'Ello poppet

I am back from the depths of childbirth! (Yay)

What a bloody hard last couple of months.

Had a baby, had my whole fam descend on our place for the Christmas week, then immediately after had the folks-in-law staying (still to depart).

I have forgotten what a good sleep feels like. Or what having a relatively okay body feels like.

So I've signed myself onto myfitnesspal and started religiously tracking my eating in the (futile) attempt to regain some sort of acceptable body shape and functionality. Which means I'm hungry a lot. Lol.

Actually, the truth is, as easy as it would be for me to starve for weight loss, breastfeeding demands proper nutrition. The baby dictates everything. How I eat, when I sleep, when to pull my boobs out, when I can interact with other humans. I can't even deal.

So in summary, I'm now a hungry fat milk zombie with no income (i.e. no sense of control ... lol), living life one 3 1/2 hour feeding interval at a time. Goooood luck.

Faceless

Faceless (adjective) - without a face(book page)
[from the official RockFob Dictionary: Insomnia Edition 2012. Italics omitted in some editions]

I deactivated my Facebook page this afternoon. Why? To free up my time to do the billion and one things that I have to do before our month-long holiday to Samoa [we interrupt this blog post to unco-dance around the room and rub your face in the fact that we three beings are going on holiday baby ... holiday ... woot ... ok, that's enough].

Back to pre-holiday reality. Where there is a billion and two things now to do. We have ten more sleeps until we fly out of this freezing cold flu-infested arty farty city of Wellington. Only ten more days to:

• finish some work for a customer that I am about a week behind on (thanks to the abovementioned flu bugs)
• write pages and pages of handover documents
• finish buying the oso for our eagerly awaiting fans (i.e. 2 years' supply of chocolates that will be compressed into an average-sized tote bag that weighs as much as King Kong but will be swung easy-breezily onto the plane to escape detection by the lovely customs officials)
• buy some summer clothes for myself (considering it's smack-bang in the middle of winter in Wellington, I would have to say even Tom Cruise would struggle to find a way out of this Mission Impossible)
• learn how to apply makeup (don't ask. I now have to dig out the email that my dear sister Donna sent me...basically a loser's guide to makeup. When will the tired washed-out zombie look ever be "the thing"??)
• spring clean the house (since someone will be house-sitting, we can't leave the house in the usual state we do when we rush out of the house for a holiday. sad face)
• do other stuff that I can't remember

So anyway, my work mailbox has finally freed up from whatever task it was doing, so it's back to the grind for me. Good times to roll on!

Ding Dong Merrily On High

In the true spirit of Christmas, I give to you all a gift. I am a cheapskate, so don't get your hopes up - I did not buy anything.

This gift is just a hint. If you find yourself ChristmasTree-less at Christmas, and have some decorations or lights, grab your man and ...


...voila! DIY tree! (Kiwi mate)


[Try to blink, ma solo le faua]


Jingle all the way



Procrastinator's Christmas

This post was initially titled 'A Procrastinator's Guide to Christmas.' But in keeping true with the theme of procrastination, I put off writing it so long, that it has just become a rushed jumble of my experience as an example of what not to do.

In a previous post, I mentioned this Christmas is going to be the first that our little family get to spend by ourselves...just the 3 of us. I was so excited, I started making big plans. Lyla and I would bake gingerbread and tarts, we would decorate the house beautifully, and we would get a real pine Christmas tree.

Fast forward a couple of months, and the tree is yet to arrive. Ha! I said "arrive" like we'd already ordered it. When in actual fact, we have been putting it off, become lazy or distracted, and now it's a couple of weeks before Christmas and our living room is still tree-less. Right this moment, it's slightly more than tree-less, it's a bombsite. So while the little one is still napping, I shall whip the house into tree-ready shape. Then we will set up the tree, decorate it, and stare at it in awe. The end to justify the means.


Deck the lounge with clothes and rubbish.
The "before" state of the living room.

Baubles and bull

As the kiddo loves to constantly remind me, "It's Christmas time!"

How could I not know? The Christmas advertisements started long before the Wellington weather showed any sign of summer. Christmas candy and toy displays were jam packed into the supermarket as soon as Halloween passed. It's now such a mission to do something simple like grocery shopping without the kid seeing something with Santa / Rudolph / Christmas trees etc and wanting to buy it.

I have already told her there is no such thing as Santa, but I don't think she believes me. How can I be telling the truth, when he has a picture everywhere you go and the ads on the radio and TV start off with "Ho, ho, ho!" If that is not Santa, then who is it? How do you explain to a 3 year old that the whole world is in on it?

I may be sounding slightly (just slightly) grinch-like at this stage. It's not that I don't like Christmas. I love Christmas. I love sharing the love with family and friends, the feasts, the carols, Christmas church service.

But I hate the bullcrap. Getting mailbox circular spam, the pressure to buy gifts, send cards, and do things a certain way. And the way that people go ape-mad in shopping malls. Never mind the Christmas spirit, push and shove your way to that hair straightener that's 60% off! Retail employees can work up to midnight for most of December, to cater for the people out that are busy from the moment they wake up until 11:30pm.

But like I said, I love Christmas. It's a special time of year. It's a special person that we remember and celebrate. It's special people that we share this time with. Exciting and memorable times to be had. Looking forward to it.

Yes

It has been about a month since my last post. There was no particular reason for the fast...except laziness. That's a valid reason.

Anyway yesterday afternoon, I promised a dedicated blog fan (ha!) to post an entry within 24 hours. I am fast approaching that deadline, and am now where I work best...adrenaline-pumped at the 11th hour, and working (ok, blogging) at twice the speed I usually do. I did seriously contemplate not blogging. But last night at our life group study, one of the Bible verses we studied was about letting your "Yes" mean "Yes". Note to self: Don't say yes.

So taking it slow on my blog return, I'll do one up-one down. One good thing and one bad about the past 4 weeks.

One Up
Our little family - the man, the kid and I - have decided to spend our first Christmas at home by ourselves, instead of travelling to Auckland (to my family) or to Samoa (to the man's family). This was a bit of a down, because we will miss the gigantic extended family gatherings that we're accustomed to, along with a lot of noise, not enough space, and way too much food. Instead, we'll be decorating our home (first time!), planning our own Christmas meals and activities, and possibly starting our own family traditions. It's exciting times. I think what really nails this as an "up" is the massive financial saving. Lol! Time to get our own copy of the Boney M and Mariah Carey Christmas albums. Ooooh yea...

One Down
Two words - toilet training. How on earth do you toilet train a child? What is more confusing is how I don't know the answer to this, being the eldest of 7 children. Anyhow, the kid is now "of age" to be toilet trained, but she's not co-operating. I've asked friends how they did it and they shrug and say "Dunno, daycare trained them." Maybe I should get their daycare to call my kid's daycare, because they have a strange notion that I somehow have to be involved in the whole process. What? Isn't that what I pay you for? It seems not. Now I will have to read articles / books and parenting forums, for tips on toilet training...no, sorry, that PC term is toilet "learning" because it's about the child taking the lead and blah blah snore snore snore. Help.