Birthday bustle

We had Ben's 5th birthday party today. Wow, 4 5 yr old boys can make some noise. There were another 4 kids, but they couldn't compete. I am exhausted beyond description. I'll throw up a few photos tomorrow. Right now, I should go to bed while the small noise monster is sleeping.

Lectures on Theology

My lessons in Christianity continued this afternoon. Ben informed me that he saw what God looked like. He then went on to add a whole new dimension to the immaculate conception.

Ben told me that God has white wings and a white dress and that she came down and found Mary. Yes, that's "she". She told Mary not to be afraid and that she would have a boy child. Joseph would be the father. Perhaps it wasn't so much an immaculate conception as a donor sperm arrangement?

It's hard to remember the name "Mary" when you are almost five, but that's ok, because you can just ask Mum who that person was that had a little lamb. I wonder if he has ever heard "Mary Mary quite contrary"?

Oh yes, and in case you thought he might have just confused God with an angel, not so. Angels, I am reliably informed, also have wings, but theirs are purple.

When is it 6 weeks?

Last night dear baby slept, well, like a baby, until midnight, at which point she decided that the only possible way she could be comfortable (read "not screaming") was to be lying face down on a parental unit's tummy. Until 7am.

Surprisingly you can almost sleep like this, that kind of sleep where the time passes a bit faster and you have probably managed about an hour's sleep in 3 hours.

Crash and I shared the joy, thank god for the spare bed.

Bring on 6 weeks when I can start inflicting my will on her instead of the other way around!

From one controversy to another

At bedtime tonight, Ben asked why we vote. From religion to politics. I explained that we choose who runs the country, and that running the country involves building roads, running hospitals and schools and paying policemen. Apparently this is the stuff I think government does off the top of my head.

Ben wanted to know who the people are, he couldn't understand why we weren't voting for people we know. Although I did vote for David Shoebridge in the senate. I copped out at this point because I couldn't begin to explain how the list of people we choose from comes about.

Besides, I am tired beyond description. I spent about 6 hours working today, add about 5 hours feeding and I might have scraped in about 6 hours sleep. I'm not sure what I did with the other seven hours, although I suppose there must have been some bathing, dressing, eating (for me and the boys) and then there is the settling baby back to sleep. And my boobs hurt. Ok, whinge over. :)

Comparitive religion for the under 5's

Tonight at dinner, Ben kicked off the conversation with "Did you know Jesus is our king?". Clearly the Christmas season has begun at his Uniting Church pre-school. I responded with "That's what Christians believe, yes." and then went on to give a cursory definition of religion and attempt to discuss Buddhism and a very vague notion of the rest of the Judeo-Christian family.

He told me that he believes it (exactly what "it" is remains slightly obscure), and I told him that's fine. I also warned him he wouldn't be seeing much mention of Jesus at our place around Christmas. Jesus is not the reason for my season. He informed me (very importantly) that Jesus is what Christmas is, and I told him that it has been other things to other people both before and after "Christmas" came along, but didn't push the point.

I don't want to create a monster for the pre-school, I'd much rather he lecture me than his teachers or (even worse) the very lovely minister who spends a lot of time with the kids. So for now, it will be a very gentle message that there are other beliefs out there (I haven't tackled atheism yet), without any suggestion that he should hold them. I figure he should at least get to kindergarten scripture before he starts lecturing his teachers. It seems to me that an element of respect for other people's beliefs is not sicking a self righteous nearly-five year old armed with my opinions on them. :)

I just don't *like* babies

The enormity of the task ahead, namely bringing this newborn safely to the other side of babyhood, has just hit me. I knew the pregnancy would suck, and academically I knew I was no fan of baby's first year, but I suppose I had just blocked how much I don't like it.

It's not that I regret having the baby, far from it. I know that by this time next year, this will all be behind me and I'll be looking forward to talking and all the good things about children.

