2010

Is this really a new decade??
I think I'm with the 'its not a new decade until 2010 is over' brigade.

But as we are all celebrating a new decade, I suppose I must embrace it and look forward to the 10's.... like ok, what are we gonna call it now?

Like all of us 2010 will bring many exciting times ahead, for me it will bring this...

-My return to work. April will see me return to my job as an editor of a wedding magazine. Although I love my job, it's never going to make me a stay at home millionaire and somehow this year I already find myself longing for something new. I have a few ideas up my sleeve, so stay posted!( And for those of you who can see my grammar and spelling is not great- piss off! We have a great proof reader!)
-Lots of firsts. Halfway through the year my beautiful son will be one. I am looking forward to everyone of these firsts! Like really looking forward to them.
-Ten years with my man. It's only one more than last year, but I'm hoping and praying that one more year will mean so much more!!
-Four years of being a mummy. I hear about people I went to school with, lawyers, accountants, physio's.... none of them have become mothers yet- I bet when they do they will think 'you know what that weirdo Emma Maxwell who had a kid at 22 wasn't so mad after all!' My Popple I love you more than everything, you are my life always.
-Lots of laughter. I wish for LOTS of this! It makes the world go round!
-Just a good time & normalness- I don't wish for buckets of money, plane loads of holidays, cow sheds full of leather handbags, all I want is a good, normal, happy family life with my perfect family..... one that may expand ever so slightly in 2010 if I have my way.
To you all, may your dreams be simple, beautiful & come true for you xx

Goodbye my good friend

At times I think I was really meant to have been born male.
Today this is very appropriate... this little car- a black 2003 VW Golf, 130bhp, etc etc, brought me so much joy!
I loved this car, it was the first car himself and I bought (Ok, he paid for it, but it was 'ours'), our first family car, the car we brought the Pop home from the hosp in & the car in which I learnt that I really loved cars!
I was proud of this car. To drive about and be seen in it gave me a certain kind of thrill! It was good, I loved it!

Goodbye my lovely Golf, if we could afford to insure you you would still sit in my rented driveway, unfortunately, you cost too much so you have been banished to live out your life with a young lad from Co. Louth!
Mr co Louth dweller, be good to her. She is the best!!

Poo, pee & baby Watch

I am currently very tied up in three separate operations.

Op.1
Wee Man hasn't pooed in four days now. Much prune juice has been administered but still no movement. I have had to call the doc this morning and now there is a prescription waiting on me for lactalose. I really hate the thought of giving him this so tea time is make or break time. If we still have no movement at 6pm I am going to have to give him some of the sickly poo inducing liquid.

Op.2
The Bubble has been out of nappies since Easter. All was going very well with very rare accidents until a month ago when she decided it was a great idea to pee herself everyday in nursery. She was so delighted to tell me everyday that she had did it. This happened at home too, until Monday when she was watching TV whilst lying in my bed. She was totally awake, alert and in a suitable position to go to the bathroom. But no instead she just sat her ground and peeed all over my bed. I was SO cross. I stripped her clothes of her and put her in her room. she dared to come out once only to be guldered at by me. Once I had calmed down I explained she couldn't do that ever again because a.pee makes you smell and b.it makes mummy very sad (Ok, maybe this was wrong!) .
So far thought this incident and further talking to has cured it with no accidents at nursery and none at home either. She delighted in telling me all week that she didn't pee herself in nursery too. So all in all after Meltdown Monday we have both been pretty happy :) Not to mention my washing machine which hasn't seen much action since Monday either!

Op.3
I have no control over this. My mate/sister-in-law's baby was due on Wednesday. My heart has skipped a beat everytime the phone rings, but as off 5 minutes ago she has moved nowhere. She assures me the hospital bag has been repacked several times and the bottle of witch hazel is in the firdge awaiting her return, but still nothing....

Once all Operations have successfully been completed I will let you all know :)

step back and be thankful

I've spent the last hour browsing blogs I like to read about parenthood, screaming toddlers and the brilliance of cbeebies. I have to say I have really enjoyed the last hour.

I spent six hours today browsing the web searching for clothing and accessories for the magazine I am working on at the minute. I didn't enjoy those six hours.

Skip back four years in my life I could have spent six days looking for winter coats, woolly hats and delicious two-months-of-my-wages Mulberry handbags.

