Don't Drink the Coffee

Great news, interview adjustments worked and I got the one job (that I wanted) and my results on the other job were far better than previous interviews. So all good there. I've already arranged a mentor (the person who suggested I look into ND adjustments) to help me start planning for what next.

This last week, the boy has been away with school - his first ever week away from home. They did an overnight last year. It's been an adventure holiday with climbing, skiing, horse-riding, quad bikes, etc. They weren't allowed phones but they allowed him to ring home on Tuesday when he was feeling sad, and he spoke to his dad. That's the only time he tried to call home. I arranged with his dad that he should phone me when he gets home and he said he had a fun time and didn't seem at all stressed, which is what I was expecting. He's afraid of heights and not always that keen on "activities" so wasn't sure how much he'd enjoy.

We haven't heard anything from school so I presume he had no major outbursts and blips. (When he went to a friend's sleepover the other week he got stressed and threw something and had the dad shouting at him, so I was naturally a little nervous). So I'm a relieved and proud mum right now and can't wait to hear all about it when I see him on Sunday.

We might be going away for a camping and cannoeing weekend this summer with a bunch of boardgamers, so I'm hoping this week will have only increased his enthusiasm for that.

I'm sat down for the first time all day, having prepped everything ready for dinner tomorrow. With any luck tomorrow should go fairly smoothly. It's only the three of us but the last month has seen the installation of my new kitchen. So I'm going overboard a little and cooking far too much.

My back is now in absolute pieces however. And I literally ate my first meal of the day around 2:30. The kids better appreciate it all tomorrow.

I have too many boardgames. It's a fact. I have a bunch of kickstarters on the way in the next few months, with places assigned for one or two of them, but most having no home to go to when they arrive.

I've got one game actually planned to buy this year when it comes out (Great Western Trail: New Zealand). I've just backed an unplanned (but cheap) kickstarter, and there's another one due out later this year that I'm 99% sure I'll want to back.

And now Stonemaier games have just announced a "sequel" to Scythe. Scythe is my absolute favourite game. I have almost everything for it, having even paid the fortune to buy the big box (which is just an empty box), and had the miniatures painted to a beautiful standard by one of my friends. As well as loving the game itself, I love the artwork and the setting. Over Christmas my best friend even gave me metal coins for the game. My Scythe "collection" was complete. And now they've gone and made me have to buy another game. Even if it turns out not to be a brilliant game, I just have to have it (and get my friend to paint the miniatures that come with it too, of course).

I've been really good at not buying games... at least compared to my friends. But turns out I've still got a major FOMO problem. Let's just hope it's not too expensive a game... (and worse still, going to their site I found they've also got a final expansion for Tapestry which will be available for pre-order in a few months... )

My maternity leave is coming to an end. Next week I'll be at Butlins for our first family holiday, and then I have two more weeks before the dreaded return to the workplace. So it's a good job that I've just about exhausted watching all the TV shows that interest me (and that I can watch for free).

We recently decided to sign up for Amazon Prime (which was probably a mistake because it means we keep giving in to buying things) and I've been making much use of the free TV shows. I added a ton of shows to my "Watchlist" and a few films and have been slowly making my way through them. Although what that actually means is that I've started watching them and mostly got bored and stopped watching them. But in the last few weeks I've actually found shows I enjoyed. We've also just received our Fire TV Stick which is so slick (so much better than using Amazon Prime (or iPlayer for that matter) through the Smart TV), and this has made finding things to watch much easier. The only problem is that the latest seasons of most of the shows aren't available for free so I'm not necessarily up to date with them.

I've not properly watched TV in a long time. Other than Game of Thrones I've been pretty unimpressed with a lot of the shows that have come out in recent years (the only one that I've made an effort to watch is Downton Abbey). Or maybe I'm just harder to please now that I have much less time available (and no longer live with someone who wants the TV on constantly - well, other than my son who could watch CBeebies until the cows come home). But I've been impressed with the shows I've watched.

( rambling about TV shows )

And that's the end of my rambling about TV shows. Why did no one tell me there was so much good stuff to watch? It's a shame I'll be back to work soon, but also good because I need to get off that couch dammit.

I could say this a million times, but anyone who is a stay at home parent of one child, let alone more than one, is incredible in my eyes. If they have mroe than one child then I really don't know how they do it. I found things hard on maternity leave with Sam, particularly as he got older and more demanding, and the return to work was a relief. Now back on maternity and things are even harder. Sam is more demanding than ever - probably due to the jealousy of little sister combined with the novelty of mum being at home all the time. Evie just feels harder to entertain (possibly because if I'm concentrating on Evie I feel guilty for not spending time with Sam, and vice versa) and I can't remember what I spent my days doing with Sam. And poor M has to do so much while I'm failing to cope with doing more than breastfeeding and cuddling. If I didn't babywear I really don't think I'd manage at all - it's the most successful way of getting Evie to sleep at the moment.

