feel my brain power

I went to a friends baby shower today and there were about 20 other women there.

One game was to unscramble words - something I have never ever been very good at or really cared to be good at - I'm not really into puzzles. BUT.... I managed to unscramble 20 words before anyone else! I swear it was some kind of miracle. Proof that while this baby business may have bruised my brain slightly (umm... what day is it?), my brain is seemingly still able to work somewhat well.... sometimes.

I am going to Ikea tomorrow with my mum (and the babies) and plan on buying a whole lot of crap. Well, actually, I'm going to buy useful things like storage boxes and highchairs. Although Aldi do have a highchair that a child can use until the age of 10. I am somewhat tempted to get one of those, just to make them use it until they are 10 years old. Haha!


Someone please explain to me why I am looking up vintage McDonalds shit on etsy and eBay?!

two babies - or: watch me rant a lot again

We went to K-Mart today in an attempt to get out of the house and do something different.

It's really really really hard staying home and doing the same thing every day but it's also quite difficult working within a small window of opportunity when the babies are not grumpy and/or tired (basically they last about 2 hours awake and then start crying because they want to go to sleep). When you have two babies being grumpy - trust me, it's not much fun at all.

So... that means that saying you'll do something at a specific time is very risky: it might not match up to their naps on the day, they might be hungry, they might vomit/poo/wee on themselves 5 seconds before you have to leave. And then they finally do nap and I have to get other things done like the dishes or the washing or general tidying. And then they wake up. Oh and there are also things to do like get dressed and have a shower and eat.

It's not as bad as it used to be. When they were a few weeks old I basically felt like an alien all alone on my very own planet. I remember that going for a walk around the block felt like the most wonderful thing in the world - proof that there was a world going by around me, that other people were alive and doing their own thing like eating dinner or watching TV - and how very jealous I became of those simple mundane things. I doubt that makes a lot of sense (it's quite abstract unless you've been there too I suspect) but the days got a little better and I eventually felt more human. I don't think I'm 100% there yet, but getting close.

I don't want to seem like I'm complaining about things again - because my baby mens are delightful - but I am feeling kind of exhausted. My mum is on school holidays after tomorrow and I almost feel I TOO will be on school holidays due to having my mother around to help (don't know if she realises that yet or not).

Blah de blah.
I feel so bad whinging but I also feel bad keeping it in.

So anyway.... at K-Mart... I think we had about three dozen comments - met a twin and met another woman who was about to become a grandma of twins. I swear that everyone is secretly a twin, judging by the amount of people I meet who are twins or who have had twins. Old ladies stop us.... kids point and comment to their parents... random people say hello and ask questions... people talk about us between themselves like I can't hear what they're saying. In a way, it's just like being a foreigner in Japan again.

But being a foreigner in Japan was sometimes really fucking annoying.

This, however, is delightful.

Apologies for the crappy ranting.... again!
Thanks for getting through that. Here is some light-heartedness:

• We owe George $5. At 6pm last night (after his nap) he woke up with a pain in the belly and was making some crazy noises like the stupid Crazy-Frog song "Nem nem nem... mim mim mim mim..." and I knew the poor duffer had a poo coming. I promised to put $5 in the money box if we got to meet the poo (yes, picture me talking up George's bottom promising a poo some money). No, I will not be doing crazy things like this when he is old enough to understand what I mean or we will have poo everywhere and the demands for cash will, no doubt, be high. So he did get the poo out - and we owe George's money box $5. I remember when I was young, I had warts on my fingers and the Dr told me to just tell them to go away (which worked). But I also promised them things - like I would say "If you go away I'll give you a car... and I'll give you a pony... etc" and then I had a mini-panic as to how I would give warts these things that I had no-way of getting myself. Would I make the warts mad? (obviously not, they never came back).
  
  
• The babies have been noticing each other a lot more. George seems to think Julius is hillarious and laughs at him quite often (Julius still quite unaware of this humour directed towards him). It's the cutest thing we've ever seen.
  
  
• Both babies have been looking a lot at the cats. This is going to be trouble!

This kind of reminds me of playing priate ships with your bed (you know... when you get off the bed you're in the "water").

I'm bored

Here are 32 things I would like to achieve before my 32nd birthday (in 3 months and 4 days):

AKA: "CMON FOOL, you have two babies now and would be lucky if you get to do one of these things in the coming months!"

