Visions of Aestia

Just got back from my surprise vacation for our annivesary. We ended up going to Nelson instead of Rotorua - was disapointed at first but now really glad! I just wish the weather had held out so we could have gone to Able Tasman. Ah well, next time. Would have been hard with a little!

Cecily was, as always, an absolute surprise. Barely a protest on the plane there (daddy nearly crushed her against the seat!) and very little crying on the way back (she was over tired). She settled in fairly quickly at the hotel even though she’s never been away from home like that, and she had great fun at the beach building sand castles with daddy, at the petting zoo where she ate most of the food meant for the animals, and picking berries - where she again ate more than we took home!!! She absolutely adores berries.

All in all it was a great vacation, and I was sorry to come home, as much as I love wellington. I’m sure a good deal of regret was due to leaving the rental car, I’d forgotten how nice it is to have the freedom of a car… and I really liked that town.

I’m still shaking from the relatively small earth quake we had this morning. I’m such a wuss! Not sure why I’m so worked up still - even the slightest rumble sent me into tears for the first year or so after the 6.9 we were in in Seattle, but that was in 2000 or 2001. I wonder if its what you call post traumatic stress disorder? Then again I still wince when I hear a plane flying low….
Anyway when the 5.5 hit this morning I literally fell apart and nearly made John stay home. I’m still convinced there’s going to be a bigger one - the reports say they think small ones ease the pressure and prevent bigger ones, but after the 8 on the 18th I’m wondering if this isn’t a warning.
Not to be crass but hopefully it hits while we’re gone! My darling husband has surprised me (for only the second time in our 10 years together) with a trip to rotorua for our anniversary! YAY!!!

I wish I could write something so touching and beautiful as he did to me, but any effort I make now is going to pale in comparision. Will have to think of something to make up for it! After all, all I had planned for our annivesary was dinner to our favorite resteraunt this weekend!

Wow, one day she refuses to even stand, the next she’s toddling everywhere! She cant make it across the room without tipping over but she’s getting there She even showed off by walking all around when I took her to the after hours clinic after a rather nasty hit to the head resulting in a nasty looking dent (that was monday with the hit, visit yesterday - today she’s fine).

Silly man, didn’t even post about this!

Today is Cecily Rose’s FIRST BIRTHDAY! yay! I can’t believe how fast it went. We had a big party yesterday with all of our ‘adopted’ family - I never knew how many good friends we had until they were all together in the same room. It got quite crowded!

Happy birthday to my girl, I’m so proud of how much she’s grown!

Cecily toddled not only by herself, but stopped mid toddle (usually only walks to us then falls into our arms), turned around, and started up again. Boy this is going quick now!!!

Now that I have a few minutes on the computer….

Yesterday, I FINALLY got some time with my friend Liz, who I thought was a good friend. She’s here till the 8th, because she is getting married on the 7th and then going on to ChristChurch where they plan to settle. I haven’t really seen her much in the past year, so I was looking forward to finally getting together for coffee. I was under the impression we’d be getting together alone - fair enough that she brought along her friend from SA, who she hasn’t seen in years. It was alright, I guess, that she brought along another friend that lives just over the hill. They’re both nice so I thought, okay, I’ll just get to know them too.

The entire outing was spent having coffee while the three girls talked (I had to interupt several times just to be let in on the subject at all), and the subject was mostly about what they were going to do that evening. Every detail of where they were going, what they would wear, how drunk they’ll get, plans for one of them to get laid….. I just sat there, feeling akward, trying to add what I could like suggestions of places to go, all the while realizing that not only was I not invited (sometimes those things are very clear without being said, but the proof came later) but that the girls were not interested in talking to me at all…. let alone Liz making an effort to talk to me.

I perfectly understand why the other girls didn’t invite me. That was Liz’s place since I was her friend. But when she dropped me off, she asked me what I was doing for the night. “Nothing,” I said, putting on a sad face, slight pout. “No where to go and nothing to do". That was her opening. All I got was a not-so-sympathetic smile and a “oh what a shame… I’m sure you’ll have fun with your little one". “No,” I said, desperate to make it clear I didn’t want to be home tonight, “She’ll sleep through the whole thing.” Liz merely laughs and says her goodbyes.

