wickedcherub@dreamwidth

Anyone want to join me in a lose a few kilos, get a bit healthier regime? I need a friend to spur me on. Nothing drastic, no major diets or anything.

I think I'll be less grumpy / have more energy if I eat healthier and get some exercise.

I also do not fit into any of my jeans at all - I am currently still wearing my maternity jeans. I don't want to buy new jeans. I have 7 pairs that don't fit.

I also went shopping today for a new jacket and I fit into a size 10. Which is no big deal, because sizes are inconsistent for women, right, and I've been a 10 before, except this store had sizes down to 4. Which meant that I fit into the 4th biggest size in the store. There are THREE WHOLE SIZES SMALLER THAN I AM AND I DON'T KNOW IF YOU KNOW WHAT I LOOK LIKE BUT I AM RATHER SMALL. I normally don't have to try on clothes at the shop, I just take the smallest size off the rack.

So, anyone? I'll come up with actual concrete plans tomorrow when Toby isn't crying at me.

Just wanted to mark today as the first day Liam took notice of Toby as a fellow human being.

This morning Toby seemed to be sleeping soundly so I snuck out to take a shower. Liam likes to hang out in the bathroom when I do. Today he looked at me and said, "Toby crying." I shut off the water and he was crying - or mad screaming rather. I told liam to go turn on the light and give Toby a cuddle, and he did. I fully expected him to say no, like he usually does. By the time I got to the bedroom, Toby was smiley and liam looked pleased :)

This evening Adam was off playing basketball, so I had Toby with me while going through Liam's bedtime ritual. Toby hit the blind by accident, which liam thought was funny, so liam hit it again, which they both thought was funny.

Then liam turned off and on the lamp which sent Toby off into he biggest fit of giggles he's ever had. I guess it was like peekaboo. Which set liam off, so they spent 10 minutes peekaboo giggling until liam could barely breathe. I didn't have the heart to tell him not to play with the lamp.

Then when it was time to say goodnight, Liam wanted Toby in his precious bed with him! I worry that liam will one day smother him with the quilt, playing peekaboo.

It's nice that not having Toby completely ignored for a change.

Day 01 - A show that should never have been canceled
Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching
Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season)
Day 04 - Your favorite show ever
Day 05 - A show you hate
Day 06 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show
Day 07 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show
Day 08 - A show everyone should watch
Day 09 - Best scene ever
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you

Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times
I don't think I've watched any TV episode more than 5 times. Maybe the Queer as Folk pilot but I don't know.
I do know that I have definitely seen various episodes of Playschool, Waybuloo and In The Night Garden more than 5 times each - somewhere between 30-50 times, because of how often Liam will stick those DVDs into the Xbox and play them.

I have also seen She-Ra : The Secret of the Sword well more than 5 times because I owned it on VHS as a kid. It's the movie length episode that introduces She-Ra to the He-Man universe. It was pretty fantastic. She-Ra could kick He-Man's ass any day.

( Day 13-30 )

Took Tobias to his 4 month checkup at the nurse today. Asked the nurse if he was growing okay etc (he's 8kg. We've hit the weight limit where we can turn his car seat forward facing now, problem being he can't even sit up yet because he's 4 months old) and she was all 'I'm not worried about him, I'm worried about you!'

She spent most of our visit asking me about my sleep and my eating, my uni and whether my husband is supportive and brings me flowers (apparently, if they bring you flowers, they must be doing other nice things too, who knows, I don't think it was a serious question). She was a fill-in nurse, not my regular nurse, and verging on elderly. She was very maternal, and rambly.

I didn't realise I looked so obviously worn out.

I mean, my SIL, bless her, has sent me a list of 'THINGS MY SIL CAN DO TO HELP MY MENTAL HEALTH AND KEEP MY MOTHER OFF MY BACK', which includes my SIL cooking meals when I need it, or hiring a cleaner, or sending me off to get a massage after my mother visits.

And I'm grateful, but I don't like it. :(

I don't like this idea that I'm failing so bad that other people are noticing. I recently dropped $70 on some liquid foundation and bought some new clothes and shoes in an effort to look like I'm gorgeous and on top of things. It's obviously not working.

I CAN DO THIS. OTHER PEOPLE DO THIS ALL THE TIME, THERE IS A LADY AT PLAYGROUP WHO HAS SEVEN CHILDREN. I ONLY HAVE TWO. THAT'S LIKE, THE AVERAGE NUMBER OF CHILDREN. HOW HARD CAN IT BE, REALLY.