This has made me take a step back, look at my life and be utterly thankful for everything I have- my amazing partner (he's 30- too old to be my bf!), two priceless children, my own home (ok, rented but still mine) and all in all a very happy life. A life that I would look at and envy.

Ok, so at the minute I can't use my switch card because it would positively melt and I still don't own matching bedlinen (see previous post) but I have everything I will ever need.

Next week himself and I will celebrate our 9th anniversary (over a half price bottle of wine no doubt), four months ago we shared a bottle of half price wine and remembered our friend, G, now dead 9 years.

I fainted when I was told he was dead, my bestmate almost crumbled. But himself was there for both of us and G now looks after all three of us. For if he was still with us, himself and me would not be together, we would have probably never felt the love of a child and my bestmate wouldn't be due to give birth to her first child any day now.

It's harsh to admit it, but without his death all these positive things would never have happened.

I often talk to him, just say hello how are you, and I know he's always there watching all we do and watching over us, caring for us.

When I think of the young life lost it really makes me sad to the pit of my stomach. When I visited his grave last week I again nearly fainted. The pain we felt was unreal.

But without pain you can never feel happiness. And so when something triggers thoughts of him in my mind I send him my thanks for all my happiness.

Step back and smile about what you have, otherwise we're all dead.

Nine reasons why I love him so...

*I started this blog post a month ago, it's been sitting in my draft box for that long!*


We are now on the eve of my favourite month of the year, October. I love this time of year because the weather starts to get colder, the night time seems to last longer, I have a good excuse to buy cosy and warm clothes and the onset of October means Halloween is nearly here.
I love the celebration of Halloween, as even thought I am the biggest scardy cat alive I love how the night itself is always crisp and clear and very very dark.
October is also the anniversary of me & himself, nine whole years together, from I was 16 and he was 21.

At times when I think back to 9 years ago it seems like a lifetime away, other times it seems like yesterday. With 9 being my favourite number I think this year we are on a high, a high that is only going to get higher and higher....

1. I love that he loves chocolate more than any woman I know.
2. I love that he thinks I am a great cook and can cook his steak better than any chef!
3. I love that we can snuggle up on the sofa and just laugh about our life and the crazy things we do together and just be happy doing that.
4. I love that together we have made two amazing children.
5. I love that there is a very high possibility we will make more soon ;)
6. I love that we share our dreams and try to carry them out.
7. I love we share memories of things we have done together that no-one else will ever know about.
8. I love that he works so hard for our family. (who else's hubby sometimes works an 80 hour week!?)
9. And finally I love him most for just being him. The original joy to my life :)
Happy anniversary hon xxx

Am I a breastfeeding cheater?

There we go I’ve done it again…………
No, not ran off into the hills with a tall, dark and handsome stranger………..
I’ve given my ten week old baby boy a bottle of FORMULA! And I feel very guilty about it, so guilty I often have conversations with myself in my head over why I’ve been secretly doing it. I haven’t even told my closest friend I do it. It really does sound like I have a very dark secret lurking behind my blue/green eyes- but no, atm my only shameful secret is that I have given my baby a bottle of formula milk.
Here’s how my guilty secret started…
At six months old my first baby had never taken a bottle. Full stop. Never a bottle of anything, not my pumped momma milk, not formula, nothing! And it wasn’t for the lack of trying, I tried, oh boy, I tried, but she was a persistent little bugger. It was something I vowed to change second time around. So, once the wee man reached six weeks I tried to pump milk. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. I couldn’t get any milk. (turns out it was my pump, not me) by week seven of his life I was getting itchy feet fretting that I’d missed the boat on the bottle front, so I tried him with 2oz of formula- just until I got the pumping established. Understand?
Well, three weeks on, the new pump still takes pride of place on my hall table, boxed in all it’s newness and instead I now give the wee man a bottle of formula every couple of days. He gulps down the 3oz I allow him in seconds. And for a split second I feel good that ‘yes he is still taking it.’ Seconds later I feel bad that I have given it to him and I don’t even know why, it’s not that I’m pumping petrol into his body through the tempting allure of a Nuk latex teat, it’s just because I feel bad for wanting him to take a bottle in the first place.
I only want him to take a bottle so that if the situation arises I will be able to leave him for an evening. One evening. That’s all. I don’t even know that this evening or event will ever occur, but if it does I’m going to be a good girl scout and ‘be prepared!’

