Survivor's guilt?

Mama guilt. 

We all have it. Some of us, like my Catholic mother, become experts at passing the guilt on to their children. But I feel confident in saying we all experience it in some form throughout our parenthood journey. Those of us who go back to work feel guilty for leaving our kids (at least I do). Those who stay at home have different triggers.

Mine feels like a whole new breed of Mama Guilt. That of the mother who survives a child.

I have heard so many times "losing my baby has made me a better person" and I've commented before how I didn't feel that was necessarily the case for me. Another gem that seems to pop up a lot is "I've become a better mother since my baby died".

Another one that just doesn't seem to ring true for me. It should, though. I mean, once you have buried a child, surely you understand just how precious and amazing a gift your living children are....right?

Well of course you do.

However. Having said that...your precious darling treasures will still drive you crazy with their incessant whining. As mine has today. It has been a hard work day. And I have yelled. And then I felt guilty. And then I walked past photos of my Starbaby and felt doubly guilty.

Because I love my kids. But my WORD can they drive me insane.

motivation?

How do you motivate yourself to get going?
Motivation is a key word that seems to keep bringing people to my blog...which is amusing considering I mostly talk about my lack of motivation.
Why, right now, I am sitting in front of the TV watching Supernatural eating Fruit n Nut chocolate. I had planned on doing a great many things today, on my day off. And yet....the Little is asleep peacefully on the couch and I could be doing any one of the many things I always claim I want to do...and yet...

Dia de los Angelitos

One of the traditions I have observed each year since my baby's death is Dia de los Angelitos, on the evening of the 1st November each year. I create an ofrenda for him and devote some time to remembering his spirit.


My ofrenda usually includes orange marigolds, but this year the day snuck up on me and instead I crept out at night into my back garden and picked the first flower I saw...a small, perfectly formed rose. I could not have picked a more perfect flower for him.

I leave toys, always a new and different Pez, as my Lou collects them. I leave trinkets and candies, and again, normally we make and decorate beautiful sugar skulls (the one pictured is from 2008), but sadly not this year.

I leave him his teddies, and a pillow and his blankets so that his spirit can rest after his long journey.

I leave a light on in the window all night to guide his spirit home.  I feel him the closest on this night, more than his birthdays, more than any other day. I know he is with us.



Do you have any traditions that you stumbled across that have become important to you over the years?

Running out of room in here...

There are so many things on my mind at the moment that I am finding it hard to find the headspace, rather than the time, to sit down and blog. My brain seems to be reaching critical mass.

My primary concern right now is the bad news we got from our accountant last week, about a stupid decision I made to sell one of our investment properties within 12 months of it being transferred to me *headdesk* yes holding it for only a few more months would have reduced my CGT liability by 50%.


You live, you learn.

So that's what I have been doing for the past week. Learning. Reading, reading, reading, and developing new strategies for dealing with our investments and liabilities. Prudent timing also, as I did in fact go and buy another investment property recently (settlement in 2 weeks!) and all of my newfound knowledge will hopefully assist me moving forward.

We are still packing up our house with the vain hope that we will have to move out soon for the renovations to start (but just quietly, I am not holding my breath).

I have bit the bullet and decided to make an appointment with the GP to get my big kid tested and find out what is going on with him. I'm pretty sure its some form of ADD, but accept that there is a possibility of him being on the autism spectrum. I've thought it many times over the past few years and done what I could to reduce the problems, but he's just not coping at school so its time I find out what's going on.

Also, our car decided to fall apart this week too (literally) so that's taken up some headspace, and my mind is still reeling from all the things I learnt at ProBlogger.

I have a lot of things on my "to do" list and even more on my "to write about" list...but alas, they may have to wait.

Oh and I foolishly signed up for NaNoWriMo...again. I have yet to complete it, tried three years in a row. Perhaps this time will be different??

Is anyone else out there foolish enough to attempt it this year?

Are you a Boy or a Girl?

When I dropped my Little one off at daycare the other day, pretty much the first words out of one of the "older" carers mouths was "Are you a boy or a girl?"

Cue a WTF look from me.

One of the little girls answered "I'm a girl!" and the carer shushed her and asked my Little once more "are you a boy or a girl?"

His answer was a quizzical look and a strong "I'm Manny!"

I grinned. That's my kiddo. Labels are for soup cans.

The carer looks up at me and explains that she is teaching them "differences" and the differences between boys and girls. I must have had a deer in the headlights look because she went on with "maybe Mummy can practice teaching you at home!"

Honestly I had no idea what to say. I was dumbfounded. I didn't want to cause a scene so I stayed quiet. Was I being oversensitive because of my queerness? Probably. But it just seemed wrong to me.

