my-speck

i'm pregnant and it's going to be a rollercoaster

what i should have taken a photo of…(and bad parent of the day award) September 26, 2011

Filed under: bad parent of the day award,development stages,Parenting,Raising a Child,swimming — rakster @ 2:11 pm

what I should have photographed.

not the morning tea consumption post-swim:

morning tea at the pool – muffin, watermelon and strawberry

more interesting would have been:

  • me when I took that photo, sitting in the sun at a public pool in my bra and undies.  Yes, with a towel on top, but a relatively small, doesn’t cover all the bits towel.  Because I love to expose my post-pregnancy bits in all their glory at the local public swimming pool with my two children in tow.
  • my clothes at the time this photo was taken.  Ah, there: you can see my skirt in the background, on the table, behind the morning tea.  Because I thought a little fashion display would be in order at the public pool.
  • me, when I came up out of the shallow kids pool after jumping in wearing all my clothes as my big boy lost his footing and decided that instead of kicking, he would just sink during his “mum, please I want to swim here by myself before my lesson” swim.  I wonder about my face.  Bedraggled, I’m sure about; happy to have retrieved a small one from drowning, yes, also sure about; slightly guilty for letting him in the pool by himself where he has been fine 1000 times before, yes, also that.  Yes, I had my swimmers on underneath.  thankfully.   (WE HAVE A WINNER!!! Bad parent of the day award: ME!!).
  • me, sitting there at the side of the pool wrapped in a towel and freezing my ass off for the duration of his lesson.  Trying to hold the 3month old without soaking her too…
  • or better still, a video of the wonderful swimming lesson.  Where for the second week running the normal teacher didn’t show and we had a fill-in.  So my big boy who has missed 3 months of lessons due to me pulling him out after little L joined us because he had developed a fear of the swimming lessons when his last teacher was away repeatedly and he had to go in by himself with a stranger each week (gee I wonder why that upsets a less-than-two year old) made it through the first 10 minutes fine, then cried between his turn for the next 20 minutes.  Hopefully asking the teacher each time they finished one activity, “finished now?”.  Because I had promised him if he finished the lesson we could go for a swim together.

Consolation prize for me was that he loved our swim together! And enjoyed the morning tea thoroughly.  And there is no visual evidence of my bits being exposed at the pool.

love mum

 

P.S. thanks to Baby Mac for the inspiration for this post as her swimming experience this morning sounded just as traumatic so I thought I’d share too.

 

Attack of the killer leeches: Bad Parent of the Day Award? March 20, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,bad parent of the day award,camping,development stages,exercise,family,Parenting,playing,Raising a Child,walking — rakster @ 5:53 pm

Hello!

 

We braved the rainy weather this weekend and headed out to a friend’s bush block – about 2 hours drive from Brisbane, he has a little basic wooden hut on a co-op property in Northern NSW.   We figured that we had planned to get out of the city, and rain shouldn’t stop us as we had our wet weather gear.

 

So we suited up and ventured out into the wild:

Ready for exploring in the rain

…

(more…)

 

Bad parent of the day award: Dad February 27, 2011

Filed under: bad parent of the day award,family,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 1:03 pm
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Wed. 5.15 pm.

 

The first day of our new routine where your Dad has the car on Wednesdays so is responsible for dropping off and picking you up at daycare.

 

I am suffering baby withdrawal, having not seen you all day and being at home working solidly since 7:45 am.  So I text your dad.

 

He phones back, happy.

“Just had a great meeting, finishing up now, am in xxx Outer Suburb xxx, on my way home, won’t be too long….”

“Ah, but you have Oscar, right??? “.

“Oh shit.”

Thankfully your grandma K wasn’t too far away as it was too late for me to walk/bus to get you, and she managed to get there just before they closed (we’re not at a long daycare anymore), along with your dad who I have no doubt picked up at least 3 speeding tickets on the way.

 

And was rather sheepish for the rest of the night.

 

Bad parent of the day award: yes, your Dad, for forgetting to pick you up on the first day he had to! (I mean, I could understand after a busy day a few weeks into a routine, but on the first day???!!!).

 

love you,

mum.

 

P.S.  You were of course fine, and oblivious to the whole thing.  But your dad felt pretty bad about the whole affair, so I had to let a few days pass before sharing the story.

 

Was that “duck”????… Bad parent of the day award February 16, 2011

Filed under: baby stuff,bad parent of the day award,Communication,development stages,emotion,family,imitation,Parenting,Raising a Child,speaking — rakster @ 8:06 pm
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This week you’ve started to talk in whole sentences.  Like,

“The bird is in the sky. Up there.”

