Penny – Week 2

rocking week 2 with no top on – raunchy

I am two weeks old now. It’s pretty sweet.

I went from doing long feeds to taking shorter feeds and having longer sleeps. This freaked my Mum out a little bit, but she should eat a chill cake. I met the community nurse and she said I had grown a centimetre and weighed 3.4kg which is about 300grams more than my birth weight. I went to the doctor a few days later and while I hadn’t put on any more weight, I had grown another whole centimetre which makes me 51cm tall now. My godfather Barthur says that if I keep going at this rate I’ll be 42 metres tall by the time I am 80. I think he is silly but he has a nice scratchy beard so I will let him off this one time.

I’ve had lots of visitors come to meet me at home which is nice (Mum especially likes it when they bring treats). I make a wonderful array of silly noises and faces which keep everyone quite amused. Despite being officially autumn, it is millions of degrees and we don’t have air conditioning in our house, so sometimes I get hot and grumpy and that is why I haven’t been wearing much in the way of clothes this week.

I’m settled into my new home and lots of new things. Generally I hated everything the first time, but second or third time around I realise that things aren’t so bad. Like the stroller, for example – it’s a pretty neat thing and I quite like going for short walks now. I didn’t like my bouncer/rocker much either at first but now I sleep in it all the time. I have been outside in a baby sling too but Mum thinks maybe I’m still a bit too small for it. I had two more baths which I didn’t like at all, but this week I had my first lovely quiet happy bath.

so fresh and so clean!

I love having tummy time with Daddy and my neck muscles are getting nice and strong already! My favourite thing of all though is the gym ball. It is the last resort thing that stops me crying when nothing else will. I also like Daddy’s nappies the best because he gives me a nice rub down with a towel and applies powder to my butt by tapping the bottle in the same way he would put salt on his dinner. I very much enjoy making a second (or even third) mess when I’m halfway through having my nappy changed which keeps the parentals on their toes and also keeps Huggies in business.

bounce time with dad

Backtracking

Happy new year and all that jazz. I know January is nearly over but I’ve only just got back into my own house, my own bed, and the headspace of something resembling everyday life. I did keep a log, old skool style, with a pen and paper, for the last week or so I’ve been away. I just need to add the ‘B’ by adding it all to my web archive. So bear with me.

I still remember how to make a pen work, that’s reassuring

“17/1/13
On another train, shunting me away from my poor sick husband whom I have left fending for himself in bed, and towards my poor sick father who is still in hospital despite being cleared for discharge a few days ago. Such are the frustrations of remote living. The hospital where all his operations have taken place are in the city, a good two hours drive from our local town. So in order for him to be discharged there needs to be an ambulance available to transport him from one hospital to the other. He was supposed to be home three days ago; Mum checked out of the hotel and took all his personal belongings home and now they are both apart, waiting, being frustrated. As Mum doesn’t drive herself, she can’t just jump back in the car to visit him. I am also sans-licence which is bloody helpful (another story for another time). Mum’s been spending the time getting the house better prepared for my ageing Dad – getting a hand-held shower installed, collecting a walking frame for him, organise a high chair for him to use in the lounge as he can no longer pull himself up and out of our low sofa. He is recovering well considering, but the last operation was a big risk and we are lucky he came through it. I feel like a dick for being in stupid old New York the whole time this was going on. I know it has worked out fine but I guess I’m just angry.

So, tear again as I leave Husbandito, both of us silently hoping he hasn’t caught that horrible flu that was conveniently sweeping NYC epidemic-style while we were there, and he sadly shooing me out the door so I don’t catch it. Nine more hours on public transport. I am really, really, really tired of travelling. I keep promising Pon that it’s nearly over. She is so beautifully behaved, unless you count the hula hoops she frequently decides to practice. I know I won’t be able to say the same for my ribs which are already causing me discomfort. This Sydney-Melbourne service never runs to schedule – last time I had the misfortune of being in transit for a stinkin’ 14 hours. I pray that a similar fate doesn’t await us today.

Being back on Australian soil has never been such a welcome relief but on the offchance Pon decides to make an early appearance it’ll be at least 1.5 hours to the nearest labour ward. I know she won’t. But for all the trust I have in her I occasionally feel the guilt of maybe not holding up my end of the bargain. Husbandito says (jokingly) that this statement makes me sound like a hippie.

It’s times like this I mourn for my long miscarried sibling, who would’ve been maybe 27 or 28 years old by now had he made it to term (he was maybe not a he but I have always considered my parents’ lost baby a potential brother). It’s why I’m so determined to have more than one child if it is at all possible. I don’t want Ponyo to feel burdened by being the only one, or the loneliness of it, and I want her to feel supported by family as well as friends. I know that having a sibling is no guarantee that these things will happen, but still, at least it betters the odds. I know I’d like to have had one, growing up, and now more than ever.

Sorry for all the moroseness but the sad is heavy right now.

God I HATE it here. Now waiting in a hot, sticky station room for a bus connection surrounded by overweight folk wreaking of stale cigarette smoke, gnarly toenails on display and unashamedly swearing at each other. I am embarrassed to be from this neck of the so-called woods. I wish I wasn’t a snob about this kind of thing but I can’t help it; I can’t concentrate on my novel while I can smell them sweating in this ungodly heat reading their That’s Life magazines or using their i-whatevers and game consoles without bothering with headphones. If this makes me sound incredibly pompous then so be it. This place depresses me and I always forget just how much until I am once again whiling away unnecessary hours in some soulless rancid Countrylink waiting room.

And I’m still three hours from home, at least, with its blessed air conditioning and a familiar bed. Small mercies.”