staying sane and cutting the clutter...

Geez I’m tired this week. Asleep by 9:30 most nights, and usually fall asleep on the couch waiting for C-chan to get home from Uni. Just exhausted by it all. On Saturday, I had to have 2 naps during the day. Mind you, I am frequently waking up during the night now (needing to swap sides or go pee), then my ridiculous internal alarm clock goes off before 6, at which I groan and think “too early”, but know I won’t get back to sleep properly before it’s time to get up.

Walking to work the other morning, I passed a woman on a scooter, hooning around the bend, laughing maniacally! C-chan was just saying to that morning that he knows he’s going to break into maniacal laughter at some point soon, and not be able to stop. It’s only a matter of time. There is just so much going on in our lives it's ridiculous.

However, despite the physical difficulties, preganancy seems to lull me into a tired but happy "don't worry about anything too much" mood most of the time. Work is giving me the utter s**ts at present, however. Can't wait to not be there, but getting through my workload this month is going to be stressful.

One thing we are struggling to do is to reduce the amount of things in our house to make way for essential baby requirements (space + gear). Not much room in a 2br unit, but we are constantly battling to not accumulate things. Just went thru our bookshelves and got rid of some books - gave some away, sold some, some are in boxes under the bed for when we are in a bigger house one day. I joined the library so that I can borrow books and not accumulate them. But we are already running out of book space again. It's not just books - we keep accumulating DVD's also*.

Am resisting buying everything under the sun for baby also - figure if I really need something we don't have, we can get it after bub is born without too much drama. I know people who have survived without things like change tables, and damnit, I'm going to try too rather than have a largish bit of superfluous furniture that I have no space for.

Funny how insistant people can be with advice, even when you have demonstrated that you have read up on things or talked to recent parents in similar circumstances to yourself before making a firm decision on something. My parents and in-laws are being great in this regard - they're backing right off and waiting for us to ask for advice - I think that so much has changed in the past 30 years that they realise their role is to support, talk about their experience, and be a sounding board, rather than to give un-asked-for advice. Mum was telling me that her first pregnancy was fraught with worry. She says it's important to put your health and happiness first, and babies are so sensitive to your emotional state. You can't let little things bother you too much - I've got to stop caring about things I can't do anything about or that are unimportant to me in the big scheme of things.

* anyone interested in a "loan" of either the 3 hour Russian Space epic Solaris or the "classic" Italian film La Strada? Given to us while overseas when someone we barely know felt obliged to give us presents without really knowing our tastes. Both movies look stunning, but lack engaging plots. And Italian "humour" isn't something I've ever really cottoned onto. We've had them a few years and never got further than 30mins into them, but don't let that put you off - YOU might enjoy it.