Pinterest seems to be the new OMG HAVE YOU SEEN IT thing lately, which, okay, fine.

It took me a while to get into it and then only a few moments to forget about it again. This probably says more about how my brain works than any particular thing wrong with the premise of Pinterest. I’m not a designer home kind of girl and pretty things usually just make me grumpy that my house is falling down and my finances are limited at best.

Every few weeks though, I would click through to Pinterest to see what was happening in the gardening and food sections. Gardens and food are something I can do and there were some nice ideas.

Ignoring the fact that I seemed to see the same pictures pinned over and over and over and fucking over again, I was able to peruse photos of walkways and overgrown vegetation and delicious foody things.

Until, one day, I found something that looked interesting. So I clicked on it, to find it’s source, so that I could read more about it.

Source: Google.com

Huh. Just one image, snagged by a Pinterester, using Google image search. There was no accreditation for the original photographer, and nothing available to tell me what on earth it actually was, or how to cook it.

Slowly as I found myself clicking on more and more things, I was finding more and more images grabbed from Google, with nothing about the original author.

And okay, I get that kittens or fuzzy bunnies or whatever maybe don’t technically NEED a source, recipes.

Artwork, crafts and awesome ideas however, definitely DO.

It’s like a giant game of Chinese Whispers, once things have been pinned half a dozen times, no one knows what it was originally about.

I am a big believer in not watermarking images, instead choosing to resize to “Internet friendly, but you can’t print it out”. I think watermarks distract from a photo and make things look messy.

But Pinterest makes me want to start watermarking things. It also makes me want to put a giant padlock on my site and disallow third party search engines from collecting images that Pinteresters could then pin, with no thoughts of accreditation.

Also, I think Pinterest enables people to use images in blog posts and then only give source credit to Pinterest. I’m sorry, but “found on Pinterest” is not source credit.

NO, NO IT ISN’T.

I’m calling you out Pinterest. I think you’re damaging for artists, for craftspeople, for food bloggers, for photographers and for people with interesting ideas that they kindly share with the Internet.

I just shouted at my daughter for chopping a lemon into pieces with a filleting knife. While I’m proud that she didn’t chop her fingers off, I’m rather unimpressed that she destroyed my next-to-last lemon.

At the same time, Isaac ran away outside, holding a bowl of water and pretending he didn’t hear me asking him to lay down and get changed. Again.

I’ve got no idea what he is doing with the bowl.

For that matter, I’ve got no idea why Amy wanted a lemon.

Considering they’ve decided to converse solely in puppy whines (making me tell Amy more than once “If you continue to sound like a puppy, I’ll put you outside like one”) and squeaks, I’ve probably got no chance of finding out.

This has been my Sunday.

How was your weekend?

No. Apparently the dirty washing pile is the best place for a nap.

He slept for almost two hours.

We were in the garden the other day when Amy spotted two snails having sex.

“Mummy, what are the snails doing?”

“They’re making babies.”

“How do snails have babies?”

“They lay eggs.”

“Oh. And then the babies will hatch and eat our plants?”

“Probably.”

Five minutes later, the snails were slowly going their separate ways (they must have been at it all night to be done so quickly) and the ducks were at the gate looking hungry.

So I picked the snails up and threw them to the ducks.

I’m pretty sure they died happy, if we ignore the moments of terror when first they flew, (snails are not designed for flight, by the way) and then were eaten by hungry ducks.

Not a literal bus, a metaphorical bus.

It could also have been a metaphorical UFO, or a metaphorical flying cow – I was too busy crawling towards the safety of my bed to look closely at whatever it was that hit me.

Regardless of metaphorical object, I am finding week 9 of pregnancy very exhausting and very very nauseating and something horrible keeps happening with my blood pressure. All of this means that I have spent a lot of this week sleeping, trying not to puke, or laying down with my ankles firmly above my head.

Pregnancy is so attractive, don’t you think?

In lieu of a proper post, I present you with photos of my children.

Because they’re cute.

In other news, it is Frogpondsrock’s birthday today (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!) and she is going to be shaving her head in the Leukaemia Foundation’s World’s Greatest Shave.

She would LOVE if you could donate a few dollars towards the cause, because as we know, Cancer is a Bastard and deserves to be cured. Until then, the Leukaemia Foundation is using the money to fund research and to help out patients.

Don’t tell my husband, but I just stole his last pair of clean trackpants to wear. Not that I should be needing to steal his trackies at this early stage of pregnancy – no, my belly is not large enough to make my pants uncomfortable yet. The problem is that apparently, I keep buying comfy “round the house” clothes for my family and forgetting that maybe, I need some pajama pants of my own.

WOE IS ME.

