I’ve been thinking about doing something like this for awhile – a weekly round up of the blog and social media stuff for the week. It might turn into a regular thing or it might fizzle out completely. Impossible to tell.

Most Popular

The End of Surreal - on settling in to my pregnancy and not waiting for the other shoe to drop

Lines of Communication – on meltdowns and how a sad face can be just as beautiful as a happy one

JellyBean Watch – Week 5 – on pregnancy, vbacs and hospitals

Stuff I Stumbled

Ordinarily, this would be a list of all my favourite reads for the week but last week I didn’t really get to my reading. But it’s one of my favourite blogs and one of my favourite bloggers jumping into the quagmire of young women and body image

Scars and All

Enquiring Minds

I love that people can ask me questions, either annonymously or not. If you want to ask me a question head over to FormSpring

Last week, I  was asked two questions.

7 Tweets in 7 Days

Obviously I tweet far more than once a day. But something appealed to me about a week in tweets without, you know, including all the actual drivel that I type during the week.

Facebook Favourites

I love my facebook page and all the lovely people that inhabit it. Here are a couple of things that tickled their fancy this week.

I don’t know why she looked so shocked. She’s the one who threw every item of clothing out of the laundry basket and scattered it around the lounge room so she could then climb into the laundry basket. A couple of times. Her affinity for all laundry items makes it exceedingly difficult to actually get any laundry done. Well that’s my excuse for my carpet acting as a chest of drawers anyway, and I’m sticking to it. Unless the real laundry fairy shows up, that is.

Every now and again a phrase or word will pop up and before you can turn around it is EVERYWHERE, like it had always been there, grinning at you smuggly from its pop culture corner. Mostly I hate these words and phrases.

Exhibit A – “Meh” – I’m pretty sure it’s not a word. And it’s an incredibly short way of saying I don’t really agree with what your saying but I can’t be bothered to actually articulate why. It’s lazy and disrespectful. Oh, I get that I’m a word snob. I do. But I like it.

Exhibit B – “just saying” – you’ve just said it. I’m pretty sure you don’t need to remind me that you’ve just said it. But really, I think it’s just a way to speak your mind candidly and then minimise it somehow. If you want to say something. Stand behind it. As I’m writing this I’m suddenly feeling like the most humourless person on the planet. But I’ll continue on, because humourless or not, it still grates on me like nails on a chalkboard.

Exhibit C – The most prevalent one of all – “First World Problem” and more insidious than you might imagine.

Here’s the thing – everything is a first world problem (in a developed country). So what exactly is this whole first world problem thing about then? You give up the right to complain, feel something, experience pain or have a gripe because you’ve got running water and aren’t starving to death? Yes, I’ll admit it is often used to acknowledge that you are experiencing a problem within the context of being quite privileged. I get that. But because it could equally be applied to pretty much any problem anyone could ever have, big or small, it’s completely meaningless. And to add insult to injury, this particular phrase has the ability to amble around the concrete jungle, minimising and invalidating feelings left right and centre because they’re not serious enough. Did you get that? Your problems aren’t big enough.

And it’s not just confined to this whole first world problem labelling craze. It’s everywhere. Had trouble trying to conceive? You don’t get to feel bad because some people have actual, diagnosed feritility problems. Boyfriend beat you up? Well that’s not nearly as bad as some women who are killed by their significant others. Child having a tantrum? I’m pretty sure those kids on Supernanny are having worse ones.

That’s what I hate about it. Because at the end of the day, unless I’m being stoned to death, drinking toxic water and dying of a preventable disease, I don’t get to have an actual feeling unless it is 100% positive. And that is some kind of bullshit. People have feelings and they don’t need to be judged or minimised into non-existentence. And it doesn’t take long before you start accepting things into your life that you shouldn’t if you are constantly consumed with being so fucking grateful for living in a developed country. Because if you have no ‘real’ problems, then you never have to change anything.

A rainy day is the best kind of day for playing outside. The trampoline doubles as a giant puddle jumper, the sandpit is perfect for making sand castles that stick together nicely, water has been collecting in the dump truck making the perfect supply for ‘painting’ the cubby house and although you can’t see the moon you can see plenty of clouds.

