Bushfires

So. Um. We’re on fire here. Like the whole damn country. Fires on a scale NEVER seen before. Fires deemed ‘unfightable’ burning over millions of hectares of land from one side of the country to the other. With the two hottest months of summer yet to come. We’re safe where I am (so far) but its terrifying no matter where you are.

Led by the most inept man we could find for the job. Prime Minister Scott Morrison swanned off for a Hawaiian holiday right as this situation went from horrific to catastrophic. He’s told victims and volunteers alike on numerous occasions that it sucks that they’ve lost houses and family members and pets, but the Aussies are doing super good in the cricket so at least they can watch that to cheer themselves up! He turned his back on victims when he finally got off his bum and visited devastated towns. Actually physically turned his back on people who lost everything. Because they were angry and he couldn’t deal with it. One woman refused to shake his hand and he grabbed her by the arm and tried to force her to. Just for his happy photo shoot. He’s urging us to not play the blame game. But he’s the top of a pretty big pyramid of idiots who ignored and overlooked this way back when they could have done something to avoid it. We were warned again and again that this fire season was going to be awful. Now its beyond anyone’s worst nightmare and he’s throwing his hands up in the air shirking his share of the responsibility because he’s not a firefighter so what can he do?

Black Saturday was a decade ago. The last worst fire in our history. That one came quite close to where we live, only about a five minute drive away and we had burning embers falling in our yard that day. Black Saturday shook our country, especially Victoria. We were hit hard and you don’t get over it. Every person I know impacted by Black Saturday learned from it. Most of them chose to stay and defend their homes that day and from that experience decided to never take that chance again. People evacuate now. It isn’t worth dying. Pack a few things you can’t replace and get out before you can’t get out. People learned from Black Saturday. Why didn’t the government? It became so clear what was possible and absolutely NOTHING was done to prevent it from happening again.

Its not all bad though. The ‘aussie spirit’ that we’re famous for is visible even through the ever present smoke. In a couple of days we’ve donated enough supplies to overwhelm pretty much every charity we have. I do question how a bunch of nobody’s can be stocked and ready to mobilise in 48 hours but the government with endless resources can’t?

There isn’t much anyone can do now. We look after the victims. We donate money and food and water and supplies where we can. And we wait for the rain. We’re exhausted, we’re frightened, we’re angry, we’re frustrated, we’re changed forever again, we’re at an absolute loss but we go on. Again. I’d actually really like to see co-ordinated parties in major cities. Rain dance parties. All rain themed songs where people can get together and hurt and vent and scream cathartically and dance out the tension. And maybe raise some much needed cash at the same time because we all know our leaders can’t spare any to save us.

The ponytail beanie.

The story goes, my sister wants a ponytail beanie, buys truly horrible acrylic (two balls) and hands it over expectantly with a couple of photos “something like these please”.

Unfortunately there is enough that I have to do two.

With no pattern I just made one up.

And because I’m a half decent person. Here is the pattern.

8 ply acrylic and 3.5mm needles.

For size small cast on 100 stitches and for large cast on 120 stitches. Photo is size small but my tension is pretty tight.

Join in the round

K1, P1 rib for 12 rows

Knit 2 rows

Purl 5 rows

Knit 2 rows

K2, P2 rib for 3 rows

Knit 2 rows

P4, K1 for 8 rows

Knit 2 rows

Moss stitch for 8 rows

Knit 2 rows

Purl 7 rows

Knit 2 rows

K1, P1 rib for 3 rows

Knit 2 rows

K5, P5 for 5 rows

Knit 2 rows

Purl 3 rows

Knit 2 rows

K8, P2 for 7 rows

Knit 2 rows

Moss stitch for 3 rows

Knit 1 row

Next row: K8, k2tog, repeat to end

Next row: P7, p2tog, repeat to end

Next row: P6, p2tog, repeat to end

Next row: P5, p2tog, repeat to end

Next row: P4, p2tog, repeat to end

Next row: P3, p2tog, repeat to end

Cast off.

Ok… so where the pattern says ‘moss stitch’ it refers to the british version. Known as ‘seed stitch’ to all the americans.

My never was.

Today is the due date of my first pregnancy. The one that went so horribly wrong.

Every single year on this date (probably for the rest of my life) I have a bit of a cry by myself and miss the life that isn’t in my life.