But right now the demands, the pain of feeding, and the guilt about not being able to pull my weight in the business are all hitting hard. I will never understand people who like babies, although I accept that perfectly rational people do. :)

I suspect that at this point in my life, with the business being what it is, losing my independence has been a bigger issue than previously. Certainly being able to have real maternity leave was better. And with Charlie, there wasn't anyone else in the business noticing what I wasn't doing.

Oh well, we'll get there. I am honestly glad to have a baby girl, I am just not convinced that adopting a 12 month old from China wouldn't have been a better plan. :)

Re-blogging

To steal something from Blue Milk's blog, who stole it (accredited) from Hoyden about Town, I see that Dora has been Barbie-ised. Sad. Dora does actually annoy me a bit, because she always wins in an infuriating kind of way, but compared with the slapper-wear outfitted Hi 5, she rocks.

It'd be nice if some of the icons our kids see actually looked like kids.

Oh well, there's still the Save 'Ums, they are all round and pudgey, if not actually human.

Photos

I've finally managed to get some photos off the camera. You'll notice chocolate was required to convince Charlie there was anything good about the whole situation.



Ben on the other hand, was as chuffed as he looks.

The park photo was at 9 days old while Ben was visiting big school.

Maternity leave is over

Today was quite the adventure. We managed to secure a job with the RTA, which is quite a coup, being well out of our traditional market. Unfortunately, we secured it 3 days before I gave birth. To balance up the luck, one of their suppliers was late and pushed the job back to today rather than last Thursday.

So today I had to be at Yennora at 8am to work in an electrical workshop for an indefinite period of time. Thankfully I have a wonderful husband who came with me and the baby and looked after her between feeds, and added technical advice on occasion. What more can you ask for?

Who says sexism is a huge problem? I was in one of blokiest places I've ever been, and they were more than helpful and understanding with the baby being there, and with the feeding. Not a single snide remark about Dad looking after bub either. I'm not denying there are problems out there, but it seems that in the 10 years I've been in the telco industry, the assumption that I am not technical by virtue of being female has faded, and involved, enlightened fathers are becoming more and more prevalent (dare I say "the norm"?).

Oh, and of course this is much needed income. So all in all, a really good experience, even if I am now mind bogglingly sleep deprived.

Charlie's world

Monday
Grandma: "Do you have a baby sister"
Charlie: "NO!"

Tuesday
Charlie [points]: "Baby sister"

Thursday
Charlie: "I don't like it, baby sister"

Friday
Mum: "Is your baby sister nice?"
Charlie: "Yes"

Acceptance is a slow process.

Newest addition

By throwing the old wives tales book at my pregnancy, I went into labour about 1:20am on 5th November, and our baby girl was born at 6:08am. Thankfully uneventful, in the birth centre, and the obs even made it with plenty of time to spare.

Birth centre midwives were wonderful as always, and even allowed us to stay down in their blissfully quiet confines until 2pm, giving us both some much needed sleep.

Ben was terribly excited and Charlie was in complete denial. When asked whether he had a baby sister, Charlie answered with an emphatic "NO."

Ben is still terribly excited, compounded by his first trip to big school today, and Charlie is slowly coming round. He actually came and touched her while she was feeding today and was prepared to have a go at saying "Elissa" as opposed to "baby sister". Maybe it was the pink "jamas" she was wearing.

Elissa is sleeping lots (too much according to the midwife) and when she can be bothered, she feeds pretty well.

If I can get Crash to do something other than work for 10 minutes, I'll try to get some photos...

Halloween and impatience

We went off to a Halloween party on Saturday night at the Sporters bar. Entertainment was of the karaoke variety. Watching the devil sing "Closer" is a very poignant experience. I managed to find a black Tree of Life, Morticia type dress that actually stretched over the enormous hippo attached to my front half. Crash did his death costume again, and succeeded in genuinely disturbing a few people.

The DJ was flabbergasted by a crowd who had, in general, made an impressive dress up effort and were singing rock through to serious heavy metal karaoke. I think other than the odd joke song, the closest thing to the standard karaoke fair of Robbie Williams and his ilk was Space Oddity (in the style of David Bowie of course).