And even better than that? The well-earned bubble bath after dinner. If by dinner, you mean pretending to eat one or two spoonfuls of soup. That counts as dinner, right?

It starts with a cheeky smile during story time, when she’s supposed to be winding down after her big day. But somehow, she never does winding down. Ever. There’s just full speed and crashing later on.

What’s so funny? She was throwing a fish puzzle piece off the couch and Josh was picking it up for her. HI-LAR-IOUS! Yes, she is very easily amused. And that belly laugh? It is just music to my ears. I could listen to that all day.

And keep doing it? Ten more times? Well that’s just comedic genius.

I’m guest posting today at Sleepless Nights. You can check it out here: Exhaustion and the Art of Lazy Parenting.

Today is my first doctor’s appointment for me and the jellybean. I imagine that the blood tests will come back and say I’m iron deficient (again!) and I should be taking the super-strong iron supplements. Last time I was on them and they were about 20x more than the general recommended intake. And I took them twice a day. It wrecks havoc with your system, but it was the only way to get my iron levels up to a normal level.

As I’m in complete, unadulterated planning mode, I also called the hospital yesterday. Not my closest hospital. Because my closest hospital has about a 2% VBAC success rate (vaginal birth after cesarean). Not encouraging. And their rate of c-section generally is about 55%. Which is ridiculous. And I’m no longer surprised that I had a c-section. I’m surprised when anyone birthing there, doesn’t have a c-section. My area is a bit of a black hole for VBAC options but I’ve discovered that there is a program at another relatively close hospital (about an hour away).

I called them yesterday and mostly they were very helpful. But in general, I don’t think it’s a good idea for people answering the phone at the delivery unit to blather on about how they never make appointments before 14-20 weeks because you are high risk for miscarriage. Everyone knows that. You don’t need to be beaten over the head with it. There are so many better ways of saying it.

I’ll be actively looking for other ways to aid me in my VBAC attempt. So if anyone has any tips or good books to read – I’m all ears.

Dinner is hit and miss. Most days it doesn’t get eaten at all. And for some reason, I still persist in my refusal for Riley to substitute dinner with eating peanut butter from the jar with a spoon. Go figure. But avocado is still a favourite. It was her first food and her enthusiasm for hasn’t really wavered ever since.

She loves helping me cook and mix. So yesterday, I popped her up on the bench and she helped me make guacamole. She mashed away while chanting ‘helping!’, ‘I did it!’ and then turned her nose up at my offer of avocado on toast, opting instead just to eat the avocado on its own.

I think I could be on to a winner with her helping to make her own dinner. Because it all got eaten. Either that, or it was a fluke. It was pretty fun. I’ll probably keep doing it anyway, fluke or no fluke.

I don’t know when it happened but sometime a few days ago ‘mummy’ was gone and was promptly replaced by ‘mum’. I’m not sure how I feel about this forging ahead into little kid-dom. But I think it’s fair to say I’m not a fan. Not even a little bit. I was initially reluctant to be called ‘mummy’ just because I always called my mum by her first name. But now I’m actually quite attached to it. And this mum business? Just doesn’t cut the mustard.

The deadline for submitting to the Carnival of Personal Blogging is tomorrow. So you better get your skates on. If you want to submit something – the theme is all about your journey to personal blogging.

I’ll remind you of some of the basics.

What is a Personal Blogger Anyway?

It’s a pretty broad category. Basically, it’s anyone who primarily uses their own life experience as the content for their blog. Yes. It’s you! With that in mind it includes humour blogs, mummy blogs, daddy blogs, slice of life blogs and pretty much everyone else who ever wondered – Dude! Where’s My Niche?

What is the Theme?

For the first month we decided to start with a broad theme. And that theme is *drumroll* Getting Personal – Journey to Personal Blogging. You can write about why you chose to write a personal blog, or how you didn’t and it slowly just morphed into one, whatever your journey was – we want to hear about it!!

Dates and Stuff

Submissions are due in here on the 28th July and the Carnival will go live on the 1st August.

