Wednesday, September 16, 2009

No more Baby Classes

Well aparently we have been taught everything we need to know about having a baby and keeping it - yeah right.

Last night was our 6th and final week of Pre-natal classes. This week was all about what your baby could look like when it comes out, ranging from Massive cone head, bruises from forceps, splotchy rashes, covered in goo. We watched a video of a lady who had just given birth and she was looking at her baby like it was an alien, it was pretty funny.

We were also introduced to a real baby, Chelsea, 4 days old, cute as a button and her mother looked fantastic, flat stomach about a size 8, huge milky boobs, not at all like she had just had a baby.

I successful managed to apply a nappy and wrap up a new "Stunt baby" this week I received a dark skinned (plastic) baby girl, perhaps to hide the bruises when I drop the baby, but successfully kept baby on my lap the entire time it was required. Louise then said we can put the babies back in the tub, Jamie motioned for me to see if I could sink a hoop by throwing baby from my seat into the tub, a distance of about 2 metres, challenge me, he dares, of course I thought I could do it but decided in the interest of "Stunt baby" that I would get up and place baby carefully back in the tub intstead.

Louise then asked if we had any questions, annoying girl of course, had some, she wanted to know the best feeding pillow to buy and the best baby bath etc etc. She is so annoying. Louise politely said pillow is a personal preference and the bath should be cheap because they are not in it for long, I piped up and said get 1 off ebay and the girl next to me suggested the Ikea baby bath. My mind wandered, aaaah Ikea I was thinking when could I road trip to Ikea to buy a baby bath I don't need and how much other stuff I could come home with at the same time, then I thought about how bad my Cankles would be if I sucessfully navigated all the arrows walking around Ikea for a day. I will have to give this more thought, if they provided a nana scooter with a trailer it could be done.

So final week of baby classes was pretty uneventful. I only have to keep my legs closed until Sunday and then I can birth at Figtree Hospital and I must say I am pretty ready to have this baby soon, don't know how much longer I can keep on waddling around.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Emotional Basketcase

Well Friday I hit a wall of emotions that I hadn't felt for a long time if ever. It all started with a day off work because I was going to be a domestic goddess and clean the house before we had visitors on Friday night and Sat.

I started on the Kitchen and had it spotless except for the mess that resides where we dump our stuff upon walking through the door. I kept trying to sort that mess but everytime I wanted to put something elsewhere I thought I am just going to have to move it again when I go to clean the next room.

Easily sidetracked I ended up in the scrap room with laptop open doing a combination of work and sorting out album pages. I was pulling apart a post bound travel album when all my spare bits fell off the table and onto the floor, this was the beginning of the meltdown. Jamie called right in the middle of it and I made light of the fact that I was too fat to bend over and pick them up. Not wanting to be outdone by my lack of wasteline, I swept all the bits into a pile and squatted and moaned and managed to pick them all up.

Dilema sorted, I put the pages in the album put it all back together only dropped 1 more bit which I again managed to pick up.

So I moved onto another space in the house that collects mess, the bottom of the stairs, Jamie's paintball stuff was sitting there as well as the "collectors" bottles of alcohol that he insists on buying but yet we have no space for, so I shoved things under the stairs. Then he rang right in the middle of my mess and he asked the dreaded question "what is wrong", bursting into tears, I started ranting - house, shitfight, mess, fat, dropping things, don't know where to start, can't bend over, hadn't yet had a shower, visitors coming, blah blah blah. After calming down a little I said don't worry I'll be fine, just being stupid, so I thought I would go and have a shower this might help. Well how wrong I was.

I caught a glimpse of my naked physique in the mirror, boobs sagging to an all time low, HUGE belly, it was hideous, I managed to blubber myself into the shower. Then I had to get dressed, I thought I would find a pair of lightweight trackies that I could roll up to 3/4 and a T-shirt that would fit to finish my housework, but no, absolutely nothing to wear, pants so tight I was embarrassed to wear them even around the house incase someone knocked on the door, t-shirt so tight it was like a lycra bodysuit, so I sat on the edge of the bed and cried some more, everything I wanted to wear was in the wash. I finally managed to locate a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt that was semi respectable.

Housework can wait, I was in no state to do anything apart from hopefully see someone elses story who was worse off than me, cry about that and then my life would be all ok. So with a giant bowl of leftover chinese food in hand I plonked on the lounge to watch Oprah. Well it wasn't the story I was hoping for but it did keep my mind off the mess.

I had stopped crying when my friend Maryanne turned up from Maitland to stay the weekend and then she said the dreaded words "how are you", well that started me off all over again.

