Party Time
Louisette is turning two, so we had a party this morning. It has been my belief for a while that first birthday parties are about the parents celebrating having kept their bundle of joy alive for a whole year. It’s certainly not about the child, who is usually terrified by the whole thing, and spends their party crying (we were lucky; Louisette is a very social creature and she had a great time. I think it also helped having it in an unfamiliar environment, so she didn’t get thrown by a whole crowd being in her safe place).
This year’s birthday party, in my mind, was all about school. Louisette is in day-care (has been for about six months – long enough for her to have genuine friendships), and the centre is also a school, which she and her friends will attend (and where I work – putting me in the peculiar position of knowing the children very well, and the parents not at all – I learnt several names for the first time because of this party). I invited her whole class, and ended up with all three of the other girls (awesome! A full set!) and one of the boys. My ambition was to get a photo of all four girls together, and I technically succeeded twice – this is the better one:
I’m pleased with that, despite the facial expressions. I also caught the three girl cousins together –
Louisette was thrilled with her balloons and with her paint (we bought the paint for the party, and this was the first she knew of it):
It was a raging success, I think. Today’s weather, like at her party last year, was always going to be hot – over thirty degrees – but fortunately my parents bought us a gazebo for Christmas (we had NO idea, and it’s just brilliant and beautiful), and my father-in-law brought over a huge length of shadecloth and clipped it to the roof and fence – turning half the yard into a kind of tent. That meant we were able to stay outside, which meant that all the post-party mess is out there – all the crumbs, all the water (there was water play too!), all the icing smears, all the paint, all the watermelon juice! The difference in post-party stress levels is amazing. Half of it gets hosed away or put straight in the wheelie bin. This was SO much easier than last year, when everything had to be carried to and from a park, because we had nowhere else to go.
Louisette had fun, and so did I. The stress of it was enough to make me physically sick beforehand (my pregnancy is severely messing with me) but I feel very good about it all now – and it was enjoyable during the party, too. I lay down afterwards to recover and was trying to think of anything I could have done better, and I basically came up with one thing: A bigger water jug for outside.
In my hormone-addled mind, that is a truly epic achievement. It was very brave of me to invite people who I fundamentally don’t know, and to get into (washable) paint for the first time (ever seen a group of toddlers with paint?). I’m terribly impressed with myself, knowing I could never have pulled this kind of event off a few years ago – let alone while sick (I’m not even going into work this year – at all).
(And CJ managed to set up a slideshow of Louisette photos, for which I was very grateful – I spend MANY hours sorting through the last year of Louisette pics, and a birthday slideshow was the perfect result.)
Boo!
It’s been a while (due to the complexity of logging back on after forgetting one’s password, and also forgetting the password one needs to set a new password), so here’s a pretty pic for you.
The pregnancy is horrid, but I’m managing to scrape through at work – which means I’ll get eight months paid maternity leave! Wow.
I’m pretty sure someone shaved a small patch of the cat’s fur (Ana, of course – she’s been wandering about the neighbourhood making enemies). Who said life wasn’t full of mystery?
I’m studying a Cert 3 in childcare, reminding me that I’m much better at seeming to know things than actually knowing things. Which is. . . . nice? They keep refusing to send me more because I can knock over a (monthly) assignment in an evening. While nauseous. I wish I was as good at. . . something else. . . as I am at producing assignments. It’s pretty much my superpower. Since I plan to get a teaching degree after this, I’m grateful. A bit.
Louisette is a leader among her peers at day care, which makes me even more smug about her awesomeness than I already am. Whoever said toddlers couldn’t play together hasn’t met my kid – and her very sweet classmates. They love running around, and working together to fill containers with sand and/or water. The best part is when you see two tiny girls talking to each other. Her world is expanding enormously, and good for her. 
Boring people should be seen and not heard
I went to a picnic with friends today. A particular kind of friend – the kind who brought along a spare pair of wings for Louisette to wear on the castle playground at Canberra’s Commonwealth Park. Which is to say, the cool kind of friend. The peculiar kind. [Found out later that the wings are for sale here.]
Normally I’d say peculiar is the kind of person I am, not to mention the kind that I like. Which is why I made the effort to push past my leaving-the-house panic and my I’m-too-fat-to-be-seen-in-public panic, and I got there – counting on my friends to pull me out of my fear into a nice day.
The first two minutes went great. I knew a lot of the people there, I wasn’t the only one in a corset, and everyone was sharing finger food that Louisette likes (so her boring old sandwich never had to emerge from our bag to be rejected and/or smeared on her new dress).
But within five minutes of ordinary conversation I was told to switch conversation topics. Immediately. For everyone’s sake. I asked if I was allowed to finish the sentence – the punchline – and was told no.
