It is fairly clear to anyone that this blog had been neglected, and some mojo has been lost-hence the term bleg-lect and blo-jo. Primarily this is because of a few pathetic little parasites who really need to eat s…(something I’d rather not write out loud).Yes, you, I’m talking to you spammers! Well lookey here, couldn’t keep me down for long  eh? I’m back!

Since then so much has happened. We are in a new year, moved into our new house, summer has come and gone, my eldest son started school *teary eyed*, I quit my job (hooray to that), started a really interesting course in family therapy (which requires a blog post on its own!).

But more recently, this weekend, something happened, which summarises everything that has occurred during my period of bleg-lect. We removed the training wheels on Mr 5′s bike, and there he was..gone! All grown up, able to ride on his own. This to me symbolises growth, and moving into a new phase of life. It’s a little hard at first, but worth every single minute. How proud am I of this little man pictured below? I am also proud of the ability to embrace growth and change.

 

I haven’t blogged in a while. Truth be told, life is sucking the blood out of me. I feel fat, bloated, engorged & saggy (and that’s just my brain). But that’s another blogpost all together. P.s folks, just how hideous is this pic above?

I am here today, motivated to complete the soundtrack part 2, because I hate loose ends. My beloved friend has given birth to her beautiful daughter, and it was an eventful labour, so fat brain me, has felt inpsired to complete my soundtrack.

Part 2

Side B:Baby Two.

Evil cow.  Murder.   Losing command of the English language.  Blood.  Water.  Why do they call it water.?  Agony.  Excrucitating.  A huge poo. 

Crotch.On.Fire.  Never ever touch me again.  Call him.  Call him.  Is he coming?. Liar.  Screaming. More Screaming. More lies. 

*Scream scream, scream, scream, scream*. No!I Don’t want to touch the head.  Get it out. Hug.Kiss.Bundle of joy. My beautiful baby.

Soundtrack part two is short, painful and sweet, just like the labour. Happened quickly, he was out, just like that.One minute I was having contractions, driving to the supermarket to get a few supplies & killing time by having a shower, ironing baby clothes, the next there was water.Why do they call it water anyway? It’s not at the same temperature as water, nor is it clear! 

Anyhoo, another evil cow still existed . Of course perceiving midwives as “evil cows” when you are in labour is perfectly excusable, just like yelling at your husband or possibly physically assaulting him (by mistake of course).

This evil cow, was evil  because she just had a stinky vibe,  and also she told me that the anaestheist was coming to give me an epidural that I had cried and screamed for, for almost two hours. Man, I was screaming that room down like there was somebody in there being murdered. I reached a point where I was in the most intense pain of my life,and  I had lost command of the english language, and no matter how hard I tried, the words just wouldn’t come out.

My beloved  husband became my translator, my punching squeezing bag.I felt like I really needed to do a huge poo, and no matter how I tried to avoid it, I just had to push, and felt like my crotch was on fire. At this point, I was muttering profanities to the midwife in my native tongue, and telling my hubby to never touch me again because the pain was sooo bad, I never wanted to experience it again.

 

I kept asking for the epidural, shouting at the midwife, in a foreign language to see if the anaestheist  would miraculously appear. Didn’t  work.Is he coming, is he coming?liar!liar! liar! liar liar! Endless screams later, and before I knew it, they could see the head, and more pushes later, the shoulders were out and the midwife asked me if I wanted to touch the head or pull the baby out myself ??

ERRRR,  NO, JUST GET IT OUT!

And there he was, a  beautiful little baby boy with so much hair, such beautiful eyes, I  just wanted to kiss him,hug him. What  a beautiful bundle of joy, I am the proud mom of two boys, how surreal..

Recently, I have had the pleasure of reliving the birth of my two children,by talking to two expectant first time  mums: a friend, and an extended family member. Childbirth is a beautiful miracle. By beautiful,I mean the baby is beautiful. Pushing a baby out of a gobsmackingly stretchable opening of your body however, is far from beautiful, to be perfectly honest. Scientifically amazing, yes, beautiful no. The details of our conversations have inspired me to compile my soundtrack of childbirth. Please feel free to share your soundtrack.

