No I’m not OK. Thanks for your lack of concern.

I’m not seeking sympathy, I’m not attention seeking, I’m not a drama queen like that. I will continue to enquire as to how you are and mean it when I say that I hope all is well.

I don’t want to talk about it.

It would just be nice if my existence was acknowledged for once.

And that I could just let the years fall instead of feeling so numb.

Fridays are somewhat of a luxury for me, in that when miss Immyjim goes down for her nap I get the chance to have some time and space to myself. And the washing.  And the dishes.  And the niggling sense that I should be doing more household chores in general.

This Friday has been lazier than usual, as our usual post preschool reading group and grocery shopping has been abandoned for the the day after I had one of those early morning WWM11 moments upon finding my littlest miss in a cold spew covered cot.

(In my defence she had grizzled once in her sleep for less than the minute it took me to wake up and head down the hall to her room to investigate.  As all had gone silent I went back to bed, assuming it had been a bad dream).

Then I had to face miss A’s disappointment at Mummy not coming into the classroom, expressed in her usual hostile I will speak rudely to you until you snap style. Which will be followed later with a perfectly worded note of apology*

On a brighter note, miss E was thrilled to head off to preschool, self dressed proudly in a style her teacher aptly coined as “Scottish with bling”.

Anyway. Where was I?

With my slightly off colour but eternally cheerful bonus baby still slumbering peacefully after a self determined early nap time- offers of food and boob met with a determined “Na!” accompanied by a shake of the head, then a toddle to her room, finger pointed at cot and a “Nigh-nigh’s!” (got to love a fourteen and a half month old who can so clearly communicate what she wants)- here I am, tapping away on the keyboard.

Can you even follow my scattered non train of thought?

I realise my last post was a sensitive topic, and I hope that I worded it appropriately so as not to unduly offend anyone.  As an update on this issue…I did speak to my friend about not wanting visits for a little while and she has been fantastic and understanding.  The situation has reached crisis point after her daughter attempted to push another student in front of a bus and so there has been medical and behavioural intervention put in place which of course is going to take time.

It is a heartbreaking situation, and I hope that the child in question gets the assistance that she needs.  In the meantime I am relieved that my reaction was the appropriate one….

…is it terrible to admit to being relieved that it was not miss A that was pushed in front of the bus when a year or two earlier she was the focus of her friend’s fixations?  (Guilty as charged).

All of that was my long winded way of getting around to the original topic of this post, which was to ‘fess up to having had a rough time when it comes to female friendships of late.

Those of you who put up with me on Facebook might be aware of my reference to passive aggressive behaviour.  What I was talking about was having to consistently dodge barbs from many mother friends of late.  My crime?  Being a by no means perfect parent who has managed to produce three bright and mostly kidlets with no significant and/or ongoing issues beyond the usual childhood concerns thus far.

Apparently being quiet, listening to the concerns of your friends and trying to offer support in the form of sympathy rather than assvice is a crime.  Being asked how your kids are going, saying “Fine for now *touch wood*” and then when pressed for specific details carefully and somewhat reluctantly admitting that I has adjusted to daycare, E is possibly going to school next year and A is in the highly capable student group makes me a stuck up cow. And apparently I have real  nerve for dealing as I go with getting three kidlets to care and the two hour each way commute to work.  A job that is demanding but interesting.   That I am trying to get fit to cope with it all by committing to a regular gym program.  BITCH!

Far out.  And they wonder why I don’t actually volunteer information often.  I’m aware that I am incredibly lucky. I’m aware that this is a mostly good patch that could change any second (didn’t mention that I am still woken up every night by two out of three kidlets now did I?).  I make no claims that any of this is due to my parenting, although I hope it does show a little bit that I am not as bad as I often think I am.

Why do women always seem to think it is always about them?  That somehow someone else’s unrelated fortunes or misfortunes are inextricably bound up with their own?  Why are my male friends not like this (thank dog)?

I think I am long overdue for a catch up with the select group of ladies I have affectionately and wryly dubbed the Faulco foxies.  Honest, strong and funny women who tell it like it is to your face and not your back.

I wish I could be in real life contact with those of you inside the computer who are like exactly like that.

And now the ramble must come to an end. I hope I didn’t come across as a smug prat. Sorry about that.

* Have to take a photo but it said “Dear Mum, I am sorry I was being Silly. Love A x”   And yes I have cried. More than once and for many reasons.

It has been four years since I’ve last had my body to myself- and in some of that time I have been both pregnant and breastfeeding- and I’m completely. burnt. out.