I don’t get to talk to adults very much – other than CJ after his long day of talking to adults too much – and most of what goes through my head is stuff to do with children or writing, both of which are seriously dull to most of the world. CJ and I watch a lot of TV – mostly fantasy/action with a bit of comedy satire. My third conversation topic is TV, which can backfire badly if your friends don’t watch all the same TV programs in the same sequence at the same time. But I’m up to date with certain bits of the news.
Before I was cut off, I was talking about a couple of genuinely absurd moments in politics lately – one in New York, and the second in Australia. Namely, that a mayoral candidate in NY was known as the kitten-hating candidate after saying it was stupid to have stopped trains for two hours to protect a pair of stray kittens; and that our new PM Tony Abbott (infamous for his awkwardness around any woman) has appointed himself minister for women’s affairs.
I won’t get into grading my own conversational skills, because I know they’re below par, but I wasn’t doing any harm and didn’t deserve to be told to shut up.
I’m glad I made the effort to leave the house, because I try to go to Floriade (or more specifically, just outside Floriade) each year, especially since Louisette was born. I’ll remind myself in future that peculiarity and rudeness can often go hand in hand.
I can’t remember if I mentioned here yet that my Mirena is gone and I’m improving rapidly (I’m back at work, for one thing). All the side effects (hopefully including the balance issues that caused me to almost fall and crush another friend’s small child today – poor guy had to actually catch me before dealing with his upset child) should be a memory in a few more weeks.
Psychology and a New Kangaroo
Today I decided to experiment on my child. Because SCIENCE. I taught her – in a matter of seconds – to make a sad face or a happy face on cue. This was incredibly easy, and although she was a lot quicker and more accurate if I made a sad face at her and cued her with the popular phrase, “Oh no!” (which, to be fair, most toddlers utter with macabre glee rather than sadness), I believe she is now able to simply fake sadness with a purely verbal clue. (Happiness is easy at her age, particularly as she knows she’s just learned a new trick.)
She is not yet twenty months old.
This means that, from the age of one – ONE – we understand emotion well enough to manipulate our own facial expressions accurately. . . . and we can use our faces to skilfully lie about how we feel.
It also, in practical terms, means that when I sense her cry of pain/frustration/whatever has passed the initial burst of real emotion, I can turn to Louisette and say, “Happy face!” and some of the time she really will just get over it and move on. I’ve already done it once today, and I suspect it’ll be super useful during the period when she uses her brand new ability to talk purely for the purpose of 24-7 whining. (“Happy face!” and a tickle attack is somewhat nicer than the, “Be quiet”/”That’s enough”/”Talk nicely” which are honest and reasonable but less fun and therefore less effective.)
I did a little bit of writing today, after begging CJ for help plot-wise yesterday, and filling in some huge holes. My writing is going to be much, much better with one simple strategy: Beside my Plot Plan I’ll have a Character Plan for where the main character starts and ends up psychologically, and why. And of course the two plans will constantly interact. (I also have a “Where are they/what are they doing at this point” plan for all the villains and other off-screen characters.)
I just sat down and wrote a floor plan for a castle. That was cool.
One-Fifth(ish)
Louisette with a friend’s baby.
I’m just under what I estimate to be one-fifth of the novel’s length. A comment CJ made about the Avatar: Airbender movie (which I can paraphrase as, “Aaaaaarrrgh!” but it was actually a clever critique on character building) made me realise how I can make my writing so much, much better. Is this it? Is this the secret book-writing macguffin I had in the attic the whole time?
Doubtful. But also a little bit possible. So maybe this book isn’t absolutely definitely destined for long and grinding failure. (Sidebar: Publisher B – who I guarantee you will have heard of – basically told me outright that they’d take another few years to bother reading my young adult steampunk novel. Thanks guys!)
Yesterday and today I spent most of my day home alone – a rare and wonderful thing – due to deciding I was too depressed (from the Mirena) to be up to scratch when dealing with children. I’m not sure I’ll go in to work at all next week.
The writing went pretty well today. My body gets painful if I sit in a chair for more than about half an hour (half an hour in a chair = 24 hours of mild pain), and my concentration is largely shot (even without Louisette in the house, I was listening out for the wake-up cry from the next room). It’s a different writing experience to my manic marathons pre-motherhood. I still wrote several thousand words, which is still a lot – and I don’t even think they suck, which is pretty surprising.
It’s hard to tell what my life is actually like, because I’m definitely not seeing straight reality-wise (it’s a depression thing). I’ve even had a couple of reality-gap moments, when I confused myself with Louisette (I was changing her the other day, and felt really good about how fit my belly looked – then realised it was her belly that looked good. Stuff like that).
Hmm…having written this, I don’t think I’ll be going to work until the Mirena is gone. I just hope the specialist is actually able to remove it, or it could be many more weeks.
Conversation
Well, my novel is now standing at just over 10,000 words. The plot and the characters are all on screen. Wish them luck (or not…)
Here’s a conversation I just had with CJ (the context is that we plan to start trying for another kid at some point in the next six months. Also, CJ has hoarder tendencies and I have OCD tendencies, so I’m constantly making him throw stuff out):
CJ: Are kids like shirts? Every time we get a new one we have to throw one away?
