Hot topic

We all know I’m not pregnant. We also all know what I think about my belly right now. Unfortunately for me I can’t seem to escape conversation about either of them this week. It’s as if the subject of baby versus belly is following me around! I kid you not.

Yesterday a very brave, very gay man at work asked me if I was having another baby. Does he not know you never ask a girl that question?! Apparently the subject was discussed at the pub the other evening. Do they really have nothing better to talk about than whether I spill over my jeans?

And then today, a good friend at work told me his wife had a dream I was pregnant. I don’t even know his wife but she’s seen my picture and somehow that was enough to cause her to dream about me having a baby.

No surprises when I say I didn’t actually mind the latter conversation as he, for once, wasn’t assuming I already was pregnant. And hey, you never know, what she dreamed just may come true! Imagine the spookiness if I fell pregnant this month, how funny would that be.

I am honestly trying to remedy my belly-without-a-baby scenario. You should have seen all the rabbit food I packed for lunch today. At one point my craving for chocolate was nearly out of control but I hung in there and by the end of the day I was feeling much less bloated, even a tiny weeny bit lean.

In a rather silly move on my part, I just totally buggered all my hard work because husband wanted chicken curry for dinner and I’m now completely stuffed!

Looks like I’ll be wearing another smock tomorrow. Let them talk!

Pick me up

I don’t want to write a ‘woe is me’ post, I really don’t. But at the same time it would be false of me to pretend everything in my head is fine and dandy.

So what’s wrong? Well, truthfully, nothing major. Just a bunch of little things that mean I’m beating myself up, and then down again.

It’s my birthday this coming week; I’m going to turn 34 on Thursday. I don’t like it much as a number and I certainly don’t want to be associated with it.

It feels like only a blink ago I was 25, fresh home from Australia, falling in love, planning a wedding, making babies, oh and of course, spending money for England.

So where am I now? Old, unattractive, too fat for my clothes, without money to buy any new ones and really hoping to get pregnant but so far not succeeding. Like I said, woe is me.

My mind has been filled of late with silly thoughts like these:

Am I too old to be wearing a hoodie? Why am I even wearing a hoodie? Cheap and warm would be the answer to that.

Why do I feel like I’ve lost my game? Actually I can answer that too. I’ve lost my game because I can no longer afford to play. In a world where image matters I can no longer afford to participate. The irony is that I can’t afford to play anymore because in my twenties I played the game a little too hard and now it’s biting me on my fat, old, ugly ass.

I also had a dream the other night about Milo Ventimiglia [being representative of men my own age-ish]. He didn’t even notice me. I mean, why would he notice a past her prime mother with bad hair when he’s dating an 18 year old?

So anyway, as I see it I have two choices: I can wallow in my own self-pity or I can do something about it all.

How you look affects your self esteem, there’s no escaping it, so I’m going to choose the latter. As my birthday [usually] falls on the last day of February I have a tendency to consider March 1st as my second chance at resolutions. It is, after all, the first day of my very own New Year and that’s good enough for me. It means I get to start over on the resolutions I made in January that haven’t really stuck.

With that in mind, I went out for a walk this afternoon. On my own! Peanut was at MIL’s causing a riot with her cousins and husband was snoozing. I think I needed that hour to myself. Just me and my iPod, walking through town with the fresh winter breeze in my face, blowing all my cobwebs away.

It felt good. Just the pick me up I needed.

You can lead a horse to water

but you can’t make it drink. Or maybe that should read: you can lead a nine year old to the dinner table but you can’t make it eat.

We went to dinner this evening at mother in laws place, with sister in law, her husband and her three kids [nine year old, and two year old twins – all boys!].

Complete chaos and extremely noisy but nothing new there. It depends what mood we’re in as to whether we can handle it, or whether it drives us crazy. Tonight was fairly reasonable, we managed to stick it out for nearly 3 hours which is good going.

Anyway, I digress. The nine year old is a reeeeaaaaaalllllly fussy eater. I’ve known him since he was nearly 2 and he pretty much always has been. He was an only child until he was 7 so maybe he was allowed to get away with it for too long. Plus, when the twins came along I think it just became important for him to eat, no matter what it was.

He seems to only eat pizza, tinned pasta and ham or chocolate spread sandwiches. I’m sure he has a greater repertoire than just these but it’s all I seem to witness.

As a family we’re all trying to say that if he wants to be good at sport [which he does] he needs food for energy. This hopefully changes it from nagging to something he needs for himself. He agrees in principle but then can’t quite bring himself to follow through.

Having witnessed his behaviour, and the shouting/crying it generates, we’ve always insisted Peanut eats what we’re eating. If we’re all eating at the same time, and especially when we’re somewhere else, Peanut has what we have. I’ve never fussed over and given her something different. And even so I still think she’s a bit fussy; or perhaps manipulative so she can eat rubbish!

Maybe he needs to realise that dinner is his only choice? That if he doesn’t eat his dinner he actually will be hungry. But there’s the dilemma: do you want him to eat ‘something’ now or do you want him to eat ‘good’ always?

Just before we headed home he was eating pitta bread, just so that he ate ‘something’.

Kids!

Tummy Mummy

I’m having a particularly bloated, rounded, fat tummy kind of day. Make that month. Or few months.

I’m genetically pre-disposed to be the shape of an ‘apple’. My mum is, all her sisters are, my grandmother was, as were all her sisters. It’s great for my behind; with my tummy being round the rest of me therefore isn’t ‘pear’. It does suck though to always look a bit pregnant, especially when you’re not and you’d actually like to be.

