Toby talk...

I don't know if it's simply me being a mama, or if it's more a case of me being a paranoid, control freak, over thinking, second guessing rainbow baby mama but I need a reason for everything and I need to know it's normal.  And that makes it so much more OK.

I have been like it from the start.  In hospital I had one particular midwife who was on nights for the first three and her answer to everything I said to her was "pfft!  Normal!" but in a lovely, caring, off the cuff kind of way.  I loved her.  Whilst every other midwife felt the need to change something a-gainnnn, this one just said "pfft!  It's normal!!". 

Right now, these days, a couple of the things that I'm struggling with, with young Toby, is sleep and crying.  The crying I'm attributing to either acid reflux or (and?) belly ache/wind/colic.  Sometimes you can hear the reflux, and sometimes it comes with a huge big chunky puke where I fully expect to see peas and carrots.  A lot of the time he's a "happy chucker", but then other times it breaks your heart the way he stops, pauses and then the face breaks down and the sobs start. 

"That hurt so bad, mama".

We've been to the GP who was no help at all, except to give me a script that I requested for Zantac.  We tried it, it didn't seem to help much, and Toby hated it so much that in the end it invoked tears even if there was no reflux!  So I gave it up.  Now though I'm wondering if it's worth trying to ride out or whether I'm being a nasty mama to not demand a script for the stronger meds.

So, I need to find someone else who can just say "pffft.  Normal!".

As for the sleeping, I ran into an acquaintance the other day and she asked about his sleeping.  I "complained" that he was a brilliant night sleeper but didn't want to sleep during the day.  She laughed and I suddenly realised how ridiculous that sounds.  I loooovve the fact that he is a brilliant night time sleeper.  He's just gotten even better in this past week and has started a pretty good "routine" of bed around 7ish, dream feed around 11.30pm and then not a peep until around 6.30am.  Sometimes it's not quite that, but it's been 4 hourly from birth and (touch wood) I've never had a night of walking the floor (yet).

Daytime though?  Catnapper!  He gave up the day sleeps very early on.  Not completely, but they just don't come easily.  When he first gave them up I was able to put him to bed and he would just quietly lay there, even if he didn't sleep.  Not any more though.

And tonight I read Lori's post and got that "pfft!  Normal!" and sighed a sigh of relief.  I read the post to Shane and he laughed and said yep.  That's our boy too.  He's pretty easy to read most of the time now - he wakes, he has boobie, I give him some play time or bath time or whatever it is we're up to, until he gives me tired signs.  Then I change his nappy, give him more booby, wrap him, give him a couple of rocks and pop him into bed.  I tell him I won't be far away and that it's his sleep time.  I hang Jilly Giraffe over the cot to keep him company and he locks eyes with her. 

And 1/2 hour later he calls me.  "Sleeps over now mama".

He's pretty reliable for it.  But oh I have so much I need to do and achieve so what I would give for him to do a couple of hours.

Ahh.  But there's the reminder.  A catnap is certainly better than forever sleeping.  Grateful for catnaps then.

Today is...

... Sunday.  No special Sunday.  Maybe I will call it pyjama Sunday.  Cos it's looking like I might not get out of them!  I decided that I really wanted to get my blog updated today, so here I am.  It's not going to happen - I have photos to post, but they are on the other computer, but I at least wanted to touch base and put some words here.

:::

I've probably unpacked a total of two boxes in the past week.  Hindered by the overwhelming problem of where to put things.  I've put all of Toby's things away - he's the only one of us who has enough drawers and a wardrobe!  I need to find a toy bin that can live in the lounge as I'm feeling a bit sad that not only does he not have a lovely nursery to call his own (which he wouldn't actually care about at all right now), but also that all of his toys are away.  Again, he probably doesn't care right now, but it kinda sucks.  My almost three year old has never played with them either.... you see where I'm going with this!

But, on my good days I can see that eventually the house will be organised and quite nice, albeit still small.

:::

Our new stove arrived and is (currently) mouse free!  Noice!!

:::

On the mouse thing I had a bath/shower encounter one day this week when I walked into the bathroom to shower and found a mouse trapped in the bath jumping and flicking around trying to get out.  Thankfully, Shane was home at the time, so he caught it and called the cats.  Catfood mouse.

I also had an incident where I spotted one run from the kitchen into our bedroom (where Toby was sleeping).  It was behind Shane's tall boy, so I removed the bottom drawer and found it hiding back there so called Shane.  Once more, luckily he was here.  After a bit of kerfuffle he caught it by the tail and... well, catfood!  I can tell you that our outside cats, Pirate and TC - the hunters!! are just loving it here and come running every time we walk out the door.  My old indoor cat, Razzy, on the other hand... he's shown some interest from time to time, but I think Jerry (or is it Tom) would have to run right up to him and tickle him on the nose for him to even think about catching one of these mice!