As I was stripping off my skirt and leggings in the bedroom, Amy was chatting to me and I told her she absolutely was not allowed to tell her father that I was stealing his pants.

Of course, she told him. I think I’m quite proud of her honesty (considering he would have noticed in a couple of minutes anyway).

So, there. My daughter doesn’t lie all of the time (thank god) and I am wearing stolen pants.

This is my glamorous life.

***

I am coveting a wheelbarrow load of chook poo.

I KNOW, INTERNET, POO AGAIN.

My garden is looking a little worse for wear, so today, we braved Bunnings with two children to firstly, buy new septic joiners (MORE POO) so that we can move our toilet inside (EVEN MORE POO) and secondly, buy mushroom compost (MUSHROOM POO!) and potting mix.

Now all I need is Nathan to walk to the other side of the paddock with a shovel and the wheelbarrow and return, bearing gifts of chook poo. (POO)

It’s not even like it’s hard – the chooks rather nicely piled it up for him. Of course that was before the dog tore them all to shreds, leaving only one chook alive, but you get that. (Now I’m adding DEATH and GORE to the mix.)

But it’s raining and sadly, there will be no garden safe manure for me today.

***

We were in the Supermarket after Bunnings, with two bored and hungry children. This could have been a recipe for disaster and whining, but, it was … okay. Not fantastic and not amazing, but okay.

Yes, they whined (pleasepleaseplease can we have blueberries? please mummy, look, there are grapes!), but the content of the whinging was wanting fruit. You know what? I can deal with that.

For the record, they got what they wanted.

At the same time I noticed, just how nice it is to have kids that are reaching the older end of the “little kid” spectrum. Five and three? So much nicer than three and six months old. Really really.

Does anyone else find the comparing of fetuses to food objects creepy?  “This week, your baby is the size of a large GRAPE!”

I’m sorry, a grape? REALLY? Is that the best you can do?

It’s creepy.

Things since I talked about the pregnancy last time:

I continue to manage my nausea with anti-nausea tablets and I have not thrown up for a while, if we don’t count the retching out of my bedroom window the other day. If I forget a tablet however, I am in dire straits, needing to take myself to bed with a bucket immediately.

I’ve lost 3kgs since falling pregnant this time, but my weight is still above 60kgs, making this my healthiest pregnancy yet. (With Amy, I fell pregnant at 60kgs and gave birth weighing 57kgs. With Isaac, I lost 6kgs in the first trimester. Yay for managed nausea!)

I ate three thin slices of sausage last night and felt … okay.  It appears my meat aversion may be limited to beef, chicken and blowjobs. A piece of lamb on Australia day upset my stomach pretty badly, even thought it tasted great. It might have been because it was the first non-fish protein that I had eaten since the wedding.

My blood pressure is driving me mad, sitting somewhere just above dead and making me race for the extra salty potato chips in order to bring it back up above “please don’t let me pass out in the supermarket” levels.

Exhaustion remains, mostly because I am sick of feeling so fucking sick. I was pregnant, I miscarried, and then promptly fell pregnant again, not giving my body any time off. Fourteen weeks cannot come soon enough (although if this pregnancy is anything like Isaac’s, there will be slight nausea easing after 10 weeks. I can only hope.)

Really, that’s it. Everything else is pretty normal – except my breasts.

Have I talked about the massive breast expansion of this pregnancy?

WOW. I am overflowing out of all of my bras, despite moving up a cup size just before getting pregnant (for the first time). I remember the painful aching accompanying this from Isaac’s pregnancy, but considering I conceived him only shortly after weaning Amy, there wasn’t much my breasts could do. This time, they’re HUGE.

I have awesome cleavage right now.

I’m just saying, there are some perks to feeling so crappy.

In the last couple of months, I’ve seen a few posts about the tracks that haven’t sat terribly well with me. Bloggers trying to justify why they’re not reading a certain other blog, or why they’re not commenting, or not driven to subscribe.

And I’m here to say:

My blog is not about you, or what you want.

No, it really really isn’t. It REALLY isn’t.

I write my blog because it makes me happy. I’ve slowly developed a like-minded community here, who enjoy what I write and have followed me along in this journey. Frankly, this is awesome and this is what I want.

But if you think I am weeping at night, wondering why you are not reading my blog, then, I’m sorry, but you’re sorely mistaken.

If my blog doesn’t do it for you, then move on. Don’t whinge about what I need to change (or what any blogger needs to change) in order to get you as a reader. Find someone else who is more your cup of tea instead.

I know that a lot of topics turn a lot of people off. For the record, no one is holding a gun to your head and making you read.

