Today’s tastiest spam - from Dianna
With the subject line of the email being “It’s Dianna” - I received the following:
Do not ignore me please,
I found your email somewhere and now decided to write you.
Let me know if you do not mind. If you want I can send you some pictures of me.
I am a nice pretty girl. Don’t reply to this email.
Email me direclty at ddianna@onlineldp.info
Ha! I love that the subject line had the correct punctuation, and the first time is so similar to someone calling you and saying “Don’t hang up! Don’t hang up!”
(It’s indicative of my life at the moment that my gmail has ELEVEN HUNDRED unread emails. Gah. I have been having an ‘unsubscribe’ fest to try and fix this - because it seems that the more unread emails you have, the less in control you feel! Have to get going with Mail on the Mac - have decided to give it another go.)
Me and Bowie. Ch-ch-ch-changes….
So I didn’t type this yesterday in case I jinxed it. About a month or so ago my friend J said “B, you need to put Small Z in the next size up of the most full on chemical ridden disposables that you can. We put Small M in the next size up eco-disposable, and it lasts all night.”
I had two responses. One was that I’d tried both eco-disposables and also scary disposables and had success with neither. The other thing was that Small M only eats once or sometimes twice a night, whereas Small Z has a snackfest in comparison. Anyway, I went to my alterno-mother’s group the other day, and a few people there swore by the ’sizing up’ thing.
Back when Small Z was born, our lovely landlord brought around two packs of disposables that his grandkids no longer fitted into. One was toddler sized Huggies - for babies 10kg and up. So not last night but the night before I dug them out of my donate-to-op-shop pile. Small Z is just over seven kilograms, so I figured they are the next size up.
Get this. For the last two nights I have changed her ONCE. I cannot TYPE THIS LOUD ENOUGH. ONCE. ONCE. ONCE. She still woke heaps, but not having to change her - up to five or six times - just ratcheted down my stress levels quite a bit. Changing a baby you want to go back to sleep is an anomaly - it just wakes them up more and they fuss. Especially as it’s fairly chilly here.
What this also meant was that I could stuff her in a baby sleeping bag - I’ve never been able to do this before because it added a dreaded extra step to the whole changing process. Now, with her crazy rolling, she can remain crazy, but warm. And… despite having a hard time getting her settled last night, she then did two three hour blocks.
I swear, my body didn’t know what to do with itself. It felt that strange, elongated sleep sensation and dived straight in and sunk to the bottom. I felt more exhausted this morning than I normally do after a hell night - M reckons it’s because I got a taste of what sleep could be, and my body wants more.
Anyway, after posting all my moans and groans, I thought it would be nice to post a baby-win! Pretty funny that Small Z and I are going to have our photos taken for the paper this Friday, espousing our commitment to cloth nappies!! As M is irritatingly fond of saying - pick your battles. We’ll stay planet friendly during the day and chemical laden at night. I have to remember - don’t just try things once or twice - try them again, and again, and then again!
Friday night. Let’s twist again.
There have been a few dark days in the trenches here at TrailerLand. Small Z has been waking in excess of five times a night. Only for ten or fifteen minutes at time, but that’s enough to send my sanity rocketing down the scale from ten to about five or six. This is coupled with occasional daytime nap battles. I will not let her ‘cry it out’. She will not get to sleep without being rocked or walked. This scenario is so common in new parents that it’s just BORING. I feel that I am part of a big fat predictable cycle…that I’m having trouble shaking. I have been thinking longingly of our only-woke-three-times night in the caravan at Binginwarri…
Oh - but this is NOT a request for advice. It really isn’t. I am drowning in the stuff. I have both my parents suggesting I go to sleep school with Small Z, because whenever they see me I have eyebags to my knees. And my knees…well, put it this way; my mother insists on asking me once a week “Are you eating properly? You’re so thin!” Yeah. Not becomingly slender, or sylphlike. Just kind of trailer-trash-smoked-too-many-ciggies-overdid-the-bootscootin’-and-amphetamines kind of knobbly. Just call me Bobbie-Sue, pass me the Coolabah cask and tell those kids to quit messin’ with my shotgun in case they break it.
I have chatted to Koo Wee Rup sleep school - my health care nurse said they were flexible and accommodating - actually, they were neither. I have chatted to Queen Elizabeth Sleep School, who were far more affable, helpful and made me feel like a human instead of a neurotic loser. They slotted me in for a phone consultation in two weeks time (I’d had one scheduled for yesterday, but had cancelled it on a rogue wave of what some people might call optimism, but I now label general idiocy).
Meanwhile, it is very hard to be unaware of The Importance of Sleep at the Trailer. I have mentioned before that we are perfecting either cooking in the afternoon, or cooking in silence after about 6pm when Small Z slumbers. Anyone watching M and I would be hugely entertained, as our evenings are largely conducted in mime. M is handicapped in the whole affair by his Rather Large Feet.