Long story short, I said fuck the messy house, I am not cleaning anymore, and as it turned out with Maryanne's whirlwind almost 3 year old in the house all weekend plus all the guests and their children on Sat and pizza making, not only did the rest of the house get messy but the kitchen was a disaster zone after making the dough, so I was probably lucky that I didn't keep going otherwise another meltdown could have been iminent.

Saturday was very relaxing apart from rolling out the Pizza dough I managed to get some quality time on the new deck chairs and we just chilled out and relaxed in the glorious weather, it was great to catch up with some of mine and Jamie's friends. I was a completely different person to Friday.

Moral to this story, don't do housework it messes with your head.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Baby Classes - the 2nd Installment

Dear Peanut

Daddy and I have just done week 5 of 6 weeks of classes all about how to care for a baby. This week was all about Breast feeding and Daddy has been looking forward to this all week, it's all about the Boobies he said.

First we had to each pull an item out of Louise's goodie bag and then say what relevance we think it has to breast feeding. I pulled out a Wine glass, yes you heard right a wine glass. I had 2 thoughts about what it could be for, 1 would be they were going to tell us that baby only drinks the equivalent of 1 standard glass of wine per feed the other and far more sensible was that they were going to tell us that any form of alcohol was "FORBIDDEN". Well it wasn't quite that bad, good ole Louise then explained how and when we can drink whilst breast feeding. I listened very intently, must get that right I don't want you all drunk and falling down at such a young age.

Daddy grabbed the Breast Pump, a hideous looking contraption that will cause RSI in the wrist and I am sure would be like milking a cow but worse, it would be like milking ME.

There were some other fun topics that came out of the items handed around, the colour and regularity of poos you will do in the first 4-6 weeks, the difference between formula fed babies and breast fed and the all important nutrients of breast fed babies.

Oh the pressure of breast feeding, it will make you smarter and have better teeth and have better eyesight and a great immune system. Daddy wasn't breast fed and he has perfect vision and is very smart and has great teeth and all the men on his side of the family all have a full head of hair at old age, if you are a boy lets hope you take after his side, my family has male baldness issues.

Another item to crop up was an ice cube tray, apparently this has 2 uses, 1 is for freezing water into ice to use for soothing engorged breasts or making bourbon and coke, the other is for storing breast milk for use at a later date. Lets hope the bourbon and milk drinkers don't get their ice mixed up.

Louise then whips a box out of the cupboard and hands us your stunt double, a rubber baby, naked with moulded boy bits and asks for us to assume the position of breast feeding, I whilst trying to juggle the extra piece of cake I got from the break we had just had was very confident that I could manage the eating of cake and juggling of "Stunt Baby" into the assumed feeding position. Mission accomplished, there were the 2 types of holds, the standard baby across the belly and then there was the Football hold where baby is tucked under your arm and attached to the nearest boob, whilst Jamie comments "should you put your arm out to defend off any attackers" as per rugby. There was a little snicker around the room from his comment.

Louise prattled on, I lost a little bit of concentration, because I had Stunt Baby to play with, so I was moving legs and arms, patting Stunt Baby on the back, which Louise must have seen because she said they don't teach the patting on the back technique for burping anymore because of an increase in "Shaken Baby" cases that have happened in recent years, it is a simple rubbing on the back, no back slaps, baby is not choking. My mind wandering yet again, thinking of wine drinking strategies and how funny it would be if Daddy mixed up the milk cubes with the ice cubes and then "Stunt Baby" leaps from my hands and falls to the ground with a thud, there was a few gasps of horror as naked rubber baby bounced around the floor and landed in the face down position, more than 2 dolly steps away from me. Loudly I stated "oh dear" and promptly waddled the 2 steps and groaned to bend over to pick up "Stunt Baby" off the ground and the entire room burst out laughing, including Daddy and I.

I was close to going into hysterical uncontrollable laughter and was soon silenced by my thoughts of what if that was my real baby. I am soooo not ready for this.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny........ socks

I must have broken into some sort of nesting phase this week as I pulled all baby items out of their packaging and recycled all packaging and prepared to wash everything. I even scrubbed the washing machine before I started to remove any trace of dirt and lint, read the instructions on how to operate the special baby detergent I bought and washed all items as per their instructions, must have been about 4 loads and all on delicate cycle. I could not resist taking a few pics of everything hanging on the line, soooo tiny and cute. Is it an omen that my row of socks all had pink pegs? I swear I didn't plan it that way.