mocha beanie mummy

Pox Watch Day 3 – Current Observations and Birthday Thoughts

January 30, 2012 By mocha beanie mummy 2 Comments

1. The spots. Will appear. Everywhere. And anywhere. If you can think of a place, they’re there. Oh, they are THERE.

2. I do not do well waking up every 1-2 hours.

3. Piriton does NOT make Isaac fall asleep.

4. Isaac let me eat my birthday breakfast of a plate of bacon. Whilst he may be ill, he is still considerate.

5. We have taught him well.

6. The Gruffalo, on repeat, somehow doesn’t get old.

7. Peppa Pig, on repeat, becomes tedious.

8. It’s amazing how you discover exactly how your body is able to mould itself into the shape of a sofa as your kid makes themselves comfy on your lap.

9. Snuggling with Isaac on a real sofa with a Graze.com box is lovely. Until he eats all your vanilla infused cherries.

10. It’s really hard to remain patient, when shit loads of lovely people suggest things to make your kiddo feel better and you’ve pretty much tried them all already. And nothing is working.

11. People are incredibly helpful.

12. It’s really ok to have some of the birthday Prosecco for your lunch, under the circumstances.

13. Somethings just do not distract from the pain. Including Lego. This makes me really sad.

14. What I think is “humour” can be really misunderstood by people who don’t really know me.

15. I have a darker sense of humour than I thought. Especially on minimal sleep and with poorly sick child.

16. It occurs to me I’m still waiting for the panic of turning 30 to settle in. 3 years ago.

17. Trying not to lose your rag when your kid is wailing for help, and you keep telling them you are doing everything you can and they just need to calm down and listen, but they keep wailing anyway, is REALLY hard. Frustration is a bitch.

18. It’s amazing how some “pyjama days” aren’t as good as you might like, and especially when all you want to do is throw yourself in the shower. *scratches*

19. I hate feeling guilty for wanting to be selfish for just 5 minutes. Just because the very poorly child with a rash the size of Africa covering his groin area, and yelled and cried all the time I was opening my presents. And yet is now sat quite happily on the sofa watching Octonauts.

20. Birthdays, Chicken Pox and children. You just can’t predict them.

Filed Under: actual happy times, assvice, birthday, illness, Isaac, Just...everything., MAKE IT STOP, Mutha-Hood, neurosis, parenting, photos, twitter, Ultimate Stresssss, wtf

Pox Watch Day 2 – Chicken Pox Is Bullshit

January 29, 2012 By mocha beanie mummy 4 Comments

OOOMMMMMGGGGGGG MAKE IT STOP NOW PLEASE.

Isaac does not scratch the spots. At all. AT. ALL.

He doesn’t have ginormous blisters (because let’s face it – there’s always someone who’s had bigger blisters.), he just seems to have shit loads of them. A major rash in his pants (I really don’t want to be around when that blisters) and a delightful smattering from the top of his head to his shoulders. With some escapees on his torso. And plenty in his ears. And some on his eyelids. The photo I posted before is NOTHING compared to how it looks now.

And yet, he just won’t scratch them. I’m bloody impressed, that’s for sure. However, the boy is in pain. I’ve been putting small amounts of Dream Cream on him, which has been working a treat, but now there are so many spots, I suspect he feels like his skin is on fire. Especially as every so often, he suddenly yelps out in pain and bursts into (increasingly) inconsolable tears. I knew what I had to do next, and I confess I’d been saving this, thinking it would be the ultimate treat.

Porridge bath. Ahhhhhhhh bliss.

I ran it cooler than normal, dumped large handfuls of Dream Cream and oats into a muslin cloth, tied it all up and attached it to the tap as the water ran. Quite possibly one of the most luxurious baths I’d ever seen any 2.5 year old ever have. On stripping him down and showing him the lovely bath, all for himself, he started crying. Hard.

You would think I had threatened to dump him in a vat of toxic acidic sludge, and there was no convincing him that this was actually the exact opposite.

