Game, Set, Match?

So once again I haven't posted in a while but things are of course really busy here. Between taking Miss K to play group, barely keeping up with the housework and lying in the corner in the foetal position I barely have time to scratch myself. The other thing stopping me from being able to scratch myself today is the searing pain that I get every time I move a single muscle, and I must blame my agony on tennis.

I have recently come to the decision that I don't take enough care of myself and am taking steps to rectify this. Step one of this plan was to start tracking all of the food that I eat and how much exercise I get each day and make sure my body is healthy. This part was made a lot easier by a wonderful website www.myfitnesspal.com which takes all of the guesswork out of the boring stuff like counting calories. Through this website I was also able to see that my diet was dangerously low on a lot of essential vitamins and minerals like iron (a result of having no cardiac arrest causing red meat in the house any more) so I have been able to re-jig my current eating habits to get rid of more of the bad stuff and take in more of the good stuff.

While the website does take the mystery away from the food that I am eating, this doesn't come without some sacrifice and hard work on my part, especially because a Hungry Jacks has just opened up in my town and the temptation to visit them every day has been hard to deal with. But just because I have started eating healthier doesn't mean I'm about to start spouting lectures about the benefits of chick peas and alfalfa sprouts. Nor am I about to denounce chocolate as evil. I still eat pretty much the way I did before, I just have to restrain myself from having tim tams for breakfast (something which I have done more than once in the past).

The second step in this plan was to actually exercise instead of using the walk from my front door to the car as my excuse for working out. I am in the process of sourcing a treadmill so that I can go for walks in the comfort of my own home, an important feature as it is almost winter here and neither Miss K or I relish the thought of going for long walks in the rain. But while I wait for a cheap treadmill to find it's way to me I bough myself a tennis racquet, and yesterday my mum, my sister and I went to the tennis courts near our house to attempt a game of tennis. For anyone who wants to know what I would look like while playing tennis, this picture here is a pretty close bet for how I looked yesterday. The difference between me and these players is I don't get paid millions of dollars a year to look that special. I do however get aches and pains in places I didn't think it was possible to hurt in. I literally had to lift my leg in and out of the car with my hands last night when I went shopping, which was not good for the pains that go shooting across my ribs whenever I lift anything.

So while I'm not ready for the professional leagues yet, I'm not giving away my racquet just yet. And who knows, within a couple of months I might be ready to take on Karen Krantzcke in a match. Granted she's been dead since 1977 but that may just make it a fairer game.

Well Miss K is currently yelling at a plastic hot dog (don't ask) so I'm going to go have a tea party with her. Granted the tea pot is not too heavy for me to lift.

They will make a doll for anything

Thanks to the wonderful world of the internet, we are exposed to so many wonderful things that in the past we were only able to see in our imagination. Ever since we got our first modem when I was a teenager, I have been able to visit countries on the other side of the world, learn about significant moments in history and try exciting new projects that I had never thought possible. But for every good thing you see on the internet, there are at least 20 things that will make you shake your head in confusion or disgust. And I'm not even talking about adult entertainment.

Quite recently I have become interested in researching children's toys on the internet for several reasons. One I hate driving anywhere and Miss K is a pain in the neck to take up the street, and two the internet has a wider variety of toys available than my local K Mart. Even though Miss K really is too young for a lot of the toys around at the moment, it's fun to see what kind of things I can buy for her when she's older and I've won the lottery (it could happen, let me dream). But for every toy that I look at and say "yes she MUST have that" there are so many that are so inappropriate you have to wonder what the toy makers are smoking when they come up with these ideas. The one toy that makes me want to headdesk every time I see a new version is the pregnancy and labour dolls.

While being pregnant and giving birth are two of the most natural things that a woman can do, I question the appropriateness of turning this process into a doll for several reasons. While I can understand that there may come a time in a child's life when they become interested in the birds and the bees, especially if mum starts having more children, I think showing a child a doll that is pregnant and gives birth may provide more questions than answers for the child. However, toy makers and some parents disagree with me, and so the market is flooded with all kinds of dolls with buns in their ovens and some of them are quite graphic.

