The last two nights, I have been attempting to get BB back into his cot.

Effectively, this means the dreaded CIO.

The first night wasn’t too bad. He cried and all, but T. took over after half an hour, and once the worst of it was over, at around 7:30, BB slept throught till after 4am - a miracle.

Last night, not so easy.

He was hysterical. Really hysterical, to the point where he actually vomited.

I couldn’t do it.

So there we were, snuggling on the mattress on the floor again.

Except after all that being worked up, he was still unsettled.

I have no idea how any of this will be resolved. Most likely when he eventually grows out of it of his own volition.

When he is five.

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Eulogy

I wanted to write a post, for myself really, about the reasons why I want to quit smoking again. Yes, shamefully, I am still at it. Shamefully.

I have started the second A.lan C.arr book (word of mouth must have spread it to you at some point, yes?) and hopefully his bad writing and cheesy metaphors will work their mysterious magic, the way they did when I quit before.

I give you: Reasons Why I Hate Smoking.

1. I hate the feeling of slavery that you get when you’re a smoker. I hate, for example, that I “have” to race outside at lunchtime, and duck around the corner as if I am one of the students. I hate that I look around me with paranoia, and come back inside praying that I don’t encounter anyone I know before  can get to the bathroom to freshen up. The fact that I lower myself to this is sheer embarrassment.

2. I hate the way it makes me feel, physically. Since starting again, I have really noticed the difference in my energy level. I had no idea back in the days of pre-quit, that it made such a difference - I honestly thought I was just one of those people who isn’t very vital, like the frail sister with consumption in Little Women or something. I actually thought that lethargy was my temperament.

3. I hate the fact that if I don’t stop, BB will most likely have to watch his mother die a slow, painful, and worst of all - self-inflicted death.

4. I don’t want to die a slow, painful and self-inflicted death.

5. It makes me stink, something I am uber-conscious of when I lean down to help a student with their work. Small, but I’m constantly aware of it.

That’s the top five. There is, of course, many other powerful reasons to stop. Then why haven’t I? That’s the question, really, isn’t it?

I think that in some part of my brain, I associate smoking with youth. With the immortality of youth - with Summer days and house parties and late night coffees with friends. I associate it with driving my first car along the freeway, into the city, or cold mornings at the bus stop. Drinking tap beer, performing my poetry, wearing Doc Marten boots with retro print, babydoll-style dresses.

I remember being fifteen and sitting in a small town cemetary with my best friend, eating fish and chips and singing Simon and Garfunkel’s Homeward Bound as we smoked our gold-tipped, skinny cigarettes.

It’s hard to let go of that in some ways. Back then, you always intend to quit later, before it becomes a problem.

Problem is: It is later.

In reality, cigarettes were never any of those things. Or maybe they were, but it was only for a moment. In reality, they were only ever what they were - chopped up bits of leaf wrapped in paper. The memories would have existed with or without the smoking; it wasn’t cigarettes that made those moments special. The reality is that smoking was just as it is now –

 A big fat five minutes of nothing in particular.

Last year, when I applied to do my (coursework) Masters (ie. it sounds more impressive than it is) I put all thoughts of being unable to cope with the load at the back of my head. Seeing as it was my principal’s condition of starting work in the library, I figured that it was be overwhelmed by studying or be overwhelmed by marking in a regular teaching position. I chose the former.

I don’t regret it. But fuck, I am stressing about what’s coming up. It’s just the early days now. 

In terms of work, it’s sometimes hard being in a new role  when I don’t have the energy or inclination to be 100% open to it. I’m struggling with working under someone again, after beng the master of my domain for so long. The head teacher-librarian is one of these dynamic, lateral, quirky people who are lots of fun and quite visionary… but at the same time are ridiculously disorganised. She has a bit of a despotic streak too, in that she’ll often tell me (off) to do things a particular way, yet not have the organisational skills to do it that way herself.

It’s a little frustrating. I find myself unintentionally locking horns with her occasionally, my adolescent rebellious streak flashing up.

At these moments, I try to remind myself it will be my library one day.

I am excited about the possibilities of it, though. I’m enjoying getting into the meaty theory of the study, even though the reading list, even for the one unit I’m taking this semester, is almost more than I can cope with right now. Would you believe there is more to teacher-librarianship than checking out books and telling kids off for eating in the library?

So that part of it is good. I won’t get bored, something my teaching colleagues keep asking me if I am.

So there you go. Work update. Am struggling through. Certainly wouldn’t want any more than the three days, but am mostly enjoying those that I’m there. Not can’t-wait-to-get-to-work enjoying, but not watching the clock or being repulsed either. I’ve made some pretty handouts.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s all we can ask for. Is there actually anyone who really loooooves their job?

Or just people who say they do?

dumped

Last week, I got dumped.

Not by my husband, but by a girlfriend.

It was kind of my fault. Well, not really my fault, but I started it. I was the one who sent the confrontational, impulsive email bitching about the fact that she couldn’t, or wouldn’t  rather, make it to my son’s birthday party.

But it wasn’t about the birthday party. It was about every other time I’ve made plans with her in the last year, when she has called and broken them. It was about the fact that she has met Buddha Baby precisely twice. It was about the fact that somewhere along the line, she changed the rules on our friendship.

When I got back from work after our to-ing and fro-ing, T. asked me: Are you sure she wasn’t just breaking up with you?

