Christmas Time

Christmas time, Mistletoe and wine, fa la la, la la la la la la.....

Ok, so I don’t know the words, and I cannot really drink wine (breastfeeding), I don’t own any mistletoe and I don’t own a Christmas carol CD (must be sure to download something very soon), but I have finally put up my Christmas tree!! Yaay me!

I have not been feeling very Christmas, but that is not just this year! It has been a while now. Why? I don’t know, perhaps because I now live in a country where Christmas is not the big celebration at this time of year, the big celebration would be The Three Kings on the 6^th January.

(Background Info: In Spain father Christmas is not the star of the show, it is the Three Kings. They were the three wise men who came and gave gifts; therefore, the time to give gifts over here is traditionally the 6^th January. The 6^th January will see 3 giant kings arrive by boat and then there is a parade all around the city where they throw sweets at the children. That is the day children get there gifts. Last year Yaincoa received an electric toothbrush and a mobile phone from his mother on this date. He was 7. Not normal.  However with more and more external influence in the media etc, Father Christmas is beginning to carve out a little niche for himself over here. Great for the kids, most will now get presents at Christmas and the 3 kings if the parents choose to celebrate both. )

Since our family is a mixed bag of delights, we shall celebrate both. Christmas time is my traditional celebration and the three kings is Xavi’s traditional celebration. Our children will therefore get both!

Where was I? Ok so back to why I don't feel Christmassy? I think that it is because whilst there are Christmas lights in the street, it is nowhere near Oxford Street standards! Each ‘barrio’ (district) of Barcelona pays for their own lights and therefore is representative of that barrio. For example, Barceloneta is a fishing area, so there Christmas lights have fish in them. No, not very Christmas like, but yes very representative of that barrio and unique. So, not many Christmassy lights, what else? Well I have not heard one single Christmas carol! Not on the radio, not on the TV, not in the supermarket, nowhere. The only place I heard a Christmas carol was on a report for the news talking about how the remix version of Jingle Bells was making it big over in Ibiza ...Ok then! I have also noticed a distinct lack of Christmas decorations in flat windows, or in shops, I have also not seen a Santa Claus yet, anywhere. The only real sign so far that Christmas in near in the absolute bombardment of adverts for children’s toys (enough already, we are trying to not raise spoilt brats) and adverts for perfumes (I am seriously over images of semi naked, sexy, wet gorgeous people. Honestly, I am). I feel a little bit like Christmas imposter. But ho hum, away I go anyway, if I don’t feel Christmassy, then perhaps surrounding myself with the evidence that it is in fact that time of year again will push me into the mood! Truth be told, I want to feel all Christmassy as this is Emmeline’s first and I am all excited about that!

My Christmas decoration mission started off well. We went down to the house last week for a one day visit quite simply to get some of our winter clothing and most importantly, to get my Christmas decorations. Xavi’s dad very kindly bought us back in the car saving us a rather long train journey with a large chequered plastic bag with a Christmas tree sticking out of it! I wanted to put the tree up on Sunday night while Yaincoa was with us, but as you may know, the Wicked Witch decided to come and pick up her son early and so that plan went down the drain. So on Monday I started to decorate the house. First thing, decorations all around the lounge and a few decorations in the hallway. It occurred to me that I have never decorated more than this part of the flat, mostly I just decorate the lounge and that is it! Does anyone actually put decorations in their whole house? You could actually close the door to my lounge and feel like everything was normal, open the door and walk into Christmas! I could buy more decorations to do the rest of the flat, but it just wouldn’t feel right. Next up, the tree. My tree is a few years old now, the decorations are fairly crap and the tinsel appears to have been cut up (no doubt by a little boy who ‘helped’ me decorate last year; I thought that there appeared to be more tinsel than normal). You see the problem is that by the end of the year my funds are normal dried up, and presents come before decorations, hence the really awful Christmas tree decorations!

So anyway, up went the tree; on went the lights, tinsel and decorations. On went the lights and I took a step back to admire the tree. It was very pretty although slightly anorexic in the decorations department. However, I told myself that if I could find a few extra coins somewhere, I would buy myself a few more decorations. The tree stood in her corner all night long, lights twinkling away, decorations dancing amongst the tinsel. Ah Christmas . . .