I feel guilty because my perfect child that is here would never have even considered if my first baby had been here turning 5 around now.

But I still want to go back in time and find a way to make that pregnancy go the way it was meant to.

Miscarriage is so common. It hurts in a way that nothing else does. It changes your DNA. It takes a part of your soul with it. You never fully recover.

To anyone going through this, to anyone who has gone through this, to anyone who does go through this:

Your child is real. Whether it ends a day after you find out or four months after you found out, your child is real.

Whether you bleed and double over in pain suddenly or find out at a scan when someone can’t avoid telling you any longer that there is no heartbeat, your child is real.

Whether only you knew or you’d excitedly told everyone you ever met and any strangers who made the mistake of making eye contact, your child is real.

Your child will always be real and there is no right or wrong way to live your life after that.

Food nazis.

Isaac started Kindergarten this year. And I remember food at kindy as being fruit that appeared magically peeled and cut up and you ate what bits you wanted out of a communal bowl on the table. There was also a honey sandwich in there somewhere. Easy. Peasy.

The following is an actual list of food rules at Isaac’s kindy:

No nuts or food that may contain nuts

No dried fruit

No cake

No muesli bars

No honey

No cold deli meat

No flavoured yoghurt

Nothing with a high sugar content

No white bread

No fruit juice or flavoured milk

Now… I understand the no nuts rule. Thats fine. There are kids there with serious allergy issues and I have no desire at all to kill them. But no saltanas and squeezy yoghurt is hurting us baaaad. These are kids. And mine woke up when he was 2 and decided all food was evil. He’s been limited to his sandwhich with a slice of cheese and a banana (which he refuses to eat but gets put in there anyway). Poor kid is starving.

But I have discovered a scone recipe that has zero sugar and I can hide any fruits and veggies in there that I want! I even use wholemeal flour do as not to accidentally sumon the devil when refined white flour crosses the threshold of the kindergarten building. Its wholemeal self raising flour, cream and soda water. You can add baking powder if you want to make them a bit fluffier. But mush up anything you want and chuck it in. Old bananas that have come home day after day? Banana scones! Carrot, pumpkin, cheese, apples. Anything! I’ve got some figs off Nan’s tree I’m going to try.

Scones. The answer to life’s problems.

Babies

So after the horrible end to the guinea pigs I organised with a dude I work with who breeds guinea pigs for food to get a couple of his girls. And I fully intended to go around, pick two nice looking girls and head on my way. Only they were all either 2 days old or at least 2 years old and pregnant.

So we took two nice looking girls named fatso (she was clearly full of babies) and poo face (she has a brown stripe on her face) and agreed we would take our pick of whatever they produced. Poo face was renamed by Isaac. To Norville. And I’ve got serious doubts that she’s growing anything.

But today fatso produced FIVE little bundles of joy. Chances are there will be at least two girls in that lot. And they are so so cute!

Bits

Mum guilt of the week…

He doesn’t know the correct names for genitals! 

He starts Kindergarten in a week and a half and I have failed him! Actually I’m not entirely sure if I failed him or if he’s just somewhat dense in this area. 

He knows there are girls and there are boys. But he has no idea why. He’s stared at me while I shower asking “mummy where is your doodle?” enough times now that he really should understand I dont have one. But then yells out helpful hints to me while I do the ‘I gotta pee’ dance at the supermarket, like, “mummy just squish your doodle and the wees won’t come out”.

It may not be my issue to stress about if I die of embarrassment. 

To be fair it was my mum who taught him ‘doodle’ for his penis. I used the much worse generic term ‘bits’. But I even blame mum for that. I grew up in a house where we all just pretended nobody had any bits. I grew up in a repressed house in the 80s and 90s. I’m not prepared to deal with this new fangled era of body awareness! 

A while back he got a fair whack to the ‘bits’ when he ran (literally ran) into the couch, and as four year olds do, ran over for me to fix it. Through tears and sobs “mummy kiss my doodle better” and I had a big chat with him about how nobody, even mummies and daddies, can kiss doodles better. And if anybody ever tried he had to tell me. So I’ve tried at least.

