I will be that parent dropping her year one child off before seven am and then waiting outside the daycare centre until 7 am ticks over.  It will be a rapid goodbye so that I can make the 7:20 am train to the city in an attempt to be at my desk by 9 am.

I will not see my children until 6 pm that evening.  Rinse and repeat the following day.

I could cry.  In fact, I haven’t stopped.

Yes it is my choice.  A choice to ensure my own financial independence- of utmost importance to me- to contribute much needed finances to our household income (not so much choice as necessity) and to continue in a highly skilled career that I have worked hard to attain.  To exercise my brain, and be known as hissychick in addition to Mummy.

Yet the costs are mounting.  I despair of leaving miss I at such a tender young age when she is very much attached to me.  I am beyond furious at the Family Assistance Office who keep screwing me over and ensuring that any financial gain is so paltry it is almost farcical.  The commute is enormous, a hefty price to pay for a profession that does not lend itself to working locally.

Moving is not an option because our children are so happy here- so many friends, a genuine community and space- and a house the equivalent of which we could never afford closer to the CBD.

The temptation is there to scrutinise our budget, to make sacrifices so that I can stay at home.   Or to find a school hours friendly job like night fill or the like.

But why should I have to resort to that?  What was the point of education and career building if the best I can hope for is stacking freaking boxes in a local supermarket?  If my days are to be filled only with household tasks? Where if anything were to happen to the husband (not death or divorce- he’s not allowed those options- rather health wise or if he needed time to step away and reevaluate his own career, to reduce hours to spend more time with us) I could no longer step up and be able to provide an income we could all live comfortably on?  What kind of message would I be sending my own daughters?

Sigh. Time to be an adult I guess and do what needs to be done.

Still I can’t help but be a bit annoyed when my own job could be readily done at home with the occasional meeting thrown in.  And with a new childcare centre due to open across the road at the school in just over twelve months I could get an awful lot done without four hours of commuting per day thrown on top.

I am woman hear me roar.  With frustration that mostly lip service rather than common sense is applied to the so called work/family balancing act.

(Sorry about the poor grammar and wording.   Cranky clouds the brain and I need to get on with the next task from my to do list rather than edit).

How do you translate the endless to do lists into proper action before you are overwhelmed and at the mercy of anxious procrastination yet again? 

Is routine- not just for the kids- for yourself a good thing?  How do you make it work? What activities do you schedule?

If you want to start on changing your diet and exercise habits…where do you begin and how do you actually motivate yourself into moving beyond ideas into action?

If you know that breastfeeding and cosleeping are leaving you so stressed and sleep deprived that it is affecting your parenting to the point where you feel almost disconnected from it all and yet you can’t stomach weaning and controlled crying…what do you do?

Help please…….

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?!

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?

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.

As I frantically ripped the little fuckers from my head it occurred to me that I have no idea how long they have been there, or how many others there are that I just can’t see with my obviously age related failing eyesight.

Which leads me to one of life’s Big Questions:

Should I go for the blue, mauve or pink Nana hair rinse?