I think the real reason I’m finding this situation so frustrating is because I like to moan and dare I say bitch about women who won’t even give breastfeeding a try. A friend of mine is due to give birth in a couple of weeks and I know she would rather die than breastfeed, her view is “Whats the point in me doing it when he can do it from a bottle?”
This view makes me sad because I know she will never feel certain things breastfeeding mothers feel. Amongst others the satisfaction you feel why the scales read WWWWAAAAYYYY over the weight the baby started at and you know that was all down to you. That’s a moment when you can feel very very smug!
When did parenthood get so thought-provoking? (Humphhhhh... & folded arms)

Riding the rollercoaster.....again

I have definitely decided that life is one long, long rollercoaster full of ups and downs, loops and sudden breathtaking drops.
I once had to do a filming project on a rant- a subject that really got under my skin. It took me days to think of a subject, and eventually I settled on ranting about my nosy neighbour's because they were always trying to get juicy gossip out of me and my brothers about my mum and dads divorce. In the end it was a half-hearted rant, because really I didn't give a flying **** what the neighbour's thought, but today approximately five years on if I was asked to do that project again, I would truly excel at it.

I suppose it's part of being a grown up and a parent, the part in you that becomes more wingey, more cynical, more, well overall more aware of life and the crap thats happening around you.

So far maternity leave for me this time has been a dream. It's had it's up and downs but so far the bubble hasn't smothered her younger brother, and said younger brother is growing up so fast and already at eight weeks old has moved on from his real baby baby stage. The only thing thats getting me and in fact my whole household down is that little old nuisance- money.

The problem with it is that no matter how much we have we always need more and about ten minutes ago it just hit me like a dagger in the heart. Himself works full time, as a well paid, probably undernourished and most definitely sleep deprived lorry driver. I (usually, when not having children) work four days a week as a magazine editor. Not well paid, not usually sleep deprived and positively NOT undernourished. Bearing these two facts in mind (the two full time workers, not the nourishment factor) why then when I was changing my bedlinen today did I realise that we don't own one duvet cover that is the same pattern as the pillowcases. Thats correct not one bed set do we own.
On realising this I texted himself to invite him to comment on the fact and got a smug reply 'Eh, buy one.' That was it, I just had to phone him and said I couldn't purchase such a luxury because, and I was only surmising, I figured he wanted to eat for the rest of the month, I also presumed the two mortgages we have probably needed paying (A-totally-nother story- in brief, we foolishly bought a plot of land to build on, couldn't sell his mums house to finance build and now have to pay for stupid bit of grass and a portion of his mums mortgage which we used to finance deposit for aforementioned stupid bit of cow feeding land. Bitter? maybe).
And there we have it, this is only two rivers our money flows down there are more, many, many more and at the minute I don't know where it will end, unlike this ranting blog which is ending now.

Guilt

When I was pregnant I remember telling everyone how I was worried about how the Bubble would react to another baby in the house.
And now two weeks in, with everything going along at a normal enough pace with himself back at work, the Bubble at nursery and me permanently attached to the sofa feeding the wee man, I feel nothing but guilty.
It's not just towards the Bubble that this guilt is troubling me, I also feel guilty for not being as attentive to himself. At this time when I need lots of hugs, I can't give that many of them out and seem to have even less time to receive them.
I seem to spend alot of my time saying 'No' to both Bubble and "No' to himself, when he tries to load the washing machine with a white load and one trouble making red towel.
At the minute, I still have six months left of maternity leave left and I'm already beginning to fret about returning to work! This is madness and a true sign of my stupid pre-childbirth emotional brain because I was SO ready to head off to work again after the Bubble. This time it's different because I want to win the lottery and live in a bubble with just the Bubble, the wee man and himself. That wold be good, and maybe I wouldn't feel so guilty then.

Named at last

Baby Smith, as he has now been known for almost six days now has a name. We have decided to call him Keenan. Both myself and himself don't really know where this has emerged from it just has. So there.
Keenan is quite a remarkably quiet baby so far and not causing too much stress and mayhem to our household. Saf totally loves him and even though she doesn't understand she can't bounce on her bed with him, he seems to have been accepted pretty well.

whats in a name?

Well alot as a matter of fact! This is a short post to let you all know my little bundle has arrived. The night before I was due to do in to be induced, there he came like a rocket shooting out of my neither regions..... (Stay tuned for every detail of labour in the future)
At three days old we still have to name him and are finding finding a name pretty tough- so all suggestions are very welcome :)
But I am happy to report, both myself and all 7lbs 12.5ozs of my son are keeping well.