Breastfeeding is proving to be challenging. Again.  My littest ‘un is making it extremely difficult to achieve my goal of a minimum of twelve months of breastfeeding thanks to the fact that she will only feed at sleep time, wrapped and in  the dark of the bedroom and has been this way for months.  As if trying to fit life in around sleeps isn’t freaking hard enough (and something I have been dealing with for over five years now) I feel completely housebound by this arrangement.  Little miss won’t feed when out, and won’t sleep without a prior feed, even though it is the dummy that she actually falls asleep with.  My anxiety levels go through the roof.  When we are out we are usually at least half an hour from home. You get the drift.

Don’t even get me started on the monthly breastfeeding strikes around the time of my period, and the several days of expressing to get it all back on track. 

In spite of this I already feel guilty that I am not capable of considering feeding until two and beyond like I did with Evie because I truly believed she was my last baby.

The lack of sleep is getting to the stage where it is no longer tolerable.  Immyjim still wakes in the night and ends up in bed with us because I am too bloody tired to resettle her in her cot but then I end up not getting quality shuteye thanks to the rolling and space hogging baby.

The net result is I am the snappiest most unenthusiastic mother I have ever been…and that’s saying something. I yell at the slightest non provocation.  I am constantly irritated and always on edge.  I am so unmotivated and feel almost disassociated from my husband and kidlets.  I wonder where my sense of humour has gone.  I am eating crap in an attempt to boost my energy levels and am now the fattest I have ever been. And for someone who was once on the brink of an eating disorder this is very confronting.

It’s revolting.

And although my rational brain knows some of the steps that I need to take to get out of this vicious circle (ie get baby to sleep in her own cot, probably even in her own room, consider- gasp- weaning, me time, exercise, meditation, a return to part time work blah blah fishpaste) I am too emotionally drained and guilty  to know where to start.

Sorry for that internets, even I can’t handle the sound of my own whining.  Don’t get me wrong, I adore my family and appreciate that I really do have a charmed first world life.  I do however need to make some positive changes so that I feel more like myself again and can then be a much more positive and engaged mother and wife.  Especially to my two oldest kidlets, both extremely bright, one very intense and who desperately need a calm and responsive mother who can meet their needs.

And here’s the dumb thing.  If given the opportunity to add to our family (and it isn’t an option, but still) I would do it in a heartbeat.  What is wrong with me?!

I am so blessed to have my beautiful family…but truth be told I am a little lost right now.  It’s time for hissychick to re emerge but I’m not sure how or where to start.

And that is/was my birthday wish….

I have nothing of note to post and am in a very hissy mood because E, although mostly and slowly recovered, has decided to scream blue murder if she is placed in a cot to sleep anytime between 6 am and 8pm. I in turn have been spending a large proportion of these hours yelling at my kids to stop screeching.

To top it off, after a few days of stupid error messages and non availability of my blog I am back online- minus most of November’s posts.  I now have to hope and pray that the all seeing and all knowing evil that is Google has cached them somewhere so I can put them back up. Let’s just say I got rather upset at the thought of losing milestone posts, those precious snapshots that I want my girls to enjoy sometime in the future.

Yeah I know I know, there’s people dealing with much worse things blah blah positive talk shiny happy hippies begone from my sight.

Is there such a thing as pre PMS?

Um.

So I’ve been a whole lot of nutcase a little bit craazzy of late.  I’d blame the French, except they’re not the ones still waking me up for a feed once or twice a night now that they are in their own room. No names mentioned, miss E I’m looking straight at you.

Anyway, I guess the only way out of this funk is to accept the ongoing sleep deprivation, embrace the broken nights because they are showing no signs of abating anytime soon. Either that or sink lower into a tired misery punctuated by a fixation on all things meaningless while I let the meaningful moments slide.

Examples?  I have so wanted to come on here and tell you all about A’s amazingly elephantine memory and her ability to recall things from a year ago in perfect detail, snippets of conversations we have which show her burgeoning empathy and reasoning skills yet are still rather hilarious.  Especially her emphatic “I KNOW that” whenever she is called up on her behaviour, before proceeding to do what she wanted to do anyway.  Her secure satisfaction in knowing that she will always be my baby and that I love her to the moon and back.  My girl’s excitement and pride reserved for physie, and the thrill of counting down the days until this weekend’s concert, where she will be wearing her “proper real physie shoes and leotard mummy“.

Her obsession with the story of Cinderella, and her father’s delight at my ambivalence to this most decidedly non feminist tale.

And then there’s been E’s language explosion, from the adorable way in which she will plop down her weary head and say ‘nigh nigh‘ whenever she is tired, her pleading ‘uhh! uhh!‘ as she tries to scramble up my legs and into my awaiting arms and her most exuberant “dip! dip!” as she is presented with a bowl of food or tub of yogurt that she must feed herself, and by dog she does a great job with a spoon already.