The biggest problem is that he’s four years old and he has no idea we all have such issues with bits. To him its just the dangly bit wees come out of and its just not a big deal. And I get that. When I was at kindergarten we went swimming and I had no idea why I had to wear bathers. I’d never worn bathers to go swimming in my life! You would absolutely have your children removed from your care if you let them swim at the beach starkers these days. Its up there with leaving them alone in the car or giving them alcohol in their bottle to help them sleep. But back then it was a sea of naked kids. And I honestly don’t remember wondering about anyone’s bits. I’m sure we all had them, but we were kids so they didn’t count. 

I’m going to get in so much trouble the first time he yells “doodle” at kinder.

4 whole months.

That’s how long Annie and Clarabel lasted before our foray into pet ownership abruptly ended.

It was not my fault. I did not kill our two girls by means of neglect, starvation, forgetting them in the sun on the recent 40°C day, forgetting them to drown in the last two days of constant rain, over feeding, over affection or escape never to been seen again. 

Unfortunately where Isaac’s (my) two girls were concerned I actually wasn’t a bad pet mother at all. 

However, even the best pet owner is completely helpless against a wandering rottweiler who helps himself when you aren’t home.

Also unfortunately, he was one of the sweetest, friendliest, most beautiful dogs I have ever spent an hour of my life with. It wasn’t his fault its in his nature to kill rodents by any means.

We haven’t gotten a dog yet. When we do get one, he is exactly the sort of dog I would like to get. Without the guinea pig killing tenancies of course. Ironically, we haven’t gotten a dog yet because our yard isn’t secure enough to keep both it safe and the neighbourhood safe from it. 

So we’ve spent a very sad day doing things like explaining to a four year old boy that his first two pets aren’t around anymore (they went to go and live with a little boy who was really sad and we thought he needed Annie and Clarabel more than Isaac because Isaac is a very lucky boy who has lots of things and its good to share) and working out what we do now (we’ll find out how our local council is going to deal with it during the week and I’ll sort out a new Annie and Clarabel while I’m at work Wednesday*). If the dog owners can be found, they won’t get their dog back until a resolution to the situation has been found. I really hope they don’t get their dog back at all because they don’t deserve him.

So RIP little girls. I hope there is lots of grass where you are now (trying very hard to forget exactly where they are now).

*I work with a guy who breeds guinea pigs. To eat. For real. I will rescue a couple of those girls from his slow cooker.

My life.

Well, my life summed up in one picture.

Very weird, a teensy bit smug, overall happy. Did I mention weird?

The death of the English language.

I’ve been ‘collecting’ errors for a few weeks. I know I’m not the world’s most perfect speller and my grammar is sometimes a little lacking. But these make my soul hurt.

Starting with my favourite :

For all intensive purposes. This has become such a common error, that as soon as I typed ‘intensive’ the word ‘purposes’ popped up after it in my predictive text. So so so many people just look blank when I point out that this is WRONG WRONG WRONG. In case you’re wondering, its ‘for all INTENTS and purposes’. Yeah. Makes more sense now doesn’t it? 

Gecko. As in ‘I trust everyone from the gecko’. Yeah. Really. Someone said that. Putting aside the stupidity of trusting someone before you know them (this post isn’t about that kind of stupid), why would you be trusting someone from a gecko? Are geckos particularly trustworthy? IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE! And please don’t trust anyone from ‘the GET GO’.

A mock. As in ‘stupidity runs a mock in here’. Well… sorta… if you mean I’m mocking your stupidity. Sure! But if people are that dim then it might be stupidity running AMOK?

Jeans. As in, ‘your jeans have a lot to do with if you get sick or not’. Why? Are my jeans too tight and cutting off circulation? Are they the brand that have the carcinogenic dye that is going to kill me? I know GENES are quite important in determining long term health. But unless someone strangles me with my pants. Not so big a link between jeans and health.

Raft. As in ‘my husband will feel my raft if he keeps going down this path’. Unless you actually own a raft and are planning on beating your husband with it as punishment for his bad attitude, he will feel your WRATH.

Pronounce. ‘Proud to pronounce’. They finally settled on whether it is tomato or tamayto and you get make the announcement and you’re making a pun on ‘proud to ANNOUNCE’?

Defiantly. Instead of definitely. There is DEFINITELY a difference and most people learn that difference in primary school. A particular pet hate is when facebook business pages mix these two up. Not professional at all.