It was a good night, but for an abundance of cigarette smoke whose origin I could not identify. I ended up having to leave as a result. Also, sadly, the symphisitis made dancing a complete impossibility. Particularly frustrating during such classics as Sweet Transvestite and Paradise by the Dashboard light. I was up there singing and dancing in spirit.

And the pregnancy countdown is reaching critical. I can no longer sleep in any normal way, or for more than a few hours (after about 3am). Contractions and heartburn are completely overwhelming for most of the night. Arrgggg!!! GET IT OUT!!!!!!

Another day, another diagnosis

Back to the obs today, and complained about pelvic pain. I was instantly diagnosed with pubic symphysitis. This is basically an inflammation of the joint in the pubic bone, apparently pretty common in pregnancy. The treatment is to avoid walking, stairs, and any number of other activity, added to wearing a belt which essentially holds the pelvis together whenever activity can't be avoided.

I was shuffled off to a physio instantly, and being more careful about how I move does genuinely seem to be helping. The belt actually feels helpful when I put it on, so I imagine I will be a good girl and wear it when necessary.

On the plus side the obs tells me the baby is well down and is more than happy for me to go into labour as soon as we hit the magic 37 weeks. Apparently the baby is "a good size". She didn't comment on size for the other two, so this may be code for "huge". :)

I'm thinking 2nd November is a perfectly good birthday...

As a post script to the ophthalmologist stuff, the obs is fascinated by the whole thing, and thinks I should have the MRI - mostly for her curiosity I think. :)

How to waste time and money

I got a cancellation appointment at the ophthalmologist today in order to diagnose the problem with my left eye. So Crash had to come with me, since driving after drops is a Bad Plan. It was in Wentworthville at 10am.

2 hours, $200, 2 sets of drops and a stern lecture later, I still have no idea what the diagnosis is. I could have an MRI to look at the optic nerve all the way along, but we both agreed that might be regarded as overkill. It is probably optic nerve hyperplasia, but she's not sure and it isn't normally genetic.

I could also be lying about the treatment I had as a child and it was the turn in my eye that caused it all. Since there is no-one left alive with the same problem, it is very hard to do anything about it.

So we just carry on with super vigilance with the kids.

Putting those theories into practice

After my rant about body image and weight control, yesterday Ben was telling Charlie that he was fat. I didn't hear all of either of the incidents, but I think the gist was that Ben was superior to Charlie in this respect. Ben clearly not being fat, in the same way that Ben is never misbehaved, is the fastest runner and all the other ways in which Ben is the best. Just ask him, he'll tell you, at length. :)

So in the interest of not promoting "fat is inferior" but at the same time promoting good eating because getting too fat makes it harder to do the fun things you want to do, how do I tell him not to call people fat? Strangely enough, when I told him not to, he asked why. Hmmmm. So after faffing around a bit, reiterating that the only problem with being fat is if it gets in the way of doing stuff, I decided that the truth as I see it was the best way, even if he didn't really understand it. So I told him that he shouldn't tell people that they are fat because it makes them sad, even though it probably shouldn't. A bit of "you don't want to make people sad do you, because you are a nice boy" (another way in which Ben is clearly superior!) finished it off and hopefully it will at least be a while before we hear that again.

I'm not sure if this is likely to be a successful strategy in the long run, but at least I don't feel like I'm being a hypocrite.

Life's little milestones

This morning Ben (4 and 3/4 yrs) got himself up at some ungodly hour (why oh why didn't we go to daylight savings two weeks ago?) and since I told him to go back to bed, he snuck away, bothered his father for a bit (who had decamped to the upstairs bed to get away from pregnant tossing and turning) and then slunk downstairs very quietly.

