Enough,

A few weeks ago I started drafting a blog about the phrase 'eating for two'. In the end, I didn't post it because it felt a little bit too much like a word police kind of rant because as a phrase it kind of rubs me up the wrong way. The other thing is that I feel like anything and everything I write is somewhat garbled at the moment because I'm juggling this new normal of baby brain, unmedicated ADHD, apparent lack of sleep and the new one this week of struggling with some form of virus. Anyway, I am endeavouring to post this and hoping it makes some sort of sense.

It's something past midnight as I'm starting to write this and instead of being upstairs, tucked up in my bed trying to catch up on the sleep I have missed out on over the last week because of this virus, I'm sat downstairs at the kitchen table eating a sandwich and pondering a question which centres around 'Am I enough?'

I'm sure that it's something all mothers - maybe even all parents - contend with, but at the moment it's not the focus of, do we have enough nappies for when they first arrive (I think so), do we have enough clothes (nope, nothing like), have we got enough blankets for a winter baby (I'm still knitting one...) but a specific focus of am I eating enough? 

For a lot of weeks I was plagued by aggressive morning sickness that's made me vomit, given me food aversions and made me cry more than once. I've had so much advice over all that time, and some has worked, and some hasn't. One of the midwives told me it was basically a license to eat beige food and the baby would still get everything that they needed, so not to worry, and that helped, others have suggested ginger biscuits and dry crackers, which even the thought of either makes me want to toss my cookies.

As it's been a long time since I've been eating properly (as in portion size) I'm now struggling a little to be able to eat a full plate full, so having to split meals down which is easy enough in the house, but not so easy when I'm out.

Today, despite having been out for a roast dinner, I was trying to figure out if I was hungry as I was getting ready for bed (it's not unusual for me not to be sure, apparently misunderstanding hunger signals can be an ADHD thing) and had to try and track what I had eaten on a calorie counting app to realise I was well short of what I should have eaten. Although I'm overweight (and was before the pregnancy) the midwives have told me a few times that I have lost some weight since I was referred to the maternity services and I shouldn't really do that (READ: REALLY SHOULDN'T DO THAT!) so I really need to try and make sure I'm eating what a 'standard adult' should as well as a bit extra since I'm already in my second trimester. 

So there it is, another thing for me to worry over. Am I eating enough? Am I eating the right things? Is my little human getting everything that they need from me and am I getting everything I need to be ready for when they arrive? Who really knows? All I can do is try my best and hope that's enough, but I guess that's what all parents do, isn't it?

How To Say This,

I've been thinking about how to say this for the last few weeks, if not a bit longer, and I finally decided that this was the best way, because this blog has always been the bit of a keyhole into my life so I guess this is the most appropriate platform... And yet, I still have no words for it.

Okay, so maybe it's a little bit early, because most people wait until they have their anatomy scan, where they can typically find out if their little they (how are people so happy to call a baby it??) is a girl or a boy, you know, if they want to know, but I have been too excited about this for weeks already to not share it. In case you've not cottoned on yet, my partner and I are expecting a baby.

It's so strange because we've known for months (the bare minimum that it takes to be able to use the word months, but months all the same) and have essentially been told to restrict who we talk to about it until we're into the second trimester, and I understand that,  I really do, but I have also wanted to raise a banner and wear a sash to say something like 'precious cargo', 'mama to be' or something similar even though things like that really give me the ick. I've wanted to shout it from the rooftops because the general consensus is that news of a baby is good news and it is news which should be shared.

Sharing this news always comes with a myriad of questions, so here they are and here's the answers, or as much as I am happy to share on a public forum:

When are you due?

Winter/late 2025. 

Do you know what you're having yet?

No, we don't. We've had the 12 week scan, and everything was good as far as we've been told, but at that stage of development, foetuses don't have external genitalia which can indicate the sex of the baby. 

Were you trying?

This is such a weird question. It's so strange that in the context of pregnancy people feel okay to ask about your sex life. 

Were you surprised?

Honestly, yes, because whether you are trying or not, and again, stop asking people that, but the answer doesn't matter in whether you are/were surprised when it happened, because it can be surprise that it's happened at all, surprised at the timing because of the stresses of life and other things happening at the same time, or because you've only just started trying, or you've been trying for ages and nothing was happening or because you weren't trying. 

Are you happy?

Whilst I appreciate that some people might think that if you're sharing the news of a pregnancy then the answer to this question must be a yes, it isn't always. I actually quite like this as a question because it gives you the opportunity to respond with the right sort of energy and support. If someone is shocked or overwhelmed, hyperactive Tigger energy is going to add to their discomfort, but if they're really happy and you're response seems a little deflated, that can be really tough to take as well, and being pregnant can be hard enough as it is. 

Yes, I'm happy. We're both happy. 

