Look before you leap.

Otherwise entitled ‘Clearly I am not a suspicious enough bastard, YET’.

Do you (all five of you who are still reading over the holiday season, that is) remember how I waffled on a couple of days ago about my rather stupid scenario-fulfillment wrong camera purchase?

I mean, on the plus side, MY scenario-fulfillment snarfu did not involve shooting down a passenger jet from a warship, or anything near as violent and regrettable, but I was absolutely mortified when the staff who helped me find the correct camera kept saying ‘But it SAYS on the box that it isn’t a Model XXXX, did you know that?’.

…and I kept having to nod stupidly and say that, yes, after I’d looked at it the shop, been given the opportunity to ask questions, paid, left, and I’d had the blasted thing home for a couple of hours, pulled it all out, thrown away the packaging, played with it for a bit while the battery charged ….(and so on)….THEN I noticed the lenses were missing the critical feature I had wanted.

See? Not mortifying at all.

I didn’t tell them that I’d fished the packaging back out of the trash can and scraped some pasta off it before coming back with my tail between my legs, because some things should be on a need-to-know-basis.

I just wanted the particular item in question so badly, I purchased something else entirely instead, without reading the box. As you do.

Anyway, it doesn’t end there.

I did eventually locate the only correct model available in my state, in a shop only about an hour’s drive away and yesterday I gleefully duly swapped the bleeping thing over, glad to be DONE.

I would have opened the boxes more thoroughly in the shop to double-check the contents, but everything was IN them and the cashier had accidentally got the price wrong by one hundred dollars in my favour and given me a small refund for my stupidity.

Put simply, I wanted to get the hell out of there before I heard an ‘Oy, you!’.

Also, the waiter where I had lunch offered me his phone number in exchange for ‘lessons’ and I was so busy being flattered about scoring a real number with twins in tow (and screeching, I think he probably only really DID plan to charge me exorbitant amounts of money for lessons upon reflection), I didn’t check things further before leaving the area completely and returning home.

Well, needless to say, when I got camera 2.0 home and lovingly unwrapped it only to discover that some utter pillock had SWAPPED a lens at some point in the past with exactly the sodding model I had returned that very day, and the wrong one entirely was happily staring back at me, STILL, I was a little on the red-mist-beserk-bloody-rampage side of miffed.

Albeit miffed with a side order of it now being entirely somebody else’s problem to fix because I had a receipt that promised I would be getting that lens for free come hell-or-high-water.

Suffice it to say that I went back for the third time in as many days this morning and I now seem to have all the right bits and I don’t plan to open any of them for a couple of days AT LEAST so that if I am wrong, I shan’t have to kill somebody.

Remind me.

Internet, I am counting on you, so do not let me down.

I’ll even be a bit trendy and pluralise you totally unnecessarily, Internets, if you will solemnly promise me to do me but one small favour.

The very NEXT time I mention that the post-Christmas sales sound like just a terrific way to spend an afternoon, could you please all:

A: Pour a hot Lamb Madras into both eyes at once so I am spared the sight a billion signs all proclaiming ‘BARGAIN!’. I am easily swayed by lurid neon writing two feet high.

B: Shove a clove of garlic up both nostrils, so I cannot smell the delicate aroma of ten-thousand hot day deodarent-conservationalist co-shoppers, and (if I am not already crying)

C: Pour a lovely cold beer all over my carpets.

I hate shopping in a flock almost as mush as I decry seeing perfectly good alcohol go to waste. That is all.

Now, promise me, okay?

I’ve had a really shit day and it shall only be surpassed by tomorrow’s shenanigans where I plan to return one thousand dollars worth of belatedly identified SLR Wrong-In-A-Critical-Way-Camera in exchange for what sadly turns out to be slightly more than one thousand dollar’s worth of SLR Better-Camera.

It turns out that no matter what any smooth salesman says, vibration reduction comes in rather handy, unless you actually LIKE toting a tripod around to capture those special moments. Or drink less coffee than I.

Oh, and it’s an hour’s drive away, because the local shop is all out of stock now.

Plus, also, and waah, an hour’s drive away with twins who have no appreciation for quality in cameras beyond the taste of the case OR much love for being imprisoned in a pusher when surrounded by a fun shop full of delectable breakables (expensive ones, the best kind).

At least I didn’t ask the salesman for the ‘strongest’ camera, unlike another befuddled type who also does not know her F-stop from her ISO-hole.

Who am I kidding, educate me, please? Just how do I use something that is worth more money than my entire wardrobe properly?

If experiments with my current disaster of a camera are to be trusted, ‘automatic’ does not work nearly as well as it does in a car.

