I’m a gamer’s widow..

Author: Marylin | Filed under: J, Zack, gaming Monday Nov 26,2007

My husband is a computer geek, sorry…Gamer is the preferred term. Now I knew this when I met him, and when I married him, and if I’m honest, I do love playing games on my pc ( World of Warcraft ) on our Wii ( My Sims ), yes OUR Wii… in fact I actually bought this console for US, although J seems to have a problem with saying it’s ours rather than his, as seems to be the case with anything computer-oriented in ur house, *groan*.

Now I’m happy to let him play his games once the little ones are in bed, or sleeping, even to play with Zack on particular games, but it’s reached a whole new level now… Zack is addicted to the gameboy, particularly Donkey Kong Country and anything to do with Mario and Luigi. The problem is he wants to play it ALL the time… he asks for it from first thing in the morning, as soon as he’s up from his nap, and wants to take it to bed with him (note I don’t actually let him have it all the time, although J would if I let him!). I knew I’d married a gamer but I didn’t think I’d end up with a gamer-son quite so young… he’s 2 years and 4 months old! I’ve got to give him some credit though - he can play these games better than me and it is a good way to give him something ’safe’ to do while I’m feeding Max, or on those days when everything is just too much for me to be up to my usual ‘fun-mum’ form.

Yesterday J was playing Super Mario Sunshine and Zack came out with this gem… “Nooooo Daddy - you’re going the wrong way, here I’ll show you!” proceeded to take the controller from him and take him to the person needed to continue the next part of the story. I was in stitches - this is a game that J has completed I don’t know how many times over, and his 2 year old son was instructing him on how to play! LMFAO!

I suppose I should have suspected this would happen… I just didn’t expect the obsession to start so young - he’s even got a Luigi doll who goes everywhere with him, and everytime he sees the Nintendo logo he yells “NEEENTENDO WOOHOO!!”

I’d better just accept it, I’ve got a gamer husband… I’m going to have gaming sons too.

Where has the time gone?!

Author: Marylin | Filed under: life in general Thursday Nov 22,2007

Six weeks ago today Max was born… I can’t believe it’s been 6 weeks already! He’s so alert now it’s great, he’s smiling and cooing and generally being very cootchy-coo ish (wonder if I’ll be saying this at 4am tonight…ha).

I’ll save his entry to the world for another day as it’s late and I’d like at least 2 hours sleep before getting up again!

J has a cold… he’s pretending he’s fine while whinging about it quietly. Still going into work etc so it can’t be that bad.

Zack has been waking up on and off this evening so far, so I get the feeling he’ll be keeping us up on and off too.

In other words…there’s bugger all going on in my world today!

A Little Bit of History 1.0

Author: Marylin | Filed under: Zack, family, history, pregnancy & birth Wednesday Nov 21,2007

Oh my god… surely not? I checked the test, rechecked it, and did the second one just to be sure, yep that blue line was most definitely there… I was pregnant and that was that.

I should be excited right? We’d been trying for about three months by this point. I should be happy and ecstatic and so looking forward to being a mummy like we’d planned. So why was my first feeling about this fear? I was scared out of my wits and had so many questions zooming around my head I felt suffocated. It didn’t help that J had such a happy look on his face. I mean, I’m glad he did because I knew it meant he was happy about it too, but in that moment I felt my life change forever and I didn’t know how to take it.

What if it was too soon? I was only 19 after all, I’d be 20 when I had this baby. What would our family and friends think? We’d only been engaged for a few months, not even together for a full year and I was already pregnant… I knew we’d get it in the neck from both sets of parents. What if I couldn’t cope? What about those drinks I’d had the weekend before - could they have harmed my baby? The questions buzzing around my head were never ending and I couldn’t think properly… I needed a stiff drink, but I couldn’t have one now, I wanted a cigarette to calm my nerves, but there was no way I could justify that either. So the cigarettes went in the bin, J had the drink and I sat there in a stupor trying to let this life-changing news sink in… I was going to be a Mummy.

It probably wasn’t the best of times to decide to try for a baby. Ok it definitely wasn’t the best of times to try for a baby. We were both at university and in the middle of our degrees, mine in Pharmacology and his in Computing. How on earth would we manage this? J had been thinking of chucking it in for a while and had started a full time job by this point. I on the other hand, didn’t have a clue what I’d do with my life other than what I’d always planned - I’d get my degree, then a PhD, then go into research. How could I possibly do that now? I’d have to take a break from uni and then decide whether I could go back or not.