Do you have a name picked out yet?

Nope. We've tentatively agreed to defer this until after the next scan so we only have one list of names to bicker over. (I'm mostly kidding), but I think we might also be one of those couples who reserve the right to change their minds when the baby is born because you need to meet the baby before being sure about their name or risk their name just not suiting them. 

Can I touch your bump?

Okay, so no one has asked me this one yet, but someone did touch my stomach (in the wrong place for where the baby is and they are very lucky I was behaving that day) because I don't like to be touched, for one thing, but for another, just because I'm pregnant doesn't mean my body is suddenly under public ownership. Anyone should ask before touching someone who is pregnant, but also, don't ask to touch the bump, wait to be asked. If you're not being asked, it's probably because the person who is pregnant doesn't want to be touched. Maybe I'll feel differently when they start to kick and when those kicks can be felt by someone who is not me, but trying to touch my belly doesn't help my baby bond with you, it makes me want to start breaking fingers... 

I get that I might sound like a grouch with this, but there are already a lot of things where my body doesn't feel like my own in this "process" so adding to that is just not advisable for other people and not acceptable for me.

Have you announced it on Facebook?

No, I haven't, and neither has my partner. It's been a bit of a strange one, because as I said earlier, you're advised not to share it too widely before twelve or thirteen weeks, but an alarming number of people had guessed, and also with the wild amount of nausea I was having, we shared with a few people before that time because they were around us so often that they would have soon figured it out anyway. 

After that we kind of went through a list of people we didn't want to find out via social media, and really, that list was a lot longer than we expected it to be, with more people added to it as we spoke to them. The awesome thing with that has been that 99% of people know it's happy news and have been extremely happy for us, which has been a joy. 

It's not just about the number of people we thought should find out in a different way than a post on social media, but I have struggled to find the words to speak about them sometimes, so trying to figure out what to say on Facebook or similar has been difficult, and I knew before I had the scan that I didn't want to share photos of the scan in any way. To me, that's a part of my medical data and I don't want it to be out there on the internet for potentially anyone to see or access. 

Is it twins?

I got asked this so many times before the scan, and I really needed to stop answering with 'Oh God I hope not' but I was hoping not! I didn't think I would cope with twins and I still don't think I would, but the sonographer told us there is only one, we just don't know their sex, so they're they rather than it. 

Why Would You Want To Keep Them,

 A few days ago the somewhat inevitable news that NaNoWriMo was going to go down was given and honestly, it's been a bit difficult to sort through the feelings that have come up in the wake of that. It's one thing to know that it exists still, but it's not what it was, but it's something else entirely to think of it being gone for good... 

I spoke to friends and we discussed that the grieving process started for a lot of us way back in 2023, for some even longer ago than that, but this has something of a finality to it. Instead of waiting for someone to steer the ship back onto course, we have to accept that it's gone and it likely will never be seen again. When I didn't take part in anything resembling NaNoWriMo in 2024 I expected that it was unlikely I would ever visit my NaNo account again, but today I decided that there was still a reason to go back, and it was better to do it sooner rather than later rather than potentially miss the chance. 

What I wanted to keep was the record of what I had written and when. I wanted to keep the records of things that I had tried, things I had written and the graphs that came with them, because there were some pretty amazing achievements in there.

Granted, I hope the memory of finishing in 5 days and smashing the Staples 'Easy' button, to make it say 'That was easy' in the middle of the cafe in a bookstore (I think it was a Waterstone's) and saying 'no, it f-ing wasn't', or the many crazy memories of the All Night Lock In, whether it was in The Big Green Bookstore or the different Scout sites we used later, or the awesome friends I made through NaNoWriMo, or that trip to San Fransisco... 

But yes, I went back to screen grab some of the good memories, and maybe it was a way for me to say goodbye and accept that it's over. Maybe. 

Why Change The Habit of A Lifetime,

 For several years this blog has been a list of excuses and reasons I haven't been writing, sometimes because I've been working through stuff, working on something or for a number of reasons, so why break the habit of a lifetime?

I've expressed a number of times that life in what has become, to a lot of people, post NaNoWriMo, has been difficult. I haven't had the same motivation to write and during November, I didn't pick up a pen or sit at a keyboard that wasn't for my day job, something that even last years would have felt unthinkable!! but that is not to say I have been sat unhealthily wallowing in self-pity. Far from it, in fact. 

Although I haven't been writing - not even thinking about it much really, and truth be told I won't go back to it consistently until I feel that "pull" to again - and I haven't been reading much, if anything, either, I have been doing other things. This year I got out on the paddleboard more, bought a kayak and took that out on the water too, trashed the garden thinking I was going to take up the grass, level it and then pave it, then stopped because I got bored of the idea... I have spent a lot more time going to live music events, went camping, went on holiday in Northern Ireland and Wales, and most importantly in all of that, I met my partner. 

