A special care package

So I've said time and time again how wonderful the women I share the blog swaps with are. They're such a supportive and loving group of women, it's impossible not to feel special being a part of this group of women.

One woman in particular has become a very special friend over the past few months. We chat on a weekly basis over Facebook and email, we go to each other when we're feeling stuck or uninspired with a current blog post, and even when we've got problems in our day to day life. She's been a sympathetic ear and an awesome cheerleader for months now, and I am pleased to consider her a friend. I'm talking about the unstoppable Tamara at Confessions of a Part Time Working Mom.

Recently during one of our conversations I mentioned how jealous I was that she had free access to all the Swiss chocolate she could ever want (given that she is a Swiss native). One of the more expensive chocolates in Australia is Lindt chocolate, which in Switzerland is as cheap as Cadbury chocolate is in Australia. This got us talking about the different foods each of our countries had that were unique. In the end we decided to do each other up a small care package of national foods. We gave each other hints as to what foods would be best, and went on our merry ways. I spent weeks getting my care package together because unfortunately for Tamara one of the foods she especially requested seems to have been discontinued right before I started shopping for her, so I had to find a suitable replacement.

Shipping my parcel was especially exciting for me because I've never had to mail a package overseas, the farthest any of my mail has ever gone has always been between the shores of Australia, so I had no idea what I was doing when I went to my local post office. Luckily the woman who served me helped me go through the customs paperwork and I was in and out in less than 10 minutes. Then all I had to do was sit back and wait for my parcel to arrive.

Well I arrived home yesterday morning from dropping Miss K off with her father for the weekend to find a pretty gold parcel waiting for me on my coffee table.

So pretty

It was postmarked 21st March, which was several weeks before I even got my package to the post office, so my first thought was that Tamara still had ages to wait for her present. Of course all of that flew out of my head as soon as I opened up the box to see what I'd been given.

Soooo much chocolate...plus a pack of mug cake mix.

All the Swiss chocolate I could ever hope to eat in one sitting. Of course the little pink bunny in the corner is off limits, because that one will have to go to Miss K. She absolutely loves Kinder Surprises, and it's a rare trip to the supermarket when she comes out without her little white and orange foil wrapped egg, so she'll be very happy to see that little fella when she comes home tomorrow.

Later on that night I received a message from Tamara just to say she'd received her parcel a day before I'd received mine, leaving me to marvel at the wonders that is the Swiss postal service, especially when compared to the Australian postal service, but closer inspection of the box revealed a stamp which stated that my present had been misplaced and ended up in Canada. It only fell 14,143 km short of its intended destination, but at least I know my sweets are very well travelled. 

As for what I sent Tamara, she received a tin of Milo, a pack of Tim Tams (which I have instructed her MUST be used to make Tim Tam straws), a box of barbeque shapes, two Cadbury Twirls, which are my absolute favourite chocolate bars, plus a jigsaw puzzle in the shape of Australia for her little boy to enjoy. I've already seen pictures of him putting it together, so I'm pretty sure I picked well. 

So if you'll all excuse me please I'm off to eat an entire box worth of Swiss chocolate. If you don't hear from me, just know I died happy. 

March Use Your Words - Letters to the Past

Hello everyone and welcome back.  You've made it just in time for Use Your Words 

For anyone who is unfamiliar with this series, the rules are simple. A group of bloggers get together and submit a group of random words that must be used in a blog post. In return you are given someone else's words, and you must in turn spin them into something beautiful, or at the very least coherent. I've been given the following words

bland ~ copy ~ I've lost it ~ sordid ~ magnetic ~ furthermore
and they were submitted by Jenniy at Climaxed 

Now receiving words from this particular lady is incredibly daunting, because Jenniy is a true yarn spinner, so I can only hope I do them justice. If you keep reading after my post, I'll include links to every other blogger participating today, so you can just follow the links and see more amazing writing. What more could you guys need??

This is a letter to my 15 year old self. 

