Choices

So long time no post, things have been a bit manic in this household of late. Myself and both kids are sick again, just colds this time but the chunky monkey is back to 2 hourly feeds at night again which is exhausting to say the least, so I haven’t had a lot of time to get a post together. In fact it’s taken me an entire day to write these first few lines so goodness knows when I’ll actually get this posted.


We’ve decided it’s necessary for me to go back to work, hopefully it won’t be for long, maybe 6 months at most until the business is making enough money for Big Daddy to draw a decent wage. That being said I’m not entirely happy about it, to be honest I’m not even a little bit happy about it. Luckily my job pays high enough casual rates for me to only have to work weekends in order to pull in nearly as much as I did working full time before I took maternity leave but I’m still being a sook about it. Chunky Monkey is only four and half months old and is a pretty needy baby he nurses every 2 hours still and doesn’t like to be set down for very long and doesn’t really sleep during the day so it’s going to be difficult for Big Daddy at home with both him and the Mighty Midget. My work place also isn’t an ideal set up for a breastfeeding mum to pump and there’s not a lot that they can do about that. I’m a specialist youth worker at a residential treatment facility for high and complex needs young people and part of our role is constant supervision, our young people cannot be left unsupervised even for a short amount of time. We are often short staffed which means it’s common to do an entire 8 hour shift without even getting into the office for a toilet break if the clients are unsettled. I’ve made it clear that there needs to be someone around at all times to relieve me so I can pump at least once during my shift so I really really hope that they strive to maintain this.

I’ve received mixed reactions from female friends when I’ve talked about my desire to be a SAHM if we can afford it. People seem to assume that because I do have a tertiary education and a career that my priority would be to maintain that. In fact some think I’m mad for wanting to ‘throw away all those years of hard work’. They’re even more shocked and in some cases a little disgusted even when they hear that I’m happy to cook and clean and be with the kids while Big Daddy runs the business. It’s like I’m a traitor, I’m taken feminism backwards, the suffragettes fought so that women could have it all blah blah blah. I wonder if any other women in my position feel oppressed by feminism, by the pressure to ‘have it all’. What does ‘having it all’ even mean? What if to me ‘having it all’ means having the financial freedom to play with my kids all day, to be able to do the school run, practice my cooking and shower the man I love with care and affection? What if I would like to perfect the art of being a domestic goddess? (I’m far from achieving this BTW) Society seems to have a pretty negative view of SAHM’s, like they’re not quite as motivated and/or intelligent as us ‘career women’. It’s almost like the whole reverse racism phenomena, we’ve worked so hard to prove that we can do everything men can do and more and now there’s this incredible pressure to measure up and do EVERYTHING and the majority of that pressure comes from other women.

These women need to remember that the ‘Feminist’ movement was a fight for choice, and to be treated equally and equitably when we make those choices. For the record I choose to do whatever is best for my family, when I made the choice to become a mother I made a choice to change my priorities. So right now what’s best for my family is for me work, and when we can afford it what’s best for my family will be for me to be at home and being involved in my kids lives and educations, perhaps I can revisit the career aspirations when they get older, I am only 25 after all. On the other hand I quite like the idea of being a lady of luxury ;).

Shout out to the man I love

I have to say I am a very lucky lady. I’ve read a lot of things recently from women who’s husbands are less than supportive and helpful. I also see lots of couples who simply don’t seem happy, they seem unable to communicate effectively they hold grudges over issues past, they’re critical and petty towards each other. I often watch these couples and wonder what it is that actually holds them together. I hear stories of men who demand that the house be clean and dinner on the table every evening when they get home from work despite the fact that ‘wifey’ has three kids under 5 to deal with every day. I wonder if these children get much playtime or cuddles.


I’m lucky because I have a rare man and I love him to the ends of the earth, I wonder how many women can honestly say that? My man is a real man for so many reasons and not all the obvious ones. Sure he has his faults, he has a less than savoury past in some aspects, he’s over weight, he can be a bit of a grouch and he’s addicted to electronic games. But we have recently entered a new, more mature and wonderful phase in our relationship. This phase has come around primarily due to changes that Big Daddy has made to his lifestyle, by his own choice. In the last 3 months he has quit smoking, drinking and gambling (he didn’t have a particular problem with the latter 2 just decided life was better without them), he has began pursuing a new business venture that has the potential to be super successful and he has made the decision to start losing weight. This seems like a lot to take on all at once, I can barely wrap my head around the idea of losing weight let alone the rest. You would think that he would be extremely stressed and grouchy with all of this added pressure but in fact he has been quite the opposite. I thought he was involved and helpful before but now he is like this superwomans superman.

On a typical day he gets up with our mighty midget at around 7am, gives him his breakfast and medication, brushes his teeth and plays with him downstairs while I feed the Chunky Monkey upstairs and have a sleep in. When I make it downstairs he usually heads to the cafe down the street to get me a coffee before coming home to get ready for work. He goes to work as a cook for the 4 hour lunch shift, then has snuggles with his boys or we go to the park, then he usually cooks us dinner and after dinner he hops in the shower with both the kids, then he puts the mighty midge to bed and reads him his stories while I feed the chunky monkey for the hundredth time that day.

He never complains if the house isn’t tidy or if I’m still in my pj’s or haven’t shaved my legs for a month. He rarely even complains that our intimate life is a little barren at times ( not non-existant just a little slower than it used to be). He constantly tells me that I’m beautiful even though Im a good 20-30 kgs heavier than when we met and he kisses and cuddles me every day without it being a preamble to anything else.