It took myself and D to get him in the bath. Sweet Lord.

After maybe 10 minutes of cajoling (and more crying) he finally sat down.

Another 5 minutes later he stopped crying.

10 minutes later, he was out again (after even more tears).

I’ll be honest, it was a bath from hell. Which is a shame, because this kid adores water, and will often pitch a fit when it’s time to get out the bath.

All day he’s understandably been ratty as hell, and we’ve repeatedly smothered him in creams and kept him doped up on Calpol and Calprofen. There’s no way in hell we’re going to try another bath just yet.

The fact is, we are at the point where there is nothing more can do. I’ve just spent the last 30 minutes cuddling him in my bed the dark, while he dozed on and off. He finally asked to go to his own bed, where he is now whimpering, crying and saying “ow” over and over again. So once again, we’ll go upstairs and cuddle him until he asks to be put back to bed. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The worst thing about this is that horrible feeling of a spectacular Parenting Fail. I am FULLY AWARE there is nothing else I can do. I have done all I can do. I’ve cuddled him until he’s pretty much told me to piss off and leave him alone, yet I’m there at the drop of a hat if he calls again. I’ve given him as many drugs as I dare without officially becoming his dealer. I’ve plastered him in soothing creams, from the very top of his head right down to his toes. I’ve cuddled him some more. I’ve plastered on more cream, at his request.

And I am losing my fucking marbles, because now I have to figure out how to deal with the helpless parenting bull shit feeling.

Filed Under: assvice, illness, Isaac, MAKE IT STOP, parenting

Pox Watch Day 1

January 29, 2012 By mocha beanie mummy 3 Comments

Gaahhhhhhh it was only a matter of time. When D came home with The Boys on Friday having been given a warning about The Pox, I was pretty sure we weren’t going to escape it this time.

Having returned from a lovely Friday night stay with D at Mal Maison hotel (general note: if you ever want to have hotel sex with me, don’t get me blinding drunk first. I like my sleep, innit), we walked in to find both Kiddos with surprisingly runny noses. Within about 30 minutes, we spotted numerous blisters on Isaac’s face and in his hair. GOOD TIMES.

Strangely, Noah seems impervious to Chicken Pox. I’m convinced he’s been subjected to it numerous times, and as yet seems to have avoided it. Yes, he has The Runny Nose right now, but no spots. At all. And he’s been hanging around Isaac like his life depended on it lately.

I can only thank the very Gods of Sympathy that Isaac is pretty much oblivious to the spots. He’s not scratching at all, and several have already crusted over. The ones in his pants are grim (potty training my have eased off a bit, but in all honesty, that’s a whole other story) and even the ones on his face are being completely ignored. The worst ones are the ones we can’t get to buried deep in his ear. Nothing like your kid scream “OUCH!”, bursting into tears and then watching them slapping the side of their face every few minutes.

D whizzed off to Lush to get some Dream Cream, which I absolutely swear by. Has everything he need to help him if the body itching sets in, and it doesn’t smell like something the cat pissed out three weeks ago into her litter tray. Because seriously, some of the creams out there smell bad.

So now we watch and wait, to see if Noah follows suit. I will be doing my best to absolutely NOT lose my marbles having at least one of them at home, and also desperately NOT stressing over not getting any work done. And not being gutted about not taking them to Wagamama on Sunday for my birthday on Monday. And not becoming mind numbingly bored to tears with Cbeebies and Disney Jnr on my tellybox.

Wouldn’t mind so much if they actually liked doing painting, sticking and gluing for more than 30 seconds. Maybe we’ll just make more Cock Cakes.

Filed Under: illness, Isaac, MAKE IT STOP, neurosis, Noah, parenting

Silent Sunday

January 29, 2012 By mocha beanie mummy 8 Comments

~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~
What is Silent Sunday?

