Baby Brain versus the Fuzz: Conclusion
As detailed here, here and then here, my general lack of practical life competence caused a police officer to pull me over in September and tell me that the registration I’d paid for our car had not gone through. It later became clear that, although the money had indeed left our account (just after we knew I was pregnant, and just before I became extremely sick – sick enough to fail to notice that the rego sticker never arrived), the customer reference number was incorrect.
Our bank automatically remembers customer reference numbers, which is super handy for every type of bill except car registrations, which require unique numbers each time a payment is made. (This is not something I’ll be forgetting in a hurry, but I’ve written it down most emphatically in a number of useful locations all the same.)
It was easily sorted with the Road Transport Authority, but the police were another matter. They’d given us fines totalling $1100 for driving around all unregistered for so many months. The RTA and I together explained the error via email, but the police chief’s representative said that the fine still applied. If I objected, I could appeal to the Magistrate’s Court.
I appealed, and was instructed to wait for a summons to court. Would we be given a court date while I was still sick, and so giantifically pregnant I could barely walk? Would it be in January, when I could go into labour at any moment? Would it be in February, when I’d just given birth and hadn’t slept since? Or would it be in March or April, when CJ and I would be in Beijing for a wedding?
Yesterday I received a letter from the police saying they’ve reviewed my case and cancelled the fine.
And voila! All is well once more.
Labour Part One
The class was. . . boring. Certainly not scary at all. The next class is also on labour, with more of a focus on pain relief options (which I already know fairly well). At present there are three things that concern me about labour:
1. It’s so far away (I actually came home and cried because of this).
2. I start labour from a position of weakness because of this stupid pregnancy. My cardiovascular health is rubbish, I’m unable to eat most vegetables, and I’ll be nauseous the whole time I’m in labour – bleaugh! It’s very likely that I’ll throw up at least once. Awesome.
3. It’s well established that fear/anxiety makes labour worse. This is not a nice thing to tell a person with an anxiety disorder.
But I did realise, with #3, that this is another place where seven years of anxiety is actually good training (much like my well-established ability to cope with the humiliation and boredom of not being able to work decent hours – it is much easier for me to deal with a reduction from 12 hours to 3 hours/week than a normal person who would have had to adjust to 3 hours/week after 35 hours/week).
There are very few people with as much practice at dealing with fear as yours truly. I may well have a labour experience that provokes the response of, “Was that it?” (at least in terms of fear/anxiety).
I tend to take a different emotional path than other people, so while grocery shopping is terrifying, labour is not – and it’s possible it never will be.
But, for the record, this is not a good time to find flaws in my logic. A mental placebo needs to remain sacred in order to work.
Here’s a shot of the calender from our bedroom. Each week is marked out, and the 18th (which marks the theoretical point at which I have two months to go).
Captain Cook Fountain
One of Canberra’s many lovable follies is the Captain Cook Water Jet. I wrote about it (for money) here.
Boy, I look pregnant 🙂
“One of our Thursdays is Missing” by Jasper Fforde
It’s ten at night and I haven’t blogged yet, so here’s a book review I happened to have standing at the ready:
This is the fifth “Thursday Next” novel (that’s the name of the main character, a woman). I’ve read them all, but I don’t like them enough to reread them so this is the only one I’ll be reviewing.
Jasper Fforde is unlike anyone else you’ve ever read. He is so, so much more portmodern. He’s ALL about the fourth wall. Most of this series takes place inside “Bookworld” where fictional characters reside, playing the parts in various novels like live stage actors. It’s very difficult to explain these books, because there’s so much zany self-referentiality going on. And intrigue, action, and humour.
From the beginning of the series, I found Fforde lacking in depth – both characters and setting feel as if they’re made from cardboard (it’s painted cardboard, but still not “real). Part of this is because the books aren’t meant to feel real – they’re an in-joke between author and reader. Part of it is a genuine weakness on Fforde’s part, which his fans find irrelevant. I’m a pretty mild fan – enough to be saddened by the way he clearly suffers from sudden popularity syndrome. Fforde, like most truly original people (and I’m actually not talking about myself here), took quite a while to get published. He had two or three books under his belt that he’d been working on for years. Then he became a huge hit and was required to produce more books – the more the better, and the faster the better too. And so his later books, while still showing his genius, are simply not as good.