See, I read an excerpt online recently, on a book about female friendships, and about how there are no protocols for ending them. It talked about the way women do this, how they just ignore calls, break plans, act like they’re “just busy”. It talked about how all of us do it - that we have all been the dumper and the dumpee at different times. And how hurtful and how painful that is respectively.

I thought about it. 

And there was a little cartoon lightbulb that flashed up above my head for a moment.

Isn’t this so simple and so true? I’ve had this happen several excrutiating times in my life - and worse, I’ve done it to others. I’ve groaned at the thought of having to call certain friends back, and just not. I have actually inflicted that crap on other people.

Anyway, so then I felt guilty for being so forthright about it all, and I composed a very neat, very gentle and not-at-all-pissed-off email to her. And I basically said all that - about the book and whatnot - and apologised for being confrontational and last-strawish and said that I hoped that wasn’t what was going on.

And she returned my emails. No answer. No nothing. Just the old Mailer Daemon flashing pixels of rejection at me in my work inbox.

I can’t believe we are grown women doing this to each other.

I just, like, posted on my old blog.

I kind of miss it.

Some dotpoints, without the dots:

Work has been ok. Weird to have new role, and be working under someone. Know so little so as to not even know what I don’t know. A somewhat uncomfortable position.

Attempting to navigate through online study and being unsuccessful and freaking out.

Going to two yoga classes a week, which helps.

Still struggling with smoking.

Organising BB’s first birthday party, in two weeks. Argh.

Pumping twice a day.

Still sleeping with BB for the second half of every night. He is settling better overall but is still wakeful unless I’m with him. But he doesn’t hate his cot quite as much as he did, I think.

And well, I have no time. Absolutely no time. Apologies to those who have emailed and/or facebooked me without reply. It’s all just that bit overwhelming right now.

I was going to write a long -overdue update, but I can’t stop thinking about what Mary Ellen is going through. And that’s far more important than anything I could have said.

the plan…

What is this? A whole baby sleep cycle, 45 minutes alone in the cot, without waking? Where is the BB I know and love tonight?

Eek. The last two nights with our new pissy little gentle no co-sleeping regime have been harsh. OMG. (Yes, it warrants MSN language.)

BB has been waking Every! Ten! Minutes!

Serious torture. To the point where I actually had to call my mother to come and take him off my hands for a few hours yesterday, just to get some sleep. Now I get why this baby sleeping caper is so hard for most people. My extreme napability has shielded me fairly well thus far, but this is intense.

One hour! It’s a miracle! We are winning small battles. He is not going ballistic as soon as I put him horizontal in my arms, which is good. He has started actually allowing me to put him down in his cot to sleep for short stretches. Short, short stretches. I am hopeful this will work ultimately, despite the current sleep dep.

So here is what we’re doing. For the record. And for Brandy.

Playing super-longplay hippy music CD with babbling brook and birdsong and tinkly piano on an hour-long loop.
Weaning him onto wrapping his arms around a soft toy instead of my neck.
Creating more routine sleep times during the day and at night.
Developing a structured bedtime routine - bath, story, bottle, cuddle. (No, we didn’t have one before. We suck.)
Using key phrase to calm him to sleep: Shh… time for sleeping…
Holding him for increasingly shorter periods to settle him before putting him in the cot.

Supposedly, all of this will change his sleep cues and he will be better able to settle himself without having to reach over and grab my hair constantly.

In fact, just after I wrote that he woke up (1 hr 15 minutes - not bad) and he only took a moment to settle. Better still was the urgency with which he grabbed the fluffy tail of his toy lion and curled his arm over it, so the mummy-substitute part of it all does appear to be working.

We’re yet to see whether the sleep part of it works. Hopefully it will be soon. Hopefully within seven days, when I have to be back at work.

Boo.

Well, lets see if BB will give me a chunk of time long enough to actully write something, instead of just knock two feeds off my blogroll.

Things here haven’t been too bad.

Well, he’s still sleeping like a piece of steaming shit, of course, but my step-kids have gone home, and me and the T-meister have been actually getting along - two things not necessarily related to each other, but then again, maybe they are.

Anyway, it’s good. Due to having a routine (again?), we have, at least, a baby who will go to sleep at an appropriate time, even if he won’t stay asleep.

It’s something though. And our copy of “The No-Cry Sleep Solution” arrived yesterday, so I am hoping the dirty t-shirt in the cot / hippy music / soft toy attachment will start doing something useful in time.

Dare I hope.

Meanwhile, countdown to return-to-work has now reached nine days. God. I try to be positive - it is mostly a new role, it is only three days, I have been getting a bit bored anyway etc etc etc but still, the thought of having to go in there periodically revolts me, especially the thought that since I’m job-sharing I won’t even get my own desk to litter with photographs and make everyone puke. Wah.

Finally, an admission. That I could never make on my original blog due to the utter shame.

The last couple of weeks I have been struggling with smoking again.

I know. What an absolute idiot. I can’t believe my own stupidness. It started as one on New Years, then was soon one a day, but is slowly building up. I have to get a grip on it. I have to. I don’t want to be like I was before I quit, which was just about the most hardened smoker you could ever meet, like I’m talking fifty or sixty a day during some points in my life. Literally, a chain-smoker.

I hate the feeling of slavery to it; that bit has come back so quickly, regardless of how much or little I smoke. It was so good to just not have to deal with the cravings anymore. I know that stopping again entirely is the only way to get over the cravings ultimately. That the only thing causing the cravings is the fact that I keep having more cigarettes. I know all of it. Which is why I’m so very disgusted with myself.

Anyway, bleugh. Feel free to chastise and/or give assvice.