And the like.  And in addition to using your own sentences, you’ve decided to repeat verbatim what other people say to you, back to them:

“Let’s go eat now”; “Lets feed the chickens”; “I like eggs”….

So today I was pulling out of our street into the busy road on the way to drop you (O) at daycare when someone nearly hit me…  I swerved and said,

“Fuck.  Stupid asshole.  Did you see that, they almost hit us.”

Can you see where this is going???..

….

….

….

You proceeded to babble in the back about “ducks” with a certain inflection in your voice the rest of the way to daycare.

Nice one mum.

P.S. Yes, we have instituted the swear jar, as I’ve written about before. But at present the rules are that it only applies once you walk in the front door.  With the unspoken proviso that both your Dad and I try to adhere to it around you at most times….   But as I’ve also said before that I think I have contributed the most to the about $150 we’ve collected so far..

 

A memorable trip…. with sausage and prunes but no playdoh. February 10, 2011

Filed under: bad parent of the day award,Communication,development stages,healthcare,Parenting,Raising a Child,vegetarian — rakster @ 2:43 pm
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Hello!

I’ve lots to write but little time. Life is a bit of a blur at the moment. One needs time to make icecream and other savoury snacks to fulfill the pregnant urges (more on that another day). Oh yeah, and work fits in there somewhere too.

A snippet from last week.

The plane trip from hell….

We took a trip to Melbourne for an extra-long weekend.  It was awesome overall, which I’ll get to in another post.  But today, a bit about the flight, sausages, prunes and playdoh… (more…)

 

another week has flown by… and bad parent of the week award to me! September 30, 2010

Filed under: activities for kids,baby stuff,bad parent of the day award,development stages,exercise,Parenting,playing,Raising a Child — rakster @ 7:55 pm
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Hello!

bad parent of the week: mum

I award myself bad parent award of the week this week.  For not realising you were sick and nonchalantly taking you to the doctor for a check as you were extra tired and a bit cranky on Monday, only to be told that you apparently have ear infections in both ears. Which reminded me what a tolerant and happy little thing you really are, as all I had noticed was the extra fatigue and a bit of extra whingeyness when you wanted something I wouldn’t let you have (which was enough to make me want to go to the doctor to check, but I was a bit surprised, I was expecting the usual, ‘he’s fine’).. The new doctor who we’ve never met before kind of gave me a kinda funny look as he told me you had an ear infection and that you needed antibiotics, and that “you need to keep up the pain medication, that is probably why he’s upset” as I’d just 3 minutes earlier cheerily informed you “no blocks until we’ve finished with the doctor… and gee you’re a bit cantankerous today!” as you pounded on the doctor’s door in an attempt to exit the consulting room and return to the blocks you were previously happily playing with in the reception…  So yes, the new doctor thinks I’m a bad parent who doesn’t pay attention to her child’s needs and treats his health as a bit of a humourous aside.  Well, maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but that look he gave me certainly indicated he wasn’t convinced I was the best parent either.  Suffice to say it was the end of the day, you were ratty, and I was a bit more scattered than usual myself.  So maybe appeared to someone who doesn’t know me a bit nonchalant.  When really I was just a bit tired and distracted….

health – an ongoing issue

Anyway, all good.  You’re on antibiotics and you’re already getting better.  Today you played independently heaps during the day, and it reminded me how good and easy to look after you are when you are 100% healthy…. Which reminds me, it seems such a common thing that all babies are sick for ages after starting childcare.  My mother’s group doesn’t meet up much anymore as almost everyone has gone back to work, but we still email a lot, and this week one of the topics that has come up has been the relative frequency of sickness in everyone’s kids since starting childcare.  So it’s not just you.  Which makes me feel slightly better.   Starting childcare is a sickness-inducing thing in most kids.  Which I knew, but it’s still helpful to have people at the same point as us going through the same thing and talking about it.

today: climbing

So.  No swimming lesson today (thought that I’d win bad parent of the YEAR award for taking my ear-infected child to a swimming lesson).  Instead: naked playing in the sandpit while I weeded the garden.  A visit from little E (who you gave a dink to on your little trike – the cutest thing ever), a bike ride with mum and a stop in the park on the way home…

baby climbing

climbing at the park

..

All good fun.

Love and kisses

mum

P.S. Another photo from last week: exploring at the State Library.  I just let you wander about wherever, and this is where you ended up.

exploring

 

Finger lickin’ goodness. May 14, 2010

Filed under: baby's feelings,bad parent of the day award,eating,emotion,Parenting,pregnancy — rakster @ 5:45 pm
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Alternately: “Is my dad a cannibal or did he bite my finger by mistake?”

