27 December 2009

welcome to the pity party

I am exhausted. Yeah, I know all parents are exhausted so I'm not looking for sympathy. Just venting a bit. Ben woke us up about 5 or 6 times last night with his crying. He doesn't actually wake up, just starts wailing in his sleep. I don't know what it's from - he got a new tooth on Christmas so it could be that but he's also got a bad case of diaper rash so maybe it's that or it could be his tummy issues (had a lot of gas and very wet poops the past couple of days)(which has probably caused the diaper rash). I'm at a loss. He settles immediately when I put a boob in his mouth but I still have to wake up and move around so I'm just wasted this morning. I'm blogging at 6.50am so you can tell I've given up on trying to sleep!

And I know it can't be good to just give him the boob all bloody night. Now that he has teeth, I've heard that milk left standing in his mouth can actually rot those little teeth! So the one freaking thing that helps him is actually hurting him in the long run, of course. Nothing can be easy.

He still won't eat. I'm going to try giving him very small chunks of steamed veggies to see if he'll feed himself finger foods. Apparently some babies won't accept anything that they don't feed themselves. That sounds like my stubborn son, doesn't it?

I think I need a break today. I love that boy more than life itself and love spending time with him but I'm about to scream. I can't look at this messy apartment for another day but there's no time to clean it with his micro naps - it seems I always have to choose between bathing or cleaning the kitchen, washing my hair or shaving my legs, eating something or putting away laundry. It just doesn't really end, does it? And I know you're telling me to eat & bathe and do things for myself but then I end up living in squalor and I can't handle it. Right now I have greasy hair and am surrounded by piles of crap that just needs to be put back where it belongs, the kitchen has a rack of clean dishes but twice as many dirty ones waiting to be done and  I have a few loads of laundry that are begging to be put away but there's just no room for them in our tiny closet and I don't have time to reorganize that, though I have plenty of things I need to get rid of seeing as I can't fit my fat ass in my clothes anymore. Sorry, I'm obviously on a 'woe is me' tirade but I'm really, really run ragged and I may as well complain.

20 December 2009

pasty begone

I got a spray tan this morning. I saw no downside to this plan - cover up the dimples, veins and marks that magically appeared with my bundle of joy. I don't know why I don't think these plans through. The process itself was fast, easy & fantastic. I have no problem being topless in front of a strange woman for some reason so I decided to eliminate the bra tan lines and do it that way. Now, I brought Ben with me and could physically see him from where I was getting this spray tan and the tan lady and I were discussing our kids so I'm not sure how at no point in this 5 minutes did it dawn on me that my boy would need access to these soon-to-be-brown boobs. I walked out with my instructions for no water to touch me for 8 hours, no problem. Got home and was ready to go feed my boy and hmmmmm ... I suppose he probably shouldn't have to eat tanning spray. For what it's worth, it's all natural but still.

So I broke the golden rule and lathered up a wash cloth and started scrubbing my breasts. All good, have a clean palate for my son but got a few drops of water on my thighs (sidenote: I was paranoid of rubbing off tanning solution so opted to stay in my bikini bottoms as any moron would do) so now I have lovely tanned legs with 4 or 5 white streaks down the top. Fair enough, I really just wanted tanned shins anyway so I can wear my skirts/dresses.

Off to feed I went with a towel under me (again, still paranoid of this tanning solution getting everywhere). Ben happily chugging down his milk and now I realise it's not just the center of my boobs he needs access to because he leans on me obviously and I'm also terrified that I didn't scrub enough off. So I have visions of him looking up at the end of the feed with a lovely 5 o'clock shadow. He fell asleep so I put him down and kept coming back to hover over him to see if he had tan marks on his face but all looked okay. Hovering must have woken him up so he started crying and we went back to the rocker where I fed him on the other side. Not because he had drained the first side, mind you, just so in case he turns out with his own spray tan it would at least be even. Marcel is going to kill me.

Anyway, that's the latest adventure in the land of the terrible mother. I'll post pictures if I turn out any comically unnatural colours!

17 December 2009

worst mother ever


What? Now who is that baby sleeping in his crib. Surely not Benjamin Hewson Eisele. Can't be. Why would he be napping there instead of the lovely queen size bed he usually enjoys? Could it be because he has the world's worst mother who is now not only not in the running to be Mother of the Year but it lucky the authorities aren't taking away him away from her?

