Safari

This weekend I did 2 things are creating an equal mix of pride and shame, well maybe not pride for both possibly pride for one, satisfaction for the other but definitely a little bit of shame for both.

On saturday I took the chunky monkey and mighty midget out for the day and we had lunch at Macca's. OMG maccas how does that fit into a clean whole foods eating plan?? In short it doesn't. While at Macca's however I ordered a grilled chicken salad wrap and a bottle of water-enter pride. I gave myself a little pat on the back for showing such restraint amongst all of that oily plastic cheesy goodness. At the same time I hate myself a little. who the fuck goes to Macca's to eat healthy? I almost ordered a coffee kick frappe when the kids were getting their soft serves but again a I refrained. I really want that frappe, I have been thinking about that missed frappe for 2 days and no amount of back patting is making it go away. The only thing stopping me from driving the 20mins to the nearest macca's to buy that stupid frappe is that Its not pay day til wednesday and I would have to refill my car before wednesday if I did that.
This means that I'm probably going to buy a frappe on the way to work Thursday morning....stupid frappe.

On sunday I gardened, it had to be done, we have a pebbled area down the side of the house that was a jungle of knee to waist high thistle, and other weeds I don't know the names of. To hang the washing out I had to wear long sleeves, jeans and enclosed shoes. Big Daddy's been saying he's going to do it for months but it's understandably difficult to follow through with those promises while working full time night shifts. I was hoping that by seeing me do it it would guilt him into coming out to help me because I couldn't imagine it was going to be a particularly enjoyable task.
So out I went all gloved up and prepared to tackle the thistle jungle. While I was safari-ing through the jungle I discovered some things;

• Thistles hurt....ok so I already knew this but did you know that the bigger they get the longer and harder the spikes get and it is damn near impossible to get to the non spiky base of the stalk without getting thistle spikes in your arms, face, nostrils hair etc. These spikes were so strong that I have scratches and got kinda tingly and itchy for a while.
• There are a lot of earwigs in my garden of thistles, at least thats what I think they're called, those long skinny beetle with long pincers on their backside. I hate earwigs, they scare me, I'm not scared of much in the way of creepy crawlies but earwigs give the proper willies. Every time a fly landed on my face I was certain it was an earwig deviously trying to make its way into my ear. In fact even now if my ear is itchy Im convinced its a sneaky earwig that made its way in undetected. I don't even know if earwigs really do go into peoples ears but they give me the willies any way.
• There are almost as many lady bugs (or pretty coloured man bugs) in my back yard, this makes me happy who doesn't love lady bugs?
• Here comes the shame, I really fucking enjoyed gardening. I know 5 people that really enjoy Gardening, they are all over 50. I hate myself I am a hot pink haired, tattooed, pierced gardening granny at the ripe old age of 28. I now have all these plans of little no dig vegie and herb gardens that I want to set up all over the place, right after I'm finished applying for the old age pension. I also hate myself because although I've never been an avid gardener I have on occasion been gifted with plant like offerings, herb gardens, flowers in pots etc. to date the only one I've managed to keep alive is a potted, not in dirt but glued down pebbles, cactus. Im thrilled each spring when my cactus sprouts cute little flowers. I water my cactus maybe 3 times a year if I'm lucky. Sometimes big daddy waters it if he's standing next to it while having a drink of water. Long story short I'm possibly going to spend crap loads of money getting this little garden started only to kill it a few months later. I've already bought little kids grow kits of tomatoes and strawberries for christmas for my munchkins. Those presents are so much ore for me than them.

So there we go I am a lame chicken wrap eating gardening blue rinse crazy lady. Lord help me.