Ouch. Bitchslap. What a lousy thing to do! I had been, kindly, invited to Liz’s hen party on weds by one of the girls in secret, and accepted happily though I made it clear I’d have to make an early exit…. *sighs* I can’t be bothered…. losing precious sleep when I have to take care of a very active 1 year old would be worth it for a real friend. I find it hard to justify to myself the effort now.

Cecily really IS picking up words left and right. Her language is just exploding. She says ‘walk, walk, walk’ when she wants to - you guessed it - walk, and picked up the word “block” and applies it correctly with just one time of naming it. It was a shock when I sat down with her on the floor and she handed me one of her new blocks and told me block.

She shares amazingly well too, especially for a little girl that doesn’t see other kids very often anymore, let alone kids her own age. She gives us stuff often and rarely actually expects it back, though we do give it back when she indicates the desire. She hands things to us constantly, especially stuffed toys, which she makes clear by hugging herself that she wants us to hug the toy. Thank goodness, too, she tends to hand us little bits we’ve missed on the floor, except when its (dried!) cheese.

Well its toddler time! She’s been standing up from sitting without any help, then toddling (now I see why its called that!) to either daddy or me. 3 steps nearly every time if we’re careful and back up far enough!

She also has started to truly adore the swimming pool. We took her on weds, and even though she could only crawl she kept trying to go head first into the deeper end. She didn’t even go into hysterics when she went under each time! Her favorite part was trying to walk using a little floater pad, which she did quite well. We also met a 2.5 year old girl who was SUCH a sweetheart. Kept coming to Cecily to give her hugs and help her walk, and Cecily was very affectionate in return. Obviously we have a very social girl on our hands - should have been obvious; until she hit her shy stage she used to let absolutely anyone hold her, and now she gives hugs and kisses to Mommy, Daddy, and now Nanny Betty.

Continuing on Johns last post, she can now point (with little more than “show us your…") to her hair, eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, and teeth. From what I’ve read thats pretty impressive for a not-quite-12 month old. She’s also repeating just about everything you say (gotta be careful!) by just repeating it once or twice. We gave her a shoe box to play with today; it only took one prompt for her to say box, and she can now point to it without hesitation when asked where it is.

On top of those good things though, she’s beginning to get incredibly whingy. I’m not entirely sure if its our fault (spoiling too much?) or if its just an early start to terrible twos. Even now she’s crying like its the end of the world because she was told no. We’re firm and consistant, so I don’t think its lack of dicipline on our part… but man its annoying.

“This is where I wish your family and Rachel’s were here as you all miss out on so much… Anyway, I feel badly that you all miss out on so much…especially the holidays, time for making those family memories…Cecily is missing out on so much…I realize that you did not grow up with grandparents and john didn’t have contact with his very much…but we are real grandparents…cecily is also missing out on knowing what real cousins and aunts and uncles are…and I
disagree that it is the same, with you there…there is not that tight bonding…at least zedok, knows his aunts and uncles here and has a “family” so I wish you and john would think about comming back…before cecily is too old…to care…”

The christmas card we finally got from my lovely mother-in-law was basically the same thing. What kind of xmas card gives you a major guilt trip? I opened the mail thinking yay, a card, we never get those, and its full of a short version of above… then today I get the above email (condenced to show the depressing bits, the rest is all about how much fun their having baking for christmas…). I’m still crying… what right do they have? SHE can visit, without any trouble, we’re not stopping her…. we can’t leave until we get residency or we lose our visa’s, and on top of that its a pain in the ass to fly with a child on a 24 hour + flight. Does she think we’re doing it to spite them? Does anyone fucking care how depressed I am I have no family on christmas and I definitely don’t need a reminder? I have a friend thats dropping by out of pure pity (she made it clear she only has time for a few minutes), and the rest of the day is just us three - thats depressing enough without help thank you. I’m used to big to-do’s on christmas with family and close friends, I don’t need to be reminded that I have a now hugely extended family having a good old time without me. And I certainly don’t need to hear about how Cecily will be missing out, as if we’re purposly keeping them out of our life…. America is horrible now, especially for bringing up kids; there’s no way I’m bringing her back there to live. And no one is bloody stopping HER from visiting so that Cec CAN meet her grandparents.
Damnit i’m too angry to finish and I cant see the screen through my tears. Why do people do things without thinking how it will hurt someone? How does us living away from home give HER the fucking right to make me feel like shit?