This is a later book. It still shows his genius, but it’s simply not at good. This one is about whether or not the real Thursday Next is missing, and our hero here is the fictional version of her. (It gets more confusing from there, but it turns out the confusion is a plot point. Note to self: Don’t make confusion a plot point.) The stuff on self-publishing was right on the money.
Sample (from when a new book is arriving in the Fantasy section): The first setting to be completed was a semi-ruined castle, then a mountain range, then a forest – with each tree, rabbit, unicorn and elf carefully unpacked from crates. Other sections soon followed, and within forty minutes the entire novel had been hauled in piecemeal from overhead, riveted down and attached to the telemetry lines and throughput conduits.
“It’s a good idea to be neighbourly,” I said [she’s training a standin for her character], “you never know when you might need to borrow a cupful of irony. Besides, you might find this interesting.”
We walked up the drive and across the drawbridge into the courtyard. Notices were pinned up everywhere that contained useful directions such as: “This way to the denouement” or “No boots to be worn in the backstory” and even “Do not feed the Ambiguity”.
Victorian Inventions: New Domestic Motor
This is the opening of a real patent application advertising a real product (pictured) in 1873 (taken from the book “Victorian Inventions” by Leonard de Vries):
The inventor of the device which we present not only employs the hitherto wasted female power to oscillate a cradle, but at one and the same time to vibrate the dasher of a churn. By this means, it will be observed, the hands of the fair operator are left free for darning stockings, sewing, or other light work while the entire individual is completely utilized. Fathers of large families of girls, Mormons, and others blessed with a superabundance of the gentler sex, are thus afforded an effective method of diverting the latent female energy, usually manifested in the pursuit of novels, beaux, embroidery, opera-boxes, and bonnets, into channels of useful and profitable labour.
How to exist
. . . as a creative person.
Here is a semi-pictorial article on how to succeed as an artist (according to a successful artist). Free sample:
#3 Write the book you want to read.
#8 Be nice (the world is a small town).
And here is your cat pic of the week (she might look high and mighty here, but she’s fallen off that perch several times in the last few weeks (*scramble scramble thump mreow?!*):
Narnia #2 of 7: “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by CS Lewis
This is by far the best-known of the Narnia books, and the recent movie was fairly successful (deservedly so, I think).
Four British children are sent to a rambling house in the country during the blitz. They are largely left alone, and the youngest stumbles through a wardrobe into the magical land of Narnia. Eventually, all four come to know Narnia very well – but it is a whole country where it is “always Winter, and never Christmas”. The White Witch rules over all, and already has an ally in one of the children, who unwittingly (or mostly unwittingly) sets out to betray his sisters and brother.
There are fantastical creatures galore, and the White Witch is a truly dire enemy who turns animals into stone out of spite. The writing is excellent once again, the characters realistic yet heroic, and the adventures thrilling.
Free sample:
“This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!” thought Lucy, going still further in and pushing the soft folds of the coats aside to make room for her. Then she noticed that there was something crunching under her feet. “I wonder is that more mothballs?” she thought, stooping down to feel it with herhand. But instead of feeling the hard, smooth wood of the floor of the wardrobe, she felt something soft and powdery and extremely cold. “This is very queer,” she said, and went on a step or two further.
Next moment she found that what was rubbing against her face and hands was no longer soft fur but something hard and rough and even prickly. “Why, it is just like branches of trees!” exclaimed Lucy. And then she saw that there was a light ahead of her; not a few inches away where the back of the wardrobe ought to have been, but a long way off. Something cold and soft was falling on her. A moment later she found that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air.
Rating: PG. I’d call it absolutely G and safe for anyone, but one character is a close parallel to Jesus Christ (in one of the later books this character clearly states that he exists on Earth as well, is known by a different name there, and that the children have been brought into Narnia so that they can more easily recognise him on Earth), and some atheists have found that offensive. The books do focus on the adventures, rather than allegory about 95% of the time.
Snickers Sandwich
This is what I call a snickers sandwich – it’s crunchy peanut butter and nutella, combined:
You’re welcome, people of the world.
