A Day in the Life of moi.

It's not quite a "Day in the life of" post, because I am far too slothful for that kind of shenanigans...but it is a heavy picture post (just to warn you).

So today was officially a "pyjamas and housework" day. That's the beauty of being your own boss (well...Roman is kind of my boss. He sets the hours, the work and the pay. The pay being lots of cuddles), you can work from home and be in your PJs, too! 

But, alas, the Little Boss didn't want me to have a PJ day and threw up all over me. I had to jump into the shower. Which was fun, considering Roman was way grumpy and I had to poke my head out from the shower curtain every five seconds to prove to him that some monster wasn't attacking me behind the curtain. He decided to throw his blanket onto the wet and dirty floor at some point as well which wasn't too much fun.

In between his shrieks I unloaded the first lot of washing and put another on. I love doing washing. I never resent or feel p'd off doing it. It's my favourite task and about the only thing Bryan and I don't share - because I honestly don't mind doing it. I know other people absolutely hate it and it's the bane of their existence but I'd happily sort through a dirty load of laundry (within reason. I aint touching your skiddies), put it onto wash, unload and hang it to dry and then bring in, fold and put it all away for a job - and at one point I did do this as a job and still didn't loathe it! I'm a glutton for punishment, perhaps.

I am also obsessed with having a clean bathroom floor. Unfortunately for a few weeks now (yep, I said WEEKS) the bathroom floor hasn't been mopped. I say that and by that I mean I haven't done my ritual with it - it has been cleaned, but not to my satisfaction or standard. Haha. Queen of Sheba, much? 

So I set out about doing my ritual :). It consists of:

 One bottle of bleach (kills germs dead, you know!)

One shower head into bucket-full of bleach (I really want to use something eco friendly but I am struggling to find something to fit the bill, anything that anyone can reccomend is welcomed! I'm trying to cut down on chemicals in the home). 

And that's it! Simples. I mopped up the floors; bathroom, hall, kitchen and living room. The mop is getting a little pathetic these days - I know Tesco sell them for next to nothing, but I'd quite like one of those funky squeegee mop things. 

Our floors were gross - seriously gross. When I emptied the bucket of murky floor water back into the bath I was greeted by this:

Yuck! The water even had "bits" in it - which are just grit and dirt that gets dragged in on shoes and buggy wheels.

After mopping I like to "towel dry" the floor:

I learned this from my Mum and from Bryan. Bryan started doing it when we lived in Mill Street (our first flat we had together) and I did scold him the first time I saw him skating around the floor on a towel...then I tried it myself and remembered my Mum told me stories of how her Mum used to give them towels and they'd find this great fun - when in actual fact they were doing housework! I love my Gran, she's so clever.

And as you can see from these pictures...there's still a few other things that need sorting. But they can wait! It's Orange Wednesday which means that it's our "Date Night." My brother comes round and sits in our home while Bryan and I go to see some ridiculous but light hearted blockbuster at our local Cineworld.

It's important to take time out as a couple and remember who "we" (the couple we) are. We're quite secure in ourselves, though, and we do sneak conversations about our son in - even on Date Night. We can't help it. We love him. None of feels like we're talking "shop" and we don't overdo it like some people whose every second word is about their child - don't get me wrong, I have Mummy Friends and all we do is talk babies and our kids - because we love and adore them - and we could talk till we were blue in the face about them and never get bored...but you know the couples I'm talking about.

It's nice to know that the "glue" in our relationship isn't based solely on our son. And it's nice to have little reminders in our home that reflect "us", the couple;

Me and ME.

A few weeks ago a Doctor told me I have ME. 


My thoughts:

To capture my feelings, this is how things felt when I first found out:

I keep going on here...looking at the front pages, the "What is ME?" section (or whatever it's called) and not venturing any further. I'm not scared I am just shocked...I can't believe this is part of my life now. I wake up every day and the thought of it isn't hanging over me and then all of a sudden I remember. I don't know what I feel, but it's not disappointment, bitterness or anger...it's just disbelief. Is that denial? 