The following day I had scraped together quite a few coins that enabled me to go out and buy more tinsel, more decorations for the lounge, and more decorations for the tree. YAAY! I came home and rearranged everything with my nice new decorations and tinsel, it was beautiful and then I went to put the lights on again. I plugged in the switch and NOTHING. No lights, not a single one, nothing. I could not believe it, all that work for the lights to fizz out! I was slightly devastated. I sat in a heap on the couch and slowly deflated.

Xavi, my darling hero, went out and bought me new lights the next day and so I spent the following afternoon removing ALL the decorations, ALL the tinsel and the dud lights. Half way through the process of removing these dud lights, they started to work again. SERIOUSLY? Bastards. I threw them into a corner totally disgusted them and their unwillingness to work when I wanted them to and I arranged the new lights, the tinsel and the decorations . . . again. Switched on the lights, and the tree was gorgeous, much better than before I am pleased to say. Emmeline was fascinated by the lights for about 3 seconds and then hastily resumed to eating her hands, oh well, maybe next year will mean more to her.

As for the dud lights? Xavi got them working and they are now up on the wall twinkling away in all the Christmas glory . . .

The curse of the other mother

Yaincoa’s mother, Wicked Witch S, really is the worst person and mother that I have ever known in my life! The bummer? We are stuck with her in our life like a little irritating yap yap dog for a very, very long time! I know that some people may think that I am only saying this and I only think this because Xavi is my partner and that, shame, surely she has a side to this story as well? No, I am not biased, she is awful as a person and even worse as a mother. Many women may feel that I am a traitor by saying this, but a child is not always better off with the mother, she is a prime example.

Monday of every week is always a hard day in our house. One Monday it is hard because we have dropped Yaincoa off at school and he is not in our flat. The flat is a much quieter place without him. The following Monday is hard because we pick Yaincoa up after a whole week with wicked witch S and he has inevitably taken a few steps backwards in attitude thanks to her. To sum her up, she doesn’t care very much for the well being of her son (although she would of course deny this) and is much more interested in hurting xavi. That is the plain and simple truth. Anyone following this blog will become aware of this.

This week has been a whole bag of surprises with her, a real rollercoaster ride. We only had Yaincoa from Thursday as the first 3 days of the week were holidays and so he had to stay with her. Xavi had missed him a lot and was very excited to see him. But nervous as well because with Yaincoa comes Yaincoa’s school diary, wicked witch’s favourite place to bitch and make low blows about xavi. We are never sure what she will have put this time.

This is how our week has gone:

Monday 29 November: Xavi drops Yain off at school; he has put all his homework in a plastic folder in his bag including his maths homework

Wednesday 01 December: Xavi phones Yaincoa to see how he is. Wicked witch shouts form the background ‘Where is the maths homework’. Xavi explains to Yain that he put it all in his school bag. After the phone call, wicked witch send a sms telling xavi to bring the maths homework to school the next day, xavi explains (again) that he put it all in the bag. She responds that there is no plastic folder in the bag. Well no stupid, Yaincoa has obviously taken the whole folder out at school. We inform her of this once again stating we don’t have the homework, it is either at school or Yain has lost the piece of paper. She continues. Eventually we tell her to stop with the sms’s as we don’t have the maths homework.

Thursday 09 December: So of course this means that when we got yaincoa this week, we were rather nervous about the school book. True to form, she made a comment to the teacher along the lines of “The father said that he put the homework in the school bag. It is not there therefore Yaincoa does not have his maths homework”. I was fuming and I had a good word with Yaincoa for his part in not taking responsibilities for his own homework and for not stating that maybe he had lost it instead of letting his dad take the blame. I was furious!! This is xavi, the father who has been known to iron his son’s homework pages if they have been crumpled, the father who has sat until the early hours making robot costumes for his sons school activity, the same man who just spent all afternoon researching nativity scenes and recycling ideas for Yain’s latest school competition!

The same day, wicked witch has sent Yain to school without a jacket, our jacket. It was hotter than normal that day, but not in the morning before school or the afternoon after school, and he was half sick with a cough again. She has a habit of keeping our clothing and we are fed up with it, so he asks Yaincoa to phone his mom to ask her to drop the jacket off at school the next morning. He phones her and asks her to do this (she works close enough to the school and as she drives everywhere, it is pretty easy for her to do this). She later sends xavi a sms to say that by getting Yain to phone her he is ‘jodiendo la vida de mi hijo’, basically screwing up the life of her son. Yeah ok, because xavi is the one who sent the sick son to school without a jacket!!