Ouch.

Two things.

Oh wise Internet-at-large,

Today I am knackered on accounts of a heady combination of soothing wailing overtired banshee twins to sleep rather later than is their wont and also 5am sparrow’s fart awakening courtesy of that silly thing the earth insists on doing with regards to tilting a bit. At THIS time of year in the southern hemisphere it gets light fecking early indeed.

Very fecking early. You can trust my confidence on this one.

A certain wailing (Naan) pissed-off  banshee (Naan) who shall not be named (Naan) to protect the innocent (Saag), is particularly good at 5am ‘I see photons in very small amounts!’ awakenings.

Vocal ones.

Anyway, I am tired but I have questions, in plural for you.

A: If you take twins for a dip in the pool (don’t worry, with serious amounts of responsible adult help, since they can only swim about three feet straight down thus far and aren’t cognizant of that fact), and they love it so much you feel like you are trying to hold a wiggling sack of cats in your arms, is it wrong to barely be able to suppress the urge to let aforementioned turbocharged toddler (with sharp nails and unnerving ability to give one a heck of a nipple cripple) loose when your left breast becomes an unexpected public zone of white-hot pain?

You know, because you’re not quite sure, deep down, that the blasted child wouldn’t leave friction burns on top of the water from the speed at which they would create a small religious miracle of ambulation?

Also, my left breast now sports an areola twice as long as the right and half of the swimming pool has seen it at, um, full length.

So uncomfortable, literally and figuratively speaking.

B: If certain not-to-be-named (Naan) pissed-off banshees (Naan) also screech blue bloody murder when I remove their new what-did-I-do-to-make-the-giver-hate-me-so Percussion Drum Kit Christmas present on accounts of splitting headache threatening to actually succeed in dividing my cranium into two halves, is it wrong to wonder where the kid hides her volume control?

Or put her on mute?

C: If an anonymous twin (Naan) also gets into such a screaming snit at being denied custody of my mobile phone that she pushes me away in fury, and chooses instead to scream solidly at the wall from a distance of only two very cranky inches for thirty ear-splitting minutes, should I not laugh when she also stomps her feet?

She didn’t seem to think that I was giving her the proper degree of respect, and I’d hate to be getting this parenting thing all wrong or anything.

Feedback gratefully appreciated. How should I be raising these little buggers? I’m all out of ideas.

PS. I know. It’s not really two of anything because it’s probably thee, but the title sounded good so I’m sticking with it.

Hotmail.

I have a love-hate affair with my Hotmail account, really I do.

I love, love, LOVE that, despite the fifty-bazillion human beings on this planet with Internet access, I have my own name.

My OWN name.

Without any irritating letters from the arse end of the alphabet to fill it out OR more numbers tacked on the end than my last university student ID to make it unique.

It’s just my name and remarkably simple and useful for that very reason.

Really, it’s wierd because those of you who know me from other walks of life would also know that I have a fairly standard celtic-derived surname, albeit with a bit of mid-70′s trend first name Heinz. You know, to put it another way, I am the common-as-muck resultant  ’bitzer’ offspring of a (heh I can say this without swearing) bitch dallying with the willy of some trendy mutt derived from 57 varieties.

A bitzer with a name that screams ‘You were born before the ’80′s, weren’t you?’, just in case my saggy arse, wrinkles and loss of cheek fat pads did not already make that crystal clear. I am really going to be a very bony old duck some day, but I plan to be one who breaks her hip in STYLE at least. Possibly like the patient I had once who did it at the grand old age of ninety shagging.

Anyway.

My name is not unusual, and yet Hotmail had it free for the asking.

Clearly, the microsecond I got married, I asked, and I duly received.

But I’m starting to get a bit, well, narked by all the ‘hello, friend!’ shite that keeps hitting my inbox, propagating itself to all my mates, professional contacts and other randoms unfortunate enough to be in my address book, and then departing in a merry haze of misspelt Chinese Electronics.

Sigh.

Fark off, hotmail.

Sort it out, please.

At the very least if you are not going to stop the annoying little shits, could you insist your spammers hit ‘spellcheck’ before sending?

This is the third time in a month I’ve copped this crap and I’m kind of over the sweet-but-confused replies from those who really think they should click on that link for rip-off whatever stereos.

Love,

Geohde who has also had a rather trying shift in a trauma unit this weekend where she learned that some people really are just stupid and piss off people with spades and screwdrivers more than once in a lifetime (to their detriment) AND nearly got kicked in the head by some fool who rode their motorcycle into a wall accidentally-on-purpose as you do when your girlfriend of five minutes tells you to shove it.