 

CD ONE

Side A: Baby One

Evil cow.  Crying.  Jelly.  Excruciating. Flatulence.  Violent.  Vomit.  Agony.  High on drugs.  Blood.  Metal.  Shiver. Numb. Feel like slapping you.  Emotional.  Needle.  Very very large needle. Hustle drugs. 

Lies. Huge. Dignity.  Numb.  Vulnerable.  Control.  How many corners does your head have? Cut.  Sew me back together. Baby names that rhyme with my last name. Crying.  And more crying.  Angry.  My beautiful baby.

Side B:Baby Two.

Evil cow.  Murder.   Losing command of the English language.  Blood.  Water.  Why do they call it water.?  Agony.  Excrucitating.  A huge poo. 

Crotch.On.Fire.  Never ever touch me again.  Call him.  Call him.  Is he coming?. Liar.  Screaming. More Screaming. More lies. 

*Scream scream, scream, scream, scream*. No!I Don’t want to touch the head.  Get it out. Hug.Kiss.Bundle of joy. My beautiful baby.

 

 

BABY ONE: My first son was obviously too huge for me to push naturally, but my caregivers clearly lied to me, told me that I could do it, bigging me up, egging me on, so foolishly, as a first time mother, I complied, and decided not waste my assertiveness before the baby was born. (I may need to preserve my assertiveness to hustle much needed drugs in the delivery room.) Crunch time, contractions are excruciatingly painful, I am in agony, labour not progressing for a very long time, baby in distress, not engaging, head too huge, (quelle surprize!) baby won’t come out,epidural going in, two very very large needles going into my back .

Not long, I’m numb from the waist down, high on drugs, asking my husband just how many corners he has on his head, and also if we could find a baby name that can rhyme with our last name.(Thank goodness the drugs wore off and I decided against that).Things quickly turn sour, rushed into theatre where there is a huge piece of metal being used to take my baby out, described as (horribly violent) by my hubby, who sadly for him, had to witness this, and felt like slapping the person holding the implement.

This is not before my baby pushing equipment is cut to make way for the babys’ head, as I lay spreadeagled on the table with millions of people hovering over my crotch area.Nice.

So much for dignity, whilst I vomit ,cry and shiver uncontrollably because of a weird effect the epidural had on me. I feel vulnerable, my legs feel like jelly, I  have no control whatsoever over what’s happening to my body, and as a (bit of a) control freak, I absolutley hate it!

Push? Please, for the love of God leave me alone! Between all the shivering,  puking and lying on the butchers table being cut up, how on earth can I push you evil cow? Besides, don’t you have your violent pieces of weaponry to do the job for you, you complete set of bastards??

(*Really, deep down inside, I am grateful for all the assistance, I am receiving from this amazing team of doctors,nurses and midwives, truly I am, but in the throes of labour, many ungrateful thoughts  and words of ill intent tend to circulate in ones head, and to be quite honest, I have been pressured into having this baby naturally, when clearly I couldn’t so YEAH, I’m a little mad at this point*.(GRRRRR)

Dear Ms Midwife, barking orders at me to push,(whilst I simultaneously, uncontrollably of course, vomit all over her-Score!)-I have no sensation and can’t feel anything .If someone cut off your bottom, would you still be able to sit down. Hmm??

My beautiful baby came out,eventually, after approx 31 hours of labour. Unfortunately for him and me, he was not doing too well and they took him away before I even saw or heard him cry.(I lay on the table being sewn back together,for what felt like hours, whilst all I thought about was my baby.)

Docs, etcetera, were trying to talk to me.Don’t even think about making conversation with me right now, why you little…..  After doing some needlework stitches on my you know what,I’m back in my room, no baby, people are calling me, congratulating me.

Don’t even know if my baby was going to be ok. I was really quite emotional, and angry afterwards because all of this could have been avoided if I just had a caesarean section from the beginning, as it was clearly warranted.My baby boy wouldn’t have had to suffer traumatic birth, and I, a traumatic delivery.The first time I laid eyes on him was via a camcorder, *sigh* because he ended up in a glass container in the SCBU *cry cry cry*).