Me: Only if we have more than five.
Oops/Anti-Oops: My Mirena Side-Effects
So I started writing another book (the first draft is about 10% done, in fact). In my defence, there were extenuating circumstances:
In late May I began using a Mirena IUS contraceptive. I had one very long period at the beginning (a month; not unusual when the Mirena is first placed), then an eight-day but relatively mild period in July. I seemed otherwise side effect free except for quite noticeable depression. The depression was within acceptable bounds (I didn’t feel like harming myself or others) pending further observation (depression and small children don’t mix well).
In late July I suddenly had a laundry list of other Mirena symptoms – cramps, nausea, sensitivity to smells, almost throwing up, difficulty breathing after exercise (only once), headaches, a migraine, blurry vision, dizziness, irritability, no real period (just spotting), sleeping longer and more frequently, anxiety. . .
One thing is immediately obvious about all these symptoms – they’re pregnancy symptoms. I looked up some stats and worked out that quite a few people get pregnant while using the Mirena (and then have a 50% chance of miscarriage because of it – great). Almost 1% of people using the Mirena get pregnant (and it’s often an ectopic pregnancy that can put their fertility and life in danger.)
Long story short, I’ve taken something like a dozen pregnancy tests including two blood tests and even an ultrasound (which confirmed the Mirena was in place despite the fact my GP was unable to remove it) and although it’s still technically possible for me to be pregnant (some pregnancies survive on undetectably low levels of HCG, which is what blood and urine tests are looking for, and the ultrasound might have been too early to see evidence of pregnancy), it’s unlikely. I’m limiting myself to one home pregnancy test a week now. Today’s was negative, of course.
Which is a shame, because CJ and I plan to get pregnant as soon as possible after Louisette is toilet trained (which is only a few months away, and who cares about a few months? It’s the same level of inconvenience as the much more likely wait of several months or years AFTER toilet training as we try to conceive). So I’m in this very frustrating, “Is it a baby? No, don’t be silly….but wait, is it?” stage, while also more and more depressed and irritable and dizzy and headachy.
It’s worth mentioning again: ALL of the above symptoms are documented Mirena symptoms. It pretty much works by telling your body you’re already pregnant, so claims of “I know my own body…I’m pregnant!” are as unreliable as unicorn airways.
I have an appointment with a specialist to have the Mirena removed on Monday 16th September, and if she can’t do it (the strings designed to facilitate removal have curled up out of reach) then I’ll need either a “procedure” (meaning I’d be unconscious at the time) or an operation to get it out. I don’t care about that (unfortunately, the idea of taking a whole day off from minding children – even if it involved getting cut open and/or having a stranger put their hand inside me – sounds wonderful) but I do care about the fact that it’d probably take more long miserable days or weeks to organise.
The depression has sharpened to the point that it’s difficult to keep my temper most days (shockingly, since my entire life is minding one-year olds, this is unhelpful), so I saw three possible options:
1. Go to bed for three weeks, making CJ take all of his sick and annual leave to mind Louisette, and abandoning my carefully-orchestrated work situation (I need to work two days a week in order to do my Cert 3 in Childcare as an apprenticeship, saving $3000).
2. Spend money and eat chocolate like the world is ending – gaining around 10 kilos in the process – which I really can’t afford after the last two years. (The good news is I’ve just lost about 5 kilos, and I’m keeping on going if it kills me.)
3. Write a book – excitement now, and depression later! (The inevitable life cycle of a book is, “This is the best book ever!” –> “This is the worst book ever!” –> “This book is okay. I’ve worked hard and made it as good as I can. Maybe someone will publish it.” –> “Nope. No-one will publish it. Well, that was a largely pointless year of writing effort.”)
So that’s why I started writing a book. Because I’m pregnant sans baby, and it sucks. But it should improve soon.
The book is set in modern-day Canberra, featuring a hidden magical community of three extended families – the Whiteheads can do things with people’s minds; the Strongs can change the physical environment (including flying and making fat disappear), and the Winters see the future.
Ebony is a 16-year old Winter who sees one day ahead, with a strong lean towards fatal events. When she sees a death, she tries to prevent it – and she’s well enough respected that most of the actual saving of lives is delegated to others. But when she sees the death of the royal heir, things get a lot more complicated.
And here (or way above if the formatting doesn’t work) is a pic of Louisette (middle) with two of her cousins.
TBA
Not sure if I’ll be blogging or not. Certainly not regularly. If you’d like to keep getting what I do post, you can subscribe using the RSS feed button on the right, and you’ll get emails when I post things. otherwise, see you in a few years (probably).
To be fair, I’ve tried to quit writing before and it never worked. We’ll see if I can make it stick this time.
Felicity Banks 