My reply is as follows, A: This, along with torching yourself or shooting half your face off is a crap way to commit suicide, email me for much more effective ones (hint Opioids, Big Fat Doses and Insulin Similarly Gigantic all at once) and B: Post traumatic amnesia (PTA) should be renamed ‘PITA’. I just don’t want to see you fiddle with your willy OR your poop before you try to kick me in the head.

Drive safely over the holidays everybody.

Repost.

Or, possibly riposte?

Yes, I know it’s lazy of me to ‘borrow’ and recycle the post I wrote for the cross-pollination effort a while back.

Yes, you may tell me I cannot have ice-cream for dessert today, and I shall not argue or whine too much about it. Mostly because I am officially the fattest a chicken-legged stick insect can get right now and in the only slightly-unfortunately-cushingoid place I really gain weight, to boot, my abdomen.

I am a striae ravaged olive on a damn stick. Okay, two sticks.

To abuse some more food analogies since I have started in that theme, nothing says ‘sexy’ like having a beer gut right underneath your saggy fried eggs. 

I think I’m hungry.

Anyway.

I am most pissed about it (although you will note NOT pissed enough to refrain from filling my cake hole as frequently as is my wont) and things are looking increasingly grim for the strangers who will probably start rubbing my belly in the supermarket any day now.

However, it is coming up to Christmas, my cupboard is positively bulging with an orgy of food which I plan to unleash on my unwary extended family in one big, indulgent, sugar and fat laden (to disguise the fact that I can arrange food quite well and my presentation is positively impeccable, but regrettably I cannot actually cook as such) feast in, eep-must-buy-sharding-presents, less than a week now.

Feck it, waists are overrated, yes?

Anyway, without further ado, here is my old-is-the-new-NEW post. Please don’t hate me too much for being so slack. If it helps I also have a driver’s licence photo to endure, a dental visit overdue and I need to get a quote for home insurance. I am already suffering enough.

Boobs. They’re not always just for men’s magazines, after all.

Today I am positively itching to share a fact.

It turns out that breasts also make this stuff called milk.

Okay, so mostly. In an ideal world, they’d all swap from ‘Ralph front-page cleavage with big blue veins on’ to ‘moo’ the very moment we gave birth, but in the real world it doesn’t always go quite like that.

We all know that ‘breast is best’. We all hear the mantra. Almost every single one of us who is fortunate enough to become a parent, especially after infertility wants their body to do SOMETHING right. For many of us, our cans co-operate.

But that isn’t the end of the story.

Breastfeeding rates don’t lie. While 90ish percent leave hospital ‘breastfeeding’ (a fact I question in these heady days of discharging women before milk has even come in), by the time a baby is six months old it’s less than half.

So what happens? Why aren’t we all blissfully gazing into a happy baby’s nuzzling face while our perfectly un-bleeding nipples produce the goods?

Are so many of us lazy? Bad mothers?

I would disagree.

It is true that some of us just can’t, and even the most militant Booby types concede that number is about one in twenty. I had the dubious honour of becoming one of that number.

But again, the rates say it all. Plenty more of us stop and I refuse to believe it’s because we’re all lazy cows who want their tits back in something that doesn’t unfasten itself in the supermarket and show your breast pad to half of the queue in front of you before you correct the problem.

If you’re reading this and you had an easy transition to breastfeeding, you don’t know how lucky you are. It’s so loaded emotionally and hard for us flunkers to discuss with you.

Society is on your side.

Put simply, usually it doesn’t come easy. It’s NOT natural or instinctive. Often, it’s damn hard at best. Even worse, many of us have never seen it done before we’re expected to know all about a ‘good latch’, or a ‘football hold’ by simple virtue of creating life. Breastfeeding isn’t something we talk about in more than vague generalities and so it’s no wonder that so many women aren’t aware the baby ISN’T meant to chomp down on the nipple until you’re cracked and bleeding.

All of that aside, all of us do the best we can for our babies and we damn well try. But at the end of the day when your nipples are bleeding, you’ve got mastitis AGAIN, you’re borderline bleeping psychotic after four weeks on two hours sleep because you can’t let down for the pump to get a break and you think you might want to throw your baby rather than let them take to your sensitive bits with their oral cheesegrater in two hours time, sometimes enough is enough.

And that’s okay. Really, it’s understandable. You are not bad, evil or a failure.

Let’s be honest. Really honest. No matter what anybody says about muss, fuss and equipment, bottle feeding has its place.

And sometimes, do forgive me boob-police for uttering these words, that’s not such a sin.

There, I said it.

It’s not so evil to bottle feed if you have to.

