I’ve been sharing a lot of coffee posts lately… and you gotta understand, it’s this simple thing that has me looking forward to something, no matter how small it may be to others, lately.
But today’s morning coffee was something else.
You see, when I was pregnant (and for years before that) with baby boy and Hubbie and I would frequent our usual Wednesday brunch spot…
We’d see prams, EVERYWHERE.
Mums and prams, mums and prams. Hubbie would joke they needed more prams there because it wasn’t the most spacious cafe to begin with, and so we said once our baby arrived, we would add ours to the mix too. 🤣❤
So happily, today was the day we returned there, to have our usual Wednesday brunch, and add to the pram club. 🙏
And add to it we did. I squashed the pram between our table and another’s and I even had people get up and move when we got up to leave, so tight the front of house is!
But we were there. We came back.
We did it. We came back with our precious baby boy in tow, and if you’d been privy to all our conversations before I fell pregnant, you’d know how much today meant to us. 🥰❤
You absolutely must do what you can to get by in this sleep-deprived, tear-filled, breast-leaking post-partum period.
And it’s taken me 10 years to say it, but now, incredibly, I will…
I’m getting a little bit addicted to MAFS. 🤦♀️🤣
That’s Married At First Sight to the rest of you, who perhaps like me, have never watched the show due to life busy-ness, not your taste, or in my case ‘are-you-f%$*ing-kidding-me’-itis.
I spend so much of my days on the couch, feeding baby boy, that it comes to reason I’d catch an ep here… or a repeat ep there.
(They play it like, several times a week, it’s hard to miss. 🤔)
I’ve gotten so into certain relationships in recent days, that I caught the midday repeat ep today to catch up on WHAT HAPPENED AT THE DINNER PARTY?
(A lot. A lot happened).
And I actually googled “who did Claire kiss?” just so I could get the low-down on earlier gossip.
I sat on the couch this evening with a sigh. In the background hubbie carried baby boy as he cried, “shh, shh, shushing” away.
It was his turn, edition 2,367 of the ‘why is baby boy crying?’ project.
Baby girl saw my dismay and exhaustion and immediately sprung to action. She sat right beside me and put her arm around my shoulders, giving me a sweet, compassionate smile.
“Don’t be sad Mum. You’re doing a great job.”
I smiled appreciatively back at her, about to reply, but she added…
Plus, I discovered a name for the ailment I’ve had lately… lightning crotch. 😫
Insert super charged emotions.
And you have yourself a super sensitive Mama.
I have been so focused on all the good from this pregnancy, and that comes to reason since this IS a gratitude blog.
But there have been difficult parts, maybe none more so than in these last couple of weeks.
And it’s not getting any easier.
I’ve been having these lightning zaps down there, and they haven’t felt nice, let me tell you. I only discovered their name last night after my gazillionth Google search, and although attributing a name to the condition made me feel somewhat less crazy, it still hurts.
Today, moving around like a seal, very slowly and with great difficulty, I asked Hubbie to get me something while out getting the groceries.
I wanted cherry pie.
I had an insane craving for it, this cherry pie from a local cafe that I used to get every now and then. I haven’t had it in so long, and for this pregnancy I’ve had to be good, so I’ve tried to stay away from things like that that were super decadent.
But I actually could not wait anymore. I said to him, I need this, NOW, and sent him off.
That hasn’t been my only craving. My proper and first craving for a couple of weeks now has been Pancake Parlour pancakes. I am convinced if I eat these pancakes, it will prompt baby to come out sooner. It happened first time around, for baby girl. I had this most amazing stack of pancakes from there, layered with bananas and smothered all over with dripping chocolate, and I ate it the day before my waters broke.
I am convinced baby girl got wind of that in my belly and went “I’m not waiting anymore, the outside world is clearly GOOD.”
But, problem. Difficulty walking, remember? Movement like a seal. Lightning crotch. The closest Pancake Parlour is 40-45 minutes away, and I’m not doing any long drives, especially with all of my current mobility issues.
I can’t even Uber the pancakes… it would be too cold by the time it got here.
So I had to go for my second, equally satisfying craving, the cherry pie.
Hubbie and baby girl came back from shopping after an hour or so. There was NO cherry pie. Not anymore. 😲🤯Some absolute bullshit reason of, the whole pie is big and takes up room in the case, and then they need to sell all of it… well then present it so it sells! The rest of the treats on offer were all pre-packaged sweets sent in from some factory crap, and Hubbie knows I would rather open a block of chocolate at home than buy a display cake that can sit in its preservative-state like that for two weeks…
So they came back empty-handed.
