HELLO INTERNET. Right. I am just going to write a post, not a brilliant or well thought-out one, but just SOMETHING to stop people emailing me and asking if I am dead. No I am not dead! Hello! I am right here.
Lots of other people are right here, too. My house is full of people, and I am roundly pregnant, and looking after a toddler, which turns out to be mentally and physically exhausting - who knew? - and by the time I put Esme to bed at night, when I finally have some mental breathing space, I just want to fall asleep from being bright and chirpy for the benefit of Esme and the house full of people all the time every day. My bump aches, my brain doesn't work, and my family are all falling out with each other, so I don't really feel like posting. Can I just shut myself in my bedroom and read all day? No? Oh well.
I am one of those impractical people who needs time alone to think properly, turn life into blog posts, turn jumbled thoughts into coherent English. I have not had a great deal of time alone in the last few weeks. One night I was so overwhelmed with bleak pregnancy hormones and the constant pressure to be cheerful that I went to the shop, bought a small Guinness, let myself into Ian's car and sat in the car on the drive in the dark drinking Guinness and watching the world go by and pick its nose and answer its text messages. I needed that hour very much. That was probably the lowest point of my pregnancy so far, right in the middle of what was supposed to be the glowing, blooming second trimester, but which was actually a trimester of sinus infections, pre-natal Weltschmerz, anxiety, and insomnia. I have Cheered Up and stopped being a self-absorbed dick now, and my sense of humour is almost back, even if my IQ has dropped about 50 points because I'm pregnant so I still can't write very good blog posts even if I want to. QED.
I have had to ask Esme to be quiet and leave me alone please darling at least five times since I began writing this and she won't be held off any longer, so I must go now. Seriously, I have wanted and tried to write a post every day for over a week, as the half-dozen unfinished posts in my drafts folder will testify, but every day has been one thing after another after another and I go to bed every night thinking "SHIT. I still haven't written one." Everything is very busy here, which is how I like it, but it isn't very practical for keeping up a blog. Please bear with me. But hey! I have made a Christmas cake. Thrills!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
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39 comments:
Hooray! Glad you are back... Hope the Bump Blues are well and truly over.
Hello! I was beginning to think about sending the virtual St Bernard in search of you; sounds as though that wee barrel round his neck may have come in handy on the odd stress-loaded day.
My mum, incidentally, drank a bottle of iron-rich stout every day when she was pregnant with me. I appeared to turn out vaguely alright, too!
It always astounds me how three days manage to insert themselves between today and yesterday when I'm meaning to do something, such as write a blog post. It is at least reassuring to find that it doesn't only happen to me. Perhaps we could form some sort of protest committee? Bring cake.
We'll be fine. Folks, me included, are ravenous for your posts, but we will take them as you can spare the time in these next few months.
Private time doesn't really exist once you have children. I've come to the realization that it is why old people's crap stinks so horrible... it is the body manufacturing "alone time".
My tur-let area is set up like a mini coffee bar/library. I'm very happy is my own stink.
OOh cake ... now there's an idea.
Yes, please just gestate away. We will soldier on without you....somehow. Those pregnancy hormones are a bitch!
people, stop mailing and being annoying. thank you very much. there!
no, but seriously, please take your time and bollex to us all, to be honest. ;)
I mean, first things first and drinking a small guinness in a car parked in the dark sounds like s/thing I'd like to do. right now. actually. off I go...
WHAT?!?!? a drink while you're pregnant? goodness gracious! somebody call social services!
nah, just kidding. i once knew a pregnant woman who wouldn't even have herbal tea while pregnant, and she would have called you satan's own minion for that guiness. funny, though, when push came to shove, she turned out to be a prick, and i really doubt you'd do that.
my mom had beer when pregnant with moi, and i turned out to be a decent chick with few adjustment issues. and i can hardly blame the fact that my feet are too damn big on her beer consumption, now can i?
hang in there, antonia, we'll still be here.
Well I think it's a disgrace and I shall be writing to The Telegraph about it.
*writes to The Telegraph*
Thank you.
I know how you feel, and I'm just dealing with the toddler and trying to keep a little internet business going. Those quiet evenings when we can just sit down and enjoy a beer with each other are what I live for some weeks.
But hey, you're just saving up all the good stuff for later, when you have all those hilarious new baby events to blog about :)
aaaah, just back from having that guinness (good for you, always) and just read that last lady sits down to have a beer with her todler every few weeks... ah, love this new-style parenting lark.
Send Esme out with Nick and Sarah as 'practice' and get some you time out of it. Is a brilliant idea, no??
I feel your pain, but as I'm somewhere between 7 & 9 days overdue with my baby - I feel my pain more :-)
That Christmas cake is serious nesting ativity. Sounds like good cake too - though must agree with the commenter who suggest slugging the booze and going elsewhere to eat cake.
Re Guiness is good for you/booze: water/soft drinks weren't a wise option in this country until well into the last C19th - they were more dangerous than booze. Our ancestors seemed to have survived - or have I sprung from nowhere?
Oh I know what you mean about needing time to yourself to get your head around the world - and I do not envy you the joy of having a house full of people to be "chirpy" for, that is my least favourite thing of all.
Glad things are looking up & don't you worry about us - we will all struggle by without you until you're good & ready to return!
I'm very glad to hear that you're not dead. I considered being one of those emailers but thought that reaching out to poke you over the internet when you're probably just busy is best left to people who know you better. Plus, as much as we all love you, I'd hate for your blog to feel like a burden.
I hope that your pregnancy gets more enjoyable or at least more peaceful.
Hello darling! thank you so much for the link to the recipe. I am going to do that this weekend whilst Partner plays cricket with the lads. I've always wanted to make a Christmas Cake and this will be my first!