Friday 10 December: wicked witch sends a sms to xavi around 10am to say that she is stuck in traffic and can’t bring the jacket to school and then calls him Filthy Scum! Filthy Scum? A father wants his jacket back so his son can keep warm as we don’t have another one, and her well educated response is to call him filthy scum. Again, fuming! We send an email requesting the jacket and also detailing the days each has with Yain during Christmas holiday. The papers state half time with each parent and this year xavi gets first half. By my calculations this means that we have Yain until the morning of the first of January and she has him from then. We also ask her to stop with the insults

Saturday 11 December: she responds to the email to say that to start with xavi is a compulsive liar who has nothing to say but lie (due to the fact that he said it is cold and Yain needs the jacket. Um we are in winter, generally the cold season you moron) she then continues to say that she is not insulting him, what she says about him is reality not insults. This is followed by the fact that she agrees with the holidays and she will collect him on the 31^st, even though we have clearly stated that she has him from the 1^st Jan. This doesn’t seem to interest her much as this would mean that new year’s day, in the morning, she would have to come and fetch her son, hangover and all. For us no problem, we have a newborn and I am breastfeeding, I don’t think we will exactly be partying hard this new years!
(Background info: last year yaincoa was with the wicked witch for New Years Eve. Turns out that they went to a bar/restaurant in the marina where she works and they celebrated there. Yaincoa (who was 7 years old at the time) was awake and running riot until 5am, in a smoking bar; he is a child with asthma and chronic bronchitis. After that they slept in a boat for 3 hours and then she drove then the 20km journey home (drunk?).

Does this seem normal to anyone??)

Her email finishes off by saying that how xavi wants to do things as the paper says; now everything will be done that way. She says this because in summer instead of splitting vacations half and half, they do continue with the one week with each parent system, just makes more sense when there are 3 months of summer holiday! They also do their weeks from Monday to Monday (one drops him off at school to finish their week, and the other picks him up Monday afternoon to start their week) instead of Sundays at 20:00 as the papers state. Works out better for yaincoa as he doesn’t have to get carted around a Sunday night when he should be at home relaxing, having his dinner, getting ready for bed etc. I am suspicious at that comment, but we choose to ignore the comment and enjoy our weekend.

Sunday 12 December: We have a day planned of monopoly, xavi and Yain finishing off his nativity scene competition for school (I must point out that his mother has never helped him with this), and putting up Christmas decorations. Everyone is in a good mood and the sun is shining. Xavi’s phone tings with a sms. It is her. She says that she will be at the flat at 20:00pm to pick up Yain!!!!!!!!!!! We are left gob smacked and furious. Yes it is her right to collect him then, but she is only doing it to hurt Xavi. She knows that Xavi has only had him for 3 days this week and she is trying to punish him, I suspect she is doing this because she is angry at him about the whole New Years Eve shamble. What she doesn’t realise is that Yain is normally eating dinner around 19:30 with us, after that he gets some time to watch cartoons, and then around 21:00 or so he has to start to get ready for bed. 20:00pm is slap bam in the middle of all of this. For him to now have to be carted around on a freezing Sunday night is ridiculous. It is not so bad in her week, Wicked Witch goes everywhere in her little Audi. Us? We will have to go and get him by metro next week; we have to get the yellow line, then change over to the red line and then a 10 minute walk to his flat. Then we have to do the return journey. I can’t go with xavi as Emmeline will be in bed. By the time they get home, it will be time for Yain to go to bed. That is of course is wicked witch has given him dinner, and we don’t have to quickly prepare something. There is clearly no benefit in this arrangement to yaincoa so why has she suddenly decided on Sunday nights? To screw with xavi. However by doing this, she is actually hurting her son.

It doesn’t end there.

