my-speck

i'm pregnant and it's going to be a rollercoaster

Penis rules. We have all of this in front of us… August 29, 2009

Dear Poogie,

I’ve just peed myself laughing (haven’t done enough kegels exercises yet following your birth – tut tut me) reading a story from another mum about her ‘penis rules’ for her boys.  Which struck a chord with me particularly as I’ve had a number of conversations in the past week with other mums about their boys and their boys penises.  Specifically, mishaps that involve the said appendages.  They can and do frequently occur.   Sadly for you, I’ve come to the conclusion that despite my best efforts I think I’m still going to laugh laugh laugh when you do injure it in strange ways, as is bound to happen.  Which will make me a crap mum.  But human.

Thinking about these things makes me realise that I have A LOT to learn about having a boy in the family.  I have LOTS of sisters who I grew up with (they are quite a bit younger, so I saw the growing, the mishaps, misadventures & achievements).   Your Aunts.  But I only have two brothers,  your uncles, and they are a lot younger than me.  And I was living overseas much of the time when they were really small.   To tell the truth, I’m a bit apprehensive about how the hell I’m going to manage with a boy.  So to laugh about penis misadventures somewhat diffuses the tension for me.  There – my poor justification for the future when I just can’t help myself but laugh at you…

So.. Stories this week about penis misadventures in small boys I’ve heard include:

  • slamming the penis between two kitchen cupboard doors while swinging on them.  Ow!
  • playing with the penis in public spots and places like the living room to the consternation of more conservative relatives.  Institution of the ‘only in room and bathroom’ rule.  Subsequent observation of vigorous hand action under a pillow while on the couch.
  • getting the penis somehow caught in a Thomas the Tank Engine battery-operated train and it somehow getting threaded through the rolling mechanism.  This apparently required total destruction of the Thomas the Tank Engine engine by two people to extricate the said squished willy.  Ouch.
  • using the penis as an exploding hose as someone laughed once when this was done by mistake.   I.e. holding the hand over the end of the penis while weeing.  In the living room.  (large clean-up).   Unfortunately it became a party trick very quickly.
  • lots of incidents of foreskin getting stuck and needing medical attention to get it put back in the right spot…. ahh
  • loving a brother’s penis

What I don’t know yet is any personal stories from your Dad’s childhood.  Grandma E – anything you want to let us know about to add to the collection???

So now I’m ready for the day you will inevitably injure your little penis (I mean that in the cute  sense though really I should know better that to use that adjective anywhere near the word penis)

The outcome of all of this is going to be the start of ‘Penis Rules’ in our house.

Faemom‘s penis rules are:

  1. You can only play with your penis when you are alone in your room.
  2. You are not allowed to play with someone else€™s penis.
  3. You must have pants on to go out front.
  4. When in public, including the front yard, you may not take your penis out to show any one.

Which are all fair and good in terms of behaviour and decency…  But what about safety.  So can we think about adding

5. No naked penises near the kitchen cupboards

6. No playing with the train set with a bare penis

7. No using the penis as an exploding hose

8. No touching the foreskin ever

I guess it could go on forever, and won’t exclude all possibilities.  So – here it is.

5.  You are responsible for the safe conduct of your own penis.

A fundamental rule I think I’m going to have to learn as a mum.  And I think a lasting one.  In fact it seems to me to be applicable right through childhood, puberty and into adulthood. 🙂

Love you and your penis.  Though not in a wrong way.

mum

 

slinging to the beat of the washing August 27, 2009

Filed under: family,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 6:10 pm
Tags: , , ,

Hello Oscar,

Today you’re good, good, good and I’m good, good, good too! We have had some fantastic news about your Grandad, and I’ve been beaming all afternoon. Yay, yay, yay. I don’t know that you quite understood what I explained to you as we walked down the street, but I think you got the fact that I was emotional and happy. You definitely understood when I was crying with joy, and then after that seemed to pick up on my good mood.

So, you’ve been eating lots and lots for the past few days. I think a combination of the heat of the past few days and perhaps another growth spurt.

And you helped me hang out the washing. You insisted on a change from the normal sling position, so I just stuck you in it forward instead of facing me, and you seemed pretty happy with the whole thing. You liked the feel of the different materials on your face as I pulled the clean washing in…

You in the new position - forward facing in the baby sling.  You just wanted to help with the washing hanging-out!

You in the new position - forward facing in the baby sling. You just wanted to help with the washing hanging-out!