Whilst I had that drawer pulled out I noticed mouse poo on Shane's good jumper that I had just washed (due to mouse poo) earlier in the week.  Unimpressed I can tell you. 

We are at our wits end with this mouse plague.  Numbers in the house seem to be reduced, but that's not really saying anything at all.  There are still way too many in here, we're just not seeing them as much.

:::

Toby update?  Well, he's growing like a mushroom really.  He's now in the 000 clothes and I've packed everything smaller away.  I've split his 000 stuff in half though as some are bigger than others, and those ones are still too big for him. 

He suffers terribly from reflux poor young 'un.  I self-diagnosed it early on when someone gave me a document detailing acid reflux symptoms and I could tick even the obscure off.  But my own mum made me doubt my intuition and made me feel guilty for giving him anything to try to help.  By "anything" I mean that we had tried G.ripe water, Brauers Stomach Calm, and Infacol.  I also had a trip to the GP with him who was extremely unhelpful and I ended up just asking for a script for Zantac!  I ended up stopping the Zantac as he hated it and it didn't seem to really help.  Now though I'm wondering if it's worth getting the dose age adjusted and trying it again, or even just asking for the next one up the list, Losec.  I'm not keen on using any medication to be honest, but the acid reflux is just cruel :(

He's just started sleeping all through the night, which is just wonderful.  Last night he was down at 7pm and would normally go through until 11.30, but reflux had him up for a while at 9.30, and was then up again at midnight but I didn't hear from him again then until almost 7am so there are no complaints from this mama!

:::

I dropped a clanger this week at my new mother's group get together.  They had a guest speaker from CAMH - childhood and adolescent mental health.  She was talking about how we are feeling with all the changes to becoming a mother and all of that, and wisely (or not) thought she would pin point me on that not note.  So, I told her simply that my story in that regard is probably a little different to the other girls in that my first son died shortly after he was born full term. 

Isn't it "funny" when you see that one hit the faces of those around you?  It could be something out of a road runner cartoon where some Acme item is dropped from a great height onto the coyote.  I can tell you that her mouth hung open for a long second, the moment of silence was a long one, and her thought bubble would have read something along the lines of "Oh Shit!!  Why did I pick HER to ask".

But did I care?  Nup.  It's my story.  If you have ears, I'll tell you about it. 

:::

Turns out I don't have anything much worth writing after all.

MIA...

(The following post was pre-written while we had no internet connection...)

I'm not sure how many "regular" readers I have over here yet, but maybe someone has noticed my absence.   I guess some may even make the mistake that I'm sure I've made with others... assuming that I'm off in happy land playing and gooing with my rainbow, and no longer in need of blogland.

Um.  No.  Not the case.

I have composed umpteen blog posts over the past few weeks but I just don't have time to sit and write them.  Oh, that and the fact that we have had no internet connection for a couple of weeks, and at the time that I'm writing this (into Word in order to save it and add it to blogger at the earliest possible connection time!)  So, let me try to get you up to speed a bit!

:::

Firstly, Shane got a new job!! He had an interview on the Friday, when Toby was 6 ½ weeks old, and was offered the job on the Friday night. Pretty bloody good, considering that every other position he has gone for in the past twelve months has left us in limbo for two months!

And before I say anything else about it... the sheeps can come!!  Yayyyyyy :D

So the job is that of Assistant Manager on a property an hour away from our old one. By most accounts it's seemingly perfect.  The new boss seems very nice, and very accomodating.  By this I mean that he's done what he can to help or make things right, such as offering the use of a truck and a staff member to help us move, and that kind of thing.  The money is where it should be.  Considering that we were getting very close to the Government deemed minimum wage, it feels a lot more relieving to know that we are back in the market, and that the pressure is off to a certain extent.  It's also nice to know that Shane's being recognised for his skill and experience again, rather than a feeling of being taken advantage of and undermined.

Shane's very happy to see new or near new equipment around the sheds here, and to talk about things such as "pasture improvement" and the like... given that part of the reason for leaving the other place was his frustration in them not improving things for fear of spending their precious money!

The only downside, kind of, is that the house, which is employer provided in these positions. It’s very small compared especially to the one we’ve come from. But not just small… awkward with lots of wasted space. It’s a long, skinny house. They call it “comfortable three bedroom” but we call it “one and a possible half a bedroom”. Toby doesn’t have his own room here, which is fine for now as he’s still in our bedroom. Probably until he’s two (did I say two? I meant twenty two…), or really who knows! There is another bedroom, but it’s kind of off the laundry which is out of the main part of the house, and more suitable to a tween or teen. I’m not comfortable putting a baby, or even a toddler out there I’m afraid. There has been vague talk of them adding a room or two onto the house, so if this ever comes to fruition I will be much happier! In fact I think we all will, simply to not be under each others feet.