My beautiful baby got better, I recovered, and he is still my beautiful baby.I would do it all over again, if it meant the final result would be him.That’s where the true beauty of childbirth lies, when you realise you’ve created a life that gives new meaning to the word love, and that you’d do anything for them. *Bring the violins out*.

 

My Beautiful baby, on day one!No wonder his head wouldn't fit,

 

Tune in next time for  the Side B soundtrack.

P.S. I have chosen not to include the description of the flatulence incidence due to the mortifyingly embarrassing nature of it.Please, by all means, let the power of imagination take over you.

Well well well, what can I say? I mean seriously,this is a childrens’ book about achieving confidence and positive body image through dieting. Although the character in the book is 14 years old, the target audience for this book is 4-6 year olds.

Some people may be thinking, well what is wrong with this, given the problem of childhood obesity, and larger children likely to be bullied for being overweight etc. Well, from where I am standing, immediately the title is sending out a wrong message by focusing on dieting, and not really thinking about healthy eating, exercise, and fun through sport as a better way of sending the message to young children. This book does not consider how a child will interpret going on a diet>instantly they associate losing weight with being popular, thin athletic,pretty etc. Valuing people for superficial attributes and not not who they are. Shame, this body image, thin obsessed, culture is spreading to our kids earlier and earlier. Makes me sad.What makes me mad is that the media attention that this is receiving will obviously be lining the authors pockets. Ugh.

The other day at work, there were leftover chocolate brownies in the office that had been saved for my colleague and I.We both unanimously decided to throw them in the bin in to resist temptation of such pure evil (they were double, dark chocolate brownies).Two hours later, heavily breathing, and checking that my colleague was nowhere around, I retrieved one from the bin and ate it in about 40 seconds flat.

Before you start judging me, there are some things you should know. 

1) I am not ashamed because;

2) It wasn’t my fault. You see,there was an angry aggressive, moody woman, who looked like the blonde woman in the picture above, and she physically forced my hand into the bin, prized my mouth open with her hand, and forced me to  shove the brownie into my mouth.

3) Her name was PMS. In her defense, despite doing such a horrible thing the brownie was wrapped in cling film before she made me force feed myself.

4)This woman has done some pretty mean things. She usually can make my belly appear bloated just like that, and then she makes my husband stare at the fat ugly bloated belly non stop, with huge magnifying glasses, pointing at the belly and laughing! After she has done such a horrible mean thing, she convinces me to get all psycho on him ,even though she made him do it in the first place !

5)She has made me cry a few times, and when I had finished eating my brownie, she told me (with a huge smirk on her face), that my face was covered in chocolate, and my colleague knew what I had done.

.

PMS.What a bitch,what a raging psychomaniac!

 

He has fixed plenty of broken toys, cleaned up a few litres of vomit, changed the smelliest of diapers,stayed at homewhen they were sick, slept on the floor in their bedroom because they were scared of “the monster”,took a spontaneous day off work to spend time with them,just because he missed them, rolled around on the floor,laying the same endless, tiring game, over and over again because they loved it so much, memorised the songs and names of favourite television characters, cooked their favourite food, endured tantrums,(some publicly!),hung out after a long day of work, to fulfill the request of watching “just one more Diego”,and his heart has been broken when they have been sick. He has been through it all with them, from day one, and my boys are lucky to have him. To the best dad, happy fathers day!

I want!I need!I am in love with black and white stripes, and given that I shall soon have a red feature wall, I think these will go quite nicely to  complement and neutralise the strength and boldness of the colour red.

 

Here, some zebra print rugs are used in conjuction with red decor.

I have contemplated using real animal hide, but they look a little spooky; for example look at this one.It looks like it is staring at you,l ying on its back with arms  and legs spread out. Creepy…

My youngest son peed on the floor today. He is toilet trained, and a bit of a neat freak (wonder where he could possibly get that from?). So there was no way he would have done it on purpose.He would have been mortified and desperate to clean it up. So why did mother of the year (a.k.a: me) feel compelled to let a mortified little cutie, feel worse than he already did?Instead of giving him a cuddle and telling him it was ok, it was just an accident, mama says, in a not so comforting tone of voice, why did you pee on the floor?? You shouldn’t wait too long if you need to go to the toilet!

