eins, zwei, drei!

Awesome

So the flu that Oscar had last week and is still recovering from?

Has now befallen Felix.

Which means the plans for this week - a day at the Zig Zag railway and then on to my bf's place in the country for a few days - are now no more.

I'm worried about Felix, he says everything is spinning and everytime he lies down he feels like he's falling and he's just got a temperature that just won't go away.

I took him to the doctor this afternoon but it wasn't our doctor. I'm going to take him back tomorrow - to our doctor - and hopefully won't see the other doctor in the waiting room.

Our doctor gave us Tamiflu for Oscar - rather than a script for it, which costs $50. The doc today wouldn't give it to Felix, just the script. This sounds pathetic, but we don't have $50 for medications at the moment. I asked him if he could give it to us and he was all oh no no no, we're only allowed to give it to high risk cases. Excuse me, I thought all children were classified as high risk.

He said it probably was pig flu but that it was actually milder than influenza A so you're better off getting the former than the latter.

Get this - they suspect that everyone in Sydney will have had it by Christmas.

I believe this is commonly referred to as an "unfortunate coincidence"

When the 10 day plan of reducing meds results in the one day of 'clear out' - meaning no meds - arrives on Day 3 coupled with a gall bladder flare-up, the like of which I haven't had for about 2-3 weeks and two little boys intent on playing with the same car come hell or whoever screams the loudest.

Oi.

The darndest thing

You know, if you suffer depression and suddenly your meds aren't as effective as they have been?

And how you and your shrink look at what is contributing to it and as part of that discussion look at the meds you are taking and play with the dosage?

And that the natural reaction is to increase the dose?

But then, that doesn't help and in fact seems to make everything worse?

As well as seeming to contribute to a few other issues that weren't such big issues previously?

So you start weaning off your meds to go onto a new one?

But on a much lower dose suddenly you feel normal again?

And it turns out that perhaps you were getting side-effects from too higher dose rather than the meds not being effective any more.

Ain't that a kicker.

Well that was the fastest two years of my life

Do you guys remember this?

Which, somewhat terrifyingly, was taken a whole month before this:

Which happened in the wee hours of Monday morning (3am on the dot) on 2 July 2007.

Our Super Grover turned 2 last Thursday. Forgive this post being a few days late but I'm still trying to get my head around the fact he's here at all.

Seriously, half the time it feels like I just had Jasper so how the hell I had another pregnancy and produced another sprogget is simply beyond me.

I often think about delivering this little chap. That's probably a bit weird isnt' it. But it was the first (and yes, it will be the only) labour and delivery which went how I wanted them all to go. All of my labours, bar that of Oscar which was a complete dogs breakfast, had my waters break (granted, with Felix they did that for me) and then little niggles for three hours and then bang, game on and all over in 45 minutes with actual delivery only ever taking about 7 to 10 minutes. Granted I'm guessing that would have happened with Felix as I got to two hours after breaking my waters and they stuck the drip in, but still, he was in the world in 45 minutes too and we all know how I like order in my world.

But with Grover I had my favourite midwife who had known us since the harrowing pregnancy that was Oscar's. So connected were we she came in even though it was her rostered day off. Such a quiet force of a woman she was always present but not on centre stage. Just off to the left, watching me, responding when I said something. This is a true midwife, a woman so experienced she just lets women do what their bodies need them to do. When I said to her that I needed to push but wasn't sure if I really did or if I just wanted it over she quietly told me to just go with my body. I was standing for the entire labour, standing for the delivery and absolutely starkers for the lot of it. I used a TENS machine for pain management and wished I had for each of them. The adrenalin and euphoria of a delivery with no drugs is breath-taking in its wonderment. Felix was there and not the least bit freaked out. He cut the umbilical cord of his youngest brother.

I have no idea why I'm telling you all this. I guess because in a way I miss I won't go through that again. Granted, I have no desire for the lazy uterus afterwards that required a gyno to stick her entire hand up my fanny and scrape out massive blood clots but still, I miss the fact I will never give birth again. There you go.

But were was I.

My monkey boy.

The one who gets into everything.

Like finding a skewer and sticking it in the USB drive on my laptop causing a power surge from 'unknown source'.

Who adores textas and will draw on himself, the walls, the cupboards, the speakers, the floor, the anything when they are found.

The one who is so self-assured, so confident, so L.O.U.D.

But who loves nothing more than a snuggle on the lounge.

The first child of mine to watch children's television and do the actions.

The one whose mere appearance threw this family into a tailspin of lawsey mercy four really is a lot of children.

But who cracks us all up at least once a day.

The one who Felix referred to the other day with 'imagine if Grover hadn't been born' and when I replied that I'd still be working prompted the response, 'well thank goodness Grover was born'.