Monday 13 December: Xavi meets yaincoa at school to give him his nativity scene and his school diary. Why did we still have the diary? Well, Yain needs to have x-rays on his teeth to see if he needs braces or not. Wicked Witch has never taken him to the dentist and when we asked her to do this, she replied to Xavi ”this is your thing, you know more about it than me, finish what you started and no, she wasn’t going to make the appointment for the x-rays”. So we have to go and see the dentist in the hospital first and he will order the appointment for the x-rays. The hospital gave us the date of today and 16:20. Great, we can take him as wicked witch is working and we will be finished by 17:00 where we can either take him back to school to meet her, or she can meet us at the hospital as it is easier for her to get home in her Audi from the hospital than it is from school. However, we didn’t want to give her the school book the night before with the note that yaincoa has to leave early for the dentist as we worried that she was capable of removing this note from the book saying Yain wasn’t going. In the middle of the day on Monday we send her an email to say that Yain has the dentist and where should we meet her at 17:00, school or hospital? She sends an sms saying “he is not going to the dentist today, impossible, get an appointment in your week’. We respond with why not? It doesn’t affect her at all as she is at work, you she doesn’t even have to lift a finger. She cockily replies “I will tell you why, he is not going and that is it. Get an appointment in your week and stop annoying me” we respond again with “ok, and if we bring him directly to your flat after the appointment?” that was she really doesn’t have to do anything. Her response? “NO”. We have had to change the appointment and the next available date? 10 January. A delay of a whole month because she is being difficult and is trying to hurt Xavi. What she doesn’t care about is that once again, she is hurting her son in the process.

Tuesday 14 December: The fiasco about the vacations continues. She states she gets him on the 31^st, we state she gets him on the 1^st. apparently her lawyer says she is right, ours say we are right. She threatens to report us to the police if she cannot fetch yaincoa on the 31^st. We tell her to go ahead. The problem is that the holidays are a little grey this year as the last day is Sunday and so we need to double check with our lawyer if normal rules apply for the changeover of yaincoa or not because technically it is still a vacation day. If we are wrong it we kill me to have to say to her that she can indeed have her son on the 31^st knowing full well that he will probably spend another night awake at some ungodly hour in a totally unsuitable venue whilst she is doing god knows what. If we are right then we have to prepare ourselves for the next battle/ What is the next battle? Then one with yaincoa because i am sure that wicked witch will then try to use him to get her way. Something along the lines of “yaincoa, mommy wanted you to be with me, because we are going to this place and your little friend will be there and you can stay up late and have soooo much fun”. Isn’t life supposed to be easier? Aren’t parents supposed to put their children first and not use them as weapons?

Please say tomorrow is a quiet day . . .



The Nativity Scene

It is that time of year again, time for Yaincoa’s optional nativity scene competition for school. The specifications for this year’s competition are simple: it should be no bigger than the size of a shoe box, and it should be made out of recycled material!

For some parents, this may sound daunting, making something like this, personally I wouldn’t know where to begin, but Xavi is the king of paper mache!  He and Yaincoa have made all sorts of things out of paper mache including a fake arm cast, a little mini part of a golf course, a giant shoe kicking through the ceiling and a rather large house of terror! I was excited to see what they would do this year. We researches nativity scenes and found out that the location was actually inside a cave, I always thought it was in a barn or room of some sorts, so that was a surprise. We all threw some ideas on the table and then decided on a room in a cave! They made the room out of cardboard, and then cut out little bricks from the cardboard. The stuck bricks on the outside and inside of the room. Then they made roof tiles out of the inner of a roll of kitchen paper. The mountains were made out of paper mache, and real bits of trees were used to make mini trees. The bodies of Mary, Joseph and Jesus were then made out of rolled cardboard, their heads were made form paper mache and their clothing was made from scrap pieces of leather material.

The end result? Spectacular in my opinion!!!

The Vaccinations .....

Getting Emmeline’s vaccinations have felt as though I am starring in Dumb and Dumber or candid camera or something like that! It has all been rather incredible!