Yes, there are exceptions, and YES, breast is the best if you can, but if your kid has asthma in ten years time and you bottle fed, it doesn’t mean you should flagellate your tits for failing you. They probably would have got it anyway, and life isn’t so black and white as the papers would have you believe.

So.

This one goes out to all the flunkers, failures, thrushers, mastitisers, bleeders, biters and plain old exhausteders who want to reclaim ownership of their nipples. This one’s for you.

It’s okay that you stopped.

You tried. End of story.

Don’t beat yourself up about it any more than you have already. Don’t feel you can’t mention your mode of feeding in public for fear of judgement.

Remember.

It isn’t any of their damn business.

Conversely, if you’re one of the fortunate enough to be able to breastfeed and do it well, talk to a sister who could use the tips. demystify. Explain.

HELP. There are plenty of women who could use it.

But.

Don’t be an ass, either. Plenty of us make the mistake that simple information means everything will work- I have degrees that taught me clever things about prolactin, lactiferous ducts and oxytocin. I could bore for my nation on lactation (when I’m not spending my time merely rhyming badly). My boobs didn’t get the memo.

Just understand that you were one of the lucky ones. Be gentle.

And remember, the next time you see a woman using the dreaded formula-word, any negative comment you might have, no matter how pointed, well there isn’t a damn thing you could say to her that that woman probably hasn’t said to herself already.

You can’t make her feel any worse than she already does.

Every mother does the best she can for her children with the resources she had at the time. End of debate.

Peace out, world.

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Perhaps next time I shall share my lightbulb moment male training approach to sharing the load of boring household chores more evenly. Hint, men think something else is better than chocolate and will go to some impressive lengths to get it.

Out of curiosity.

I have a question for you all. Purely out of curiosity, you understand, Internet. You don’t have to tell me the truth or anything. In fact, when I explain what it is I want to know, you’ll all probably deny that it was you or that you had a reason for clicking in the first place.

So.

Humour a woman who has run out of blogs to read, emails to send, tasks to do and doesn’t want to hang the washing out because it is fecking blowtorch-to-the-face hot and windy outside today, will you?

I just have this nagging question for all of you and since naptime (the children’s and not mine, let me make it clear, although I could sorely use one today) has slumbered on somewhat unexpectedly into the third hour (otherwise known as ‘Extra time’), I now have a spare moment of procrastination available.

Despite some awake sounding window banging with a certain unfortunate dolly about half an hour ago, things have settled down in the  darker-than-a-coalminer’s-armpit-cardboard-lined-window Fart-Aroma’ed TwinCave, and I cannot bring myself to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.

For all I know, the little buggers have figured out calculus, physics, escaped from their cribs and hitchhiked to the local pub for a light bevvy.

Anyway, because all this naptime bragging means I am almost certain to A: hear a ‘Waaaahahahahahah!’ of consciousness very soon and B: cop many more yowls and whines of the haven’t-eaten-in-some-hours equally shortly, I suspect I shall henceforth be fully occupied acting as chief chef in the twin household with aforementioned cranky twins attached limpet-fashion to each leg. Needless to say, I won’t be blogging any more today, but I would love to read your answers and spit coffee on my monitor when I wake up tomorrow.

Walking will probably also be slower than expected, which neatly solves the laundry problem, too. Nice.

Anyway.

My question is this: when I posted that moderately revolting picture of a giant turd (©Saag 2009), why exactly did so many of you click on the picture?

Even more to the point, when I changed the link to http://whydidyouclickonapoo.com, what I thought was a dead giveaway, really, why did so many of you continue clicking and then say nothing about it at all in the comments section? It was by far the top click on my little corner of the Internet for a while, there.

Is the free-range turd of ’09 (©Saag 2009) something of which we shall now by consensus never speak of again, including reasons for clicking on such an object?

Now, if you will excuse me, I hear a ‘Waah’. Well timed. My legs are required, I believe.

Around the world in 80 blogs.

Alternatively entitled ‘In which I join in on somebody else’s good idea, and hope madly that nobody from my bottom-part of the Antipodean world has had a crack at it before I hit publish’.

Alternatively alternatively entitled ‘Photography clearly not my own for three reasons, namely 1: My camera sucks, 2: So does my Internet connection and it would be quicker to post you all the photos, if indeed I took any. Which I didn’t. 3: These ones are in focus (see point 1)’.

Internet, let me tell you about my home city.

We have giant heads with which to terrify the holy bejeebers out of any four year olds you may be carrying about your person.

Actually, this is allegedly an amusement park, more famously known as one ‘Luna Park’.

