Fear

I was determined that I would be strong while my husband is away and I wouldn’t give in to feelings of fear.

And I didn’t, I was cool calm and collected.

Until it was time to start turning the lights off to go to bed.

I lay there hearing every single little noise. Every movement.

For those who don’t know, since May 1 we’ve had 2 cars stolen, a break in and several attempted break ins. Last night was my first night without another adult in the house since this all began.

So at about midnight I was standing in the kitchen having a drink of water when I heard the screen door open. The dog went for it, he went nuts barking his head off and I distinctly heard a voice say “oh shit” and running footsteps.

Well done Raafy – our trusty guard dog!

So tonight knowing that Raafy has taken up duties as “man of the house” (giggle) I’ll sleep a little sounder.

What do you do all day?

As a mum a lot of the work I do is invisible. If you weren’t here to see the spill on the floor, you won’t know I ever cleaned it up. If you didn’t see the kitchen utensils scattered from one end of the house to the other, you won’t know I spent half an hour tracking them all down. If you didn’t see the tantrums, tears, settling for naps, breastfeeds, packing away of toys, reading of stories, trips to the park, kissing of boo-boos, explanations to the 2 year old about every. little. thing. and the making of, serving of and cleaning up after every meal – then its like it never happened and I did nothing.

If you come home of an evening and the house looks relatively the same, that means I got quite a lot done. Some days living with two active toddlers is like trying to hold back a hurricane with a single finger, it doesn’t work.

Other days we get extras done. I mean the quick clean of a bathroom or the making of beds. That is an extra.

Now that I study the “what do you do all day” question bites even more. I do a lot. A damn lot. My head hits the pillow every night and I am mentally and physically spent.

My house is not perfect and I make no secret of the fact that I hate housework. I hate putting washing away, or drying the dishes. I don’t mind vacuuming because it’s quick but I can’t stand mopping. Polishing furniture bo-ring. I’d much rather reread Louis Pasteur’s theory on germs then clean the toilet. I will admit I put the blinkers on and chose to ignore certain messes. Wish my husband could.

But it’s not my husband who asks me what I do all day, at least not outright on occasion it is implied. And I will admit before my first child was actually born I thought stay at home mum’s were all about Oprah, lunch dates, shopping and Playgroup. I was wrong. I look back now and laugh, one baby that was easy.

My toddlers can be an organized and efficient demolition crew. While I’m cleaning up in one room they are pulling the other one apart. I almost feel like one day my husband is going to open the front door and it will all come pouring out like opening a flood gate. Some days it is more war zone then family home, I’m sure mums of toddlers can relate.

When my first was a little over 1 she could pull out all her toys and spread them across the living room floor in under 30 seconds. I timed her. She’s a mess making machine.

I don’t believe in training toddlers to clean. My 15 month old loves to copy me with a rag wiping down surfaces and my almost 3 year old will put her toys back in the toy box. She’ll also tell me when there’s a mess and attempt to wipe up her spills. I don’t expect them to clean, I don’t expect them to do anything, cleaning is not their job, playing is their job. I’m often told you have to train them young. I don’t think so. If they went to childcare and were sweeping floors or wiping down tables I would be livid.

So mum’s, we do a lot, some of it can only be seen by us, or our children, while other things like our happy healthy well cared for children are a testament to everyone of the great work we’re doing. Forget the tidy house, as long as it’s not a pig sty then it doesn’t really matter. Engaging with your children, that is what’s really important.

Speaking of which, I have work to do

Sunday catch up

The wet season is over, the dry season is here. This is by far my favourite time of year.

It’s cool of an evening and in the morning but lovely warm and sunny in the day. Slowly the grass will turn crispy under foot.

It’s perfect weather to grow tomatoes, I should get onto that.

This dry season as opposed to last I have two walking one talking toddlers. I am so much closer to getting my drivers license. And I’m much more confident in myself and my parenting. I’m no longer in survival mode, I’m thriving!

I have 29 hours of driving left to do. Only 29 hours! I can do that!

I get a little bit more sleep, though it is unpredictable and some nights he sleeps through and other nights he doesn’t.

And I’m happier. And I’m healthier.

We’ve made big decisions. No more babies. We now have permanent contraception in place. Well, hubby does, I suppose I could have a love child if he were to deploy overseas, but that would require a lot of effort and I’m very lazy lol

I got my very first assignment back 30/30! Take that previous commenters who called me uneducated and picked on my grammar!

