When I was pregnant with Char I was fairy certain she was going to grow up to save the world. I didn’t know how or when she was going to do this, I was just fanatically positive she would make it happen.

Admittedly, I may have been aiming a wee bit too high with that one. So after a few years I set her a slightly more realistic goal, with the expectation that she would simply sail through school with perfect marks, go on to uni and study something she was passionate about, have a fantastic OE then come back and land her perfect job. Maybe even one related to what she studied at uni. I also expected the Gilmore Girls relationship we maintained through her childhood would carry on flawlessly into her teenagehood, and through our regular conversations about life, lads and everything in between, she’d learn from my mistakes and therefore never have to make any of her own.

Again, there may have been one or two slightly unreasonable forecasts in that paragraph.

She did sail through primary and intermediate with perfect marks, and when she began high school this year I really thought there was a good shot of the first four on the list coming true. Sure our mother/daughter communication had come to stuttering halts here and there, but this was usually due to disputes on how tidy her room was along with the general antisocial ‘my parents don’t understand what I’m going through’ teen angst that seems to kick in at year 9.

However as this past year has progressed, she seems to have become intent on knocking every one of my hopes and dreams right off the Parental Expectation Radar.

More often when she comes home and tells me about her day, it’s to gloat about how she told her science teacher she’s a stupid bitch and ‘oops I might have an after school detention for that one’.  Then she wonders why I spend the night shitty or crying.

Does she not realise that as she tells me these things, I’m remembering the sweet lovely Char I used to know - and wondering at what point she was replaced by a doppelganger?  As her gloating words of “how I bummed out Mr Whoflungdung today” wash over me, I’m thinking of all the parent-teacher interviews where teachers would gush about “what a pleasure it is to have your daughter in my class”, and “I’ve heard so many great things about her” and how “she makes the whole process of getting up in the morning and coming to work each day worthwhile”.

Her school report arrived in the mail today, and I was sadly unsurprised to read that my A-average daughter (who had become a B-average by Term 2 this year) has now become a B-C average with the odd dusting of D.  The main theme of teacher comments being that Char has a tendency to become distracted in class (too busy passing notes), fails to apply herself to her full potential (too busy writing poems about *insert name here* in books to actually listen to what’s being taught)

So now my expectations have been revisited and modified once more.  As far as education is concerned, I’m pretty much just hanging onto the hope that she finishes school. Never mind the uni right now. Just finish school damn it.  And maybe if she manages to do that, she might go on to landing a great job after all. Because I’m developing a lingering fear that she’ll drop out of school, spend half her life bumming around before finally deciding - when it’s pretty much too late - that she wants to do something with her life after all.  You know, just like her mum did.  And my biggest hope/expectation of all is that she’ll rise above me and become something I never was - that she’ll make the most of every positive opportunity she’s given, and becomes the happy and successful young adult I never allowed myself the fighting chance to be.

Despite all the hand-wringing, teeth-grinding I’m doing over this and sense of hopeless futility I feel struck by every now and then, I’m still reasonably optimistic that in the long run, she’ll get there in the end. Teenage years are rough. I clearly remember that. No matter how much you try to prepare your kid for the roller coaster ride that is adolescence, they’re going to sneak off when you’re not looking and find a scarier ride, just so they can say they’ve got one up on you.  So I’m hoping - really hoping - she’ll make a few cautionary mistakes and learn from them quick enough to bounce back wiser than before - without getting too hurt in the process. But truth be told, I’m shit scared of what the next few years might have in store for us.

… Yeaah of course I’m kidding. Though, it is true that we saw Char off on a Marton-bound bus. (And don’t worry I’m pretty sure it’s a return ticket. ;)) Breelooked no small amount of confused when the bus pulled away and we started walking back to the car without her big sis. She waved to Char happily enough when Jarrod pointed her out on the bus and lifted her to the window, but she still expected Char would be coming back to the car afterwards. For a few moments following the bus departure she kept looking about, expectantly waiting for her sis to materialise before her. Like us, Bree was missing her already. (The feeling only got worse later in the evening when Bree wanted us to play Char’s ‘blanket game’ and we didn’t know the rules. She got shitty, gathered up the blanket and stomped off down the hall to find her sis. Boy were we in trouble.)