 It's like I've broken up with a bad boyfriend (the unknown) and I've woken up as a single person for the first time in years...then I suddenly remember the bad boyfriend and want to be with him again (or undiagnosed and ignorant to the facts). 

Maybe one day my mind will marry my body and they'll live happily ever after and deal with all this...but for now I think I am still in a bit of a denial state.

I have tried to write this post about four times and there are just no words, no words at all, that could possibly capture any true essence of what it is that runs through my mind.

I am so angry right now. I don't ever think "why me?" I think "Well why not me?". I am angry because I think of all the times I beat myself up for being lazy, dispassionate, uncommitted and I was none of those things. I was and still am ill.

I keep telling myself over and over: I wish it was Crohns. I don't share these thoughts with anyone because I'm scared. Scared they'll say stupid things like; "You don't wish it was Crohns." Yes. Yes I do. "Crohns is horrible!"

This isn't exactly the Ritz of illnesses, either. But because you're not taken seriously or you spend years jumping from one diagnosis to the other you take a battering and you don't share how you really feel. Not really. Because you half expect people will open their mouths and more often than not that they'll not know what they're dealing with or talking about.

I've felt like this isn't a big deal, but to me it feels life altering. Not life changing because that's reserved for good things. I guess it's like when your husband or child dies (not claiming it's happened, but I have observed) . It means the World to you, forever, but to every one else they get on with their lives and wonder why you haven't got on with yours. Why you're still stuck in the phase of caring about it. Thinking about it. Talking about it. And everything around you is new and has altered, too.

One day I "knew people with ME" this horrible illness that seemed to come in and strip people of their energy and didn't give it back. Made them walk in a World of cotton wool and fudge. 

And next I was joining this World and not really feeling a part of it. I'm stuck in between not being accepted by the people who see themselves as War Heroes to the illness and not being accepted as fit by the healthy people. I'm in between the two Worlds with no map of where to go next. And no answers, no solutions and only myself to rely on for the answers.

It's terrifying. 

My Bad Attempts at a Home Decor/Clothes post...when in reality it's an "I Want" post.

I remembered we have a Matalan near us. 

Within walking (if you're an athlete you could probably get there within 10-15 minutes, if you're me it's half an hour) distance. I love Matalan. I have been in love with them since I was about 17 and they built one in Livingston :). They change their ranges round a lot so it's not like Primark where you buy something in one store and it's been mass produced and you turn around and there's a million girls of all shapes and sizes wearing the same Primark hoodie/trousers/whatever that you have on.

And now they have improved their home wares section! Bad news for the bank balance and good news for the bland rented accommodation we have. 

On my cushion wish-list;

Can you believe the rose is a cushion! I couldn't believe my eyes. It's like something I've dreamt and daydreamed about for years finally realised. I have inherited my obsession with appliqué through my maternal line - but isn't that pillow amazingly gorgeous? I love everything and anything to do with Japan - it's a sumptuous country for colour and art, like the geisha inspired kids pillow and the red flowery pillow right here. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

I'm not a trendy person. I will outwear clothes. I will plot in my head how to run up a cushion cover and never do it. I will plan to get a hair cut and think about trying a manicure at least once before I die and never do all these things.

But I do have my simple pleasures in life.

I love accessories. Namely bags, shoes (a little too much), cushions and other ornaments that have no reason for being other than to be pretty :). Now my head isn't full of fluff. Underneath skin and skull I have a brain. And it's not made of feathers. I just enjoy very simple pleasures and can be quite materialistic at times - hence why I have a spare bed full of clothes (this is actually quite the wake up call and slightly drives me demented...I'll get round to donating all the unwanted clothes someday...).

