Leave Me Alone!

So I'm due to have my second baby in the next week or so. 

It's a lovely time. I've finished up work. We have had a year of disruption with repair work being required on our home and ongoing disputes with electric company as to their responsibility to cover the cost of repair work. The repair work has finally been completed. The work men and their dusty boots have left the building and after an unsettled period of strangers in the house and being shipped out of the house like like the roaming lost its lovely to have the house back to ourselves. 
Joel has the last few weeks in his daycare place and I'm loving the time to potter about the house and have been binge watching The West Wing.  
4 days a week I have Joel to myself and I'm loving enjoying the dwindling time together in the calm before the colicky storm. 
It's lovely to have this time, waiting and appreciating, but you know what's ruining it? 
You. 
You, the general public are ruining my lovely blissful time. 

'You still here?'
Yes I am still HERE.
 In fact I'm not even at my due date yet so I can still be HERE all I like.  
Stop making me feel like I should be in labour. 

Many of you have children and know that it happens in its own good time and I'll cross that painful bridge when it arrives, but until then I will be HERE all I like. 

'Have you tried.....'
Raspberry leaf tea? Pineapple? Bouncing on the birthing ball? Walking up and down the stairs? Sex? Curry? Nipple tweaking? Walking round ikea? Glass of wine? 

Leave me alone.

Plus, the birthing ball is the worst invention in the history of life. If you know me you will be aware that I am the most uncoordinated person that exists. Now imagine that plus a huge bump trying to balance on a big inflatable round object, while bouncing. Yeah.
Plus there's nowhere to store this giant instrument of torture away from the hands of a mischievous toddler. Nowhere.
 

'Exito Wombo, the magic combination presented to me by my hopeful hubby.  Every night.

Touching
My belly is not your property. Now I have a pretty high tolerance for invasions on my personal space. I have a toddler that uses my selected outfit of the day as his personal tissue, always had his hands running through my hair and climbs onto my knee. 
However please don't touch my belly uninvited. Recently lots of people have reached out to touch my bump to see if I've 'dropped yet'. The top of my bump is awful close to my ever expanding boobs.  So things got weird. 

Your bump is neat/big/low/high....'What girl doesn't love her body being scrutinised and commented on on an hourly basis? I don't want to spend money on maternity wear and so I have a very limited wardrobe with which to jazz myself up with in the mornings. We can't all be Kate flippin' Middleton and dainty and glorious at the cusp of motherhood.  

Nope thats not even Kate Middleton, its mee!!!

I'm already feeling pretty self conscious and exposed so commenting on my appearance makes me feel even more silly.You too, husband, 'wow, you're looking really pregnant today' is not a compliment to a hormonal lady. 

Take into account my unreasonable nature and abundance of hormones

Let me spell it out; get out of my way in the supermarket. Make me tea. Do not drive slowly and stupidly infront off my car. Don't park right outside my house forcing me to park down the street and walk for 20 seconds to get to my house. Don't sniff. Don't breath loudly. Don't eat loudly. Don't tell me you're tired. Don't ask me if I've packed my hospital bag, I'll totally do it later. 

Also, someone pack my hospital bag for me please? I can't be bothered, it's so boring and I can't think logically enough to know I'll do it right.
That will not end well. 


Anyways, after that rant let me regain  my inner peace. 
Ahem.
Yes, this really is a lovely time. 

A year in the life of a toddler

So my corner of the Internet has lay dormant for a while. With the demands of work and fixing this house I put my blog on the back burner and just soaked up my family time.  I'm now on maternity leave it appeals to me to get back into blogging and connect with others in similar situations again.

It's been a year or so since my last post and a lovely one full of family milestones. 

Joel has just come out of the terrible twos to become a threenager. These stages are always so negatively labeled making parenting seem like moving from one hellish phase to another. 

 But I have found this a wonderful year!   He found his voice, learnt to express himself through his amazing imagination and developed a distinct personality with ever evolving preferences and dislikes.  

Terrible twos? I disagree, his development has been a joy to watch and to be part of!
Now of course there have been moments when parenting has been tough and there are days of endless whining and pushing the boundaries.
I've tried my best to respectfully parent Joel and offer explanation for limits and discuss his behaviour and feelings with him. I try not to limit him too much and allow him to explore and express himself, feeling listened to.  But there are many days where the only parenting tool I've had to offer is, 'oh, just give over Joel' or recently 'right! I'm phoning santa!!!'.  Shame! 

Even on those challenging days I find it hard to hold my serious parenting face because, quite frankly, even when he's being a wee shit he's still bloody hilarious! 

Joel has had some major events in his wee life over this year. 

He has moved from nappies to pants. A tricky skill to master, and one we are still working on. And when you think you've nailed it? You're wrong. Just ask my husband about a recent shopping trip without wipes which resulted in some improvising with a random sheet of kitchen roll and some left over fruit shoot.

Joel found his voice, with a slow start to talking I began to get concerned.  But apparently Joel was just listening and waiting until he was ready and all of a sudden there was another voice in the house. That kid never shuts up now, from he opens his eyes in the morning he sings his favourite songs, asks questions , constantly narrates his day, tells far fetched imaginative tales and skilfully negotiates biscuits and later bedtimes.  He's pretty cool. 

He has moved from his cosy cot, to mattress in the floor to big boy bed with confidence. 

He has become a big brother, welcoming a baby sister into his life. Now the big kid of the household, he has had to learn the hard lesson that my time is now divided. 

He has left his day nursery as I'm not working but on maternity leave.  He said goodbye to some caregivers that he had grown attached to and who had influenced his development so strongly. He progressed to playschool  making new connections and finding his way in a new territory. I was amazed to watch him take it all in his stride. 

He has developed meaningful relationships with different characters on his life. His granny, who lives only a street away has been a reliable chum in a time of confusion and change since Nuala, his baby sister, arrived 12 weeks ago. At times when I was stuck to the sofa cluster feeding he knew he could look at his granny and not be turned down with the request; 'you play with me granny?'.   Granny, dutifully cast as Zurg,
set off for many adventures with Buzz.  They often share a cup of tea and biscuit together between intense play sessions and share jokes together. In fact he has become quite the social butterfly, developing his own relationships with people important to him, independent and happy enough to go galavanting around houses for sleep overs and hanging out with his cousins. 

However we still have the dummies. I had plans to take them away so many times this year but now with a new baby in the house I am reluctant to mess with anyone's sleep! So dummies are here for the foreseeable future and I'm pretty relaxed about that fact. 

Last Tuesday Joel turned 3. I can't believe it. He's an actual person, a big brother, a part of a playschool class and friendship group, part of the cousins gang.  We have now entered the threenager territory, and although he is continuing to push boundaries and develop plenty of annoying habits, I'm so looking forward to watching this fledgling person grow and develop further. It's that constant internal parenting conflict of wanting to freeze time but revelling in every new stage. 

Terrible twos? Loved it. Bring on the threenager fun!!!