Curse of the Cold

Oh my poor little angel is sick! Again! This is the second time that she has been sick since she was born, and I feel so bad for her, and I feel really guilty because once again, it was me who gave her the cold. Surely though this gives me the right to feel angry at those who gave me the cold that I then passed on to my daughter? I don’t know why, but it would appear that since giving birth I have zero immune system. Someone as much as sniffles in my house and I get knocked down for a whole week with a stupid cold. And yes, I do have a healthy diet! I can try to blame those in my house: Xavi for working too hard, not sleeping enough, and not eating properly therefore getting run down and sick. Or I could blame Yaincoa, but he can only take a small portion of the blame as he is 8 years old, therefore I will have to pass the rest of his blame onto his mother. Yaincoa has chronic bronchitis and asthma, his mom doesn't quite take care of him as well of a normal person would and so due to this reason and just being a kid, he spends most of winter sick. What this means is that they get sick, I get even sicker, little Emmeline gets sick as well.

Having read p on colds in Wikipedia, I have come to the conclusion that I am screwed! This is what they say:

“There is currently no known treatment that shortens the duration; however, symptoms usually resolve spontaneously in 7 to 10 days, with some symptoms possibly lasting for up to three weeks“  – So no treatment, I will just have to tough it out

“The common cold is the most frequent infectious disease in humans with on average two to four infections a year in adults and up to 6–12 in children” – I must be getting the whole families share as I have had 3 colds in 4 months!

“A history of smoking extends the duration of illness by about three days” – I used to smoke but gave up when I found out I was pregnant

“Getting fewer than seven hours of sleep per night has been associated with a risk three times higher of developing an infection when exposed to a rhinovirus, compared to those who sleep more than eight hours per night” – HA, please see my post of sleep deprivation! 4 month old baby and seven hours of sleep? If only...

“The best prevention is staying away from people who are infected” – Kind of hard when the infected people are your boyfriend and his son, don’t think they would feel so great if I told them to get out of the flat for 7 – 10 days!

“Colds are primarily transmitted through breathing in tiny particles that the infected person emits when he or she coughs, sneezes, or exhales” – So we should all just stop breathing then?

I was sick last week and it really did make looking after Emmeline by myself hard! I had no energy and I ached all over. She was being very fussy about eating and she just wouldn’t sleep by herself and I just wanted to lie in bed all day. I couldn’t, so I had to tap my resources and get on with it taking whatever medicine the pharmacist had Ok’d to a breastfeeding mother, drink lots of orange juice and have lots of steam baths of eucalyptus! I eventually started to feel better by Saturday, but on Saturday I then noticed that Emmeline was not behaving like herself. She seemed out of sorts, and was crying a bit more than usual. She was also all tired and lethargic. By Sunday she had a snotty nose and a chesty cough. My heart absolutely broke into a million pieces. I could see that she was feeling like crap, but the little gem still managed to give me several priceless smiles and giggles! I tried to carry on with our normal daily routines, but I could see that this would not work. Every time that I tried to put her down or down to sleep by herself, she started to cry, in the end I had her in my arms or the baby Bjorn all day. It worked out nicely for me as I love having her in my arms, and if that was what I could do to make her feel better, then I would do it happily! So there we were, sick mommy, sick baby and daddy working all day. I chose the only option that I could think of: medicine, pyjamas all day and Greys Anatomy.  A few of the nights I put her in her crib, and in the end I had to bring her into bed with me and slept hugging her all night long. I know many people don’t agree with co-sleeping, but I did it for the first 2 months of her life with no problems, so for me it was fine to bring Emmeline into bed and soothe and comfort her.

She is finally over her cold, and is starting to feel herself again, although not completely. However what the poor little thing doesn’t know is that tomorrow we have her 4 month vaccinations......

Sleep deprivation

Sleep deprivation - a sufficient lack of restorative sleep over a cumulative period so as to cause physical or psychiatric symptoms and affect routine performances of tasks.



Emmeline clearly does not suffer sleep deprivation



That is how the dictionary describes it. This is now my life. I had to look it up to check if it could explain how I feel some days, and it comes close, but may days, the word ‘tired’ doesn’t seem sufficient. It seems such a weak word to describe something so big!