The new tooth, the exceptionally hair raising climbing skills and mastery of riding a slippery dip at the grand old age of fourteen months. Her love of animals, as evidenced by her cheery “woo!woo!” greeting to the neighbour’s dogs when  we raise her bedroom blind in the morning, the constant searching for and pointing at “tweet! tweets!” as she climbs up onto the coffee table to gaze out at the birds in the bushland outside.

The squeals of delight as my girls play chaseys with each other all day long.

Mr hissychick’s landmark fortieth, and the horror/comedy of the day as detailed on his own blog, but excluding my sadness and embarrassment  at his poorly hidden displeasure with my first choice of watch for his birthday present.

Instead I have been mooching around, paying half hearted attention to the kids and the state of the house as I focus my priorities on stupid things like trying to get a nappy cream stain out of a couple of MCNs….at 11pm at night. Typing and then deleting comments on your blogs, fearing my words are just inane crap.

Worrying myself sick about the fact that I have to put in another extension of leave form at work, even though I knew it was never going to be realistic for me to return before the end of the year. Wondering how it will even be possible to juggle the commute and my absolute opposition to formal child care for my children before they are two years old but fearing that if I don’t return to work that I will entirely lose my own identity, self esteem and independence.

I won’t get started on the whole I really want a third child even though it defies all common sense and ongoing resentment at the fact that even if mr hissychick magically changed his mind it wouldn’t happen the au natural way anyway.

And let’s not mention how much time has been wasted of late in the agonising grip of guilt. Guilt that my own shitty mood is directly affecting my kids, my relationship with my husband, and is probably the major cause of climate change and the one thing that is holding everyone back from achieving world peace.

I am way too self involved.  So tell me, is the answer sleep, medication, sex, plucking my eyebrows? And what was the question anyway?

Gah.

Let’s leave it at that shall we?

When I first started this blog it served merely as an online diary, a place of catharsis where I could blab about the trials and tribulations of infertility, something I did not wish to share with the real world at the time.  It then evolved into a place where I could document the wonder of my pregnancies, the joyous milestones of my children and muse about motherhood.

Somewhere along the line I (re)gained a sense of humour, and with it an audience for my blog.  An audience who, from my understanding, like to read my blather because it usually makes them laugh.

Right now I face a conundrum.   You see, dear internets,  I am currently in the midst of a rather persistent funk. A dark, viscous oiliness has permeated my brain, sucking all confidence and the ability to make light of life right out of my very person. It’s a persistent bastard, still lingering even though the kids and I have recovered from our poxes and palsies.

Funnily enough this black mood is causing a serious writer’s block.  It is irritating and frustrating to not be able to concentrate on capturing those precious snapshots of my kids when they are both going through such rapid developmental leaps right now.

Do I attempt to purge myself of my current state of whiny teenage angst by writing annoying and depressing drivel that will bore all of you stupid, or do I try to find something humorous and therefore crowd pleasing to write about and hope that my mood lifts as a result of pretending that it’s all okay?

For fuck’s sake, mr hissychick is the one turning forty next week and I’m the one having the meltdown.

I guess what I’m trying to get at  is that sometimes I don’t know who I’m writing for anymore.

I think I’ll shut up for now.

*Simone and Kathie best understood where I was coming from.

A: A short snappy post about something ludicrously funny from the world of parenting a threenager and a toddler, that may or may not include quotes from eldest daughter and/or photos of both girls  which may ruin any future political aspirations they may hold, or at least be a source of great amusement at their respective 21sts;

B: A well thought out and tenderly written milestone post, reflecting on the latest achievements of either or both girls- including sentimental ponderings about the fact that the last baby in this household (probably) is now in her own room- and revealing yet again that ms hissychick has a rather tender Hallmark side;

C: A bluntly honest post in which a still sickly hissychick whines about how she has completely dropped the bundle due to ongoing illness and exhaustion, yet again questions her mothering abilities  and wants a magical fairy to step in, clean up the dishes, dress the kids who are still in their jarmies and still watching TV at 11 am and make it all better.

D: None of the above. I’m not talking to you ms hissychick because you haven’t been commenting on my blog nor replying to your own comments, you slack tart you.

It’s over to you to decide.  And I’m talking to you! yes! you! look at me! i need your attention! look at me! look at meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee………………..

I have lined your pockets with many dollars over the past three and a half years, initially because of the fact that the scary plasti-chemical combo you include in your nappies is the only one not to give my oldest daughter nappy rash.

