They have eventually put it online.
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They have eventually put it online.
Posted on 30 June 2005 | Permalink | Comments (31) | TrackBack (0)
I love my mother. And I love Rose.
Yesterday Rose called my mom and told her that I desperately need some sleep (did I look THAT bad in the morning?) and so between the two of them they arranged that Adam would sleep over at granny, and Kate would sleep over with Rose and so last night I got TEN hours of glorious, wonderful, uninterrupted-except-for-one-getting-up-to-pee-at-5 sleep.
I heart Sleep.
Posted on 30 June 2005 | Permalink | Comments (31) | TrackBack (0)
Blogs, and blogging, have become increasingly popular, as you know. Something like a few hundred blogs are created every day. Scary thought!
If I had the time and the money to do so, I would love to undertake a study of the blogging phenomena, the psychology thereof, and how it appears to be a manifestation of the current psyche.
But because I have 6-month-old twins, a full time job and only an hour for lunch, I will instead present you with a case study of one. Me.
Blogging, the issues surrounding it, and my experience thereof have been very much on my mind lately.
One of the occupational hazards of blogging, in the way that I blog (i.e. personal, sharing of my life kind of way) is that no matter what you say, or how you say it, you WILL offend someone out there. Something happened a few days ago that brought this to fore, once again. I am not even going to link to it because it is all sorted out. Suffice it is to say that by sharing a part of my life, I had unwittingly upset someone.
The other is that people will say nasty, attacking things about you. Or hit you when you are down.
Both suck.
I was thinking about these things this morning, and about how much I have grown as a person through the process of blogging.
When I was younger, I didn’t have much self-confidence. Hard to believe now, with all the G&D stuff I keep throwing about huh? When I was a teenager I was so aching self conscious that instead of standing up and doing a presentation in front of the class I would rather take a zero on my score. The thought of standing up in front of everyone, being in the public eye, the focus of attention for those 5 or 10 minutes was enough to make me ill. I still hate doing presentations, or being the centre of attention, but I have gotten a lot better. Age definitely helps. Although I still don’t like having birthday parties because it means that every one will be focused on me, and that makes me uncomfortable. Plus if people don’t have a nice time I will be responsible. Asshole me.
My other downfall is that I desperately want everyone to like me. As with the self-confidence thing, I am getting better at it with age, I am learning to care less. I am pathetic about people liking me, and if someone doesn’t like me, it will work on me terribly. It gnaws at me. And even when some total stranger (usually anonymously) posts something negative about me on my blog, it stings. I know it shouldn’t, and I shouldn’t care, but it still stings.
Blogging has been so good for me on many levels. First of all from a support point of view. Then from a learning point of view. I have learnt so much from all of you. The feeling of connectedness, of belonging, has also been great.
Yet the area that I have experienced the most personal growth is the whole ‘putting yourself out there’ side. It has really pushed my boundaries to keep exposing myself time and time again (and not just in my underwear) on my blog. To take a stand for what I believe in, to speak about things that people are too scared to speak about. To be honest about how I feel. Often, when I get negative feedback, I want to give up blogging, to run away. But I make myself carry on. I’ve had to keep telling myself that I can’t please all the people all the time, and that there will be people that don’t agree with what I say or do. And that sometimes people just wont like me, and that is ok. I also know what is in my heart, I know myself and I know that 99% of any offence that I might have caused has been unintentional.
So for me, blogging has been a great personal tool, it has made me stronger. It has also allowed me to be at the centre of attention without having to physically stand up in the middle of the room and have everyone look at me, if you know what I mean. It has also forced me to walk back into the room and stand up, even when I know that some in the audience wont like me, and some might even boo and hiss, to extend the metaphor. And that is brave for me. Whereas in the past I might have tried my heart out to appease and please every one, I now know that I can’t. And that it is ok not to.
So in my study of one, me, blogging has been a great personal growth tool, on many levels. I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to do so, and that you read my blog, because it is through you, and your interaction (even the negative ones!) that I have grown as I have.
So thank you.
I’ll sit down now.
Posted on 30 June 2005 | Permalink | Comments (26) | TrackBack (0)
If I may, a quiet whine.
I am so tired I feel like crying. You know how when you are so tired that you actually feel nauseous? I feel like that.
I am feeling incredibly sorry for myself today, for having to work. If I was at home I would still be tired but I wouldn’t have to pretend to be all professional and know work stuff. And I could potentially sneak in a nap when the babies nap. I wish I was stinking rich so that I didn’t have to work.
I am having one of those “I’m a shit mother who knows nothing” moments. I know I am not really a shit mother, but every now and then I feel a little out of control.
I so admire Julie for taking decisive action with Charlie. I told her today that she is my hero for knowing what her son needs and doing something about it. And that I felt like a total idiot sometimes.
Actually, this was her response:
julie : t., you're doing brilliantly!
julie: jesus, you have TWO!
julie: and one of them's an asshole!
And it is true, I do have two, and one *is* an asshole. When Beauty goes, we are going to have to get a bit stricter about napping and sleeping times. Rose will not cope if Adam behaves like a total asshole all day.