My darling husband insists Cecily stood from sitting without any support today. I missed it, and I find it surprising that she’d do that before she’s willing to walk (we know she can since she has, she just is reluctant to do more!)

Also, cute as can be, I picked Cec up to view a friend while I was showing off my new webcam, and she got a huge smile and waved immediately at the screen, without any prompting. She’s not seen webcam working for, oh, at least 8 months so she couldnt remember it. What a clever girl!

Why you should never share a computer with a programmer:

Once again I cannot get into the linux side, and windows xp2 is completely in ruins so I’m stuck with minimal activity, or I’ll crash. Why can’t I get into linux? Because I’m sharing MY computer (thats right, MY computer: he literally melted HIS) with a bloody programmer that can’t keep his little mitts to himself and leave bloody linux damn well alone so I’m not constantly fighting to get IN to linux each and every day. And the only reason I’m even ON linux is at his insistance and because he wont update windows for me, something I wouldn’t even know how to do. Linux is NOT for the non-programmer, I have no idea how to do anything with the stupid thing and am force to rely constantly on my partner to install and update stuff - no wonder the stupid thing isn’t very popular and windows is still on top, they make the damn thing bloody useless to the normal person!!!

As to my darling partner… if this happens again I’m forsaking linux all together, I’m sick and tired of being left locked out of what you have now left me dependant on since it has all my damn files. YOU WILL REINSTALL WINDOWS THIS COMING HOLIDAY. PERIOD. I’m TIRED OF THIS!

How sad is this. Cecily didn’t wake until 10 this morning, and now is down for the past 2 hours… and I’m BORED. Have I fallen so far behind on my own life that I have nothing to do when she’s asleep?

The other downer to this, every time she sleeps this much, it means she’s getting sick… and it usually coincides with a new tooth. I hope we don’t have another weekend of high fevers and worry!

I decided to be lazy and let Cec feed herself some veggies while I played out a level of metal blob solid. What a good girl she is, she’s STILL sitting next to me in her highchair slowly and carefully picking up one piece after another and eating it. Its incredible the amount of patience she has for a nearly 11 month old

And on top of that, since she’s the perfect height for me to lean over face to face with her right now, I leaned over and opened my mouth for a bite teasingly… she actually fed me a piece! LOL Poor thing though, she was obviously shocked to realize I wasn’t giving it back!! Its not too surprising she hasn’t tried to give me another!

I’ve been waiting to hear from my darling husband about how our application for our visa extension is going… waiting since he left before 8AM this morning. I also have important information for him ABOUT the damn application (which I spent an hour on the phone getting for him) that may save him a lot of trouble…. but gee, I can’t get hold of him at work, so he’s obviously not there or not at his desk, so I’m left with a knot in my stomach wondering what’s going on, if there’s a problem, or if everything is just peachy and he didn’t bother to tell me.

CELLPHONES ARE USEFUL DAMNIT! But he refuses to keep one on him. I wonder how he’d feel if something happened to me or Cecily and I couldn’t reach him because he’s too stubborn and silly to carry a bloody cellphone with him. Grrr I’m getting heartburn.

Cecily took two whole, unaided steps from the chair to the table today! YAY!!!!! Uh… okay thats good enough, lets wait another few months for the walking….

Also, now i’m really nerotic because three people have pointed out she seems to have an inturned eye. Its not horribly pronounced like her daddy’s was (still shows sometimes even now) but it seems to be getting more noticable. Off to the doctor

Cecily had a DVD in her hand
… anyway she couldnt grab on to anything to stand, so she just STOOD !! all by herself! and it was a beautiful fluid motion too, no clumsy staggering. I dont even think she realised what she’d done!