What are your strangely delicious sandwich combinations?
oops I did it again
I posted a draft again, sorry. here’s a zombie glamour shot to make up for wasting your time, subscribers:
Class the first
I decided not to title this entry “Boobs boobs boobs” but it would have been legitimate. CJ and I attended our first (of four) birthing classes last Wednesday evening, and it was all about breastfeeding. This meant, in short, two and a half hours of boobs.
Australia is actually not very good when it comes to breastfeeding. A lot of hospitals will still give little or no support to a newly-attempting-to-breastfeed mum, and some will even give the baby a bottle in the crucial early days (which can badly screw up their instincts – some babies, having tried a bottle, will never go for the breast).
Breast milk is very much a miracle food – it reduces childhood diseases (cold, fever, ear infections), reduces the chance of childhood obesity and diabetes, and means the mum is less likely to have breast or ovarian cancer later in life. In a single feed from a single breast, the baby gets a range of milk designed to help it get maximum health benefits (unlike any formula, which is – clearly – just one mixture). It’s also free, hygenic (no sterilising), and far more convenient than constantly measuring formula and sterilising bottles. And it helps the mum’s body recover from birth and pregnancy (breastfeeding mums tend to lead discussions like this with its amazing weight-loss benefits).
I am determined to breastfeed Louisette. But, to be honest, it’s not something I’m looking forward to. Just because something is natural doesn’t at all mean it’s not. . . well, gross. Newborn babies, shockingly, don’t actually know what they’re doing (and new mums don’t either), and there are a lot of painful and personal medical things that can happen. Even in a perfect breastfeeding situation, you will have breasts that are sore (more sore than they’ve ever been) getting punched and squeezed many times a day, plus very painful engorgement for at least a day when the milk first comes in. Breastfeeding is the main issue I won’t be receiving visitors for the first week (unless I feel like it at the time, in which case *I* will call *them* – hopefully people won’t call or SMS me, because I’ll be sleeping a lot during the day).
So the birthing centre, after telling us how wonderful breastfeeding is, showed us dozens of closeups of very unhappy breasts in a variety of unpleasant circumstances. I’m a big fan of honesty, so I’m grateful. They also screened lots and lots of footage of babies showing that they are thirsty – bobbing their heads up and down like animals as they sniffed the potential of a feed, turning their head to search for the nipple, and opening their mouths. That was particularly useful. For one thing, it means I don’t need to try to attach Louisette to myself thirty seconds after birth – I can wait until she actually “asks” and then just guide her in the right direction.
The birthing centre program includes several home visits after birth which are mainly about breastfeeding properly – to avoid those painful health conditions, which are usually caused by breasfeeding incorrectly (the key seems to be “make sure baby takes a big mouthful, not a small one”). Right now I’m very pessemistic (being sick for over eight months does tend to dampen one’s enthusiasm for “nature”) but I expect it will all actually work out at the time. Since it’s such an important thing, and since I’m not shy about being honest rather than misty-eyed, I will definitely be blogging about the whole experience. But you won’t be seeing any photos or videos from me 🙂 I’m not that brave.
On the way home I asked CJ how he felt about all the boobs he’d just seen, and all the horrific stuff that may soon be happening to mine. He wasn’t freaked out. “And,” he said, “babies are cute – especially when they’re breastfeeding.”
That’s probably the most encouraging thing I’ve ever heard about breastfeeding.
It is now November, which means that I could technically have a non-premature baby NEXT MONTH (just!)
Tonight’s birthing class is about labour. I’m not as concerned about labour as I am about breastfeeding, because ultimately I know that no matter what I do, Louisette is not going to stay inside me indefinitely – whereas it IS possible for my personal strength to run out on the breastfeeding front, and no doctor can choose to medically intervene with that. I’m mildly concerned about the class itself, in case it triggers anxiety – but I’ve prepared myself carefully and I think it will be all right.
Oh, and since it’s entirely on topic, a rhetorical question. Which of these pictures is more offensive to Australian society, and does that seem right to you?
Why does the thought of, someday, accidentally flashing someone horrify me so much more than wearing a completely skanky and bogan low-cut top?
Felicity Banks 