There are also no wardrobes.  No cupboards except for the kitchen, and the second little bedroom.  No hanging space at all.

And we're in the middle of a mice plague.  So, for the first week or so of being here mice would dart around the house underfoot, and I spent much time squealing and doing a jig for fear of them coming up my leg!  Thankfully, now they have mostly gone from the house.  I use the terms "mostly" and "gone" loosely though!  Sadly, though, they love the bird cage.  "George" is living in the laundry at the moment, much to his disgust, but we don't have room for him in the house, and also I'm hesitant to even try, given the mice.  When I go down there to the bathroom in the middle of the night I see 4-5 mice run down from his cage.  Bastards!

 

We turned the oven on the other night, and the stench of ammonia from mouse pee was gag worthy.  No word of a lie!  There is no way I’m turning that on again, and Shane’s with me. He rang the boss and told him last night. I told Shane that there is no way I’m even going to attempt to clean that! UGH!! Anyway, the boss is running it past the owner but I think they are going to buy us a new one.

(UPDATE: The 80 year old owner decided that he would clean it for us.  I can tell you just how unimpressed with that I was.  He rocked up here with Shane when I was in a ferocious mood.  I slammed the lounge and bedroom doors shut from the kitchen and hibernated with Toby.  They pulled the stove out and suga.rsoaped the floor under the stove, and I don't know what else, then pushed it back in and turned it on.  Guess what happened?  Uh huh, same thing.  So I was very unimpressed on many levels, non less the fact that now the house stunk again and we had to open the windows to air it, on a freezing day, with a baby in the house. 

But I was more unimpressed that he even thought that a simple clean would solve our problem. 

Needless to say, thankfully we now have a brand new sparkling stove.  Nothing flash.  But it's mouse free (for now..!).)

:::

So I highly don’t recommend trying to move house with a new(ish) baby (although don't worry I'm also well aware that it's preferable to trying to move house with a dead baby :/ ). I’m sure that there are plenty of super mums out there who can and do do it, but me not so much. Even on a good day with Toby I hardly get anything done as by the time I get him to sleep and get started, he’s waking up for another feed. All of those bittersweet things.’t think I could have done it. But for all the good she does, it gets undone by the shit to say the least. There were many a tense moment while they were down. She hooked in, packing and cleaning, but never stopped to ask on things that were important, and dwelt on the unimportant. So, for example one day I found she’d packed the kitchen in open topped boxes. That’s great, but the removalist can’t take them like that. She was extremely displeased when I told her and kept saying “well, I didn’t know, nobody told me” which made me feel guilty but how was I to know she needed to be told!?

Another day I found she’d packed a utility drawer which mostly contained things that belonged to the property (instruction books for the CB radio, handheld radios etc). But then on other items she would be asking me so many questions that I literally had to stop what I was doing to go and work with her on what she was doing. Or she would keep coming to me to ask me if we needed to keep something… such as the second potato masher (that really could have waited for the unpacking clean up!).

 Anyway I really can’t begin to describe the issues that have arisen. As days went on things started to get packed wherever there was a spare space. So if there was room in the bathroom box she may have put the kettle in. She did follow instructions of writing on every box…. But only the major things so that box would say “bathroom” but wouldn’t have the added word of “kettle”, so you’d never go there to find it unless you knew!
 

Shane was at loggerheads with them from the minute they arrived, so tensions were high. There was no rhyme or reason to the way they were doing things.  I like to keep things a bit organised - all of the kitchen boxes together, stacked neatly against one wall out of a walkway for example.  But not with the ILs... there were boxes willy nilly all over the place.  It was an obstacle course to get through.  Shane made sure he was only in the house a bare minimum, and left FIL behind if he went somewhere. But he didn’t seem to understand that I’m only an IL and have to remain polite. Whereas Shane would come in at the end of the day and go off like a frog in a sock about the weight of the boxes and the obstacle course they were creating.  Tense times.

It’s not easy trying to have someone else pack up your house for you. Let alone a MIL who seems to have taken ownership of it, and wanted to also take the opportunity to have a clean out.

Actually, that brings me to another point. I kept hearing about how much “rubbish” or “junk” we have. Yes, we have way too much stuff. It’s mostly due to the fact that we still have both of our houses - two lounge suites etc because we’ve been living in a big 5 bedroom house so it was never a drama. But how offensive to be told that it’s “junk”, and have her sighing and carrying on about the amount of work involved. I can tell you that I’ve almost bitten my tongue off.