This Moment

Young and funky...maybe

I turned 28 just over 2 weeks ago. I feel like I'm doing alright for a woman inching closer and closer to 30. I have a career that is taking off I have 2 gorgeous children and aside from allowing to let myself get monstrously fat over the last 2-3 years Physically I think I look o.k my skins pretty good I don't have a lot of wrinkles and I have a total of 2 silver hairs.
So I'm o.k with being 28...mostly...I think.
I have noticed a particular patten over the last 3-4 years however. Every year, just after my birthday I do something a little bit out there to my hair, each year its a little more out there than the last.
One year I chopped my long hair into a severe concave bob with a chunky blunt fringe. For the record, I'm not a fan of chunky blunt fringes, Big Daddy hates chunky blunt fringes I can think of no other reason for doing this than some 'it girl' must have been rocking one at the time and I decided that I was also young and funky enough to pull this off. Throughout the year I let it grow out and swept the fringe to the side, that wasn't so bad.
The next year I chopped it right off, like super short and swept to one side, again pretty sure the inspiration for this cut came from some gorgeous young thing that I'd come across online. Luckily this look worked for me and I'd recently lost some weight so was feeling fabulous all over. Short hair cuts require a surprising amount of upkeep however, it doesn't them too long to start looking messy and uneven. Throughout the year I played around with different coloured foils and went blonde all over for awhile (I'm naturally dark brown) but it stayed pretty much the same length.
Last year 3 weeks after my 27th birthday I clippered my hair to about a number 6 and dyed it bright purple....yep I loved this haircut, made me feel like a rock star.
About 6 months ago I decided to try and grow my hair out again. Growing out a short hair cut sucks, I've got a bit of a Carol Brady flick going on around the back and a bit of a shaggy mess everywhere else so naturally this friday I decided I needed something to update my look.
Guess what I went with....bright pink. Not a little bit pink, not pink foils no, my entire head is luminescent hot pink/ and I love it!

I've decided that ridiculously coloured hair makes me look younger and cooler. I don't know if this is true or not, I could very well look like one of those crazy old ladies that used to come into the shop I worked in when I was 14.
I used to laugh and laugh when they left wondering if they had any idea how silly they looked with their blue rinse or strange reddy orange with white regrowth.

I'm wondering if my hair is like my twisted version of a pre- mid life crisis, a pink one! Do I really look cool or do I look like a frumpy, nearly 30 mum who got stuck in a fairy floss machine?
Maybe the crazy old ladies I used to laugh at used to be 28 year old women desperately trying to regain their youth through interesting hair colours.

Me in 30 years

Confessions

Confession1. I'm kinda rubbish at this whole blog thing, I mean 2 a bit years between posts, seriously, who's going to stick around to read that? But I've been thinking about getting back to it for awhile now and 1 week on from my 28th birthday seemed as good a time as any. A lot has happened in the last 2 and a bit years...obviously.

Confession 2. I caved on my whole 'I am woman here me roar I will be an educated SAHM and everyone else can go to hell' vibe and I went back to work full time.

Confession 3. I love being back at work full time, in that time I have been promoted twice and started studying again and no matter how hard I try I don't feel that guilty about it... I'm quite possibly a terrible mother. Going to back to work started off being a financial decision, Big Daddy was hugely unhappy in his job due to having a complete knob head as a boss and it was more financially viable for me to go back and climb the ladder than have him trawling for cooking jobs that barely paid minimum wage.
Big Daddy spent around 18 months as a stay at home dad and loved it (and yes he got worse with the whole nazi cleaning attitude before he got better). He's now working as a youth worker at the same place as me except Im now in a management position, that has been an interesting minefield to navigate let me tell you, but thats a story for another day.

Confession 4. This is the big one. I. Got. Fat..... not just a little bit chubby no no no that I could handle. I got fat enough for the Mighty Midget (who's now 4 yrs old!) to say to me one morning while I was getting dressed 'Mummy you've got a tummy like the big losers'...wow thanks kid.
I got fat enough that my 'Biggest loser' tummy started making an interesting slapping noise against my thunder thighs during certain aerobic activities.(Seriously if you're going to read this blog you'd wanna get use to TMI moments).
I got fat enough to have a ghetto booty, but not in a good 'yeah she squats' kinda way but more a 'why do thinks keep getting knocked off desks and shelves when I turn around' kinda way.
No one seems to believe me when I talk about this, no body seems to think I'm any bigger than a size 14, trust me, I am.

Confession 5. I care more about the fact that I'm fat than anything else at the moment, pathetic right? whatever.
I'm more 'gets voted out in the first week' rather than 'makes it to the Biggest loser finals' but still its big enough for me.

I realised how fat I'd gotten several months ago but couldn't maintain the motivation to do something about it. I was that tragically irritating fat girl that complained about being fat all the while stuffing her face with cake. Any healthy eating plan would last no longer than 2-3 days tops.