Over the years I’ve said goodbye to Char several times at the airport as she’s winged her way down to Nelson, yet somehow it was kind of harder to see her off on a bus. Not at the time - at the time I just got on with it, but afterwards.  When we returned to a suddenly-so-empty house, Jarrod and I both felt a bit anxious. I guess during the drive home from the airport we’re too busy concentrating on the drive home to worry about anything else, and then by the time we reach our driveway, she’s already touched down.  This time, we arrived home with the awareness that her 10 hour journey had only just begun.

She’s pretty damned brave though, and as Jarrod points out; it’s a fantastic confidence-building skill for her to be able to leg it across the country by herself like this. I seriously couldn’t have done it at her age. She’s good at internalising anxiety, so it’s hard to know if she’s worried sometimes.  Of course she had concerns about how she’d know when she reached Marton, but she didn’t let that worry consume her. Not even after I said, ‘don’t worry, if you find yourself in Palmy, you’ve gone too far.’ To which she replied, ‘And if I end up in Brisbane, I was on the wrong bus!’  Goes to show how much more resiliant and confident she is than me, even if she doesn’t always realise it.

One day it’ll be Bree hopping on that bus in the school holidays to go down south to visit family. And I guess by the time she reaches that age, we really will be renting out Char’s room. She’ll be off doing young adult things like flating in some squatty little central AK hole pissing it up with all her uni mates or something. Oh, what a depressing line of thought. I’m feeling really sad and nostalgic now. Wishing as I’ve wished many times before that I could have a few more years of Char’s childhood back so I can enjoy them all over again; wishing I could keep Bree at this age forever; (yet at the same time looking forward to watching them continue to grow); wondering how the hell we’ll survive without our kids in the house to fill it with life and laughter once they’ve grown up and moved on.

 For all that Char spends a lot of her time holed up in her bedroom doing the antisocial teenage ‘I just want my own space/life so my god why won’t you just back off and let me breathe’ thing, she’s always happy to chase her lil’ sis around the house and make her laugh in a way we can’t (seriously, if either of my big sis’s could have been half as fun and loving as Char is to Bree, I’m sure I would have turned out a far happier person). And she still grants us her presence for at least some fragment of our evenings to fill the house with chatter and share in the various family in-jokes that are sometimes funny/insane enough to print off and stick to the toilet wall. For all I might sometimes hold my head in my hands and complain “she only ever wants to talk about boys!”, I’m glad she at least talks to us about that much.

Gods I’m so good at talking myself into feeling miserable. Char’s only away for less than a week and I’m already feeling like this nest is half empty. Guess I’m just gonna have to go comfort eat now. While the cat’s away and all… chocolate, banoffi, mississippi mud pie, cookies & cream icecream, lollies and pizza..  Hell, I’m going to build my very own gingerbread house. Maye lure the neighbourhood kids inside, fatten them up and eat them too! With one less mouth to feed at the moment, there’s more for me!

Oh my freakin’ gods. 

Is this world completely insane? Wait, maybe it was the wide-brimmed hats that caused the panic.  I can see how that would happen…

But why would a few McClouds Daughters cause a panic? I’d be more inclined to sic Gargamel on those Smurfs, or phone up God to deal with those devils…

Well, my daughter (the youngest one) smells like she’s dropped a bomb in her nappy. Why can’t she let the nukes go when her dad’s home to deal with it?

Certainly look like one.  Seriously, I think I’ve aged a lifetime since the Lilybug was born.  My mother kindly told me I look haggard, the last time she was over.  She also told me I need to brush my teeth.  Thanks mum.  Gotta appreciate the honesty I suppose!

They say (and I’d like to know exactly who They are) that by the age of 9 months a baby is pretty much well sleeping through the night.  Sure. I’d like These people to come around my place at 11pm! And 1am. And 3am.