So, I live in a city where for the price of admission you too can walk through a giant mouth without fear of dying a suitably giant, carious, halitosis-filled death, although the state of the rides inside may make you wish you had.

Being as the edge of my city ends at this wet stuff called ‘the ocean’ at one part (the other parts being kind-of ringed with these high things we call ‘smog catchers’), we have beaches.

Most of them are fortunately syringe-free and you can fry yourself a delicate shade of lobster red with safety in the hot months. As an added bonus you may take home half the sand in your bum crack, all free of charge.

If you were looking for the wholes, by the way, they’re just down the road from the above beach. You’re welcome.

We have a great place to spend city lunch breaks on sunny days, otherwise known as the Botanic Gardens.

 You actually CAN peacefully enjoy beautiful parkland right on the CBD, if running in circles around the perimeter like all the superfit lumchtime lemmings fails to appeal to YOU as much as it does to me.

Also, on balmy summer evenings you may (for a small fee) enjoy a picnic and watch an outdoor movie, all the while studiously ignoring the young and enthusiastic types shagging of in the foliage.

Whatever takes your fancy.

You can forget where you left your car (after you spent five hours fighting to the death to get the damn space in the first place) in an orgy of shopping in locations too numerous to count.

Our retailers are happy to keep you comfortably poor and in no danger whatsoever of ever actually paying off your massive mortgage for that modest tin shack.

If you ever tire of shopping in a giant concrete can with transparent roof panels in strategic but clock-free locations, then you can instead shop, eat and go to a rather good pub, right on the water’s edge.

Hopefully without having your face ripped off or being blown into the water by ever-present driving wind.

In MY city, you can drive around in a filthy vehicle completely guilt free (and as an added bonus call yourself an environmentalist for being a sloth), since water restrictions mean you’re not meant to be doing it, anyway.

Also, however, take note that one may get stuck on the eternally crowded train network with some people who have taken this view rather too far and have exposed, well-aerated armpits (due to hanging on for grim life to nearest bar, rail, roof panel or other hapless commuter).

Go on, get the obligatory ‘aww’ out of the way before I tell you how a trip to the eastern foothills can land you at a place called Healesville Sanctuary where not only can you pat one of these suckers, but you can also get clawed, widdled on and learn about how they all have the clap, the cheeky things.

 True story.

If you have a car and like windy roads with a gradient that makes mountain goats a tad uncomfortable, then you can visit Mt Dandenong ( a.k.a one of the high bits). For only the cost of the petrol involved, you can get stuck behind the endless parade of old cars with ribbons on the front ferrying the hapless to various bits of Mt Wedding Central.

Also, this is where we stick our TV transmission bits. Pretty.

The End.

Now when are you all coming to visit? It really is quite nice, my city.

Rhymes with ‘witch’.

<confession>

Forgive me, Internet, for I have sinned.

I have willfully and without regard used a certain social networking tool to look up a certain male person from my past life.

Please forgive me, but I was curious.

Damnit, I wanted to know. He may have been a one-off in-sobriety regretted spectacularly bad shag, but oh boy he was cute. Charming. Vaguely debonair, even if I could see clean over the top of his head in heels and he persisted in fiddling with the shift of an automatic car like it was a requisite part of the driving.

Drowningly big brown eyes, as I recall. With accent you understand.

You could just about get a season pass to my fun zone with the right accent and a glass of wine back in the day.

Actually, in retrospect he was probably merely an affected little snit who was borrowing a mate’s fondue pot to look all suave, but what does a twenty year old know of such things? 

So, dear sweet Internet who hopefully shall not judge me overmuch for what I am about to say, is it wrong that I looked him up, worked out who his wife is, looked at HER profile and thought to myself smugly ‘at least I don’t have to chew my own arm off in the mornings?’

I have sinned.

</end confession>

Xpollination, a Mystery Guest Post.

Go on, have a crack in the comments section at working out who my mystery blogger is for today, then click on over and see if you’re correct.

Go here:

….for the masterlist of Pollinators and see if you can work out where everybody is writing today.

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How to Check Your Underpants Compulsively While Puking Your Guts Out….

Or, The Infertile’s Guide to Pregnancy

I am infertile. I am also pregnant. Not quite two months depending on who you ask- my OB says one thing, the U/S tech says another, and my gut –which has never been wrong – says something completely different. I feel fat, and hormonal, and I puke… oh good lord do I puke (and even if I don’t, I have this awful all-day-long constant nausea that makes you actually WANT to puke). Pregnancy is messy, and a lot of the time uncomfortable, but after trying sooooo damn hard- it’s hard to remember that it’s OK to NOT enjoy every moment. I hope at least some of you get a chuckle out of this.

