And Just Like That...

... there it was, the emotional meltdown that i knew was coming. That i predicted, 2 weeks ago, was well on its way. To be quite honest, i'm kind of glad it finally happened - i feel lighter for having got so much off my chest.

From here

It started Saturday morning - Mick had to go into work for a while first thing, and ended coming home an hour later than what he had told me. I sat waiting, Flynn alternately playing and whinging that he wanted to get up on my lap, feeling lonely and rejected.
I put on my best happy face so we could go and do the grocery shopping, hoping that if i just acted happy enough i would get myself out of  my funk.
We dropped Flynn to my parents so they we could go on the "date afternoon " that i had been looking forward to for a month. We saw the final Harry Potter movie ( which was entirely awesome, by the way ) and then went home to get changed to go out for dinner. It took me a long time to find outfit that made me feel as sexy as i wanted to feel - in the end i went for something that made me look relatively svelte, though i still didnt have that feeling i wanted so badly to feel.
We at a relatively nice resturant, although their dinner menu was very limited. I order pork belly, hoping it would be a great meal and a change from what i can cook at home. Hoping for something special to match the expectations i had of the night. What i got was two pieces of salty pork and some oily lettuce.
We went home, where i wanted so badly to crawl into bed together, to be intimate, physically and emotionally, to talk and laugh and touch each other without the distraction of a child. Mick wanted to watch a Steven Seagal movie, so i went to bed by myself at 8:45pm .

I woke Sunday in my mood hadnt lifted - it had gotten worse. I had wanted so much from our date night... a break from the demands of mother hood, yes, but also a reconnection with each other that i felt had been missing the last month or so. Preparing for a wedding, and having work stress, and still pining for a friendship that is no more has stolen my focus, and i know that i've been retreating into my thoughts more often that is healthy, and neglecting Mick just a little. ( I dont think he feels that way, thats just how i perceive my own behaviour ). And i dint get anything i wanted, not even a nice meal. I felt completely shattered and utterly exhausted by everything. I couldnt stop the tears rolling slowly down my cheeks while i cooked breakfast, or tried to focus enough to read the Sunday papers. And when we went around to my parents to pick Flynn up and my sister told me to stop whinging ( about my bad night ), i'd had the night off while she played with my son... that was it.

That was enough right there. I froze with my arm reaching up to get a glass out of the cupboard, shut the cupboard door and then walked out of the room, out the front door, hid around the side of the house behind some bushes and burst into tears. There was no denying it this time - those tears and frusturations were coming out, no matter what. My dad found me and told me to come back when i was ready to talk... which was only a half hour later. I waited til Mick took Flynn up to the supermarket and i drove slowly back to my parents house, where they sat with me on the lounge and listened as i poured every.single.worry out, let all the shitty words and hurts and frusturations stream out of me. And my mum hugged me and my dad squeezed my hand and they told me how they had the same worries as a young family, and how they could help me now.

All i can say is thank fuck for parents. The AMAZING parents i have, who support me and hold me up and love me when it seems like there is hardly anyone else who will ( excepting Mick and Flynn, the loves of my life ). Thank the Universe for parents like mine - i feel so much better for being to offload, and so much better for knowing their love...

Mummy Meltdown!

I had me a little mummy meltdown last night. I'm not proud of it, but it happened, and i can admit to it. See, my bubba is still having the " tummy troubles " that i've previously blogged about and the challenges of trying to help him shake it are kind of getting to me.

We went to the specialist paedatrician on Monday who advised that i keep up the breastfeeding, give him water and prune juice after every feed and give him a double dose of medecine everyday. Believe it or not, the medecine part of that menu is the easiest. His medecine is super sweet so all i have to do is measure him out a spoonful, into his mouth and mmmmmmmm - he gulps it down. The breastfeeding and the water/juice part is proving to be a little more difficult. I love breastfeeding and i'm so glad that, despite a few hiccups at the start, Flynn and I stuck with it. Problem is that now, at almost 5 months, my milk is not quite enough for him ( which is why we tried a bit of rice cereal - which has seemingly caused the tummy issues - in the first place ). By early evening the little guy is wanting to feed every hour-ish and, before his bedtime rolls around, my supply runs low. This means a little " Mum, i'm still hungry!! " tantrum, before i can settle him down and get him to sleep.

The other issue is with the water and the prune juice. Two weeks of different medical professionals telling me try prune/carrot/apple/orange juice means that my son has developed a sweet tooth early - which means he's not interested in plain old water. He's also not interested in a bottle anymore. Since having all the different remedies shoved at him, he now HATES the bottle. He starts crying as soon as he sees and if you try and put it in his mouth? Screams! So consequently its either force the bottle in and make him swallow something ( while he screams and cries and splutters ) or, well, nothing.

