I cannot believe that he is one year old already

that he says mum and mama and no and nan-nan-nan-nan and that I am yet to get a good night’s sleep.

He should have been born in May but there we were, 2 weeks after the due-date, still no baby. We tried everything (legal and non-surgical) to get him out.

Liquorice by the bucket-load (apparently meant to induce contractions. I actually think it only induces runny poo, but that’s just the one opinion)

Acupuncture (not so bad)

Accelerating before speed-humps rather than braking (because someone told us that bumpy car rides can break the waters and so we stupidly believed them like the gullible, doe-eyed parents-to-be that we were) I think we wrecked the suspension on the car.

Disgusting herbal ‘bring on those contractions’ preparations (aka raspberry leaf, aka tastes like licking the lawnmower clean after mowing an entire golf course in the rain) – ok, so I just added the in the rain bit but let me tell you, these tablets just made my partner want to hurl (chuck/spew/vomit/ride the porcelain bus)

Super-hot curries (= indigestion and FYI curries are only tasty the first time round)

Talking to the tummy (ok, time to GET OUT little one – you know you wanna).

If it wasn’t for the actual induction (prostaglandin gel… syntocin drip) then baby may well have stayed in-utero forever… gotten married, gone to college, and had his own children right from the dark, damp and (apparently) quite noisy safety of my partner’s womb.

Now, one year on, he is in a constant state of teething, crawling, crying, laughing and generally giving his 2 mums an excess of joy, stress and poopie nappies.

At present he enjoys eating the non-toxic crayons we bought rather than actually drawing with them. Soon he will poo in waxy technicolour.

I cannot tell you what this last year has been like, it’s all a blur. Thank goodness for cameras, note-taking and multi-vitamins. If I could do it over again there are many things I would change, but even more that I wouldn’t.

Celebration, with much noise and rejoicing, of the large, unattractive concrete pillar structure

I think I was a Buddhist in a previous life. A bad, naughty Buddhist that did bad, naughty things to all the nice people. I was a beer-drinking selfish Buddhist who didn’t feed the hungry people or smile at every opportunity or chant for the dead people. And rather than coming back as say an ant or some type of vermin as penance, Buddha himself sat in his enlightened cloud-seat and decided that to atone for my wicked wicked ways, he would instead build a temple on the corner of my street as reminder of said previous life.

And Buddha said:

‘my people will park their people-movers and four-wheel-drives across your driveway; and every time a piece of my temple is completed, my people will rejoice VERY LOUDLY with tone-deaf-nasal-chanting through a loudspeaker at all times of the day and night and sometimes with firecrackers’

The temple is still not finished and I have lived in my home for 5 years now. Every few months a new piece of concrete is shipped in, put in place and celebrated. The concrete pillars are just the latest installment.

I am going nuts. The peaceful, happy smiling people are driving me insane.

Dear Buddha,
I apologise. I am sorry. I know I have a long way to go until I am enlightened. In fact, it will probably never happen. I am destined to stand outside the gates of Nirvana forever. I will set myself up with a little picnic mat, maybe some tinnies and a packet of fags. But I will walk there, I will be very quiet, my burps will be inaudible and I vow never to park across your driveway.
Promise.

EXHAUSTION – it’s a little like being drunk, just without the drunk bit

(you know… the swaying, the inability to make sense, the vagueness, the eyes like road maps...)

If poos, wees and vomits make you squeamish then stop reading. Alternatively, you could set yourself up with potty, bucket and laptop.

I have survived the week from hell. (also known as the week from smell)

Have a look at this pretty picture:

Harmless, innocuous little green dots they are not.

These little bastards have had a monumental party in my gut, my partner’s gut and my son’s. They invited their friends and procreated at an alarming rate.

Viral gastroenteritis.

