any other over 35 first time mums?

[clio]

That pool actually sounds rather awesome, Storm. But then again, anything to do with horses sounds awesome to me.

So, we have a litter box situation/emergency. I originally kept Cleo's litter up here, in my room, but that became psychologically icky so I moved it downstairs next to Morgan's. My intent is to have them eventually share the same box. But this has been complicated by the arrival of this neat, over-sized litter box that is designed to make it really easy to clean. I also got it because the crouching position is really bad for my joint, and OH has been in charge of it and has been doing a piss-poor job. Pun entirely intended. In fact, we have had this conversation so often that I want to throttle him:

Me: I was just downstairs and the litter is disgusting. Can you clean it out, please?
OH: But I just did it yesterday.
Me: But it has to be done every day.
OH: Really? I didn't know.
Me: That has been your answer every time we talk about this. What are you, senile?
OH: Maybe I am. Maybe...I...am...

Anyway, back to the emergency. Now the kitten is entirely confused because first I moved her litter into the basement, and now it's been replaced by this monster of a box. Morgan, in all her dimwittedness, will hopefully figure it out, but I just found Cleo peeing in J's Thomas trains' case. I also saw another, dry stain from earlier on the box. Inside, the trains were swimming in cat pee. So, I don't really know what to do. I could re-fill her old box and leave it next to the monster box, but that defeats the purpose of having the monster box. What would you guys suggest? Let her get used to her old litter being in the basement first and then eventually remove her totally low-tech box?

Huh. I think I just answered my own question. I'm so smartly!

Okay, J is back from the Day Home, where he actually gives Fauziah real kisses on her face. I'm starting to develop a complex. His version of a kiss for us is to walk by us, say "kiss," make a kissy noise, and walk on, without ever stopping and certainly without ever touching us. It's efficient, I guess, and lets J get on with his projects without disrupting the flow, but Fauziah gets real kisses? It's great that he likes/loves her that much, but why her and not us? Though J did the funniest thing when he saw the monster litter box. He asked what it was, I told him, and he said "Kiss litter box!!!" I had to yell "noooooooooo!" to stop him, and then he started to cry.

Man, this litter box is turning out to be more trouble than it's worth...

 

[kosh]

This is an old reply, but your post clio a few pages back was the first one I read - I hope you are feeling better (you do sound better) but if by cold brain you mean your mind playing numb games, then big big
as per your DHs drinking, I would be concerned too, hope you can somehow helphim to snap out of it.

Storm - again your old post from a few pages back describing your and your DHs day..... I had a very similar experience today and im fuming, dont know how you manage...you're pregnant!

I feel bad because id like to know how everyone else is doing etc etc, but I have no energy to read through the thread, sorry
My new job is incredibly demanding and im not coping very well.
Hope to be able to read/post more soon
to all

 

[Claireyb1]

Clio- sending you hugs.
I too am so glad that we have this thread to share and unload without fear or judgement.
I regard you all as friends and often feel quite sad that we cannot all just meet up for coffee and chat in person.
One day perhaps?
Storm- you truly are super mum and super wife!!!
I have to say if he was my husband I think I would be done for GBH or something! Lol you are a saint in my eyes.
Hugs to all.
Xxx

 

[Storm1jet2]

Lol ladies you are funny, I did come home today to find the litter trays completely cleaned and my bed made... And dh was just off nightshift... Perhaps a little guilt kicking in?

L hasn't settled at all tonight, poor pet has a runny nose and bad cough

In other news got my tooth prepared for the crown, I have a temp silver coloured one, I feel like running around shouting 'Ahoy me hearties' pirate style

Yes Clio, 2 litter trays for now, be thankful its 2 we are on 3. Actually I believe the recommend number is one per cat plus one, there is no way I'm having 5!

Kosh my dear, sorry work is hard going and I'm assuming the sleep situation is still less than perfect?

Kitty, wow first birthday coming up, where does the time go?