Kick Me, Please

Stuck for ideas, or need someone to kick you out of procrastination? I’ll happily give you a kick on twitter, or send some ideas/suggestions your way.

That’s All, Folks

Post your article on your blog and then submit it for the blog carnival on or before July 28, 2010. Make sure you promote the event on your blog by linking back to my final post page, once the Carnival is published. You’ll find the BWW Blog Carnival page and the submission form in the links provided in the box below:

Alternate Submission

Some would be participants don’t want to use the above form because they want to publish the post on the same day the carnival launches. If you are one of those people – no problem! Send me an email with your blog url and the title of your post.

On the Big Day

The day before the launch I’ll be sending everyone an email to ask you to include a link back to my post on personal blogging (which will also have a link to everyone who has participated in the carnival). And then on the big day, there will be nothing to do except get reading!

The Big Questions

Anyone have any questions? Or need my help? Email me. I’m happy to help in any way I can.

My 8 months of trying to conceive was long, gruelling and emotionally harrowing. And really, by comparison to the length of time it takes some people who suffer with secondary fertility it is a relatively short period of time. And yet, there’s nothing about it that seems short. I have an infinite respect for other people who go through the trying to conceive turmoil for only a small amount of time or an unbelievably long amount of time. After 8 months I was wondering how many more months I had in me. I can’t imagine how people feel after two years.

For a while the pregnancy test was sitting on my kitchen bench. I would look at it every now and again for reassurance because the whole thing just seemed so surreal. After months of expecting to get pregnant, I’d crossed over into struggling to believe that it would ever happen. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something bad to happen. And although it’s only been a few days, I’m settling into it, just a bit now.

I’m not waiting to get my period. I’m figuring out ways to get more nap time, and making sure I take my vitamins and taking extra care of my teeth (first pregnancy resulted in about 12 cavities. Yes, 12! I’d rather not do that again). And most importantly, I’m reminding myself that no matter how tired I am, or how uncomfortable I get, I will not complain about it, because I am so grateful.

Part of the reality is that there are all sorts of things I haven’t let myself even think about for a really long time. I haven’t bought anything even remotely baby, even though at times I was sorely tempted. I also have not done any of the things that I swore I would do before I got pregnant. Like get back to a more comfortable weight, get back to exercising and get fit, paint the house and redo the floors, convert the garage into a playroom so I have a fighting chance of getting a dining room table and encouraging some actual table manners. Just to name a few. And all of a sudden that seems like a really long list. Really long. But i don’t care, at least I can buy onesies now.

Sometimes after a busy weekend, things go a bit pear shaped. Riley had a big day on Saturday. Which she loved every minute of. I was at my sister’s 40th birthday and she spent the whole day running around the beach house, convincing people to take her down to the beach, hitting her head on wayward bits of furniture and not napping.

So as we were heading home this morning I was not surprised that she fell asleep in the car at about 10am and didn’t wake up until 1:30 this afternoon. Still despite, that very healthy catch up sleep, she was still a little bit out of sorts. And when I failed to interpret a request this afternoon the situation quickly deterioriated into tears, high pitched screaming and all manner of unpleasantness.

Eventually, I figured it out and was able to snap her out of it by pretending to be grumpy myself. Because sometimes the only cure for a real breakdown in communication is the willingness to make an ass of myself.

For more Point and Shoot entries, head over to Fat Mum Slim.

The tiredness has set in. I am so grateful for relatives visiting this weekend. While my Dad and Step Mum were busy wearing Riley out this morning I was doing some grocery shopping. Alone. I was only going to pick up a few things but became quickly entranced with the idea of being able to shop tantrum-free and stayed out significantly longer than I planned. Which also meant that I could sneak in a nap when Riley crashed later.

Still, I don’t think this little energiser bunny is going to take kindly to this tired business. Things are about to get really creative around here.

It never ceases to amaze me how many things that Riley discovers that I barely even notice. Exhibit A – these bushes in the park. Not just a form of hedging to her – but an intricate array of tunnels – just made for little people exploration. So much so, that she insisted I go in to ‘the tunnel’ as well, I imagine just in case she got lost in there and needed any assistance. Which of course, she didn’t. She’s quite the seasoned adventurer, after all.

