Disco Knitter

Who suffered a profound loss recently.

Woke up feeling ok this morning. Not brilliant, but not so bad that I wanted to throw myself at Mark’s feet and beg him to stay home and protect me from my firstborn.

We went to playgroup, and everything went downhill from there. By the time I got home, I wanted to die, my head was throbbing, and the pain was awful. But I had to give Inigo his lunch, then get him to sleep. Since I am still breastfeeding him to sleep for his daytime nap, I thought it might be best to hold off the heavy duty opiates….

So then he didn’t sleep. It was agony trying to rock and sing him to sleep, tears streaming down my face. Eventually I gave up, took a large number of pills and took him to daycare (thank FSM for Lan, having such a fabulous carer so close to home has never been more appreciated). I drove him around for 10 minutes until 2pm (which is when I had arranged to drop him off), and almost collapsed on the footpath outside her home while I was saying goodbye to Squish. I could tell that she was concerned about me driving (I was too), so I went straight home and crawled into bed.

Three full hours after taking the pills, I can now sit upright and tolerate light. Tomorrow, he is going to daycare at 9am, so I just have to look after him from 7am till 9am. Wish me luck.

It’s definitely not a stroke. And probably not a brain tumour. It could be a migraine, but I’ve never had one before. Which leaves the generic “virus, it will probably last for about a week”.

Which we’ve all heard before, but when you’ve just spent 24 hours in so much pain that you think you could puke, there are moments when tears spontaneously spring from your eyes, and merely bending over to look a 2 year old in the eye brings an explosion of pain like a super nova, and two panadeine fortes don’t even take the sharp edge off the pain…

This could be a very long week.

There is a breastfeeding carnival on at the moment, a whole mob of people posting on the same subject and linking back to each other, and I thought, in my own little way, it would be nice to participate.

So, here we go, reasons why I love breastfeeding.

1. I am lazy.

2. Really, really lazy

That’s it. I mean, saving Inigo from asthma and allergies was also a motivator, and there are a brazillion other reasons why it’s worth persevering, but for me, laziness is a compelling factor.

No washing and sterilising bottles. No getting up in the middle of the night to warm the bottle. No trip to the supermarket at 9pm because we’ve run out. No scraping together loose change because we’ve run out on the day before payday. No finding three week old dregs under the sofa. No begging cafe staff for hot water for warming. No measuring. No pouring. No mixing. No hassling the kid to finish a bottle, or denying him if he wants more. No stressing about dental caries. No extra environmental burden. No worrying about traveling through Asia and access to clean water.

Now lots of people don’t breastfeed, and don’t worry about these things, or have different priorities, but this is my list. And as a breastfeeding woman who had to artificially feed her son for a few weeks, I feel that I am qualified to talk about this. I’m also a woman who struggled to get breastfeeding established for the first 11 weeks of my babies life, so it’s not like I think the whole thing is easy – but I definitely recognise the advantages of breast over bottle in my life.

A friend of mine had a really rotten thing happen to him. Then he got depressed. Then he got drunk, then he got into his car.

There was an accident, but no-one got hurt. He cooperated with the police, he is very sorry for what he has done. He has NEVER done this before – he will never do it again.

I have chosen to stand by my friend. I have known him since I was 14 (a considerable time), and I know this behaviour is out of character. I wrote him a character reference, and I stood by him in court. All bloody day.

My friend had hired a barrister, who tried to get the charge dismissed under “Section 32″ of the law – section 32 deals with mental incapacity. My friend (by any reading of the law) was mentally incapacitated (by depression and by alcohol) when he got behind the wheel that day. So in my opinion, and in the opinion of the barrister, the charges should have been dismissed. But it seemed that the barrister and the judge had “history”, so we were not fairly treated, and a conviction was recorded despite an almost spotless driving record of over 20 years, and excellent character references, as well as positive steps to get treatment and other help.

So basically, my friend got a light penalty, a small fine, and a blot on his copybook because of a personality conflict. I don’t mean to say that he should get off without consequences, nobody is claiming that what he did was OK. But in that courtroom, I saw violent offenders get off with community service, people carrying knives (repeat offence) get community service, other drink drivers get lower suspensions and no fine at all, and my friend has a criminal conviction.

And I have a sore bum from sitting in that freezing court all bloody day.

/rant

In my internet travels, I found a link to how to make “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day”. There is also a book, a healthy book, and various youtube links.