Right I'm off to try and sleep xx

 

[AngelUK]

I am still here and reading when I can but I have the Health Visitor coming tomorrow morning at 10 and I have been cleaning like mad. It's still a bit of a mess but that is cause I have no space! I have too many things WAAH!!

So just sending special to kosh, I am sorry work is so tough right now. Don't worry if you cannot keep up, just jump in when you have time and tell us how you and G are doing. I do hope that lovely sleep is just around the corner for you and G. Finally!

also to Storm who really IS wonderwoman! I am glad the litter trays have been cleaned cause I was envisaging you using the special gift gloves from your DH's work and bending down and doing it all yourself. Once again!

also to Clio and you already have at least one subscriber to any blog you start, right here. I don't know if you would want to but I am thinking that if you wrote from the perspective of a bipolar mum and how you cope with it all, you would find more readers than you probably think. I do believe that the illness should be talked about more openly (not by you specifically but as a society) and thus have its stupid stigma finally removed. I am not sure if you saw Stephen Fry's documentary about his own sufferings with bipolar? It is incredibly moving and just so honest and wonderful. And as far as I understand, many ppl were very grateful for him to open up about it and sharing, as it is so much more wide spread than most "healthy" ppl realise. But I do understand your DH's reluctance also of having your life laid bare. Some camouflage would definitely be needed I guess.
The main reason why Nick and I aren't married is probably cause of us both being super shy and cringing at the thought of being in the centre of attention. But cause of the nature of my family and my friend Andrea, it is out of the question to just get married without any of them there with us - unless we want to offend them beyond repair. But apart from that I don't want to marry OH for the reasons I have mentioned before.

Kitty wasn't Blake just 5 months old?? Wow time flies! How is feeding going? I hope he is still doing ok and no vomiting? When do you have his next check up? I am sure his paed will be very impressed with how well he is doing.

Borboleta I am glad your DH came to his senses but I must say (and I know this is sexist) that only a man would have thought you wanted to carry little T exclusively for 3 hours and not have made sure that you had time to eat your dessert!

Charlie I am glad your friend is better! My golly how scary to think I smoked like a chimney till conceiving my boys! And she is only a few years older than me. Somehow you never think that this can happen to yourself, even when you know how bad smoking is. I guess at least I never drank alcohol but still. Very very scary!
How was work today? Or did you not have to go today? What days do you work? And I think I missed this but is your Oh working from home that he can watch Sophia when you are on duty?

Sabrina I am glad Finn is doing well in the new room. I don't think children amongst each other at that age mind if one of them has fewer words. Never seems to bother Dominic with Sebastian at any rate. And anyway don't they mostly play parallel at that age and not actually with each other? I think it might be good for F to be challenged a bit more than he would in the babies' room, no? As for the grandmother, well she is a silly ignorant woman!
I hope your tooth will now get better and better. It sounds soo painful what you had to endure you poor thing!

BigLegEmma you are more than welcome to join us and chat away, even if you aren't tempted to hit your DH with a brick. That made me laugh so much! So many of us here have felt like that at one point or another

Claire how are you dear? Are L and your mum ok? I hope you are getting some sleep?

Ok I have the nightshift and Dominic was awake this evening from 8:30 to 10:10. No idea why. He wasn't crying much, just yammering from time to time, the sort he does when he is bored not the anguished one, so we didn't go in. But I am not sure he might not wake again tonight. Apparently he was awake last night for 45 mins from 3:30 onwards (and Nick then got up and played his stupid game till the boys woke at 7:30 so was exhausted all day today). So I better go to bed now so I have a chance to sleep a bit before Dominic might wake and I have to go to the kitchen with the monitor in order not to wake OH.
Will let you know how it went with the HV.
xxx

 

[Borboleta]

Angel: what kind of monitor do you have? We have one that has a camera too so if thiago wakes up we can just turn off the sound and just check on him thru the picture so we don't need to leave the bed .
Hope your visit goes well tomorrow.

Clio: I totally agree with angel and think the idea of having a bipolar mommy telling her experience as a parent is just marvelous .