Hello!

Bad Parent of the Day Award today – very simple.

DAD. For biting your finger as he was attempting to eat some food that you were offering to share with him.

Your reaction: disbelief, then loud crying and screaming.

End result: 20 minutes later, red swollen finger….

ooow!! someone bit my finger

ooops.

love mum

P.S. Note, you were hungry. As per the photo, you continued to try to eat your spinach and cheese muffins with blended roasted vegetables through the tears.

 

Drainage Issues – parenting for dummies May 5, 2010

Filed under: bad parent of the day award,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 11:13 am
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Last week.  Washing day.  5 loads of laundry and one load of nappies/diapers.  Done, but an issue.

The downstairs toilet started bubbling. Then the laundry bubbles started coming up while the washing machine was running.  Our house was renovated in the last 10 years and we’ve NEVER had a drainage / plumbing issue.   Damn, I think –  time to get the plumber in…

A few hours and a few hundred dollars later: plumber extracts stinky white mess from about 15m down the garden on the end of his spinning, whirring, metal machine.   He examines stinky white mess and asks:

“Do you flush your nappy wipes down the loo?”….

(more…)

 

you know the mother with the screaming child in the shopping center… March 5, 2010

Filed under: bad parent of the day award,exhaustion,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 4:40 pm
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Picture a SCREAMING child being pushed in a stroller around the suburban shopping center by a very harrassed and wild-haired looking mother. Wayward glances from strangers (some sympathetic – most, a few judgemental) as the loud stroller starts to go in indiscriminately crazy loops and the mother’s breathing increasingly becomes jagged as she initially tries to continue shopping (but is in reality just pushing the stroller round the same old stands of generic boring clothing with an increasing fervour while not actually seeing any of the clothes at all) and she struggles to retain any sense of composure and “I’m the parent & I’m in control” feeling before fleeing for the closest exit with the wailing trailing down the escalators to follow her out into the heat of the carpark.

That was us this afternoon.

After another night of sleeplessness and random feeding, I for some reason decided that today was the day to go to the shopping center to try to find some clothes that fit me.

What the hell was I thinking? (more…)

 

Bad parent of the day award. And the winner is… February 19, 2010

Filed under: baby stuff,bad parent of the day award,family,Raising a Child — rakster @ 4:41 pm
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We have an award in our house: it’s the “Bad Parent of the Day”.

It started as a joke. Your dad had a quiet chat with me a few days after we came home from the hospital and he went to work which went along the lines that as I’m at home with ‘the baby’ all day every day then I’m the one who is most likely to be the responsible parent when ‘the baby’ does get injured. Accidental maybe, but we both knew it was going to be heartwrenching, and that was your dad’s way of telling me that he wasn’t going to be angry or upset or judgemental, just supportive. Because the odds were against me.

To be honest, I don’t even remember now what your first big mishap was. I should have blogged about it, because I know it was very real and scarey at the time, but now it has just melded into a conglomerate memory of the past few months, where some days you injure yourself, or I injure you (unintentionally and generally pretty minor so far, cross fingers) and some days nothing happens but you’re still grumpy and scream at times and I’m still lacking sleep so really ask me the next day what happened the day before and I’d be hard pressed. (Oh, and I still don’t come up for air when talking. Some things don’t change.)

So as the days meld into one another, we commemorate each mishap of bad parenting with our “Bad Parent of the Day” Award. I guess I do probably win it more than your dad, but considering I’m on more parenting duty, I think the balance on weighted means would be in his favour. Or disfavour depending on how you view it.

Today’s winner? Well, I can’t think of it. Maybe it hasn’t happened yet. Or, if you count letting your baby eat of the floor as a bad thing I probably shouldn’t have fed you the cucumber you dropped on the footpath in the Valley this morning, then Me. The footpaths there are not your average cleanliness, somewhat below… In the scheme of things, minor.

Three days ago? Me. You know about the whole carrot intolerancething? Well, I went to cook more food for you and found the freezer cubes we use to freeze your food in full: of chicken stew. So I dutifully emptied them all into the sink and then flushed them down the loo. Thinking all the while, “Gee, what a waste. It’s not the food that bothers me so much as the love and time your dad put into cooking it”. And it’s not like I’m ever going to cook you chicken stew (pescetarian avoiding meat cooking at all costs). So it was a bit special.

Dumb di dumb di dumb. Well, it turned out your Dad had already lovingly thrown out all the offensive carrot-containing stew, and cooked you a whole new batch. Which was exactly what I threw out. Mmm. Bad parent of the day award: Mum.

Love you boopie baby
mum