Charlie woke at 6ish and I put him back to bed. When I woke up at 7:20am, I thought they must all still be asleep. Then I went out on to the landing and could smell toast. Charlie was indeed still asleep, but Ben had been up for about 2 hours and had made himself cereal (Weetbix and Allbran) and toast for breakfast. Not bad for a kid consistently behind in his self-help skills earlier on in his development. Very chuffed really.

Oh yeah, and that non-stick dressing was not so non-stick...

Armed and dangerous

Warning: Blood and gore content!
On Saturday night I tried very hard to remove a chunk of my finger. I was cutting lamb into cubes, and I think the knife followed a sinew line, rather than where I was intending it to go, and went right into my left index finger. It didn't seem deep, but it was at quite an angle. I stuck a bandaid on it, wrapped it in a bandage since it was still bleeding and ignored it.

Next morning I attempted to change the bandaid and discovered it had welded itself to the finger. So I put another bandaid around it and ignored it until last night. Then I soaked it in some normal saline to get both bandaids off. After 20 minutes or so, all but the very last bit had been removed. When I finally got the last bit off, a reasonable chunk of skin went with it. It hurt. A lot. Nausea inducing stuff.

So now I have a non-stick wound pad taped around the hole and I guess I wait for the skin to grow back. It's not hurting much today, although I needed paracetamol to get me through the night. Mostly I like sharp knives...

Small blessings

It is the little things that make life more bearable. The "little bit of sinus pain" turned into more than enough to stop me from sleeping or coping well today at all. Pharmacists all tell me that I can't take anti-histamines whilst pregnant, but various people have told me otherwise. So I called Mothersafe and got a completely lovely woman who said they get regular calls about it, and recommended three options that have all been shown to be safe by all normal standards. One of the three I had at home, and am now feeling much better.

A fantastic service manned by fantastic people in my experience.

Nearly, but not quite

So we had not quite seen the end of the croup season. Ben came in last night at 2am barking and having trouble breathing. I got up and got dressed to go to hospital, but by the time I was dressed, Ben had gone back to sleep, breathing quietly, in our bed.

There was still a bit of a cough this morning, and I barely slept listening to the occasional noisy breath last night, but at least we avoided 4 or 5 hrs in emergency. Looks like he has just about grown out of it.

Apparently I have the offending virus too, with a sore throat and a bit of sinus pain. The next 4 weeks can't pass quickly enough...

What sort of child gets croup on a 35 deg day?

Mine apparently. I went to visit the newborn Gates family member, Griffin, on Wednesday. On my way home about 6ish Crash mentioned that Charlie was sounding a bit croupy, but he was fine when I got home. I checked him several times after he went to bed, all good.

Then at 11ish, about 2 minutes after I had dozed off, he woke up screaming and sounding very croupy indeed. So I took him in to RPAH, with him clearly getting worse on the car trip. He has had many visits before, but he normally gets better in the warm, calm car trip, not worse.

So I don't know about RNS, but I can definitely not complain about service at RPAH. I had not managed to write Charlie's name on the admission form before the triage nurse came out to us and took us straight to resusc. He had a neb of adrenalin within 5 minutes of us walking in the door. A shot of steroids and all was good again.

The only small stress we had was that our very lovely (but possibly overenthusiastic) doctor decided to read the manual. Bad plan. Turns out the hospital policy is that any child given adrenalin must be admitted. We have had adrenalin several times before without being admitted, and the nursing staff were most surprised to discover this policy. Being admitted is not a good thing. It results in tired kid, tired mum, and much slower recovery. I made my objection clear, but the doctor was standing by policy.

Thankfully, once our mandatory 4 hr stay was up, I was told we could go home. I owe much to the nursing staff who clearly assisted the doctor in changing her mind.

With any luck, this will be the last for the season.

Can of worms

Apparently Mim's "Stop putting life on hold" post opened a can of worms, at least in my mind. Toni and I were discussing various aspects of what she wrote and the related issues, and I still couldn't seem to get my thoughts clear on it. So whilst listening to the wind valiantly attempt to blow in the balcony doors last night, I tried to work out my own issues with this subject. (Sleep, after all, was definitely not an option.)