Do pe doop doop (singing my happy song).

love mum

 

Today i have… done so much before 9am. This mum stuff is hard work. August 26, 2009

Today I’ve

  • fed you at 3:30 am
  • fed you at 5:30 am
  • said goodbye to your dad as he left the bed to sleep somewhere else ’cause you’re such a noisy eater at 5:35 am
  • been vomited on in bed by you at 6:38 am
  • attempted to mop-up the vomit in the bed, on me, and on you at 6:39 am (you kept sleeping)
  • vaguely thought, “oh shit, I only washed the sheets, the undersheet, the duvet cover and aired the duvet yesterday, great timing!” at 6:40 am as I drifted back to sleep
  • been woken by your thrashing arms against my face at 7:08 am (you kept sleeping)
  • said goodbye to your dad at 7:24 am as he left the house
  • tried to get back to sleep at 7:25 am
  • worked out that you had woken up and were wide-eyed at 7:27 am
  • tried to ignore the fact it was morning at 7:28 am
  • conceded at 7:36 am that your grunting, exertion and ‘poo-face’ facial expression was consistent with the fact you were actually pooing.
  • calculated at 7:36 am that you hadn’t pooed for at least 48 hours
  • determined at 7:36 am that immediate evasive action was required unless I wanted a pooey and vomity bed.
  • lost track of time
  • moved you to the bathroom, removed your nappy and assisted you to complete the poo in the bathroom sink in an EC-style manner.
  • laughed as you concentrated and stared intently at yourself in the mirror as you finished pooing
  • complimented myself on my fortuitous movement of your bum back over the sink after I thought you’d finished.  Was amazed at the amount of poo one small baby can contain.
  • gave you a quick bath in the sink
  • took the nappy bucket down to the laundry
  • scrubbed your pooey nappy from this morning
  • put on two loads of laundry – your nappies and your clothes
  • had a play and a chat with you on the floor.
  • assembled my bike and the bike trainer on the back deck (having brought the bike up to the back deck three days ago and the trainer up yesterday). Step 3 complete!
  • my bike set-up and your rocker... We're feeding as I take this..

  • located my bike cleats (in the very back of the closet – who would have thought)
  • cycled for 12 minutes (woo hoo! exercise – ahoy) while simultaneously coo-ing to you to keep you calm (as you were feeling abandoned from the look on your face)
  • toasted a muffin and got some juice and managed to wolf it down
  • you and me. you're getting your fill

  • fed you again at 8:50 am while simultaneously reading my email

Gee its busy being a mum

love your attempting to get back into regular exercise mum

ps. oh, and I wrote this post at the end of the feed and its now only 9:06 am.

 

One day at a time… And one thing a day. (and gee its HOT!) August 24, 2009

Hello Poogie!

Its hot hot hot and you're just in a nappy

Its hot hot hot and you’re just in a nappy

Well.  According to the Bureau of Meteorology’s great website, its 31.8 degrees celcius today.  Which is totally unseasonally hot weather.  Its still August, so in theory we are in winter.  I don’t think I remember a winter day in August in my lifetime when it was over 30 degrees. You are sweating, as am I. I’ve been trying to drink lots of water. I think I’ve gone through at least 2.3 litres already, and its only 3pm. You’re not so happy. Just a little grumpy. I’ve got you dressed in just a nappy, and at present you’re asleep on our bed. You had a HUGE scream for about 20 minutes earlier today, unlike anything heard before. Mostly in your dad’s ear. He jiggled you about and tried a number of things to calm you. You’re generally such a placid little happy person, it was quite distressing to see you scream to the bottom of your lungs for 20 minutes. And it hurt the ears. After a cool bath, a change of nappy and some jiggling you finally decided that you did want some food and so you got a breastfeed, which seemed to calm you down. As I fed you I watched the colour in you drain from beet-red down to a milder pink then normal looking. I think it was a combination of the screaming and the heat that had got you so red. And I nearly panicked, but managed to remember to just chill, take your temperature to ensure you were ok (you were a normal temperature) and just make sure I kept calm…

my baby-mum lesson of the week

So. I wanted to let you know a lesson I’ve learnt and do need to try to stick to – it just seems to help with your sleeping and feeding, and my sanity. First part is just to take things with you one day at a time. If I wake up and I don’t feel well, I’m tired or you seem cranky, its totally ok for me to just cancel any plans we might have and just relax. Which included leaving the dishes in the sink if needed. Yes, when you reach parenthood I’m sure the books you’ll read / advice you’ll be given will stress this, but it’s much harder to do than it sounds. I’m getting there. I don’t think your dad is quite on par with my need to do this some days, but my sanity needs it. Not every day, not even all that often, but when I do need to do this, I really need to. Something like a mental health day from work. Though I still have to look after you, just have a day when I try to do less. Unscheduled.

