Amazing...

I stayed overnight at a friend's birthday party at the weekend and woke up for a walk on a beautiful slice of secluded beach.

I was amazed to get within a metre of a wild dolphin, playing in the shallows, we found a sealion lounging on the sand and The Boy even picked up a cowrie shell the size of my hand.

In the middle of all this turmoil, a day like that is a blessing, and a reminder why this is the place I want to raise all my children.

Phew!

This week things started to fall in place.

In a flurry of people desperately trying to work out the gossip without me realising they were gossiping (facebook people? really?) finally a friend just walked up to me, laughing her head off, and wrapped me up in a big hug. She's the same person who rang me up, sotto voice, to tell me baby bottles were 50 per cent off at the pharmacy this week.

My dad, whose been having a quiet breakdown of his own after a friend had a mini-stroke in front of him, he learned that my Aunty has advanced breast cancer & his divorcee daughter announced her unplanned pregnancy all in the same week - bought a second-hand cot this week.
So I'll take it as a good sign that he's getting warmed up to the idea of another baby in his life.

My mum is shopping.
It was she who, when my dad had a little schitz fit, told him to "man up and be happy".

The Boy told me "I'm happy if it's a boy, I don't know how I feel if it's a girl" and The Girl just doesn't want to share her room so we'll be spending the maternity leave months setting up the shed as a teenage retreat.

A (harmless but ditzy) friend was full of congratulations and, when she asked about the dad I simply said he wouldn't be around, she asked me outright "he's not married or anything is he?" which was a relief in that I'm sure that's what people are discussing but wouldn't dare mention in my hearing.
I think my splurt of laughter may have been more convincing than my actual denial.

Turns out we still had a high chair & car seat that I put aside for my brother's breeding years.
I've got a baby bath, a few clothes, started buying nappies, bottles & a nappy bag now.
I've got a lead on a cheap but reliable car and just need a sturdy pram and a rocker/feeder chair.

Fingers crossed my boss will take me on part-time afterwards, but I definitely won't be coming back to work this much. I've already turned down two promotions this quarter because I decided I couldn't move the kids or take on more responsiblity - turns out those were EXACTLY the right decisions to make.
I'm glad I made them before the baby came along too, so I'll always know I chose to stay here no matter what.
The kids are happy - they think it'll mean they'll have more time with me. Ha ha - little do they know ;)

Mr Right & I are still friends. It's kind of sad to take that step backwards again but all the reasons I like him are the reasons he knows better than to take on a pregnant woman with two almost-teen kids.
I guess I'd be suspicious of anyone desperate enough to think my package would be a good deal - but we are you know.
And I'm starting to feel happy about the future again now that the shock is (slowly) wearing off.
It's important that I'm happy before this baby comes along - s/he deserves all the love in the world and I refuse to do it any other way.

Sad...

BUB is having a breakdown.
So far he's considered abortion, adoption, abandonment, suicide, probably homicide, denial, unemployment & self-exile to a non-extradition country.

I tried, I tried to be patient, I tried to understand that he's as panicked as I am but when he started talking about the deep depression he had been plunged into I kind of lost my last thread of sympathy.
I believe my reply was something along the lines of 'hey, you were holding the gun when the trigger went off and now you've left me to carry the bullet - you're talking about your back pocket while I'm developing a hunchfront'.

I hope he gets it together. I hope it all works out one day and this baby doesn't have to fight to know his/her own family, but right now I'm too busy building arms & legs to deal with a grown man having a sook about maintenance & gossip.
I learnt my lesson the first time - better a happy, stable family with one less person in the mix than a mixed up angry environment where everyone bears the bullshit.

So Bubbles - right now, it's just you, me, your big sister, your big brother, your Nanna & your Grumpy, a loving Aunty & a cheeky Uncle, two evil cats (you can't play with them right way, ok?) and a giant huskie dog that I'm training to pull a sandboard.
When you look at it that way - I guess you're gonna be ok.
That's a lot of people to love, & to love you back.

Surprise!

Ok - the world has turned upside down in a comedy of errors I was never prepared for.
At the same time that I met someone special, I was still knocking boots occasionally with BUB.
About the time Mr Right & I decided we should do something serious about our feelings & shed the baggage, well, turns out BUB & I might have had one 'one last time' one time too many.

I'm pregnant.
More than that though. I'm 14 weeks pregnant.

Let me explain. I'm not one of those Amish tweenies who doesn't know how it all works.
It's just, well, I don't have normal periods & I've been seriously sick in the past 'down there' so when the periods stopped but the two pregnancy tests came back negative (two! count 'em two!) and after all, we used condoms, I just assumed the worst.
And the worst meant seeing a doctor, which is difficult to organise when your GP is muslim & won't touch anything below the tonsils but you can't drive the hour & a half to an alternative medical centre because you work six days a week and you have two kids to pick up after school for basketball/cricket/scouts/dance/insert activity here.

Then, still no periods, and I started to bruise for no reason. And I was teary & tired and obviously something was wrong so I took the afternoon off & made the drive...but then the GP I was scheduled to see got called into surgery and no one else was available.
So two weeks later I finally get in to see a GP & she's only booked me in for the normal appointment but yes, with my history, it does sound like what I'm expecting but we'll do all the tests just to be sure.
And so, the next day, half way between a meeting with grain cooperative shareholders and the local mining alliance I get a phone call from the medical receptionist who has news that I need to know but she really doesn't want to have to tell me but the GP is already on holidays and...WHAM!

I mean, I thought I was dying. Seriously dying. I'd sorted out my will & let my parents know who would raise my kids & that I wanted to be an organ donor but this?
Jeez, I was prepared for bad news - but I don't even know what kind of news this is?

I found myself crying in a running car on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere - breaking up with the bloke I was half in love with over the phone and breaking the news to the less-than-impressed father on a mobile phone.

I'm 35. I'm having a baby on my own. I'm absolutely terrified.

The miracle of marketing...

My girl & I were curled up on the couch watching TV as the usual reel of KFC and McDonalds ads rolled past.
It was at this point that she observed that the people in the fast food ads don't look like the people we reaaally see when we stop for junk food on our long trips.

Out of the mouths of babes...

Irony...

Do children not understand the irony of standing up and screaming 'I wish I was dead'?
...I could make us all happy, very easily.

Winged ones...

Some days I look at my children and I feel all heavenly and divine, like the Madonna (the Christian maternal icon, not the pointy-boobed popster).
On those days my children are angels.

Today, in the car to my parent's home I felt like the Wicked Witch of the West (Coast) and they were my little flying monkeys.
And now, I have unleashed them on Nanna and Grumpy - 'fly my pretties, fly!'
Recounting this observation to my friend GeekGirl, she announced that she was WitchiePoo.
I'm still not sure whether that makes her husband Puff 'n' Stuff or the Magic Flute...and I'm not asking.

Pets in perspective...

I don't want any more pets.
Love them as I do, I'm not sure I want the pets I have.

I'm not meant to nurture living things.
If my children didn't know where the peanut butter is they wouldn't make it through some days.
I wish, instead of dogs & cats & turtles & children I just had siamese fighting fish.
At least when they go postal at each other all the mess stays in one bowl...oh, and you're not allowed to flush your nine-year-old down the toilet when you're tired of him or he's torn off his sister's head.

Rumbling tummies & wandering minds...

After a day of sightseeing with visitors TheKids were starting to lose interest and tummies were grumbling.
I realised it was time to go when BoyChild - standing in the sand just 20m from a sealion as it reared up like a furred, magnificent, Jabba the Hut - looked the creature up and down contemplatively and said simply:
"Hey mum, what do you think they'd taste like?"