He fell out of the bed today ... again. The first time was 2 weeks ago and he took a pillow down with him and landed softly because I found him happy as a lark on his pillow on the ground. Today was not so joyous. He was sound asleep so I decided I needed a bath, which would be a bonus because the shower tends to wake him up. And don't I deserve a bath once in a while? The parenting books/websites all say to take a break when you need one and he is usually quite safe in the bed with his little gate and pillow fortress. But I knew better, I really did and when I heard that thump and jumped out of the bath I only had myself to blame. And blame I do. He cried so hard it broke my heart, then I cried so hard that he just stared at me with the serious little face that I remember from his earliest days. The face that was just regarding me, trying to decide what to do with me. I hope he decides to keep me around this time.

He is fine. I poked and prodded and nothing is broken or sensitive. He spit up when he choked on his tears (it kills me to even type that) but otherwise all okay. He settled down fairly quickly and the red spot on his forehead (almost exactly where I have a bruise growing from my car incident yesterday!)  has already faded. I held him and rocked him and let him comfort feed until he was sleeping soundly again then put him in his crib where he will sleep from now on unless one of us is with him. I'll keep you posted on how this goes but I hear him whining now after about 45 minutes so I'm going to go spoil him rotten.

16 December 2009

Sit down & read

I always regret when I write something overly positive and exciting because it usually backfires somehow or things suddenly go terribly wrong. Weird. So I'm putting this out there while throwing salt over my shoulder and knocking on wood and all that other crap: My son makes me happier & happier every day. I know I've complained about his teething and how hard it's been having him by myself this week but he is still the most delightful thing on earth. He must have snuck up & read that over my shoulder and quickly ducked back to the floor because he's just now started crying. Silly boy & his stupid teeth. LEAVE HIM ALONE, TEETH!

He's been happily watching a bit of TV today, which makes me happy. And don't you give me the evil eye - let's face it, we are a TV family (we both have made careers out of it for goodness sake) so it was bound to happen. And he watched a whole episode of Yo Gabba Gabba with guest star Jack Black and that makes my soul bounce up & down because I love dancing, music & all around goofiness and have secretly prayed that Ben will follow my influence on that one. And if you give me a speech about the evils of TV, I will nod as if I'm listening to you but I will probably actually be making fun of your dated hairdo or those ill-fitting pants. Do you really want to be the victim of such cattiness?

And you know what's funny? One of these shows where they have a goofy guy and an animal hosting the cartoon segments - in this case, they're called Giggle & Hoot - and they were just talking up the cartoon they're about to show. And the owl (Hoot if you couldn't guess that one)(though I don't understand why they'd name the guy Giggle, creepy) just said "It's going to be good so you better sit down & watch." It was in a very authoritative voice, which I actually appreciate. Something tells me that one day I will tell Ben to sit down & watch something & he'll ignore me. BUT if an adorable stuffed owl tells him to do it, maybe he will. Maybe.

Here's the boy watching a bit of the boob tube:



Finished Christmas shopping today (unless something else exciting catches my eye or any of the things I ordered online decide not to show up!). I used to love shopping but now suddenly I hate it. And do you know what's worse than navigating around all the mothers and their prams/strollers in the mall? I'll tell you what - it's actually being one of those mothers with the pram! I have stopped making eye contact people so I feel less guilty when I am forced to plow over you because you're dawdling in the middle of the aisle or hallway. It is hard to get around the mall with a little one and mine's a very well-behaved one. But heaven forbid he cries for half a second, people immediately whip around to stare at the devil child and his terrible mother who must be poking him with a sharp stick or something just to ruin their shopping trip. Trust me people, your shopping trip would suck even without Ben's crying. And he's probably only crying because of your dated hairdo or ill-fitting pants. Oops, I said it.

AND just to make my shopping trip all the more exciting, I started the adventure by smacking my head on my trunk/boot door as I was opening to get the pram/stroller out. Now I've got a lump and a bruise on my forehead (luckily hidden under my bangs/fringe)(wow, so many US/Aussie terms today). So as my headache got worse & worse throughout the mall, I had basically convinced myself I had a concussion. At least that would explain how I managed to ram the pram into a decorative column in Myer, which earned me dirty looks from a cosmetic lady who was wearing way too much of her product. I looked down & thought to myself "Oh, at least it was already damaged." Then as I rolled away I realised it probably wasn't damaged BEFORE I rammed into it. I strolled much more quickly before Tammy Faye reported me!