Charlie: how is your oH doing baby siting S? And how is she doing without you?

Kosh: sorry you are having a hard time at your new job . Hope it gets better. When G and Lucy sleep thru the night we should throw a party down here .

Talking about party and what Claire said maybe one day we should go in online conference call so we could see each other and talk. But it would be more fun to see each other in person. Let's see we have me, Clio, indigo and kitty down here and Claire, kosh, storm, Sabrina, angel, Charlie and Leeze in the UK so I think we are going to have to be the ones that have to fly to see our English/ Irish friends. Fine by me since I would love to visit Europe but you need to give me some time to save money for it .

 

[clio]

Good morning!

Angel and Borboleta--I have considered the bi-polar mom angle, but it would be too hard. I don't even write on here when I'm sick, so I doubt I could manage to share with strangers. And I think it would make me quite sad to write about it. Thinking about it also reminded me that, as I said, I don't write when I'm sick, which means I probably wouldn't be a consistent blogger. But I have read that many bloggers have more than one blog and links on the main one to these other blogs. There I might write about it. But I still wouldn't know what to say.

Angel--I love your new avatar! Sebastian and Dominic's adorableness is...man, I don't even have a word to describe it, they are that adorable!

kosh--I didn't realize that the job was so difficult. I'm so sorry it's making you feel so rotten. Is it the work itself, or your co-workers that are causing the stress? Again,

So OH has some weird plan going on regarding the drinking, and I don't like it. His new self-imposed "allowance" is one bottle of wine, and four beers. How is this drinking less? He claims that it won't get him drunk because his tolerance is too high, and he's right--I can tell when he's even a tiny bit drunk, and he wasn't last night. In fact, I didn't realize how much of a difference the drinking made until last night, when J cried at 12:30 am and OH immediately got up and went to him. For the past number of months, I've been the one who has to either go wake OH to take care of J, or go in to do it myself. All three of us suffer when my sleep is disrupted and I consequently get brain sick. There has never been an instance in the past two years where I've made it through disrupted sleep without consequences. But at least now I have a pretty good argument against an increase in his current allowance. Because I'm pretty sure that allowance is going to go up again. I hate this. Even when I smoked in the evening after J went to bed, I was never so impaired that I couldn't hear J or so befuddled that I made stupid decisions regarding J's "sleep rules," which includes the administration of meds. Hmn... I'm beginning to see some links here that I hadn't considered before.

***
Just had app't with the new p-doc, and he is so much like my beloved one in TO that I wanted to cry with relief. But I'm confused about whether or not he'll take me on. The strange mantra of all of these "talk" p-docs here in Edmonton is that they would "consult" with me and determine what to do, which most have outright said meant, "determine whom they would send me to." But I'm meeting with him again tomorrow, and then he wants to meet with Eric, which is promising. He also knows I saw my old p-doc for 10 years--I finally did the math! 10 years!--and he is friends with him. I had the sense that this gave me a bit of an edge. Maybe. Oh, what do I know...

Okay, feeling a bit raw, so I'm going to go have a rest. Luckily, J is at the Day Home. OH said it was really funny when he dropped him off today. Apparently they've been singing "The Wheels on the Bus" together, and J has known and loved this song for as long as I can remember (we have a wonderful book that went with the song, too). Anyway, OH put him down in the hallway of the Day Home, and J marched right off, past Fauziah, without saying goodbye or hello, yelling "Wheels on the Bus!!! Wheeeeeelsssss ON THE Buuuusssss!!!"

 

[Storm1jet2]

Wow Clio a bottle of wine and 4 beers? A day??? Over here that would be deemed being an alcoholic.. is that really a day??? How much has he been drinking. Perhaps your DH should consider why he needs to drink this amount if it doesn't get him drunk? Sorry if I'm being ignorant but I just don't understand He does realise that regardless of the non drunkness that amount of alcohol is damaging his liver? Or have I got it wrong is it over a longer period than a day?

