Flash-way-back Friday. A post from my Mom

So it’s not Friday…. Oh well.  I don’t really have time to write a blog post because we just got the internet up and running.  I have a billion emails to answer.  But in my inbox, I found a ready made blog post written for me by my mom, knowing that I’d need something to post.  Go Mom!!  P.S. No baby yet.  Sigh.  Hopefully soon…  And thank you everyone for continuing to vote for me while I didn’t have the internet.  You guys rock, I’m number 2 now!!!!!  Please continue voting 🙂

A post from my Mom:

People don’t tend to remember much from very early childhood.  If something traumatic happens though, memories tend to stick from a very early age.  My first memory comes from an ill-fated boat ride about age two.

Since Sheri has no internet for a bit due to her recent move, I thought I might help out a bit and give her something to post.  She has her flashback Fridays, so this is a flash way, way back Friday post.  Long before Sheri ever existed, her mother was once a little girl.  And since I now have a cruise blog it does seem fitting that my earliest memory involves a boat.

One day we set out for a ride in my father’s boat.  He had a fairly small one, about 16 feet long or so.  We had quite a few people in that little boat.  In addition to my parents and I, we had my sisters, one a couple years older than me, and the other just a baby.  Also an aunt with baby cousin came along on that trip.

Apparently, this boat previously had a hole in it, which had been patched.  My mother envisioned a tiny hole, my father later said it had actually been about the size of a dinner plate.  Had my mother known that in advance, probably none of us would have set out in that boat that day.

Somewhere along the line the patch broke free.  The boat flipped over and dumped everyone into the water.  My mother lost her purse.  It sank to the bottom of the lake.  A tragedy we heard about many times throughout childhood.  As a child I did not see a lost purse as that awful, but as an adult, I realize a woman’s purse is pretty much her lifeline.  Everything is in that purse, her identity, keys to everything she ever needs to open, her money and credit cards.  It contains stuff of everyday life which one cannot do without.

My mother, aunt, and the babies floated away from the boat.  I only know they were there from other people’s stories.  My personal memory involves only my father and older sister.  We stayed with the boat.  My sister climbed out of the water and sat top of what was once the bottom of the overturned boat.  My father and I clung to the side of the boat, still in the water.

My sister and I wore dresses that matched in style, but not in color.  I think mine was blue and hers lavender.  Over that we wore bright orange life jackets, the only color life jackets came in way back then.  Probably a good thing we all had them on that day.

I tried to climb up on top of the bottom of the boat.  I wanted to sit up there with my sister.  My little 2-year-old arms and legs just could not manage it though, so in the water I stayed clinging to the side of the boat with my dad.  I think I even asked him to put me up there, but he didn’t, probably afraid I would just fall off.  Later my sister said she had not felt any happier up there than I did in the water.  She was wet and cold.

Eventually a coast guard boat came to rescue us.  They wrapped me in a scratchy wool blanket and stuffed me in a dark bunk below deck, so all I remember about that boat is lying in a dark room for what seemed like a very long time, but probably really wasn’t.

My sister got to go up on deck and see everything that went on.  Once again she got to be on top of things, while I stayed down below. They scooped my mother, aunt and the babies out of the water too, probably before rescuing us.  I don’t know where they all went on the Coast Guard boat though.  Probably up on deck.  Sigh.

The long hug good night

Today is the last day we’ll have the internet for a little while.  Sure, I’ll have the internet on my phone, but I have enough trouble hitting the right buttons with my fat pregnancy fingers when just trying to type a text message.  There’s no way I can do a whole post from my phone.

Yes, we are moving tomorrow!  HOORAY!!!!!  I’m not going to think about the fact that the last people who lived there failed to clean the place.  The carpet hasn’t been vacuumed, kitchen floor not mopped, a years worth of dust is still chillin’ on all the window sills (sils?), the laundry sink has been drained and then left with a ring of crap around the bottom.  Sigh.  Nope, not thinking about all the cleaning I have to do at 37 weeks pregnant when it should have all been done before we got the keys.

Instead, I’m thinking about the shower.  The wonderful, more-than-a-trickle, you-can-have-hot-water-AND-water-pressure shower that awaits me in our new apartment.  The shower here is atrocious.  I dread showering every single day.  I’m not exaggerating at all when I say you can have a warm/hot shower, OR, you can have water pressure.  I opt for the warm, it’s like 2 degrees in the morning, I can’t have a cold shower!  Then when you get the temperature just right, it decides to burn you instead.  So then you turn the cold up just a tad, and it freezes you.  Mean while, the shower door is broken, so it doesn’t shut (letting out all that warm steam that usually keeps one warm whilst showering.  Since you’re only under a little trickle of water, one side of you is nice and warm while the other side, is hanging out of the shower stream and freezing cold.  Yes, I HATE that shower.