Okay, I'm off to feed my son and get his booty to sleep. Hmmmm, I might wipe the ketchup off of my boob first. I ate fries like an hour ago - have I been sitting here with ketchup on my boob that long? The concussion must be stronger than I thought.

15 December 2009

Toothy

Goodness gracious, what a difference a few days make. The wonderful boy is deep in the heart of teething. I realise teething has a bad reputation but I still never put much thought into so I was a little shocked by the torture that has taken over our lives! My poor beautiful Benny is not enjoying the pain - he's not much of  a crier in normal life so when he wakes up sobbing and wailing it really kills me. I've never done so much rocking, comforting & soothing in my whole life. I also have the joy of filling him with pain medicines, which usually comes right back up after it hits his sensitive gag reflex, trying to Bonjela onto his little gums & melting teething tablets on his tongue. His first tooth has come through and there's a second one just below the surface. I look forward to the days where we can all sleep peacefully again!

My lovely husband is hiking in New Zealand at the moment so it's just me & boy wonder at the moment. I realise this is short term so someone should honestly smack me for even saying this but how on earth do you single parents do this??? It's so hard to not have anyone else to depend on or to hand the booger off to when I'm overwhelmed. Oh well, 5 days ain't gonna kill me.

Hey I went on a nice healthy shopping trip. We have a new fruit & veggie shop so I decided to go a little nuts so I had a great dinner of breaded eggplant with a side of tomato, boccoccini & red onion salad with a touch of red wine vinegar. If my gorgeous mother in law is reading this she will realise that I totally ripped off one of the meals she fed us when she was over here! I love, love, love it. I also bought some beets. BEETS, people. A friend of ours made us some roasted beets last year sometime and I've been dreaming of them ever since so finally broke down and bought some - I'll let you know how I go with them! I'm on a veggie high my friend and I hope it lasts! Now I just need to get my ass back out walking.

Ben is hyper now. He took an unusually looong late nap, just waking up at 6.30pm so something tells me we'll be partying late into the night tonight. Yahoo for me. It took almost 3 HOURS to get him to stay asleep last night. He kept going to sleep then waking himself back up, driving me up the wall! He woke up twice with his blessed teeth but it's better than the night before when he fell asleep right away at 7pm then woke up almost every hour or two. I have no high expectations for tonight.

Wish I had other exciting things to report but I don't. My poor brain ain't functioning properly during this crazy week. Doing well with Christmas shopping, just need to pick up two more things I think. Now if only all the things I ordered online would arrive!! Yikes.

Well this was another blog worth reading, huh? Ha! Now I'm off to play with the boy who is crawling around in his scuttlebutt way. He can also now reach the second shelf of our bookshelf so I need to go move a few knick knacks. Oh too late, he just dropped something on his face. No good. Anyway, if you happen to be a ranger in New Zealand's Arthurs Pass tell my husband hi for me and tell him to enjoy himself because he is never allowed to leave me alone with the child again!

07 December 2009

blah

It's been a while but I've had no inspiration to write anything. I've been blah. Not depressed, no post partum whatever, just down. Can't put my finger on a reason. I'm happy about the holidays, love my husband and my baby, have a lot to look forward to but I guess that's why they call it the blues (sorry, just turned into Elton John for a moment).

Ben is moments, minutes, days away from crawling. He's always up on his hands, knees & toes trying his best. He knows exactly what to do but can't get his legs and arms to cooperate at the same time. It's funny because every time he tries for a while, he starts this weird little nervous laughter like he doesn't want us to think he's trying to hard. Adorable. After several minutes of trying he starts getting fussy, then eventually that bottom lip comes out and he starts wailing. Poor thing wears himself out and just wants to get moving!

I think his first tooth/teeth are also just around the corner. He has two little tooth outlines on his bottom gum and he sobs a couple times a night - never actually wakes himself up. It breaks my heart but then I'm exhaaaaausted in the morning. I realise that a lot of moms have had babies waking them up for a long time so I shouldn't complain and the boy is precious as ever. It's just a weird feeling because I'm super sleepy then I think "Oh well, I'll just take a nap later." Oh wait, never mind, can't nap. I can't nap when he does because that's the only time I can accomplish anything and the few times I do nap at the same time I usually fall asleep right as he decides to wake up early and then I'm worse than when I started.

Anyhoo, there you go. Ben is just waking up from a nap as we speak and he's crying so I'm off to be super mom!