It’s been the coldest Winter in awhile. At least it seems that way anyway. I don’t think Riley even notices the cold. Yesterday we went to the park and I way underestimated how chilly it was, and windy and just about to rain. You wouldn’t know it as far as she was concerned, although that might be because she never stopped running. I think that would keep me pretty warm too.

But despite the fact that I was freezing, going to the park with her in the morning is one of my favourite things to do, just the two of us.

Yes, the pregnancy test is my arch nemesis. I don’t think it’s weird at all that I’m almost phobic about an inanimate object. For months, pregnancy tests have tortured me with cold, hard, horribly accurate negatives. I hate even the idea of taking one. Because as much as I hate not knowing, it still has the element of possibility to it. I bought these tests a few days ago. They’ve been mocking me from the corner of the lounge room for all of those days. Despite my disdain for limbo, I was not tempted to take one. Josh and I had decided that we would take one this morning, when I was officially four days late. Which for me is unheard of. But still, I was dreading actually doing it more than anything else.

This morning, I crept out of bed at 4am. The munchkin was on one side and Josh was on the other. I gingerly hopped out of the lovely envelope of warmth and they both continued to snuffle a bit in their sleep. I was incredibly nervous, waiting for the ultimate disappointment.

And then, there it was, two thin pink lines. And although I was too excited to go back to sleep, what I felt most was relief. Relief that I wasn’t broken, relief that my body was capable and relief that this part of my journey was over and a new one had begun.

Riley has been called clingy at various times since birth. Sometimes, even by me, when I struggled to come up with a better one. But I’ve always known that I hated the word. Even when she was attached to me for what seemed like entire weeks at a time, I still hated the word. So if anyone has a better one – I’m all ears!

Over time, she has been less dependent on me for physical reassurance in new situations. And generally she is a gregarious, adventurous little charmer. She will often give me a look of pure bewilderment when she turns on the charm for strangers and they don’t smile back because they’re either distracted, busy or not interested.

So when the new swim instructor said to me yesterday, “she’s very clingy to you”, I was less than impressed. Firstly because when people say something like that it sounds like they are describing some kind of character flaw. Secondly because I don’t really think you can tell if a child is ‘clingy’ from one half hour session. Riley usually does need time to warm up to new people and she’d fallen asleep in the car on the way to the pool. I don’t know if that makes her ‘clingy’ or not. But I do know that I’d like people to get to know her a bit before they start throwing labels about.

I’ve been holding on to the afternoon nap for dear life. Those few hours during the day where I could get things done, or do nothing, or just listen to the beautiful sound of silence. I persisted despite knowing, deep down that it was over.

And then I realised between it taking half an hour to an hour to get her to take the nap and the extra hour it was taking me to get her to bed at night, it wasn’t exactly giving me any extra time. And that bedtime was getting closer to 9pm. Which meant I was eating dinner at 10pm and not getting to bed at a decent hour. So finally, this week, I threw in the towel. I figured she might nap every second day for awhile, but I’d leave it up to her.

The first night saw her in bed at 7pm and asleep at 7:15pm. Oh, heaven. Actual time for myself in the evening. Time that doesn’t involve madly shoveling food down my throat before bed.

The funny thing? Once I released my vice-like grip on the damn nap – most days since then she’s napped. And she’s been sleeping better at night. Yes, she woke up at 5:30 this morning, but she didn’t come into our bed. And I enjoyed sleeping alone – undisturbed sleep. And being able to wake up on my own when Josh was leaving for work. Without being slapped awake by teeny little hands.

I could get used to this new routine. In bed at a decent hour. Up early. Mostly still napping because of the 5:30 start. I don’t mind the early start. She is very happy to play on her own in the morning and I can get plenty of work done. Right now she’s next to me on the couch arranging some of her books into a line – counting them – messing them up – and starting over.

Maybe it’s not goodbye to naps after all, but it is goodbye to my control freak tendencies as far as daytime sleep is concerned.