Do I say to her that we do not enforce gender stereotypes on our children?
Do I tell her that within our community of friends we have a number of transgender and genderqueer peeps who we love and support?
That a couple of people our children once knew as "she" are now "he"?
Do I tell her that Manny is way too young to know yet whether he is a girl or a boy?
Or quite simply that I feel it is an inappropriate choice of topic?

What would you do?



I would like to clarify that I do call him my sweet boy, darling boy etc constantly, we are not raising him genderless, it just struck me quite strongly (and unexpectedly) as I heard her asking such a black and white question. We assume he is a boy. That he will grow up to be a man. But that may not be the case and I know it. I dont think there is anything wrong with explaining genders to your kids (aka "Mummy is a girl") but this seemed different to me. Perhaps I am oversensitive?!

Viability

Interrupting your regularly scheduled nonsense post to say.......

VIABILITY!

That's right...24 weeks today. Not that I'm ready for the little one to come any time soon.

Had my regular Dr appointment and had a quick growth scan, everything is ahead of dates which warms my heart, because growth is one of our key markers to make sure there is no repeat chromosomal problems that took our Starbaby from earth (we do not want to do any invasive testing as we have decided we would continue an affected pregnancy anyway).

HC = 24w4d         FL = 24w3d
BPD = 24w4d       AC = 24w5d

Which puts the average at 24+4 = a full 4 days ahead...grow baby grow!

Pro Blogger's training day and a whirlwind weekend away

Very early on Friday morning...and I do mean very early...(like 5am early)...I was up and on my way to Melbourne-town for my first venture into the world of professional blogging. Well, let's be honest, me being me - the best I can hope for is semi-sometimes-almost professional blogging ;)

When I heard that Darren Rowse from ProBlogger and Digital Photography School (two of my favourite sites) was hosting a Training Event, I knew it was time to finally take that step towards creating the spaces that I have been thinking about (and procrastinating from) for over a year now. My bestie happens to live in Melbourne so I figured it was a good way to tie in a visit and a conference at the same time.

I probably should've thought through the 6:50am departure though, and flown in the night before - considering the free accommodation! Mornings and I are not friends, and likely never will be. I did, however, make my flight - with a few minutes to spare (can you believe it?). Unfortunately, with my inability to calculate times effectively, I landed at 8:35am...and registration for the conference was at 8:30am. Oops. As the event started, I was sitting in a taxi with the laziest taxi driver on earth, frantically tweeting all the other bloggers stuck in traffic. At least I didn't have to drive (seriously Melbourne, WTF with the hook turns??) and I did eventually make it there (an hour and $58 later).

It was an interesting and valuable day (especially within my amazingly sleep deprived mind). If anyone is interested in the things we learned, please let me know and I am happy to pass on my notes (I took so many!). I may even write up a proper summary of the day at some point (hoping to get on it tomorrow). For now, if you're interested, Veronica and Tina Gray have both written great reviews. One of the most amazing moments of the day was the surprise speaker - Tim Ferriss, who had just come from being a keynote speaker with Richard Branson at a very high profile convention. How lucky are we, and what an inspiration.


Even though I knew nary a soul there, I managed to make some great connections with some lovely people, who incidentally, also happen to have fabulous blogs! I have been thinking of the best way to celebrate these new connections, and I think a short review of each blog here within my humble space is going to be a good start. So if you are looking for some great new reads...stick around for the next week or so and follow along as I make the rounds of the wonderful #pbevent crew.

I stayed for part of the networking event after the conference, but as the day wore on and I became more and more tired, (23 weeks pregnant + long day) I also felt more and more socially anxious and awkward around so many people I didn't know.

Luckily my best Sam was on her way in to meet me and take me out to dinner, followed up by the delicious, famous Niko cheesecake in Oakleigh (<<-- not my image but the same cheesecake from Niko's). Unfortunately I had eaten so much at the ProBlogger event, that I could not eat a single bite. Never fear, I polished off the whole piece the next morning for breakfast!

A day of shopping at Chadstone later, it was Saturday night and I was on my way back home. A minor detour across the West Gate Bridge and back again, (nice driving Sam ;) and I was still early for my flight (well, there's a first time for everything).

Of course, Melbourne being Melbourne (the jokes about the weather are not undeserved) a massive hailstorm hit right as we were supposed to board our plane. Cue another half hour wait to board, and then another half hour on the plane waiting to take off! Eventually the plane took off, and within 5 minutes in the air we were into clear skies and sunshine.

Within an hour we were flying over my little town again. I knew I had to get through an 18th birthday party before I could actually go home, but I couldn't wait to land and be with my little family again.

I love landing into my hometown.

Every. Single. Time.


Niko cheesecake image from here: source