Dear young Erin,

Take a deep breath. Relax your shoulders and stop frowning. I know you are proud of the fact that you don't get wrinkles on your forehead whenever you scowl, but once you hit 30 that changes almost instantly. I'm here today to tell you a few secrets. I'm hoping that by giving you a heads up about some of the things you can expect over the next fifteen years I'll save us both some heartache. 

First of all, you will survive high school. I know you think that you're not going to survive the next year and a half, but you will. So read all your books, copy down everything you think matters, and just keep pushing through. The minute you walk away from that place you are allowed to forget absolutely every useless piece of information they have just spent the past six years pumping into you, so just relax, grit your teeth and play the game. It serves a purpose.

Secondly, I know right now you're madly in love with Brad, and you think this is meant to be, but you will not marry him. One day you are going to start living separate lives, and the relationship just won't survive. But don't worry, you won't regret your decision for very long. And then one day, twelve years after you two split up you'll Facebook stalk him, (don't worry about what Facebook is, just trust that it will happen and it will waste more time than anything else you've ever seen), and discover he has turned into a bland middle aged man who still plays role playing games like dungeons and dragons, and you'll realise you really did make the right decision when you left him. If it makes you feel any better, he and his new wife agree with you.

You will fall in love again. In fact you'll go on to do it several times. You'll fall madly in love with people who won't love you back, and you'll be loved by people you're just not that keen on. You'll find a man who you just can't quite quit, no matter how many times you try, but you won't marry him either. But you two will have a lot of fun. I'll spare you the sordid details right now because you're still a virgin, but trust me, it will be amazing. It will also be where you discover your love of guitar players.

You will be loved by most people you know in fact. Of course you can't please everyone, and you will learn that very late in life, but for the most part you will make very few enemies. You seem to have a magnetic personality, so people are drawn to you. You've got something to offer nearly everyone, whether it be the clown that picks them up when they are down, or the wisdom they need when they can't see the forest for the trees, so people will want to know you, and they'll want you to like them. This will feel weird when you first realise it, but just go with the flow. People are generally good, so just trust your instincts and be a nice person. But you are going to have to learn to stop letting people walk all over you. The world isn't going to end if you tell people you're not happy with them.

You are going to go crazy. Several times in fact. You will scream in your head "I've lost it" so many times and you will truly believe it every time. One day you're even going to have to hold onto a pole for grim life to stop yourself from jumping into oncoming traffic, simply because there is a little voice in your head urging you to do it. You're not schizophrenic, you'll just need help. When the time comes, ask for it before you do something stupid. You'll save yourself and your whole family a whole lotta hurt by doing this. And know that your salvation comes in the cutest package ever.

I know you don't want children now, you're too interested in travelling and you secretly think you'll be the worst mum in the world, but that will change one day. You'll meet your new niece and then your biological clock will start ticking like crazy. Then you're going to desperately want a baby of your own. Furthermore you're going to do some pretty dumb things in pursuit of this dream. You're a very determined person when you want to be, you just don't realise yet how motivated you can get. Your most desperate act will actually result in you getting what you want. But be careful what you wish for, because the strings that are attached to fulfilling this desire are long and fraught with lots of arguments. But the whole time you are going through this, you will know in your heart that it was the right decision, and one you'll make a million times over if you get the same beautiful result every time. And that is when you will be loved the hardest you have ever been loved.

So like I said, just relax. It all works out in the end, even though some days you will feel like you have the burdens of the whole world on your shoulders. You've always been a drama queen you know? Trust yourself, love yourself and be yourself. The rest will fall into place.

Much love

Older and wiser Erin.

Ok peoples, now it's your turn. Tell me what you'd love to tell your younger self, we all have nuggets of wisdom we wish we knew when we were younger.

