Hair we go again

Oh, geez, I hope K does not touch those buttons!

Me, I'm just at home and thinking about my hair. So what else is new. I've been thinking about it pretty incessantly for the last few decades months. Basically since I started losing my pregnancy hair. But finally I've booked a haircut. I've been putting this off because I literally do not have enough money to pay for a haircut and also because I didn't know what I wanted to do to my hair. But I've just decided not to eat for the next month so I can afford a haircut and this way I get a hot new body as well as new hair. (Just jokes. Don't starve yourself for a hot new body!! Obviously I'm going to eat but I just won't buy my coffee or something.)

I've also made some admissions to myself about my hair (and myself). Most significantly:

• My hair is so dry and frizzy, if I don't do something about it stat I'm going to descend into a spiral of self loathing. 
• A long bob actually looks shit on me and nothing like it does in my imagination, which is like this:

They say admitting you have a problem is the first step, but I feel like I've done nothing but admit I have a hair problem for the last 10 years. I guess life really is cyclical, I learn something, act on it, forget it. I guess maybe I just need to get a proper job so that I can afford haircuts and then go and get them regularly. Lesson learnt! (See you in 6 months when I've forgotten this lesson again.)

Lessons learned (AM)

Ugh. Yesterday I was jus feeling flat. You know those days. I have a bit of  a cold and I have all this annoying work to do, not just normal work but annoying. And all this stuff in my near future I need to sort out. And a dirty house. So I thought I'd ask the Internet how to make this day better. And do you know what it showed me? A bunch of stupid memes. It just made my day worse. There was a bunch of cute puppies and dumb jokes and although I love puppies the way they were memes just annoyed me. Them and all the stupid unfunny annoying stuff turned into just made my day feel worse. Except for this.

Which made me go "Ha," and then move on. It wasn't really that beneficial to my day. I guess I was hoping for some advice from the Internet not a bunch of memes. Fucking memes. It's like the Internet gave the go ahead for everyone to make their own "Just hang in there" posters.

But I guess if I want my day to get better IRL I need to do something about it IRL, not just look to the Internet to solve my problems.

And I have to say that the IRL solutions were much better than what the Internet had to offer. I got a bunch of work done and cleaned the house to a reasonable extent and Baby came home from a two-day sleepover at my Mum and Dad's house and by the end of the day I was feeling ok. And to top it off the Internet came good in the evening when I saw this on Instagram:

• "theroyalfamilyA flotilla of traditional Thames rowing skiffs, manned by Swan Uppers in scarlet rowing shirts and headed by The Queen’s Swan Marker, wearing a hat with a white swan’s feather, row their way steadily up the Thames. ‘All up!’ they cry as a family of swans and cygnets is spotted, and the Swan Uppers carefully position their boats around the swans, lift them from the water and check their health. The Queen's Swan Marker’s iconic five-day journey upriver has been an annual ceremony for hundreds of years, and today it has two clear goals: conservation and education."

  
  
  Isn't that adorable?! I know I'm meant to be down on the monarchy but there is a lot of charm there. I wonder how the Queen voted in the Brexit referendum...oh, I just read that she isn't even allowed to vote because she has to remain politically neutral. 
  
  
  So I guess I learned an important lesson today, cygnets are adorable! Just jokes, I learned that the Internet can't fix everything, which is important to remember. 
  
  

Aaaaaarghhhh (AM)

It was LB's birthday yesterday. And what better way to celebrate than take the day off work and just relax. So that is exactly what I did. LB didn't. He went to work as usual. He has an exam today so he wasn't really in the mood or position to celebrate. Me, I just felt like I needed a day to take care of some shit.

Last Wednesday I had a really annoying day at work, compounded by the fact that I had all these extra things to do: call a lawyer, call a bank, post some letters, clean the house, do a bunch of freelance work I've committed to doing, go to the city to buy some shu uemura face wash, get some blood tests, repot some plants, massively clean and overhaul the backyard, do all the serious house cleaning things like clean windows and pantry and a million more things, think of a birthday present for LB, be a loving and present mother to my children.

Frankly it was too much. And on top of that I've developed a twitch in my eye which periodically reminds me that I'm quite stressed. Just in case my brain decides to forget about the stress momentarily my body will remind me. Thanks body.  So I decided I'd take yesterday off work to get a jump on things. I felt really effing good about my decision. But then the list of things I wanted to do with my day off became unmanageable. The vital things included: getting my shu uemura face wash (yes, I could buy it online but why would I want to pay shipping for a product I could buy so close to my house?!?), cleaning the house, make dinner while everyone was out, freelance work, enjoy a coffee by myself. Then the list started growing: do serious house cleaning of all the second tier jobs, get a manicure or maybe a facial something real nice like that, a spot of shopping would be nice, get the blood test, get my legs waxed, my eyebrows done.