And so- here it is… The Infertile’s Guide to Pregnancy

 1.       Compulsively continue to POAS weeks after your multiple Beta results have come back positive. Analyse each stick until you go completely cross eyed trying to decide if the line got darker or fainter than the last fifteen or so tests- freak out until your early ultrasound appt when you FINALLY get to see the little bean, peanut, tic tac… etc…etc…etc… Pretend to your friends who DON’T get an early U/S that it’s the cat’s ass and recommend they ALL get dildo cammed.

 2.       Develop an OCD complex involving your underpants and the checking of them for any and all bodily fluids. Have a mini-mental-breakdown at work because you’re not sure if you’re leaking amniotic fluid or just peed yourself, even though it’s still too early in your pregnancy to even HAVE amniotic fluid. Double your points if you actually find spotting, or red lint that you THINK, even momentarily, is spotting. You will be dubbed champion of all things pregnancy if you can manage to do this WHILE puking your guts out. Of course, NEVER complaining of the morning sickness from hell- because, omg, how could anyone LOATHE throwing up every half hour when you’re FINALLY PREGNANT???!!!

 3.       Buy every pregnancy guide (the ones you don’t already have) and then shove ANY with the title beginning “What to Expect” up a fertile expecting woman’s arse.

 4.       Reach the milestone of 12 weeks and hesitantly inform friends and family of your pregnancy (if you haven’t already). Pretend like you don’t notice that all of them pretty much know already because you’re no longer walking like you rode a stallion for ten hours a day for the last [insert how long you’ve been TTC here] from either- riding your husband like a stallion for ten hours a day during ovulation, getting 3 cooter cams a week, having a catheter rammed through your cervix, or having other  vicious poky instruments jammed in your lady bits.

 5.       Spend an exorbitant amount of money on maternity clothing because after fertility treatments you’re so bloated that you already look 6 months pregnant, and of course BEING pregnant, you look closer to 8 months… and you’re not even out of the first trimester yet. And just because you CAN DAMMIT!!

 6.       Once you reach the hallowed second trimester- try to relax and fail because your triple screen results came back with a one in 14 billion chance of having a trisomy disorder and because of [pick one of the following]: family history;  advanced maternal age;  your doctor’s daughter just turned 16 and totalled his jag; you agree to have amniocentisis which sucks donkey crack, but you will do almost anything at this point to have some reassurance that everything is ok- and what’s one more needle in your abdomen??

 7.       Continue throwing up throughout the entire second trimester and “smile” because “at least you know you’re still pregnant”. Har har har. Tell this to anyone who will listen- the more often you hear it, the more believable it sounds.

 8.       Reach the third trimester- start freaking out because you never actually thought you would get this far and you haven’t prepared ANYTHING!!! As of right now, if your baby came, he/she’d be sleeping in a drawer in your dresser and wearing your spanx padded with your significant other’s t-shirts for diapers because you haven’t even considered which crib you might consider putting your precious babe in- never MIND the argument for cloth vs. Disposables. Have a nervous breakdown trying to decide between Lamaze and Bradley method classes. Attend both because YOU are SUPERPREGGOWOMAN and going to do everything PERFECT!!! 

 9.       Spend the last three weeks in a complete and utter panic because you have to plan, purchase, and execute “BABY ROOM OF THE CENTURY!!!!” Cry when you reach two weeks overdue and have to be induced- because for the love of all that’s holy- won’t this child just COME OUT ALREADY!!!??? 

 10.   Feel guilt for the rest of your natural life for ever wanting a child because you are certain that no matter what you do you are going to fuck them up royally anyhow. Forget college- start saving now for therapy.

 The end

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So, who is it?

Have a guess and then click on over.

Click the button or go to the post below to keep playing along.

Xpol 09.

The time has come, the Walrus said, to speak of many things.

Only THIS time I don’t think cabbages and Kings are involved at any point and I am in danger of becoming a little obscure.

Okay, so it’s not the 9th EVERYWHERE yet, on accounts of the earth would have to be rather differently shaped for that to happen and we’d all become rather briefly terminally unwell astronauts with little interest in cross-pollinating, but nevertheless it is the 9th where I am and thus here is the big list of participants.

I shall also copy and paste the same list on the mater page for the Xpol, so that button clickers get to the correct information to play along at home.

So, get clicking, read and try and work out who cross-posted with who.