He sidles around the baby-quiet trailer like a tiptoeing giant, but inevitably stumbles over a rattle, trips on bit of firewood or loads a website that honks. He then looks utterly anguished and clutches at himself like Basil Fawlty. Whenever we both are walking around at the same time, it’s like playing a game of Twister. He stands poised, about to step over the baby playgym, while I snake around to his left, trying not to bump the plates that are in front of the fire while avoiding his glass of consoling red wine helpfully positioned right near the kitchen doorway.
All those nine months of growing a PartyPie, I never realised about the SOUND issue in a non-insulated Trailer. I worried about the heat. I worried about the cold. What I really should have been doing was digging a cave down beneath the towbar that was deep enough so that we could watch something loud and obnoxious (if we felt like it), so that I could emote through some cranky distorted guitar playing (if I felt like it) and so that when we had made it through another week intact, we could laugh hysterically and clank our glasses together… at least every Friday night.
Limp wristed
Last Monday I was typing away as fast as I could, as I do when my mum is around to wrangle Small Z. I try to knock out as much work as I possibly can, but I can never get it all done, due to sleeping and whispering-to-sleep issues. And also because they often give me more than I can actually do without losing my mind.
So I’m typing away on this particular file. (All names and circumstances changed, for obvious reasons…) I type; “Part of her duties involved collecting trolleys and pushing them from one area to another. She began feeling pain in her left wrist.” I looked down at my left wrist. Still buggered from pushing the pram with the flat tyre too far. Still strapped up. I type; “She continued working. Her wrist pain grew worse. She went to her general practitioner, who prescribed anti-inflammatory medication.”
I blink, and look over at the Voltaren Gel. Which hasn’t helped at all. I type; “She did not find the anti-inflammatory medication helpful.” What a surprise. I type; “She returned to her general practitioner, who referred her to have a cortisone injection to her left wrist.” I gulp. That’s what I have organised for tomorrow. Holy god.
I keep typing. If I was a truly superstitious person I would have just dropped my arm off just below the elbow - like a skink sheds a tail. This woman ended up having multiple bouts of surgery, her wrist was fused. FUSED! And she still then had to endure the phrase that I type quite a lot - ongoing severe chronic pain…which has the lovely associated fun of memory and concentration problems, hideous sleep, general grumpiness, depression and anxiety.
I type files like this with these kind of symptoms every week, but the wrist thing had me spooked. I went and got the cortisone injection yesterday. Am so glad I have experienced childbirth so that I can smirk in the face of all other physical pain (am not sure that sleep deprivation counts), because I got to watch on an ultrasound screen while an annoyingly cocky doctor poked around in my tendon with a needle before shooting in a combination of cortisone and anaesthetic.
When he was finished he double checked with the nurse that he’d administered it to the right tendon. Hello? Because there’s another one there he could have tried. Eeny, meeny, miny, MO! MO! MO! She assured him he had been correct. He looked like he was used to being told he was right. So I asked him whether he’d done it properly and he said of course he had. I was told to lay off typing for the night, which meant I got to go home and finish the bloody wrist file typing with my right hand. Only my right hand. And I left all lifting of Small Z to M. One thing I learnt - take care of your sore bits and give them their rest. I mean, I already knew that, but the wrist-file helped to kind of hammer it home.
Weekender
On Saturday we plucked up our courage and took Small Z to visit her Great Uncle, Great Aunty and, because the whole thing is too hard to figure out, her other Aunty as well (with two of her aunts interstate and the other one she never sees, she needs to acquire them where she can!)
I say ‘plucked up courage’ because this is the baby that I no longer do the 45 minute drive into town (i.e. Hampton) with, and our destination was at least a couple of hours away. Yike! For some reason, I always end up in the back being the one that sings and distracts as M crunches up the kilometres. Am not sure how many little ducks went out one day, but it was too bloody many.
We stopped a couple of times and made it, a little late, to the birdladen bushland of Binginwarri. Sorry to appear food-focused, but I am. We had fantastic free range chicken soup and SamSourDough rolls for lunch, while Small Z slept like a proper lamb. My aunt (as opposed to her great aunt - although they are one and the same…this is so confusing) is a bird whisperer, and Small Z was thrilled by the King Parrots, rosellas, shrike thrush, wagtails, yellow breasted robins and many others that danced around outside the kitchen window for her entertainment.
Dinner was a wonder-roast followed by the most sublime dessert I have had in about a year. Something to do with ice-cream, cumquat sauce, polenta and something-I-can’t-remember biscuits with bits of chocolate on top. I very nearly decided to stay forever, or at least follow Sam about begging her to cook more stuff. The crew of the Pelican are on to a good thing!
M, Small Z and I slept in one of the two visitor caravans that were thoughtfully provided (I picked the one with the electric blanket, leaving my father to warm himself unaided). I have to comment that I don’t think I’ve slept on an electric blanket for about a billion years - where were the wires sticking into me? The ‘heating plastic’ kind of smell? I think they have advanced without my knowledge, and I could very easily add them to my “I want a slow cooker and a…” list. Anyway, our night was good! Small Z woke fewer times than she has been at home, and it was SO quiet. Like camping. Just rustles and hoots and the moon.