Sleep. Pfft.  It’s down there with the fairies at the bottom of the garden.

There was a point to this. I’ve lost it now.  Something to do with a brain-shattering migraine.  But because I’d really like to achieve the goal of writing an update and actually FINISH it, I’ll natter on.

Char’s at high school next year (but meanwhile she’s sitting right beside me farting. FARTING! Go back to bloody school you little miscreant!) and I’ll be totally relaxed about that idea just as soon as I figure out how to attach a GPS system to the inner sole of her shoe without her finding out. (Crap. She’s actually reading this.)

Bree is 10 months old today, and although she hasn’t technically said her first word yet (in English anyway) she does a pretty good cat meow and her big thing lately is to woof at dogs.  And any other animal that isn’t a cat. Therefore could be a dog.

I realised the other day that I am now technically classed as an ‘older mother’.  Scarier still, when I was recently asked my age, I couldn’t remember if I was 32 or 33.  Turns out I’m actually 31, which made me feel a little less morbidly close to old age.

Well, I’m going to shuffle off now (with the aid of my walking frame of course) and perhaps come back later when I lose this nail-through-the-eye migraine and think of something nice to write :P 

Meanwhile I’ll leave you with a -

“Poo-ah faarck!”

“Kind of hits you like a truck, doesn’t it?”

*gag gag uuurghh*

Yes Char.  That’s one way of putting it.  I may looking like the walking dead these days, but you smell like it.

What the hell has my girl been eating? Roadkill?

Completely forgot what I was about to say now.  Goodbye.

Born on 4 Feb, seven excruitatingly long days late, and now nearly three months old… here’s Breaca! (aka Bree, Lily Bug, Boo, Bug-a-Lugs, it goes on…)

Week One

Week Five & Six

Week Nine

That’s all for now, the little sproggin has woken, and is making grunty hungry noises through the monitor.  Speaking of hungry, I could really go a cheese toastie right now…

Btw, I really was convinced in those last couple weeks of pregnancy that I was simply full of gas and no baby at all.  In fact, with the way the Lily Bug farts, I still wonder if I was really full of gas all along, and am now proud mother to a baby-shaped gas bubble.

I think The Worzel is trying to kill me.

Periodically, someone in the household dares to ask if I’m in labour. Yes. No. Maybe? I can’t feel contactions because all I can feel is intense lower back pain, with alarming twinges of sharp piercing agony that radiates through me whenever The Worzel wriggles. Maybe this is labour. Or maybe this child inside of me has grabbed a fistful of spinal nerve and is twisting it around and around her fingers…

Then again, perhaps I just need to do a good poo?

One thing that seems to be for sure, is that there’s no point timing anything because the pain is contant.
Well, we’ll find out one way or another, at some point through the night/weekend/rest of the month.

 Well, a pool’s a pool I guess.  Except one will also be accompanied by contractions.

Had a cool day at Cheltenham beach on Monday, but this heat has now sapped away my will to do much else except to sit around and play Monopoly with Char.  Now that the bedrooms are re-arranged and whatnot, I’ve burnt out like an old rock has-been and have now become rather sloth-like.  Which is probably why The Worzel is now lying in a wonderful posterior position which strikes pain into my lower back each time she moves.  It’s like she’s resting against a nerve.  Hmm.  Getting on my nerves already huh? *rolls eyes at pathetic wit*

 In other news - and I’m surprised I haven’t let this cat out of the bag already - we have a name for the sproggin!  After months of deliberating, we’ve collectively settled on a name which went straight to number one as soon as it made it’s debut on the charts. 

 Breaca.

 There’s a double meaning to this one.  Originally it was Brekka, which was J’s choice of a middle name (inspired by a speedway midget chassis).  Then he bought me the last of Manda Scott’s ‘Boudica’ series and the name Breaca fell out of the page.  Brekka.  Breaca.  Similar. Right?  And according to Manda Scott at least, Breaca is a derivative of Boudica, whose name is in turn a derivative of the war goddess Boudig which relates in turn to the great goddess Briga (Bridget).  Or something upon those lines.  Celtic.  Lovely.  And not entirely in relation to the framework of a car.