The next step is my having learnt a rule – only one thing / outing a day (apart from walks, they don’t always count). Again, much harder to do than it sounds. Its a big momentum change from not having a baby like you to look after. So harder ’cause its so foreign. I’ve found myself on some days thinking, “oh, I’ll just pop out and get x done too”… Hours later when we get home and I can’t collapse in a chair from exhaustion because I have to look after you and you’re cranky ’cause we did too much – I regret this decision. I’ve been a bit slower than I perhaps should have learning this lesson – I’m blaming it on my hormones and tiredness. But now I think I’ve got it. So. We plan a maximum of one outing a day now. Sometimes it could be one outing with two stops – today was mum’s learning group at the Child Health Clinic and then grocery shopping as the shops are next door to the clinic. But that is it. Now we are home and I’m washing and you’re sleeping and we won’t go out again.

So. I’m writing it down to convince myself that its a rule. ‘Cause every time I break it everything is harder. Yesterday it got broken, and I was exhausted and didn’t sleep so well. You weren’t too bad..

Off to drink some more water and make some more milk.

love your boobie mum

Its SERIOUSLY hot. And you're very serious..

Its SERIOUSLY hot. And you’re very serious..

 

Maternal Love Overload August 19, 2009

Hello Little Poogie,

YOU ARE SO CUTE.

Yes, I’m shouting.  Cause you are the cutest baby on the planet.  In my slightly, oh just slightly, biased opinion.

This is just a quick note to let you know that I haven’t been writing because I’ve been consumed by you.  You take up all my day.  It used to be just feeding and sleeping and washing and the like.  But now that you are awake more and practising talking noises, its playing, reading books, talking practice, discussing politics etc.   Well, I talk to you about politics.  That conversation is  a bit one-sided.  Goo-goo ga-ga is more your style.

Anyway.   I’m not sure what has happened, but in the last week or so something has definitely gone on with my hormones.  They have kicked in with a big shebang once again and just made me fall totally head-over-heels in love with you.  Crazily. Scarily.  OMG if someone does anything to you I will tear them limb from limb with my bare hands – slightly psycho-ly.

Just so you know.  This may well pass, but right now I’m all loved-up and you are the best.  Even when you do large explosive foamy disgusting smelling poos that leak out all through your clothing, your wrap, into your carseat, and seep down through the holes into the car.

poo!

poo!

No, I don’t like cleaning it up, but I still love you!

smiling and talking

smiling and talking

love mum

p.s. you are 8 weeks and four days old today.  And two months exactly tomorrow!

smiling!

smiling!

 

A-OK apart from a cracked ear.. just skin leakage August 10, 2009

Filed under: healthcare,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 9:45 pm

Hello Poogie,

its all ok.  We have some cortisone cream and you’re going to live.  THe ear infection is not an ear infection at all but a painful and raw case of dry and probably mum-hormone related skin damage.

Not too much crying.  And the source of your irritability today has been established:  the sticky mess that came out your behind has made you feel a lot better.

erk for mum and dad though.  Your dad was on bum-clean duties, I did nappy scrubbing.  No dry-pailing for a mess like that.

love mum

 

You made me cry… You got sick for the first time August 10, 2009

Filed under: pregnancy — rakster @ 1:32 pm
Tags: , , , , ,

Hello Poogie,

Well. You seem to have an ear infection but are coping pretty well with it. I on the other hand have been in tears. Worried that you’re ok. We took you to the pharmacist yesterday as we were worried, but on her advice and our own assessment you didn’t seem too bothered and so today we’re here at the doctor’s surgery waiting to be seen.

I don’t think I was quite prepared for how strongly upsetting, worrying and essentially heart-wrenching I am finding it. I teeter between telling myself you’ll be totally A-OK fine (which I know you will) and worrying – not about any specific bad outcome as such, but just general worry. Mostly just upset worry that you will be in pain.

waiting at the doctors

love mum

 

Fat Pug and new nappies August 9, 2009

Filed under: pregnancy — rakster @ 8:19 pm

Hello Puggie,

Some of the new cloth nappies / diapers I ordered have arrived.