Okay so not alone but she was using one of those four wheel plastic car thingies, which would (and has) tilted when more than a token amount of weight is put on it… so she DID walk! All the way from the kitchen to us, with a big grin on her face as she wobbled her way over to us, proud as can be!

Just as I was leaving to catch the bus, I pulled the stroller from out of Cecily’s grip - it was folded and she almost pulled it over top of her - and even with it out of her hand she stood there, alone, in the middle of the hall, and just grinned at me and clapped. Not even a wobble! And while waiting for a taxi home I walked her around with my hands in hers, and she let go of all but my thumb and kept on walking. YAY!!…. uhh… yikes? Time to buy a leash! :O

John asked me to repost my day so here I am. I don’t really feel like whinging again, as my mood is improved, but I suppose now it will sound like a rational tally of my day rather than a big whine.

My day starts with a quick shower, then feeding Cecily, feeding myself (unless the counter needs picked up, then I notice there’s food on the dishes so I have to rinse those, then oh wait there’s some stuff on the table that she can reach so….> … err. Feeding myself eventually, then picking up Cecily’s toys in three rooms and the hall, vacuuming her room, the hall, the bathroom (where I typically get distracted by cleaning up the counters and bath), the living room, and the kitchen. Kitchen floor gets mopped every other day unless the sink is full of dishes
Hem. I digress. Then I put all the toys back on the floor, play with Cec for at least a half hour, go online to help with the mums msn group I started and run with three other ladies, put Cec down for a nap (here’s where I sit down to catch a breath for the 30 mins she sleeps), make her lunch, have lunch myself, vacuum or mop up the mess she’s made….

Now noon rolls around.

Anyway, thats my mornings. I don’t exactly laze around the rest of the day… we go to get groceries or some various errand like paying the bills, or today where I was left sweating and panting before I even got to my destination (ever try to carry a 10kg 10 month old and a 20kg stroller onto a bus alone?) of a bi-polar group so I could talk about my depression with sympathetic ears and not over-stress my hubby with every problem… which I’m failing to do it seems.

DELETE I give up

DELETE I give up

Okay so its stupid to complain about a free system, but here I am adding my complaint. I was taken on by Maternal Mental Health soon after my third trimester, then discharged once Cecily hit 6 months because I seemed to be stable. Then I had to self-refer myself around the time Cec turned 7 months because I was falling apart and having my darling husband come home roughly once a week before I fell apart. The psychiatrist I was assigned was HORRIBLE…. I’ll leave out the stupid questions I was asked, but in the end I had to TELL him what meds I needed, because he was quite content to play with the dosage of the medication that clearly was not working (I know because i was on the damn things for nearly 9 months and was getting worse). I was on a great mix of meds back in America and they had just come out in this country the month before, so I begged to be put on them.
I was soon to find out that they cost $200 for the lot a month… not subsidised. The pharmacist assured me all I needed was a small signature from my psychiatrist, quite simple don’t worry honey, saying that I needed this medication and I could get it for the usual $30 or less.
Nothing doing, oohhh no.
After a half hour on the phone trying to remind the assigned psychiatrist who I was, including repeating my name no less than 10 times (he does not appear to speak english very well? And i had just seem him the day before!), I was promptly told he had no clue what I was talking about and would call me back once he figured it out. I waited two days for him to call back to tell me no he can not give me the signature, he’s not even sure what it is for (um isn’t this your job?) but I cannot sign that you need these meds. (Note to sceptical reader: I tried to assure him many many many times that I could get a very detailed history from previous psychiatrists of all the medications i tried until I reached a very successful stability under the ones I begged him for)

