Kids!!

Phoebe - what can you say, she's 84cm of attitude. I thought I was going to have a huge fight on my hands with changing her diet to gluten free but, no - not an issue for her. She's happy eating the cereal, she seems to like the arse tasting bread and she is loving more fruit in her diet.

Last night I tried the Freedom Foods gluten free Double Choc Chip biscuits and nearly choked on the disgust of it all. I sat down with a coffee and what looked like a lovely little treat. Alas, not to be. It congealed in my mouth, nearly cutting off my airways and went down like gritty sand mixed with sawdust. Foul!! But, being the evil mother I am, I put one in Peta and Ben's lunch and also gave Blair one, laughing to myself thinking of their faces when they bit into what looks like a treat but tastes like dried dog poo. Then Phoebe asked for a biscuit this morning and I gave her one, expecting her to spit it out. She loves them and just had two. I suppose she isn't so conditioned by taste as I am and she will quickly adapt to new tastes. Wish I could!!

We just got her blood results for allergy back and she IS allergic to peanuts but not to wheat. So we are going to have to keep a close eye on her.

Blood Test Bonanza

It seems blood tests are the thing to be having at the moment.

Blair has his results back and he has no issue with gluten but ...........

has a high cholesterol of 6.6!! Mine is perfect - 4.0. I am worried as he is not overweight at all and eats the same as me. So we are looking at real healthy foods as well as gluten free. FUCK. It's a good thing, it's a good thing. It is making us have a hard look at our diets and it is going to be a good thing.

On another note.... my sister had some blood tests a couple of weeks ago as she kept feeling sick and having a crampy tummy and had been having full on headaches on one side of the head for a while. She has a history of migraines so she just thought she had better get it all checked out. The doc wrote her a letter saying he was away for a week but needed her to come in and have more blood tests as there were some irregular results in the last ones. Apparently she had higher than normal levels of something and he says that this can be indicative of some sort of cancer. Being my sister, she didn't listen to what the high levels were and what sort of cancer it could be. She is just casual as about it. Actually, she probably does know but just decided not to tell me as she knows that I will get my books out and investigate it. I'm pretty confident that it will only be a virus or something and she will be fine. Aye??

I went to a great evening on Friday night with Getrude Matshe at She cafe in Governors Bay. Getrude was amazing, a woman from Zimbabwe who had come from nothing to a near 40 year old who had set up three successful businesses including a talent agency that provided Africans for the Skull Island scenes in King Kong. I really enjoyed my first night out away from Sian and leaving her at home with Blair. She performed a wee bit but all was fine. It was good for me to get out as I have been rather overprotective of my wee darling, considering all the shit we went through with her when she was a couple of weeks old.

When we were at the cafe we met the owner, Bernie Prior, and he is a speaker in his own right about the Feminine Divine etc. I didn't quite get where his angle was but he was asking what I did. I said nothing really, a mother of four. My best mate Kim gave me shit and said don't ever say you do nothing, you do more than most of us. Anyho, Bernie told me to be careful crossing back over the bridge on the way out of Governors Bay as he has made a giant sculpture of a pregnant woman with a big tummy, big breasts and wild hair. I commented "kind of like me then" and he didn't get it!! He said she was a sculpture of fertility and I freaked.

So much so, that I have booked in tomorrow to get another IUD put in. I know, I got pregnant with the last one in but at the moment condoms are the only form of protection and considering I have gotten preggers on the mini pill, with the withdrawal method (no kidding on that one), and with an IUD - I'm just not overly confident in the condoms to keep me safe. When I have my bits fixed I will get my tubes tied but that could be at least 6 months away so I thought "Freaky sculpture guy has given me the shits, time to get an IUD"

I Made My First Loaf of Bread

Give a man a loaf of bread and he will eat for a day

Teach him to bake and he will eat for life

- unless of course you are teaching him how to make gluten free bread and he will probably not eat for life, he will dry retch and then starve to death.

It's Official - Im Sensitive

To gluten that is. Got the results yesterday. Peta and Ben are not, so that is good. Blair's results not in yet.

I'm looking at this in the most positive light. I can now focus on finding out a whole new way of cooking and eating and eliminating gluten from mine and Phoebe's diets. My body can start functioning better because it will no longer be fighting the food that fuels it. I am actually excited at being labelled. Strange, I know, but we always knew that didn't we?

As for the wee drama that has been playing out in my head re the friend situation:

I had a heap of comments saying ditch her, as I would probably comment on your blogs if I heard a similar story. But I had two comments that stood out. One was from Arron's Kiwi Girl and it mentioned how long we had been friends and maybe I should mention a few of the issues on my own and see how it goes down. I have decided that this is a great approach and I will start by clearing the mind of all the crap I am holding over her at the moment, stop dwelling in the past and just make sure I stand up for myself in the moment when she offends me or runs me down.

The second comment was from Ana, who had no link or way of replying back so I will do it here, and hopefully she comes back to visit. Ana came from a completely different standpoint on it and, I must admit, at first I got a wee bit defensive about her comment. Then I re-read it and thought about it and decided that I was being very judgemental of N myself by what I was thinking. Which is exactly one of the flaws I was pointing out in her character. Yes, N does drain me sometimes but maybe it is because she is trying to boost herself up and this is the only way she knows how to do it. I want Ana to know that, although my comments about the Te Reo seemed like I thought it was wrong, I don't. I think every child in New Zealand should learn Te Reo and I also think that everyone has a right to their culture whether they choose to follow their own or identify with another. On the other hand, I suppose my inability to understand where this particular person comes from is because we have been friends for 17 years now and I have seen her change her whole personality in the past two. And I don't think it matters if you are one smidgen Maori or 100%, you have every right to identify but I do think that people also have to face the future and realise that this is 2007 and we have to come to terms with the fact that New Zealand is a multi-racial, multi-cultural nation and I personally, don't think you are doing your child any favours by putting them in a full immmersion Maori schooling system. Is it going to do them any favours in 20 years time?? I would like to thank you Ana, for pointing out my lack of acceptance and also for showing me that I have become a bit of a hypocrite in my actions. Arohanui.