And I reckon you look pretty cute in them..

 

OMG WTH is it with TLAs and MCNs???? August 6, 2009

Hi Oscar,

today is more of a little rant. Rather than a little story.

I’ve been meaning to write to you about the complexities of nappies / diapers, the confusing choices about them, and about what your dad, you and I are doing with respect to them. I’ll get to that. But for today, I’m going to keep it brief (you’re not sleeping well – just seems to be 15 minute cat-naps at the most, so my writing time is limited) and just complain about how hard it is to actually read about, research, get opinions on, and generally make a decision about nappies / diapers!

Why! Because of all the goddam three letter acronyms (TLAs) that are just peppered through discussions on cloth nappies / diapers. “OMG WTH is it with TLAs and MCNs????”

OMG * Oh my God
WTH * What the Hell
TLA * Three Letter Acronym
MCN * Modern Cloth Nappy
MCD * Modern Cloth Diaper

My background in IT and telecoms is actually paying off: notorious for TLAs and undecipherable jargon, the part of my brain that deals with such palaver is getting a right royal workout. However nappy / diaper research is worse than the TLAs in the telecoms industry – not only do you have to have TLAs for every bit and bob to do with a nappy / diaper, when you converse on forums and the like it seems you also need TLAs for each and every family member. I was going ok while I was pregnant – I seemed to be able to navigate the forums I looked at by some guesswork (which I occasionally got wrong, but the general idea was ok)…. To give the uninitiated an idea of what kind of crap TLAs are used, check out the acronyms listed on a baby forum here in Australia. A few examples:

  • DH – Dear Husband
  • DF – Dear Fiance
  • DS – Dear Son
  • DD – Dear Daughter

Getting the idea? Those in your family are Dear… Except for the following people:

  • MIL – Mother in Law
  • FIL – Father in Law
  • SO – significant Other (apparently for if you’re just dating someone, obviously they haven’t quite made the “Dear” grade yet)

Mmmm.. I see a slight bias or bent to these TLAs already.

Anyway, those ones aren’t too hard to guess at, though why the hell anyone would want to continually refer to their partner as DH or whatever, it beats me. I can think of lots of others that could have been used instead given the content of what some of the people were writing about their partners: LAMF*** being one of them. Or perhaps just SGRPP****. Ok, I admit, now I’m just starting to make them up. And I’m getting sidetracked by a rant about the mundane nature of and painfully horrific posts that you find on lots of baby and mum and pregnancy sites (though some of it is great, its just the full spectrum of the population and their problems – better than Dr Phil any day – you can write back!).

So, on top of the already long list of acronyms needed to get through the posts on the mummy/mommy and baby general forums, the nappy / diaper forums take it to a whole new level! And the sites of the nappy / diaper makers seem to go there too – really using the acronyms all over the shop (so to speak) making it almost impossible for a NRAIM (nappy-related-acronym-illiterate-mum) like myself to even attempt to PURCHASE anything in the right size shape or colour. My advice to all nappy / diaper sites: KISS*****. Yeah, they teach that one in my MBA****** course.

Again for the uninitiated, you can read a list of the commonly used nappy-related (diaper-related) terms on an Australian nappy-centric forum (yes, that is if you can pull yourself off the floor and believe that there really is that much to discuss about nappies / diapers- if you see this forum, you’ll see that for some people, it really is endless, though I shouldn’t be surprised, the internet is full of little nooks and crannies with all sorts of people talking in minute detail about all sorts of topics)… Some more examples:

  • MCN – Modern Cloth Nappy; progressing to
  • AI1 – All-in-One
  • AI2 – All-in-Two (is this a misnomer??)
  • BV – Bamboo Velour (mmm! This sounds like something you’d find in a nightclub, could be fun)
  • … the list goes on…

And perhaps my favourite from this bunch in the discussion:

  • AF – “Aunt Flo”

WTF*******?? Even after reading the words behind this acronym I’m lost. Are you wondering like me why people are suddenly referring to Aunt Flo? Is it some kind of Australian-Queensland related thing where people have taken the term to refer to a stereotypical pumpkin-scone baking aunt based on the infamously corrupt Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke Petersen‘s wife Flo – famous for her pumpkin scones? That was my first thought on reading the translation . But no, get further and you’ll find that it is in fact a euphemism for the menstrual period. Hence the “flow”. See – it really does go too far, an acronym for a euphemism that is pretty out-there in the first place. My suspicions that people just post on the forums using the acronyms without really knowing what they mean at all were confirmed on reading further into the thread:

“I also use AF all the time and often wondered what it meant. Thanks”

Remind me not to start posting on these forums about my nappies / diapers and using terms and abbreviations that I really don’t know what they mean. Otherwise I might end up saying something I regret.