Niggles & Nudges

If, things had have went how they had been planned, I would now be telling people that he/she was two weeks old followed by his/her name. Instead, here I sit on my bouncing ball balancing a ibook on my knees with one baby perched on my bladder, one baby who still does not have a name.
One day over my due date I am feeling like for want of a better word- crap. I have now reached the stage where I am looking at my face in the mirror wondering if it has swollen as much as I imagine it has, the stage where every niggle and nudge could be a contraction, but as yet hasn't been. I have now also reached the stage where I want every niggle and nudge to be a contraction, but a second later I pray that it's not because I'm getting more afraid of whats to come..... and dreading the feeling I can only describe as passing a burning bowling ball out of my fandango!
I am not looking forward to that burning feeling, but I am totally, positively looking forward to holding my baby for the first time. Feeding him or her for the first time and giving them a name. A name that I and himself will choose, one that he/she will have for the rest of their lives.
Being 11pm I foresee that this little baby will not be born on the 13th July which is good. The 14th would be better (don't ask, I simply have a dislike to odd numbers). But with 14th July only one hour away and stretching for a further 24 hours I could (if I go into labour soon) give birth to my second child on the 13th anniversary of my grandas death. Which is a bit weird I think. Not that I wouldnt want that day to have two meanings, its just I remember so well 13 years ago telling my two younger cousins that they weren't allowed to laugh because Granda had just died.
If then I don't want the baby to be born tomorrow, I will want it to hang on for another day, until the even 16th comes about. Strange.
But at least we can thank god for some small mercies- the baby didn't arrive on its due date- the 12th July, which would have meant every year on his/her birthday the poor child would have to share it's birthday with a bank holiday celebrating the life of some silly protestant from Holland. The day everything closes and the bands come out to play...

Through the sunroof

Yet again, I've been casually ignoring this blog. It's now not the fact I don't have the time, but simply a spot of laziness...
I've now reached pregnancy no. 2, week 38 and I'm feeling every short minute of those weeks. Unlike preg 1, I am not going to be able to have my 3/4 hour water birth like last time as two weeks ago I found out this young pup is lying breech. If I cast my mind back those two short weeks ago, I still remember the feeling in my head when the doc said it- I literally felt like I had ran into a brick wall, it was not good.So bad in fact I walked out to my car and kicked they tyre. Why I don't really know, but it made me feel better.
Anyway, I'm back to see that same consultant this morning to see if this pup (quite obviously a boy given all the hassle...) has moved or if my name will have to remain in that big black book labeled 'Planned C-Sec.'
My younger brother thinks all my fussing is quite funny and refers to a section as a 'through the sunroof birth' which I have to agree sounds strange and I suppose funny to a 20 year old lad!!

Tieing shoelaces and hoovering

The seventh month or 32nd week of pregnancy is here and I am now feeling every minute of those weeks both mentally and physically. At the minute I cannot;
a. Tie my shoelaces.
b. Paint my toenails.
c. Admire the new waxed regions I now own!?
d. Bath the bubble, unless I'm in it with her.(And then there's no room for her...)
e. Wear trousers who's ingredients list don't contain 99.9% lycra.

However, I can;
a. Flop on the sofa at 7pm and feel like I've run a marathon even if I haven't.
b. Read endless stories to the bubble whilst she rubs my belly and not feel guilty about the dishes.
c. Guilt trip himself into hoovering the house from top to bottom.
d. Cry whenever I want and not have to give a particularily sensible reason to himself- 'it's just my hormones...'
e. Watch my little bubble with so much more admiration and love than ever before. I think it's the hormones again....

However, I can do these things, but really I shouldn't;
a. Think about when number three will come along...... twos' plenty for now. Yea right, who am I kidding I really want to supply the NI football team with 50% of their players.
b. Dream about bringing this one- also a girl, I just know it- home to live with us.
c. But when I do point b. I think of the 24 or 48 or maybe even 72 hours before hand and scare the s**t out of myself.
d. Smell the bottle of witch hazel chilling in preparation for being needed in my fridge. I wretch every time, time travel back two and a half years, remember the bruising and pain, feel sick and shudder, but only for a second before the butterflies appear and I feel very excited and grateful again.