WARNING... Some of the images you are about to see are NSFW so to save having to do a lot of explaining to your boss, or your children it might be best to save reading this blog when you are alone....in a room with a lock.

Probably one of the first and the tamest pregnant dolls was Barbie's best friend Midge. I remember wanting one of these when I was a little girl but for some reason mum wouldn't buy me one. Probably a good idea she didn't otherwise I would have gone into labour with Miss K thinking they would just remove the top of my tummy and pop the baby out before safely clipping my stomach back into place. Thank goodness we don't spread this lie to the children of today...

That's right ladies and gentlemen, apparently children need to know the absolute ins and outs of labour and delivery these days. This lovely doll is called the VBAC doll (available at www.mamamordolls.com) and teaches children about how mummy can have a safe vaginal birth even though she gave birth to her last child through a caesarian. The baby even comes with it's own umbilical cord and placenta still attached, and there is a strip of Velcro across the stomach to show them where the baby ISN'T going to come out because they are delivered without surgery.  Way to confuse the situation. There is a similar baby available at the same website that just focuses on natural child birth and doesn't go into caesareans or VBAC or anything like that. The real difference with the natural birth doll is the press studs sewn into place where the nipples should be. This enables you to attach the baby to it's mother's breast so she can feed it. Great now babies are going to think that underneath our tops are press studs that we used to clip on to our babies so they could eat. Do children even need to bring breast feeding into their play time??

Apparently they do. Because it's not enough that their own mothers had to stop everything they were doing the minute the baby cried because they were all of a sudden doing a very realistic impersonation of a fountain, we now have to inflict this annoyance on our children. What you are looking at is the Breast Milk Baby. With thanks to some high-tech sensors in the form of flowers over the nipples of a halter top, this baby can simulate breastfeeding, complete with sucking noises and a charming burp at the end.

With all of this "educating" children on the wonders of being a mummy I'm not sure if the parents complaining that this is going to cause more teenage pregnancies aren't barking up the wrong tree. I'm more concerned that there is more of a risk of a huge drop in the population as our children will be scarred for life by the clip on tummies and press stud nipples that they will develop once they become pregnant. I know I am.

Designated driver

Just a quick update again, I wasn't going to blog tonight, but then my sister sent me a picture she took of Miss K this afternoon that I just have to share with you guys.

As today is shopping day Miss K and I spent our afternoon wandering the aisles of our local supermarket. Unlike most trips to the shops, Miss K was in a fabulous mood this afternoon and was more than happy to sit and watch the world go by. I didn't even need to pull out the lollipop I had packed to bribe her with if the screaming got too bad. Another difference today is my little sister met me at the supermarket so she could get a lift home, which probably helped keep Miss K cheerful as well. While I completed my shopping and checked out, my sister and Miss K went to the car to wait for me. Little did I know that when I got back to the car, this would be the sight that would be waiting for me.

Even though she can't see over the steering wheel, nor can she reach the pedals, I have every belief that she'd be a better driver than most of the people I come across on the roads these days.

Insert witty title here

Again it's been too long between posts, but this time I have a good reason. I've been trying to write a post about Miss K's hospital stay, but even 12 months after the fact, it's too hard to write about. At first I put off writing it until we hit the 12 month mark just in case I jinxed her and she ended up sick again, but that date came and went, and it was still too hard. Maybe one day I'll be able to tell you guys the story, but right now is not the right time.

Another reason I don't have time to blog much at the moment is that Miss K is so busy these days, and I spend more time than ever chasing her around and keeping her out of trouble. She has such a fearless attitude, which is great in some ways, but in others it means she doesn't see how bad an idea dive bombing off my bed is. I've had to do a mad ninja style dash to the other side of the bed on several occasions now to make sure she doesn't face plant on my floor jackass style.