It all began with her 1 month vaccinations. She was scheduled to have them on Monday 20 September. Just thinking about it made me nervous for her. My poor little girl getting stuck with needles for the first time in her life while the nurse uttered th most ridiculous lie ever “you will just feel a little pinch”! It is never a little pinch, it is pain, and they are stabbing you with a needle for god’s sakes! However a few days before she was due to go in, she caught a cold from me, her first one! I felt awful for her as there was nothing I could do to make it better. Knowing that I was then going to be taking her down to the doctors where they were going to give her the vaccinations and make her feel worse just broke my heart! By Monday, she was definitely sick, I didn’t know if they could still vaccinate her or not, so we went down anyway. Let me explain that my doctors are not close by. We have to take a 20 minute metro ride and a 10 minute walk to get there. I could change to a doctor’s surgery that is closer, but I know the ladies down there as I have been going for 5 years. The paediatrician is the same paediatrician for yaincoa, and they always treat us well. So we schlep down there every time we need to go. Anyway, off we go on Monday. The paediatrician asks us how we are and I explain that Emmeline appears to be sick. She agrees and we decide to not give her the vaccinations. She didn’t have a fever or anything, but we just thought it would be kinder to wait a week until Emmeline was over her cold and not make her feel worse now. So off we went and I took my sick little angel home heaving a sigh of relief that we didn’t have to face the dreaded needle today!

The following Monday rolled by and my little girl was all better. So off we trundle to get the metro followed by the walk to the surgery. At first we wait outside the paediatrician’s office, but I notice that no one seems to be calling us and it is now about 15 minutes past our appointment. I cautiously knock on the door (they hate when you do that and actually have signs on the doors to say that if they door is closed, don’t knock, they are busy. No one really seems to pay attention!) I go in asking the paediatrician if we will be called soon. She asks what it is for, and then tells me that I actually have to go to where the nurses are so that they can administer the vaccination. Crap! Now we are late and it is lunchtime. Please don't say they have all left! We race over and I explain the situation to the nurses. She tells us to have seat and they will start to organise the necessary in order to give Emmeline her shots. We sit, we wait. Emmeline starts to cry. I think that she can feel my nerves and it is rubbing off on her. I have butterflies in my tummy and I cannot sit still.  After a 10 minute wait the nurse comes out and tells us that unfortunately they are unable to administer her vaccinations today due to the fact that ..... They have none in stock!!!

SERIOUSLY?

"Mommy, why is that lady coming near me with a needle in her hand?"

Why is it that no one had the sense to check the vaccinations that morning, and then check the list of people due to get vaccinated, and then they could have seen that they were short. They could have either ordered more, or better yet, they could have phoned me to tell me to not bother to drag my daughter and myself out of the house and waste our time! But of course, I can’t say that to them, I hate confrontation and I always think that it is best to stay on the good side of everyone in your doctor’s surgery! They reschedule us for the following Monday, I nod, I pile my child back into the Baby Bjorn and off we trundle back to the smelly metro and back home having successfully wasted about 2 hrs of our tie that we will never ever be able to get back.

So the following Monday arrives and we do the whole thing again. I head straight over to the nurses area and prepare myself for another problem, who knows, random robbery of all vaccinations? We wait. A nurse comes out and asks why we are there, so I hand over my little paper with the details of the vaccination and today’s date being the latest on a list of scribbled out dates from previous weeks. She looks confused and mutters something like ‘no, I don’t think .....’ I didn’t catch the rest because I interrupted and little too sternly explaining that yes, we were getting vaccinations today. She told us to have a seat and off she skedaddled. My patience started to rapidly disappear when 25 minutes later we were still waiting and I had just seen the same nurse come back with my little piece of paper in her hand avoiding looking at me. No, no, no! This had better not happen again! Eventually she called us in; it was going to happen, finally! Emmeline was sleeping, so I had to wake her up and pull down her pants and hold onto her legs strongly so she didn’t move them. In went the first shot, I wasn’t holding strong enough and her leg moved hurting her even more! The nurse went to the other side and told me to hold stronger. Emmeline was wailing in my arms and I was getting a lump in my throat. In went the second shot. A few more seconds of wailing, then a yelp or two, then silence, and then she went back to sleep! The nurse was super unhelpful and just went ‘Esta’ basically meaning ‘that’s it’ and she left! Wow, you really excelled at the how to treat people part of your nurse raining didn’t you? Cow.

Along came 4 months. Time for more vaccinations.