Filed Under: Silent Sunday

Every time I have a meltdown, Good Shit happens

January 27, 2012 By mocha beanie mummy 2 Comments

Anyone close enough to me will know that I pretty much have put my blood, sweat, tears, Facial Orifice Fluid and bacon drool into making my business work. When I ditched the cello completely (almost a year ago now…) and threw myself entirely into the photography, I had a fair idea of how difficult it would be. I knew, sure as fuck, that it would NOT be easy.

I’m not that stupid, thank you very much.

The thing that’s been the biggest ball ache though, is coping with the setbacks along the way. Not the lack of funds, or the lack of equipment, but the mental health setbacks. The burnouts. The meltdowns. I go through stages of putting absolutely everything into what I do. No corners cut in the slightest, no hints of slacking off, no pissing taking and absolutely staying on the ball. Of course! It’s expected with every business, right? Expected. Normally, straightforward.

Add in two demanding little boys, a house to look after and a husband to pay attention to, and suddenly it’s not so easy.

The one thing I overlooked, was becoming a combined SAHM and WAHM mom. I always thought I was just going to slot into one or the other.

I dunno, I clearly took leave of my senses for a little while back there.

So as a result, every so often, I pretty much just have a complete meltdown. Not like one of my fucked up depression episodes, where, quite frankly I could walk up to the medicine cupboard and overdose without so much as a “Thank you Bob”, but more like…a weird, horrible, childish tantrum-like meltdown. My brain goes something along the following lines:

“Fuck this shit I give up no one fucking appreciates how much fucking effort I put into this bollocks and given I don’t stop busting my ass it’s like a waste of fucking time because no one is booking me and what the fuck do I need to do should I give you blood slit directly from my own wrists because clearly that is what people want because nothing I ever frigging do is good enough and I swear to God I spend how many fucking hours a day sitting at this bastard computer constantly editing and networking and updating and don’t you fuckers sit there and tell me I spend all my time fannying about doing shit all because I do as much as I can without breaking and holy Jesus now the children are talking to me again and how am I supposed to get anything done without breaking me or screaming at them and there just isn’t enough time and I want more work but how the fuck am I supposed to cope with more work and omffffggggggggg maaaaaakkkeeeee ittttt stooooooooooooooop.”

And then I pretty much dump everything and walk away. For about 12 hours. Usually less. Because I’m a chicken. (And probably addicted {to being slaughtered like a wee baa lamb.}.)

In that very short time frame, a number of things happen.

1) I realise I’m not entirely shit, and that sometimes, I do produce good work.

2) The kiddos continue to behave in exactly the same way, because I’ve done a reasonable job of not letting them see me break.

3) I go back to thinking about my “split online identity” and question whether I’m doing too much trying to run @cosmicgirlie, my beloved outlet when I’m not blogging here, AND @JayMountford, the outlet where I pimp myself like crazy and stalk other people regularly to find work.

4) People start booking me.

Yeah, I don’t get number 4 either.

My only guess is it’s because I’ve gone through a period of putting so much effort into establishing my career, that just as I reach the point of “omffffggggggggg maaaaaakkkeeeee ittttt stooooooooooooooop”, I’ve done just about enough to put myself in the light, gain recognition, and therefore earn bookings.

Now, it’s obviously an arse that it goes this way, because frankly, that’s a real ball-achey way of doing things. It also makes me wonder if I have what it takes to continue in this industry. I second guess myself enough as it is, so these quarterly meltdowns really do make me think.

Since the start of this year, I have already done 4 photo shoots and turned down one (out of area for a portrait session), as well as having 3 further portrait enquiries. I have a total of 9 weddings booked for the year, with 3 more waiting to confirm or cancel, and have turned down one because it clashes with another wedding. I have done an impromptu photo shoot in Birmingham’s Bull Ring and have been invited to photograph CybHer. I’m about a third of my way into my second full year, and well, yeah.

I’m doing ok. I could just do with less of the meltdowns.