Then there goes that piercing cry, like a poison arrow being shot through your heart ,and the staggered words in between :”I’m sorry mommy, sorry mommy, ssssorry mmmmommy”. Great, now I feel like the worst person in the world.He made a mistake, and so did I,and I put my hand up. One thing I vow to do as a parent is to apologise to my kids when I am wrong.We kissed and hugged , and all was better (for  him that is) for you see, I will feel like the biggest turd for a while yet, and I will remember that the mistakes we make as parents, will haunt us longer than the mistakes our kids make. Best to learn quickly to prevent feeling like a turd on a regular basis….

Please note that the words *food* & *leftovers* are sometimes used to represent people.

Would you like to eat someones *leftovers*, when you can get your own fresh plate of *food*? What if there is a gross trail of bite marks and saliva in the *food*? Yes, my point exactly.

A relative of mine has started dating his ex girlfriends’ sister.This has sparked much discussion about “codes”. Some things are just too close to home aren’t they? I mean where do you draw the line? And most of all, how do you get those images out of your head???? Of the man/woman you are with,(excuse the french), shagging your sister/brother/etc. The endless comparisons…oh gawsh, coming to think of it,the list of wrongs is endless…
I  personally would have too much pride and if I ever were to be in that situation, I’d be thinking to myself: what is it about me, that requires I latch onto a relatives’ *left overs*? Can’t I get my own plate of *food* and if not, why??. Why do I have to be with that person, and is there something else going on with the dynamics of the relationships I have with my family/friends for me to want/need to date their ex?.
Sorry, but for me I’d want *fresh, juicy, succulent meat*, that has not been  barbequed and had juices sucked out of it yet. How about you?
P.s.I can almost hear  it now -”you cant help who you fall in love with” and “it is culturally acceptable in many places”. I mean, sigh.

Now, I’m not one to condone violence, by any means. However, you can fantasize about  suckerpunching a few women on tv, and the below images are merely a representation of what I have felt like doing, to a few women this week. Thankfully, these emotions of bewilderment and anger,have been directed towards ordinary women, online or on TV, so the chances of me actually unleashing my wrath upon them are zilch.

You may wonder perhaps, what has brought this about. Well firstly, I came across a link via twitter about a phenomenon called  SMOG. This stands for smug mom of girls-women who only want girls and shudder at the thought of boys, and pretty much render themselves superior to mums who have boys. All I could say to myself was puhhhleeez. Stop with all the stupidity.What possesses you to be so shallow?. Does it really matter what sex your baby is ? Why should you start a stupid trend to somehow alienate, not only women who have sons, but an entire generation of boys?

The second thing that made me want to sucker punch the tv was a documentary about women who had four or more boys, and were desperate for a girl. This doco followed their different journeys towards the same goal, either via natural or medical ways to conceive the girl of their dreams.It was not the fact that they had a desire to have a girl that bothered me, but it was the way they carried on ,and their attitudes towards the precious gift of life.I will give you an example of one woman who had the AUDACITY, to say that after she had her fourth boy, the feelings she had, about the possibility of never being able to conceive a girl, were just as good as being told that she could NOT have children.AREYOU KIDDING ME??

The other obsessed woman, manipulated, guilt tripped, and pretty much risked her  marriage falling apart, and forced her husband to try for another baby (number 5).When she had succeeded to do so, and fell pregnant by natural (alleged) sex selection methods, and the baby was a boy, she cried hysterically, with bitter sadness and disappointment at the ultrasound, as if someone had died. Hello, newsflash!!You are pregnant with a beautiful baby, a gift might I add? So what if it’s another boy??I can understand the disappointment, but to be so devastated that it is not the sex you wanted, and to look past the miracle of giving life??Suffice it to say, I was flabbergasted.

This woman , went on to whinge, pine, go into a depression for months afterwards and her husband even stated he was so sick of her, and  had no sympathy left for her.So many people out there cannot have children,and many people have kids, who are sick.Life is too short.Get a grip, get over yourself, and focus on whats really important in life.Ugh