Todzilla latest

Felix' fave thangs are the manege, the beach, climbing, pointing, cuddling, shoving his finger up my nostril at bedtime (yes, it hurts, yes he thinks its hilarious), climbing, rejecting his highchair in favour of grown-up chairs, doing his Elvis snarl, climbing, crawling into the buggy when he's tired, lifting my top up to blow raspberries on my tummy (especially in public), moving our hands to tell us he wants something and climbing. The manege was something else though. My God did he have an enormous hissy fit when we had to go. What a wilful soul. Total eye opener.

In which babymomma and poppa take a break

Gloriously sunny Bank Holiday Monday and it feels like the first time in 3 years we've just stopped. No outings, no shopping, no housework, no working from home, no plans, no nothing. Delicious.

Instead we're chilling in the garden and the kids are being fantastic. Jasmine's big thing right now is inventing words. Right now she's playing "roly goly boly poly" some bonkers game where you sit on a ball, fall off in a heap and giggle like a mad thing. Felix the Unstoppable Baby is climbing in and out of the paddling pool, then onto the garden chairs, and onto the table, then onto the trike, then across to the sandpit where he shovels vast handfuls of the stuff into his mouth, then back down the garden steps where he stage dives back into the paddling pool. He knows no fear. He is either a prodigy, or just plain stupid.

just a quick rundown of events

Babymomma life currently consists of feeling quite ok alternating with somewhat subdued. I'm definitely over the weird/angry/why why why stage just after I lost my job and am moving on. A few whispy leads of potential work, but other than that the job market still has tumbleweed blowing right through it. I've settled in quite well to life at home with the kids, but still frequently yearn for more meaning in my life. I do, however, realise that life for me is a lot less stressful than when I was working. Or maybe, that it's a different, more manageable kind of stress. Am experiencing the most appalling weight crisis of my life, but somehow the biscuit tin keeps getting in the way of my diet which is just rubbish and leads to frequent bouts of self loathing because I know it's all in my control to fix.

Moving on.

Kids have been on great form. Felix has started to clap his hands, and bounce his body up and down to music, both if which he does with the most enormous grin on his face. He wakes up between 5.30am and 6am most days, and babbles and gurgles in his cot (totally divine) till one of us gives into the charm, heaves out of bed and brings him in with us for a wee scrumble. He's not walking yet, still cruising and climbing like a mad thing. Still got a great nose for trouble. This morning's particular trick was "posting crackers down the front of mummy's pajama top."

I've been fretting a lot about Jasmine's lack of physical stamina. With the exception of roly polys she can't or won't walk, run, jump, hop, climb, skip, swim or do anything vaguely resembling exercise. Bf keeps telling me over and over to deal with my negativity but I do experience enormous pangs of jealousy when I see children half her age jumping and running about all the time. That said renewed efforts to get her moving mean she's walking a lot more frequently, and for longer stretches than usual, but it's still a mammoth task of endurance to get her going and to stop whining. It does make the sense of achievement more satisfying when she does, happily, put one foot in front of the other and make tracks.

walking in ashridge

More poo

Felix and Jasmine are both being very difficult at the moment.

Felix is The Unstoppable Baby. He's started to climb - onto stools, sofas, toy chests - which inevitably means falling off too. And despite some pretty nasty tumbles he just doesn't learn what is safe and what isn't. Add to that his fondness for sticking fingers in shredders, pulling on lampstands, playing with dustbins, chewing cables, pulling out plugs, tugging the shower curtain and pulling encyclopaedias off the shelves he is basically a walking suicide mission who can't be left alone for more than a few seconds. The only safe environment for him at the moment is a padded cell.

Jasmine is being nothing short of a Royal Pain in the Arse. I know it sounds awful to speak of your own children like that, but she's just so bloody difficult. It's almost definitely illness-related. (It had better be...) It brings out the diva in her. She's just so goddam particular. Everything has to be done in a certain way. And if you can't read her mind and understand exactly what that certain way is, then all hell breaks loose. Then she changes her mind and all hell breaks loose again. And currently all hell breaks loose every 5 minutes.

For example - today's lunch saga:
Bm: (Calm and patience personified) Would you like a chicken sandwich or pasta for lunch?
J: (All utterances by J to be spoken on whiny toddler voice, permanently on the brink of a tantrum) Want chicken sandwich. Don't want toast want bread. Want bread. Want breeeaaad. NO. Just ONE slice. Want crusts off. NO. Don't want butter. NO BUTTER. No don't cut it that way. Cut it that way. NO. Don't want chicken. NO. CHICKEN. No tomato (angry and insulted) NO TOMATO. Want CHEESE. Want cheese. No. Don't want cheese. Want cheese. (now very confused - does she want cheese or not?) Want small cheese. (small cheese is Jasmine's phrase for grated cheese. I take out grater - Jasmine hits roof.) NO. Want slices. (I take out slicer - Jasmine hits roof again.) Not that one. NOT THAT ONE. NOTTT THATTT ONNNE
...and so on. She issues an instruction, and doesn't stop to notice it has been immediately obeyed but repeats it in her sub-hysterical voice over and over. By the time I have made her a sandwich to her precise specification she has rejected that too and does want a chicken sandwich with butter and tomato.

I know she's small, and innocent, and very ill at the moment, and she really doesn't mean it - but none of that makes it any easier. I have no purpose in life at the moment other than to be her punchbag, and I certainly didn't sign up to that. I find myself thinking over and over: I deserve more than no income, two ungrateful children for company, a talent left to rot and a whole lot of thwarted ambition.

You just have to be calm and patient. There's no other way of dealing with it. But because I can't take my frustration out on her, and because there's absolutely no one else around to talk to who remotely cares or understands, it's all internalised. So I find myself feeling alone, frustrated, unhappy, but most of all resentful of my children and seriously contemplating selling them on eBay. Joking aside, I fantasise about leaving them to the bf and emigrating about once an hour.

Unable to express myself to a real human being, I have no other outlet than to talk to this blog, paradoxically the vehicle I set up to express how brilliant kids are is now the only place I can talk about how much I want to be able to give them back.