This Week in Louisette-Land
Louisette will often do an approximation of a word when she wants something – book, milk, down. She loves the day care centre – when she realises where we are she bursts out laughing. She always walks to and from the car (unless she’s very sleepy or I’m in a hurry) wherever we are, but will often chuck a hissy fit when I won’t let her wander off elsewhere along the way. She’s suddenly started nodding and shaking her head (correctly, too), which is hilarious and adorable. And today she opened a closed door – d’oh!
She’s sixteen and a half months old, and over eighty centimetres tall.
Fall back! Fall back!
At latest count, I have eight medical dramas happening simultaneously – everything from chest pain to displaced organs (none life-threatening, which is the main thing). In the next three weeks I’ll be seeing two specialists, a physio or three, various chemists, and a dentist. In a month I hope to be down to three ongoing medical conditions. Maybe four. The good news is that I can confidently name all but two of the original eight (the other two have been suggested by doctors but not yet confirmed), and I have some kind of plan for all eight. So things should get better – rapidly in some cases, and very gradually in others. I’m a little pissed off that back when I said, “I don’t think my body is how it’s meant to be” several months after Louisette was born, no-one sat down and talked to me to find out what was wrong. Even my pregnant looks (as opposed to JUST fat, which is of course also happening) are likely to be partly due to medical conditions. (Another person congratulated me on the upcoming birth of my second child this week. For every person saying it out loud, there are twenty people thinking it.)
In the meantime, I’m toning down my enthusiasm for casual shifts at the childcare centre. Because I’m tired and achy, and somewhat medically busy for the next little while.
Here’s Louisette with one of her great-grandmothers (because AWWW):
Ouch
I have a fabulous true story coming up for you, but right now my hip is playing up (yep, I’m eighty years old) after a full day of work (I personally changed more than thirty nappies today) and then a swim, I’m exhausted. So here’s an adorable picture from our housewarming last weekend.
I wasn’t able to load a new photo, so here’s one selected entirely at random (I genuinely don’t know what it is – but I’m guessing it’s either a young Louisette or a cat. Or both.)
Eurovision 2013
As usual, my friend and I played drinking games (“Whenever there’s a dramatic key change/item of clothing removed/needless acrobatics/etc) with lollies. Hence the enormous bowl of lollies.
The best song of the night by far wasn’t the winner. . . it was the song by host Petra Mede. Try it; you’ll like it (don’t freak out at the non-English opening) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwgcivdWnUA
The winner was Denmark, who was awfully cute – the song was the inevitable side-effect of a pixie woman with a thing for tin whistles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k59E7T0H-Us I actually pretty much agree with this choice, although my personal favourite was (unbelievably) even cuter – Malta (ignore the first 44 seconds): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LchnYSvdUzk – a cross between “Friends” and “Sesame Street” as one tweeter described it.
Ok! Now the relative sanity is done, who was the most eurovisiony Eurovision this year???
In a haze of alarming eyebrows, Shiva-style backup dancers, and wind machines frantically attacking skirts, here are the best of the best:
6. It started with a pair of betasselled legs birthing from a giant disco ball. I was sufficiently dazzled to remember absolutely nothing else about the song (you’ll have to sit through another 44 seconds of normalcy for this one – although there are some monkeys towards the end): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Focy6JtVI.
5. The Most Amazing Prop Ever (you’ll know it when it. . . . activates. In the meantime, the hair alone will entertain you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWdHkjAUjUc)
4. The upside down metaphor mirror man in a box (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GX3-TvKw88).
3. Do you like bogan wedding dresses, startling costume changes, a somewhat out of context kiss, and emotional manipulation? Then this song is for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uxtGRWCvIU. According to her interview, she wrote it for her boyfriend. Apparently he decided not to get the hint….ouch! Incidentally, she’s not actually saying what you think she’s saying in the chorus (it’s “FOR you FOR you FOR you”. When you hear it, you’ll be wondering too).