Also, go and spread some more of your love to the rest of these awesome bloggers, they all deserve it too.

http://www.BakingInATornado.com            Baking In A Tornado

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/       Spatulas on Parade

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/  Stacy Sews and Schools

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com       The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com               Battered Hope

http://eileensperpetuallybusy.blogspot.com/ Eileen’s Perpetually Busy

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com          Someone Else’s Genius

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://www.southernbellecharm.com           Southern Belle Charm

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com                  Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com           Climaxed

http://www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com    Evil Joy Speaks                         

Don't be afraid to ask for help

So I want to start todays post by saying that my teacher is freaking awesome. She finally responded to my email begging for help yesterday, but I totally forgot I had sent her one, so I didn't check my inbox until this afternoon at around 2:00. So she had given me some hints without absolutely giving away the answer, unfortunately I still couldn't wrap my head around the work. So after half an hour of emails going back and forth between us she finally called me and worked with me until I finally wrapped my brain around the spreadsheet I had been staring blankly at for the past two hours. She was so patient with me and made sure to let me know that even though I hadn't been able to do this assignment on my own I was doing a good job. At the end of the day I should be proud I've managed to make it through 8 months worth of work without having to ask for help, but as always it is easier to focus on my shortcomings and failings than my accomplishments.

But the whole point of this tangent is to announce I GOT MY BALANCE SHEET TO BALANCE!!! I have finally submitted my assignment, (albeit a week late) and both sides match and everything is right with the world. I am so relieved I could cry right now. Almost as much as I wanted to cry when I discovered I wouldn't have failed if I handed my work in wrong. All of this stressing was for about a 5% increase in my final mark for the unit. But I'm pedantic like that. I hate settling for good enough when it comes to school work. The years may have passed but the teachers pet deep inside me still has a lot more control over me than I would like to admit.

So in other news Ben and Tristan went home this afternoon, and the house has been eerily quiet since they left. It's amazing how large the house grows the minute Ben walks out the front door. But I can't say anything too nasty about Ben or Tristan because I love them both, and because Ben gave me even more awesome photos of Miss K before he left today. Below are just a couple of my favourites.

This is as close as Miss K gets to gangster. Of course the effect is ruined by the fact that her hoodie has ears on it. But she would have a mother obsessed with hats with ears on them.

I love the look on her face in this one. Miss K is the queen of strange faces, but this is one of her cuter ones.

Speaking of Ben, he has been bitten by the blogging bug (how is that for alliteration?) and has started his very own blog. Feel free to mosey on over and check it out, and you can even have the dubious honour of saying you liked it from the beginning before it was cool. Now be good readers and click the link....now

http://bensbouncingbrain.blogspot.com.au

Miss K and I had a visit from a friend of mine Kelly today. Kelly and I used to work together right before I got pregnant. This girl was an absolute angel while Miss K and I were in hospital dealing with suspected meningitis, bringing me home cooked food, taking me out shopping so I wasn't staring at the same four walls for twenty four hours a day and checking in every few days to make sure I was OK. Now again I don't have any recent photos of Miss K and Kelly (I really must learn to take my camera with me everywhere) but hopefully we'll be going to her house to have dinner with her and her husband soon so I'll be sure to take pictures then. 

Well that's it for tonight, I have ten minutes before bedtime so I'll probably spend it looking at something completely pointless on the internet (isn't that the best way to spend your spare time?)

Stay awesome wonderful readers, and I'll be back again soon with more wisdom for you to read.

Dear Diary the more buttons edition

Ladles and jelly spoons welcome again to another Sunday round up. I'm going to start today by once again drawing your wonderful attention to the little sidebar to the right of your screen. There is another button there for you to click, this one takes you to my brand spanking new twitter account! And it didn't take me weeks to figure out how to link the two up this time. I'm getting even better at this. One day I will rule the world with the power of widgets.

So yes another week has passed and as I started the count down a couple of days ago, I should let you know there are only 99 sleeps until Christmas. I looked back at that blog post, (for any of you who haven't read my thoughts on Christmas yet, check out this post here) and it all looks pretty dismal. I should probably clarify that I don't hate Christmas, and even before I gave birth to Miss K I got involved in all of the tree decorating and the family dinners, but it was done with a level of sarcasm and indifference that would make the Grinch proud. However these days, because I don't want my nieces, nephew or daughter to know that there are people out there who don't think that Christmas is all that and a bag of potato chips I bite my tongue. I've even started shopping for Miss K's presents and am madly looking up Christmas check-lists to see if I can't find some way to make the silly season a little more relaxed this year.