Confession 6. (last one I promise) I'm now one of those irritating 'I'm intolerant' types who claims food intolerances without ever having being tested. However I have it on good authority that its highly likely that I am actually lactose intolerant, sensitive to heavy wheat based products and extremely sensitive to high levels of sugar.
How do I know this? Well after having stomach cramps on and off for the last 6 months, regularly having severe headaches that would last several days and just generally feeling shit someone suggested I keep a food journal, so I did.
Heres what I found. When I drink milk and eat cream I have wicked stomach cramps anywhere from 2-12 hrs later that can last half a day or more I usually also get the runs.
When I eat bread, weet bix etc I get cramps, headaches and get blocked up.
When I eat a lot of sugar I get headaches that last 2-4 days and don't go away when I take nurofen.
All of this has made it incredibly easy for me to completely change my attitude to food and retrain my tastebuds to eating 90-95% completely clean unprocessed simple whole foods and I.FEEL.AMAZING.

So in the interest of keeping myself on track some of my posts will probably be about my progress, I'm tracking my progress through photos and how my clothes fit. I'm so ashamed by my week 1 photo though that I won't be sharing that until I've got a really banging progress photo to put up next to it.

Other than my posts will be my usual working mum style ramblings and updates on my almost (but not really) grown up children.
 Peace out.

P.s I'm 2.5 weeks in and totally don't get that belly slapping noise anymore :p

{this moment} – A Friday ritual from Soule Mama, one of my favorite bloggers. A single photo (or two) – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your “moment” in the comments for all to find and see.


The above was copied and pasted from http://www.theleakyboob.com/

I'm Ba-ack

Goodness its been a long time, so much for trying to get to the blog once a week huh?


But thats how I am I get really into things and become almost obsessive with them and then something else gets my interest and I move on. I do think however I will keep revisiting this blog as I have enjoyed it especially when I get into one of my ranty moods.

I guess any who read this (I don’t think there is that many) would prob be waiting for some updates considering the somber news in my previous posts. So the news is good. Big Daddy got really sick with a shocking strain of flu shortly after his first round of ‘inconclusive’ tests so his second round of tests where delayed. Then they got delayed because he was feeling better and the lumps had gone down, because Big Daddy is a very typical man in a lot of ways, this inherently told him he was fine and there was no need to worry. After several weeks of myself and family and friends stressing, and nagging him with worst case scenarios he finally caved and did his tests and the results came back all clear. Cue smug chest beating, rooster strutting and ‘told ya’. But you know what I’ll let him have that one coz I think he was secretly avoiding the results because he was scared and who wouldn’t be?

As for the kids, well what can I say, they’re kids. Chunky Monkey still likes to tease us by doing a night or two of only one waking and spending most of the night in his own bed and then going back to two hourly feedings and refusing to sleep unless he’s on MY pillow and wedged under my back so that I am unable to shift or roll until he decides to do his next feed. We’ve also started using cloth nappies (diapers for my overseas followers). The addictive nature of buying and selling and washing and discussing this parenting choice is phenomenal, I mean they’re nappies, the get pooed on for petes sake. I am in awe of the different colours, patterns, prices, you can even get them custom made and it is 100% addictive. In fact its what has kept from blogging because I’ve been researching and testing washing methods and fits etc. I’ve even considered having a crack at making some myself. Borrowed mums sewing machine and all. Only problem is the last time I used one was 12 years ago and I wasn’t particularly good at it then lol so we’ll see how that goes.

On the upside there’s alot more space in our bins and our grocery budget which is nice and I get to feel like I’m doing something positive for the environment. I guess its one step closer to me being a ‘crunchy’ mum or doing the ‘attachment parenting thing’. Note: I do not aim to subscribe to any particular parenting style, in fact I find the whole concept of labelling and pigeon holing people by their parenting choices a little ridiculous.

Any way thats probably enough random rambling from me today, time to get back to work on some posts that I started ages ago that are hopefully much more interesting.

Our Breastfeeding Journey- A Story of Success

Isn’t funny how words can take on different meanings depending on who you are and what stage of life you’re in. In my late teens success was all about acing uni and getting into politics, having lots of money to party and travel and moving into an awesome apartment (with a balcony) with my best friend.


Then all of a sudden I met my fiancé and success became about proving wrong everyone who thought we wouldn’t last (we were engaged after only 3 weeks), saving enough money to move out of his parents house, buying a house of our own, planning a kickass wedding and topping the sales board in my new Job as a membership consultant at a big job.