In the end I complained to my assigned community nurse , saying I would like a new psychiatist assigned… and was politely but firmly informed that I was being silly and should give him another chance, that they really didn’t have the resources to bother with minor complaints and if he says he can’t help me then thats that. I won’t go into what I read into the rest of her attitude because its heresey, but I assure you it isn’t complimentary.
Grr. Its, oh, three months? later and when my community nurse saw me today, I assured her I am quite happy and stable and thanks for the help I can do it on my own. Lots of smiles, have a good day
I didn’t even bother telling her that I’m going to go pay for some bloody help because I’m tired of being treated like just another bit of paper work. I’m far more stable than I have been since I had Cecily thanks to these meds, but I’m under a great deal of stress and need a lot more fine tuning, and it took me 2… TWO… months to get the damn psychiatrist to up my meds to what I know is my stable dosage…

ah bugger it. Cecily is wanting to play and I’m done ranting. Signing off

So about mid-day today, out pops … you got it, one of daddy’s D8’s. The whole D&D group is horrible about dropping dice on the floor and I’m constantly telling them to pick it up right away so its not forgotten, but I guess I missed one. Not even a complaint, surprisingly enough, when she passed it, but then again Cecily rarely complains. I have no idea how long that dice stayed in her throat before she finally choked, but we’re really lucky the paramedics didn’t have to fish it out when they got here (given that she managed to swallow it soon after she turned blue!) or she would have one heck of a sore throat today.

tired of retyping this, so here’s a cut from the mums group I manage:

I’m still a wreck, and we’ve been home from ER for just over an hour. Cecily choked (as in not breathing at all and turned purple) this morning, and an ambulance and several hours at the ER (and several xrays) later we’re home. I’m still near crying, that had to have been the worst, scariest experience of my life.
A friend was over for coffee and I sat on the floor to start feeding cecily her morning yogurt, first bite and she started coughing and gasping… I immediately did the infant choking maneovour but it was no good… she could cry between gasps but thats it and it was obvious she was straining to breathe. I knew something was wrong - she’s choked before but never like this - and told my friend to call 111. Friend then ran out to direct the ambulance since our house is hard to find, and thats when Cecily stopped breathing all together and turned purple… I managed to stick my finger in her mouth and dig out some cellutape but she didn’t stop choking. It felt like forever but it must have only been 30 seconds. I ran outside to save time and she started gasping/choking and stopped going funny colors just as the ambulance pulled up, then started breathing right again.
In the end we went to ER anyway, even though she finally started breathing normally and was happy as the paramedics were examining her….. Hubby is home now and we went through what happened, and we now figure she must have had paper or something stuck there under the tape (the xray shows something odd in her tummy but nothing dangerous) and had just enough airway to breathe, but when i went to feed her it clogged up completely. Near the end she must have swallowed it just after I got the tape out and freed up her airways. Time will tell what the culprit was I suppose!

Anyway sorry if that was a bit messed up, not sure if I got it out in the right order…. but I had to share it, otherwise I’ll spend the rest of the evening crying and shaking!

Well we went to Lollipops today, a local kids play place. Its really meant for walking-age kids, but our mums group was holding their last meeting for the holidays there. Cecily absolutely adored it, especially the bouncing castle , and a little ‘under 4’s’ peepy-hole gym. The gym went over really well though, she could actually climb it herself and was quite happy to have mum hold her hands while she slid down the ‘big’ slide… about head height for me. It looks like something we should buy for our backyard! Maybe a birthday present. Over all it was great fun, and I invited some ladies over to our place once a week so I don’t go stir crazy without my weekly mums group!

Except it would probably work if we were using Windows xp, which is completely messed up after the updates, but hey he has time to whinge about that instead of reinstalling windows xp and likely having it work right off the bat………

Cecily has started saying “Pretty” again… its kinda a whisper still, but she gets the p really well! She says it while she tries to brush her hair with her comb. How cute is that?

I know you’re there boy, I see the time of your last entry. Get your cute ass on GAIM please

Oh my gods, I log on to read what you’ve written so far. This is what the world sees of you? You write more about programming and this other stuff than you do about your wife and daughter. For shame! I must find the whip for when you get home!

PS to those that are weird enough to read this: he really talks about this stuff offline CONSTANTLY. I’m learning more useless information now than I did in all the 20 years before I moved in with him five years ago combined. Pity me. Please.

What spam? Where spam? I see no spam… where you see spam?

:P There are you happy I’m posting. Your daughter has marmite absolutely everywhere on her face and hands and I can’t bear the smell of her. How can anyone STAND that stuff?