public service announcement

Interrupting your regular schedule of emo moaning here for an important public service announcement: You can now join me on Facebook here and you will enjoy 80% MORE mindless drivel as it occurs to me. Oh joy! Oh happy day! Come on you know you want to :)

Those of you lucky, lucky peeps who are already fortunate enough to be FB friends with me may experience some repeated posts but I will try to think of brand new tales to regale you with (such previous gems include "it's a 3 Snickers bars kind of day" and "convinced my 2 year old is an evil genius. And is possibly plotting my demise")

Dreamers vs Do-ers

Are you a dreamer or a do-er?

I am 100% positively a dreamer. I enjoy sitting back and thinking about all the wonderful things I want to do. I spend hours, hundreds of hours, mentally rearranging my house. If I got off my ass and actually rearranged my house, it would be done a lot sooner.

I think a lot of it comes down to my insane perfectionism. I rarely get things just the way I want them to be. I am rarely truly pleased with the outcome of something I do, or create. It's something I NEED to get over, and fast, because nothing is getting done.

Creating my day zero list has helped. A lot. I have always enjoyed ticking things off lists (hence why I have a filofax simply stuffed with lists) But this is more than a "buy toilet paper/call builder" kind of list (rest assured there are hundreds of those unfinished lists floating around). This is my life list.

These are the things I have in my mind that I want to do, want to achieve, and havng them there to remind me all the time to do something about them has helped...a lot.

Are you a dreamer like me? Or are you a get-in-there-and-do-it kind of gal?

If you are the latter...please...any tips you can offer are greatly appreciated

Easter Therapy

Yesterday I went shopping, and ended up having an impromptu therapy session.

I was going to a department store to look for long sleeves for Manny as the weather is starting to get colder. I wandered into the Easter section to grab a couple of chocolates for Rocket. I figured that like usual I would just grab a chocolate egg and a small toy. Easter hasn't been fun for me for awhile now. As I am the one in the house who arranges all the parties, holidays, gifts etc, if I'm not into it, it doesn't happen.

Last year I tried. I did the Easter hunt thing, which took no effort really, but I really used to enjoy all the Easter palaver.

But then yesterday I stood there in the Easter section and looked around. And found something cute. A ceramic egg decorating kit for small kids. "My Rocket loves craft" I thought, so I picked it up. Then I spotted the coloured rabbit ears. Since he was wee, we've always called Manny 'Bunny' (yes he is the baby of a thousand names). "How cute would Bunny look in these ears?" I thought, so I picked them up.

Before I knew it I had filled a basket. Lovely baskets ready for the boys to decorate, and some pretty chocolate lollipops, little wooden baby chicks to paint, easter paper chains to make, soft bendable bunny ears to wear, little fluffy chicks in nests.

And then I was off to another craft store.

To look for Easter decorations.

I think this year might be different.

I think tomorrow I might even bake some hot cross buns.

Easter makes me cry

Easter was always one of my favourite holidays. Are you kidding me? 4 days holiday plus all the chocolate you can stomach (and then some) - my kind of holiday.

But for the last few years it's been a different story.

The year my Star was born, Easter fell on 23 March - just a little over three weeks after his birth. In the weeks following his dearth, we barely left the house. I didnt eat for a week, and when I did start, it took weeks before I could eat more than a bite at a time. What I do remember is FUIC and hot cross buns. It was what we survived on. It was our comfort food.

The Easter weekend I was convinced to leave the house, to go on our usual vacation. I cried almost the whole weekend. I could barely force myself to interact with Rocket, or set out his gifts. It was probably also the time I had the last good conversation with my ESIL. It was hard. The whole holiday sucked.

Ever since, Easter has been hard. Harder than any other holiday. The closer it falls to his birthday, the harder it hits me. Even without getting into the rebirth/resurrection/"this is a time for new life" theme of the season, it's hard.

This year, with Easter being right at the end of April, it's strange. The timeline has shifted a full month. But when I smell hot cross buns, I am still taken back to that time. I am still in our old house curled up on a mattress on the lounge room floor, numb half the time, howling in pain the other 50% of the time.

I wonder whether I will ever truly enjoy Easter again?

motivation...or rather, lack thereof

Do you ever have trouble motivating yourself to get off the couch, put the laptop down and turn off the tv? I sure do. There are lots of things I would like to be doing...that I want to do, but I find myself stuck back in the same damn rut I was in before I left. Time to get my ass UP and GOING.



To help keep myself on track and make myself accountable, I've signed up on Day Zero and made me a LIST. Is there anything you can think of that I should add? I'm totally open to suggestions of ways to brighten things up and get creative with my life, I am ready to get my life going again after being so stuck in the babymaking circus and putting off so many things for so many years.

development

Got little man's "development summary" from his daycare centre today.

Was pretty amused by the summary on the front page where they describe what a delight he is, and follow it up with "At times he can assert his rights a little over zealously and we have to encourage his gentler side"

I seriously think whoever wrote this needs to go into politics! Left to me it would read "At times he is a giant brute who will steamroller anyone who gets between him and the object of his desire." Pretty funny, and fairly accurate I would say.

But then you come to the ILP (Individual Learning Plan) where they describe the psychosocial key learning area - where he will learn to empathise and show caring towards others, and the evaluation reads "Manny has been away for 3 weeks and come back, he still is not caring with friends"

This about broke my heart. He is such a loving boy! Sure, he will crack a wobbly if anyone tries to play with something he already has, but toddlers don't understand sharing! It pains me to think that his carers don't feel he is caring with his friends. You should see him with babies - so gentle. Poor wee mite. Methinks they are expecting too much of a 2 year old (just quietly).

Have you ever been shocked by something on a development summary about your little 'un? Do share.

cosmic jokes and blogging

I remember when I first came across this thing called a "weblog". Actually the first ones I came across were "online diaries". I was fascinated.

Writing out your thoughts and having people comment on them? Sounded wonderful to an 18 year old sitting at home alone heavily pregnant with no support system, no family, and friends who were still caught up in this thing called "youth".

It's hard to believe that was nearly a decade ago. It's amazing to think that I still talk to the people I met in my first online incarnation, that we are still friends, without ever having met in the "real world".

In the time I've known them we've had babies, got married, got divorced, been through adoptions, stillbirths, miscarriages, deaths, kids with issues, cheating husbands, and just about any other life experience you can imagine.

The internet is such a powerful creature (for good and for evil).

Blogging has enriched my life in so many ways, and carried me through the greatest heartbreaks. It led me to some people who I now regard as some of the closest friends I have.

It's amazing the way blogging has changed over time. It's amazing to me that so many people have blogs now (where we bloggers were once regarded as somewhat strange)(okay most people still regard me as somewhat strange) and that so many people are making a living from them (who knew that was possible? Thanks Dooce)

I have longed to go to BlogHer for a few years now. But being all the way over on this darn island makes it somewhat more challenging. I wished there was such a thing as an Australian blogging conference.

Guess what, there was!

Guess where I was? In the damn USA!

Definition of irony?

I've wanted to take this blog in a hundred different directions over the past year. But then IVF took hold of me and took over my life (and by extension of me - this blog). As there is no prospect of that ever happening again, it's time to move on. Onwards and upwards as they say. Now is the time to make some changes.

I wish I could have been at this "conference" they speak of, but alas, my life being the cosmic joke it is, I wasn't. Anyone care to clue me in on what I missed?