1) use my DSLR to take photos of my beautiful babies! I'm sorry dear camera, I suck.
2) wear a headband out in public (I'm all into headbands now)
3) go out for dinner. anywhere! (not my parents house though, that doesn't count)
4) find that bit of my tripod that's missing
5) go to the movies.
6) read a book.
7) watch the rest of "True Blood" s1
8) join Costco when it opens (god knows when that will be though) and then, when they don't sell that Paul Newman's spicy mango salsa I used to buy in Japanese Costco, I'll get really mad.
9) go to ikea and buy some crap
10) eat some (A LOT) of Rock-Lea-Road (rocky road from Darrell Lea)
11) Convince Stef it's actually called Rock-Lea-Road
12) sims3 (YEAH KEEP DREAMING BABY!) - insert mega sad face here
13) get a wedding band
14) go to bed at a decent hour (like I'm talking 9pm here people!)
15) teach Bobo some manners (ie: don't walk around yowling in the middle of the night)
16) find more blogs to read
17) ?
....
...
..
.

ugh. I'm already bored of this.
In reality I will be lucky if I have a shower.

Ahh Japan (ok, a pretty long rant is coming....)

My ten year passport expired last month or so and I'm a little sad :(

It was my 3rd passport! We had many awesome times together - going to the US three times, South Korea twice, Thailand once and back and forth between Japan and Australia so many times that I'll probably never know (or be bothered working out) just how many times that was! That is an awful lot of hours in aeroplanes! So incredibly boring! No matter how many times I go through customs, I always feel like a criminal (which is silly because I'd never do anything naughty except, once or twice, bring lollies into Australia without declaring them -- I always declare them now, I swear).

I am lucky enough to have shared many of those adventures with my family too! I would hate to have spoken about Japan with them to not have them know, really, what the hell I was on about - "blah de blah Sharnee always craps on about Japan but we have no real idea what she's talking about"! But... I was lucky enough to have my parents, my brother and Stef to show around Japan (at different times) and they understand that 'Japan' part of me and my life. And they visited me there so it's not an abstract concept for them. This means the world to me!

I can say to my mum "remember that time I took you to the ¥100 shop three times in one day!" or my brother "remember when I, for some reason, got scared that there were wild bears in the hills behind that temple in Kyoto?" or my dad "remember when you were busting to go to the toilet and we had to stop the car at some random shop so you could go and we teased you about it for days after?" and Stef "remember in Tokyo when that drunk Japanese man pointed to you and said 'HAHAHHAHA HARRY POTTER!!!!!'?"

I left for Japan almost ten years ago. I swore I would never forget that date but now I can't remember if it was June 15th or July 15th.... but it was 10 years ago! Excuse the nostalgia that's about to burst forth:

bears?


gorillas?


pandas?


mother!


beer and mannequin!


kumquat


curry with cheese!


ginganet lesson


curry (again)


swimmer


friends


nagasaki


an all-nighter in shibuya

I don't miss Japan like I used to.
When I left in 2004 I think I did so in a rather hurried fashion that it hurt for 2 or more years after. Who knew that something so simple could affect me so deeply? I never expected that at all, which is why I had to go back for another year! I'm glad I did. It's all over red rover. I will eternally miss it, but it doesn't ache like it once did. It's quite bizarre to me that you can find a home half way across the world.

Anyway.... now we have merged our surnames into one super surname and next time I travel it will be with a new name and with a new family.

beerbottletops, babies, brass knuckles and botanical gardens

Last Saturday we went to see my cousins band play. I've never seen them play but I've always wanted to. We had so much fun - even though there were about 30 people there - and on the walk home we had a weird run in with a guy with brass knuckles who wanted to share a taxi but then became upset. This is how it all went down:

Brass knuckles guy: "Oh, that was my dad that just drove past!"
Our friend: "Oh yeah? How come he didn't pick you up and give you a ride home?"
Brass knuckles guy: "jnvsnvinvdiovnd - drunken babbling - dfinaiovnio"
{brass knuckles guy takes plate out of mouth with 3 teeth on it and we get a flash of brass knuckles}
All of us: Byebye! Have a good life!


Anyway, the band: my cousin ended up performing in his underpants (as he usually does) and my grandmother shook her head when I told her today. Apparently she's been cleaning my uncle's house whilst he's been on holidays and my two cousins have been making a mess. My grandma apparently put up a sign on the living room wall which said: "DO NOT THROW YOUR BEER BOTTLE-TOPS ON THE FLOOR!".

Actually, I don't know if she used caps, but I hope she did.