Ban. ‘Lets ban together’. Ahhh… the uneducated right wing feeling such fear of the unknown, they BAND together to ban together rather that just learning about what they are afraid of and not being afraid of it anymore.

Diddo. And not “did you do that?” “I diddo!” No no no no. Diddo instead of DITTO. 

Leased. ‘We see each other at leased once a week’. Where you have a rental contract for your Thursday night bingo date? Or… or, you see each other at LEAST once a week.

Amagen. IMAGINE my surprise that someone didn’t look at this and think “that doesn’t look right”.

Wreck less. I guess if you aren’t RECKLESS you probably would wreck less stuff. Pretty logical.

A where. AWARE. You know that thing your brain does where it sees the first two letters and last two letters and fills in the gaps to form the most logical sentence? When I saw this I read ‘as you’re probably a whore’ instead of ‘as you’re probably a where’. I was all “who’s a whore now?” Then “ohhhh, who gets that wrong?”.

Calmer is a bitch. You’re right. Calm is suss. Just do your nut. It may not be the best for your KARMA but you’ll feel better.

I would like everyone to know I suppress all grammar and spelling nazi tenancies on social media. I’m more ‘shake my fist at our useless government for letting our education quality slip so so low’ than ‘telling someone they’re an idiot when it was really bad education standards that failed them’. Hate the sin. Not the sinner.

The Victory

Yesterday was a great day for my country. Yesterday, an almost two thirds majority decided marriage equality should be a thing. 

Now the fight is not quite won yet. This result isn’t legally binding for anything. But we were heard. Loud and clear. “Don’t be assholes,the gays are people too!” In the next few months this will be our history. Admittedly, shamefully late to the party, but we got there.

Yesterday I was at work when the announcement was made. Outnumbered four to one by outrageously dedicated pentacostal Christians who, with every atom of their existence, are opposed to the very idea of homosexuality. So yesterday, I got a very unique perspective on exactly how afraid these people are. I got a very clear picture of how religion is failing and why. I was bathed in hatred and homophobia and judgment. These ‘children of God’, spent the day spewing vitriol so vile that it left me sickened and convinced atheists are more Christian than the Christians could ever be.

I don’t believe in God. For a general idea how God fits into my life just google what Stephen Fry thinks about God. 

But, I’ve been listening to “god botherers” my entire life. I know God created man with free will. I know God asked man to be kind and compassionate and most of all, not judge. I know God sent Jesus to die for all our sins. Which apparently only applies to eating bacon and working Sundays?! I feel in my soul that announcing “well Satan and his poofters are running the world now” after a Yes result is not something God would care for. I feel in my soul that people who genuinely believe that homosexuality and transexuality and everything inbetween, is either a lifestyle choice or demonic possession, are making God sad.

I struggle to understand how anyone, who has ever been attracted to anyone, can believe anyone has any control whatsoever, over who they find attractive. 

Myself, I have a thing for tall blond boy band types. Eddie Perfect, Chris Hemsworth, Ryan Gosling/Reynolds. You know what I mean. They pop up in my field of vision and the reaction is 100% involuntary. Cartoon heart beating out of my chest all the way. 

So why is my attraction perfectly normal and a male feeling the exact same attraction as me an abhorrent sin produced by the devil? I can come at the notion that God is infallible. But it wasn’t God who wrote the bible was it? It was a bunch of men, years after the fact, who carefully edited events to serve their own purposes. And then… it was translated countless times. Mankind is most definitely fallible. Between Jesus telling them how to serve God and their putting into writing how we should serve God. I feel a few personal opinions have been thrown in for self serving purposes. 

So yesterday I got to witness a very special moment in the history of mankind. I got to see the very very real fear of those who have spent thousands of years controlling the minority, become the minority. People who basically, throughout recorded history, have bullied, abused, cast out, brutally murdered, tortured and do everything they could to break these people, are now outnumbered by these people and us who support them. And they are properly frightened. 

But they shouldn’t be. See… we’re not assholes. We understand that its ok to believe different things. We don’t like to be told what to believe so we don’t tell anyone what to believe. We wont treat them the way they treat people. Because we see the emotional damage their beliefs and judgment causes and we don’t want to make people feel like that. Its not nice to make people feel bad. Most people learn that as small children. I don’t see how being nasty in the name of God is ok?

Marriage equality wont be the end for humanity. Life will go on and not much will change. Maybe we will see more love because less and less people care about the genders of those in love? 