IMHO I could just spend all day LMAPO about the things other SAHM/SAHDs have written on the fourms IYKWIM. Alas, my DS, you take up too much time munching on my BBs and IME it just takes too much time to work out all the ETLAs in order to decode WTF they are on about most of the time. YABA YABA YABA is all you get.

TTFN Mum ********

P.S. My new task is to memorise at least one of the general abbreviations every day.

*** Lazy Ass Mother Fucker

****Sexist, gender-role-pandering pansie

***** Keep it Simple Stupid

****** Masters of Business Administraion

******* What the Fuck?

******** In my honest opinion I could just spend all day laughing my ass off about the things other stay-at-home-mums / stay-at-home-dads have written on the forums if you know what I mean. Alas, my Dear Son, you take up too much time munching on my boobies and in my experience it just takes too much time to work out all the extended three letter acronyms. Yet another bloody acronynm, yet another bloody acronym, yet another bloody acronym (Translation: Ra Ra Ra or or Yada yada yada) is all you get!

Tata for now. Mum

 

Old MacDonald and smiling August 4, 2009

Hello Oscar!

Guess what – you’ve really started to smile in earnest now.  It started last week, with a few vague and tentative smiles at me and your dad, and now it has progressed to definite smiles, and yesterday I got a first giggle.   Your little dimples come out, and as you have a toothless grin you look adorable but at the same time there is a slightly scarily uncanny resemblance to The Joker.

So – what elicits a smile in a six-week old Oscar? Well, definitely booby. Yes, often when you’ve drifted off to sleep or just a 2-second cat-nap while feasting your little heart out on wholesome breastmilk, you just relax your head back and I get a huge “I’m blissed out and everything is wonderful” smile, often with a bit of nipple still in your mouth. Its kinda rewarding to know that you’re happy down there and I’m providing everything you could possibly need in terms of sustenance and nutrition, and not only that, you enjoy it!

Sometimes you just like to smile when you see your Dad and I or you’re trying to talk to us.

And the best way I’ve found so far to get a smile out of you is to sing “Old MacDonald had a farm”. Yes, lucky you! You definitely recognise the song now and smile when I start to sing the tune. Works a treat with the smiles too. Why do you recognise it? Well, its the only song/tune of a nursery rhyme/baby tune that I can actually remember at this point. So apart from the nonsensical babble songs I make up and sing to you, Old MacDonald is the staple. So its a good thing that you seem to like it. Though it is, I have to admit, starting to bore the crap out of me. There are only so many times you can sing it to yourself before you start to invent animals that couldn’t possibly be on old MacDonalds farm and try to do the noises. Depending on my level of tiredness, this either is a fun game to amuse myself with or just tiresome ’cause I realise how little I know about animals sounds and what a lot I have to learn as a mum in order to live up to the best Old MacDonald standard. The best effort I’ve done so far is Old MacDonald’s dinosaur farm, though past the teradactyl I’m not sure I got even an approximation of what other people might think dinosaurs sounded like.

And at this stage, regardless of what I do with the animals, you love the song. So I guess I’m on the right track…

So – on the to-do list.
1. Learn some more songs to sing to you. This might involve downloading some or something as I just can’t recall the tunes for any really. Oh, maybe Fuzzy Wuzzy was a Bear. But that is only 5 lines long and again will get boring pretty quickly!
2. Learn some more exciting farm animals so I can vary Old MacDonald a bit more.
3. Keep on singing to you. As I’ve told your dad, until you get to the age of like seven, I reckon you’re going to think my singing voice is like the best thing you’ve ever heard. As such a phenomenon hasn’t ever been seen before (i.e. someone thinking my singing voice is the best thing ever), I think I have to ‘milk-it’ for as much as I can get. Gotta be appreciated for something! So be prepared.

love and kisses (and smiles)
mum

P.S. Best way to get rid of a smile? Try to take a photo!