Sure there are things that infuriate me at times but how could I ever stay resentful or angry when he is a million shades of wonderful 98% of the time. I am totally myself with him and he supports me in everything I do and he’s not afraid of his own emotions.

I don’t want to sound smug but there’s no other point to this post other than to brag about how lucky I am. I promised I would post something positive and when I sat down and thought about all the good things in my life I began to realise how blessed I am.

I would love to hear from any other ladies who feel this way about their men, feel free to post in my comments. And for those ladies who read this who have had bad luck with men don’t lose hope , there really are some great ones out there I promise.

I should probably stop now because I’m serious when I say I don’t want to sound smug, I just hope Big Daddy realises how loved and appreciated he is, in fact I might hop off the computer now and go tell him.

Thanks for reading xoxo

Crap nights

I don’t ever remember being this sleep deprived with my first. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t wake up still tired, I’m pretty sure it was sometime before I fell pregnant. Last night was rough, there has got to be some unwritten natural law that causes the wheels to fall off everything the night before a big day. The mighty midget has been having nightmares lately he shouts out 3-4 times a night yelling ‘No” and calling for daddy. Daddy doesn’t always hear straight away because he snores like a gorilla and when I go to settle him down it doesn’t always work, he’s developed a huge attachment to daddy since his little brother was born, and has pulled away from me. This breaks my heart slightly but I’ll go into that more in a later post.


So anyway back to the unwritten natural law of crap nights. Big Daddy had to leave the house by 6am today for business meetings in the city (up to 2 hours away). Of course this meant the mighty midget, who is usually in bed and settled by 7, decided to play up til just after 8. He then wake up at least 3 times through the night. The chunky monkey, who is usually settled in for the night by 8, played up until 10. On top of this I woke at 11 unable to lay on my left side because my breast was so sore, I went downstairs to pump, this didn’t really help. Once I went back to bed it seemed that my body couldn’t regulate its temperature and I lay shivering and aching for about an hour. When I finally decided to hop in the shower my fingernails, toenails and lips were blue. It took nearly half an hour with the water running hot before I started to warm up and when I did I started throwing up. I went back to bed just before the Chunky Monkey woke up for a feed, I could barely sit up without wanting to throw up by this stage so we fed and fell asleep lying down and by the time we both woke I was o.k again, bizarre. Needless to say I was exhausted and facing having a tired and cranky 2 year old and a demanding and clingy nursling all day by myself. I this probably sounds like no big deal to single mums out there or mums with partners who work away but I’ve been very spoiled. Big daddy works in the cafe next door to our house 4 hours a day so I always have help in the morning and at dinner time, I’m very lucky.

As usual I stressed myself out unnecessarily because we got through it, both myself and the mighty midget were in foul moods from lack of sleep but we came to a shaky compromise on T.V time (we watched all 3 toy story movies) and I even managed to get us dressed and decently fed, and got some washing on and cleaned the kitchen. WOO! Go supermum lol so now I know I can survive when Big Daddy has to go on long business trips or work in the city although I’m going to have to organise more activities to do with the mighty midget because I couldn’t keep a clear conscience if I let him watch T.V all day all the time, the mummy guilt would go into overdrive (that too will be covered in a future blog post I’m sure).

I’ve just realised that so far all my blog posts have been about kind of negative parenting stuff so I pledge that the next one will be a happy story because surprisingly enough we do have more good days than bad .

Bibs and bobs

Ok so a quick (who am I kidding it's never quick) update on everything. Chunky Monkey (14 wk old) is still slowly recovering, cough is still hanging around and is waking him up at night a bit and he's still quite clingy but he's easily resettled so that's a bonus. The cough will probably stick around for at least a few weeks. Im going to try to introduce a blankie toy to help him self settle a bit more when he wakes up at night because often his only feeding for a minute or two then falling back asleep.
The mighty midget is still being difficult with his food but we're getting there slowly. The first day he completely refused his lunch and then when he was given the vegie bake for dinner he picked all of the pasta and cheese out of it and left the vegies. When he asked for his bottle that night he was told no and this didnt seem to bother him, he asked a few times but there were no tantrums. The following 3 days have been a mixed bag but with none of the tantrums that we've been expecting. Then last night we had roast pork mash and steamed vegies, he ate most of his pork, none of the mash and a few pieces of carrot and a couple of peas, which is a start, I think we need to start putting a bit less meat on his plate. Anyway it got close to bed time and he asked for his bottle, we told him no bottle but he could have his milk in one of his cups or drink bottles, as he had done a few nights ago. Well all hell broke loose, what followed was 20 minutes of the most dramatic tantrum throwing I have ever seen!! He threw himself to the floor kicking and screaming 'No Cup, Bottle' or just long drawn out 'Noooooooooooooo' he rolled around, he smacked daddy he headbutted the carpet he kicked at the walls, he literally screamed himself horse and caused himself to choke and gag, it was so distressing and frustrating but we perservered in ignoring it. Finally he realised he wasnt going to win this way so when he finally stopped screaming and just stood there looking at daddy, daddy asked him over for a cuddle and handed him his milk. He snuggled with daddy, then snuggled with me and calmly quietly drank his milk then went to bed as normal. Unbelievable, hopefully we won't have to go through another one of those now that he knows it won't work.
Any way thats about it for today, boring I know, I'll come back with something deeper next time but right now I'm going to camp on the lounge for a nanna nap while the mighty midge is at day care and chunky monkey is sleeping. xox