I, was devastated. I wanted my craving satisfied… didn’t I deserve that much? House-bound, lightning crotch, having been so good for so long, I wanted my bloody treats and I couldn’t have them.
I was so, so upset, yet also still craving something majorly… so as I started to cry, I pulled up a stool to the stove (for the reason of preventing more lightning crotch) and started making crepes. Because only I know how to do them. 🤦♀️🙄
I sat there, and I made them, and I waited, and baby girl sat next to me, helping out, telling me it would be alright as tears literally rolled down my face. And Hubbie cut up the berries I wanted, and baby girl took out the Nutella, and then Hubbie made our coffees… so that by the time we sat down, I had this:
And I was crying no longer, but I had been very, very frustrated. I devoured two big crepes, loaded with Nutella and berries and I sipped my cappuccino, thinking “Fucking, only women get shit done.”
I was so grateful for my family for helping me out, yet insanely mad that the cafe didn’t make cherry pie anymore, and that there isn’t a Pancake Parlour within my vicinity.
THAT is the state of affairs at the moment guys. Tread around me super carefully… or just bring the Pancake Parlour chef to my house, please. (Or let me know if you find a proper home-made quality cherry pie from ANYWHERE).
And that my friends, is my very pregnant story of the full moon, lightning crotch and home-made pancakes. 🌕⚡🥞🤰
Life is going to change very quickly for us all soon, and it occurred to me that it was imperative to capture a very important stage of life, about a very important person.
Baby girl. 🥰💞
My sunshine, my light, my angel. The one who without I wouldn’t have made it as well through so, so many days. I am convinced that God gave her to us, knowing the hardships that would lie ahead, knowing that she would be my guiding light in those very tough times. 🙏
She has grown physically and emotionally over the past couple of months. She is tall. Everyone asks how tall her Dad is if they don’t know him, and I tell them that I too was tall at her age… the tallest in my class! She is tall and thin and does gymnastics, and her hand stands and cartwheels are actually very good. I never was good at any of that, so I marvel at her physicality. 🥰
She has my facial features, my height from that age, but she has Hubbie’s physique. She is strong, she is cheeky, and she is STUBBORN. But then again, so are Hubbie and I, so we have a good few battles around the house, let me tell you.
She knows EVERYTHING. 🤦♀️ She knows stuff that I’ve known for decades, and yet she has learnt in the last day or two about it and knows more… she was trying to teach me about tennis, until I had to point out she was wrong, and then she went “oh.” 🤦♀️
She is a fighter. I hope she fights for what is right, and fights for her opinion, as much as she fights me on issues she doesn’t know much about. 😂
She has the kindest heart. She will do things for you, help you, run to your aid. She has been amazing during my pregnancy. She helps me with grocery shopping and picks out the cucumbers, sweet potatoes, broccoli, even pushed the trolley.
When I’m upset, her mothering, already big-sister nurturing kicks in. She tells me it will be ok, in a soothing, calm voice. Whether I’m upset at the trivial, losing for the 5th time straight in Nintendo Mario Kart, or upset about something more serious in life, she is there to hug me, tell me “there there” and say it will be alright. 💞
She uses “mate” a lot lately, “mate, you gotta see how…” and “bruh.” I used to tease her, but now I just let it go. I find it cute, a part of her personality she is testing out, seeing how it feels.
She loves school. But she loves sleep. Let’s see how Monday goes. 😂 But I honestly do think she needs to be busy, do things, and have a purpose, so in school she thrives.
She has a reading program. Several times a day she will go in her room, close the door, and read a book out loud to her toys. After asking me for a new chapter book, I managed to fish out of an old box my Sweet Valley Twins books. She’s started reading one, and likes it! WOW. From one generation to the next.
She has the best laugh. When she cracks up, I can’t help but join in.
She is a thinker. She questions everything.
She has inherited our quality of being hard on ourselves, which I hate. I try to be easy, tell her it’s ok to make mistakes… I want to try to stop that self-bashing that we do so often, so unnecessarily.
She is the most loving big sister already. So gentle, so soft. She comes up to me and pats my belly, says “hi baby,” and looks up at me adoringly. OH MY GOD. 😍
She is 9, going on 19. Our current discussions are usually about:
“What are we doing today?”