My mother just called me at 4 to ask me whether I had started on dinner yet and whether I had finished my laundry.

To which the answer of course, is no.

What is my life. She's calling up to help, to try and put me on the right track to Being A Proper Mum, but seriously, I'm just resenting it. She's asking me whether I need her to come down to my house for a day and help me reorganise it, so then the upkeep would be easy.

Which, yes, I would love it for someone to do that with me. JUST NOT HER.

She spent five minutes on the phone telling me I should get a butchers block/kitchen shelf thing for next to the fridge, instead of just leaving my recycling there, and I told her that a) the gap is much narrower than she remembers, and b) that's where the light switch is, so no go, but she kept on giving me ideas of what sort of shelves would go there and I repeated myself FOUR TIMES. She just doesn't listen so I can't work with her.

I can't assert myself because I get told that I'm ungrateful and if I could prove that I could look after myself then she wouldn't have to do this.

UUUUUUGGGGGHHHH. I get that she's trying to help but omg go away.

She's so dramatic, everytime I tell her I need space, she sees it as 'OH I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN AND WHEN YOU GET OLD I AM NOT LOOKING AFTER YOU'

UUUGGGHH.. WHY AM I THIRTY YEARS OLD AND STILL WHINING ABOUT MY MOTHER. LET ME LOG ON TO TUMBLR.

Just looking at a post on parenting101 I forgot to mention that I started sending Liam to daycare one day a week so I could go to uni. He freaking loves it. I cried that first day.

I think the daycare centre costs $80 a day. And because we're a low income family, the government pays 93.22% of that. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT. It costs me $5.50 a day to send Liam to daycare. They feed him, they provide nappies, they gave him his own drink bottle, hat, shirt and bag. Haha it's like school. It's one of those big brimmed hats that are compulsory on primary school students here, so Adam is horrified everytime he sees Liam in it - 'WHEN DID WE HAVE A SCHOOL AGED CHILD?!?!'

Seriously, our government - they are currently sending me $828 a fortnight because I have two kids. Now, that will drop off after 6 months down to about $470 a fortnight, but still. This is all dependent on the fact that Adam doesn't make much money, but I'm still kind of boggled by it? Like, the lower amount pays for all our groceries *and* nappies.

So I don't understand really, why they don't cut some of that payment instead of cutting the payment for single mothers. That's one of the things that's really got me angry recently.

I also got the Mirena IUD put in recently and that cost hardly anything at all. For five years of contraception.

I've said it a million times, but for all this country's failures, it's A OK to have children here.

Parents showed up unannounced on the weekend (to be fair, they called a lot, but my phone had run out of battery) and Adam and I had spent a zombiefied weekend on a mattress in the loungeroom. The house was a real mess, dishes hadn't been done for two (maybe three) days, but that's enough to overflow onto every surface in my kitchen. We were about to have a Mummy Is A Zombie meal of soup and spinach/cheese pastries.

Needless to say, my house is spotless now (thanks Mum and Dad for their cleaning frenzy) and my Mum would have disowned me if she didn't feel so sorry for my kids. Apparently there is no such thing as 'too sick and tired' to leave my house in such a state.

She also said things like 'if you weren't ready to look after a husband and kids you shouldn't have gotten married. Keep your disgustingness to yourself'. Which actually quite upset me because I really have been struggling with that aspect of my life, and I told myself I wouldn't listen to my mother anymore but it's SO HARD. She was also being quite unreasonable about things like 'People go to work all day, Tina, and have three kids and still have clean houses and proper meals! YOU STAY AT HOME ALL DAY!' Err, no one seems to understand that the house *is* a mess because we're home all day messing it up? That there are so many dishes because we eat like, 5 meals a day AT HOME?

She also didn't believe me that the house was clean on Friday (which it was, we had guests). She had come back from the wedding of a boy I had gone on a few dates with, and she was telling me that he probably broke up with me because he found out how gross I was. (untrue)

One revelation I had though, as I was watching my mother whip herself up into a frenzy, was that she gets into a panicked state just like I do. I never connected my stress-panic attacks with her before. She was screaming and crying by the end of it, and wondering why my paid bills were still on the desk and not put away (UNREASONABLE ALERT) and was in such a frenzy she almost put all my papers in the bin. I really think this will help my frenzies in the future, remembering what my mother looked like.