Life changed a lot because we're a we rather than me just being a me and only having myself or myself and Chai to think about. She's been adjusting because instead of her world just being my family and I, her world is now my family and I, plus him and his family and his family includes a couple of children (niblings) and children weren't something Chai previously did well with. His family also includes cats and from Teddy's reaction to cats I wasn't exactly sure that was going to be good either, but Chai has realised a couple of things - one, the cats will either run away because they're more nervous of her than she is of them or if she annoys them they will fire a warning shot (not sure if claws were out for said warning shot, but no one was injured, feline, canine or human), two, small children don't know what limits are, so they will keep feeding you crisps, sausages and digestive biscuits (the non-chocolatey ones!) until they've been told to stop circa a hundred times and three, young children have a much shorter attention span than she does, so if she watches for long enough, the opportunity to steal sausage rolls is literally! as easy as stealing candy from a baby. 

The last few weeks have been filled with tidying, organising and boxing things up and honestly, I feel like I've barely had time to sleep or breath, but hopefully we're on the tail end of it now. The months that my partner and I have been together have rolled by - that's not to say there haven't been hiccups, because there always are - and we're hoping that some time soon we can both get to the stage where we can pick up some of the things we did in our pre-us days, but one good thing is that we haven't dropped into a pattern where we've forgotten our friends since getting together. 

For once in a long time, writing will not be featured in my new year's resolution list, because I don't want to try and force it. When I try and force myself to write it feels like the metaphorical gears in my mind are jamming and the pressure doesn't help me to get anything out at all, let alone with any measure of ease or fluency. I'm not even sure I'm going to commit to trying to read, whether more or at all, because there is so much else going on that I don't want to try and demand some of my own time be focused on something that in that moment that I'm thinking about it might not even matter at all. 

So there it is, life is busy because life is full and that may or may not change a little or a lot. 

A Year On,

T'was the night before NaNo and... 

The truth is it doesn't feel like it at the moment. I don't think there was a single moment I could point to where I decided I wasn't going to complete NaNo this year, whether it was NaNo itself or by another name, but the only thing I feel towards it at the moment is a real and complete sadness. 

There has been a lot of things floating around the internet about the accusations and about things which did happen, about things which can be proved and others which can't, and there's been at least some discussion of what MLs feel towards it. I would normally say MLs, both current and emeritus, but I don't know of a single person who has been accepted as an ML by the organisations new order... There has been a lot of people expressing how they feel about a lot of different viewpoints and different actions by the current and former HQs, but the only thing I find myself wanting to say about it is this: 

We've lost something. 

What we have lost is something which can be quantified - we've lost a truly global community that connected people over a passion in a way that I've not seen any other single organisation do in this space - but also not quantifiable, because we've lost a community, we've lost a space, we've lost a feeling and so much more. 

A lot of the messaging currently coming out of NaNo HQ is about how everything is getting back on track, but something feels missing. It's not like a small piece crumbled away; it feels like someone punched a section out and everything that's left is still reeling and trying to figure out how to function without it. 

Personally I have not been writing a lot for a while. Part of it is one of the slumps I get into when something like this happens, though granted the last time 'something like this' happened it was the loss of my novel, not the loss of the whole organisation and community etc. Part of it is my life moving on in a very sudden and somewhat unexpected direction. (No, I'm not talking about it. Possibly that's more of a yet than a not ever, but for now, I'm not.) Part of it is the fact that work has had me spinning like a top and the last thing I want to do when I put my laptop down for the evening is pick up another laptop, and hand writing makes my wrists cramp up. 

I didn't want to write this today because it feels like it's making me more sad, but I also feel the need to acknowledge that sadness on the eve of the anniversary of where it all started to go really wrong. At this point last year I was still hopeful that there was something that could be done to rescue what we as a community once were, but this year I realise that there is no going back.

For only the first time since I was sixteen I have absolutely zero intention of trying to write fifty thousand words in thirty days, and honestly, there are zero words that adequately express how gutted I feel about it. 

The Last Month Has Been Rough,

How It Started

I'm not talking about June - I'm talking the last thirty days, four-ish weeks kind of month, and honestly, I don't think even that covers it, but man it has been rough. 

With one thing and another I have barely been at my own home, which has meant that my house is even more of a disaster area than normal and I need to do something about it, but what I can actually do, when I can actually do it, and also how I can do it, when there is zero motivation for me to actually do it, are all questions which actually don't matter to me too much at the moment, because I have too much else to think about to even get to that. 