And we’ll have the place all to ourselves.  No waking up in the middle of the night to pee (side effect of being 37 weeks pregnant of course), only to find someone else in there and have to pop a squat in the freezing cold backyard in the rain while trying not to fall over or knee myself in the baby.

I can arrange my pantry any way I want.  No one is going to put a can of pasta sauce in the tuna row.  Or flour on the snacks shelf.

Yes, I can not wait!!!

Moral of the story though, we haven’t arranged the internet connection yet, and these things usually take way too long in the first place.  So, I’m not sure when I’ll be able to post again, but I will be back.  Maybe with a baby, maybe still pregnant.  I don’t know, but I’ll be here, surely with plenty of amusing stories when I’m back.  In the mean time, please keep voting for me, and I’ll try to keep my legs crossed so baby boy doesn’t make an appearance on moving day.

don’t forget to vote for me every day, even when I can’t post due to lack of internet (I still want to stay in the top 5!!!!!) Please please please!!!

Does that say something about me, or them?

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I find it quite amusing to go into all the stats of my blog. It tells me how many people view my blog each day, what websites refer them here (mostly from Top Mommy Blogs and Facebook, in case you’re curious), which posts were looked at, links people clicked on, etc.  Don’t worry, it doesn’t say who does what or anything. It’s just numbers.

Except for the search engine terms.  That is the best part of the stats.  That tells me word for word what all you weirdos out there type in to accidentally stumble across my blog.  Some times, they are just funny:

Sometimes people just want a laugh (I assume so anyway):

Sometimes, people want information:

Maybe people want to find like minded others:

I still get way too many visitors wanting to know about muumuu’s:

I seem to get an alarming number of visitors who google things pertaining to poop:

And then sometimes, they are just plain wrong, disgusting, creepy, sick, twisted, and make me want to vomit (even though I HATE vomiting):

So does this say something about my blog or the people who are googling these things?  I mean, they are getting my blog from googling these things.  Kind of disturbing really….

 

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Never say to a pregnant woman….

We were all sitting down to breakfast: eggs, bacon, toast, baked beans for those who don’t think they are uber disgusting (like myself)….  It’s winter, but sometimes it gets a bit hot.  Well, sometimes I get a bit hot.  Probably because I have my own little personal furnace in my belly that gives me hot flushes like a menopausal woman from time to time.  Yes, the joys of pregnancy.

I took off my jumper (uh…that’s sweater, for those of you who don’t speak Aussie).

“Your arms look big.”  Grandma told me.

My eyes grew to the size of saucers.  I was mortified!  Visions of old ladies with masses of loose skin and fat dangling down when they hold their arms up filled my head.  I didn’t know what to say.  Yes, I was lost for words.  What does one say when someone is causally saying that your arms are now jiggly lumps of jelly (jello)?  I sat there, jumper half on, half off, staring at her in shock.  Aaron stared at me.  YaYa stared at me, both wondering what on earth I was going to say.  Hannah continued singing twinkle twinkle little star to herself whilst eating her porridge.

Grandma must have noticed my mortification. “I’m just not used to your arms being that big,” she told me “I’ve never seen them that big before.”

“You’re just digging yourself a hole Grandma!”  Aaron told her.

“Ok, I think I’m just going to put my jumper back on and never expose my fat arms again…”  I told everyone, still mortified.

“You can’t tell a pregnant woman that she’s fat Grandma.”  Aaron said.

“I’m 81, I can say whatever I want, I don’t care!  I didn’t say she’s fat, I said her arms are fatter!  You’ve put on fat everywhere, your boobs, your butt, your face…”

I would have curled into a ball and hid under a rock had it not been so funny.

“Hold on, I have to get a piece of paper and a pen, I have to write this down!”  I scrambled off to write everything down, word for word.  “This is definitely going on the blog!”

“You’re just digging deeper Grandma.”  Aaron told her.

“What?!  You can’t blame the baby for all that fat, it’s not gonna be 10 stone!  It’s not even gonna be 10 pounds!”

By this stage, everyone except Grandma, who still maintained that she had said nothing wrong, was hysterically laughing.  Totally not the point that I’ve gained over 16kgs (35lbs) so far.  As of a couple of weeks ago anyway.  I haven’t been game enough to weigh myself since then.  Sigh.

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The reason for lack of posts

As I said before, I was doing something far more important in my during-Hannah’s-nap free time.  Well, I was trolling the internet for houses/apartments for rent.  As I said before, three grown women, all moms, all thinking they are the mom of the house (FYI, I am the mom, I am the one with a small child….), all strong willed, stubborn, and butting heads all of the time, doesn’t work.  So, Aaron, Hannah, and unborn Boy Baby and I are moving.  Relief sigh.