And now, because I’ve never been so keen to flaunt myself about as I am now that I have a big fat pregnant belly, here’s the latest Buddah Belly update at 38 weeks…

Meh. Pregnancy. I’m stalling on going to bed because I can’t stand the restlessness. As mentioned in the previous post, it’s been hard sleeping with all this baby inside of me, digging limbs into my lungs. Sitting up every few minutes to try and draw in that elusive deep breath, and thus disturbing Jarrod’s sleep. The poor lad wakes each time I move, asking if I’m alright. I’m looking forward to the time when I can answer that with “actually I think I’m in labour” so I can get this pregnancy dealio over and done with and have my body back already! Might still not be able to sleep, but at least I should be able to breathe!

Or maybe it’s the heat that’s making me wake gasping every time I drift off? Last night I managed to sleep because the weather was refreshingly cool, but I doubt I’ll be so lucky tonight.  *grumble grumble*

Anyhoo I figured I’d take this moment to post some of the pics Char took of my nephew and I on New Years Eve.  He’s going through an emo moment which his parents hate, but aw, it’s so cuuute…

There we go, nothing much, just an excuse to write up a post (two days in a row. Wow.) and say “look I still have my Bauhaus t-shirt!” which I might add, did a reasonable job of minimising the 36 week baby belly?

Now if only I could find something that could minimse my 37 week feet…

 Then the weekend before Christmas, a start was finally made (after I stressed to Jarrod “mum will come over on Christmas day and ask to see the baby’s room, and there won’t be one!”)  It looked as if I might be able to start shifting the baby gear our of our room at last! 

Following Christmas I had a sudden epiphany.  Why not move Char into what was to be The Worzel’s room, and shift The Worzel into her old room?  It makes for twice the last-minute workload, but what the hell - if a back must be broken and a disc slipped, why not do it good and proper?!

Jarrod was sceptical.  And for good reason.  Two thirds of Char’s room was still filled with toys she outgrown years ago.  Dig down deep enough into that wardrobe, and we’d probably find a well-preserved mammoth, half a dozen lost lunch boxes and the library book I was billed for two years back.

But being pig-headed and adamant that this was a fantastic idea, I hauled Char into her room and forced her to help me decide what she could give away, and pack up the rest for transferral down the hall.  

Two hours later, I sat head in hands, despairing over how I could ever be so stupid and ‘how the hell will we ever get to the bottom of it all?  I think it was the “I told you so” expression on Jarrod’s face that forced me to continue plodding on.  ( And perhaps the realisation of “if I could get through all that pricing in the containers at work each week, I can get through this!  Damn it!”)

 After a week of chipping through the many layers of our excavation site, a breakthrough was made.   By me.  Char had long deserted me in favour of hanging out with her cousin who had come to stay.  Eurika.  Everything was bagged, tagged, and ready for burial.  Eh, removal.

Now Char is in her new room, The Worzel’s bassinet is set up in her room, and I at last can stop with the re-occuring nightmare of going into labour without having a room to bring the little sproggin home to.  (Actually the bad dreams have stopped mainly because I can no longer SLEEP!  There’s so much baby in my belly I can barely breathe.  And thus each time I manage to drift off through the night, I wake gasping for air.  Urggh…) 

Now then, this pregnancy dealio is really un-fun.  I know there’s still three weeks until DD, but damn it, it’s time for this Worzel to GET THE HELL OUT OF ME ALREADY!  

PS: This was the last photo our camera will ever take, as it has now decided to f*@! out on us. Now, I’m once again uttering “okay little Worzel, you can’t come out yet. We’re not ready…”

I can’t go into labour without a camera!!

DAMN IT!

Wait, I didn’t mean to imply we’ll  be using the camera while I’m in labour.  No one wants to see that… I meant afterwards; when The Worzel is all pink and glowing and looking human and all.  Not all wet and slimey and half hanging out of my…

Yeah.  You get it already.  I’ll shut up now.