On Monday - or was it Tuesday - it was still cold but there was actually some sunshine so I packaged the baby mens up and we went down to the waterfront. But there were tractors and workmen digging shit up and it wasn't very nice (and since we're not at the age where tractors and digging-shit-up being fun...) we drove to the botanical gardens and watched the leaves blowing in the wind.

Of course even though there were barely any people in the gardens, we still managed to attract a few grannies who wanted to know all about the babies. I swear that every second grandma has had twins in their family.

oh my

You know... there are a fair few people I know that read this blog and I guess sometimes I hold back a bit about what I want to say because I'm worried about what people who work with my mother, for example, will think if I am to be the slightest bit negative about something. Or what if my mother misunderstands it, or Stef gets the wrong end of the stick? Not to mention those perverse folk who like reading blogs for the train-wreckiness.

I don't even know how it happened to be that people who know me in real life even ended up reading this - I doubt you come often and I guess most of you come here for baby news or photos or whatever.

I guess sometimes I feel kind of bad if I want to say something that's not mind blowingly awesome because my life is not always peaches and cream. I just want to get it out and I don't want my mother calling me tomorrow to see if I'm OK or anything like that. OK? DON'T CALL!

The truth is that this motherhood business is a lot more difficult that I ever thought it would be. Perhaps it is made more intense due to the fact that I have two babies, who knows. I would argue the point that instead of double trouble it's kazillion times more trouble. Well, if that were a number or a unit of measurement.....

The truth is that I am feeling quite a few things at once: guilt about being a "housewife": whilst I realise that it's an important job - I have two babies to raise after all - I feel some weird guilt that I am not working. OF COURSE THIS IS RIDICULOUS because 1) any money I were to make would pay for childcare x2 and what would be the point of paying to do something I can do for free? 2) the thought of my little mens in daycare makes me want to cry! So, yes, this guilt is ridiculous I know but it's something that's nagging me that I can't quite comprehend. I feel like I am disappointing someone ... but I don't know who!

Also... it's fucking hard entertaining two babies at once. I touched on it in a previous post but it's crazy and extremely difficult and draaaaaaining. Man is it draining! Perhaps it's just because they are at a difficult age where they can't sit up and don't like lying down. WHO KNOWS!

No time for myself. Yes, this is pretty much the hardest thing > to go from 10 years of pretty much doing as I please to being confined to the house most of the time. If I stay up late (like now) then I feel like shit the next day. But... this is the only time I get to myself all day. From 7am until 8pm it's GO GO GO GO GO GO GOOOOOOOOO and I guess it's just compounded and hence my feelings of shittiness this week. There is absolutely no (or perhaps extremely little) "doing something just for me" anymore.

No shopping. I can't just go and buy what I like anymore and that's also hard because I am probably one of the World's Greatest Consumers. Well, not really. But if you know me then you'll know how much I used to love buying stuff. Not any more :(((((

This is where I feel kinda bad because I love my baby mens so damn much and I would not want it any other way! So don't go thinking that.....! It's just a hard transition. They make my heart melt with happiness.

Maybe I just need to get it all out.
Hence this ranty stuff.

I feel like that the me that used to be - has kind of been shut down by all this stuff that's been happening and all the life-juggling that I have been doing. I know I'm in there somewhere.... Apologies if this has all come across the wrong way. No doubt it's made me seem really selfish and horrible, Veruca Salt kind of thing.

My goodness I love those babies though!

In conclusion: I know this is hard work but saying "I know - don't be daft, of course it's hard work, Sharnee!" and then living it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is a very different thing.

friday was shit

I have to go to bed soon but here's a brief re-cap of yesterday (Friday):

Stef had pain in side/back on train to work. Almost passed out at Southern Cross station. He thought it was muscle pain but pharmacist refused to sell him anti-inflammatory tablets saying "hey, that pain is where your left kidney is!". He managed to get to a GP who gave him a shot of morphine for extreme pain (that makes it sound like they also give morphine for extreme pleasure... hmm...). Doc suggested Kidney stone. Morphine did its job and Stef came home. My mum had the day off (oh, lucky her!) so she watched the babies while I took Stef to hospital. After 1.5hrs I went to put money in car parking meter and called my mum. Babies screaming in background so raced home to find my mum "shhhh!"-ing two babies in her arms while almost crying herself (lady, welcome to my everyday). Fed babies, put them to bed and raced back to the hospital. Stef feeling better. Drs at hospital did a scan but found no stone. Consensus is that he passed it and worst was over. Goody! Doctor told Stef to drink a lot of water (WHAT I HAVE BEEN TELLING HIM TO DO FOREVER!). Come home from hospital and my mum leaves (aka: runs out the door screaming. Just joking). Babies nap. Babies wake. Take babies to Safeway and go shopping. Come home. Feed and bed babies. Make tiny pastry cases for tomorrow - we are having people over for lunch. Do dishes. Stef goes to bed. Try and put cat lax on Bobo (cat lax = sticky licking stuff for hairballs) at 11.30pm = not good idea. Express milk.

