It's a funny thing..

...how you don't appreciate something until it's gone. Or you don't realise how good you've got it until things get worse.

We kept Annabelle up about an hour later last night and took her to her bed at around 7.45pm instead of 6.45pm. She took almost an hour to get to sleep, and this used to drive me mental but last night I did not even care. Just as long as she sleeps all night. Admittedly, we got through without all the meltdowns and protests we've sometimes experienced so perhaps it wasn't so bad. Her little eyes were rolling around in her head but she just couldn't seem to get to sleep. Anyway... just after 8.30pm (ie just in time for Mel to miss the start of House. D'oh!) she finally dozed off. I sent many prayers to the universe for her to please, please, PLEASE stay in her bed and sleep through the night.

Still, I made sure I was in bed early *just in case* because God knows if I have another night like the last few I could be a danger to society. You know how they say in certain circumstances you shouldn't operate heavy machinery? Well, that would be me.

Sometime during the night, I heard her call for Mummy. I looked at the clock and it was 2.30am. Dear God, No. Not again! She tossed and turned a little and asked for Mummy again. I crept over and patted her a bit until she was quiet. All of about two minutes worth. Then I covered her with her blanket, went back to my own bed and eventually went back to sleep myself. The next time I heard from her was 6.11am when she got up herself and climbed into our bed.

I never thought I would be so happy to be woken at 6am. I feel like a junkie who just got a hit. Sleep, glorious sleep. Never leave me again, baby.

ARGH

Four nights in a row she's gone to bed at 7pm and we were so damn pleased with ourselves. We thought we'd nailed it. Previously if she'd had no day sleep she'd STILL be up till late and then end up a feral, screaming, frothing, slapping, growling, overtired mess. And I did not like that one bit. And no, not because it's awful to deal with but because I felt guilty for letting her get to that point of tiredness. It can't have been fun for her at all. So now, we get her to bed early and she goes to sleep with fairly minimal fuss. Hallelujah. We have had the night to ourselves, eating dinner without interruption and enjoying the extended daylight instead of being inside with the blinds down to simulate "night-time". It's been good.

However, for four nights in a row, she has stirred at various times of the early morning (was 3.30am, 4.30am, last night 1.30am!!!) and then not been able to go back to sleep for OVER AN HOUR.

KILL.

ME.

NOW.

Can you imagine being up at 4.30am one day, being dog-tired all day and praying for a decent sleep the next night... only to be woken at 1.30am again? And to be kept awake until 3.15am?!!!! Let's just say I think Annabelle's going to be coming out with some new words as she pats her babies to sleep at daycare. It's going to be something along the lines of "Here dolly. Go to sleep. Ssshhhh. Close your eyes. DOLLY!! For fuck's sake!! Just go to fucking sleep!!"

So now in the light of day, it seems obvious to me that we need to re-jig the sleep time. 7pm too early. Will keep you posted if I haven't been committed in the meantime.

Let it be a lesson to you

When your kid likes doing something, and is happy doing something, and you're happy for them to do it, for God's sake keep doing it! I first learned this lesson (painfully) with swimming. I took Annabelle for a few months when she was 10mths old. Then the weather got cooler, I got bored with it and we stopped. I admired people who kept up the monotonous swimming routine all year round and kept thinking we really *should* get back into it - for her sake, and also just to have a fun activity we could do together.

Eventually, we moved to Adelaide and after a few months orienting ourselves, I found a local swim school. Rang up, booked her in, turned up the next Sunday ready to dive back into it, so to speak... picking up right where we left off.

Little did I know that in the 18mths that had passed, Annabelle had forgotten all about swimming and what fun it is to splash and sing in the warm water. She absolutely, utterly, flat-out refused to go near that pool. There was crying, screaming and literal digging in of heels. No amount of encouraging, cajoling, begging or bribing would work. She just Would. Not. Swim. In fact, she wouldn't go through the glass doors to where the pool is. After around 30 minutes of this, we left. Meanwhile we had handed over $50 for the monthly fee and been told that sorry there are no refunds. (It's ok, I fought that one and got my money back).

We resolved that she needs to spend more time around water before we attempt lessons again, but of course we haven't found the time to do that so I'm looking forward to how she reacts at her first school swimming carnival. NOT.