Yeah, I’m 36 weeks pregnant.  So maybe we’re a little crazy, but it’ll be better for everyone, and I’ll be way less stressed when the baby comes if we have our own place before hand.

Hannah said she already has a house and doesn’t want another one.  It nearly broke our hearts.  But then we took her to have a look at some places and she ran around them all excited-like and said she liked them and she’d like to live there.  She also said she wants to share a room with Baby Brother, which is good, since we’re moving to a two bedroom apartment.  Bit of a change, but we can save for a deposit and get good loan benefits on our own place that way.  Plus, we like it North of Sydney and North of Sydney is expensive.  Houses out there cost a million dollars plus, so we’ll have to buy an apartment if we decide to buy out that way.  Going from a 2 bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom in a way nicer area will be a big step up.  Going from a house with a yard to an apartment would not.  So it makes sense.  To us anyway.

We’ll be moving next Saturday, so I’ll be attempting to pack and not go into labour before that.  Blog posts will probably be sporadic before and after then (gotta unpack too, and get the internet hooked up when we get there!!), but I’ll be back to regular posts before you know it.  At least that is the intent.  Of course I am about to have another baby, so….

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Hannah turns two!!!

Tuesday was Hannah’s 2nd birthday. Oh. My. Gosh. I can’t believe she is 2!!!!!  Where did the time go?!?!?!?!?!?!  Seems like yesterday, I was pushing her out and riding the steep learning curve of parenting.

We already had a joint Cowboy/Cowgirl birthday party with everyone from our antenatal class (yes, the antenatal class we attended when pregnant with Hannah), so on the actual day, we went to Featherdale Wildlife Park (where we tried our best not to freeze and blow away as it was crazy windy), ate some cake, opened some presents, and had a look at an apartment for rent.  Here is the day in photos.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY my sweet little girl!!!

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The pregnant belly dance

Boy Baby is posterior.  He is head right down in my nether region (making me feel an incredibly strong urge to pee every time I stand up), but his head is facing out.  Not in, like they are supposed to.  That, of course, means that his little strong legs are also facing out, towards my belly button, and you can physically see limbs moving across my stomach from time to time.  I can tickle a whole foot.  Judging by the strength of these movements, I’m actually kinda glad that he’s not facing inward.  I think my intestines and internal organs will thank him for it later.  Of course his spine is on my spine, so my spine thinks otherwise.  And my legs.  He seems to pinch some nerves from time to time, making me nearly fall over mid-stride, legs unable to work, and in great pain.

But look on the bright side, without a posterior baby, I wouldn’t get footage like this (taken yesterday @ 35 weeks pregnant):

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When dogs meet laundry

The wind was howling.  Some of my clothes were no longer on the clothesline, but sitting in a crumpled heap in the grass.  There goes my new plan of hanging them on hangers so they dry relatively crease-free, saving me tons of ironing.  Yeah, ironing is something that just isn’t getting done anymore.  I used to do it every week.  But then I got hugely pregnant.  I don’t particularly want to stand around for an hour ironing shirts while my feet swell and my ankles turn into cankles.  Plus ironing sucks anyway.

I’ve had the same basket of ironing sitting around my room for over a month, waiting for me to iron it.  Well, I ironed Aaron’s stuff out of it, but my stuff is still waiting.  Sigh.  Maybe I should just wash it again and then hang it on hangers on the line so it can dry reasonable crease free and then I can put it straight in the closet.  Skip the sitting around a clothes basket getting super wrinkled part.

Anyway….  I went outside to rescue my the rest of my laundry from certain crinkle death.  I put all the socks and things that were pegged out normally in the basket and gathered all the hangered items.  I was almost done.  Everything was going just fine.  Minus the 1 shirt that lay on the grass in a heap of course.

Zoe, YaYa’s dog, started sniffing around.  No worries, dogs like to sniff.  They sniff everything.  That doesn’t mean anything right?  She sniffed the laundry basket.  Moved on.  Sniffed some hangers.  Moved on.

She went over to the crumpled heap on the grass shirt.  Sniff sniff.

I watched her.  Surely she wouldn’t….

She lifted her leg.  Yes her leg.  But she is a girl, so she also squatted a little.

It seemed to happen so fast, yet also in slow motion.  I still kinda thought she wouldn’t actually do it.

But she did.

“ZOE NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”  I yelled.  But I couldn’t get there fast enough.  I can’t even walk without waddling these days.  I can’t see my own feet, there was no way I could get to the shirt in time.

My poor near new, freshly washed shirt was now full of pee.  Dog pee.  Ick.  I don’t even own a dog.  YaYa was laughing hysterically.  “You’ll have to soak that in nappy san,” she told me.

Nope, sorry, I wasn’t touching it.  I left it there in a crumpled, peed on heap.

Ok, so it was kinda funny.  But it still sucked.

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