The paediatrician Marta had previously explained to me that we could get an optional extra private vaccination for Emmeline that was for flu and gastro or something like that. I agree that would get it. She tells me that as it is private “tienes que pagar” meaning you have to pay. No problem I think, I will bring cash with me next time to pay for it. This vaccination is scheduled for 27 October. I trundle down and prepare myself to be relaxed so that Emmeline doesn’t feel my nerves. We wait for 15 minutes and in we go. It is the other paediatrician, Lada. I am talking to her whilst I get Emmeline out of the Baby Bjorn and onto the table. Lada asks me if I have the vaccination. I go over and get out my vaccination papers to give to her. ‘No cariño, la vacuna’, no darling, the vaccination. I look at her blankly and feel my heart fall into my shoes. I explain that Marta told me I had to pay for it. Lada shakes her head and informs me that what Marta meant is that I actually have to buy the bloody stupid thing from the pharmacist.

SERIOUSLY?

In Spanish, ‘pagar’ is pay, ‘comprar’ is buy. Apparently even though Marta said pagar, that actually meant I have to buy it. I shake my head, put Emmeline back in the Baby Bjorn and get my new appointment. We have to wait a few weeks so that we can do the private vaccination and the standard one at the same time. Rescheduled for 22 November. We leave gobsmacked.

22 November sees us back in the doctors surgery all prepared. I had bought the vaccinations from our local pharmacy a few days earlier and had placed in directly in the baby bag so I wouldn’t forget it. In we go, baby out of Baby Bjorn and back on the table. Lada asks me if I bought it today. No, a few days ago. She asks me if I stored it in the fridge. I stop, Emmeline half out of her jacket, slowly turn around and simply say “what?” apparently the vaccination has to be stored in the fridge.

SERIOUSLY???

NO ONE TOLD ME THAT. I look around the room thinking ‘is there a camera in here’. Nope. Why, why, why? I slowly dress my child. I spent 60euros on that vaccination that was now useless. Lada rescheduled and suggested that I try to get the pharmacy to change that vaccination. I feel like someone is having a joke at my expense. I go to the pharmacist and explain my problem. She feels really bad as she tells me there is nothing that they can do. I have to walk out quickly as I feel the tears coming. I cannot afford to spend another 60 Euros on another vaccination! I go home and explain it to xavi whilst the tears fall down my cheeks onto my sleeping child’s head. Xavi takes the box, heads down to the pharmacy, comes back telling me that yes, they will change it. They felt really bad about it all as well.

The following week and I am in the doctors room with my daughter lying on the table, her pants pulled down to expose her chubby little legs – perfect for stabbing the 2 little needles filled with vaccinations!! Lada tells me to hold her hands against her chest, I do and I lovingly look into my daughters eyes talking to her calmly trying to distract her. The first needle goes in. Emmeline's eyes open wide. She looks into my eyes and silently asks ’what happened mommy? That hurt! Why? I trusted you’ and then she starts to cry. I calm her and a few seconds later we do it again in her other leg. She cries for a few seconds and then starts to laugh at Lada. We walk out all vaccinated at last, but I still find myself looking around for a camera as I cannot believe what we have been through just to get here!

I am left wondering what could possibly happen at the 6 months vaccinations????

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!

The Loss of all Dignity

I am 9 days away from my due date and I feel that I have officially lost all of my dignity and self confidence . . .

This week I have felt fat, no not pregnant, FAT. My feet have swollen to proportions I didn’t actually even realise were possible. I am left with one pair of flip flops that i can wear, every other pair just will not get over my larger than life feet. Complete strangers actually make comments about my feet and look at me with such pity that I just wish the ground would swallow me up there and then. My thighs have increased in size, probably due to my chocolate obsession, and due to the heat, they are constantly sweating. In fact, if my waters dont break with an undeniable gush, I may not even realise what has happened. My face has swollen and I look like I have not slept for about a week.

Not good.

Eventually one evening, I had a cry on the sofa and xavi gave me a great pep talk and made me feel better. Contented, I fell asleep on the sofa for a little cat nap. He woke me up and then said “oh, how cute”.
I looked down and noticed my nipple had leaked on my vest……………………………..bang went the shred of confidence I had just managed to scrape back!!!! After everything I have done for my body, I am flabbergasted that it went and let me down like that!!! I expected leaking nipples after baby, you know, whilst breastfeeding, but not now. Why now?