As I sit here and type, the bubble is sitting in the window watching Mr Tumble who is learning her sign language. She's such a star. Smart and loving. I can't wait until her little sis (or brother if my instincts are wrong) it sitting beside her and I'm still on this seat typing about the two little stars I've got.

what a difference a day makes

Yesterday evening I felt exhausted, emotionally unstable, cross with myself that I had been horrible to my mum and very angry with her stupid partner. The bubble wouldn't go to sleep, the dishes were abandoned and i went to bed feeling low.
This evening I feel five million times better and I owe it all to an old mate i fell upon on facebook. At tech 5 years ago we were unseperable, I lived in her house during the week, rent free and cruised along the two years of media studies in her pocket- and her in mine.
With tech finished she went down her editing road, I down the writing path and one not so long motorway seperated us.It was the same as when I left high school, I left the friends behind me and never saw them again. With C it was the same, but thanks to the wonder of tinternet, I have spent tonight ichatting to her and catching up. shes getting married on halloween night (so her) she's just bought her first house and she got a credit on a film that got a bafta!
So this evening, the dishes are done, bubble is asleep from half eight and I am now gonna totter off to bed happy that I found a friend again, who A. doesn't work with me or B. doesn't belong to my own or his own family.
My very own friend, remade all by myself!

down, down, down

I had truly forgotten how a depressing day during pregnancy with lots of tears totally wrecks you. Well it does wreck me anyway.
On second thoughts it's probably the vast quantity of work my brain has been doing today trying to convince myself that my mother is not as big a fool as she really is and that her 'partner' (real name should be conniving money grabbing bas**rd) doesn't deserve to be knocked down by a bus tomorrow morning- one that I have miraculously learnt to drive....which in fact he does.... maybe even tonight... but then that would involve jail and my life is much more important than spending it in jail all over him.

KEY POINT- just entered into my brain- Here is another excellent reason why I deserve my lotto numbers to come up. Besides the A3 Sportback with black suede interior and black roof cloth. A hitman- I don't need to do jail at all, all I need is enough money for a hitman. And a good one at that, one that can seek out baldy bast**ds.

Oh that felt good.
These words are for you, you prick...I may sound like a pregnant looney- well I am- but I'm one million times the person you will ever be.
Ha.
Rant of sorts over, I don't feel quite as bad now for loosing the plot earlier during work, where my workmates must have thought I'd gone slightly mad.

Grow up

Five months or so have passed since I let my tangled brain unravel on this page.
I could blame the house move and lack of internet, but I really should just admit it was laziness.
But as today is my birthday I've took the sudden notion to open the chambers again.... (do brains have chambers???)
Twenty-five today and never been kissed- yea right. Twenty-five, six months pregnant with second child and living in sin is more like it.
Apparently I've reached my limit with himself, 'time for a younger tradein' to be exact. Which might explain the peculiar happy 90th birthday card I received from him this morning. Realistically I should be dropping him soon, he's 30 in June.
This post has really no meaning, other than hopefully it will get me back on the blogging track.
Au Revoir.
(Details of presents will be listed in due course)

New year, New me... I promise

I never make New Years Resolutions, whats the point you always break them anyway. But, today I decided to make one that I will endevour to stick to....
I'm not a morning person, I'm just not I can't help it, it's just not in me to be a cheery, smiley (as I see it false weirdo or on drugs)person in the morning.But today I decided I had to attempt to be a little bit nicer in the mornings, but only at weekends. Together with the flu that engulfed me, christmas niceness and pregnancy hormones I managed to spend much of New Years Eve Eve in tears on my living room floor, wining like a baby that I was no good, falling apart, not remotely able in keeping one child, a house and a job nevermind two... That sort of thing. It was an arguement with himself that I had been having all morning in my head, festering away until I finally cracked and screamed many, many obsenities at him. And all becasue he shouted at me to get up in the morning and I didnt like his tone.
He to shouted many obsenities and flaws in my not so perfect self and made me think 'wise up and grow up, you are not an imbosile you do have the self discipline to be half nice in the monring.'
In other news, this was the quietest Christmas' I have ever encountered with the in law family. Long gone are the days of waking up to Louis Vuitton, Mulberry and Gucci labels under the tree, now it's Baby Gap, ELC and Toys'r'us. But I dont mind seeing Saf's face when she opened her presents (and mine and her dads and her nanny's and her aunties) was priceless.
I have had two glorious weeks of whats that? whats that noise? changea my bum pease.
Today she wanted to change my bum too..... I may be slightly mad, but I'm still able to use the lav, thanks love!