Who says 'I don't know' with the sweetest intonation known to man, or who calls out hello to Grandmama every time he walks through the front door, who must go out the front to wave goodbye to whoever has visited us, who says 'dub' for yes and 'nooooooh' for no. Who lies face down on the floor 'hiding' when it's time to go to bed/change a nappy/get dressed. Who insists on inspecting the nappy after he's done a poo. Who called a poo 'wee-wee' for months and months as if that somehow made it less gross.

Who stands up for himself to other kids regardless of their age or size.

Who is a force to be reckoned with.

Who, as if he knew I would start sticking sharp sticks in my eyes and ears with another child totally obsessed with Thomas the Effing Engine, has been the first to be truly obsessed by cars, buses, trucks and most of all, eeeor eeeors. Also known as ambulances and fire engines. Bless him.

But enough. Pictures say so much more don't you think?

And from his birthday last week

So here we are once more...

So for the last three months or so I haven't been travelling so well. There have been a number of stresses which each on their own were quite manageable but mooshed up all together started to swallow me whole. Mum's health issues (which have blessedly been largely resolved), our ongoing financial plight (which I know is only a product of this time of young children and will pass - eventually), everything to do with Oscar - his foot/feet, behaviour, bed-wetting and on and on it goes and being back in that phase which is having children aged between two and four.

On top of that I was trying to lose weight and had embarked on quite the exercise regime. There was the walking the boys to and from school each day which meant I was walking 8kms most days of the week, Jillian Michaels' 30 day shred, the gym and other sundry activities. I didn't lose a pound.

That reality was actually the straw which I think sent me spiralling downward. The paranoia started to creep back, the finding myself shaking my hands as if trying to rid my body of excess anxiety/stress/sadness/anger (you know, I'm always telling Oscar to stop flapping while I know this is how he handles his body trying to process what is going on around him), the inability to go to bed - not to get to sleep mind you just the actual act of going to bed -, poor quality sleep, negative thoughts, self-sabotaging behaviours, lots and LOTS of chronic sighing and - the kicker for me - anger. So much anger. And yelling. And starting to smack the kids. And more yelling.

Interestingly, it was during that three month period that was our school Term 1 I started having a glass (or 2) of wine almost every night. I really hadn't been drinking like that since before I had Jasper - so a good four years or so. I did twig to the relationship between the lack of weight loss and spiralling mood and increased alcohol intake.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly no teetotaller but I do know that if I can have one drink I might as well have two, or three, or ten. I was drinking really heavily when Oscar and Felix were young and it wasn't until I saw an Oprah (I KNOW!) episode on SAHM's who were worried they drank too much than I kinda thought hmmm. In fact, there was one woman who recounted a situation where one of the kids got sick during the night and there was no way she could have driven him to the hospital. Let's call that a lightbulb moment. But apart from that, there was - and is - the cold hard reality that getting on the turps has negative side-effects which ultimately override the lovely ones you have while imbibing your beverage of choice. Throw anti-depressants into that mix and what you get is a whole lot of trouble.

Technically, if you're on anti-depressants you should not be drinking at all. But then hello, I live in the real world and if someone is offering me a glass of sparkling shiraz I'm not about to go no thanks.

SO

I've been seeing a new psychiatrist for about nine months now and I really like him. Like my previous one (who I'd seen for almost 10 years) he is a straight talker, very matter-of-fact and pragmatic. I had got the impression from him that he wanted to change my meds but - and this is one of the reasons I have warmed to him - he didn't go all bull-at-a-gate about it. I was travelling fairly well then I stumbled and for the last six weeks I've been on a different dosage of the same meds.

It didn't work. I can feel the seeds of anxiety, I've been having crazy dreams - think of the day you've had then put that into a Salvador Dali painting and you're getting the picture, then put it on fast forward and bingo, that's my nightly viewing pleasure - and this nagging saddness that presents itself as general inactivity with resultant lack of productivity and ultimately anger. At myself and those around me.

It makes me unpredictable and not in a good way. I don't think it's fair on loved ones and in particular children to face each day with a 'I wonder if Mum's having a good day or bad day today' mindset.

I am from that parenting camp where we try to limit the no's and increase the why don't yous. So you know, if the three year old now has a reflex reaction to push their two year old brother to the ground every time he comes near, instead of don't push, don't do that, no we go nice hands, loving caring brothers, cuddles and kisses and so on (GOD suddenly I sound like a hippie).

When I'm not firing on all cylinders there is a lot of NO a lot of STOP PUSHING HIM and ultimately a drag off to the bedroom where my grip is a little too tight on his arm, the putting him onto his bed more of a throw and sometimes a smack. I am all for the times when certain behaviours are simply not tolerated and suitably punished but if I'm not showing and teaching my child how to treat someone - rather just berating them for what they are doing - how does that make me the best parent I can be?