I spot the day before my period at 1pm. That’s how it’s been for the last 6 months. It may be longer and it’s only recently that I’ve noticed. It’ hard to say. It’s how I know that a cycle is a bust. There have been other months where I’ve held out hope after the spotting, but it always ends badly for me. Always. So when my body was talking to me I decided to listen to it.

The day I wrote Cycle 8 was the day I got my spotting and I knew it was over for this month. I grieved for it. I wrote about it. And I got it out of my system.

It’s three days later. No period. My body or the universe or something is doing my head in. I don’t want to go into maybe. Maybe is the beginning of hope. For the last couple of days I have a running commentary going on ‘maybe it is . . .’ / ‘SHUT UP’ / ‘But maybe . . .’ / ‘Seriously Shut Up.’ I’m so tired of it. I just want this to be over and done with.

I want to fast forward this bit. This bit where I’m confused. Where I’m trying not to lapse into denial. And I’m trying really hard not to hope. I don’t think it’s working. I can’t take another pregnancy test. I can’t see another negative. Which leaves me no other option, except to wait. Wait for the fog to clear, wait for things to return to normal.

It’s one of the quirks of trying to conceive. As disappointed as a period makes you, it’s still a relief, because it’s freaking over.

And the fact that I had a leg spasm last night? The kind that I only ever recall having when I was pregnant or really drunk? Is not freaking helping (I wasn’t drunk). It’s not definitive it just feeds into my confusion. Through all of this the one thing that I’ve been able to rely on is that I’m pretty regular. My cycles are pretty much like clockwork. And now even that has abandoned me. Screw you, body!

In the meantime I’m going to try and ignore everything for a few days. I don’t anticipate success. But I do not want to grieve for this pregnancy twice. Once was enough.

Every Monday, Riley has adventures with either her Aunt or Josh while I’m at work. They swap days. When I first started going into work when she was 9 month old, it was hard. Really hard. I missed her, and she missed me. And more importantly she missed breastfeeding. After awhile it got easier. And now, I enjoy going to work once a week. Although I can’t say I’m partial to the commute (2.5 hours each way!) And she loves spending one-on-one time with Josh or other family members.

This week it was my sister she spent the day with (she took the photo). And when I ask her if she had a fun day, the answer is always the same ‘oh yes!’

After a couple of rough days and a sleepless night, I felt like Riley was trampling all over my last nerve. This is when reinforcements come in handy. When all my energy reserves seem tapped out. And my patience is running dry. This is where her Aunt comes in handy.

So while I was enjoying an uninterrupted coffee, they sat opposite me, playing the faces game. Which is really just Riley making a happy face, a sad face, a surprised face and an angry face. At some point she gets too excited and they all become happy faces.

And even I, with my last nerve hanging by a thread, got my happy face on to see her smile with every single muscle in her little body.

For more Point and Shoot entries, head over to Fat Mum Slim.

As a lifelong vegetarian it is with mixed emotions that I watch my daughter eat meat.

But even I was overcome by the pure joy of her enthusiasm in this moment. We were at a coffee shop and she promptly stole the ham off her Aunt’s sandwich. Both sandwiches actually. And yes, two hands were required. There was an unfortunate incident were she thought it might be fun to spit it out and see how far she could project the ham from her mouth. That was nipped in the bud. She could eat it, or I could take it away. She opted to eat it, very happily. Checking her belly every now and again to make sure it was making its way to its intended destination.

Riley is next to me, in the big bed. I wait to see if she’ll go to sleep. She fights naps now, which probably means she’s ready to give them up, but I hold on to them still. I have my back to her. So she won’t see me crying. And I try to minimise the way my body shakes with it.

Josh comes in. Trying to help. He doesn’t see the tears either. Because I don’t want him to. ‘Do you want puzzles?’ he asks her. I say, No. She won’t go to sleep if she has puzzles to play with. She chants puzzles for awhile after he leaves. She turns towards me for awhile and I roll over. She doesn’t notice that I’m upset. And I’m grateful. ‘Mummy’ she says and gives me a big grin. I feel immeasurably better and immensely worse all at the same time.

I take her clothes off, because she likes being naked to sleep. I rub her belly for awhile and eventually she rolls over and I just stroke her back. My hands width is as wide as her back. And her skin is soft and relaxed. And I know how lucky I am.