(Do not lick the screen)

We knew something was seriously wrong when my son metamorphosed into a geyser. A tomato-pasta-breastmilk-geyser to be exact that rushed forth vomit all over the kitchen floor and son’s pyjamas. Whatever we put into the little guy spent approx 30 minutes in his tiny tummy, then it would re-appear – complete with stomach acids – charging jet-like out of his mouth and on to whatever was in its path.

Needless to say we wiped both him and the floor clean, and rushed regurgitating child to the hospital.

At this point I digress: my son seems to become instantly better as soon as we enter a hospital emergency department. He is happy, distracted and completely forgets that he is ill.

The triage nurse tells him he’s putting it on and sticks a thermometer in his ear. He doesn’t have a temperature. He giggles and gives her a cute smile. His mouth is aimed right at her face and I would give anything for a warm, frothy vomit waterfall right now, but no such luck.

Instead we are ushered into the waiting room and it takes my son all of 2 minutes for the excitement to wear off. Now he is cranky but we are stuck. So we sit slowly calcifying over the next four and a half hours.

We give him something to drink in the hopes he will keep it down and see the triage nurse again. Not long after this we are directed to a cubicle and this time he knows to vomit when medical staff are present.

Geyser-boy then has naso-gastric tube inserted and hands bandaged (boxer-style) to prevent him ripping out tube. He protests and it breaks my heart. There is nothing like the blood-curdling scream of an infant in distress.

At least he doesn’t vomit.

Six hours later, tube is removed and we go home.

The exhaustion? Yeah well… we were all pretty tired after that.

I won't discuss the next bit in detail, I will just say this:

once it stops coming out one end, it comes out the other...

Post-graduate student seeks BabelFish text translator

(refer to http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A3930815 for details)

Anyone? Anyone?

And really, if you don’t understand what I am writing, then you’re not the only one.

I have started (finally) to wade through the theory-ooze of literary and cultural works of Mikhail Bakhtin. I say ooze, not in the sense of… say… a weeping sore. No, more like that slippery, squelchy mud that you get after a torrential downpour. But seeing as we’re in drought, I am really only relying on the memory of such rain-events.

Maybe I should call it sludge (the mud not the brain. Although come to think of it, maybe the brain too). Yes. And so you see how it is affecting my thought.

Whatever I call it (theory-sludge? THludge? THooze?), it’s the down-in-the-WWI-trenches kind of sludge. The pre-battle charge where you crap in your pants prior to being slaughtered by the assessors.

Yes. I have to write a goddamn thesis.

I have no one to blame for this unfortunate turn of events but myself. I even chose the theorist.

I must be nuts. MAD. Bloody bonkers.

The ironic thing is this: my theorist is Russian. My current creative writing deals with the cruelty of the Russians during WWII. So by reading a dead Russian’s words I may well be continuing the torture and slavery of the Polish soul. Even in death the Bolsheviks exercise their iron fist. My only consolation: at least the theorist I am using was exiled from Russia. Seems he was also an enemy of the state. We might agree with each other after all…

Hang on… this isn’t ironic … it’s just melodramatic. Oh god.

And so you see what this theory-imbibing has done to my brain. (Will I ever think normally again?)

Back to the confusion.

I am yet to find anybody who really truly understands theory. People say they understand, but no-one can explain to me what the hell it’s really about. The world is awash with a myriad of books, essays, theses and so on, all claiming to analyse and understand and make sense of it all. (Note: theses rhymes with faeces for a reason).

Yet the language is so dense (see sludge) that it is impossible to try to extract any kind of sense or meaning from the words.

And no, not even psychotherapy or ECT would help me now.

What I really need is a BabelFish. Will pay top dollar for one. Will check e-bay now.

Eat your greens (but steer clear of the reds)

My son has spots, and it’s my fault.

We’re experimenting with foods – some oatmeal, pureed fruit, tiny bits of pasta, mashed broccoli with no seasoning at all, all pulverised to smithereens – you know the drill. We wait until it is lukewarm and then we open our mouths in the hope that he’ll emulate us and spoon the mushy goop into his waiting mouth. We chant ‘yummy!’ like some deranged housecoat-wearing cheerleader (housecoat in case food is spat out in a spray of ppppppppprrrrrrrrrrah. He hasn’t yet learnt the word for ‘no’ but ‘no’ will most likely be his first word).