But for all the God fearin’ folk out there. Nobody wakes up one day and says “you know what? I think I’ll be gay! That looks like fun! The wrath of every religion embodied by angry people who follow me around calling me an abomination! I can’t wait! If I’m really lucky my family will disown me leaving me homeless in my teenage years and I will learn valuable lessons of survival while I live on the streets!” Yeah. Thats not a thing. Look at the suicide rates in the rainbow community and you will see its not a choice. Its who your God made them and for the longest time they have buried it in shame. You don’t need to hate them. Because of you they already hate themselves more than enough. Way to go! Its time to make a decision on what sort of person you want to be. You don’t have to be gay. You wont catch it. You just have to understand and embrace the concept that some people just are gay and you have to be nice to them too.

To leave on a positive note… I’m bloody proud of ya ‘Straya! 

my #metoo

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I really don’t want to minimise any trauma that any victim of sexual assault is suffering with.

I’ve been sexually harrassed. I’m a woman. Of course I’ve been sexually harrassed. Its a casual everyday occurrence for every woman I know. I’ve also been violated. Both by men I know and random drunk/pushy/icky men in pubs. And for some light humour relief, I feel violated every time I get a pap smear and they genuinely struggle to find my cervix. Seriously, my file has a note on it that my cervix may be mythical because there have been more loch ness monster sightings than sightings of my cervix.

But back to the serious topic at hand. 

My shame is that all the sexual harrassment and violations in my life combined don’t even register as something to care about. Meh. Whatevs. 

Every sexual act I’ve ever been talked into because it was just easier than fighting him off, has become nothing more than a half forgotten thought of “oh geez, I did that, eww”. Every man who ever intimidated me or used a position of power against me has become so irrelevant that I struggle to find a specific example even though I know there are many. 

The truth of it is, the psychological abuse inflicted upon me during my life, exclusively by women, makes anything any man has ever done to me completely insignificant. My shame is I feel jealous of women who have been violated physically because I’ve only ever been violated mentally. And that shit doesn’t stop haunting you any easier than rape does. 

I feel for the staggering amount of #metoo women. I understand their fight. I understand why they need me to fight too. I hope they win their fight. But I just don’t feel like I have the right to fight. I’ve gotten drunk and felt up just as many randon men that have gotten drunk and felt me up. I can’t bring myself to join this fight while its ok for me to do that and it doesn’t bother them and nobody considers me a preditor. 

I will raise my son with a very clear expectation of what is ok and what is not ok when it comes to women. But I’m too busy fighting with my demons that were created by women to go to war with men. 

Origin – Dan Brown

Full disclosure, I’m a massive Dan Brown fan. I’ve read them all. I read this in two days. Given I have to care for a four year old and spent half a day out shopping during that two days, its pretty remarkable. 

However… meh.

It had all the usual. Plot twists, problem solving, mystery antagonist, beautiful foreign girl.

I get the sense that as an author he’s gotten so big and famous that his editor has less input than he used to. And this book definitely suffered as a result. The whole first two thirds was a lecture in anti religion. That’s fine for me because I think Dan Brown and I probably think along similar lines where religion is concerned. But its super boring super quickly. There was none of the ‘can’t put it down because too much is happening’. Nothing at all really happened for most of it. Then the big reveal, which in all the other books left you gobsmacked and unable to believe the book actually came out of someone’s brain, in this book just left you going “is that it? Is there more?” Possibly the biggest anticlimax since I watched the sixth sense for the first time after I already knew Bruce Willis was a ghost. The whole book built to not much at all. 

Then there was the baddie. Its Dan Brown and you never know who is the mastermind trying to kill everyone until the end. Maybe I’ve read too many now and I just know how its going to go. But it was pretty clear soon after this character was introduced that they were not as they seemed.

All in all, I probably wouldn’t bother. Go back and read Deception Point again instead. Its almost like he’s punishing the universe because of what Hollywood did to the end of Inferno. You can do better Dan Brown! Put some effort in next time. This is an embarrassment to what you are capable of. Take a few years off and plan the next one out properly! 

Fur babies

My family grew by two members this morning. 

This is Annie

And this is Clarabel 

Its Isaac’s birthday on Sunday and this is what mum got for him.

Just quietly I’m fairly nervous about pet ownership. 