Urgh it was a shitty and long day.
I'm glad Stef was ok. I'm glad I didn't see him when he was in extreme pain because it would have made me cry. Once, in Canberra, he had a root canal and I drove around after work trying to find him. I saw him coming home on the bus and honked the car horn until he saw me and he got off the bus and just looked so sad from the root canal that it made me cry!

Woo, it's hard work.

My days are pretty exhausting. I have two little guys who can turn over both ways (back to tummy, tummy to back) and who are very frustrated being on their back (or tummy) for any length of time. It's kind of like I have to constantly flip two eggs back and forth - but cooking would be easier as eggs don't grumble or cry. I think we are just at this annoying stage where they can't quite sit up. It must be boring lying on your back all the time and very tiring lying on your tummy.

I am constantly rotating toys, babies, play positions. Hold one baby, alternate. Repeat. Bring the laptop on the floor and watch some Razzledazzle videos (which they love). Change nappies (we only have about 2 poos a week though, so bonus!). Look at this toy, look at that toy.
It's been too cold and crappy to do anything outside and when we went out this morning for coffee with our new mothers group... Julius started grizzling when he got tired. Urgh.

But the look of recognition and the smiles and the laughs and the squeals and the babbles make it all awesome. But it's still tiring.

checking out

I found a cached version of this blog (deleted ages ago) from 2003 which said:

"...going to bed usually takes as long as the Olympic Opening Ceremony - (ie: a fuck of a long time and not very productive). Wait, no. My going-to-bed routine doesn't involve any hunky men in sportswear... but I'm thinking it should"

Wow, men in sportswear would not excite me whatsoever anymore (yawn!), but it's good to see that taking forever to go to bed has not changed.

Last night Stef likened my "going to bed routine" to a NASA Space Mission! I laughed. YES, I have a problem with procrastination. I will do anything if it means delaying sleep - WHICH IS CRAZY BECAUSE I LOVE SLEEP. Zzzz etc.

I have been dreaming that I'm staying in a hotel for the last few nights running - the other morning I woke up, confused because I had dreamed that I had left the hotel without checking out. I asked him to go and check on the babies because I had to call the hotel. Hmmm.

a bit of a rant, sorry!

• Chubby baby bottoms are the cutest things I have ever seen in my whole existence of being (yes, even cuter than Swimmer goods) and I want to eat them. Seriously, I could pop a baby bottom on toast and eat it for breakfast! They are so cute! If you have never seen a baby bottom up close then you don't know what I mean...
  
  
• I keep thinking about how PETA suggested to Ben & Jerry's to use human breastmilk in their ice-cream and not cow milk (thanks Sarah!). It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of. Seriously PETA is retarded but whoever thought of that idea is just looking for cheap publicity and has never actually pumped milk from their own bosoms! I LIKE COWS MILK AND I WILL DRINK IT WHENEVER I WANT. And moreso, human breastmilk is pretty damn precious stuff and there are 5 kazillion babies out there who can't/don't have any who would be better off having it. Or we could solve both issues at once and give premature babies ice-cream? So... shut your sass-hole PETA, I hate you. I would love to donate milk to premature babies, but I just don't know if I would have time. There would also be two huffy-puffy grumpy boys who would say "uhh, hello! that stuff is OURS!!!!"
  
  
• All this talk of baby bottoms and use of the word "retarded" makes me incredibly paranoid of how PC the world has become. I don't like that at all! Stef is sure that you can't even take pictures of your kids at the beach anymore! He's probably right but this is pretty mad if it's true. Yes I want to protect my babies but.... ARRRGGHHH! I feel so old saying this, but I miss the good ol' days of running around naked and buying cigarettes from the shops for your parents with a note they wrote you with their permission.
  