In the midst of this is that ongoing internal dialogue questioning how 'real' or how 'legit' all of this is. I mean COME ON, talk about first world worries. It's always going to be hard being at home with two toddlers, it's always going to be hard with a child with special needs which seem to get worse the older he gets rather than less, it's always going to be hard ensuring the four children you wanted to have get the attention and input they each deserve, it's always going to be hard to give those children the opportunities and experiences you want them to have when money is tight and time ellusive. So suck it up baby, these here are tough times and they're what make the good times all the sweeter.

And on it goes.

But you know what, I don't care if there are those who think what I am experiencing is simply life and that I don't have the ticker to live the good, the bad and the ugly it sends my way. This is about my ability to live the good, the bad and the ugly and rise to it each and every day.

So over the next month I'm weaning off the Zoloft to move onto the Effexor and returning to my original dose of Epilum. I stopped drinking every night about eight weeks ago and definitely feel better for it. Curiously, this term I have done virtually no exercise (such was my level of pissed-offedness and my body) but focused on my diet and have lost 3 kilos.

My shrink asked me on Monday what this depression felt like - was it physical or more internal and I thought what a good way of looking at it. I was also a bit shocked because while I've been the first to say I wasn't 'too good' I had certainly not thought of it in terms of depression. How weird is that. Anyway, in the past most of my depressive episodes have been very internal - all of that self-doubt and internal monologuing about people looking at me, not being good enough and so on. But this one has been a weight, a sense of the roof being too low, you know, like that scene in the Gene Wilder version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where they're all crammed into that tiny space near the beginning. He reckons some of that has come from the drug dosage we were trying out but also the nature of this depression. Interesting.

So ...

I just had this dream (on Chef's day off he let me have a nanna nap as I'm in the process of changing one of my meds and the old switcherooo is giving me dizzy spells of impressive proportions) which involved us living near the US-Canadian border.

We had Oscar and Felix who seemed to be teenagers and a group of Felix's friends. It was snowing.

We joined and indeed incited this group to embark in a game of highly illegal and awful high-jinx involving one going into a shop and requesting something that required the assistant to go out the back and look for it for some time while everyone else then snuck in and stole a range of items.

I pocketed a silencer while AB secured the most massive and black and shiny and dare I say handsome? rifle or some othe firearm which he hid inside his shirt and down the leg of his jeans.

Then - almost peeing ourselves with that laughter that comes from adrenalin and stupidity - we high-tailed it out of there and back over the border into Canada, with AB lying back in the passenger seat due to being unable to bend.

This is what happens when you start changing your meds, talking about moving overseas (dreaming people, we don't even have enough cash to get to the airport let alone pay for airfares anywhere), looking at options for managing possums in the backyard and realising your second son is as tall as your shoulders.

Can't get enough of ...

With a shoutout to Ampersand Duck for bringing it to my attention.