In the middle of the night, M (who had sipped his way through a bit of ginger wine) swigged in the dark on a bottle that had previously housed grapefruit cordial. He was paralysed by the scent, convinced he was about to die a gurgling, stomach tearing death. It was amusing to listen to in the dark, as he tried to not wake the baby, but panic all the same. I do love caravans. It makes me pine sadly for my little folly, which I can barely look at because I just bit off more than I could chew and I know M is going to have to do some time on it - which I feel guilty about. Huh.
Anyway, in the morning we drank lots of tea, ate more of Sam’s excellent bread and watched the birdlife. M, Dad and Small Z went on a nature ramble, and Sam and I mused through the newspapers and bemoaned our states of employment. It was a very laid back morning - all too easy to forget about the drive home. During lunch, Sam took some pictures of Small Z, who was spreading her love about….
We made it home relatively intact. Small Z can’t seem to get to sleep in the new carseat whatsoever, and we stopped in Korrumburra so M could get her to sleep and then stuff her back in the car while she slumbered. An excellent plan! Once we got home, she was quite excited and I taught her a new trick. She has known that she can roll over, but did not know she could do it repeatedly - she was crazed with excitement and rolled up and down the bed for about fifteen minutes, cackling hysterically.
She reminded me, rather scarily, of Pat Mullins - the woman who was training to roll all the way to the rock. Although, it has to be said, Small Z is younger and far better looking…
The old man is snoring
It’s raining. It’s pouring. It seems to be ages since I woke up with rain splattering hard on the windows. It’s been going hard since about 5.30am. PartyPie kindly got me up at 6am - I think to let me know that today she is six months and one day old. How weird is that? I look back on photos of her when we came home from the birth centre and gasp at her smallness (even though eight pounds three ounces felt anything but).
Yesterday we went op-shopping to celebrate. I got a beaded silvery dress that will be appropriate for my invite to the Savage Club at the end of the month (am not sure how I will be able to go unless M wanders the city with PartyPie, bringing her to be fed and then disappearing again, but still…) and Small Z got a hot pink velour number. We bought M two work shirts and some trousers.
Small Z lay on the floor of the change room on top of my coat while I shimmied in the dress, and seemed quite happy with her lot. Admittedly, our shopping was also retail therapy to try and help our sadness at having to cancel our holiday to northern NSW at the end of the month 
Oh, woe. We booked it back in about January on a post-birth high, forgetting about important things like MONEY, MONEY and MONEY. Gah. We did want to see our lovely friends and their lovely baby Small M who is just one month younger than Z. I plan to buy a Powerball ticket today.
Geekery and whine
So I don’t get nearly as much time online as I used to have and when I am online I have to get proper things done - like blogging, banking, email - leaving not a lot of room for musing from site to site finding out about the cool, new and interesting. So it’s kind of exciting for me (in a lame kind of way) to have upgraded to Firefox 3.
It seems very cool. It looks better and runs quicker on my macbook. The main reason I got it was because OH MY GOD it lets me read PDF files inline. It is that precise thing that has made me turn again and again to Safari (only to give up, yet again, when I missed all my Firefox add ons too much). Of course, with the PDF excitement was one real annoyance - no ability to tag and post pages with delicious… Oops! I had a few minutes and I double checked - this IS available, and much better than before. Yay!
I also upgraded to Leopard - the latest OS for mac. Of course, in my lather to upgrade I forgot that 1) I have barely any space on my puny 60gig hard drive for all the fun stuff that comes with it - I even uninstalled ITunes a few weeks ago and moved all my music to the PC in the loungeroom in an effort to claw back some space [sob], and 2) The first law of upgrading is it will Most Likely Stuff Things Up. Goddamnit. In this case, my very hard won printer drivers. Gone. Cactus. Ka-put.
When I think back to how looooooong it took me to get my ancient HP Laserjet 6L printer working, I have some serious doubts about ever getting it working again. My time online should be currently devoted to researching baby led weaning and selling things on ebay to fund our week away at the end of the month.
But what I’d really like to do is get a big stonking hard drive for my laptop so I could run the lot - ITunes, IMovie, IPhoto etc. etc. without having to free up space all the time. We were given a very cool Sony video camera with a 30gig hard drive when PartyPie was born, but we basically have no editing software because there’s no point - we don’t have enough space to dump the data off the camera! Grrrr. I need to discover if I can just put any old kind of hard drive in my macbook - I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have to be some kind of uber-priced ‘apple’ brand. Anyone? Oh, and if anyone knows whether you can pull music into ITunes on a mac from a pc running ITunes on a LAN….? That would save me some valuable time in which I could be SLEEPING. 
A link for the morning.
Am not sure why I find this whole photobombing thing hilarious, but I do. Probably lack of sleep. Here.