I have a new born baby whom I am breastfeeding. Of course I am sleep deprived.  However, I sometimes feel weird saying this to people. Why? Because they all just give you that superficial ‘oh shame’ look and nod their heads swiftly moving on with the conversation. They just don’t seem to believe me!

I think that generally people fall into 3 categories.

• Those that cannot even begin to imagine the sleep deprivation that you are feeling as they have never experienced anything similar.
• Those that think you are just exaggerating “oh, all mothers say that. Ha ha ha”.
• Those that think you should just accept it and get on with things. ‘You had a baby, what did you expect?’

Maybe I am totally wrong, but it is how I feel, I feel guilty to tell people how crap I actually feel some days due to lack of sleep because they probably think I am just exaggerating. I AM NOT. Take your worst ‘ooh I am so shattered’ day and multiply it by around 50. EVERY DAY. ALL DAY. ALL NIGHT!

My baby girl Emmeline is now more than 4 months old. However my lack of sleep began way before she was born. It began when I fell pregnant. Back then it was due to a large number of reasons such as the need to go to the toilet 5 times a night, the increase in body temperature, the increase in the size of my tummy meaning that I could only sleep on my side (not so comfortable for me), the hunger pains, and again the need to go to the toilet 5 times a night. But my sleep deprivation took a drastic increase with the arrival of my little girl.

I am breastfeeding her which means that I cannot share night time feeds with my partner. He would love to help, but he is lacking in essential equipment! Anyway, I don’t see the point in Xavi waking up to ‘give me the baby’ and share my hell. What is the point? Seriously? So that we can both just be exhausted the next day but at least we get to say ‘Oh yeah, Xavi wakes up and helps’. Why? To show how he shares responsibility? He does a lot for Emmeline during the day so dont need him to show me anything during the evenings. Yes, I could express milk and he could bottle feed her, but I would much rather prefer that he gets a good night sleep so that he can be fine at work (he wakes up very early and he has a physical job). Plus, I really need him to be in a good mood, because depending on how tired I am , I may not be so rosy, and I need him to not only support me, I need him to put up with me and my irritability. Anyway, Emmeline sleeps right next to me, so I would wake up even if xavi did the feedings. Our close proximity does mean that I am aware of her every move and her every sound. She whimpers and I wake up. She strains to go to the toilet making noises and kicking and tensing her legs, I am right there with my eyes open cheering her on to get that poo out. My little one eats a lot. No more than other babies I am sure, but a lot anyway, so she whimpers for boob a lot as well.. I am very happy to be able to satisfy her appetite, and I will wake up as many times as I need to for her. I will do what she needs. . .

But my god I am tired!

I think that before I had Emmeline I must have thought that all mothers just said that they were tired, but really that they could not have been quite so tired. Boy has karma kicked me in the arse for that thought. I could never have imagined how I would feel, so I guess I just never really believed or appreciated other mother’s pain. From the beginning, Emmeline has always woken up a lot. So many nights it feels like my head has just hit the pillow and I have to get up again for her. For a long time, until past 3 months old, she was waking every 2 or 3 hours. Some nights she could do 4 hours, some nights we would wake up exactly every hour. You may think to yourself ‘Well, 3 straight hours of sleep isn’t bad’. Oh no my friend, it is not 3 hrs. You see, when we say she woke every 2 hrs, it is actually 2 hrs between the time she started her last feeding and the time she starts her next one. What generally happens is something like this: 02:00am baby wakes, stumble out of bed, groggily attach baby to boob, play endless rounds of free trial Tetris games on my mobile to not fall asleep on baby, burp baby, optional poo to then change, attempt to attach baby to other boob, watch Xavi turning over taking all my blankets with him, huff and puff irritably no avail, look down and see baby is fast asleep, put baby back in crib, go to toilet, suddenly feel hungry so quietly grab a biscuit from the biscuit tin, go back to bed, climb into bed noting that it is 02:30 ish. Attempt to fall asleep. Great, get to do it all again at 04:00am. Not pretty. There are times that I do have to hold my head in my hands and just go ‘Oh Emmeline, really?’ when I have to get up regularly during the nights. And the minute I have had this slight moment of impatience, I feel bad and guilty even though I know I haven’t done anything wrong. I would hear of other people’s baby’s sleeping 8, 10 or even 12 hrs and would wonder why I did to piss Mother Nature off so badly that she gave me a baby allergic to sleep. Was I doing something wrong? The one time that Emmeline slept for 6 hours, I bounded out of bed like a bloody panther to make sure she was still breathing!