People blog for a lot of different reasons. I blog for connection. I want to connect with those people who read my words and get something out of it. If I write a post about the hell of PCOS periods, or the miserableness of watching a pregnancy slide down my legs in the shower, then I am writing those words for myself.

However, I am also writing them for the people out there who have felt those same emotions, or who find the post later and are so grateful that someone else knows how it feels.

I’m not writing for the candy-floss readers, who want my blog to be funny and lighthearted all the time. My blog reflects my real life, not the life I wish I was living.

There are topics out there that turn a lot of people off. Poo seems to be the latest DON’T YOU DARE WRITE ABOUT IT.

I’m here to tell you that if shit is a big part of your kids life, then shit will make it onto the blog.

And I’ll admit – I am sensitive in this case. Isaac’s bowel issues have gone from moderately annoying, to severe and impacting on our lives and I am at the end of my tether.

You can’t decide what I can and can’t write about, just to fit it in with your pretty sensibilities.

You can make the decision to only read what you want to read and not be an arse about it though.

I love my readers and my community here, but I will never be writing about pop culture and the pretty shiny things in life. I have one kid who scales the cupboards and steals my chocolate while screaming like a banshee, and another kid who can’t chew properly, can’t poo and won’t eat most food, while I spend a lot of the day downing anti-nausea drugs and trying not to puke, dislocate or miscarry.

THAT is my real life. THAT is what is happening here on a daily basis.

And if you don’t want to see that reflected in my writing, then I’m not sure this blog is for you.

When Isaac was five months old, way back in June of 2009 (right before my grandmother died and part of my family decided that they really didn’t approve of me and everything went to fucking hell) Isaac was hospitalised for a suspected intussusception in his bowel.

The ultrasound was inconclusive, but the screaming (good God, the screaming) was not and he was admitted for observation.

In the morning, whatever had caused the pain had eased, and we were sent home, none the wiser as to cause.

Then life went to hell for a while and a few years later, we are finally clawing our way back to some semblance of normality. Since then, both children have been diagnosed with autism, as well as Ehlers Danlos Syndrome – two added things that make everything else very complicated.

Isaac has bowel issues, that include, among other things, constant leaking. He’s in nappies and we’re trying to transition him to underpants, but when he is leaking poo nearly constantly, it is not all that easy.

We’ve been trying, with our Paed, to get Isaac’s issues sorted (bowel issues, autism issues, hypermobility issues) since some weeks after his suspected intussusception. Considering that was two and a half years ago now, I think we can say that we’ve failed. Or that we’ve been failed, because the medical system seems to see us, scratch their heads and send us away to “wait and see” or to “deal with his sensory problems and see what happens”. Basically, here is the too-hard basket, sit in it for a while.

He’s not constipated and nothing works to clear his bowels out. Nothing, nothing, nothing. We don’t have a day in which I don’t change a dirty nappy every hour, or underpants every 20 minutes. It’s wearing. It’s frustrating and honestly, I’m a little sick to death of it all.

This afternoon however, I went back to our GP (who until this point, assumed that the Paed was managing the children, because he didn’t see them except for sore ears and immunisations). I dumped the entire issue in his lap and requested to be referred somewhere better. To someone who specialises in bowel issues, bonus points if they know children as well.

And he did.

I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry, because it was that easy. It’s been over two fucking years of this bullshit – could our Paed not have sent us to a specialist YEARS AGO?

Why, yes. Yes he could. But no, no he didn’t. And life was so chaotic at that point, it was easier to let someone else do the managing for us.

It’s a waiting game now, again – but this time, there might actually be light at the end of the tunnel.

Or at least, someone who knows what they’re doing.

The hardest part about attending MONA FOMA and all that it entails, is coming back to real life afterwards. The transition from blogging photos of rock gigs, back to everyday life conversations about how are calves are born (hang on kid, I’ll youtube a cow birth for you) and why is that bird dead (the cat tried to eat it, but the dog stole it instead) and can I poke it (please don’t, it probably has lice, but if you want to watch it finish dying, go ahead. Maybe we can get the cat back to speed the process up).

That is the hard part.

Of course, any morning that has an entire conversation about cow vaginas and how babies get out of their mummy’s tummy can’t be counted as terribly boring. I suspect that Amy is going to be That Girl in class this year, because I let her know that babies arrive via vagina and she’s not one to practise quiet tact if Boy A is telling everyone that doctors cut your tummy open to get the baby out. (His mother had a caesarean – I expect it’s a slightly easier conversation to have than the vagina talk.)

Real life is where it’s all at however, and while I might be bemoaning the lack of rock concerts in my future, eventually the children will get older and there will be more concerts and less morning sickness and nappy changing.

In the meantime, we go from this:

To this:

I think I’m okay with it.