So it's been pretty quiet around here lately, I was madly studying for the first part of the week, desperately trying to get my homework submitted as close to its actual due date as possible. I still can't get my final assignment to balance, so I decided it was time to call in the experts and I've sent it to my teacher, to see if she can't figure out where the heck I went wrong. I know it will be something stupid that I should be able to spot, but I'm at one of those places where I can't see the woods for the trees so I am hoping that her trained eye can help me out here. I'm expecting an email any week now.

Now my baby brother Ben and his partner came down for a visit at the beginning of this week, and when they finally went home that evening I thought it would be the last we would see of them for another few weeks at least. Well I have never been so wrong in my life, because they are at my little sister's house as we speak having some Sunday sippers. Now we haven't seen Tristan yet, as he had to wait until after work to catch the train down, but Ben came over for a few hours this afternoon and had a play with Miss K. This time I remembered to bring out my camera and I got some gorgeous pictures of them.

Miss K trying to get Ben to play the harmonica. His face cracks me up every time

Ben trying to get Miss K to play the harmonica. She was more reluctant to play so those little lips stayed tightly clamped at all times.

Ben got some even better photos on his phone while I wasn't looking, so as soon as he can upload them on my computer I'll be sharing them with you.

Miss K and I went out to lunch with an old friend of mine today, we decided to go to McDonalds as the one here has a semi decent playground area for kids, which meant I didn't have to deal with a bored one year old while I tried to play catch-up with my friend. It was a pleasant afternoon and Miss K won so many hearts while we were there we walked away with two new friends at the end of the day. There were two little girls in particular, similar in age to Miss K's cousins, and she followed them around like a little lost puppy dog the whole time they were in the play area. I am so glad that Miss K is such a social little girl, I certainly can't work a room as well as she does.

Also on Miss K, she is walking more and more each day, and yesterday she even managed to get herself into a standing position from sitting without using a piece of furniture to help her. I know that she is only doing what every baby does but it is ridiculous how excited I get every time she learns something new. Mum and I took her shopping to K Mart last night, and she walked around the shop the whole time. I expected her to get tired of walking very quickly but she refused to let me carry her anywhere, insisting that she could do it all by herself. Not that I'm complaining of course, because all that walking meant that she slept through the whole night.

The 30 ways in 30 days challenge finished this week, with mixed results and I have decided to try doing another challenge with a similar theme, but to tone it down a bit this time so that I don't get so completely overwhelmed and lose interest. There will be more information coming up tomorrow. 

Well that's it for another week, I am now going to go watch Mrs Browns Boys with mum and hope I don't fall asleep on the couch. Don't forget to check out my Facebook page and my lovely new Twitter page and feel free to like them both. 

Dear Diary the bitter-sweet edition.

Well it's that time of the week again where I tell all of you my wonderful readers about everything Miss K and I have been up to over the past seven days. Well really most of it will be about this weekend, as I managed to cram more in the last two days than I did in the rest of the week. (Stupid gastro)

I am finally better thank heavens, I only really needed one day of bed rest and sulking before I was up and moving again, but my appetite and energy took a lot longer to return to me, I've only really been eating properly for about three days now, and even then my portion sizes have been smaller than normal while I get used to food again. I was determined to make up for having to cut my adults night out short on Monday, so this weekend has been full of social calls and outings, but luckily because they were all during the day time Miss K got to come with me. We crashed a Nutrimetics party yesterday, and by crashed I mean we tagged along with someone who was actually invited to the event. This is the second shopping party we've crashed in as many weeks Miss K and I, both with the same friend. Last week we went to a Tupperware party with her and both times we have been made to feel very welcome despite the fact that we knew no one there and they were all meeting us for the first time. I even decided to splash out and buy some perfume after yesterday's party, as I always feel there is no such thing as too many bottles of smelly stuff.