“I want a Ford Ranger when I’m older so I can put my dogs in the back and take them with me everywhere.” (Awwww! 🥰)
“I want a YouTube account by 10, an iPhone by 12, and a TikTok account by 12.”
“Nature is my passion.”
She is the sweetest, funniest, most entertaining girl, and I hope she keeps nurturing her passions and herself, growing into the amazing young woman I know she will become. 🙏💞🥰😍
One of the nicest things you get to experience as a Mum, is when you are still privy to your child’s conversations.
Let me explain.
I picked up baby girl along with her friend from school today… definitely a well overdue raincheck for all the times her Mum helped me when my car was broken down weeks ago.
And I loved it.
I could hear their lingo. Hear them talking about friends, stuff they do, what they like… catchphrases, like ‘Ya,’ (but a dragged out “yaaaa”) and the infamous one most parents would know by now, ‘Bruh.’
🤦♀️🤣
Then after a bit of a play at home, I took them back to school to engage in this Kaboom Sports activity thing for the whole school, where kids ran around, and parents sat on picnic blankets and comfy fold-up chairs and had a chinwag amongst each other.
The girls had gotten changed at home. Put on pretty skirts, tops both tucked in, and then pulled out, just that little bit.
I think they wanted the engagement, to be amongst friends, rather than wanting to play in any sports… but they did both.
It was nice getting a window into their world today, as they talked, joked, and mucked about.
You would think that having had a child already makes the thought of doing childbirth classes kind of redundant, right?
Well, in my case it’s been 9 years between pregnancies, and we are living on the other side of time, so will be attending a different hospital this time.
Tonight we had our first online childbirth class.
And shit just got REAL! I have to say, I was way less scared or tentative than I was first time around. I felt for the woman who squirmed and looked at her partner in discomfort when they were talking about a certain self-test us pregnant women need to perform before baby comes…
By this stage, I have had so much blood withdrawn, things inserted into me, ALL OF THAT, that yeah, it is still a bit ugh, but I have grown far beyond it.
I felt like holding her hand and going, “It’s ok, you’ll be alright. If I can do it, anyone can.”
Hubbie came and went from my side through the session. I totally felt like the bad students, because we had our vid on but mics off, and I was commentating on what was being said, either going “yeah that happened to me with baby girl,” or going “I feel like piping up and going nuh, it doesn’t have to be like that.”
Meanwhile Hubbie was too busy commenting on people’s backgrounds, whether they had animals there, and then suggesting we too bring Mister F to the screen. 🤦♀️
I was like, “shh, I missed that bit, now what did she say?” 🤣🤣
It is nice to be in a more, how can I call it, flow state this time around. I am knowledgeable in labour and birth, but also only as far as my first experience… every experience and every child is so different. Nonetheless there is much less fear, and more love.
And I want to know more. I was keenly listening in to certain things and not going ‘ew!’ like I would have first time around.
Knowledge is power. So is a positive mindset. I am keeping both of these close to me, close to baby, as we move forward…
The photos app on my phone does that thing where it gives me memories of what I was doing this day last year, two years ago, three, etc…
On Wednesday it gave me a memory that blew my mind a little.
The date was the 16th of November. Year, 2021.
And the photo, me, Hubbie and baby girl with Santa hats on.
WHAT? That could only mean…
Yep. We had started putting up the Christmas tree.
I mean, I always plan to do it about the last week of November. That’s my thing, and it is the best thing. You feel like you get in early by starting the tree early, it’s one less thing to do in December, AND it gets you in the Christmas spirit.
What’s not to love?
I had considered doing it this weekend or next, but after seeing that photo it was decided… it was happening sooner rather than later!
Tonight, we took all the boxes and bags out, put on our Christmas pjs, our Christmas hats, and Mariah Carey went on the stereo!
Putting up Christmas stuff is a process. Even more so, being pregnant… there’s only so much bending and picking up one can take. So the only focus of tonight was doing the bare bones… assembling the tree.
And while we were doing that, it just hit me. The togetherness. The music. The love in the air.
The baby in my belly.
And I started to cry, thinking of all the Christmases that had gone, that I also loved, but where I had a deep longing, yearning that no one knew about…
This year was so different. This year my Christmas excitement, happiness, gratitude and festive cheer were DEEP.
All happy tears, all happy tears. 🥲
And in a funny turn of events, even Mister F decided to help us out with our Christmas set up…
carcrashgratitude 