Bananas!

I’ve never been on a holiday where its taken me a month to recover from it. It’s usually been a day spent in the laundry, a quick food shop and then, done, recovered. But that caravan trip took more than a laundry day for me to recover from. I felt completely pooped for a while there. Once we arrived home there was no way I was stepping back into that caravan space to clean it up for a good while. Poor Lachie had to manage that on his own.

The trip was an incredible experience… but would I do it again?… Pregnant?… with a toddler?… probably not. Actually, definitely not. Especially when I think back to moments of Luca, our toddler, escaping the caravan and me having to reluctantly chase her across park lands in only my undies whilst bracing my belly and convincing her to come back to me so I can wipe the reminisce of pooh off her bottom. Or the moments when the hot water ran out at night and I still had shampoo suds in my hair. Or those car trips with hours of continuously feeding Luca snacks and contorting my pregnant body to pick up her toys that she purposely drops in unattainable places for me to retrieve for her entertainment.
A lot of those moments wouldn’t usually trigger me but with all sorts of hormones running rampant through my body they caused many of meltdowns. Like that one time when my innocent husband was eating his banana with his mouth open and all I could focus on was that horrible slapping noise slopping around his mouth and that sweet, sickly smooshed banana smell. That sent me into one of the most memorable meltdowns of the trip. I swear my bottom lip dropped so low it hit my chin. I sobbed and snotted into the car window uncontrollably. Anyone who drove passed us and saw me in the window would’ve laughed at me. But I couldn’t stand it. Every noise he was making was hair raising. He even laughed at me when my reply to his “Are you alright?” was met with a slobbering, “Just stop chewing. JUST STOP CHEWING, boo hoo hoo”, which made it so much worse, especially because I heard a bit of banana fly out of his mouth when he laughed at me. Ergh!
I can giggle about it now, visualising my pathetically pained faced sobbing to myself but in that moment I really and truly was questioning our marriage. The rage I felt for him eating that banana in those moments was serious. Of course they passed. But it was scary for a minute there.

Hormones are some serious scary chemicals if you’re not on top of them. Seriously. Scary. My mind had never been in those places before.
Actually, my hormones have fluctuated quite a bit with this pregnancy. I’ve had to really force myself to stop and focus my thoughts some days. I have to make sure I have some ME space to clear my mind and refocus a few times a week… if not everyday. I’ve been using Ylang Ylang oil in the bathtub to help conquer that. It’s so good for woman to use on our bodies as it helps with negative emotions and enhances our moods, so I found it the perfect remedy for a bit of ME time and to bring me back to earth… and happiness.

I was so grateful to get back to our home. Our comfortable old home, with our soft bed and all our trinkets, bells and whistles. With all the upheaval and broken routines we decided to move Luca straight into a big girls bed and not put her back in her cot. So now she sleeps like the queen she is in her queen size bed. It’s rather over the top seeing her tiny body curled up asleep in her monstrous bed but she loves it, sleeps all night in it and its working so that’s the way it is now. Which is great because the nursery is all ready to go and set for our newborn. Which is due in 4 days!!! FOUR DAYS!

I crawled into bed the other night exhausted from a day of mothering, wife-ing and house keeping and questioned Lach why on earth we are doing it again. Why do we do it to ourselves? I keep asking myself how I am going to manage. How and where am I going to find the energy to share with another little soul? I can barely muster up the strength to kiss my husband goodnight sometimes. How do some women have 8, 9, 10 children? How do they do it? Why? Oh why do they do it?….. How do they keep up with them? Feed them? Read them books. Change 8 little diapers? Copious amounts of times a day.
Some days it’s like I’ve captured a wild and slippery little eel changing Lucas nappy. Imagine doing that 8 times. I’d lose my marbles. No Ylang Ylang oil could bring me back from that.
And then I do a calm birth meditation and I start bawling my eyes out with absolute pure joy and happiness when I visualise holding our new little soul in my arms… and thats when I remember why.

Come on babe number 2. We’re ready for you.