I also finally got to eat my cupcakes yesterday as Miss K and I managed to get our choc banana cupcakes baked in the afternoon while my brother and sister were visiting. Of course Miss K's help only went as far as licking the spoons once I was finished with them, but she was happy to be my dishwasher for the day. I was quite proud of the cakes as they tasted delicious and they didn't look too bad either. It was my first attempt at piping frosting on cupcakes and while it doesn't look completely professional, it wasn't a bad first attempt. I took some photos before I ate them all, so that I could share them all with you.

Tell me one more time they look like poo cupcakes and I will hurt you.

Sadly my photography skills are still lacking, but my cooking skills are pure awesome

Today I took mum and Miss K to the Sunday Market in the next town over. Miss K's dad and I actually used to run a stall at this market before Miss K was born, and it was sad to see it as a shell of its former bustling self, but I'm hoping it was just the horrible weather that was keeping everyone away. I remember spending most of our Sunday there every week for a few months the year we met, and we made friends with some of the other wonderful stall holders, but they have all moved on to other markets now days and I was sad to see I didn't recognise any of the stall holders when I went today. There was such a sense of family with the stall holders there, you would pass each other's stalls and wave hello or stop in and chat if you were close, and they were all so helpful when we first started there, telling us which stall holders to avoid selling to as they always resold your stock at ridiculously up-marked prices.

After we were finished at the market we went and visited with my big sister for a coffee, and Miss K sat with her uncle and had a cheese sandwich. For some reason he was able to get her to take small lady-like bites, which is something I can never get from her, and she sat very straight and proper on his lap the whole time without squirming or reaching around for things out of her reach. I can't help but laugh at how flirty my little miss gets, even with her own uncles. After lunch and a nap we went to visit with some old friends that we met co-incidentally through the markets. We bumped into them at the market and I was saddened to discover they are moving closer to the city tomorrow to find their fortunes in the big smoke. So it was decided I had to go over to their place for one more coffee before they left. The house was sadly empty of furniture when we got there as everything has been packed up and stored in anticipation of their huge shift tomorrow, so we sat on the floor in the kitchen chatting and drinking coffee, and Miss K played with the family's son and daughter who quickly became her biggest fans. The son, who is almost 2 is such a lady killer, he sat with his arm around Miss K, feeding her dry wheat bix and kissing her occasionally. Miss K of course is never one to refuse food so she loved all the special attention she was receiving.

They also have a large dog there, a labrador cross and it is huge. I mean huge. It could probably stick its head on my desk as I typed were it here right now. Luckily despite its size it is the gentlest dog you could meet, and he is fabulous with children, having been around them since he was a puppy so he wasn't too concerned when Miss K decided to crawl over his tail suddenly, nor when she decided to pull herself up on him. I was more surprised of Miss K's reaction to the dog, especially as she hasn't had much to do with dogs in her short 17 months, but she adored him and kept rushing to him to give him pats and hugs, and she didn't even mind when he licked her. The dogs owner was of course around at all times to make sure he didn't trod on any of the babies, as the oldest child in the house is not yet four, but he is such a well trained dog there really was never any concern anyone would get hurt. It was actually such a sad moment when I realised it was past our dinner time and we needed to get home and ready for bed, I had to keep the good byes brief so that I didn't lose it and start crying in front of them, but I have promised as soon as they are all settled in to their new home, Miss K and I will be up for a visit.

As for Miss K, she is cruising along nicely. We realised this week that she has been saying da da a lot lately, and that when she says it, she actually means Grandma. I'd never thought of it much as when she was younger Grandma was bumma, but lately whenever mum leaves the room, or if she's in her cot and she sees mum making coffee in the kitchen she starts yelling da da da da at the top of her lungs and we finally clicked the other day she's calling for her Grandma. She also learned how to say Grandpa this week, (ba pa) and she's learnt my niece Eliza's name (zee zee). Apart from that most of her chat is still unintelligible babble, but it certainly is plentiful, she is rarely quiet these days and if I can't hear her it's usually a pretty good sign she's up to no good and I need to find her NOW. She is still not taking more than a couple steps unassisted, no matter how much we encourage her, unfortunately there is little I can do besides keep encouraging her and making sure she isn't given the excuse to keep slacking off which means I have to stop carrying her everywhere. My back will thank me for this.