Three years later right as I’d booked our wedding venues I fell pregnant with the Mighty Midget and he was born 6 weeks premature. Success was about getting him well enough to come out intensive care and being a good enough and aware enough parent to keep him out. And with the birth of the Chunky Monkey success became about moving beyond past mistakes and having the courage to try again at things that I wasn’t sure I could achieve, namely to try again at Breastfeeding.

My Breast Feeding journey begins with the mighty midget despite the fact that it wasn’t a great success. There were obstacles and ‘booby traps’ from the beginning, being premature we were not able to have the skin to skin contact needed in order to establish breast feeding. He was whisked away and I was unable to hold him for 3 days. During this time I pumped and hand expressed in order for him to be tube fed, he was fed in this manner exclusively for 8 days and on day 9 we began our first attempts at latching. He latched well initially however couldn’t stay on for long, becoming tired rapidly and had such a tiny mouth, the midwife suggested we try a shield. This made things markedly easier and by day 12 he was doing all ‘suck feeds’ and had gained enough weight to be released. There were restrictions on our feeding schedule however, we were told that Mighty Midget shouldn’t feed any more than 4 hourly or he would burn too much energy and lose weight again(Booby Trap#1). We were also advised by a different midwife that I had oversupply and now that he was doing all suck feeds I needed to stop pumping otherwise I would get mastitis, there was no talk of taking advantage of this to build a freezer stash in case he needed to be readmitted, the fact that I was using a shield and not getting stimulated as much by his suck also wasn’t considered when this advice was dispensed (Booby trap#2). After a couple of days at home things started to go down hill, all of a sudden he wanted to feed for up to an hour and a half at a time and then would be hungry again half an hour later. I vaguely remembered hearing or reading something about demand feeding and I couldn’t stand the sound of my baby crying so I would sit in the rocking chair all night sobbing and feeding wondering what I was doing wrong. When the community nurse came to my house for his first check up my worst fears were realised, he was not putting on weight. I described his feeding patterns and was told in no uncertain terms that this was far too long for a new born to feed, and even though his nappy output was good that he mustn’t be getting enough and this was why he hadn’t gained weight. I had to supplement and since I didn’t have much of a freezer stash due to booby trap#2 it had to be formula (Booby Trap#3). I was advised to pump after each feed (but wasn’t told to pump between feedings) however I wasn’t told for how long each time, I also wasn’t told that I wouldn’t necessarily get much milk out if he had just fed. I also wasn’t told about any supplements or foods I now know about that could have helped build supply. I was so heartbroken each time I pumped and got nothing and so relieved when at his next check up he had put on weight and had began sleeping well that eventually by about 2 months he was on completely formula and the pump had been packed away. I pushed it to the back of my mind and moved on.

When I found out I was pregnant with the Chunky Monkey I was determined to try again, I was terrified that I was going to have another premmie but fortune smiled on us and he was born 12 days before his official due date at a healthy weight of 3.9Kg. We got a blissful 2 hours of alone time to just cuddle skin to skin immediately after he was born and he latched within 10 minutes of that time and fed for about 20 minutes then fell asleep. His latch wasn’t perfect and had worn a sore patch on my nipple but I had colostrums leaking when he unlatched. I was ecstatic. We were in a much more breastfeeding friendly hospital than the first time and when I worried that he was feeding too often I was assured that this was normal, I was given brilliant advice about practicing nursing while side laying so we could both sleep. Despite this by around 4 weeks I was having doubts again, this largely due to certain people giving me booby trap advice about how often I was having to feed and that perhaps there wasn’t enough calories in my milk. My saviour came in the form of a woman I used to work with who just happened to be on facebook chat one day, we began discussing children and I was surprised to learn she was still feeding her 16 month old. My goal was to reach 12 months, I had never even considered the possibility of going longer. The next morning I received a page suggestion from her, The Leaky B@@b. I checked out the page and I was in heaven! I promptly posted my concerns and the ‘advice’ I had been given and within minutes I had several women reassuring me and encouraging me and I haven’t looked back since. We recently made it to 6 months and in that time have overcome hospital stays several colds, bouts of bronchiolitis, a minor brush with mastitis and returning to work. I have high hopes that our breastfeeding journey will continue for a long while yet and look forward to what the future successes are in store for my family and I.