2. Men in kilts (running), a luminous trumpet, an accordian, and a moustache-wearing man who just doesn’t react to anything. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsHdCjLnWtA. Oh, Greece. Your song is called “Alcohol is Free” and clearly it WAS free for your choreographers.
And far and away the greatest performance of the night…..I won’t say too much, but you might just meet a falsetto volcano vampire in a dark alley if you travel to ROMANIA anytime soon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV3xp5ZXSYA
Life as a movie cliché
Ever feel like your life is the first five minutes of an action movie? The establishing scene, when the (male) hero’s emotional stakes are laid out: loving wife, adorable child, charming house – in short, everything Joe Everyman could hope for. It is generally followed by violence – depending on the rating, the family is endangered from afar (PG), the wife is kidnapped/harmed (M), or some or all of the family is killed (MA).
Luckily, life is not an action movie. Living a clichéd life has a lot going for it – all the more so because all three of the crucial pieces – husband, child, house – are still largely an overwhelmingly pleasant surprise. And although the rating on my life is TBA, I feel fairly secure from assassin attack at this stage. Hurrah!
There is an interesting article at http://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/radical-jam-making/ about a rift among feminists. Bluemilk and I believe that caring jobs such as mothering and running a household deserve the same respect (including estimates of the practitioner’s intelligence) as other jobs. Other feminists are convinced that someone who focuses their life on their family is wasting that life and letting women down (including, presumably, the daughter who they have to palm off on someone else against their own will). Although it’s important to me to do paid work (an instinct too deeply engrained for me to fight at this stage), and although I long to spend more time writing novels – being a mum is most of what I am/do at the moment, and anyone who thinks that makes me less of a human being needs to ask themself what they’re fighting for.
Obviously being a mum has enormous physical and emotional down sides (even before society sticks its judgemental nose in), and I didn’t expect to like it half so much as I (mostly) do. But here I am.
Luckily, I can handle an intellectual fight just fine – and I don’t even need my man to do the shooting for me.
New job
I started a new job last Friday – working at a childcare centre that morphs into a school once the relevant child (in this case, Louisette) is old enough. I’m hugely impressed with the school as a whole – so much so that it looks a lot like I’ll be becoming a real live teacher (qualified and everyfink) eventually. Location + awesome work environment + connection to Louisette = win.
For now, as a not-particularly-qualified child care worker, I’m on their casual register – and so is Louisette. We come as a pair whenever called upon, which is great for everyone.
I really enjoyed my first day and the staff were kind enough to remain illness-depleted through the weekend so I can have another shift tomorrow.
In other news, although CJ and I were officially unpacked days after moving in, today we’re REALLY unpacked – CJ sorted four boxes of miscellaneous sentimental stuff (all his) into one plastic container to go into storage – and he finished today. An EXCELLENT Mothers’ Day present (unless one considers that I unpacked all my stuff weeks ago, so why is this impressive?)
Which also means I was finally able to take photos of our garage (aka CJ’s study, aka “The Library”) as it’s meant to look.
Three-bedroom two-bathroom houses at our end of the market (the “renovate or detonate” end, usually) are around 100 square metres in size, and often claim that the garage would easily convert to a fourth bedroom. This one was already converted (technically it was never used as a garage – it even has down lights, proper insulation – except for the roller door – and is connected to the reverse cycle AC), which meant we could use it right away (most of the houses we looked at didn’t have good alternate parking places, but this one does). You’ll understand how useful that is when you look at the photo and imagine fitting all those bookshelves into a comfortably-full-already-thanks home. We are VERY lucky.
Start your steampunks!
I never felt satisfied with the steampunk pics of Lousiette – her outfits were never right. Then she wandered out in her onesie holding Daddy’s extendable magnet – and it all came together at last.
Hidely-ho Neighbour!