The pregnancy had its ups and downs.
I ended up hospitalized on Christmas Eve due to Hyperemesis Gravadarum (severe morning sickness that just goes on and on and on). That didn’t go away till over halfway through it.
I managed to get symphysis pubis dysfunction, where the ligaments and tendons between the joints become too loose in the pelvis and cause immense pain. The SPD was worse because I’m hyper-mobile as it is. As my doctor put it, I’m as flexible normally as your average pregnant woman is, so when I actually am pregnant and have the hormone relaxin released in me to ‘open up’ the pelvis for a baby to fit through… well, you get the drift, and it’s really not fun.
I also just happened to be heavily pregnant in what was the hottest summer in Dundee to date, and to top it off there was a heatwave when I went into labour.

Ah labour… that was fun - not. It was by far the most painful experience I’ve ever been through. I’ll spare the details. On second thought, no I won’t! I was 5 days overdue when I woke up to go for my usual 5am loo trip when I had a show (snot-looking blob of jelly… glamorous business this pregnancy and birth stuff). I thought finally something might be happening but didn’t want to get too excited so off I waddled back to bed. By 6am I was having sore and regular contractions. By 9am I was in the hospital being told there weren’t enough beds in the labour suite but that I could stay up in the wards if I wanted. Go home and deal with pain on my own or stay in hospital and have Entonox (gas & air) on tap… difficult decision eh?
By about 3pm I was in a LOT of pain and wanted more pain relief which I got in the form or diamorphine. I’d also been told to be quiet by one of the midwives as I was disturbing the other women… now I look back on it I think I would have been a lot ruder if it hadn’t been my first labour! Finally got down to the labour ward at around 4pm, waters went around 5pm, I started pushing at about 5.10pm and Zack was born at 5.18pm. As soon as he was out the pain stopped. He’d pooped himself while he was still inside and had to be taken to the resuscitation unit just outside to give him a little oxygen and luckily he was back in the room just a couple of minutes later.

I looked down at my beautiful little boy and fell so deeply in love with him it felt unreal. His big blue eyes opened and he looked right in my eyes and I knew I’d never ever want to be parted from this beautiful little being that I’d grown inside me.

Sleep Deprivation

Author: Marylin | Filed under: J, Max, sleep or lack of Monday Nov 19,2007

Oh. my. god. I’m just too tired to think properly let alone type - it’s just as well there’s a spell checker on this thing. It’s 9pm and as soon as Max has actually settled to sleep in his cot I’ll be going to bed myself.

It’s times like this I wonder how I ever thought I had a clue as to what being truely exhausted really meant before having children of my own. I feel like I should apologise to any mums that I attempted to justify my tiredness to before becoming a mother myself. I can fully appreciate why people who can’t sleep are driven completely insane, I’m almost there myself at the moment!

*Just a couple more months and he’ll be sleeping through.* This is my mantra… If i didn’t keep repeating this to myself when I try to put the kettle in the fridge and the milk on the kettle’s hub (yes it did happen this morning…again), or wonder how Zack can possibly have grown so much not to fit into a vest to find that it’s actually his little brother’s, or even when I called a spork a cross between a fork and a knife as opposed to a fork and a spoon… I’m sure all of these blips are because of my sheer tiredness building up from the past 5 weeks and 4 days (5 days if you count the fact that I was in labour the night before M was born!). They can’t possibly just be my complete stupidity getting worse… can they? [J’s reading this over my shoulder and laughed at the above comment… he stopped when I asked if he wanted to be on night feeds for the next week /sigh…men have no idea!]

I really hope Max is a good boy for me tonight and sleeps well… I am dreading the thought of having to be awake for so much of the night when I could be having my precious sleep.

Ahh bliss… he’s fallen asleep which means soon I can too )

Argh!

Author: Marylin | Filed under: Max, ranting, sleep or lack of Monday Nov 19,2007

5.30AM:

Why won’t my son actually drink his friggin milk?! he wakes up and cries his wee eyes out cause he’s hungry and then only takes the most stupid tiny piddly amount before spitting out his bottle to give me a grin… normally that’s cute but at 2am AND 5am…this has to be some sort of joke huh?

*breathes* I know this is just the sleep deprivation catching up on me, he’s 5 and a half weeks old… I almost had a nervous breakdown with Zack when he was about 8wks old cause I was just trying to do more than I could. Must try not to do or expect too much of myself or the boys atm… but then that’s always easier said than done isn’t it?

The most annoying thing is that although he’s had as much milk as he’s going to the lil sod is now wide awake and making grutning/snuffling sounds which keep me awake! So far tonight I’ve had about 2 hours of solid sleep and I most likely won’t get much more… when’s my day off?

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