The Lovely Ladies of Sans:

1. May http://nutsinmay.wordpress.com/
2. Michele http://bakingacookie.blogspot.com
3. Perchance to Dream http://perchancetodream.wordpress.com/
4. Dee www.wheresmy2lines.wordpress.com
5. Samcy http://theclam.wordpress.com
6. Lin http://oursomedayfamily.blogspot.com
7. Anna http://www.agardenforbutterflies.blogspot.com
8. Jenn http://lovemarriagewheresthebabycarriage.blogspot.com/
9. Miriam  http://hannahweptsarahlaughed.blogspot.com
10. Jendeis http://sellcrazysomeplaceelse.blogspot.com
11. Jill http://www.jillsboringlife.blogspot.com
12. Mrs Spit http://mrsspitspouts.blogspot.com/
13. Also a Pollinated Honourable Mention goes to http://semi-fertile.blogspot.com, the unlucky last under the wire for whom I did not find a match in time. Go say hello, anyway, will you?

The Avec’ers:

1. Sarah http://www.dreamsandfalsealarms.typepad.com
2. Everydaystranger http://www.everydaystranger.net
3. Betty M  http://www.highlandhardrain.blogspot.com
4. Thecancadianduck http://theexpectantduck.wordpress.com
5. Katie http://www.takingthestatisticalbullet.blogspot.com
6. Korechronicles http://www.korechronicles.wordpress.com
7. Kimbosue http://raisingmiles.wordpress.com
8. Calliope  http://creatingmotherhood.com
9. Mrs Spock http://www.mrsspock.blogspot.com
10. JENinMICH http://www.jeninmich.blogspot.com
11. Stacie http://stacie-heeeeerestorkeystorkey.blogspot.com/
12. Yo-yo Mama http://knockuout.wordpress.com
13. JJ http://reproductivejeans.blogspot.com
14. Thalia http://www.thalia.typepad.com
15. Rosie http://anxiousmummyto3.blogspot.com
16. Lollipop Goldstein http://stirrup-queens.com
17. Searching for Serenity http://www.seeksserenity.blogspot.com
18. Potty Mouth Mommy http://pottymouthmommy.wordpress.com
19. K  http://romancingthestork.blogspot.com
20. Geohde http://missionimpossibleinfertile.wordpress.com
21. HerewegoaJen  http://jenniferelaineg.blogspot.com
22. Lavander Luz http://weebleswobblog.com
23. A http://xj2608.blogspot.com
24. Rachel http://longdistanceinfertility.blogspot.com

 

Thank you all so gibberishly gratefully much for making this possible and come back in twelve-ish months, you hear?

Now I’m off to post MY mystery blogger….

Cleanliness is next to something, right?

Dear Internet,

I have a multiple-guess exam for you all today, but do not fret if you haven’t done your homework lately. I don’t think it’s all that difficult, just between you, me and the rest of the world.

Here goes.

When one and ONLY one of your two sixteen-month old balls of energy goes strangely silent for five minutes (generally they get about a five minute head start since I’m rather slow on the ‘I can see them, I can see them, I can see ONE, I can still only see ONE, Fuuuukkk!’  uptake) do you look frantically:

A: In the laundry, because now all of your to-be-dealt-with-later pile of dirty sicked-up on and pee-stained washing will now be gaily mixed in grimy floor-covering harmony with the clean stuff that had made it only far enough off the line to be inside but not yet put away?

B: In the bathroom, because you know the little bugger will be happily chewing certain packets and playing with the newly freed frisky little mice with strings, as horrifyingly enough tampons hold a fascination which you have failed as yet to delicately trample to shreds, mostly on the grounds that having a conversation about the joys of womanhood is something you were hoping to have a least another decade to gear up for? Alternatively, as a possible bonus option, kiss goodbye to your high heels down the toilet.

C: Chewing a piece of fossilised possibly-crumpet with every sign of enjoyment while mournfully inverting a bottle above their head (contents now solidified and nameless) in the hopes that eventually some of the yoghurt-y remains will escape into aforementioned crumpet-hole?

Actually, I lie. Try D: All of the above, in the last 72 hours.

Please do not judge me, for I have twins.

Also, no, clearly I do not bend over and check things out from Indian Takeaway height nearly often enough, either. There was another fermenting bottle and some more crumpety goodness under my bed when I investigated further.

Now do reassure a rapidly ageing lady with children who clearly have zero tastebuds, negative amounts of common sense, teflon digestive tracts and the vulnerability to infection of lead blocks that you’re all locked and loaded to cross-pollinate, yes?

Next up is the big list of participants.

Things I now know about toddlers.

…but wish I didn’t.

Alternatively entitled ‘Potty training and other Kid Tricks: The things they do not tell you, a helpful primer on how to get excreta where it rightfully belongs’.

Is now the time?

Or can you put it, and the risk to your carpets, off until later?