Tonight we went out to a pub for tea as it was my baby sister's 20th birthday yesterday so the whole family came out for tea, and Miss K had her first pub meal, which was really just some of my pasta and some of grandpa's chips, but she loved it. Unfortunately we had to cut our evening short as Miss K had decided this afternoon she didn't need a nap, as playing with her mobile that hangs over her cot was much more fun, so she was exhausted by the time she had finished her tea. This is something I have come to accept, and as a result I really try to plan most of our outings for while the sun is up, but once in a while the rules have to be bent for special occasions.

It has always surprised me how well Miss K adapts to new foods and drinks. We swapped to normal cow's milk last week, and she's taken to it better than I expected. Especially since I was lactose intolerant as a baby and couldn't seem to keep the stuff down, and even now days the only time I drink milk is in my coffee.

As for me, my eyes are hanging out of my head as I type this, so I'm going to bed for hopefully a nice long sleep. I'll leave you now with a picture my sister took of Miss K "sleeping" this afternoon.

Quick catch up

Once again I have left it way too long between blog posts. I'm only posting today to make sure the cobwebs don't have a chance to completely take over my keyboard. And also if I leave it too much longer I won't remember everything I have to share.

As promised a couple of weeks ago, I finally have the photos from Miss K's birthday party last month to share. 

Miss K in her birthday hat

The birthday cake (with the off centre writing)

Miss K seeing her birthday cake for the first time. (She seems to be wondering why the writing is so far to the right of Elmo)

Miss K having a slice of birthday cake. While everyone else was of the general opinion that pound cake is too dry to actually eat, Miss K loved it. At least someone appreciates my cooking.

There are over a hundred other photos of the big day, but they have lots of other people's children in them, and as editing them would take too long, I've decided to be lazy instead and only show you four photos. 

Several other big occasions have happened since Miss K's birthday, the first being she had her very last paediatrician's appointment ever. For those of you who don't know (mainly anyone reading this who isn't related to me, I'm guessing there's about 2 of you) Miss K contracted meningitis at 2 weeks old and nearly died. After spending the first 2 weeks of her life dragging her from doctors office to doctors office trying to get answers then spending the next 3 weeks in hospital watching her attached to drips and beeping machines, we spent the next 11 months taking her to regular appointments with her paediatrician, who wanted to monitor her for a year to make sure there were no long lasting effects from the meningitis. We passed the brain growth hurdle, the developmental milestone hurdle and finally the hearing test hurdle, and last week he told us he is happy enough to stop keeping an eye on Miss K. While having the constant reassurance from a doctor that your child is normal might be a good thing, it is a relief to finally be able to put this whole thing behind us and finally start looking forward.

The other occasion we had was Miss K's second Easter, and her first one out of hospital. Silly me forgot to take photos on the day, and we never got the chance to meet the Easter Bunny as he seemed to be AWOL from our town. I do however have a photo from Miss K's first meeting with the Easter Bunny last year when he kindly visited the children's ward at the hospital we were staying at.

The machine that the nurse is holding is an Apnoea monitor that is supposed to go off if the wearer stops breathing. It doesn't, as I found out twice. But it does go off randomly in the middle of the night for no apparent reason, scaring the crap out of a mum trying to get some well needed sleep. 

Miss K got a tea set for Easter this year instead of chocolates as I still feel guilty letting her have delicious chocolate, and since she already shows an enthusiasm for my coffee cup any time I leave it on the table, I thought she might appreciate having one of her very own that I won't take off her every time she bangs it on the coffee table. The art of drinking from the tea cup seems to be lost on her right now, because hey, who would drink from a cup when you can just listen to the awesome noise it makes when you bash it against other cups or anything else that will sit still long enough.

Miss K is also working on pushing out tooth number five as we speak. It appears to be causing some irritation, but she valiantly pushes on, and refuses to let it stop her exploring (*read getting into everything and driving mum crazy)

Well that is the end of my holiday letter style blog for today. The next time I come back it will be to resume my normal ranting about petty every day things that make me clench my fists in frustration. I'm off to enjoy the twenty minutes of peace and quiet that every nap time brings me. Ah sweet silence.