I have started letting him fret for a bit before going in to pick him up, i.e. not rushing in straight away. And sometimes he does go back to sleep.
I have always been anti CIO, but I am seriously leaning towards a version thereof. Some kids don’t need it – Kate is absolutely fine. Some kids might – Adam is a little bugger when he wants to be.
Ah, what do I know? I am just tired today and a bit ‘poor me’. I’ll be fine after some sleep.
Posted on 29 June 2005 | Permalink | Comments (36) | TrackBack (0)
One’s number of night wakings should NEVER exceed one’s total hours of sleep.
Number of night wakings (NW) = 6
Total hours of sleep (HS)= 3
Therefore, because #NW>#HS, age Tertia is looking and feeling like today = 97
Sigh.
We HATE snot.
Will be back later with more coherent post.
Posted on 29 June 2005 | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
Firstly, we have wall-to-wall snot in the Tertia household. And it aint pretty. I feel so sorry for the little buggers, it must be so crap not being able to blow your nose. Apparently you are not supposed to give them medicine to dry it up? Is that true?
I was up just about every hour last night with them. Needless to say I am not looking at my best today.
Then, remember I wrote about my sausage fingers last December? Well, the sausages have slimmed down slightly from boerewors to droewors size, but my rings STILL don’t fit! I keep waiting for my fingers to go back down to the size they were pre-pregnancy but I swear my knuckles are permanently bigger – is this possible? They are not swollen any more but definitely bigger. Does this mean I will have to have my rings stretched a little?
Bloody hell!!! I have permanently fatter fingers than before. You know things are bad when even your fingers have expanded. Damn this middle-aged spread shite!
Posted on 28 June 2005 | Permalink | Comments (36) | TrackBack (0)
It’s Monday, and there you are, with your morning coffee, ready to read the latest twist in my oh-so-interesting (NOT) life… and I have nothing to say.
I am feeling all blogged out. Well blogged out and blocked up. ‘Tis true, I have caught the lurgy that the babes are suffering under. It’s not difficult with the amount of snot swapping that goes on with babies. If it is not baby puke on my shoulder, it is baby snot on my cheek, sneezed up bits of butternut on my leg and a bit of baby poop under my fingernail. Babies are not for the squeamish or fainthearted.
Let me just say, sick babies are no fun. Nothing works for the little fuckers darlings. Dummy in, dummy out, up, down, in the swing, on the play mat – nada. Naturally Adam is far less fun than Kate. Ah well, babies do get sick, we will just soldier on.
*Thinking of things to talk about…..*
How about a moan about men of the husband / boyfriend variety?
You know what drives me absolutely farking insane? Is when Marko asks (in a harried tone) “what’s wrong with him/her” when the babes yell. You know how sometimes babies just yell. Just because. It could be because of a cramp, or they are over tired, or because they are just pissed off.
Turns out Marko is even worse at the crying thing than I am. If they start yelling, in the midst of the yelling fest, he will hover around me, getting in my way and ask me “What’s wrong?” It drives me insane. I don’t know what’s wrong my darling, if I knew I would try and fix it. Babies cry. They just do.
Grrr. I know he is doing it out of concern but, well, you know.
And you know, besides that, not much else really. Will try and be more inspired tomorrow.
Have a super day.
Oh wait!! I do have a story to tell you.
So last night was my baby free night (they slept over at Granny's house) and so after slowing down just slow enough to toss them out the car door at my mom’s place (approx 10 mph) and speed off, head thrown back, laughing manically, I sped home to IMMEDIATELY pour myself a huge glass of wine. Except in my excitement I spilt half the glass (which I obviously immediately replenished) down my pants.
Because I only had an hour or so to relax, have fun, blog, be nice to my husband, drink wine and do all the things one does on a baby free night, there was no way I was going to waste time taking the smelly wine'y pants off and put new ones on. So there I sat, in my study, blogging away, drinking my delicious wine, wet pants REEKING of wine, (unfortunately there was no time left for the ‘being nice to the husband’ part – some thing's got to give, you know), when the door bell rang.
This is itself was a highly unusual occurrence as Marko and I have no friends. So after a while of each of us ignoring the bell, hoping the other one would get up, he cracked first and went to see who it was. It was the Praying Stalker.
I have told you about the Praying Stalker before, long ago. She is someone my mom met at church and who had decided that she needs to pray over/for me. She is really sweet, very lordy and (hopefully) totally harmless. She means well, but she is just, well, stalker’ish. She will appear at my house at the strangest time to tell me things that God has asked her to tell me. She is sweet, I shouldn’t mock, I know. Bad Tertia.
Anyway, so there she was, at my door, at night, during my ‘baby free / have fun immediately’ hour or so before bed. And there I was, slightly drunk on two glasses of wine, with wet pants reeking of wine. And she said God had sent her to come speak to me. Now I am not one to mess with God, so I let her in, apologizing profusely for the smell, trying to hide my wine breath with my hand.
Marko RAN to the lounge and put the TV on, pretending to be immersed in the movie. He is a lot less tolerant of God’s little helper than I am.