As she drifts off. I let myself cry again. I feel the great emptiness of my swollen womb. Which seems so vast. I want to crawl into a hole. I want to not want it. I wonder at how I can be so disappointed when I no longer even see each month as a possibility. But it feels like a broken promise. I lie there for awhile. Swollen and empty and sad.

I lean over and kiss her soft shoulder and soft cheek and for a brief moment I’m not wallowing in self-pity.

And I get up.

Meet Dora. Today was all about feeding Dora. This photo was taken after Riley had turned her around to face the camera ‘say cheers!’ I’m assuming she meant cheese. And I’m equally as sure it’s something my mum taught her. Because she’s just as much of a camera fiend as I am.

I owe Dora. Because thanks to her Riley goes to sleep all on her own at night. Heaven. So today Dora ate porridge for breakfast, apples for snack, a sandwich for lunch, more apples, eggs for dinner and plenty of sips of water along the way.

And tonight when Riley was in bed, I could hear her talking to Dora. ‘Oh, snuggles!’

Today was not a good day.

PMS arrived with a vengeance, proving beyond a doubt that I’m not pregnant. And even though I kind of knew that, there’s nothing like disappointment and back pain to dampen your mood. Thinking that the best thing to do would be to combine my two favourite things – chocolate for me and buying clothes for Riley I headed off to the local shopping centre. Where I watched in horror as things went from bad to worse.

Riley is normally pretty well behaved in public. It’s something that I’ve been fairly lucky in so far. She’s usually so excited about being out and about that the usual tantrums take a back seat. It started off well enough. We went to the clothing store first. She kept taking things off the rack, but was happy enough to put them back. And I was suitably impressed when we lost a shoe from her Dora doll and she found it herself underneath one of the clothing racks. Eyes of an eagle. Next stop. Chocolate shop. She kept putting her hand into one of the open buckets of chocolates. There is no way I can fault her for that. They were right there. Ready for the taking. So I bought her one and we headed into Kmart.

All was going relatively swimmingly until she ate the chocolate and I was so busy making sure she didn’t touch anything that I didn’t notice what was going on in her mouth. Instead of eating the said chocolate, it was kind of just sitting there in her mouth and suddenly she started letting little bits of masticated chocolate fall out of her mouth and onto the floor. Normally she’s a little bit phobic about mess. But apparently not today. So I attempted to clean it up as quickly as possible, wondering why this feral child had replaced my daughter. At which point she melted into a full blown tantrum because the osh-late was GONE! The tantrum was quickly followed by a refusal to hold my hand for the rest of the trip.

I realise that I have one child. One. And plenty of people go shopping with two, three or four children. I am in awe of you. Seriously. And I was a very relieved person when I got home. But matters were not helped by Riley asking for everyone else under the sun today but yelling at me to ‘GET AWAY’ at every opportunity. At least by the end of the day I had convinced her to say ‘on my own’ instead and to stop pushing me.

To top it all off, I’d planned to take my sister to see a musical for her 40th (which is not this weekend but next weekend). I’d planned it for the weekend following her birthday. She was visiting and mentioned that a good friend of hers was taking her out for her birthday tomorrow. Innocently, I asked what they were doing. Going to the very same musical was the answer. Colour me devastated. I had to tell her of course, that I had the same plan. Mainly because I was thinking I would have to sell the tickets on ebay or something and kicking myself because I decided in all of my wisdom that I wouldn’t need event insurance which would have only been $6. 6 freaking dollars. But oh no, I didn’t need it. Bless my sister’s heart, she still wants to go.

I’m well aware that the vast majority of this drivel is the PMS talking. So let’s ignore that nastiness for a moment and talk about the good things today.

1) Riley has her name spelled out in her room and today she spelled it out all on her own. That was pretty damn cool.

2) I enjoyed my chocolate gorging while Riley was having a nap

3) Riley giving me directions on the way to the shopping centre and singing along with me to some music in the car.

4) I had a nap. I love daytime sleeps. Perhaps too much.

5) Husband was a pillar of strength and cuddles as per usual.