When you are deprived of sleep on such a constant basis, you are no longer tired. You are so much more. It is not just that your eyes have that burning sensation that is normally the result of a night out and too few hours sleep. Your body feels tired, your brain feels slow, you can hardly think straight, you can’t really follow conversations at a normal rate. Then there are your emotions, they are stretched to the limit. I get irritated when I haven’t slept enough, irritated and generally feel on the verge of crying. Then I get irritated about being so ready to cry. I lose my patience and my temper with those around me. I just generally tend to have no time for anyone. I feel like half a person. The other half left me to go and get some shut eye somewhere.

I am optimistic that there is light at the end of my sleep deprived tunnel, and almost every night I go to bed I think “is this the night she sleeps for 6, 7, or 8 hours straight?” I am always hopeful that yes it is. I am still waiting. I told myself it will get better when she is 4 and a half months, or when she is 5 months, or when she is on solids. I motivate myself thinking well I have done it for this long, I can keep going.

Then some bitch on the internet stated that this will continue into the first year!

Someone please tell me that she is totally wrong!!!!!!!

Morphing into a Stay at Home Mom

I realised this week that I am a stay at home mom.... something I never wanted to be!



Image taken from www.fabulously40.com



The idea I used to have in my head of a stay at home mom was someone who only ever wears tights and a big baggy t shirt and just cleans and irons stuff. It wasn’t a pleasant image and I now realise that it was not a fair one either. I realise now that I had stereotypes SAHM’s as ladies who didn’t really do that much except for a bit of cooking and cleaning whilst running behind their children to clean their snotty noses. Where did I get this image from? I can’t really say. Perhaps shows like Roseanne, Married with children or the Simpsons didn’t really help! Nor did the general idea that being a stay at home mom was a luxury and that these ladies did very little. People frown upon SAHM's

I suppose that I always had an idea that I would successful working mom and whilst I knew that I wanted a baby or two, I didn’t really think about the being at home with them part or how that would all work out!

Before I got pregnant, I was working. In August last year I said goodbye to that job and it was in November that I peed on a stick and saw two very distinct lines that said “Oh shit, everything is going to change”! Of course I was then in the dilemma of being pregnant and thinking about looking for a job. Problem is who is really going to offer you a contract when in a few months you will be taking leave for a minimum of 4 months to have a baby and thereafter your reliability may not be what it once was. Add that to the fact that being in a foreign country and not speaking the language fluent enough for an office job does somewhat limit your possibilities. Sales has never interested me, I would rather go and paint my face and pretend to be a tree on La Rambla for money than phone some poor unsuspecting tool trying to sell underwater hairdryers. That left job offers of working for Oxfam (commission based) standing in the street trying to get donations, handing out leaflets to tourists, late night work handing out discount drinks flyers in front of bars, or being a pub crawl party guide. Interesting as those were, I had a feeling that a rapidly growing baby bump may cast a doubt over my meeting the ‘party girl’ request in the job offer. Thankfully xavi being the hero that he is told me not to worry and that he was earning enough to support us and that I should just rest and prepare for the baby. Oh ok then! I was (and still am) studying a graphic design course, and I did my best to continue with that, but I suddenly found myself with a first class addiction to pregnancy forum web sites and to anything else pregnancy related. I couldn’t go a day without finding out how my ladies on the ‘I Am Pregnant’ forum were feeling. I was busy every day, but I cannot for the life of me remember what I was doing! But I did not feel like a SAHM at any point. Perhaps because I was not a mom. Being a ‘step mom’ type person to Yaincoa didn’t count.