Fast-forward to today. Mel and I both own ridiculously expensive mountain bikes. We bought them at a time we couldn't afford them and are ashamed at how little use they get. Of course mine is the one with the toddler seat on it, and for a long time the reason mine didn't get ridden was because Annabelle wouldn't have a bar of it. She wouldn't even leave her helmet on, but that was kind of to be expected because she was just a baby. But earlier this year when she was a little older, we put her in her seat, whacked the helmet on her head and surprise surprise, she didn't protest! We happily pedalled down to the beach, had coffee, played on the glass on the foreshore and revelled in the fact that we could be one of those biking families that you see out and about on the weekends. This made us happy.

Then winter came and the bikes were put away again. Until today. I asked for some proper mountain biking shorts for Christmas and Mel happily obliged. (note: they have the lycra on the inside but on the outside look like normal shorts. Far more aesthetically pleasing than your standard bike shorts.) This morning it's a beautiful day, so we excitedly planned an outing riding our expensive bikes, with me wearing my new shorts. Annabelle literally dragged me off the computer this morning, pulling me by the hand. "Come on, Mum. Let's go, let's go!" We put her helmet on and strapped her into her toddler seat while it leaned up against the front fence. Then I moved the bike away from the wall to climb on... and it was all over. Just like that. The tears were very real and she looked visibly frightened. She cried and asked to get off the bike RIGHT NOW!

So we rode while she walked along beside us in the park and we offered several times for her to get on and told her how fun it is, but she said no thank you very much, she'll just walk. She actually ran along for a while and that was quite cute. "Look mum, I'm running!" "Want to ride the bike?" "No, I just run". Then I said "How about you hop on for just a bit and you can hop off if you don't like it?". She replied "No mum, I just hop off. I don't like it".

Bugger.

Christmas update

Better late than never.. but here goes!

Christmas for us this year was really, really good. We decided not to go to Queensland (to my family) because it would have meant using all my/our available Frequent Flyer points, annual leave days, dollars etc. for just a few short days at least two of which would have been spent travelling, and we preferred to put all those things towards what we perceived to be a more worthy cause ie., a trip to Fiji!

Of course the trip to Fiji is not looking to be a sure thing at all anymore (that's another story) but regardless, I think we made the right decision to stay in Adelaide. We woke up to open presents with just the three of us, then packed up the car for our couple of (very hastily and last-minute booked) nights at Victor Harbor where we had friends also holidaying. Here's a few obligatory Xmas morning snaps, and yes, that is a fireman's calender I'm holding up. My husband bought it for me. And sorry, pics are in the wrong order.

After leaving the house, our first stop was Mel's mother's cousin's place. Got that? Mel's mother's cousin. Richard is a man in his 70's, married to Helen, and with a grown daughter, Jenny and HER daughter, Georgia, both living at home. Jenny is a qualified chef (now a cooking teacher) and she makes a bloody fantastic Christmas lunch, let me tell you. This is the second year in a row that we've been fortunate to spend Christmas with the Reeves family and we think we'll be back if the food keeps being that good. Jenny has an enviable herb/vegetable garden out the back - all organic of course - and much of the Christmas feast is created with ingredients picked fresh from the backyard. SO fresh and delicious.

Of course Georgia adores Annabelle and vice versa. To Georgia, Annabelle is just like a real live little dolly she can play with for hours and to Annabelle, Georgia is someone who adores her and is happy to play with her for hours, so they're a match made in heaven.

Then off to Victor we went. We stayed at the McCracken Country Club. The word McCracken always makes me laugh. I was engaged to a guy once who was about the funniest person you'll meet. His name was Brook Shaxson (Shacko to his mates) and we were great friends until we ruined it all by trying to make it romantic. But anyway, we often had steaks at the Norman Hotel in Brisbane. The Norman was famous for its steaks, and when you ordered you had to leave your name so that you could be called when it was done. "Ms Lyons, your bbq is ready. Ms Lyons". So Brook would delight in coming up with witty pretend names that weren't funny to anyone else, just so he could have a little giggle to himself when his fake name was called. One of the regulars was McCracken. Phil McCracken. oh ho ho. See? Not that funny. But I digress..

So the restaurant at the McCracken was closed Christmas night, therefore they phoned us the week before to ask if we'd like to order an antipasto platter or a seafood platter. I decided to make the most of the last remaining days of the year and order the antipasto since I'm officially giving up red meat and chicken in the new year (properly, not half-arsed) (and I have). We were so impressed when it arrived that we took a picture.