I hope that things work out with the Dr and the next appt goes well.
Back later, just had to respond to the wine and beer post!

 

[SabrinaKat]

clio - 3/4ths of a bottle for my OH is okay, but anything beyond that, I would consider too much. The beer with the wine? um...not sure about that....(my OH is 6 feet tall and 15 stone, so not a small, skinny bloke either!

It turns out that Finn did not bite the other child, it was a completely different biter (and bitee for Finn) - I don't know any of the particulars of either incident, but it shows that some people jump to conclusions....growl, and NO bitings in creche, but a HUGE one for mommy, that actually broke skin and hurts! oh, well - better me than some 2 year old, I guess, but it didn't help that LO kept hitting the plaster/band-aid on my leg afterwards!

must go as somebody wants milk. I left a message in LO's bath letters 'buy wine 4 pamela', but I don't see any....so milk for LO instead!

bye!

 

[charlie15]

Wow that is a lot of alcohol Clio, is that a daily allowance? What was he drinking before? Good news about your P doc, hope he agrees to see you regularly and that your old P doc can be of some influence.

Kosh sorry you are struggling with your job, is it just an adjustment that will get better with time?

Angel, how did it go today?

Storm what is your countdown to mat leave?

Angel, my OH also works long days so he is with Sophia while I am at work . My shifts are every Wednesday and 1 shift at the weekend, whatever they need me to do, so only twice a week

So today was my first day without seeing Sophia at all the worst thing about my job is the long days, leave the house at 6.30 and home at 8.45, so no Sophia cuddles last weekend when I worked Sophia was fine with OH, but she would not go to sleep at all! When I came home and gave a cuddle she did. Today she didn't nap very well, so zonked out at 6.30. OH is doing well, thanks for asking Borboleta, he did say today that she was very demanding, but he realises that is because he is on his own with her. Today they went and saw my mum, so mum was happy.

Work has been good to me, I have been what they call supernumary, so not in the numbers, just to give me a chance to catch up on all the changes, of which there have been many. But from now onwards I am back for real....first proper shift in charge....Saturday night shift!!

 

[Indigo77]

Clio...agree w Storm...so sorry about the whole thing...I hope he gets help because that's an insane amount of alcohol...

Charlie...sounds difficult...to be away from her for so long....big

SK....ummm....ouch!

Kosh....hoping work gets better for you. Do you hate it? I hope you don't hate it...

everyone!

N has been super clingy & it's exhausting, but he's been extra cute lately, too. He will say 'ho ho ho' if you ask him what Santa says. He holds his belly & everything. & then he'll clap for himself.

Yes, I vote we go to Europe. I'll be in Greece in July...Is that too soon? But, you may regret it, Borboleta. N is already a little lady's man & he may interfere w your intentions for T & L...

 

[clio]

Hence why I'm upset about it. We're dealing with it. Why he's doing it, Storm, is no mystery: he's taking care of a bipolar wife with chronic pain who goes through crisis after crisis and he is often the primary caregiver of a kid who never stops moving or talking, and who triggers his wife's crises. He works on contract for half of his income, and is the sole breadwinner, which causes immense stress as well. It's like having the Sword of Damocles hanging over your head all the time and which threatens to come down every four months. We discussed the beer, and it's now off the table--quite literally.

He says that whoever mentioned cirrhoses of the liver has a fair point, though. It can compete with all of our husbands' lungs, I guess. And while I love you guys, the added stress of having your friends believe your husband is a stumbling, fall-down drunk isn't helpful. He's obviously a high-functioning alcoholic with a high tolerance, like many people I know. It's a problem that, until now, fell to the wayside in the face of more immediate issues and was exacerbated because of those issues.

 

[Storm1jet2]

Clio my dear, please pass on to dh that no one is judging him or thinks in anyway badly of him, he sounds like a wonderful man and its just genuine concern. I know a fair few alcoholics and as you said my own dh is likely to drop of his mortal coil with lung cancer. We all have our issues xxx I would hate your dh to think we were adding extra pressure to the situation! We aren't we just genuinely care about your little family.