Lately, we’ve been a little lax in the ‘wait a few days before new food introduction’ routine. Yesterday, I let him hold a piece of red capsicum. I didn’t let him chow down on it. But what touches the hand touches the mouth and so on and so forth and now he’s covered in an allergic rash and red capsicum is the only thing I can attribute it to.

I feel really guilty, but I must remember that no- I did not give him a toilet brush to lick or rubbed his face with cold sores. Still, the guilt is there and I feel like a bad mama. (FYI: I am mama and tummy-mummy is mum or mummy. They’re different enough, yet are also both ‘mother-ish’ names so as not to spark confusion or questions from nosey people who have no business in my family life but who will – because they are just ‘like that’ – invariably end up asking us all kinds of impertinent questions. Note to such people: fuck off, none of your bloody business.)

Back to the spots.

Child seems happy enough and trip to the hospital with mum (ie not me) ended up with the diagnosis of ‘allergic reaction… probably. Nothing to worry about… probably. Unless it gets worse… which it probably won’t’.

Luckily, it doesn’t get worse, but this doesn’t lessen the worry., not only because it could have been more serious, but because had it been more serious, had I rushed him to hospital, there would have been nothing I could have done. I am not even allowed to authorise the use of children’s paracetamol.

Spotty child is content to sit in high chair, eat pre-allergy tested porridge with apple, and bash table with green plastic spoon.

boing-weee-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-bleep-bleep-whizzzzzzz (I need to buy shares in Fisher Price)

There’s a toy in the car that won’t switch off. It’s possessed by the boing-ha-ha-ha demon, and it’s not happy that it has to share it’s space with the whiz-bleep-bleep lion thingy or the da-di-da-da plushie giraffe.

I am living in a baby rave party. Babies all over the world, come on down to my pad ‘cos it’s a hapnin’ scene, there’s lights, music, songs (all with prerequisite American accent) and even the shape-sorter plays a tune.

The green frog is on ecstasy and its eyeballs look botoxed. Kind-of reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange.

Happy hands it’s fun to play!
Count to three! Clap away…
One! … (clap-clap-clap)
Two! … (clap-clap-clap)
Three! … (clap-clap-clap)
Happy hands… Hooray!

The green frog is freaking out my son. It’s bigger than him.

Everything needs batteries, myself included. But nothing comes with the precision screwdrivers that are required in order to pull the darn toys apart so that the batteries can be put in and why oh why are we even thinking about putting in the batteries anyway?

I can’t stop thinking in bleep-bleep mode.

Happy pills are fun to take!
Prozac keeps me sane all day…
One! … (in the morning)
Two! … (just for luck)
Three! … (what the hell)
Happy pills… Hooray!

My son’s fave toy: a small green plastic spoon that was part of a green-frog plastic bowl-and-bib set. Spoon fits nicely in his had and is good for both bashing things and chewing; it doesn’t get soggy and sometimes comes with pureed apple.

Crazy-makey-Friday

Ok yes, so now it’s Monday. I did need the weekend to recover.

I thought that maybe it had something to do with the phase of the moon – you know the ol’ must be a full moon – that’s when all the crazies come out. But actually no, it’s the complete opposite of a full moon. It’s a new moon.

Which means… er… time to start something?

Crazy-makey: if you are a crazy-maker or somewhat crazey-makey, then YOU ARE A NUTJOB. Pure and simple. In particular, you take pleasure in driving other people up the wall, or you don’t even notice that everything you do drives people up the wall because you are that much off the planet. (i.e. not playing with a full deck of cards… a few sandwiches short of a picnic… the lights are on but nobody’s home…)

You most likely need therapy, a lot of it, and you are annoying, the kind of annoying that drives people to do crazey-makey things themselves. (Think: John Wilkes Booth.)