So last night, i had my moment. My milk had run out, Flynn wouldnt even contemplate the bottle of formula i'd made up for him and Mick decided, after an hour of wailing, that it was time he hit the sack. Which left me with a crying, hungry baby, a supply that couldnt satisfy him, and a major headache. I gave him what i could of my milk and then sat with him on my lap, hoping for sleep. Two and a half hours and another feed later, Flynn was pushing out the zzz's.... and i was pouring out the tears. I felt like a bad mum because i'd gotten so frusturated; like i had the most difficult baby in the world but it was my fault because i should never have tried the rice cereal; like my head was going to explode if i couldnt get some quiet and some sleep soon; and i even felt resentfult towards Mick because he'd crept off to bed instead of staying up and helping me.

But fear not - i've moved past it today. I love both my gorgeous fiance and beautiful son to death, and i know i'm a good mumma. The last five weeks have tested my limits and i've had my crazy moments, but i havent ( yet ) completely cracked. Lets just cross fingers that the blood tests that my little guy had on Monday show up nothing serious and we can get a solution to his " difficulty " soon!

Stop searching the obituaries, i havent died...

Nor have i fallen off the face of the planet, or moved underground to live with the mole people. I merely decided that i needed to take a complete break from blogging, just for a little while, because if i cant escape the confines of my own mind i can at least escape from putting them to print. You would think that getting thoughts and feelings out would do a person some good, would at least get things off my chest, and in some part it does, but it also lets you read and re-read things that perhaps you'd rather not live through again. But never mind that, here i am, alive and sort of well, at least today.

See thing is, just after my last post in december, which was relatively sunny in comparison to the other recent posts, i had a nice little meltdown. Not exactly on a Britney Spears kind of scale, but big enough for me to take notice and need to take a step back. I'm talking a full blown panic attack, crying and thinking ( and hoping ) that i would die; strangely enough, the start of this panic attack happened in front of my parents and younger sister, at their house, which i fled in tears. I drove home, erratically mind you, and tried locking myself in my house in the dark but my mum kept calling and calling and within 20 minutes or so they had turned up at my place, trying to help. And they did a little, in that instance anyway - i still kept crying, stopping and starting, still struggling to draw breath at some points but they managed to calm me down and talk me through what was plaguing me at that particular moment. Apparently my parents are a lot smarter than i thought - they told me they'd noticed that i'm lonely, that my behaviour had been more depressed and nonchalant lately, that a lot of the time it appeared like i really didnt care about anything. They also told me that unfortunately there isnt a lot they can do to help me with the loneliness issues, and any self-esteem or self-worth things i have going on, well, they dont really see where any of it could stem from. They think i'm fantastic. But you're parents are supposed to think that right ?

So there you be - i had my breakdown that, lets face it, we all knew was coming. Nothing much really has come of it, except for a few days afterwards i felt a little lighter because i had managed to get something out. But that feeling of emancipation hasnt exactly lasted long - i've had bad days since then, and have an almost constant feeling of " blah ". By that i mean that i have almost no motivation to do anything, or at least anything important. I havent eaten properly in at least three weeks because i cant bring myself to cook anything ( i've been eating fruit or making toast, or buying takeaway, and yep, i know thats not healthy ).I have a few ideas running around in my head but no drive to make any of it happen. Not that any of the ideas themselves are important on a world scale but they would at least give me something to work on. And the stupid thing is i know that i have no motivation, i'm disgusted by the fact that i would really like to get out and go for a walk, or do 50 sit ups, or even fold my basket of washing, but i have no inner feeling pushing me to do anything other than lie on the lounge and watch the cricket. It makes me sick. It makes me think i need to be back on medication, or in counselling, or at least reaching out to someone and asking for help but i dont want to admit defeat.

The other thing that has come of the shit hitting the fan is that i have decided, after me originally suggesting it jokingly a few months ago and then having my parents bring it up for real, is that my sister is going to move in with me when she gets her drivers licence. I am both happy and apprehensive about this. On the one hand it will mean that i have a room mate, that i wont be coming home to an empty house, and that will be nice. Plus, i'll have better finances because she'll be paying half the rent and bills, so more money is a nice incentive. But on the other hand, my 17 year old sister is almost the complete opposite of me. Dont get me wrong, for siblings we get on really well, i'm not worried about that. What i mean is that she's a beautiful girl, popular, has all the self-confidence in the world, and the people to go along with it. What i'm worried about is her inviting friends over at the weekends, or the new boyfriend she seems to chop and change every month or less, and me looking like the sad older sister who has a sibling for a room-mate because she has nobody else.Of being the sad old spinster who always seem to be sitting around Erin's house, doing nothing, with no-one.I dont want to be that.

And thats it for now. I was thinking i would make a post with my favourite stuff for the year, like movies and music and world events. I've been meaning to do it for a few days now but, strangely, i havent been able to muster up the motivation...