The list got so out of hand it became as stressful as my everyday life, it became practically paralysing. I started trying to plan my day but I found it impossible to prioritise the boring stuff like cleaning and work over the nice stuff like shopping and grooming, but because I knew that the boring stuff would help make my life overall better I couldn't really commit to just doing the nice stuff so basically I just ended up doing a half arsed version of everything. I looked in a few shops, I finally bought my face wash and I got my legs waxed too. And my eyebrows done. I cleaned the house in a regular way, but didn't even get around to doing the bedrooms. I still didn't get all the freelance work done and the garden is a mess, but all of my boring phone calls have been made. I don't know when I will ever get a blood test.

Apparently I am fucking rubbish at being an adult and actually need to dedicate my working week just to doing the things that constitute functioning as a human in this modern world. So just when I thought I was alright at it, turns out I'm not.

Oh well. At least I got to include a picture of Leonardo in this post. Why? Because it's (half) my blog I'll do whatever the hell I want!!! Just jokes, because it was his birthday yesterday too (or today, given timezone differences) and I thought we should celebrate by remembering a simpler time when all I had to worry about was movies and unrequited crushes. Sigh.

What I have learned about having babies (The next day)

Yesterday, J posted about the things she has learned about having babies. Then I posted about how I am struggling to manage my time while on maternity leave.
Now I should really talk about what I have learned about having babies. But the truth is, everything I have learned about having babies has led me to form the view that I will never, ever, ever be prepared for having a baby. J said as much. Everyone says as much. So apart from following some useful tips I've received that relate to things like lighting, music and the timing of episiotomy, I'm basically just going to wing it.
Last night someone told me that giving birth is a real out of body experience, though not so out of body that you're removed from the pain. No sirree. It made me think about the time I went to see Batman, the original Batman, at the movies when I was about 8 or 9 and I had the beginnings of gastro but pretended I was fine because I really wanted to see Batman.

I was in a very strange place watching that film and it was certainly the closest I've had to an out of body experience. My memories of it are that it's pretty psychedelic, but I don't think that's right. I know enough to know that having a baby probably won't be like watching Batman. But mostly I'm just excited to find out.

What I have learned about having babies (AM)

As K approaches her due date we've been talking about having babies. Mainly about birth. Sometimes there is criticism in the world about how much focus there is on labour given it is only one day and motherhood is for life and blah blah blah. But to those critics I say eff the hell off. Labour is hard and horrible and I'm sure that preparing for it helps. But having said that it really is so full on you can't really get it until your in it. At least that is what I found. But when I had Baby I didn't really have anyone close to me that had already had babies. There was my mum of course, but that was nearly 30 years earlier. I didn't have any close friends that had babies so there was not a lot fresh information. Oh sure I read a bit and I spoke to health professionals but other than that there was not a lot for me.

Childbirth in movies seems so over the top but simultaneously somehow not extreme enough. You certainly can't learn anything from movies. You know, unlike all the real life stuff you can learn from them, like how you will probably end up with Ryan Gosling and also all the bitches you went to school with will lose and you will win and also you will be able to afford really nice clothes and a nice apartment even though you never seem to work. And having babies is the kind of thing that even when you see an accurate representation in a movie you don't know it's accurate until it is happening to you.

For example, the most accurate representation of the early days of motherhood is that scene in Raising Arizona when Nicholas Cage first steals the baby and Holly Hunter just starts sobbing and repeating "I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!"

That is basically exactly what having a baby is like. It was for me anyway. But that's not really helpful is it? Though perhaps if you're expecting that feeling you won't feel so confronted by it.

I was in a public hospital when I had Baby, so less than 48 hours after he was born I was sent home with my baby having been shown how to bath him and told to ensure that his penis was always pointing down and the frills of his nappy pulled out so as to avoid leakage. It seemed pretty crazy and irresponsible of the hospital that they would let me take a tiny human home with so little knowledge to keep us both alive and happy, but I guess they do it every day and must have a pretty reasonable success rate. We're all alive and pretty happy, so I guess the hospital know what they are doing.

If in doubt there is always Wikipedia's parenting page.

I need to wee (AM)

I've heard new mothers say all kinds of things that "no one told them before they had babies". 

"No one talks about how you crap during labour," they say. To which I say, you clearly do not know my in-laws. 

"No one tells you how hard it is," they say. To which I say, are you fucking kidding me?! Everyone tells you how hard it is. They tell you that all the time. Your ears were closed.  

But why don't they complain about the real things no one actually tells you. Seriously, no one ever tells you you'll need to wee all the time. And I'm not talking about some post pregnancy prolapsed pelvic floor situation, I'm just talking about never getting the goddam chance to go to the goddamn toilet. Exercise your pelvic floor muscle they tell you after you have a baby. My whole life is a pelvic floor exercise. Pick up toys, attend to some child's need, attend to more child's need, attend to your own need to not have shit everywhere by picking up the shit strewn everywhere, snap at a child because they're bouncing off you, realise this means you are busting for the dunny, realise you are unable to go to the toilet because there's a crying baby, get swept up in the cycle again until hours later you can finally go to the toilet. I have  a pelvic floor of steel. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I really have to go to the toilet.