Children vary widely. Fear of the unknown can make even the owners of washable plastic floors hesitate, but if you wait until they’re in high-school, not only have you missed your mark, but you’re spending a veritable fortune in diapers to cover arses that big. One has to take the leap sooner or later.

Generally speaking it helps if your Infant 1.0 module is mobile and has their very own identifiable potty dance* (or word). If they’re showing awareness that they KNOW they’re about to kack their dacks (for random example by pulling of their own nappy and taking a healthy dump in the middle of your neighbour’s driveway), take the initiative.

*No, The Macarena is too complicated. So is the Bus Stop. Think simpler.

Will they sit on the damn thing?

If your infant runs off in screaming hysterics every time you try and callously whip their duds off and sit them on a bit of cold plastic, try a bit of gentle introduction.

Give it a name than you plan to use. ‘Potty’ is evergreen and rather popular, ‘Bertha’ not so much.

While it isn’t a good idea to use it as a water bowl until the fear response abates, having the thing generally hanging out with the family probably isn’t a bad idea.

Naan now talks to ours, although since I can’t understand her most of the time and I live with her, history must remain silent as to what she’s discussing.

Try often.

Post mealtimes are usually a good option, because, well, food in equals food out. Often not all that far apart in temporal terms.

Sit your spawn down, and wait as long as you can get away with. Puppets help. You don’t need a Punch and Judy show. Kids aren’t critical.

You’re looking on associating Item A with Action B, so have patience, modern sanitation was not built in a day.

Enrol cheerleaders.

If they DO produce the goods, have a small party in your bathroom. Dance. Whoop. Hip-hip-Hooray. Generally show how fecking happy you are to have one less poop on your watch and one more heading off into the sunset to float it out into retirement at your municipal sanitation facility.

LS and I conducted a very small but exceedingly enthusiastic Mexican Wave in our toilet the first time Saag got it right. She was delighted.

Reward the heck out of the little buggers.

Small children are easily bribed. I find a small square of toilet paper is more revered than a comically oversized novelty cheque for a house around these parts.

Also, it’s more repeatable and vaguely related to the task at hand.

Have a clean-up plan.

Keep a packet of baby wipes near your choice receptacle.

Toilet paper SOUNDS like a good idea until you’re tried to clean a wiggly child’s poopy bottom with half a roll of it and only succeeded on getting lumps of wet, shitty paper stuck to your calf and other undesirable anatomical locations.

Also, if they’re older, ask ‘em to show you how they can touch their toes. Not only will this reinforce just how inflexible YOU have become with age, but you’ll get a birds eye view of the target clean-up zone.

Other stuff.

For every thrilling high of hearing the sweet tinkle of urine on porcelain, you will have the crushing low of pooh in your loungeroom. It takes time and patience, and yes, in the short term it is considerably more pissing about (no pun intended) than just dealing with nappies.

Also, if like a certain child of mine, your spawn knows enough to anticipate bowel-action, quite reasonably enough doesn’t like to sit in their own productions and knows full well how nappy fasteners work, expect a lot of puppy like mistakes.

Rubbing their nose in it doesn’t work for kids, either.

But you are allowed to be sorely tempted when they take a fancy to crapping in the bath and coating their sibling in a fine coat of nature’s finest.

Wish me luck, I think I’ll need it.

Serious Xpol Business.

…or not all that serious as it turns out, don’t fret dear Internet.

I would just like to let you all know that I have emailed everybody who had signed up as of about twelve hours ago .

Okay, about twelve-ish plus or minus a bit hours in my timezone, which is GMT + some number I forget. It was morning here if that helps, at least I hope it was, because the babies and I got up and spent an invigorating half an hour working out who has superior keyboard bashing skills before I bribed them with porridge dense enough to glue them to the floor after consumption and generally got on with it.

Yes, the predictable result was exceedingly fibre filled Turdus Giganticus Multipilus, yet again.

You see the sacrifices I make on your behalf, Internet?

Anyway, could you all be good ladies and/or gents and check your inboxes and say ‘hi’ to your matchee?

If that fails, try your spam filter, and then try ME. I’ll get back to you in about 12 porridge-y hours. Give or take.

For those of you who signed up under the wire of my mouseclick, never fear, I shall do my best to find you a match and then ship your details on. Watch this space. Actually, on that note, I could do with a lovely lady or gent of ‘sans’ to pipe up and sign on.

In other matters that relate to a word that rhymes with ‘carriage’ a certain person now seems to be deleting all of their messages on a regular basis.

Is this A: Bad, B: Very Bad, or C: I’ve been sprung?

Inquiring minds, etc etc.