Occasionally I’ll see this elderly lady at the supermarket who’s wearing a lot of pink: pink tu-tu, pink stockings, pink lipstick. I don’t think she showers regularly. I think she thinks she’s a pretty-princess-fairy-doll.

She probably is.

Back to Friday crazey-makey episodes.

Crazy # 1: was a weird freak of a man who rang the University’s information number (which, by the way, I only look after for one hour a month). Anyway weirdo phone-man was quite possibly using the call as a free sex-line because it took me about 30 seconds to realise that oh… I thinks he’s … eeeeeeeeeew!

Crazy # 2: was a junkie (with friend) who politely asked how far away Smith Street (notorious drug-purchase-location) was and whether they should walk or catch public transport.

I told them to catch the bus.

They then thanked me quite nicely, didn’t try to steal anything, and left. (At least I don’t think they tried to steal anything).

Casing the joint? Probably. (oh but they were so nice those junkies… MUCH nicer than masturbatory-man)

The neighbours have been deathly quiet. Not even the creak of rigor or a car-door slam to speak of. Nuthin’.

Crazey-makey-next-door-lady seems to have lost her voice, or broken her speakers, or bought some headphones.

She wrote us a letter last week. I thought that maybe it was going to be an apology. (Why I thought this – I really don’t know.) Instead it was a ‘fuck you’ letter. The specific kind of ‘fuck you’ letter that doesn’t actually use any swear words, and on first reading actually looks like it may be a misguided attempt at an apology, but on further inspection, the creepy, rank odour of screw you buddy, I’m gonna do exactly what I want, and I don’t care if it shits you wafts in and burns your nostril hairs. Oh yes, lovely. Chaaaaaarming. Nice, nice nice.

She rounded off the letter with a bit of ‘actually I am a nice community-minded person with a social conscience, and it’s your fault that you don’t get to see it.

Well hell! My apologies to you.

So before I let crazey-makey-next-door-lady infiltrate my brain cells too much and turn me into a pink tu-tu wearing nanna, I wrote to the council and asked them to deal with it.

I think they did.

Never take the front seat in a taxi…

Not if you’re on your own. I used to always, always, hop in the front, not wanting to seem rude. Politely engaging in short conversations with the driver – whatever their topic-du-jour – I was in the cab, next to them, agreeing, commenting, adding my opinion to theirs. No matter how homophobic or racist or sexist they were. I just didn’t want to be considered rude or snobbish.

Are you married?

Yes. I reply (omitting the fact that it’s to a woman).

They talk to me about property values, the state of the economy, immigration, roads, and all I want to do is stare out of the window and disengage. This relationship that we have is both fleeting and annoying. An invasion of privacy. But it’s my fault none the less. Sitting in the front of the taxi gives licence for conversation.

When my neighbours sold their house, all I wanted was that it not be bought by property developers. When the property developers bought it, all I wanted was for them to improve the house, not sub-divide.

They’re building a new house in their back yard. My small, 2-bedroom dwelling will be dwarfed, surrounded by beige-brick monstrosities.

We, of course, objected… to their plans, to their noisy renters who drink far too much on most weeknights and continue their party into the weekends. We objected, and rang the police to send someone out when at 5 in the morning the bloody noise was still thump-thump-thumping in our bedroom, even though our bedroom was the farthest room from next door.

As I get older, I realise just how precious my privacy is, and just how much I need to preserve it in order to also preserve my sanity.

There’s little I could do when the council decided to approve the development plans, except negotiate for a taller fence. But at least now I choose to sit in the back of the taxi.

I’m not being rude, I just like my space, that’s all.

seven silver sleepers

My friend's mum just died. Correction, my ex-girlfriend’s mum died last week but I only found out about it this morning via text-message. I was in the bus on my way to work thinking how I should reply, or even, should I reply? I didn’t know her at all and I’d met her only once. She’d commented to my then-girlfriend on the ‘metal junkyard’ in my ear. I don’t think she thought much of me at all, which was somewhat of a shock. I had always been the kind of girl that people wanted to take home to meet the parents.

