and another of my mates announced her second pregnancy today on Facey! It's hard not to get jealous but I learnt long ago that jealousy if for lemmings, so instead I'm just excited and hoping I can jump on this wave too. It's more exciting when you have people to share it with. Last round I knew a couple of people, but most notably one of my high school friends was only ten weeks ahead of me, and now I'm watching her baby boy grow up via social media. It's nice getting a glimpse of what's to come... well mostly. I didn't get half as huge as she did, thank the gods!
Anyway, any time I'm interested in something I throw myself into research. I love to learn. I kind of miss studying even though I'm pretty sure I'm not smart enough to do Uni. That's beside the point. I've been researching hormones (mostly prolactin) and conception. There's so much information out there about maximising the effectiveness of breastfeeding as a form of contraception but nothing about how to make it stop. I know it's all about your body making sure your baby has the best chance at survival, but listen uterus, I'm in a first world country, I'm healthy, we have resources, we can support another pregnancy that turns into another crying mouth, aight? So let's do this shit.
But yeah, I'm reading shit like "It's perfectly normal for a woman's cycle not to return for upto a year after giving birth". Serious? How come mum never told me about this? But listen, ovaries, my friends... I don't have a year. Kay? So Obi's like "I guess just do the exact opposite of what the sites say you need to do to be covered?" and that was my thought too.
Meanwhile there's no information out there that I can find that tells me how much food I should be feeding this kid. So Instead of milk every four hours I'm replacing that with her mush, excepting for four milk feeds a day. So far that seems fine. She'd let me know if it wasn't right? And I make sure I add lots of fluid to her mush because for some reason she won't take the bottle anymore, unless she's with Bec and Chris.
It's a bit sad, and by that I mean pathetic, all you people have such interesting lives and then there's me... Getting thrills from stewing apples and mashing bananas. I'm ridiculously happy.
Once last week I took the night feeds and then I couldn't make myself respond come morning and Obi was late to work, so now he's pretty much banned me from doing them. It's nice to have someone reliable. Also it shows me I need to start taking my vitamins again or start napping during the day again. But I hate the napping. Everyone's like "sleep when the baby sleeps" and "don't worry about the housework, spend time with your baby" but who the hell can live like that? I'm no neat-freak but I need a bit of bench space to mash banana on and I don't want to catch Hepatitis in my own bathroom. Anyway, tangent there.
What I came to talk about really was the fact the my FIL annoys the crap out of me. I know I need to cut these people some slack, I know they miss their son and grandaughter, I get that I'm the prime evil for being so far away buuuut ugh. Dude leave me alone! Firstly, last weekend when we Skyped he decided that we were going to set up a shared dropbox folder so that they can have videos of Isis, as he was mightily put out by being unable to download them from facey. I for one am grateful people can't download them, I just wish they couldn't 'share' them too. I want to keep a hold on my baby's internet footprint. I'd be mortified if I was surfing one day and found her photo used as a meme or something. Anyway so he sends an email to Obi about how to do this dropbox shit. Then sends me an email telling me he's done this. Ok whatever. Then yesterday he messages me and he's like "Have you done it yet? blah blah". Uhm, I'm not your brat's secretary. I don't have access to his emails (though I totally could if I had to, but I believe I don't have the passes and at any rate I almost never snoop anymore) take it up with him. Or you know, be patient. Because your kid doesn't work, commute, have a family and a social life or anything.
I just get annoyed because he's always talking down to people. He thinks because he's a dad and is a financial adviser that everyone must listen to him and the sun shines out his arse. Meanwhile, I don't really want anyone to have a copy of all our family home videos. Not even Bec, who has all my family's documents, photos, newspaper clippings etc way back into the dark ages. It's probably really stupid and you can tell me that I'm being stupid, I don't mind... but what I lack in jealousy I more than make up for in possessiveness. This is MY daughter. I feel really protective. I don't know why. There's nothing bad in any of the videos that I'm aware of (except that one where I'm not wearing a shirt
) but I know he shows his clients these things, and his mates and all these people I don't know. Again, I'm being dumb, but some part of me doesn't feel it's really safe.I know I put things here or facey, but when I do it's usually only a small part of the video I took or whatever. I avoid anything where she's not wearing pants because there are sick fuckers in this world too.
On top of that, I've decided for my birthday lunch I want us four and the baby to go to this French restaurant and have snails. I wanted frog legs too, I want to try something new and scary, but they don't do legs. Anyway, we were talking to dad on Skype about that too and he got all weird and "As if you'd go to a nice restaurant for that" - not because snails are gross, but because he cooks them from a can (are you twitching? Because I am. I have eaten his canned escargot dish and it's not bad but... the concept is still a bit... wrong) and that's some how better than having them done properly by a skilled chef?
It's probably just because he's a skinflint, but I just get so over his better-than-thou shit.
As time passes I'm losing my enthusiasm for our upcoming Canada trip too, and I don't want that. I want to be psyched, but I just feel under so much pressure. Ugh.
Anyway that's enough of that for today.
Going to the gym with my sister today, hope she doesn't bail on me.
Yay weekend!
How do I make photos and videos unsharable but still have those people able to see them? I've tried and tried but for the life of me I can't figure it out.
The problem is that these people (most specifically the dad but not just him) want me to give them more access than they have already. So using a cloud servive isn't going to stop them calling me and nagging.
I told Obi that I'm not comfortable with anyone having all our family videos and he's like "We don't have to give them all if you don't want to, nor the complete versions" (things I put on facey are usually a small part of a much longer vid). He doesn't really understand why I don't think, but that doesn't stop him trying to make me happy <3
I do think I'm going to have to grow the balls to tell people to be more concious of what they share of our kid... but at the moment I can't even put into words why it bothers me. Unless she's naked, what's the risk really? But it just freaks me out lol. Besides that, it makes me a hypocrite because a good portion of the people on my facebook are mates from here that I've never met in person and therefore are "people I don't know". I feel pretty safe about you guys though :/
The nurse! Ohhh! We have them too, you're supposed to go every month but I never saw the point. You've got to go to the doctor every two months for the vaccines anyway, and I never thought the weigh-and-measure was necessary in between because it's obvious she's growing well. Thanks mate
Also, if you're really worried about putting videos and pics of her all over the Internet just tell them that. You could send them a cd full of pics and vids? Ultimately they need to respect your decision cause she's your daughter.
I didn't want to put up any pictures of Jenna at first, there's no real reason behind it I guess but like you, the thought just freaked me out completely. Also, she's old enough (and pretty enough!) for any sick creeps out there to find her attractive. I think once she goes to high school I'll make her wear a sheet! I see some kids out there and they're half naked for God sake. Ugh, I can feel my blood pressure raising jut thinking about it!
Anyhow, hope that helped at least a little =)
Ps In here the nurse does the vaccination too. We're cool that way.
And I quite agree with your husband: don't feel obliged to give them everything. Continue doing what you're doing (sharing just parts of longer videos) and if they complain, well, just tell them there aren't anymore. Tell them you are too busy taking care of her and of the apartment to just sit around and film her every move for their pleasure.