Things haven't been helped this week by Evie having a bad cold. She's a pretty good sleeper at the moment: 4-6 hours when I first put her down, then up every 2-3 hours until morning (so with morning being anywhere from 4:30 - 6:00 depending on Sams' wakeup time that's 2-3 wake-ups a night). But with the cold it's been almost impossible to put her down. The first night of the cold she wouldn't sleep without me holding one or both of her hands: I finally got an hour sleep when I got M to hold her while I slept on his side of the bed. The second night she wouldn't let me put her in the cot at all (the cot is sidecarred to the bed to make life easier for all of us), so she was in my arms all night: I actually slept a little better but she woke up more often and as I kept trying to put her in the cot I wasted a lot of time doing that. And then last night she was a little better, and I did get her to sleep in the cot most of the night but after long attempts to get her in, and finally gave in and brought her into bed. Last night was the worst in many ways though. I was tired and stressed out and had meant to be spending the evening prepping for an interview, but she refused to settle so I couldn't (and my much needed icecream had barely a spoonful removed before it was returned to the freezer). On various occasions I shouted out that I couldn't do it anymore and risked waking up Sam (who was now getting the cold and coughing half the night himself). And then today Sam was feeling so rough he wouldn't nap more than half an hour - the only respite M and I get during the day.

But tonight things seem to be better. Evie is sleeping beside me and has settled herself back to sleep a few times - something that wasn't happened the last few nights. I've done my interview prep (I'll do some more tomorrow before I head in), and Sam is also asleep. I've admittedly bitten my thumbnail right down and feel dead tired (but don't want to sleep yet as I've got the time to do things). Hell, I've even managed to express some milk for M to give Evie while I'm out at the interview.

I've chosen to parent in a specific way, well, not chose, it's just how I've realised I parent and I couldn't do it anyway. The gentle, attachment way, although in many ways I don't fit into other parents who fit into that category. I also call it the hard way. Sometimes I envy the sister-in-law who's chosen to formula feed and cry it out with her children, and who shoves one or more of them (she has three) on the in-laws whenever she wants a break or needs to concentrate on one cause he's ill, and who does naughty step and other things that I wouldn't do. But then I look at my amazing son and I know that our parenting style has helped form the boy he's becoming - it's helping give him a good emotional grounding that means he's hopefully not as fucked up as his parents. And I know that I couldn't live with myself if I parented in the more 'traditional' way - or rather the more modern way as breastfeeding, babywearing, co-sleeping, and even baby-led weaning is all the traditional methods. (The relatively gender neutral way I guess is slightly more modern and less traditional)

I'm not really getting anywhere with this post am I? Just rambling. But I think what I'm trying to say is that last night I felt a terrible parent because I just could not cope with Evie and the lack of sleep (which is so much better than Sam's was this time last year). But I know that that's just because I'm parenting in a way that makes life hard for me, but hopefully better for my kids, and I couldn't do it any other way.

Doesn't stop me stressing though, particularly when I have an interview tomorrow, a website to build for my doula, and no time to crochet.

Didn't expect to get this finished today. It's far from perfect, but I think it does the job. This is my first ever proper crochet project. It's taken me about a week to do.



More photos at Ravelry.

I bet you'd all forgotten I exist? Well, with a toddler and a baby, I'm not sure I do.

Last time I wrote in this it was September 2013, Sam was just starting to crawl, M's dad was going into hospital, and I was about to go back to work.

Well, since then my life has revolved around babies (yes, plural) and my social life is spent on Facebook with local mothers. I'm sorry Dreamwidth, but Facebook has taken over despite my better judgement... two main reasons - 1) it's so easy to use on the phone and I rarely turn my computer on, and 2) it's better for local community stuff, particularly keeping in touch with local parents with similar parenting ideas. I've also been updating my parenting blog from time to time, which I've always wanted to keep separate from this, as this is much more personal.

I miss Dreamwidth though... I miss you guys who I've known since my LJ support days, and those I met back in the beginning of Dreamwidth when I actually wrote real code. I miss the people who were there for me during my split with Rat. And I should write here more often. I'll try, but I can't promise.

Having children is hard!

Okay, so here's a very quick update on my life:
( Read more... )

So, what's new with you guys?

She has lymphoma both in the eye socket and in the rest of her body. Chemo starts next week, nine sessions, every three weeks, or something like that. She's on a cocktail of tablets (on top of the tablets she's already on). She's staying positive.

I miss my daddy so much. I don't think about him every day anymore, and often I think of him and feel sad momentarily. And then there are days like today where it really hits me bad and I don't want to go near Sam for fear that my tears will upset him. I was just shouting at an empty room about how unfair it is. Right now I wish I believed in an afterlife so I could believe my dad could see his fabulous grandson. I want him back dammit.

I put both the boys to bed early today, and headed to the bath with some new bath stuff I'd bought at the garden centre earlier. The plan was to have a long, relaxing bath of cocoa butter goodness. The bath water felt so soft and I was relaxing nicely, and then turned the tap off.

And all I could hear was screaming from upstairs. Ordinarily I'd have let M deal with it, but he's got a bad cold so I hurried my bath, wasting £2 worth of bath stuff, and headed upstairs to deal with Sam. One long feed later and he was fast asleep again.

I swear, when he's old enough to understand revenge, I will make him pay for this. ;) Probably by making him do the washing up or something. Or maybe withholding pocket money for a week.

I was also planning on setting up a new gallery on my website - the software I've got I don't really like, and it's too complex for me to tweak. I've found an alternative, just need to install it, and then slowly tweak it. The only problem is that I can't find the password for my site, and it's now getting quite late. Who knows how far I'll get.

I did mean to write about the mice. Yes, we have mice. And not the friendly in cage types, but the types who leave droppings all over the house. We think we've worked out where they're coming in and temporarily blocked it up. We have a lot of vacuuming ahead of us at the weekend. Bloody evil little things... as much as I hate to say this but poison may well be necessary. I wouldn't be so worried if I didn't have a little baby, but I do so I am.