It’s always a gamble when you move into a new place – and so much more so when you’ve bought it. So the other day, when a kid called me and said they were my neighbour, I tried very hard to concentrate on what they were saying above the natural noise of two little girls in my kitchen – but I failed, and they hung up. Since it was a private number, I couldn’t even call back! Luckily they called me again two hours later. . . . but I still had two little ones with me. They asked if my fridge was running.
“Is my. . . fridge. . . running?” I asked.
“Yes. Is your fridge running?”
“Um. . . yes.”
“Then you’d better go and catch it!”
And thus endeth the call with my supposed neighbour. The last time I heard of prank calls being a thing I was the one making them. It made my day.
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One of our real neighbours has a dog. They do a great job of caring for it, and although it sometimes barks (one of our cats loves to sit in their tree) it definitely doesn’t bother us at all (actually I’m a little nervous they’ll be annoyed at our cat…). Another neighbour has a giant yard with a large garden/orchard at our end. It was from that yard that I was pretty sure I heard, “Maa-a-a-a-a-a-a!”
“Ah,” I thought. “Our neighbour has procured a sheep to crop their grass. How incredibly organic and awesome of them.”
I heard it a few more times during the week and sure enough, on Saturday I was walking down our back steps (the only place one can accidentally see into their yard) and I spotted it. I told CJ about it, and was excited about lifting Louisette up so she could see a REAL LIVE sheep after all the hundreds of pictures (too bad it’s not green, but you can’t have everything). I was torn between calling out to our awesome neighbours and keeping silent in the sure knowledge that they are cooler than us in so many ways.
A couple of hours later, CJ was playing with Louisette outside and our paths crossed briefly. “I don’t think you’ll be hearing that sheep any more,” he said. “On account of it being strung up in their tree.”
“Oh,” I said, and made a mental note not to glance in their direction next time I was on the steps.
“Don’t worry,” said CJ, “They haven’t skinned it yet.”
Yep. Our neighbours are definitely much, much cooler than us*.
*Well, cooler than me. CJ grew up on a sheep farm so he wins.
When the fat lady sighs (trigger warning, also PG medical and womanly)
“Body dysmorphia” was mentioned in a TV show I was watching the other night. It’s a mental condition where the sufferer gets utterly fixated on some perceived flaw in their physical body that is either minor or non-existent.
“Aha,” I thought, “Perhaps all this stressing over my weight can be refuted with some simple numbers! Perhaps I’m really not all that fat after all – at least by Western standards, which after all is where I live!”
So I went and looked up the average BMI for Australians, knowing that we’re overweight. Do I fit right in with the majority? No I do not. I am so very, unbelievably much fatter than pretty much everyone. Unfortunately, that’s the maths. [Cue rant about how BMIs aren’t an accurate measure of true fatness. Whatever.]
I don’t care to share the exact details, but let’s just say that to be in the middle of the healthy weight range I’d need to be one and a half feet taller (or just under half a metre, for my metric-minded peeps). That would make me roughly seven and a half feet tall.
Anyone got a spare rack in the basement?
One of the many depressing things about this (did I mention I keep buying new fat pants because I outgrow them – over and over again?) is how long it will take to get within shouting range of an average overweight person. . . let alone actually touching the healthy weight range.
It is, unfortunately, perfectly rational to say that I’m very, very fat. It’s also perfectly rational to say it’s now the first thing people notice about me, whether they’re someone meeting me for the first time or old friends seeing me after a gap of a few months or more. I absolutely do look pregnant – about six months, I’d say – thanks to the peculiarities of where a good 20% or so of my spare fat has decided to hang out. If you doubt my rationality on the I-look-pregnant front, just ask the many random people constantly approaching to congratulate me.
I wholeheartedly admit that I do get irrational when I think about the social aspect. I honestly dread seeing old friends, or new people, and I’m now actively avoiding crowds (which is pretty clearly not a long-term solution). I’m also constantly mentioning in passing that I’m not pregnant (which, if you were at Conflux and you wondered why I felt the need to share with the room that I had one child and was planning to maybe have another next year, explains much). I don’t like anyone physically seeing me, not even my mum or sister or CJ. I feel just a little bit like children will run screaming in the streets at the sight of me.