I think in my world, there are three separate issues associated with weight, diet etc. The first one is the question of what constitutes a healthy, sustainable diet and lifestyle for me. This is the one I think I've cracked - even if by accident. My body doesn't like carbohydrate rich food at night, and needs much less of it in general than I previously thought. The CSIRO diet works for me, even if I did only discover this because I was too lazy to do my own meal planning. On the exercise side of things, resistance training is very good. One Pump class a week is better than 3 aerobic classes. If I add a belly dance class and one decent walk or something similar a week, that is enough. Once I do this much, my energy levels go up and my incidental activity is greater. This is a pattern than I can sustain, or at least get close to (exercise is harder, just due to logistics, but this is at least an exercise regime I enjoy.) So it has worked, and my weight is in the normal range (ignoring pregnancy). So why is this not done and dusted?

Toni pointed out that I still "diet" a lot. She is right, in that I am always still trying to lose weight. What does that mean and why?

If I've sorted the global food issues, I definitely haven't sorted the acute, right there in front of me issues. While I have found an eating pattern that I enjoy and is healthy for me, when sitting in front of food, I eat whatever is there, irrespective of ... well anything really. I eat it even if I don't especially like it. I remember when I was seeing a dietician and I was writing down everything I ate. She noted a large quantity of chocolate eaten and said "This is too much chocolate (pure genius!), if you want chocolate just have two squares." I looked at her expression of bewilderment that I couldn't grasp this simple concept, and considered my sense of bewilderment that she thought that all I needed was to be told not to eat an entire family block of chocolate and realised this woman was never going to help me.

I truly have no clue why I have no brake, there is no signal that I can identify that tells me my body doesn't need this. I have enough impulse control to manage alcohol, a budget and so on. This is what I have the greatest concern about passing on to my kids. If I have no handle on it, how do I avoid recreating it in them?

And then there is the body image thing. I have all the normal female body hangups, no doubt with all the normal factors that created it. (I remember my mother telling me that it didn't matter that I would never be beautiful because I was smart.) I don't feel much better about myself in the normal weight range than I did when I was obese. I think this may be where the school of thought that says you must learn to love how you look now, and not be losing weight because of how you look, comes from. If you are only losing weight to feel better about how you look, there is a reasonable chance that when you lose the necessary amount of weight, you will still not be happy with how you look. I don't know about a hard line approach to this philosophy, but I can certainly see that if we could just appreciate the beauty of how we are now and combine this with the healthy lifestyle that works for us, we could all enjoy the smaller body when it comes along a hell of a lot more and be much happier along the way.

We all need to look more sensibly at the female population of the planet, and realise that all bodies have good points and bad points. Make the most of the good ones, ignore the bad ones and get out there and enjoy our bodies. I have not mastered this problem, but I can see what I need to do. I hope I can avoid passing this on to the next generation. I want my kids to have realistic ideas of what bodies look like, both their own and other people's. I am going to try, despite the media's concerted efforts to do the opposite. Maybe I should record "How to Look Good Naked" and make them watch it every week until they are 25... :) That show has normal women and lots of them.

The other thing I've realised from watching these kinds of shows, is that basically the world's attention is grabbed by boobs, waists, butts and legs. Everyone has at least one of these features in spades. If you flaunt the one you've got and don't accentuate the failures in another department, you'll look great. Mim's bustier and Susie's infamous Melbourne Cup dress (sadly no photos, but anyone who was there remembers!) are proof positive. So the point is, we are all stunning in our own way, if only we could convince ourselves of it. Our bodies change shape our whole lives even if we are perfectly healthy, we will never be happy if we have one image of how we should look.

Anyway, enough babble. I needed to clear this is my head. Now if I could only resolve the issues rather than identifying them...

Are we there yet?