Well that's another week summed up nicely, as you can tell there was very little organising done this week thanks to the gastro, but hopefully I'll be able to get back into it this week and keep fighting the good fight. Well until next time, stay awesome readers and of course don't forget to like my Facebook page for regular updates and much more. Unless you are one of the wonderful people who have already, in which case you are welcome to go about your business as normal.

Daydreams and reality are rarely the same

There are so many things that I had wrong about motherhood, I could write a book about. It turns out almost every first time mum has the same misconceptions about what motherhood is going to be like. These myths are so common spread, I wonder sometimes why there isn't someone bursting the bubble of mums to be by telling them what being a parent is going to be really like. Or are people telling us the truth and we just refuse to believe it? I've sat down and tried to remember a lot of the daydreams that I had about what life would be like once Miss K came into the world, and I can safely look back and think I was a big idiot.

Misconception 1: Being a mum will come easily and naturally to you

I am the second eldest of 6 kids, so when I was younger I did get asked to help my mum out with the babies. I could feed a baby a bottle or a bowl of wheat bix, I could change a nappy and dress a baby (but I couldn't do up the jumpsuits, the buttons around the legs were too confusing) and I quite often had to give my two little sisters baths when they got older. When I was in my early twenties, I moved in with my big sister and her husband and their three month old daughter. Again, I was able to feed, change and bathe her. Naturally I figured this made me an expert on raising children, and when Miss K was finally born, I'd be able to know straight away why she was crying, soothe her and get her to sleep without any of the fuss that these other first time mothers seemed to have. Nope. When Miss K was born, I was as clueless as the next person. I knew how to hold her, and I hadn't forgotten how to dress a baby or feed them a bottle, but I had no idea if she was crying because she was hungry, she had wind, or she was worried about the rising cost of petrol. As a result, I spent almost as much time crying as Miss K did in the first 6 weeks.

Misconception 2: Breastfeeding is easy because it's the way you're supposed to feed your baby

Now this one the books do try to teach you about, but I still thought that it would be easier than it was. They say it comes by instinct to the baby, but that's not exactly the truth. The baby knows how to suck, but they don't know how to latch on in the correct manner to ensure no damage to the breast, and they don't know how to not suffocate if you cover their nose with your breast (not a problem smaller breasted women have) Miss K and I had a lot of problems with this one, because I am not small chested by any stretch of the imagination, and despite what you would think, bigger breasts are actually a hindrance when you're trying to feed a baby. I couldn't get her to latch on properly, I had a lot of problems trying to find a position that was comfortable for both of us, and then at 5 weeks I came to the horrible realisation that my milk was actually drying up.

Misconception 3: Babies sleep all the time


Newborn babies sleep something like 20 hours a day, but it's not all in one go. This usually means that you're getting up every 3 - 4 hours or sometimes even less, because the baby is crying again. And this doesn't stop just because you've gone to bed for the night. Babies have no idea that there is a day time and a night time, so they just keep on doing the same thing all day long, regardless of the fact that you haven't had as much sleep as they have, and you'd really like some now. But it's not long before they start sleeping less, and spending more time awake, and for some babies between the ages of 4 and 12 weeks, between 3pm and 7pm is the time that they decide is perfect to stay awake and scream at you. And you will spend those weeks trying everything to get them to settle down. I tried baths, massage, music, dancing, putting her to bed, letting her cry, everything. And then one day, just as suddenly as it began, it stops. But by then the damage is done and you hate the hours of 3pm to 7pm for the longest time.

