First, let me say how much I truly, madly, deeply lurve my dear Saint Aardvark the Carpeted. This morning I was doing something relatively uncomplicated on my computer, she is a sweet iBook who is 4 years old, I think, and the computer seized, as she does, and while I put a spoon under her tongue and gently wiped her drool, I might have sworn out loud a little bit.
SA said, you know, one of the things I could do today is take your laptop to a doctor and get a new hard drive put in.
And I said, well, I mean, it’s not urgent or anything.
And he said, well, actually it kind of is.
And then I thought about the endless days of breastfeeding that (probably) stretch in front of me and the blogging I will definitely need to do about said days of breastfeeding, not to mention that Trombone knows that “Hey Hey” plays on “Mummy’s ‘puter” even when it refuses to play on the television; it plays over and over and over and over until he is in a Bedouin Soundclash coma, which is just how I like my children, so I said, um, yes. Please. Fix it.
So not only am I typing this from a desktop? machine? is that what they’re called? but I have my email and I have my imported bookmarks and I have much better posture for it. Let us all sing a quick song of praise for the computer geek. What the hell, let’s have a quick clap for the wolfman while we’re at it.
As to other reasons why Saint Aardvark rules with a fist full of dark chocolate, that is to say, benevolently and deliciously, he is home today, a Thursday, because yesterday all the things I have been doing for the last 2 years caught up with me and I succumbed to one of the following: flu, exhaustion or early labour. I have a couple of symptoms in each category but I mainly think it is the exhaustion because my main symptom is, well, exhaustion.
Yesterday morning I promised Trombone we would go to the beach. He has a few books about beaches so he was pretty sure we would have a delightful time building sandcastles and swimming with whales. As I did not want to drive for hours to get to the beach and back, I forsook my favourite beaches of Spanish Banks and English Bay in favour of Barnet Marine Park, which is 15 minutes by car from our house. We built a sandcastle and knocked it down several times and we waded in the water in our rubber boots and chased some Canada geese and came home. We napped and I expected to wake much refreshed but did not. I woke more tired. And could not conceive of going out again, even though it is our routine to do so and it was not raining oh praise be! I could not do it. I could not. I wanted to, sort of. Mmm, I felt obliged to. Instead I slouched on the couch and let Trombone help me feel better by bringing me cushions and blankets and books and crackers and raisins and anything else he thought might make me stop crying.
Which I wasn’t actually doing. We’re just still pretending that mummy cried too. The empathy is strong with this one.
Anyway, I googled “early labour feels like flu” (yes, you can laugh; SA did and I didn’t have the strength to beat his monkey skull so I’m sure as hell not going to track each of you down) and got a bunch of promising returns but then when I read them all, I realized that everyone says “flu” when they mean “diarrhea.” I don’t have the runs. FLU is not GASTROENTERITIS. There is no “stomach flu” there is no “24 hour flu” there is no “I pooped out eighty-five rivers of nasty sludge flu.” Flu is short for influenza and it means achy, fevery, shivery, nose runny, can’t get off this couch no matter how hard I try. So stop screwing up my google results, all y’all.
Ahem.
And I know you’re not supposed to google things when you’re pregnant, but you may recall that my last labour was induced with some fairly serious drugs so I had
Stage one labour: no labour! followed by
Stage two labour: HOLY SHIT LABOUR followed by
Stage three labour: a baby!
In other words, I am basically at square one noob with this. Maybe it’s knowledge common to everyone but me that women who are about to have babies go from feeling on top of the world to feeling like they are lying in a puddle of poop at the bottom of it. All things considered, I suspect it is more like my body saying, yo. Do you have any idea how much trouble you will be in in approximately 2 weeks’ time? Will you SLOW THE HELL DOWN already? Thanks! and then once I’ve stopped idiotically carrying my toddler down flights of stairs, allowing me to go into labour sometime next week.
Where was I? Ah, yes, defending myself against non-existent internet trolls. Also a symptom of early labour, no?
On the couch this afternoon, watching TV because my laptop is away, remember, I watched a show called “Other People Screw Up Parenting; You Feel Better About Yourself!” or something. It was one of those noon-hour shows on the life network that follows a couple home with their new baby for a week. And maybe it was the hormones I am currently stewing in but I very nearly looked up this guy, the new father, and went to his house to kick his ass.
First thing I see, he’s rocking his baby girl in a bassinet, pontificating, “I guess I’m just not as scared as [partner] is. I think babies can sense that fear.” Then he’s hovering over his partner while she changes a diaper on the squalling newborn (oh, I had forgotten that part about the HOLY SHIT YOU’RE CHANGING MY DIAPER AND I MUST SCREAM!!! Remember to find earplugs.) and it occurs to him to mention, “Did you put the Vaseline on her?” (like, will she DIE without it?) And the best of all: they’re sitting on the bed at 3 am and he’s got his face in his partner’s boobs, trying to adjust his newborn baby’s latch. “No, no,” he said, “she has to be facing THIS WAY.”
Look, you. Until your boobs feed this baby? You need to be facing OUT OF THIS FUCKING ROOM. Bring me a donut.
I would have said.
I’m scared for them, actually, Gina and Jason. Because at the end of the show, there’s a 6-week check-in and she’s all, “Hmm, things were rough and all but then one day I told him how I felt and things got better.” And he says, “Yeah, and I still can’t believe it; now she cleans the house too! I love her now!” And she says, “You didn’t love me before?” and he says, “Sure, but I love you more NOW,” and he’s smiling like he’s kidding but I don’t really buy it and neither does she, I don’t think.
Oh dear. No more television for me, I don’t think. Fluxhaustion or no.
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