Another fortnight, another doctor's appointment. Today was classic obstetrician stuff, 50 minutes of waiting and approximately 3 minutes with the midwife and 2 minutes with the obs. Not even my obs, the substitute for when she is on holidays. He was, however, quite convinced that bub is head down, and claims that he has never seen a kick that has moved his heartbeat ultrasound thingy before. Call me crazy, but I reckon that's unlikely.

Just in case I had considered taking up Christianity and attending church regularly, Sunday's little effort has certainly ruled that out. Just getting there was a majorly stressful exercise, never mind the fact that Charlie started getting worked up the moment we stepped inside. And the aforementioned stress resulted in no toys being taken to distract him.

Ben had a ball. We could only hear him once or twice, so that was merciful. The minister also did a pretty good job of making an address that was appropriate for an audience of very mixed background.

So now we just have the Christmas concert to look forward to...

Capitalism is insidious

This past week we have instigated pocket money for the nearly 5 yr old. This was largely triggered by my inability/unwillingness to do much housework, and specifically any vacuuming. I really can't vacuum, 5 minutes of it leaves me with a very sore back for 2 days. Crash is very averse to it, but has been doing some. He decided that the best way to vacuum the wooden stairs was with a dustbuster, so I duly purchased one. He then decided an even better way was to get the kid to do it with the dustbuster, so he offered pocket money.

We eventually settled the terms at $4 per week in exchange for at least one stair vacuum, 5 minute cleanup done each day without whinging and other requested assistance, also sans whinging. Continued whinging after suitable warning results in 50 cent penalty. This week of course, novelty has overruled and we have had a super helpful child who has volunteered to do all sorts of things and got his $4 on Friday afternoon.

The first drama was that he felt he had been duped, as he was give 2 x $2 coins, not 4 coins as he expected...

Then last night we were discussing what $4 might be able to purchase, and after some consideration he asked "but what if I need to borrow some more off you?"!!! After Crash's hysterics died down, we pointed out that children have to save, not borrow.

Sheesh, $208 annual income and he wants to know what his borrowing capacity is!

And now, I have to get the family ready for church. Yes, church. Ben is singing (using that term in the broadest possible sense) with the pre-school and we must, of course, be there. I am simply not considering how the 2 yr old is going to behave, although we will take some toy vehicles. Better get underway. *Shudder*.

Yrrk

How any female who has ever done the pregnancy thing could subscribe to intelligent design I do not know. Never mind child birth itself, which was definitely designed by committee, probably an international one requiring translators, just getting there is badly designed enough! Constant nondescript discomfort, heartburn, more bodily fluids than can be itemised, back ache and shear exhaustion just make it all seem so much like the work of an intelligent, benevolent being.... NOT. And then people constantly asking me if I am well, to which I have to answer "yes" because none of this counts as actual unwellness. Does contribute very successfully to a shitty mood though. :)

Last week I went to the birth centre and after much poking and prodding the midwife announced she had no idea which way up the baby was, so that's encouraging. I was amused that she seemed to think I should know.

I also now appreciate further the fact that the baby gets the equivalent of foot long valium before labour starts, having felt the delightful combination of kicking squirming baby and strong contraction. And they're just braxton hicks....

On the plus side, the baby now has clean sheets for its bed, although I need to buy a new mattress for the bassinet, so there is nothing to put said sheets on.

Kid speak

Since the death of his grandfather earlier this year, Ben has been trying hard to really understand death. A while ago, in an effort to move on from the idea that death is being in a box where mobile phones don't work, I tried to discuss the various theories that exist on what happens after death.

At the time, Ben was singularly uninterested in the Heaven theory, but was keen to tell the kids at pre-school that when he dies he is going to come back as a baby in another family...

Yesterday the subject came up once again (as a natural progression from the circus!) and he informed me that "some children and adults believe that when you die you go to England". Hmmm....

Y less

Went back to see the geneticist today, and the plot gets more and more boring all the time. It seems that rather than having a bit of a Y chromosome translocated to chromosome 15, I have a variation in chromosome 15 which coincidentally looks enough like a bit of a Y chromosome to flag it up on a FISH test. It has been reported in the literature once in 1999, and seems unlikely to do anything whatsoever - well except produce false positives.

