sounds, but couldn't help wonder if it was actually doing the ducks any real favours. He did end off by saying "the problem is that as the ducks get used to being fed by humans, they don't try as hard to find food like weeds at the bottom of the pond....".
I looked it up when i got home (Google is your friend), and it's true - feeding wild ducks is strongly not recommended, it makes them a) less independent and less able to find their own food; b) fatty in the organs (eg foie gras) and very prone to early deaths, in epidemic proportions; c) overbreed and form an unstable unsustainable population. etc etc.
An American site even offered pdfs of official government warning signs to stick up at your local park warning against this practice.
So there you go. Bummer though, it's such a joy. But it's ok (ie less harmful) to feed them corn, so maybe people could just start doing that instead.. White bread is bad for anything.

Anyway, this is by means of a big fat segue into my ongoing obsession with backyard livestock. Our local council shot a big hole in my dreams; having requested the relevant bylaws, i bring it out every few days and gaze mournfully at it. The spacing requirements they have for a poultry house (chickens and ducks, y'all) mean that i literally cannot fit it onto my little plot. And of course, "large animals" are out of the question, even if it be the sweetest dwarf cow.

And i have a gaggle of nosy neighbours. Because of the highish density of my corner of suburbia, i have 3 neighbours on one side, 2 behind me, and the normal amount on the other sides. i don't know if i could sneak anything by them...

But.. i feel quite determined to have a duck. i mean, they're often indoor pets, right? and they don't smell like chooks can.
I envisage.. a little paddling pool in the courtyard, a little doghouse for its bedding. all of us waddling around in a gleeful bliss.

I also read some cool stuff about aquaponics. One could even raise rainbow trout!, while simultaneously growing a lush forest of vegetables. Backyard aquaponics, it's the most sustainable and low-footprint method of raising meat available on the planet.
I might do this sometime in the future. But right now i'm just finding the info about raising fish just so full of technical blather about boring pumps and pipes..