So please tell me why my youngest daughter, who is not even eleven kilos, can no longer fit in your toddler size nappy, which is supposedly for little ‘uns between 10 and 15 kg in weight?

Surely your fine corporation isn’t minimising the size of your product in an attempt to quickly graduate children to the next size nappy, of which there are significantly less per packet and therefore more profits to be had.  Not the company that makes such warm and fuzzy soft focus commercials focusing on the fact that having a baby is all warmth and cuddles and giggles with nary a faeces filled nappy in sight.

As for my oldest daughter, she continues to require your alchemy in the form of Drynites big girl nappies that draw all wetness away, meaning that my daughter likes to lie in bed in the morning and wee before she gets up, therefore providing me with no clue as to whether she is night trained and no longer requires your at this stage $1.50 per nappy product night time ‘pants’ because as we know, dryness happens at their own pace, which of course has nothing to do with maximising your hold over my wallet for as long as possible.

Keep up the good work.

Regards,

mrs e. hissychick

***********

Darling E,

And hello and g’day to you too sweetheart. I am totally loving your language explosion at the moment. There is nothing more adorable than the way you wave ‘night ‘night when we put you to bed for a sleep.

What I’m not so keen on is the fact that you have decided that said sleep is to be avoided at all costs because you need to maximise your time practising your burgeoning language skills.  One am, 3:30 am and 5 am are not the most suitable of times to run through the names of all of your favourite people in the world.

And please cease and desist on that I will poo ten minutes after you have put me in the cot for a daytime nap trick and then you will have to get me up again or I won’t sleep and then I won’t sleep anyway or if i do it’ll only be for one and only one brief nap mwhahahahaha habit that you’ve had happening for, oh the last forever.

What was that? Oh you just grinned at me with your delightful now with added molar smile that lights up your whole face. You want a kiss, and to sing doo doo doo along with the Night Garden and na na na along wth the chicken dance?  Of course I give up, you can have anything you want. Once you climb down from the glass front buffet. Umm how did you get up there in the first place?

Much love

Mummy xxx

**********

My beloved A,

To answer your question: yes darling I still love you all the way to the moon and the stars and back even when you’ve been naughty. Why do I love you when you are naughty? Because you are my daughter. Why are you my daughter? Because you are made from special little bits of Mummy and Daddy. How did we make you? Oh look up there at the stars.

What are stars made of? How far away are the stars? How can we get there? Is a rocket ship the same as a car? How is the car that had a flat battery that we saw yesterday going? Wh-

Oh for the love of dog, please go to sleep. If you actually got some decent sleep we might see less of this blood pressure increasing defiance and meltdowns over trivial issues such as the fact that your sister dropped a piece of banana on your bedroom floorbe able to spend more time exploring things that interest you, such as counting to one hundred and learning about the engineering behind water supply and building construction.

Love always and forever (and yes forever is a long, long long time sweetie)

Mum mum xxxxx

PS YEs tomorrow is Saturday and yes that means movie night. And you’re right the day after that is Sunday and Daddy is still home from work because it’s the weekend. You’ve got it, that day after that is Monday and that means physie class. And then, that’s right, it’s Tuesday and- oh hang on, go to sleep. You’ve mastered the concept of a week but now it’s time for sleep.

PPS Mummy is very proud of the fact that you picked out a gorgeous black leotard and tutu from the usual pick and frilly options available. That’s my little individual, use your determination for good and not evil!

*************

Dear husband,

I will try to stop laughing at the fact that A refuses to call you Daddy, just like Bart does to Homer in the Simpsons. And the way that E likes to smack you in the head as a form of greeting.

No I won’t.

Smooches,

Wifey xxx

******************

Hello body of mine,

First of all I’d like to offer a  big well done to friend thyroid, who is continuing to behave herself in a manner most becoming to a normal butterfly shaped neck gland.

Iron stores, I have to issue you a formal warning.  You have sneakily slacked off,  plummeting to a silly low while I was simply thinking that I was just a bit tired. Take your daily supplement with good humour for the next three to six months and we’ll have another performance review then OK?

Finally blood pressure. I’m very, very disappointed in you. What the hell were you thinking, shooting up like that?  You’d better pull your socks up, because I am now required to keep an eye on you several times a day for the next month. Enough already of the vagueness and occasional dizzy spell, oh yeah, and potential for long term damage to my health. You nasty sneak, you can’t possibly want to go back to the drugs and endless testing we last had almost ten years ago.  Surely my having to remain calm, relax  and not sweat the small stuff blah blah hippy fishpaste is enough for you?

Signing off,

Head in charge.