So apparently this is the pregnancy of false positives. I am now waiting on being told that something is drastically wrong with one of the tests I did today and then being told that it was just an error....

No longer a mutant, just a variation....

We have normality

Another GTT, another set of results. But at least this lot produced normal results. Nice to see our Medicare dollars going into something useful. It pays to study, all the results were lower (who knows why) but the 1hr was the most reduced - no big drink right before the test this time.

So now I only have two more appointments this week, and hopefully no more needles (10 of them so far this pregnancy). And since I bailed on the uni course this week, (see whinging from last week), I might actually have a bit of spare time. Or at least have time to do the paying work...

Medical madness

On Friday evening after 6pm I got a phone call from my obstetrician to tell me the results of the GTT were positive. She gave me three numbers and told me I needed to call the endocrinologist that night on her mobile. She mentioned it was only just positive, but the numbers meant nothing to me.

The endo told me the results would "normally be regarded as absolutely abnormal" but that she had had a woman in the last few weeks who had similar results that turned into completely normal on repeat of the test. So would I please do the test again on Tuesday? !!!!

So I agree (what else do you do when presented with virtually no information on a Friday evening?) and I go hit Google.

Turns out that if I lived in the US or UK, the result would not be considered positive, nor is it positive according to the WHO standards. The baseline and 2 hour result were well within normal. Only the one hour result was above the cutoff - 10.4 rather than less than 10. No-one else in the world considers the one hour result diagnostic. They don't even collect it in the UK.

It also turns out GTT's are regarded as having poor reproducibility and the one hour result is particularly prone to changes in such things as the dilution of the glucose.

It gets better, even gestational diabetes, what they are testing for, hasn't achieved a consensus in definition, although I only found multiple references to the controversy, and didn't go looking for the details of the controversy.

So apparently gd is different here than in the UK and the US. Treatment is different too.

You gotta love the medical profession. I understand that they have to work with the limited information that they have, I just don't understand why they present it, and expect me to treat it, as gospel.

And I have to admit, she is at least repeating the test, and not just treating me for diabetes I am pretty convinced I don't have. No drinking right before the test this time, dilution increases the 1 hour blood glucose level. And unless the new test looks a lot more convincing, I'm not going with any treatment unless they can point to an independent symptom. In the UK the recommendation is not to treat unless the baby is looking big (ie over 95th percentile) - apparently unnecessary treatment results in poorer outcomes - geez, whoda thought having to test your blood sugar and inject insulin for no good reason would result in poorer outcomes?

GTT - not recommended

I had the full glucose tolerance test this week, requiring a three day high carbohydrate diet before hand. It wasn't onerous, but I did have to think about it and change what I ate. It was interesting to see how much my habits have changed over the last couple of years. I actually do eat less than many of the "normal" sized servings. This, of course, is only true of (real food) carbs - it didn't specify the normal serving of chocolate...

But the test itself was not fun. It left me feeling very very crappy in a non-descript sort of way for about 2 hours. Although that may have been all the Today show and Kerryann Kennerly I was forced to watch.

Uni is back in earnest, and we have a newbie lecturer who really isn't making it easy. Much of the course reading material is marked "you'll have to search this out yourself". Yeah, great. Very practical for external students. So of course I am dealing with this by not reading those papers...

The work load is also fairly impressive - two 4000 word essays and (as if that weren't enough) three online quizzes. I don't think I have ever written a 4000 word essay before. And the second one is due the day after the baby... oh well.

How long now?

I knew this pregnancy wasn't going to be any fun, but I am feeling pretty over it at the moment. I am coming down with/fighting off a cold and it is just wiping me out.

Not to mention the elephantine proportions.... Went bowling on Sunday and yesterday was moving with the agility of a 90 year old.