  
• I'm sick of people saying "OH MY GOD, TWINS! DOUBLE TROUBLE!!!!!" because (1) "I have no idea what it's like to have one baby so I have no reference point to decide if it is actually twice the trouble of a single baby and judging by your reaction, I can tell you don't have twins. So neither of us is able to make a judgement regarding this issue so please leave me alone".
  (2) "Actually, it's going to get a hell of a lot easier when they get old enough to play with each other and not me! So bite me!" OK, so I'm not that rude to strangers but people are not very original with their comments. I wish people would say cool stuff like "that's so awesome you released two eggs at once, how cool are you?" or "you breastfeed them at the same time? girl, you are a rock star!".
  
  
• Actually the truth is that I love the attention.
  
  
• Stef is watching "My Own Private Idaho" and I am loving his running commentary on how gay (sorry!) it is. I heard everyone hooting on about how freaking awesome "Elephant" was so I watched it in fast forward waiting for the awesomness to happen but IT NEVER DID BECAUSE THE MOVIE WAS SHIT.
  
  

I don't know why I'm all riled up tonight.

Now a crafting blog.... not

There are about a zillion things I want to do around our house (since it was built in the 1950s! We're not really into those ultra modern places) and I haven't tackled any of them really, since I don't have time. Oh wait, we did buy a curtain once.

Today we went to Coles and I found some book covering for 60 cents so I used it to cover the sliding doors of an ancient cupboard out the back. The old covering was mottled brown and white (and horrid!) and I'm really impressed with how it turned out. I love this green!

60 cents, man!

Now I just have to replace the curtain that is faded from the sun. Our vacuum cleaner lives behind there. I'm just telling you that in case you happen to find yourself at our house with nothing to do. :-)

no style

Looking at this photo makes me think that I really have zero style at all.

Spots and florals = not very cool.
Twin babies in mismatched outfits = not very stylish.
Hardly able to open eyes = understandable.

These boys are 5 months old tomorrow and that BLOWS MY MIND!
I keep seeing 20-something year old boys on TV and wanting to cry - will they still love me when they are that old? Will they think I am the dorkiest dork that ever lived? Will they think I am awesome and want to come over for dinner and stuff? I know I am thinking too far ahead here.

So far, there's only one rule (well, ok there are a few):

• they may NOT marry a Japanese woman and stay in japan forever! (I will come right over and kidnap you - even if you're 30 years old - thank you very much!)
  
• my mother may NOT home school them!
• my mother may NOT mention religious things (my mum's into fads... one day she thinks religion is cool, another day her dream job is driving a coca cola truck). No offence to those of you who are religious, but it's not for us.
• You know.... I can't think of anything else.
  

sharing

You know... I hate it when people send me emails with stupid shit in it (funny links and videos etc). I rarely look at them and it makes Stef mad - so I have to look at the ones he sends me now "They are especially sent to you because I think you'll like them!!!!!!!!!!" and, admittedly, he does send some good ones.

These are the few things I have seen online that I love. The ones that I can't stop thinking about because they are so funny.

From Married to the Sea


Surprise Coke:

from Picture is Unrelated
(I love this one, I don't know why! He looks so happy that he got a surprise coke!)

I also love Tiny Art Director, and the preview for Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus makes me almost wet my pants with glee (I LOVE a good shark attack movie, bonus points for the giant octopus). I can't wait to see that!

30hrs in Tasmania etc

Our whirlwind trip to Tasmania was fun!

It was nice to get away but I missed my babies like crazy (I missed them about 5 seconds after we left my parents house to tell the truth!).

We caught up with Stef's dad and his wife and then had dinner with the wonderful Jemma & Mike (I love you guys so much!) and their gorgeous little 3yo son. He was so adorable and I nearly cried when I realised that one day soon enough I am going to have two handsome little talking gentlemen just like him!

Sitting in bathrooms expressing milk sucks ass! Oh my god I can't tell you how boring that was. I'm glad I don't have to go to work and express milk because I WOULD NEVER GET ANY WORK DONE! Or I'd have to transfer to a dairy farm or something and sit amongst the cows and hook myself up.

You know, this is a pretty bad thing to say but having twins is a pretty awesome excuse for almost anything! It's just like "being foreign" in Japan (ie: you can say "I'm a foreigner" and pretty much get away with anything).

Why do you look like shit, Sharnee?
Oh, because I have twins.

Why are you so fat, Sharnee?
Well... you know... I had twins.

When are you going back to work, Sharnee?
Umm, who knows! I have twins!

When was the last time you brushed your hair, Sharnee?
Ummm.... I don't know. I have twins you see. No time for brushing.

Should you really be eating that chocolate?
Shutup! I have twins!