Some of it I absolutely bring on myself. I was away camping for some of the time my parents were away, I drove to Wales to collect a kayak and then haven't found the time to take it out, which is annoying and I also now need to find a more permanent storage method for the thing because it's currently back in my living room after it spent MAYBE three days outside, but as I said, I've not been there, and I'm not willing to leave it less than secure, so it's dominating my living room.

How It's Going

This month? This month! It has been a lot more than a month at this point, I am telling you!

As I'm writing this, I still have not "moved" properly back into my own house and though I have been able to spend a little more time there over the past two weeks I can't say that I have always wanted to because of the aforementioned mess. Despite being a miraculously unorganised person at the best of times, it is the sort of thing that escalates quickly when you're just not in the house. How? Because things and tasks accumulate and there is no one to put them away or do the tasks. I realise that things like laundry and washing up need to be done only when there is someone there to cause the mess in the first place, but it's things like cutting the grass. Whether I'm there or not the grass is going to grow and actually I think it grows more when I'm not looking and when Chai isn't there peeing all over it, so now it's at a stage where it is wild, it is full of weeds and my hay fever makes the idea of strimming it back so I can cover and kill it (all part of the plan for the garden) feel like a really horrendous idea. 

Granted the weather not being great isn't helping get anything done. There is a whole plan around the garden now, and for the kayak to be stored (thinking about that has just reminded me that I forgot to put the cockpit cover on it before the last time I left my house and now it has rained like the days of Noah, so I can't do it until the boat is at least SOMEWHAT dry!) but all of those things require the weather to be dry and not the kind of baking hot that means I burn almost the second I walk out of the house. 

The good thing is that I did manage to find the time to take my lovely kayak, Jellybean, out on the water for a 'quick' inaugural paddle, and because the person who was helping me get her back onto the top of the car is not a kayak person (not that I consider myself a kayak person - way too early for that) she went up there still full of water, which meant when I braked going down a hill it all got thrown all over my windscreen in a way that was ridiculous enough to make me laugh like a hysterical person. 

So this month has been more 'balanced' but has also brought about more time in the office, more family issues to be dealing with and the unhappy development that when I gather my things to be leaving my mother's house, Chai doesn't even try to follow me which is pretty heartbreaking. I know she's learnt I'm leaving and she's generally not able to come with me, but it somehow makes me feel guiltier than the earlier version where she would run to come with me and then look at me with her big, sad eyes when I was telling her to go back in the house. I'm really hoping that some time over this week and weekend I can just get us back into our own home and she can realise I do absolutely adore her. If it weren't for the fact that I have no idea if she would even like it I would be planning a holiday for just me and her for 'when this all blows over'. 

It's a Cutlery Problem,

Except its not.

You may or may not have heard of Spoon Theory and how it is used to describe life with a chronic condition or disability, and honestly, I think it's brilliant, but at the same time there is such a lack of understanding of it that means it fades into being less useful than it should be. 

Why am I talking about this? Because I just found my holdall from when I stayed at my mum's last weekend. It's part of the floor-drobe in my room, and sadly the pyjamas I took with me are still in the holdall, so they have not been washed. There is laundry in the machine that has been washed at least twice, but my pyjamas are not in there, and the set I have been wearing is going to need to go into the laundry soon, too. How does this relate to spoons? Because I need to do laundry and make sure I have a clean and dry set of pyjamas, and that is going to steal a lot of my spoons tomorrow, and I still can't guarantee it's going to happen. 

I've finally found pyjamas that I love. They've by Oddballs, they're funky patterns and colours and they're comfortable. The pants are a bit long and I am yet to convince myself to rehem them, but they're comfortable and I love them. They're also expensive, so I have two sets and that should be adequate - I'm doing slightly better at this limiting impulsive spending thing - but only if I keep on top of chores. Which I never do...

So these fantastic dopamine giving pjs are not able to make me happy and give me a boost to do other things because I don't have the spoons to keep them clean and available, let alone the presence of mind to get through the process of collect the laundry, put the laundry in the machine and set it going, turn it off at the end of the cycle AND empty it into an appropriate receptacle, then hang the laundry somewhere that it will dry, so it sits in there for days then needs rewashing with something to make it smell better, or if it gets hung outside I forget about it and it either rains on it, and then it smells bad and needs rewashing, or I have to take it in when it's dark, or there are spiders or bird poop on it, and then it either needs rewashing or I just hate it because it has spiders on/in it, and that makes me want to puke... and then it either hangs on the airer until I need to wear it, until my mum comes around and folds and puts things away for me (that doesn't happen that often to be fair) or until I have another wet load of laundry that made it to the same room as the dryer and it needs to find somewhere else and more often than not, that is not the wardrobe! 

Basically, I need more spoons, or another person to come and help me do things. Or a decent laundry service in the area which takes away the dirty things, brings back clean, folded things and then all I have to do is take it out of the bag and put it into the wardrobe. Though of course, that still will not happen.