The poor woman didn’t stay long, to be honest, I think the wine fumes were threatening to overpower her.
I shudder to think what the poor woman must have thought of me. I’ve certainly given her stuff to pray about now ;-)
Oh and her message was that God felt I should have my children baptized. Which I hadn’t thought about. Now that is a whole other post on its own. To baptize, or not to baptize……
Posted on 27 June 2005 | Permalink | Comments (28) | TrackBack (0)
From a reader. Please help if you can. Here is the link.
Kate Kirk is 3 years old. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her parents (Alison and Doug) and her 6 year-old sister, Caroline. Both Kate and Caroline are afflicted with a rare and fatal genetic disorder called Niemann-Pick Disease Type A/B. While Caroline’s symptoms have progressed too far for treatment, Kate still has a chance to avoid the most severe effects of this terrible disease. Thanks to an early diagnosis, Kate has been approved for a potentially life-saving bone marrow transplant, but we need your help.
Posted on 27 June 2005 | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)
I didn’t tell you this story when it happened, because, well, it was such a total mindfuck that I needed time to digest it, and then of course the babes made their early arrival.
Let me go back a year and a half ago. Last year, after Ben died I was just about at the end of whatever inner strength had kept me going for the four years of my infertility. I was bone tired and just wanted a baby. Options like donor egg and adoption were things that I had explored and was very keen to pursue, if it were not for the fact that I kept getting pregnant every time we did an IVF. The fact that I lost those pregnancies was due to back luck rather than anything specifically ‘wrong’ with my inner bits.
However, after Ben’s death, I had enough and so Marko and I decided that we would pursue adoption, knowing that it would not be easy for us to get a baby. We had no idea how hard it was. Turns out it is easier (and far cheaper) to do several IVF’s than to find a white baby for adoption. And yes, we wanted our baby to look like us. Call us selfish, call us what you will, but I wanted a baby who looked like us.
The waiting lists at the government adoption agencies were full, and there was a three-year waiting list. I couldn’t even get on the waiting list! So the only alternative route was private adoption, which was much more expensive. But we went that route and signed up at two agencies (I first researched several agencies, and also looked at international and mixed race adoption options), paid our fees, did all the paperwork, went for the interviews etc. And then we waited. And waited.
And we heard nothing. Not a word.
In the mean time I decided to try another IVF while we wait. And Kate and Adam were the result of that.
But because of my previous losses, because right up until the end I still couldn’t allow myself to believe I might actually end up with a baby, I didn’t take my name off the waiting lists. I just left it there.
A year later, and a week before the babes were born I got a letter in the post saying that we had been selected for the short list at one agency. My heart was in my mouth when I read the letter. I was so taken aback that I couldn’t even tell any one. I needed time to digest the ‘what if’.
Then, the following Wednesday, the 05th of Jan, at about 6 in the evening, I get a phone call from the other agency to tell me that there is a little baby girl for me, due in a few days time. My whole body went cold and then boiling hot. I started stuttering and stammering and told the woman that I was actually 35w pg with twins and that it looked like I might actually end up with a baby or two. She was so sweet and so happy for me. I started crying on the phone and I told her that I just knew how happy some other mom to be was going to be to get this gift.
Two days later the babes were born.
Of course you wonder what if. What if we hadn’t tried that IVF, what would our lives have been like then. What did that little girl look like? That little girl could have been part of our family.
But the story doesn’t end there. The following week my sister calls me and says “I know where that little girl went”. I said what little girl, and she said the little girl that was almost your daughter.
A friend of hers, an acquaintance rather, one I had never before met, had been trying for a baby for years, she is about my age, a bit older. She had decided not to do any assisted reproductive procedures and had put her name down on the waiting list for adoption.
Well, as you have most probably guessed, the little girl that almost became my daughter went to her and made her dreams come true. What an incredibly small world it is.
This weekend I got to meet my ‘What If’. It was so surreal. The little girl and her mom were at my nieces’ birthday party. My sister told me she was coming. I didn’t want to stare or make the mom feel uncomfortable (she knows the whole story), but I could help looking at her and wondering ‘what if’. At once stage another friend of my sister was holding Adam and was speaking to the mom of the little girl and Adam and the girl were smiling at each other. Do you know how strange that felt? Two worlds colliding, the ‘what if’ and the ‘is’.
The little girl is gorgeous, dark hair, dark eyes, petite. The mom looked so proud, so happy, so perfect. I hate the phrase ‘meant to be’ (people LOVE saying that shit about losses and infertility ‘it wasn’t meant to be’ etc), but in this case it really felt like it was meant to be, that some strange alignment of forces was in play. Because that little girl looked like she was meant to be with that mom, they both seemed so happy and in love.
I can’t even tell you what emotion I feel, I feel so many emotions at once. I am so happy for the other mom, but I have to say that I felt a bit sad, a sense of loss. I know that sounds silly. It is just so overwhelming. All the ‘what ifs’.
The world is a crazy place. Crazy. But sometimes, in amongst the craziness, there is a happily ever after somewhere in there. In this case for more than just one of us.
Posted on 26 June 2005 | Permalink | Comments (41) | TrackBack (2)