There are two obvious solutions to this problem:
1. Stop being mentally ill (see? How easy was that?!?)
2. Lose some of the weight. I’ve mentioned before that I get sick every time I lose a bit of weight. The good news is that I sat down with a calorie-counting friend and worked out that what I consider “healthy eating” (three meals and two healthy snacks a day, plus 3-6 gentle exercise sessions a week for 20-40 minutes) is actually too little for my height, and would cause my body to think it’s starving and hold on to its fat reserves for dear life.
So once I get reasonably healthy (I’m still waiting on the cough from last year’s bronchitis to move on, and there are other hints that all’s not well physically – including uncontrollable eye twitching and nonsensical muscle pain/throbbing) and I start on the long and painful road to good health, I need to have more snacks along the way. Yay.
I also have enough rationality to know that given the right clothes I can still look pretty all right from the front. So, under carefully controlled conditions, I can still put pictures of myself online in which I genuinely believe I look nice. (I tried to put one here – I looked GREAT by the way – but wordpress wouldn’t let me.)
Just don’t make me turn sideways.
In other news, it looks pretty certain (based on the gyno saying, “You may have. . . . “, me responding, “Don’t be silly”, then googling the symptoms and saying, “Oh. Actually yes.”) that I have at least one more organ in the wrong place, and (because organs gone walkabout isn’t exciting enough) endometriosis (which is when the lining of the uterus grows in places it shouldn’t, which can cause issues with internal bleeding and/or lowered fertility, among others).
Things that bother me about this (other than the fact no-one actually suggested endometriosis a year ago when I went to the doctor and said I thought something might be wrong with me):
1. The treatment for endo is repeated surgery – so that means LOTS more people wandering up and down the highway that used to be my lady parts, and shooting bits off with lasers. Okay, the lasers are cool. But the mere thought that I might – even once – have to let a male doctor anywhere near my privates has given me about a dozen panic attacks in the last 24 hours. And it might happen again, and again, and again. I feel like I’m chained in a rapist’s dungeon and I have no privacy, no control, and no end in sight. All I know is that my body isn’t mine any more, and never will be again.
To be fair, the endo may be mild enough that the same treatment I’m getting for the prolapsed uterus will more or less sort me out (although endo gets worse and worse with time – but, whatever). It’s also possible (SURELY it’s possible) that I can insist on a female doctor, but that’ll probably mean delays (still enough to bring on panic attacks, but not nearly so many). Which leads me to my next point. . .
2. Time. Right now I feel like I badly need a shower every second, and I hesitate to walk across a room because that makes everything worse. Showers don’t actually help. It’ll be a minimum two or three months before things “probably” “begin” to improve. Imagine having a slug sitting on your hand, and knowing you can’t remove it for three months. You can think about other things, you can meditate – but you’ll never quite forget that the slug is there. *shrug* Like most medical conditions, mine suck, and I want them gone ASAP. Better to be gross, debilitating and humiliating than life-threatening. (Yay?)
3. It’s possible that endo will make it harder to conceive our next child. Trying to conceive is certainly a lot of fun, but it’s also really weird and awkward – which, for someone not entirely over an anxiety disorder (who feels uncomfortable being looked at even with clothes on) – is going to take a huge amount of mental energy to cope with. Last time I gained seven kilos in the three months it took. The average conception takes 6-12 months.
But we might be fine.
4. What new and permanent horrors will the second pregnancy bestow upon me? It’s anyone’s guess.
There is, of course, an obvious up side. Now that I have a name for some of the stuff wrong with me, I can (eventually, painfully, embarrassingly) get it fixed. So, yay.
Coming soon: Hilarious tales that don’t involve body parts! (I’m not joking. I really do have some good
Felicity Banks 