And next week I have to do the full glucose tolerance test because I have magically become high risk for gestational diabetes because my sister was diagnosed with diabetes between the last pregnancy and this one.

But right now I need to cook dinner.

Nearly August huh?

So what did happen to the last 6 months? A lot of business building. It has been effective, but sadly it hasn't paid much yet... I guess that's how it goes. Crash has just got back from 2 weeks OS on our first real project, which thankfully was successful.

Oh yeah, and a touch of pregnancy. 23 weeks now. And what fun it has been. We are still "persons of interest" for a geneticist since we have discovered I carry a chromosomal mutation which the baby has inherited. It seems unlikely that it has any significant consequences (I'm still waiting on what my super power is), but it seems it is sufficiently strange to keep the interest of a geneticist who is still taking blood and testing stuff. According to all current theories it is a girl. Oh, and it must weigh about 6kg already because I have put on about 8kg despite my best efforts to eat sensibly and exercise (I have been walking and going to Pump classes!).

This week the dishwasher died (while Crash was away - just crushed my spirit really), I locked myself out of the house requiring my sister to wake the 2yr old up and drive from Ingleburn in order to pick up the 4 yr old from preschool and rescue me.... and then just to make the law of threes, Crash cut his hand open last night (after returning the day before) and needed 4 stitches... Oh yeah, and baby sitter was sick today.... sheesh.

Blah

That's how I feel and I don't know why. Weight has bounced around all over the place and is about the same as a month ago. The house is much the same.

Tetsuyas was awesome. It's impossible to justify that amount of money, but I'm really glad we did it.

Ben's started pre-school and is loving it.

So I have no right to be feeling so ... blah. Probably the consequence of doing a half-arsed job of working and a half-arsed job of being mother and house keeper. Time to rethink again I suppose.

Crash's Dad's in hospital with memory loss caused by nobody knows what. I can't help thinking they aren't trying real hard to diagnose him on the basis that he is old. Maybe they are doing their best, but it doesn't feel that way. They certainly don't want to tell us what they are doing.

One week post-resignation

Well we survived the first week after Crash resigned, although only just. A little too much celebrating has been going on all round, which did nothing for my weight loss plans. 59.9kg today, but that has all been achieved since Friday...

The house is looking better. It has recovered from Christmas/New Year, and even the fridge has less scary items. It even has good food for the week in it!

And on a positive note, with Crash's resignation, I have finally been able to book my dinner at Tetsuya's Woo-hoo! I seriously can't wait.

It begins...

60.3kg. Not as bad as I thought it might be, and still better than the 68 it was when Charlie was born. But it still needs to go down.

This is serious mum

Well here it is, 1st of January and I'm forced to consider the year ahead. It's going to be interesting. As of tomorrow, neither of us will have a real job. A little scary. But definitely the right thing to do for him, me and us.

And so I am also forced to confront the fact that if I don't keep my life in order, family life could become rather disastrous. Which means:

1. House organisation. Stuff must be tidy and clean or we all go batty. To this end, I decided to spend 5 minutes sorting through a toy box and putting away stuff that is too young for both boys. The best laid plans... I discovered about 5 toys that could be archived and.... a pile of vomit and some other unmentionables at the bottom of the toy box and appropriately affected toys... Flylady didn't mention vomit in the brief...

2. Weight loss. Right before the silly season (which started about mid-November for me) I had reached 58kg. The goal is 55kg. Well that's the realistic goal, the fantasy goal is 50kg, but it may never happen. 58kg felt pretty good. I don't even know what I am now, tomorrow is the reality check, but it must be over 60kg. Not big numbers, but it seems to make so much difference to me. So I need to get it back down. Got a wedding to go to in early Feb, really want it back down at 58... So actual exercise is going to be a necessity. So is not eating cashews and chocolate every time I walk through the dining room or kitchen.

So here it goes, 2007 and a whole new life without IPC, an attempt to get rid of all the unwanted crap in our lives and an even more serious attempt to enjoy our life, see our friends and decide once and for all whether we are having another baby...