*sigh*

It had started so well, as well. Mum went into shock when she saw the house, but then recovered and was just 'look Tina, if you're sick, just call me, and I will come and help and make you food.' Which I know she would, and I know that's what regular mums do, but she wouldn't have done it without blaming me for being sick in the first place. She blamed the state of my house for the reason why Liam got Hand Foot and Mouth (that's not how diseases work mum). She kept giving me advice on a clean house 'you just have to wake up half an hour before the kids get up Tina, and you'd have a clean house' OMG HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU LIAM WAKES UP BEFORE SEVEN AND TOBY GOES TO BED AT MIDNIGHT AND HE WAKES UP EVERY HOUR IN BETWEEN. I AM NOT JUST SLEEPING IN UNTIL TEN. I AM EXHAUSTED. AND THIS IS WHY I CAN'T ASK YOU FOR HELP.

Ugh. So I am stressed and upset, and she spent the rest of time not ragging on me, ragging on Adam (in Vietnamese) and how I could have chosen such a hopeless husband that won't help me clean the house. They had come to make me dinner, but in the end they just left without eating.

I was trying to think on the whole thing positively last night, "Hey Adam, at least our house is clean. I was going to spend all Monday cleaning it."
Adam: "I'd rather live in a pigsty than go through what we just went through with your parents."

*super sigh*

Day 01 - A show that should never have been canceled
Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching
Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season)
Day 04 - Your favorite show ever

Day 05 - A show you hate
Well, there are a lot of terrible shows out there, and there are a lot of exploitative reality type shows as well, but we can mostly all agree that they're awful. One show that a lot of people love that I hate is Entourage. Entourage is very popular amongst my husband's friends - they can all spout lines off the top of their heads and within the group they've decided which friend is which character. So a whole bunch of season boxsets got thrust at my husband and he was told to watch. I think I made it 4 episodes in before I actually literally seriously had to go to the bathroom and throw up.

I just could not deal with the treatment of women in the show. Just the casual misogyny - it's not blatant or anything, but a constant sort of undercurrent that made me LITERALLY sick.

I told Adam to keep watching if he wanted, I mean, he was aware of my problem with it, and that's all I wanted, but he can't watch TV shows without me, so they're still there, sitting in my house, unwatched, 4 years later.

( day 6-30 )

Things that shouldn't still be happening in 2013:

I should be able to be the same person on all social media platforms. I am so jealous of people who seem to be able to post about the same things on Facebook as well as LJ/Tumblr/Twitter. I'm forever censoring myself.

Not entirely unrelated: I had a discussion about docking (yes, the sexual act) with Adam and his mates yesterday afternoon. I didn't know that I knew anything about it until I did, and Adam's friends are used to me enough that they didn't really raise an eyebrow over my knowledge. So there's that.

Day 01 - A show that should never have been canceled

Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching

I wish everyone was watching Spartacus. I know that the show looks like a low budget music video with a whole bunch of over the top stylised violence and a fuck ton of nudity aimed at the 14 year old male demographic, but it really is so much more than that.

The first four episodes are kind of exactly that, and then the plot kicks in and it's really one of the greatest shows I've ever watched. The violence takes getting used to, but the over-the-topness kind of helps with that. You also have to get used to the dialogue - they've taken out all the articles to make English sound a bit more like Latin, and at first it sounds odd, but it really works after a while.

Someone at The AV Club once said - The show Spartacus has killed more great characters than other shows have had in their entire run. And it's true, every character in Spartacus has light and shadow. You think you hate someone one minute than you find yourself sympathising with them the next minute. And vice versa. No one's safe, and there is so much storyline packed into each episode - I think they fit another show's entire season's worth of plot into one episode sometimes.

In a show full of men, the women aren't without agency. They use the tools given them - whether it's sex, power, manipulation or just actual physical violence to get what they want. And what they want is often, just to survive the cut throat world in which they live.

I also love the way homosexual relationships are portrayed in this show - some of these great big gladiator/warrior men have male lovers/partners and they are treated exactly the same as hetero ones. No one questions it, and gay sex scenes are sometimes segued in straight after straight ones, leaving teenage boys going 'WTF', but the creator doesn't give a damn what his main audience demographic thinks. There are just as many cocks on screen as there are boobs.

Everyone is pretty in this show, I am always watching it with my heart in my mouth - I never know what's going to happen, except when that it does, I realise that it probably has been telegraphed since the first episode if only I had been paying more attention.

Please watch this show. Please please please. There's only 5 more episodes until it's finished FOREVER. And it's going to be awesome, a show that knows exactly what story it had to tell, and has told it in the exact number of episodes it needed to tell it. (The network wanted to give them more episodes, but the creator said he'd only need 10 episodes this season!)


( Day 3-30 )