Miss me?

I know. Don’t care. You’ll just have to deal.

Sooo… I went to the Bendigo wool show. I was very restrained. I bought a few little things and… a yarn dyeing kit! 100 gorgeous grams of some merino’s finest. All spun up into bare sock skein goodness. And 3 packets of primary colour dye. Earth Palette dyes if you’re wondering. 

I mostly ignored the instructions, because hey, how hard can ‘add water, add dye, add yarn’, be… right? I now suggest always following the instructions very carefully.

I mixed all of the red with a teensy bit of blue because I’ve been searching high and low for the perfect rust/magenta colour. I had dreams of what I would knit with such a colour. Into a zip lock bag went the wool and after that the mixed up dye. It was looking good. I squished it around until I could see no white and wrapped it it a towel and chucked it on the nice warm mantle piece to set overnight.

Well, was I in for a shock when I rinsed the next morning.

I most definitely missed bits. To be fair, there are quite a few spots with exactly the colour I wanted. My plans of knitting something quite classy with some perfect wool were a little dashed. I do like how it turned out, but it doesn’t exactly scream elegant now does it.

Would you believe that I’ve been knitting nigh on 30 years and the closest I’ve come to knitting socks has been a couple of pairs (and to be honest mostly half a pair of) baby booties.

This is sock yarn folks. It has a destiny to fulfill. 

Turns out I accidentally dyed pink cammo sock yarn. Go me! I turned the heel (easy peasy) and in about 4 more cms I shall attempt a toe. So far the patten has been a dream to follow here. Lets all take bets on whether a second sock will ever exist?

In other news I learned the long tail cast on today. Also go me.

Tired

I’m going to write a book. Called ‘three year olds are assholes’.

It will be all about how your once sweet, well behaved, perfect little angel, has overnight turned into an evil monster and you give serious thought to ‘how hard would it actually be to dig out a cellar in the backyard to lock him in’ or ‘why is it wrong to smack toddlers in the face? Surely just one quick swipe would be a valuable lesson’.

DO NOT SMACK CHILDREN ACROSS THE FACE. ITS VERY WRONG. I AM NOT ADVOCATING VIOLENCE. 

When I run the world, every single town will have a 24 hour ‘sanity point’. A building open day and night where you can drop your evil evil spawn off for half an hour and have a shower without a small person staring at you the whole time and pointing out your pubic hair every 14 seconds! Not every day. Just those select moments when your wits end was about 4 days ago. The last few weeks with my threenager have demonstrated what a serious lack of support for mums there is. Husband’s can be totally useless and despite good intentions just make more work for you. Grandparents and sisters come with guilt that doesn’t help anyone relax. Just volunteer run, no judgment, dump the kid and sit in your car and cry if thats what you need to do. Why are there none of these places?

10 weeks.

No. Not me. Soooooo not me.

Serena Williams won the Australian open while 10 weeks pregnant. 

I like Serena Williams. I love that she cares more about being tough enough to win tennis than she does about looking like a pretty little girl while she wins tennis. She’s tough, she fights hard to get what she wants and she does not apologise for who she is.

But geez. Way to make the rest of us look bad!

Do you know what I was doing at 10 weeks pregnant? I was falling asleep face down on the bench at work and spewing in the garden next to the post office. 10 weeks pregnant for me was a special hell where there was no escape from vomit and a constant desire for unconsciousness. The only way I would have played tennis while I was 10 weeks pregnant is if I was allowed to do it while using the net as a hammock. And she goes and wins the bloody Aus open!?

Yeah. I love Serena Williams, but that just makes all of us look like rubbish.

I haven’t forgotten my blog.

I have one reader in the USA that drops by a couple of times a week and every time there isn’t something new I feel I’ve disappointed them. So here is a run down on the last month. In pictures. Because thinking is hard.

Kangaroos 

Black cockatoos

Some weird kid who lives with us

New kitchen (not finished)

Camping

Finished cardigan (still too small)

The “they won’t hurt you” argument for spider bites has a set back.

So many apples

Batman

Batman removal not going so great.

A giant football

A goanna

And bath hair.

All caught up. Whoever my one reader is, hope you have a great week!

To finish that story…

I miss nummies in my life. He’s actually fine without them.