I’m tipping the scales today at my heaviest natural weight [excluding when I was pregnant and shortly after]. I take a little comfort in knowing I was this exact same weight when I fell pregnant with Peanut - maybe it’s lucky?

Half of me wants to find the self-discipline to diet, the other half knows I’m trying to get pregnant so that’s not a sensible thing to do. Hopefully soon enough my tummy will no longer be fat, it will be pregnant. When that happens the pressure will be lifted from my shoulders - at least for a year anyway.

When I’m happy I eat more, not loads, just more rubbish and bigger portion sizes. It’s as if I relax and believe I can do what I want without it have any consequence. When I’m stressed I go off food and anxiety burns it all off anyway. This time last year I was at my skinniest, coincidentally I was also in the middle of major stress.

Since we worked through our ‘debt-awakening’ last summer, my boosted feelings of security and confidence have caused me to take my eye off the ball [and transfer my eye to the junk aisle]. The result being that I’ve kinda let myself go a bit.

It’s probably not enough for anybody else to particularly notice but, in myself, I feel huge. I hate having to dress to hide my tummy and I hate my clothes feeling tight. But do I hate it enough to stop eating?

The lazy side of me wishes I could find out I was pregnant tomorrow so I could postpone worrying about it. The other side of me knows I should eat sensibly for pregnancy anyway.

My other worry is, when I was pregnant with Peanut I used it as a license to eat whatever I wanted, and I ended up feeling enormous by the end. I promised myself I would have a much better second pregnancy; one where I actually looked like a yummy-mummy with a neat bump, rather than the size of a truck with a face like a soccer ball.

Part of me thinks [knows?] I eat crap and drink caffeine to prop up my adrenal glands, which are probably exhausted. Going without all that rubbish will probably be like going cold turkey, dramatic perhaps but most likely true.

Why can’t I find the willpower to live a healthier way? Why is it easier to be lazy, rather than setting a good example to Peanut? Why am I beating myself up about my body image, rather than cherishing and fuelling the only body I have? What message am I sending my daughter, apart from eat rubbish and then trouble yourself over it?

Chocolate bar or piece of fruit anyone?

An apology

To my husband. For being grumpy, melancholy, insular, quiet, demanding, easily displeased, nit-picky, over-emotional, un-emotional, disinterested, self-absorbed. For being all those things over the last few days, I’m sorry.

Sometimes it’s hard to hide how I feel, hard to brush over it and be chipper. Sometimes I don’t want to brush over it. Sometimes I want to wallow in it and for you to notice my wallowing and do something fabulous to make me feel better. If left to my own devices I’ll continue to wallow, refusing to get back on the saddle and carry on.

I know I set my baby-making expectations too high and I want the perfect future now. I know I hate going to work because I want to be home with Peanut. I know I hate going to work even more because it’s causing actual physical pain. I know none of this is your fault and none of it you can fix either. Just let me wallow sometimes. Other times, just make me a cup of tea and give me a hug. Knowing you’re not frowning at me, that you’re on the rollercoaster with me, will be enough to make it all slip slide away.

I love you.

p.s. big HUGE congratulations on your team kicking ass the other night. Dinner and beer will be served this evening, I’ll even be washed with brand new hair just to dazzle you.

Doctor, doctor

I just got a 5-point prescription from my doctor:

rest
heat
painkillers
anti-inflammatories
no more heavy lifting

Looks like work will have to find a stronger victim to be their product fairy from now on!

Ouch!

I’ve hurt my back. Nothing dramatic, not a slipped disc or anything, but a continual dull ache in the lower and middle areas, sometimes accompanied by a sharp tingle down the left side. Enough for me take the day off today. And tomorrow. And probably Friday too.

I have an appointment with my doctor tomorrow morning; no doubt he’ll just tell me to rest and usher me out of his room. I don’t particularly want him to prescribe painkillers as I think I can manage without them until it recovers all by itself. I would just like reassurance I’m not inflicting long-term damage and for him to support the notion I need to change my work responsibilities to alleviate the cause.

See, that’s my problem. I think it’s my job that’s causing my pain. I commission photography for a niche consumer magazine and the product we promote is heavy. As part of organising our shoots I have to make sure we have the products available we wish to promote. If the product isn’t being delivered into my office, it’s being unpacked, moved, checked off a spreadsheet and then shipped out again to a shoot location. Sounds simple enough but when 1 average box weighs 16lbs/7.2kg and yesterday alone I unpacked at least 20 boxes, it means I shifted 336lbs/24 stone/152 kilos of the stuff yesterday alone!

I admit, we’re very busy right now so there’s way more to deal with than is normal but this summer will see me reach my 3rd year in the job and I think it’s finally taking its toll. The ridiculous thing is my employer pays me far too high a salary to be dealing with this rubbish, it’s just that no one else is silly enough to take on the responsibility. Believe me, I’ve been trying to handover the reins to a colleague [any colleague] for the past year but no-one wants to know! And as they’re my shoots, and I need the products in the right place at the right time, the buck stops with me.

Which is why I need to go see my doctor tomorrow. Even if I think I can physically get by without him I need him to help me build my case with work. Maybe he will sign me off sick and I can have an extended period at home? Maybe he’ll tell me I can’t do my job anymore and my employer has to pay me off? Fat chance but I do like to daydream.