Misconception 4: You will be able to juggle housework and motherhood as easily as you once balanced your work and social lives


When I was a lot younger, I used to be able to go to work for a full 8 hour day, and then go to the pub and drink for several hours and not feel any pain the next morning. These days, after running around after Miss K for 8 hours, I sit on the couch at night time feeling like I got hit by a bus, and then reversed over. For the first couple of weeks after having a baby, you are in so much shock, and so sore, you couldn't give a crap about housework. If you're lucky like I was, you'll live with someone who understands this and who will pick up the slack that you let off so that the house keeps clean while you recover. However, the excuse that I just had a baby doesn't get you off doing the dishes forever, and the day comes when you have to start trying to take care of a baby and keep the house clean at the same time. And that's when you really appreciate what your mother did when you were a child. It gets even worse once your baby is mobile, because you either need to cram all of your housework into the small gaps of peace you get when the baby is asleep, or you need to do your housework in 2 minute bursts, and then do a mad dash to where the baby is, to extract them from whatever danger they have gotten themselves into while your back was turned. I am still trying to find the perfect balance of keeping the house clean and keeping Miss K safe, but I'm starting to learn a few short cuts that are helping me. If I leave the room while the theme song of one of her kids shows is on, I know I have a good 20 - 30 seconds to get stuff done while she is glued to the telly. As long as I'm back before they start talking and she gets bored and wanders off to destroy something else, we're golden.

Misconception 5: You will still have a healthy social life


It is sad but true, but I actually lost a few friends when they found out I was pregnant. This had nothing to do with my choice of partner, or that I decided to go it alone in the end, but something slightly more selfish on their part. One of my closest friends when I worked in Melbourne hated children. When she saw them in the street, she would always pull a face and make some kind of rude comment to me. When she found out that I was about to bring another one of these creatures into the world, she suddenly found that we had nothing in common any more and stopped talking to me. I can't hate her for this, but I can't feel sad for the loss either. If she couldn't find a way to adapt to the changes that would happen to our friendship, then I couldn't find a reason to fight to keep her in my life. There were a few gentlemen that stopped contacting me when I told them I was having a baby, but I have to assume that they realised that they would never be getting into my pants and stopped wasting their time trying. Again no great loss as far as I'm concerned. But these people dropping off the face of the earth wasn't the biggest killer to my social life. My lack of energy is what has done it.

I still have a lot of good friends, but these days, our interactions tend to be limited to Facebook, with an occasional catch up for coffee, or more likely, we bump into each other in the street and stop for a 5 minute catch up before Miss K gets tired of sitting still and starts screaming at me. At the end of the chat they go back to their jobs or their shopping and I run away in the opposite direction trying to quieten down Miss K before every one thinks I have an out of control child. I have mothers group that I go to once a week, but I never really even try to have anything to do with the women there outside of the group, as really what else do I have in common with them except we all had babies in the same year? The one friend I catch up with regularly is actually an ex boyfriend from a couple of years ago, and I go over there for tea at least once a month. He cooks me a nice steak every time, because we don't have red meat in the house any more after mum's heart attack, and he knows I miss it. Then we sit down in front of the telly for the rest of the evening and just veg out. We chat a bit, but he has never been a great talker, so a lot of the time, there is only the noise coming from the telly. But now that Miss K is older, even this is becoming a struggle, as I have to pack her porta-cot with me so she has somewhere to crash, and I usually spend the evening grabbing her before she pulls herself up on his lovely glass coffee table, or touches the heater while it's on, or plays with the plugs coming out of his amplifier, or starts hitting his acoustic guitar in the corner. Once she's in bed, I sit on the couch trying not to fall asleep, because what kind of guest does that make me? Although, after the last time I went there, I'm not as worried about hurting his feelings by falling asleep, because we both ended up falling asleep, and missing part of Ghost Busters 2. We must be great company.

These 5 misconceptions only scratch the surface of what I was thinking when I was pregnant with Miss K. I can't remember now if anyone tried to tell me the truth about being a parent, (mum and my big sister probably did), but I was so convinced that I was going to ace this, that I wouldn't have listened to them even if they tied me to a chair and hit me in the head with a rubber mallet as they said each word. But I know the truth now, and so do you. And if after reading this, you still think that things would be different for you, then please come over and allow me to introduce you to my rubber mallet. Trust me, it's for your own good.