Not this time.

I had seven piercings in one ear, three in the other, and a stud in my nose. And back then, (god, I make myself sound so old… back then… yes I suppose it was thirteen years ago, if not more…)

Back then that level of facial piercing was considered unusual, quite possibly the mark of a serial-killer or handbag-stealer.

I was neither. I just happened to have a good deal of scrap metal in my head, and none of it was for medical reasons.

Prior to the piercings, parents considered me intelligent, interesting, hell even nice. I wasn’t going to remove my piercings just because I might offend someone. On the contrary, they became somewhat of a bullshit-detector.

If you were going to judge me on appearance then by all means you could just bugger off. Besides, I was, and still am, deaf in my left ear. Completely and utterly. No surround sound for me.

It gave people a signpost: ‘don’t walk on her left side… don’t talk to her left side, she’s deaf… I said she won’t hear you…’

I liked to tell people that I used the earrings to stimulate all my acupuncture points in the vain hope that somehow it would trigger a regeneration of the nerve in my ear. Yes. I was trying to cure my deafness, could they not be so cruel as to comment on it? Just how superficial and shallow they were.

Late last year I removed all my earrings, my nose-piercing was taken out many years before. I did this for my partner’s sister’s wedding so that the photos wouldn’t have the shiny reflection of seven silver sleepers in the lens. I just never put them back in. Not for anything but sheer laziness.

Beginnings... beginnings... beginnings...

There is much to be said about the keeping of a diary, thoughts, phrases, ideas. All to be recorded in a notepad and saved for later. I have done this for years. There is a forest of unclaimed notes and general word-guff collecting dust on many of my bookshelves. Every time I move house (which hopefully now will NOT be often) I lovingly pack the books and lug them to their new residence. In short - I am a hoarder. Occasionally I will take them out, have a read, get awfully embarrassed and wonder why I kept them in the first place. Sometimes though, I am proud of what I wrote, and it marks the beginning of a new piece of writing.

This blog is the electronic version. (Oh duh! I hear you say. And... do we need these ramblings?)

No, you don't. But I think I do.

My shoes don’t match, that’s not to say that they’re not a pair. They’re in the style of the Mary-Jane: flat, rounded toe, thin strap across the foot. Very comfortable, very sensible. On the body of the left is embroidered three gold stars, on the right – a crescent moon, and hence, they don’t match, but still are most definitely a pair.

This morning he looked at me , smiled and burped. I waited the customary two seconds before the vomit that goes with the belch to appear. ‘You made cheese!’ I say. Though strictly it is much more like yoghurt, curdled milk. He smiles again and I wonder if I’m giving him a cheese-phobia. Not that he has to eat cheese when he is older, just that I don’t want him to be scared of it or think that it is made from vomit.

This is the beginning, I don’t know what happens next.

I caught a reflection of myself in the glass doors as I was walking past. The cut of my pants don’t seem to go with my shoes and the covering skirt is a different length on both sides. I don’t think I strive to be asymmetrical, it happens by accident.

It has been almost five months since his birth, and when I tell people this they look at me with incredulity –impressed that I have so quickly and easily shed my ‘baby-weight’. It is at this point that I correct them‑there was no baby weight. (Could they shut-up about the baby‑weight?) In fact it was my partner who gave birth, not I. and still, she had no baby-weight. Only three tiny stretch-marks to prove that he was ever in there to begin with.

Does it make me jealous? Yes, I suppose it does. I think I would have liked to feel the kicks from the inside, and known that there were two heartbeats; one- rapid-fire, the other somehow calmer, if not just slower.

But the jealousy doesn’t mature into the now. When my shoulder gets covered with yoghurt, freshly made and regurgitated with a smile, I know that he is also mine.

The blue eyes and blond hair surprise everyone. He even looks like me.