Gabriele has been on solids for three days now and the little chubster loves every cheeky morsel of it. He looks absolutely adorable sitting up in his Bumbo wearing his bib and stiffening his arms and legs with excitement for his meal. He’s sneezed on me several times already and blown baby porridge over my face and into my mouth which oddly enough makes me want to laugh rather than cringe.
Gabriele Eating In His Bumbo
He has been noticeably more grizzly when it comes to nappy time as starting solids has undoubtedly bound him up inside and made it harder for him to go. We’ve tried to feed him water in between feeds and at times added a drop of orange concentrate; but today he managed to do two poo’s, both soft and yellow very similar to milky poo’s only slightly thicker. For some reason I was expecting to find a nice neat brown sausage in his nappy but I guess that’s more likely to happen when he starts eating proper food at seven months.
I’m still grinding my teeth at night and my hair is falling out like a tragic comedy sketch show, but at least I can laugh about it, although if I end up bald I will most definitely never leave the house during daylight hours again. I’m trying to do all that I can to de-stress, well, running the family home, raising the children and rushing around like a headless chicken. I was considering taking up yoga again and looked into classes but there’s only one class in the area that meets once a week and I don’t know if four days each month would be enough to even counteract my stress let alone reduce it. On the other hand I could join the gym and spend unlimited time with Luca working out together in the evening after he finishes work if we left the children with their grandparents; but I’d probably be just as stressed trying to run between houses en route as the nearest relative is a ten minute drive away and the gym is opposite our house, so driving there to drop the kids off, back to the gym to work out and then back to collect the kids and finally coming home would take forty minutes and if we were to workout for an hour that’s just shy of a two hour expedition. That’s considering Luca gets home on time from work at half past five and the traffic isn’t too bad getting to the gym and back. With Millie needing to be in bed at seven o’clock for school it would mean our forty minutes of driving just to cross the road would only allow for forty minutes of working out before running back to pick them up. And that’s if the village gym isn’t too busy and we actually get to use some of the handful of machines available. In fact just thinking about having some alone time together with Luca to join the gym stresses me out before I’ve even crossed the road! The only option I can see is for one of us to stay home and watch the kids whilst the other goes to the gym and then switch over, which means as a couple we would have even less time together. Oh life how you enjoy testing me!
I’ve just realised that my stomach has stopped hurting now, which is odd considering it felt like a glorious period was imminently taking its revenge upon my well rested tubes; perhaps the enemy has retreated after it heard my roar? Or perhaps I’m so stressed my periods have stopped again, which was pretty much the case throughout my teenage years. Maybe one day I’ll manage a normal monthly cycle without being bald and stressed to the eyeballs.
And why is it I’m so stressed I hear you ask? Well, I don’t entirely know! But it’s a woman’s’ prerogative to answer “Just because!” I wish stress were tangible like head lice, you know the enemy, you can see their battle plan and you can pour vinegar across your mane and go through it with a fine tooth comb removing every spec of intrusion. But stress is made of far stronger stuff, it breeds inside of you never disclosing it’s true size or nature until brick by brick your defenses fall and suddenly every task becomes impossible to complete because of this stealth like enemy. If I make dinner there’s always something else everybody would prefer to eat, if I want to spend time with Luca and the children I’m deliberately leaving other people out, on the rare occasion I spend money on myself I’m depriving the family and selfish so I feed my shoe and dress fetish when nobody is looking and then feel guilty about it after. And what have I got to feel guilty about? Or why should I feel tortured for doing one thing and then thinking maybe I should have done the other? I’ve worked my whole life, I’ve paid my taxes and earned my crust, I’m on maternity leave raising my children and I’ve got two feet which I love standing on by myself thank you very much. I’m not used to such questioning of my actions and reactions to the menial things that I do everyday. I’m not doing anything to include or exclude other people, everything I do is for my children and I hardly think about myself let alone anybody else. So I may well seem suddenly insensitive or rude which is completely out of character for me, but I’m sure people wouldn’t mind if they sat up at night on the end of my bed watching me wiping baby sick from off of my shoulder and making bottles in the ridiculous hours with my eyelids hanging down somewhere along the same area that a transparent moustache looks to be growing recently.
So that’s why I’m stressed. And a bunch of flowers, a back rub and possibly an Oscar or a Grammy wouldn’t go amiss because the effort I put into life on a daily basis is worth more than any sob story in a film! I challenge anybody to walk a day in my shoes and still have a millimeter of heel left intact at the end of it.