Bulleted Friday

• I've been in a bad mood all week.
• And no, the reason is not what you think.
• Oscar = never.stops.talking. but it's not proper talking and it's all asking the same thing over and over again about what is currently making him anxious or whoever's business he's sticking his nose in to.
• Felix = never.stops.the.whiney.voice and is just so melodramatic and picks fights with Oscar so very often I've taken to calling him Drama.
• Jasper = screamy McTantrum Pants. 'nough said.
• Grover = YELLING! GUTTERAL LOUD YELLING! OHMYGODSTOPTHEYELLING!
• Last night I tried to force feed Jasper, such was my irrational concern about his current diet of air and cruskits.
• As if I'd never learnt that doing such a thing doesn't end well.
• As if I had not told myself to not worry about his diet and to just keep offering and maybe by 2020 eventually he will start eating it, just as Felix did but this time we'll do it without the tears and mealtime meltdowns.
• Then this morning, he woke up crying with a tummy ache, which i put down to the fact he hadn't eaten since about 3 the previous afternoon.
• He willingly ate (and had asked for) his breakfast of 3 weetbix, milk and honey. His only proper meal of the day.
• Then spewed everywhere.
• Excellent, I gave my child an eating disorder.
• By midday the spewing had stopped and his tummy was all better.
• But because of the spewing I wouldn't let him eat or drink (except for small sips of water) much.
• OH THE IRONY.
• By 4pm he was completely back to normal.
• For dinner I made a hot chicken curry (for Chef and Felix), a mild veggie curry (for me and Oscar), pan-fried chicken tenderloins (for whoever wanted them but hopefully for Jasper) and rice.
• And Jasper ate? Plain.boiled.rice.
• 'It's my favowit' my arse.
• I actually sent my CV to someone today to hopefully be considered for some freelance work.
• Such is our poverty.
• Hence my filthy mood.
• Which is probably just stress and worry in disguise.
• Mum and I have been daydreaming about repainting/decorating.
• A post on that to come.
• On Monday I had my first day with no children in almost two months.
• Except our internet connection has been dodgy for the last three weeks and another service guy was coming out between 7 and 12.
• My SIL came down and picked up Grover for me, as I couldn't take him up to my MIL's.
• How nice is that?
• Only to be completely diluted by the fact the engineer wasn't here by 1 and when I rang they informed me the problem had been fixed on Friday, that the problem on the weekend had been another district wide problem and that the job lot had been closed.
• Wasn't it nice of them to let me know.
• After the previous week I'd had a customer service guy calling me so often it was bordering on stalking.
• So I had one hour to go and do something before I had to pick up the boys from school.
• So I went to Kmart and bought some undies.
• Awesome.
• It was Chef's b'day last week.
• He was 38.
• I didn't get him anything, well, I gave him something but this isn't that kind of blog.
• I still feel bad about it.
• I caught up with one of the mums I've known since Oscar started school (her son was in the same special ed program) and her life has been such a shitstorm (think starting a house reno involving the entire back of the house being demolished only to have your husband retrenched and then getting screwed by the bank when they remortgaged their house and her car breaking down at least once every day on the school drop-off) we've decided us and another mum (who's son was also in the same program and has t.w.o. autistic sons) are going to go out one Saturday night and get completely off our collective trolley.
• That wasn't so much a bullet point as a paragraph.
• The sourdough making experience is still quite unsatisfactory.
• Another contributor to my filthy mood I suspect.
• I did however make the most sublime apple and rhubarb pie this week.
• Which made the world a whole lot better.
• But I know the world is awesome - a walk home with the little fellas afte dropping the boys at school and stopping off for a play in the park and then on the beach makes that perfectly obvious.
• I really want to make some cumquat marmalade but refuse to pay in the vicinity of $9 a kilo for the fruit. I used to have two trees that produced enough for a decent batch, but one died and the other doesn't get enough sun to fruit.
• OMG I'm just such a developed world whinger at the moment.
• Move along.
• Nothing more to see here.
• Oh, except that our little veggie patch has taken off.
• The broad beans are reaching for the sky!
• The chives are blowing in the breeze.
• The basil is getting a good pruning almost every day.
• The oregano is liking it's little spot on the corner despite getting routinely run-over by boys on bikes.
• The parsley is a delightful grouping of stalks thanks to the possums.
• The thyme is no more thanks to the bandicoots.
• The passionfruit has some new little shoots on it, after the possums stripped it of every single leaf.
• And how are we keeping them (the possums) off the passionfruit and parsley?
• By giving them their own platter of fruit and veg each night.
• And by hanging stockings full of napthalene all over the passionfruit vine trelis.
• So now, the backyard smells like an old lady's jumper.
• Awesome.

Bulleted Sunday

• It feels like it's been raining for months.
• I adore the rain.
• We completely rearranged the back room on Friday night.
• Our 'back room' is our dining room, office, living room, play room.
• It was an ambitious and somewhat stupid time to start this process.
• Saturday morning was family brunch to celebrate Chef's birthday.
• He was 38 on Wednesday.
• I got to bed at 3am and was up at 6.15am.
• Such little sleep was as awful as I remembered it to be.
• I have not been coping with the reality that this house as become Tantrum Central.
• Even Grover got sent to his room today.
• My inlaws returned from their trip to the Gulf country late last week after being away for about six weeks.
• Tomorrow, I'm dropping Grover up at their place afer I take Oscar to speech and then drop him at school and Jasper at kindy.
• I'm so excited I'm not sure what I'll do but I do know there will be a component of browsing with no agenda.
• I've been making my own sourdough breads for the last two weeks and I'm still not happy with them but it's such glorious dough to work with I am persevering.
• Tonight I made vegetable pasties for dinner and they were sensational.
• I even made the pastry and it didn't split or break or anything.
• I've lost three kilos which is good but not near the goal I had set for myself this term.
• Last week I organised appointments for Oscar at the paediatrician, dentist and cp specialist and dealt with my gallbladder.
• This week will be calls to another kindy to say we'd still like a spot and a local music school to investigate keyboard lessons for Felix and local sporting associations to find out about possibilities for Oscar.
• My MIL brought me over a big bag of lemons, so this week will also feature the production of quite a few jars of lemon butter.
• Our internet connection and payTV for that matter have been dodgy for the last three weeks or so.
• It's been really quite annoying.
• Tomorrow, the fifth serviceman - an engineer no less - will pay us a visit to try and work out why the hell it's not working.
• Possums have been decimating our backyard for years.
• After doing some research I am trying the whole new approach of actually leaving food out for them.
• Apparently if you do this they eat that and not your plants/parsley/passionfruit vine/lime tree.
• That or I am a complete idiot.