For now I am happy at the thought of filling my home with Matalan goodness :). Even if it doesn't come true. I got all excited about their new home ware section and immediately jumped onto the infants clothes section and was disappointed. Not as nearly cute or creative as their pillows :(. I did find a jacket I wish they made in my size, though:

I did eventually find two cute things that Roman would look like such a little man in:

I do find it funny that price-wise M&S aren't too far off these same prices and quality-wise M&S are so much better than Matalan. There really isn't a contest and if I were going to buy anything it probably would be M&S I would go too - as a Mum. I do have distant plans of having another baby and there are some cute clothes that Roman has I wouldn't mind passing down to Baby Number 2 so I want them to be in a decent condition.

And here is my little man, sporting his latest cute outfits:

Excuse the bed-head husband. He'd rushed out the door this morning all but to miss his bus! It was nice to hear his key in the door on his return, though, I must admit and even nicer to see his wee face pop around our door - Roman was full of smiles. I wish I had been able to capture how big his smile got at that moment. 

No amount of money or "things" can buy what we have and that's pure and unfiltered happiness. So even though I lust after yet more things to fill our already thing-filled home, I know that I can never go into Matalan and buy this decanted in a bottle. It's priceless and is out of stock.

:).

Return of the Binky.

"No more Binky." This is what I thought months ago. And anyway, it wasn't like Roman really took to it in the first place. He'd never hold it in and then there came a point where he'd SCREAM his head off if you even thought of putting it near him.

                                       

However, the other night when he was screaming for an hour non stop I resulted in trying the binky. This came about because I gave him some Calpol and he started chewing on the spoon. 

So the binky is back (much to my dismay) but on a plus note: he is only using it as a chew toy. So I can justify that this isn't going to mess up his teeth, after all he's just chewing on it.

I feel since I've become a mother that there is a lot I wasn't expecting to feel. In my mind I pictured myself finding it very easy to leave him crying, have other people babysit him and generally take over from my role from time to time. Yet as time goes on I find it harder to watch him cry, miss him terribly when he's not near and find it hard for anyone to step into my shoes for five minutes without feeling like everyone is watching me, waiting to call me lazy, improper, crap etc you name it.

I know it's very easy to say "it doesn't matter what other people think" but I'm fast learning that sometimes people can hold onto memories for years. And I guess I don't want to be remembered as a rubbish Mum. Who does, though? It's not exactly something you want to have on your grave stone, is it?

I mean I know there are obvious mistakes people make and I'm trying not to make those mistakes and they're easy not to do because they're obvious...but then there are the subtle mistakes that can be made. One missed bath can turn into two (this actually happened once. He was stinky. And look at me, not even trying to justify why he missed baths.) Or leaving them "five more minutes to sleep" can turn into fifteen more minutes and suddenly they're not able to sleep at night (I'm glad to say this has never happened, but I was tempted).

There are just so many possible outcomes, you can never cover all ground to stop all the bad ones from getting in. To do so would require eternities of practise. And many millions of babies to practise on. So while we're on Baby Number One I just want to add that I'm actually quite proud of myself and Bryan. We're doing good. I heard all kinds of horror stories about what babies do to relationships and I have to report that all this Baby has done is make things a million times stronger. Proof to me already that we're in a stable relationship. We might not own a car (but we do own the car seat), we might not own a house (really though, who does in their early 20s these days?) and we might not earn over 30k a year (again, the early 20s thing) but we have a relationship in which we can produce stable children. And that's a force to be reckoned with, I think. 

On Bryan's fathering: I admire it. When he reads a book, he reads it the way I learned to read books to children. I often have to ask myself, where has he learned this stuff? It has all seemed to come so naturally for him. I am so glad he is so well adjusted to this because I know I couldn't cope with a man who wasn't dealing with this "baby stuff" and needed to constantly disappear in order to "deal" with it. I get people need their own time by themselves sometimes and go to their cave but Bryan doesn't seem to feel the need to abandon his responsibilities with his son. He's there for him. And this husband of mine who had never changed a nappy ever before Roman actually is better at it than me - and nine times out of ten changes him. 