In the end we sent them home, much to their disgust. Neither of us could cope with having them here any more. They spent three days cleaning our old house, which would be great except that there is no appreciation there - these are farm houses… old… dusty… grimy even in places… nobody cleans it before we move in. A general clean is all that is needed when we move out. Chances are that no-one will live there for months, and it may only be an 18 year old station hand who certainly doesn’t care that the floor was scrubbed by hand.

BIL refused to take them to the train, using some excuse or other. They live 10 minutes from town, and the train is at midnight. So, instead they had to stay here several extra days so that Shane could drive them 40 minutes to our closest train station at 2am by himself (as of course I’m not taking little man out at that hour in the middle of winter).

Since then the pressure hasn’t lifted off Shane and myself much. He is keeping his old ways of “not noticing” if he drops something or knocks it onto the floor. We have such little space and I have to spend so much time in this place that I am telling myself to just give up. If he doesn’t care what the place looks like, then why should I, right?  Except I don't work like that. 

And again I thank MIL for teaching her son that he doesn’t need to pick up after himself!!

:::

Oops that turned into a bit of a whinge session. It wasn’t the intention. I’m sure it will be fine. I just wish that Shane would have some appreciation for the little bit that I can get done during the day.

　

Bittersweet...

(The following is a post written 7 June that I couldn't post as I had no internet connection...)

Bittersweet.

There's a lot of bittersweet in having a rainbow.  Everything is bittersweet really.  Much of the time I'm caught up in the sweet of it, just as you imagine you will be.  Admittedly.  I don't spend my days, my every waking moment, pining for what could have been.

But to say that life is sweet, now that I have my Toby, would be way off the mark.

But of course, my life is no longer bitter. That would be selfish of me on so many levels. And a lie. However, there are still so many bitter moments. I appreciate everything that I have now. I wish that I hadn

So... bittersweet, hey?  What does it mean?  Quite simply, I'd say it is so much more than "bitter" but will never actually cut the mustard as "sweet".

:::

Last night I had to call in to the supermarket. Toilet paper. Milk. Essential items, right? Oh, and while I'm at it with the bittersweet I thought I'd grab another packet of nappies as I've already been caught out once this week with needing to make the 50km trek to get some.

I browsed the aisle, trying to decide which brand might be worth a try or whether to just go for the expensive ones and "know" that we're happy with them.  Toby was asleep in his pram but let out a little cry in his sleep.

A young Asian man was browsing the other side of the aisle, and when Toby squeaked he turned and looked at him with what I thought at the time was surprise, and made appropriate "ooh aah" noises.  I smiled politely at him and continued browsing.

A few moments later he approached me with "excuse me", and in very broken English he asked me to help him.  He had in his hands a baby bottle, and it took me a few moments to understand what he needed, which was help on which bottle and teats to purchase for his new baby that was to be born in July.

I was a bit "awww how sweet of this young daddy", and browsed the shelves with him, showing him which I thought were good ones, and how to work out which sizes to buy and that sort of thing.

But again, there is that bittersweet. Because really, on the inside, there was a bit of an emotional tornado going on.

Toby is nine weeks old. How have I become the person who gives advice on which bottles to buy? Or anything baby? I am not qualified in this. Not in the least. Sure, I guess I'm feeling a bit more at home with being a mum (would you believe I just spelt that as "mom"??  I think I hang out with my American friends online too much... Nah, never :)) but I am still way more qualified to be mum to an angel boy.  I have that one all but sorted.  So, how?  And how did it feel?  I guess a bit surreal, but also as if I was simply shaking my head... no.  I don't know how to do this.  You'll need to ask someone else.

Nine weeks ago I had no clue. Apparently now I have a new qualification, but it's a skin that doesn't quite fit.  I really can't imagine that it ever will.  And that's not fair.

I couldn't get away from this young fellow, who really was quite sweet.  He asked me how old Toby was.  He told me that his baby is a boy.  He noticed Toby's dummy and gasped.  Oh, he also needed those (well, with the hand actions to show me what he wanted so we searched the brands for those.

But I wanted to tell him that babies die. I didn't of course.  It's just that it made me kind of nervous to be seemingly innocently advising him to spend all of this money, when he is "just" a student especially, when we all know that babies die.  I mean we bought bottles and a breast pump and a few other bits and pieces on the way home from hospital.  No point stocking the cupboards till youknow you're getting a live one this time, right?  Hmmm?  No, of course I didn't tell him that babies die.  For most people they don't.

Turns out that his wife is still in Vietnam. He is here studying. He won't be there to see his baby being born in July because of his studies.  He is sending the bottles and dummies and whatever else back to Vietnam with a friend for his baby boy.  He won't see him until December.

I hope with all my heart that he sees his live baby boy. It's played on my mind since.