Except bedtime which did involve putting him into bed at 7:30pm and him asleep at 7:32pm is now putting him to bed at 7:30pm and him asleep somewhere around three and a half days later. Well… around 11pm anyway.

I’m so tired. I haven’t stayed up this late in years. It takes hours of book reading and potty trips and bargaining and bribery and threats and tears (from both of us) to finally get him to sleep. And then he wakes up so early! So so early. Mumma needs sleep boy! Mumma needs so much sleep. 

But we’re in much too deep to turn back now. We’ve done it. We chucked every single nummy in the bin. Then we chucked the 30 extra nummies he had stashed around the house god knows where in the bin. And its just a case of keep going and wait for it to settle in to the new routine.

I’m considering giving him away for a few months. Mumma needs some sleep. 

No more nummies: part II

Night two was not quite as smooth as night one. But still hugely underwhelming.

There was a couple of very small melt downs and about 40 books read and eventually off he went to sleep.

I did get woken up at 5am this morning to the “I want my nuuuuummmmmyyyyyyyy” wail. That was fun!

No more nummies!!

Nummies, or a nummy, in this house is a dummy/pacifier/soother or whatever you choose to call it. They got called nummies in my house because in Australia they are called dummies and in Australia everything gets shortened and I HATED people asking my infant son if he wanted his dum dum. It sounds awful.

Now… on with the story.

Isaac was a fan of the nummy from around 30 hours old. His second night on earth, after a particularly unhelpful midwife forced me to breastfeed my overcooked, mucus filled, not hungry child. And the more we put in his tiny full tummy, the more he screamed from belly pain. He was wanting to suckle for comfort but it was just making things worse. I needed sleep. The lady in the next bed who had just had a hysterectomy and for some stupid reason was put on the maternity ward, complained loudly and frequently at being roomies with a newborn because she needed sleep. Lots of wits were at lots of ends.

I didn’t actually put much thought into nummy use. I was going to try without one and see how we went. But as my traumatic experience with breastfeeding showed. My nipples were not willing to be used for soothing purposes. I was happy to give it a go. The midwife sterilsed one and in it went. 

Instant silence. Relief for all.

A nummy (and several spares) were attached to him for the next two years. About two weeks before his second birthday I decided that I didn’t want them in every photo we ever took of him. Especially his birthday photos. So for three horrible horrible days we endured screams of “myyyyyy nuuuummmyyyy. I want my nuuuuummmmmyyyyyyyy”.

He got it back for nap time and bed time (because we still needed sleep too) but every waking moment during the day was him and his very loud broken heart. 

Day four he woke up and it was if nothing had ever happened. Life continued on in peace and good behaviour. Sans nummy. With the thought of giving it up for bed time and nap time always in the back of my mind. Filling me with dread.

Then yesterday happened. Well yesterday was fine. Last night, the hour after dinner time and before bedtime happened. 

You know how toddlers are just small drunk people? It really was like he was drunk! He was just giggling at everything. Whenever we told him not to do something he threw his head back and laughed at us. Like a tiny sociopath. Threats were made on toys. Toys got confiscated. Threats of “I’ll yell” which usually has him sitting down going “no no no no” were met with enthusiasm. So I pulled out my last option. 

“Isaac, settle down and do as you’re told or you don’t get to take a nummy to bed tonight”.

It didn’t work. I had no option. You can’t make threats if you can’t follow through.

I put him to bed with no nummy and shut the safety gate (yes, we essentially lock our boy in his room at night) expecting the world to end.

There was random giggling for the first half an hour. Standing at his gate whispering “I want an ice cream” the next. Then the noise of every single toy he owns being put in his bed with him. Then nothing. Silence. 

I bravely peeked around his door. He was fast asleep on the very edge of his bed. Moving his toys was the easy bit. I had to decide whether to move him off the edge now and risk all hell breaking loose, or risk him falling out of bed later and all hell breaking loose. I’m a fairly responsible mother so the risk of injury outweighed the risk of waking him up. Slowly and carefully I shoved him back to the middle. Nothing. Didn’t even stir. It was one of those ‘crap, he mustn’t be breathing’ moments. 

My little nummy addict went all night without a nummy and I don’t think he even noticed. I am aware you have to repeat the results of an experiment to confirm the results and that study will be conducted in the next few nights. But I’m quietly optimistic. I’d say the dread has at least halved.