The next day Mel played golf, we socialised with friends, came home and went to bed early. Then on the last day, we drove through another little seaside town and stopped for breakfast. It was quite lovely and relaxing but of course, too short.

And now we're back. I went back to work for three days this week but had the day after New Year off, so two long weekends in a row which has been very, very nice.

It's 10:24pm on New Year's Eve

Mel and Annabelle are in bed and I'm about to join them. We kind of thought we'd have a nice night together (me and him that is), after putting her to bed early. Perhaps a bbq in the backyard and some quiet time to reflect on the year that was and plan optimistically for what we might do in the new year.

Ha! Wishful thinking.

She took forever to get to sleep, even after having no sleep all day. I got the shits and left her in the bedroom around 8.15pm and lay on the couch with a pillow over my head. He got her to sleep but in the meantime I must have dozed off. I woke to find him watching one of the Bourne movies so I got up and went to read my book in another room. He came by to say goodnight about half an hour ago. So that was it. Happy New Year.

Ho hum.

On another note entirely, last night I had my very first night away from Annabelle. Yes, my first night in 2 years and 7 months!! I think I fretted much more than she did but all in all, it was lovely to have my own time (mind you I was working both days) and Mel seems to have enjoyed it too. He took her back down to Victor Harbor where he had friends staying. They have late-teen/grown up children and an exchange student and a dog, so plenty of people to keep Annabelle entertained and dote on her. He said he found it a little hard to relax properly, but he managed to leave her with them (tear-free!) and play 9 holes of golf so that's an achievement too!

It's no wonder she was a bit hyped up tonight I guess, after all the excitement. So while NYE is quite the non-event, there are certainly things to look forward to in the new year. Like many more father/daughter weekends away!!! :)

Decisions made so far...

I told you I accepted the uni offer just to buy some decision-making time, right? So I decided that I really do want to do the course but I prefer to do it part-time. I was feeling all claustrophobic because suddenly I had all these options in front of me and felt like I had to do them ALL RIGHT NOW. But then I took a breath and realised there is plenty of time for everything.

So I emailed the course coordinator and reinforced that I am VERY excited about studying but is it possible to change to part-time. Today I got a reply that basically said "No problem. Thanks for letting me know. Let's meet in a couple of weeks and look at your planned timetable and work it all out for you". YAY!! Oh, and to put it in perspective.. I don't know if I've mentioned this already but there are only five full-time equivalent places in this course. So five full-time or ten part-time but obviously most people study full-time so they told me in the interview that the only way they can take on a part-timer is if they have another part-timer to take up the other half a place. So I was quite worried that wanting to go part-time would be a BIG problem. I'm very relieved that she was nice about it.

Doing this course means I start studying at the end of January in a Summer Intensive program and even on a half-time basis, that will involve 4 x half-days per week for a month or so. So I absolutely cannot continue to do my job at the same number of hours that I'm currently doing. Which means I have to have a conversation with the CEO and it's one I'm not looking forward to. eek.

Another dream

Here I go boring you with dream posts again, but this one I want to write down so I remember.

I dreamed that Mel and I were driving to Victor Harbor, which is a beachy town where we are spending Christmas night and Boxing Day. We've never been there before. (That bit is actually real - we are going there for Xmas. So in my dream, that's what we were doing. Got it?) As we drove towards the beach we were looking at the view of the ocean and thinking it looked SO good. Then suddenly we realised that we had driven to the end of this jetty thing and if we kept going we would have gone straight over the edge and plummeted into the ocean. Scary, man.

So we stopped and got out of the car and were standing there kind of looking at each other thinking how scary it was, and not really game to look down because you know.. it was scary! But we decided that if we didn't look down and instead just looked out across the ocean, we could really enjoy the view. And it was AMAZING. This huge vast ocean, so tranquil and calm and it was a green colour. I know that sounds gross but it was a gorgeous green ocean and it was amazing and we were both going 'Wow, This is amazing. How come we haven't come here before?

Then we backtracked along the jetty thing until we got to the edge of the sand and we realised that if we just walked on the sand we could get to the ocean without having the big jump off the cliff scenario. Just a gradual walk along the soft sand. And there were all these teenage kids dancing on the beach and having a dance-off thing and we were watching them for a while and then thinking we should check into our hotel. I dunno if that's relevant.

