ARGH! Small Z is ONE MONTH OLD on WEDNESDAY. On Wednesday? On Wednesday. This is impossible but true. I have been feeding something that used to live inside me every two hours or so for ONE MONTH. And this is why I have decided that the delicate shade of the purple smudges under my eyes suits me. My new favourite colour - if it was a paint it would be Lavender On Dusk.

So besides my milk-bar duties? We have been busy attending family birthdays with casual abandon, clawing our way through the nights and watching the days slip through our fingers with thinly disguised disbelief. It’s all a bit sad, happy and bizarre, mixed up into a flavoursome milkshake.

Today Z and I went for our first solo adventure into town (and when I say ‘town’ I mean the one where I work - about an hour’s drive away). Yes, we could have just gone into the cultural mecca that is Cranbourne - but I had an appointment with my osteopath. When the relaxin from being pg left my body, my two favourite and competing afflictions came straight back - dodgy left jaw and suspect right shoulder. Gah.

On the way in I stopped to get some diesel at the petrol station and discovered something that I had not known about before - hi-flow diesel. This is a diesel delivery system that is designed to freak out the sleep deprived. The nozzle barely fit into the inlet on the car, and in about five seconds the gauge read about 30 dollars. Huh? For a few minutes I was convinced that the person before me still had their amount on the pump - but no - it’s just a super fast pump that splashes diesel all over your hands when it has finished. It was only later that I realised the parallelism…

Z and I met my mum (Z’s nan - ha ha hee!) before my appointment and Z duly milked two fancy new dresses out of her in the first hour. The weird thing about my mother is that she seems to be somewhat of a baby-whisperer and Z slept on her in the waiting room throughout my 45 minute appointment. We then did lunch (I am getting more and more used to showing my breasts to people in cafes - say hello to Mountain One and Mountain Two, world…) and, after my mum had chased a Very Large Huntsman off the car, Z and I went to L’s to visit.

Generally our day out was good - although the traffic home was dire. It was a little bit hard schlepping all the baby crud around with me, but I think this was mostly because I had Z in a sling - we haven’t used the pram yet. However, the instructional point of the day was my discovery that my boobs have a mechanical doppelganger - the Hi-Flow Diesel! Poor Z tries her best with my Hi-Flow but often just splutters at the onslaught of milk and has to take breaks just to cope with the whole experience. Of course, she is already very feisty and feels obliged to narrate her existence with the worlds most weird piratical grunts and R2D2-esque chirping - being semi-drowned by her one food group leaves her sounding like a scavenging brown bear…