So we’re going well. I’m feeling okay about this wonder week. But I’m just at the beginning, ask me how I feel next week

Instinctive Parenting is changing

It’s true! There are no little babies in the house anymore. There are two toddlers, one big and one small, but no babies.

And my focus is changing. Though I talk about birthing and pregnancy, these are past events for me and my family.

So as we grow and change as a family the focus of my writing will change. I’ll write about toddlers, family dynamics, gentle guidance, healthy eating, studying from home with children, and whatever else I feel like sharing at the time.

From time to time I’ll write about babies and newborns and birth and pregnancy. I have been there, I’ve done that and I love sharing about my experiences.

Happy Easter everyone, I hope you have a beautiful holiday with your families.

Are you STILL in your pjs?

I had a door knocker come to my house earlier, it’s not even 9am on a Sunday mind you, and seem shocked that I’m still in my PJs. I didn’t bother to put on clothes to answer the door, whatever it was that he was selling I wasn’t buying but how about a run down of why I’m still in my PJs.

At 10pm after finishing some study I let DH know I’m going to bed. He follows me and gives me some important information about his corps is being being downsized maybe and he might either be away 8-9 months a year every year or leave the army. No idea what he’s going to do or what he wants to do. End of conversation.

Of course I then have an awesome nights sleep.

At 1.45am the baby wakes up. Being that it’s April 1st he plays this awesome joke where he falls asleep for 10 minutes wakes up needs a couple of minutes soothing back to sleep for 10 minutes wakes up couple minutes of soothing. This goes on until 3.30am when he finally falls asleep at the breast. I transfer him. He stays asleep. I have now been awake so long I can’t switch off my brain.

Finally fall asleep shortly before my husbands alarm goes off. Yup he works on a Sunday.

I fall asleep again to be woken up at 6, the toddler is awake and DH needs to leave for work. I stumble out of bed and lay down on the couch.

Wake up to toddler smacking me in the face with a spatula telling me “baby wake mummy get baby.”

Stumble up the hall and get baby out of bed, back to the couch and onto the boob. Wake up to baby smacking me in the face and laughing hysterically.

Coffee. “Mummy give me milk,” “mummy I want bread,” and generally crying and whinging all about the place.

Make toast, toddler has a melt down because I use the open jar of honey instead of the full new sealed one. They’re the same apart from one being a quarter empty (no its not three quarters full I’m not in the mood for glass half full half empty shit, it’s a quarter empty and that’s that).

She agrees to eat the toast in front of the TV. I pull the high chair in from outside, the baby is such a messier eater that I hose the high chair down of an evening.

Pop him in the high chair and put his toast on the tray. Turn to my coffee, turn around and he’s half out the high chair. Put him back in and hand him a sippy cup of water and some grapes. Finally he’s eating and happy. The toddler is eating and…

“Uh oh, it’s wet.”

She’s split that fudging cup of milk on herself. My house has an almost constant smell of milk because no matter what she always manages to spill it.

Clean up the spill and turn around to see toddler mashing grapes into his high chair tray. Get him out put him on the floor to play and drink a few sips of coffee.

He’s pulling out Daddy’s DVDs. Now to give you an idea of what I’m up against here this is my husbands DVD collection.

And while they’re packed in there pretty tight there are 3 spots where tiny little baby fingers manage to get movies out. And he does many times a day. Over and over and over.

So this morning I start running a sink of water (“movies are not toys baby, out to the toy room”), a few more sips of coffee (“movies are not toys baby, out to the toy room”), wash some dishes (“movies are not toys baby, out to the toy room”), and then tend to the toddler who wants more toast (“oh look your brother didn’t finish his, here you go”), and finish the dishes.

8am and Mike the Knight comes on, awesome another day with this crap song stuck in my head.

Take my supplements, thank god this is a habit or else I swear my body would just shut down all together.

Find toddler and baby putting clean washing back into the drier, usher them out of the laundry, shut the door and swear to deal with that later.

8.30am rolls around and there’s a knock at the door. You’re selling something, who knows what, you started with are you still in your PJs and I decided I wasn’t going to listen.

It takes a lot of work to look this crappy every day. It takes hours of overnight wakings, a hundred redirections, heaps of listening carefully and interpreting (seriously you playing toddler translator on minimal sleep) and it takes every ounce of energy not to pack myself up and hitch a ride to the nearest funny farm.