With some encouragement (and the imminent death of my beloved (borrowed) breadmaker, I tried this last week, and LOVED the result. I found the bread a trifle too salty, but I loved the taste, the crust, and the dense, chewy middle. I experimented with another batch, with less salt, and different loaf shapes. Then I made a double batch, with the idea that some of the dough will last in the fridge long enough to develop that beautiful sourdough flavour. Previous batches have all been cooked and eaten within a few days.

So without further ado, and because I am assured that before and after shots are always fun (by RoseRed, via Bells), here you have it.

These a brushed with a little soy milk, and dusted with, clockwise from top left, Nigella seeds, Carraway Seeds, Sesame Seeds, and Poppy Seeds.

After baking, but with the tray 180 degrees from the previous shot. Forgive me, we were running late for the Symphony darling.

Oh, and yes, it does taste as good as it looks. And the smell is amazing.

Molly the barn owl just hatched her first chick, and the other 4 are due to hatch any day now.

Thanks to the Yarn Harlot (via Twitter) for the heads up.

The cuteness might just kill me.

…when life gives you -

one mouldy orange
half a bottle of mango and apple juice
one random cleanskin red (with a skin so clean it doesn’t even list a variety or region, let alone year. Yup. Clean)
and a six year old bottle of cinzano bianco from a brief martini fad

You make sangria of course.

And yes, I deserve it!

Were at the opera!
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You’re supposed to wait 24 hours after printing to iron ans set the print, but Inigo wasn’t having that.

Off to daycare in his new favourite shirt.

Months ago, we found out that although the Squish has pretty good hearing, he had a blockage in his right ear. So a retest was planned to see if the blockage would clear on it’s own.

That test was on Tuesday, post 5 days of anti biotics for, yes, another ear infection. He’s not had one since September, so this is bad timing. And guess what? He now has a blockage in both ears.

So we’re off to the paed again today.

**Updated to add – we have seen the paed, she isn’t too stressed about the blockages, we’ll do the ear test again in three months, and reassess after that. Apparently his gross motor skills are at the low end of normal, but everything else is clocking along well. Apart from his big head, which has slowed it’s growth rate. Again, more investigations in three months will determine if we need to do anything further.

From here.

Happy Birthday Mark!

The silkies. There are three of the there, though it is hard to see with all the fluffiness going on. A good thing they are different colours!

Robyn Nevin

Lois O’Donahue

I’ve been on Freecycle for a few weeks now, and got some cool stuff. Last night, I got home from the Opera (thanks Bev!)to see an email listing three Chinese Silkie Hens, looking for a home.

Since our flock is now reduced to two approximately eight year old girls, we’ve been thinking of getting a few more, and this looked like a good way to get some fabulous chooks and a good match for our family. So I emailed the woman making the offer, and told her a bit about us, and that the girls would have a forever home with us, whether they were laying or not.

Usually, there is quite a bit of competition for freecycle items, especially things that have a high value, like purebred chooks. Anyway, I got an email this morning, the chook lady decided that we were offering the best home, so Inigo and I went to pick them up this afternoon.

So please welcome Lois O’Donohue, Robyn Nevin, and Meryl Tankard. Their previous people named them, and I think we’d better keep the names

Video from TED. Surprisingly, happiness has nothing to do with circumstance, it really is about resilience, or manufacturing happiness.

There’s just something so engaging and expressive about Auslan. And I have to confess a soft spot for this song. You wouldn’t think that a woman doing a signed translation of a trashy pop song in her bedroom would be so compelling and beautiful.

But it is.

Thanks to the Hoydens for the link.

Inigo just pointed to a shape, and quite clearly said “parallelogram”.

Those of you that know Mark well will know that he has taken a personal mission to stop teaching young children that a parallelogram is a “diamond”. He has even gone so far as to take the letraset machine to some of Inigo’s baby books. And I can’t really talk, because I have re-labeled baby bottles from “milk” to “artificial baby milk”.

And the ringlets bounce as he runs up and down the hall. We nearly died from the cuteness.

Now, instead of going to the AGM, I’m off to ride a steam train with Iggy and his best mate.

Late Thursday afternoon I got the email I’ve been waiting for – I have been accepted as a volunteer Breastfeeding Counsellor for the Australian Breastfeeding Association. I spoke to the roster co-ordinator last night, and have been assigned my first helpline shift (2nd Friday of the month, starting in April). And this morning I logged in successfully – and logged out again quickly before I had to take a call. There is not enough caffeine in the world to make that first call easy.

So wish me luck, between now and the 9th of April I have to take lots of calls to get myself ready and comfortable enough to tackle an entire 4 hour shift on my own.

There is other (huge) news around the corner too, but I don’t want to say anything until it has been confirmed and I have more information. But needless to say, there are exciting times ahead!