I'll let you know how it goes :)
xxxxx
love you, miss you. how is it possible that we are preggers at the same time. nevermind, no need for explanations...
Guinness is good for you, by the by. It is chock full of iron. So you go ahead and sit alone in Ian's car and sip your stout and feel good about it, dernit!
Sorry it's all shit lately. I seem to recall wading through much of that myself during pregnancy. Are you in the randy stage of pregnancy yet? That helps. If not, well, ice cream brought me much joy.
Yay! All is well. Aside from the too busy and the hormones and the brain about to explode without the down time, etc..
We just worry is all. Perhaps you could set up posts to autopost every day that say. "I'm fine. Esme is fine. Ian is fine. The bump is fine. Nothing to see here. Now go away. I mean it. Get OFF!!!"
No. I suppose not. I shall go away now.
Well, I for one am profoundly glad you are okay, albeit full of weltschmerz and pregnancy uncomfortable-ness. Were I nearby, I'd offer to babysit so you could get some P&Q. (And more Guiness) I suppose I'm odd in that I think three year olds are fun to babysit, but there you have it. I'm warped. Which is why I read this blog.
That sounds like an exceedingly well chosen medicinal application of Guinness. I think that I am pretty much exactly the same amount pregnant as you, and have just emerged from a week of feeling impressively self absorbed, stupid, and bump-achy myself. Maybe it has just been the season for it.
Oh hey... you know you'll be just fine. Can you get a babysitter for an hour or two so you can nap? I think you need a nap.
Bollocks though, haven't started my cake yet. Crap!!! Thanks for the reminder. I think I drank the brandy from last year, too. Bugger.
Bloody glad that you've felt alright about saying 'fuck it' to the blog and focusing on your child/guests/man-partner/foetus/navel instead as required. A gestating woman deserves every drop of self-absorption (and Guinness). Very much looking forward to when things are more humdrum for you, and you have moments in which to organise your thoughts into bloglish. Until then, thinking of you and wishing you strength at the trying times. An avid anonymite xxx
I didn't write, but I worried a little. Glad things are going well, even if they're exhausting. Guinness will put hair on his little chest, right?
For those missing Antonia's posts why don't you go back to the very beginning and read all of them again?
@Alex: What, again? My sides have barely healed from the fourth time.
Spose we masses are like another child, eh? More! More! More NOW! I'm glad you and Mr. Guinness had some alone time, well deserved. I'm sorry groups of people are requiring your constant cheeriness - hey relations, if you're reading this, feck off and give a lady a break! Take care of yourself, we will be patient (or we will try real hard). @Alex your re-read idea sounds like a fabulous solution.
We'll be waiting, with a song in our hearts and a spring in our steps whenever you can manage.
Google weltschmerz...
that sounds like what my mum's got...
apparently it leads to anomie or even suicide....
a second baby is whole new world of pain
I listened to an interview with Zadie Smith on the radio yesterday, and learned that she is very very pregnant. Her thoughts on being able to write as a mother were worth a listen, I thought. They boil down to, "I expect it will be hard. Most women writers of any note weren't mothers."
So there's that - cheering? But she intends to keep writing, and I'm glad you are too.
That alone time is so precious, and I don't feel like I have ANY these days. I did get to sit on the couch alone while both children practised their violins just now. Imagine, if you will.
Yeah.
xoxo
I will send you a sign from Terry Pratchett that you can put up in your blog window:
I aitn't dead.
TY for the update, we all just worry. ;)
I hear you! Pregnancy hormones and too many house guests would bring me down too!
I too am in my 2nd trimester and am coping quite well, but this is my first child and I do not have a little Esme tugging at me for my constant attention!
In my experience, its good for both you and Esme if you begin to instill the significance of "quiet time", where Esme spends time on her own and you do too.
She is going to learn with this 2nd child that your attention will not be hers 100% of the time very soon, so "separate quiet time" may be a great way to begin this learning process for her.
I wish you the best of luck and wish you regular quiet time soon!
Is it weird that I saw this and immediately thought of you?
Yeah, I thought it was odd too.
I'd have to say that being pregnant was a very hard time for me in many ways. If I was pregnant with a toddler...ugh. I wouldn't handle it well. This is the first time I've dropped by your blog, but I think you have every right to have been absent and to fall asleep instead of blogging. However, I am glad you are OK now and plugging through your pregnancy with vigor and hopefully some excitement....
Hey, I'm a fan checking in to wish you support. I was in your position last year, with a toddler and a large fetus, and I just wanted to remind you that things will go back to normal. This time next year you'll have two HILARIOUS little people in your house who will entertain each other and crack you up constantly. Seriously. Adding the second child was the best thing I've ever done, and life has gotten easier every day since the second one was born. When you think back to 2009 you'll say "how the hell did I do it?" And you'll feel like a goddess.
Looking forward to the new Cornwell.
Hey, I'm a fan checking in to wish you support. I was in your position last year, with a toddler and a large fetus, and I just wanted to remind you that things will go back to normal. This time next year you'll have two HILARIOUS little people in your house who will entertain each other and crack you up constantly. Seriously. Adding the second child was the best thing I've ever done, and life has gotten easier every day since the second one was born. When you think back to 2009 you'll say "how the hell did I do it?" And you'll feel like a goddess.
Looking forward to the new Cornwell.
Hey, I'm a fan checking in to wish you support. I was in your position last year, with a toddler and a large fetus, and I just wanted to remind you that things will go back to normal. This time next year you'll have two HILARIOUS little people in your house who will entertain each other and crack you up constantly. Seriously. Adding the second child was the best thing I've ever done, and life has gotten easier every day since the second one was born. When you think back to 2009 you'll say "how the hell did I do it?" And you'll feel like a goddess.
Looking forward to the new Cornwell.
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