So here goes the interpretation: The falling off the edge of the jetty (taking a flying leap) is the whole idea of having another baby. Very bloody scary. But if we don't think about that, and look at the big picture (long-term) it's actually quite an amazing vision for the future. Water represents emotions and this water was calm and peaceful. Green is the colour of healing. So the calm, clear, green water is a good sign. That it was vast and expansive is even better. Obviously backtracking to the sand and realising we could walk to the water is about the gradual process of the whole having a baby experience. By the time you get pregnant, it's 9mths and then you just take each day, month, year at a time until you get to the teenagers in the dance-off I guess.

And maybe the bit about going off to find the hotel room meant that it's time to get cracking. :)

Equality, my arse

Here's what shits me.. We are supposed to live in an age where men and women are pretty much equal. And don't get me wrong - I totally believe that women are designed to be primary carers of children; biologically and emotionally I think we are built for that purpose. But feeding and nurturing a child aside, there are plenty of household and child-rearing activities that could be divided equally between men and women, and certainly in our household they most certainly are not. Mel would argue that point of course

When Annabelle was a baby, Mel worked from home. His job was to earn money, mine was to be primary carer of her. But at nights and on weekends, as far as I'm concerned, we SHARE household and child-rearing duties except for the obvious breastfeeding one. Do you think he ever once had to say to me "Hey I just need to go to the toilet, can you watch her for a minute?" Ummmm... NO! From the day she was born he has come and gone as he pleased. So how come I had to ask permission to pee?? How come he got to say "Hey I'm really needing a break, I think I'll go out for a game of golf on Sunday, ok?" fully expecting that I would stay home and attend to the child. Or "I'm just ducking down to the shop. Back in five". I would have to say "Is it ok if I got to the shop? She's been fed, her nappy's changed. If she gets whingey, try this, this and this." And then I'd go to the shop and I'd get a frantic text message saying "She's hysterical!!" and I'd have to dump the shopping and run home. ok not every time but sometimes.

And now, 2.5 years later, with both of us working he gets to say "I'm having a drink after work. I'll be on a tram just after 5pm" then gets delayed and is still having a drink at 6pm. I'm not saying that's late nor am I complaining that he's having a drink. It's the expectation that he can do that without there ever being an equivalent expectation on my part. He picks and chooses when he'll go to work and when he'll come home, whereas it's expected that my work has to be managed around her. It is so fucking 1950's!

And I'm actually not even blaming him or having a go at him. I know it sounds suspiciously like that, but I think we women are our own worst enemies! The other day when he complained about our house being a pig-sty with toys everywhere (it is), I actually felt guilty. Can you believe that? I work full-time but somewhere in my brain I have a subconscious belief that housework is my job. I get stressed about mopping floors and doing grocery shopping on weekends. I'm pretty sure he doesn't. Why is that??! When his friend visited from overseas a few weeks ago, they sat out the back drinking beer and I was inside reading a book. I actually got up and went out and asked if they wanted food even though I wasn't hungry. HOW IS THAT MY JOB??????? And he never said it was my job, I thought it was my job. But having said that, I bet that neither one of them was sitting out there wondering what they'd have for dinner while there was a woman in the house. They would have both been fully expecting that I would take care of that. Maybe I'm being harsh, but I reckon they are programmed the same way. Even in this day and age, we're all programmed as to what's "woman's work" and "men's jobs". It's actually total crap and I am really thinking about it a lot since having a daughter. I feel very responsible for the messages I am sending her about what is expected of women and shouldn't be.

Disclaimer: Mel is a very good husband and he does heaps of stuff around the house. He cooks and does washing. But then again, why is he a "good husband" because he does stuff around the house? Why isn't that a given when you're two adults sharing a house? Why is it standard for me but "special" for him to do the same housework. Forget the disclaimer. There is no disclaimer.

Update...

I got an offer for Health Psychology. They need an answer by 5pm tomorrow. Argh!

I remember why I gave up drinking

oh my sore head. I didn't have a glass of wine for over a month. (I know how pathetic that sounds but really, it was a big effort for me. Not a single drop.) Then when I felt I'd successfully kicked the wine habit, I started having an occasional civilised glass of wine again. Until last night when I may or may not have gone slightly overboard. Partly I was a little excited about some plans we're making for next year, partly because I figure I should drink now while I can in case the cards are right and I get knocked up. I keep getting that darned pregnancy card. :)

Anyway, the upshot of all that is that I feel like utter crap. Get me back on that wagon pronto.