Not really, I love my kids, I love my family, I love being a mum despite it’s endless challenges.

But seriously 8.30am and I’m still in my PJs? Why so shocked, I’ll probably still be in them at midday.

Who door knocks at 8.30am any way?

What we’re up to and what I’m doing

My son is 15 months old and his sleep is unpredictable. Despite some serious improvement using the No-Cry Sleep Solution he still wakes at night.

I feel like I am constantly reading, writing and talking about my sons sleep. I know it will get better and one day all these sleepless nights will be a distant memory… But when?!

I haven’t slept through the night in my own bed since before my daughter was born. She’ll be 3 in July.

We’ll just keep chugging along. Yesterday we ticked many things off the ‘to-do list’ like changing my license over to a Queensland one, grocery shopping, printing out and sending off my first assignment, sending off my application for student membership to the ATMS, and we even got some housework done. This weekend is a lazy one with DH working, his next day off is Monday so apart from a medical appointment we will be doing nothing. Tuesday we have a medical appointment for DH, a driving lesson for me, a playdate in the afternoon and then I’m going to a work conference in the evening. Then I’m working Wednesday evening, and Thursday evening too. Gosh we’re busy little people.

So I might not be blogging much in the next week, I will when I can and I’m still here but I’m run off my feet.

Before I had children

Once upon a time, in my life before children, I thought I knew it all.

I thought all babies slept through after a couple of weeks.

I thought toddler tantrums happened because parents weren’t strict enough.

I thought being a stay at home mum would be a cake walk, it’s not like a real job.

Breastfeeding is natural so it must be easy.

All babies are out of nappies by like 18 months.

Getting kids to eat healthy is easy.

Childbirth is super super painful and must always happen in a hospital.

I was an idiot.

I knew nothing.

Goodbye 2011!

My son was born, we came home from hospital and became a family, we moved to Townsville, we survived 10 weeks of DH being on course, we had many visitors, we saw good times and bad.  I flew by myself with 2 children from Townsville to Brisbane, and back!

I had a great year overall.  Sure it wasn’t easy but it was good.  I saw my toddler turn 2, my son smile, laugh, roll, crawl, sit, stand, cruise, grin, eat, feed himself, play – all for the first time.

I grew my own vegetables and herbs!

I joined a playgroup, I made friends.

I bought a Thermomix

What a year.

So, it’s goodbye 2011.  You were good while you lasted.  Hello 2012, let’s make it a good one.

 

Road trips and such

So we drove all night from Townsville to Dalby and made it in one safe piece. It took 19 hours. Lots of stops. And lots of DVDs to get us here.

DD and DS watched Giggle and Hoot, Playschool, Toy Story and Monsters Vs Aliens.

DS fell asleep at 8ish and DD conked out at 11. At around 1 we stopped for DH to go to the toilet and DS stirred in his car seat, so I jumped in the back and fed him leaning over the car seat until he fell asleep again. DH thought it was hilarious, I thought it was so much easier then Bottlefeeding. NIP to the extreme!

We arrived at lunchtime and we were all extremely tired. For DH and the toddler that meant straight to bed, but the baby was overtired and only slept one sleep cycle.

3 days into our trip though and apart from being woken by a rooster and waking with a fever at 11 last night he is sleeping longer and better then ever. Although we’ve just passed the WW thunder cloud so that might have something to do with it.

The kids did well for Christmas, with some new toys and lots from garage sales in top condition. DD has been enjoying the pool immensely.

We’ve been watching very minimal TV and doing lots of relaxing and getting lots of much needed rest.

And I’ve been thinking about the new year and what it may bring. I’ve been thinking about next Christmas with a 18 month old and a 3 year old and how fun that will be.

Good times ahead. Truly. With less then a month until my son’s 1st birthday, things really haven’t been better.

What stops me going postal

Alright, confession time.

This is what I look like before my morning coffee.

And here is what I look like after.

Cappuccino, frappucino, Spume al cafe, latte, flat white, macchiato, short black, I don’t care make it caffeinated.

Now as for which is my favourite, here’s what I make every morning in my thermomix.

1 tbspn granulated coffee
1 tbspn raw sugar
10 second speed 1
200gm ice
200gm milk
5 minutes speed 6-7

Serve in a big cold glass with a straw.

Coffee, what would I do without you.