Then little Miss Muppet came along and my life got thrown upside down. I was super busy and engrossed with her and it all went by in a blur. I was at home, but I still did not feel like a SAHM. In September, my sister came over to visit. She was pregnant and asked ‘What do you do all day?’ it was an innocent question but I imagined many people asking the same and thinking ‘great life, all she has to do is look after the baby, clean a little and that is it’. I tried to explain what I did in a day and that actually it was a helluva lot, but I wasn’t too convinced that anyone believed me.

Then last week after spending the ENTIRE day trying to clean the house (everything takes ten times longer when you have a baby as you have to do everything around them), and the following day doing washing and cooking etc, it suddenly hit me. I had morphed into a SAHM without even realising it. I felt a bit squeamish about this. Somehow the image I had in my head of being a creative mom who was staying at home with her bundle of joy and being surrounded by handmade creations that we had made didn’t seem to fit in with the person who had just spent 2 days cleaning and washing. Whilst wearing black comfy pants and a big jersey. I have also been labelled a feminist in the past, so the cooking and cleaning wasn’t sitting so well with me. I sat down at had a talk with myself about all of this. So I am doing the cooking and cleaning. Well that is simply because Xavi is waking up at 6 am to go and work and is working as hard as he can to allow me to stay at home with our little one, so in exchange I maintain the household. I am a mom and I am staying at home. We come in all shapes and sizes, some do more, some do less, and we are not overweight tights wearing freaks. We are ladies lucky enough to be able to spend even more time with our children and experience every moment with them. The thought of putting Emmeline into a ‘Guardaria’ (crèche) over here at 4 months old makes me feel physically sick. The idea of someone else teaching her to sit and stand, someone else feeding her, someone else watching her learn to laugh? Uh no, no, no.

And as for the crap about we don’t do a lot during our day, simply mooch around watching Oprah. Huh! To anyone who thinks that we have it easy, here is a general day:

06:00/07:00 – wake up with Emmeline talking, try give her the dummy and quieten her, run for a quick wee, realise Emmeline will not go back to sleep, bring her into bed with me, fall asleep hugging her close

08:00 – wake up, try convince Emmeline to go back to sleep and eventually give in when she starts blowing bubbles and practicing her higher pitched gurgling, feed her in bed so she doesn’t get distracted by the TV

08:30 – make coffee and cereal; go through to the lounge with breakfast and baby. Put on TV, watch news, check emails, bank balance and a quick look at face book of course. Try to get Emmeline to sleep

10:00 – put Emmeline in her crib to sleep .get cleaned, dressed, beds made, dishes to kitchen, clothing in cupboards.

10:30 – Emmeline wakes up. Get her changed, dressed, and play with her.

11:00 – Emmeline in crib. Wash dishes, clean house, put on a load of washing

11:30 – feed Emmeline, burp her, probably change her nappy – she likes to poo whilst breastfeeding!

12:00 – put Emmeline to sleep again, hang up washing

13:00 – go to supermarket, stock up on necessities

14:30 – feed Emmeline, change her, burp her, and put her down to nap, make lunch

15:00 – try to do something! Work stuff (we have our own company), sewing, organising, computer stuff, personal stuff, anything!

16:00 – me and Emmeline go to have a long sleep together

18:00 – wake up

19:00 – dinner, feed Emmeline, play with her

20:30 – bath Emmeline

21:00 – put Emmeline to bed

01:00 – wake up for feeding

04:00 – wake up for feeding

Not that easy is it? Admittedly Xavi helps out a lot, and when we don’t have Yaincoa, even more. My free time whilst he is helping out is then spent with Emmeline. SAHM’s have several job roles. We have to divide ourselves into keeping everything running smoothly in the house, being absolutely everything for the newborn baby, being mommy to any other children in the household, being an open and supportive ear to our partners when they come home, being good children by taking our children to see their grandparents, trying to meet up with friends, and somehow, God knows where, find a tiny nanosecond of time just for us!

I am a stay at home mom, and I am proud of it. So I am not doing my dream job, living the high life, putting my studies to good use, no, but this morning when Emmeline giggled at me making Peek a Boo faces at her, nothing else seemed important any more. I feel lucky to be able to spend so much time with her instead of stuck behind a computer!