It is incredible to watch such a strong bond be forged right in front of my very eyes and in every way reminds me of my own childhood - full of love. 

Roman takes his hat off to it.

Look at the strength and skill of this little boy:

He has been doing this the past few days.

Gone are the days of my little baby boy wearing cute little hats and them sitting perfectly on his noggin. I'm going to struggle in the winter at keeping his hats on cause all he does is take them off.

Although, it has proved useful for when I undress him as he pulls of the sleep suits himself now, too (I've read stories of ten month old's dressing themselves, so you never know haha).

Anyway, to cut this short and to save my aching hands...here is a nice photo filled blog for your eyes to enjoy!

He loves sitting up lately and I love photographing it because for the longest time I worried about him not sitting up.

Eating the couch is very common in this household. Especially for teething babies.

The Bumbo was rediscovered today. It had been sitting in our living room, housing a lot of Roman's toys and teething rings - I felt bad when I found them because I had spent some time looking for them and resigned myself to the fact they were gone, to the same place TV remote's, hairbrushes, socks and all other items that seem to universally go missing every year from homes around the globe.

Dada.

Roman speaks. 

This week, there have been changes afoot. Roman has been "talking" more (although I'd feel more appropriate saying that he's "wording" because surely talking is the grouping together of words to form sentences and I don't think we're quiet at that stage yet).

It started with "Bababa" and "Mamama" but today I finally caught him saying "Dada" to Bryan when we were eating our lunch. Roman gets very vocal when we eat. It's simple. He wants to eat, too. He was very vocal today, sitting next to Bryan, and kept saying "Dada, da da da. Dadadada!" over and over. I had to position my camera in a way so he wouldn't notice it (when he becomes aware of it, he doesn't speak) and I managed to capture the video below (warning: it's cute!).

He loves Dada. They spend a lot of time together and it's lovely to see that. Bryan gets up with him in the mornings and bathes him at night - he does all the baby related "jobs" I can't physically perform myself. I am feeling oddly rested lately, though, so that's been nice.

Today Roman, "Dada" and I went to view a flat in Canavan Park, Falkirk. It was tucked away at the back of houses that looked like they were plopped out of a box or like a row of Wisteria Lane (Desperate Housewives) houses. We turned up at the property that was just around the corner from where we are now and waited around like numpties. The letting agent and some hippy looking guy came out of our future house (ha! I saw the pictures on-line and liked it straight away...which is always fatal and cursed) and it sounded like they were either making a deal or handing over keys. Turns out the flat was gone. She'd left a message on our answer phone to say so. Kick to the guts time, much? I felt a strange sense of wanting to slap her silly...but to be honest it was Bryan's fault, he's the one not checking his voice mails. He did have a reasonable excuse, though, so all was forgiven.

She had another property (the Canavan Park one) and would we like to see it. I couldn't be bothered but Bryan said yes. We trekked fifteen minutes to the property and here's the following experience:

Up a few flights of stairs. Into the flat and greeted by the hall which is long. First room is Roman's future room (I picture everything as something with potential) and it's a decent size - perhaps the same scale as his room is now - then we wander into the "master" (or mistress) room. AKA; our future bedroom. I wasn't bowled over by it's size, but then I noticed the wardrobe. Decent enough and would house what is now known as Clothes Mountain which sits atop our broken chest of drawers provided by our wonderful landlord in this place. It also had this little wicker thing which would be perfect for shoes (ha! I told you I picture everything with potential). Then into the living room/lounge. Again, wasn't particularly bowled over with it - but it did have French doors (is that what they're called?) and when I lived in London one of the houses I lived in had French doors and this was perfect for drying wet washing! I know, I'm a saddo - then onto the kitchen. Bigger than our current kitchen but that's no mean feat as we've got a postage stamp sized galley kitchen currently. Oh and did I mention the bathroom?

I never?