Could They Get Any Bigger??

I kid you not - these are what my breasts look like at the moment. They are lumpy and I just want to cry but, I'm tough so I'll carry on.

My man has proven to me in the last 24 hours - twice - just why I love him to death and he is my best friend.

1. When he got home from work and I was sitting in dining room, breast pump milking my engorged breasts, muffin top swelling over tight jeans and grimacing in pain (not an attractive look) he offered to "suck" some milk off each breast for me if I needed him to. There was no sexual innuendo in it, he just wanted to help my pain. I didn't take him up on the offer but thought it was extremely thoughtful.

2. My best mate txt me last night to see if I wanted to go to a cafe in Governor's Bay tomorrow night to hear an African woman talk about her plight in life and how she has overcome it and then go for a drink at the pub. I replied that I couldn't as we are very low on cash due to bad weather and Blair not having work and therefore a low pay. When I told Blair he seemed upset that I couldn't go out and just phoned me to say that he has organised a progress payment on the garage he is building and that I should go out. (This even though he knows Sian is very attached to me and is likely to do her prunes for him).

So, this leads me to this question:

Who do YOU love and what is a great example of why??

Gluten Filled Binge

The whole lot of us (bar wee Sian) had our gluten blood tests yesterday. Ben was the biggest woofter about it all. A family full of girls and my son is the biggest of them!! So, in celebration of us going gluten free tomorrow, we went OTT on the gluten crap last night and today. We had:




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So today I am finishing off lollies galore, feeling like a bag of arseholes as I have sugar and gluten overload and brain fog to boot. Got my breadmaker and will be doing a gluten friendly shop tonight. It's pissing down here today and my breasts are ready to explode. Sian had her last breastfeed yesterday morning due to my new meds and I literally feel like my tits are going to burst open and there is going to be a milk flood in my street!!

I'm Blowing Up ......

I was about to do a big boring post on my blood pressure, final breast feed for Sian and all that - but then I decided it's too boring and I might just do it on something completely obscure . . . .

I have an old circle of friends that have been close since about 15 years old. We have had our split ups etc, some of us have married each other (co-ed) and some of us have completetly decided we don't have anything in common.

Two mates that I have stayed really close to are N and K. N has just had a baby, day before me, and is suddenly the "mother of the earth". And that is not my term, she calls herself that. This is the chic that has constantly had something to say about my mothering, and others, before she had even had kids of her own. K is a blast of a chic. Had a rough year when she was 16 and lost her boyfriend to a gun accident. She went through her ups and downs and there was plenty of drama but we all still loved her for her sassy ways. The three of us have remained pretty tight. N has recently married and thinks she is the schnizz! K is my World Vision mate who has spent half of last year travelling around Thailand, Laos and VietNam by herself, she is a small blondey with the balls of an elephant. She gets out in the fields and plants the rice with the old arthritic ladies and hitch hikes on the back of scooters with fair dinkum monks. I love her to bits. She drinks like a fish and parties hard. N is like the polar opposite but still has her special place. But ..... this is the scenario that went down last week and I want some opinions as to what we all think of this behaviour:

N phoned K to see if she would like to have dinner with them on the Wednesday night as her and her husband and baby were staying in the husband's mothers 2 bdrm unit in town. They currently live in a tin shed with a bucket of sawdust for a toilet so this is luxury for them. K said she'd love to and would it be okay if she brought her boyfriend of 3 months so that they could finally meet him. N said "oh, if you really want to, there isn't very much room and C (her husband) has invited a mate as well". K, being K, thought fuck it, I'll take him, no dramas. Then the next night N txt K to say, C is going to invite his sister and husband as well so there is not enough room for you and your boyfriend so you will have to miss out.

Now I find this fucken rude. Who invites somebody over for dinner and then phones the night before to say they've invited somebody else the same night so you can't come anymore. The chic has lost the plot. She has turned into a doormat for her husband who is a pig! Blair is Maori, for any of you who didn't already figure that one out from the kids' beautiful colouring. N is not. Her husband is 1/38th or less but is always going on and on about it, they have both gone and learnt Te Reo and refer to everything in Maori. They even named their completely unMaori looking wee boy a Maori name and not a common one either! They are looking at putting him in a full immersion Maori school. They are doing nothing for his future at all. And she has the fucken gall to come around here and tell me that Sian doesn't look as Maori as her wee boy. Who fucken cares?? She tells me I am letting the house go if I have washing on the couch to fold and tut tutts because I have decided to feed Sian baby food at 4 months. This is my fourth kid, I think I know what the hell I am doing!! She knew about Phoebe's second birthday for ages and half an hour after it had started txt me to say that they couldn't come because they wanted to cut some firewood before C went away (two weeks later!!). This episode with K is about the final straw for me. Am I being over sensitive or is it just time to say "this friendship has died it's natural death and move on"? The sad thing is she thinks we are best friends still!! I can't stand her self obsessed bullshit and I can't believe she thinks she has the right to be so bloody judgemental to everyone.

Am I being a cow??