Although really, I should not be surprised. My stomach is not the only part of my body that has grown and changed drastically in the last 9 months. (dad if you are reading this this, I advise you to stop. I am about to overshare in a way that will probably scar you for life) My breast have gone through a considerable transformation as well. I am not just talking about the fact that they have grown, or maybe a better description would be that they have grown larger and heavier! The nipples are darker and I understand that this is so that little half blind baby can see what he is going for, the target area so to speak. What I wasn’t prepared for though is the fact that they are also more …. sticky out! Or would ‘longer’ be the best word? I could stack half my winter wardrobe on each side. It is rather alarming and I can only imagine it is so that baby can have something to latch onto and not just slide off my boob in the crucial moment. Still, I am not too sure about this development and can only hope that it is not a permanent one

With my due date approaching rather rapidly, there came another incident which contributed to my loss of all dignity. I had lost sight of my lady bush a few months ago and on a few occasions I had rather dangerously attempted a pruning using a mirror and memory about where everything was. But now was the time to enlist the help of my love and attack the lady bush. I had horrible images in my head of pushing out my little girl and the doctor going “Ooh she has a lovely full head of hair …. oops, my mistake, that is your hair”!! So, I waxed what I could, and then I decided to get some of that Veet cream which just ‘melts’ the hair away to do the rest, and then get Xavi to neaten up whatever I had missed. So off I go to the bathroom, legs at weird angles, Veet cream applied, wait 5 minutes, wash it off. How easy? Xavi cleaned up the rest and 2 hrs after starting this whole process I was good to go! However, as the night wore on, I started to feel a little sensitive in my newly acquired landscaped garden. Eventually I was walking around like a cowboy naked from the waist down. Turns out the Veet should not be applied that close, it burns. Ladies, take note and do not make my mistake, that was not easy to explain to Xavi!

Yes, pregnancy is an amazing, wonderful experience, but it is also a downward spiral to be stripped of all dignity. Between all of this, constant internal exams; exams involving ear buds being inserted into your vagina and your, um, bum; constipation; burnt lady bits; leaking nipples; unexpected bottom burps and a permanent sweaty body, I have now successfully been stripped of any and all dignity that I had about 9 months ago.

Now all that is left is to push a giant baby out of my vagina and have a poo in the delivery room whilst xavi is watching.

Boy or Girl?

So I am almost 5 months pregnant and I have no idea if I am going to have a girl or a boy. I am not one of those intuitive people women who just knows, I am more of a Murphy’s Law kinda girl.

Xavi has an 8-year-old son who we have every other week, so I have my quota of boys in the house for the moment. I have done the rough play fighting and I lasted all of about 3 minutes before giving in to the inner girl and going “ooh, not too strong”. I have struggled to understand why when we are out walking in the country instead of picking flowers, he kicks and throws stones at things. I have played with cars and not dolls, and have ruffled his short hair many times while watching motorbike shows….. I have also been given many little flowers, I have had the door opened for me, and I have been told how pretty I am by my little 7-year-old gentleman. My point is that I have my little boy even if he is not mine by blood and if it is only every other week.

For this reason if you ask me what I want, my truthful answer is that I would like a little girl. I would like to do the little girl things as well. But being a Murphys Law kinda girl, I reckon I will have a boy. However, while I think it may be a boy, I am not going to tell people this, because I do not want to end up with egg on my face if I am wrong and I also do not want to appear like one of these mother earth types who gushes “I just KNOW it is a boy!! I can feel it!”

However my reserved opinion seems to go unnoticed. Every one has an opinion as to whether it will be a boy or a girl depending on some part of my physical appearence!

I have been told that as I am looking pretty, it will be a girl (because boys exhaust you from the very beginning).
I have been told that as I am looking pretty, it will be a boy.
I have been told that since my tummy is small, it will be a girl.
I have been told that since my tummy is big, it will be a boy.
I have been told that since I have few symptoms, it will be a girl.
I have been told that since I have many symptoms, it will be a boy.
I have been told it will be a girl, ‘just a feeling’
I have been told it will be a boy, ‘just a feeling’

Now some people sound convinced in their opinions and I ask myself ‘Are you not worried about getting that egg on your face?’ What will they say when I have to break the news that it is x and not y? In the end, I will wind up feeling guilty at proving them wrong when really it is not my fault that they are so sure about the status of my unborn bump!

The truth is that as long as it is healthy, I am happy both ways. If I have a girl, I can do all those little girl things I cannot do right now, and if I have a little boy, I gain another little gentleman in the house and I get to learn even more about which is better, Porsche or Ferrari??