Well here goes nothing;

It was a good size. Then I walk in. It smells of pee. Like, really, really smells of pee. I look at the toilet and notice there is a collection of days old urine in there. So much so that some milky film has grown over the top. After gagging I notice there is slight mould round the taps and shower. Now, anyone who has been to our bathroom knows it's not perfect but I do try to keep it mould free (even though it's not and one of our walls is badly effected by mould) but to walk into a flat that people are hoping to rent and see it like that is not good. Not good at all.

I get the letting agency aren't going to waste their energy and finances in cleaning it every week (and I wouldn't ask for that) but flushing the toilet isn't too much to ask for now, is it?

Needless to say I don't think we'll be living there. Not because of the pee toilet or the bathroom, but they have white meter heating. Big no no.

I keep looking for properties, though. If you don't know: our neighbour is a nut job. I also just want a fresh start somewhere else. I love this little place but it would be nice to get to a nicer area before Roman hits the walking stage in his life - I want to be able to walk to the park with him without the threat of needles, broken glass or dirty nappies lying about.

Ah well, gotta keep looking!

Retail Hell.

Today was not the best day in history.

Okay, no one died. No one found out they have to go and get any limbs hacked off. No one needed a life-saving operation...but it still sucked baring all that in mind.

I had this innocent point of view over the weekend just past. I actually believed that this week, since it was a new month and all, would be good. How wrong I was.

I can't remember where it all went wrong...but let's start with my experience today. At Currys. 

Yes, Currys the place where they sell electrical appliances. Yes the same Currys that has joined forces with PC World. Yes the very same Currys where it seems a prerequisite of the job to be a total and complete arse. 

I went there to look at MS Office stuff so I actually have access to a decent word processing/outlook/whathaveyou package and they didn't give us a second glance. It wasn't as though they were short staffed - they had people standing about, looking glakit as per usual and pretending to be oh so busy on their little computers (I bet they were on Facebook). 

I think they have a basic rule of thumb in there; if the customer is under 30, give them a look that you're superior to them/as though they're only in here to calculate the value of the electrical goods they've stolen from peoples homes. Or as though you're shoplifter, in here to see what you can grab that's not nailed down so you can sell it on for drugs.

You catch my drift here. Plus, we had Roman with us (well of course we did, he's not going to be babysitting himself) and he's started doing this really cute but quite threatening growl noise...so perhaps he intimidated them a little? I hope so, anyway.

I felt really pissed off not even five minutes into our shop and gave up, even when we did find the MS Office software. My heart wasn't in it any more and being treated so brashly I just didn't want to be in there. I started getting those "why don't they like me?" thoughts.

The kind of thoughts I had when I got picked last in P.E in High School (true story) and no I wasn't the "smelly kid", well at least not to my knowledge, people just didn't like me. I was kind of an anti-bully. I stood up against the bullies. Which resulted in getting a shoe thrown in my face, pushed down the stairs and chewing gum thrown in my hair. All in all, High School was a bad experience I would never wish to repeat. Ever. And it's given me this teenage girl mindset from time to time. Whenever someone doesn't immediately like me I do question why, even if I don't really like or respect the person who doesn't like me in the first place.

I'm tricky like that.

I remember, when I was pregnant, a million few people were totally insensitive towards me. And I had the same questions rattling around in my brain;


Why don't they get it? Why are they such arses? You're a guy, what the hell do you know about being pregnant?


And so on. People's insensitivity made me feel like they didn't like me. As if they wanted to treat me like crap because they didn't like me.

And today, the experience refreshed my memory as to why I have hated Currys for a long time now. The staff they employ are arrogant and their heads are so far up their own rectums that they are only aware of their own bowel movements. Not because they don't like me. Not because they are looking at my clothes, my hair, my baby, the fact I can't get my wedding ring on my ring finger and judging me. They are just arrogant butt heads. Just like those nasty people at High School.

As we were leaving, I made sure to walk past one of the Currys staff and say in a really loud voice;

"I'm not spending my money here. The staff are really rude and unhelpful."*


*may have contained expletives.