I'm trying to get out of bed, I can't, too tired and fat. I actually lost the plot at 1am when L started and stomped into dh and screamed You Deal With Her... He did Oh I can hear dh coughing his lungs up as usual, such a comforting sound... Ok better shift, hope you all have a good day xx

 

[SabrinaKat]

I absolutely DO NOT think that of your OH, clio - and I understand the stress he is under! My OH is similar, so can't be too judgemental, besides you were talking about how it affects YOU! (and we have all been there in similar situations at times, me especially!)

on a short break at work, will write later!

bye!

 

[charlie15]

Clio, no judgment intended, as they say walk a mile in someone else's shoes first then make a judgement! I think your husband has a lot to deal with as you say and he needs to find an outlet and a new coping mechanism or support network of his own I think he sounds pretty amazing! And on a positive note may I say I am glad you have unraveled this now and not 5 years later. Also you also are so self aware and aware of the challenges that your DH is dealing with which is great, too many people put their heads in the sand and don't face these problems head on

 

[Storm1jet2]

Afternoon ladies, mw appointment for me in a few minutes. It's odd because with L I found myself waiting for each appointment and honestly thought I needed a bit more attention, this time I keep forgetting about them and view them as a minor inconvenience! I guess L keeps me so busy I don't have time to think about it!

I have 2 weeks and 1 day left in work and 2 1/2 of those days are annual leave, so 8 1/2 days left! How did that happen???

I went to look at another nursery for L yesterday, a but closer to home, but I just don't know! I don't love it, I don't love her current nursery... It's so hard! I need a childminder I love, but where does one find one of those or to win the lottery so I can leave work... *sigh*

Ok better go and see the mw, blood test and general poking coming up... Bah!

 

[Indigo77]

No judgement, Clio...just concern...I have faith that you will work it out together in time & for the record, from what I know, I think your hubby rocks!

Storm...good luck w the appointment...I hope to see a scan pic! So glad you only have 8.5 days left! Hopefully you'll have an opportunity to relax & prepare for the baby.

I've been naughty I let N open a Xmas present. I just couldn't help myself. My DH is going to take the rest to his office now because he doesn't trust that I'll resist the temptation. I'm actually relieved. Those damned presents have been beckoning me relentlessly.

After reading a few threads elsewhere, I'm curious about everyone's Christmas traditions. The Santa's Grotto section had me convinced I was a Scrooge w gifts & then the toddler section made me think I went overboard. My family & DH's family had very different traditions, so we find ourselves discidsing establishing our own traditions. I told my DH about the advent calendar...it seems like a wonderful tradition.

everyone

 

[Storm1jet2]

Quick update, had ++++ glucose I'm my urine so back tomorrow am for a fasting blood test. Hopefully it was just the junk I ate today, it was my friend in works birthday and all I ate was chocolate!

Indigo I probably won't get another scan, you generally don't get them past 21 weeks here! As for Christmas I've bought so much I'm now donating some to work for underprivileged children, I bought stuff early and then bought even more! Dh is going to die when he sees it all.....

L has a new saying 'No thanks' when you ask if she needs help, although the way she says it it comes out as 'No tanks' its very funny and cute. Tonight she just wants daddy (hurrah) so he's bathing her while my dad and I chill

 

[SabrinaKat]

well....not much here. Day 2 of attempted, but no actual bitings at creche!

I've been mulling over some ideas and am thinking of setting up a web-based site selling some knitted stuff and other unique stuff, but it's just an idea at the moment...to be honest, I just don't have much time at the moment.

LO is screaming his head off and I am exhausted. The terrible twos? the terrible 22- month olds, and 21 month olds, etc. must dash....

aargh!

 

[SabrinaKat]

now OH thinks LO has chicken pox...as there is none at the moment at creche and the three (3) spots are around the nappy area, I'll reserve judgement (meaning: no, I don't think so)...

bye!