The gym and the gifs

I joined a gym yesterday. It wasn’t an impulsive decision – my friend had mentioned its proximity and decent prices when we first moved here, and all last week I’d studied a flier that arrived in our letterbox and chewed over the idea of signing up. I hadn’t really decided to sign up yesterday, though, I was just popping in to check out the classes they ran, but it turned out they were offering an even better deal than the one advertised on the flier, and even though the dude behind the counter had his accents mixed up and called it a ‘creché’ instead of a ‘crèche’, he won me over with the promise of an extra month for free. I left with a membership card in my hand and this line from Anchorman in my head:

I’m quite uncoordinated, not just in a “tee hee oops!” way but in a “when I was much younger I used to have to do coordination exercises because I tried ballet and it did not go well” way. I’m okay with doing leg moves, and I’m okay with doing arm moves, but when asked to join the leg things and the arm things together, my brain flips out; I move left while kicking when I should be punching my arms and moving right, and if there’s ever a little skip step added in to a routine I simply sit down and sob. I always do exercise DVDs with the curtains closed for this reason, and because I want him to want to have sex with me in future, Alan is banned from the room while the workout is on.

And now I’ve paid a fair chunk of money for the privilege of unleashing me-while-exercising on the public, and have instructed Alan to guilt me into going back if ever I give up. I went to my first class this afternoon and hid behind a pole, and I was overjoyed to find that I was not the most uncoordinated person in the room. I was less overjoyed to find that the actual exercise would be the challenge – the vaguely named ‘Body Pump’ turned out to be hell with a barbell (name change?) which rendered me incapable of using my limbs properly. My legs were so wobbly I nearly fell over on my way out of the gym, although I’d just laughed with the dude who signed me up yesterday about not being able to walk home so I hope he thought that was an act (Alan was waiting for me outside and when he heard how I was feeling, asked, “So falling out of the gym wasn’t a joke?” No. No it wasn’t. I feel like I have jelly for legs and I want to die).

I’m currently typing this with my nose and tongue because I can’t lift my arms anymore, and I every time I stand up and move I say, ”Aaaaaoooww ow owow.”

via GIPHY

Sleep (again)

from here

I know that sleep deprivation comes with babies so I feel like I can’t whinge about it; it’s like being cranky that your banana comes with a peel, because you don’t want the peel, you just want the banana, you know? YOU CAN'T HAVE THE BANANA WITHOUT THE PEEL, AND YOU WANT THE BANANA SO BE QUIET. Did this point need illustrating? I’m too sleepy to know. Anyway, I’m not surprised by the sleep deprivation this time around, but I am shocked by how worn out it’s possible to become while still managing to make it from morning through to evening AND keep little people alive and fairly content during that time. I’ve slowed down considerably, and am often very aware of my heartbeat –  

baBoom… baBoom… baBoom… baBoom… 

I hear it talking to me:

I’mGoing… toStop… ifYou… don’t…. (it skips a beat to reinforce the message). 

Apparently being overtired makes it harder to do things like falling asleep, which seems like a cruel glitch in our makeup that should have been ironed out a little while ago. Falling asleep is hard not only when when you’re too tired to remember how to actually drop off, but also when you develop such a hatred of being woken too early that you decide that not falling asleep will be less painful, or when you’re so exhausted that getting through tomorrow seems impossible, and the only way to postpone tomorrow is to stay awake tonight. I know it doesn’t make sense, but not much does right now. 

I’d really love someone to look out for my tired signs like I watch for Hazel’s and to scoop me up and say to me, “Oh, my darling, look at you! You’re so sleepy! I’m putting you to bed now and I want you to have a loooooong nap.” I want to be able to wake whenever I’m ready to rather than whenever I’m called for. I want to sleep for 8 hours, uninterrupted. I’d settle for 7. I JUST WANT SLEEP. And Lorde’s album. But mostly sleep.

No more

Even though

I’d love to see what other permutations of unbelievably-gorgeous Alan’s and my genes combined can come up with, and

I have more baby names to use up, and

I still like the idea of having 3 kids, and

babies at 7 months old (anywhere from 4 months old, really) are the most delightful things ever, and

I feel like I’ve got the whole birthing thing down now, and

I love Moses and Hazel more than the sweetest clichés...

we’re not having more kids.*

Because

we can’t afford a cleaner, nanny and cook, and

my maternity bras are falling apart, and

I desperately need time away from people (including [especially?!] my children) in order to function well, and

I don’t enjoy being pregnant, and

my womb has proven fairly fussy about the embryos it keeps, and I really don’t want to have (or even risk) another miscarriage, and

I don’t feel like I have the capacity to be the mother I really want to be (Jesus-y, available, patient, energetic, calm, interesting, organised) to more than two little people (at the moment even two is pushing it), and

I don’t feel like I have the capacity to be the grandmother I really want to be (should my children one day have their own) to the kids of more than two people, and

I currently spend quite a bit of time with a three-year-old, which keeps things in perspective when looking at photos of babies (yes, they’re adorable, but in a few years’ time they will argue with you even when they know they’re wrong).

So, no more*.

* Unless we accidentally do… (Hello, Child #3! We love you!! Best surprise ever!!!!)

Boxes

Well, the move’s over. The lead-up week was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad one – Alan’s bike broke down, then our car broke down, we ran out of nappies for Hazel while carless, Alan’s bike broke down again, Hazel didn’t want to sleep, and Moses noticed that Alan and I were stressed and preoccupied and used his brilliant three-year-old reasoning to figure out the best way to get our attention (IT WORKED BUT WAS NOT HELPFUL). And then, on moving day, the removalists didn’t show up, and when we called them to ask where they might be they told us we hadn’t booked them, and we were all like, “Um… but you sent an email this week to confirm that we had booked you…” and they were all like, “OOPSY DAISY. We’ll be there in a couple of hours, mmmkay?”

It was a week that tried to kill us, but we prevailed – go Team Morrow! I thought the removalist debacle was the culmination, but the next morning Moses and I went to the beach (which is 10 minutes away!!!!!!!etc.) and built sandcastles and frolicked, and I decided to see that as the culmination instead.

I’ve realised that I don’t cope very well with having to walk around things; I hate things being left in walkways, I find it stressful (shut up, I’m serious), and our hallways have been full of boxes since we moved in. I hate walking around boxes.

After a couple of weeks of having so many non-writing things to do with my time, my head is brimming with words: unwritten blog posts, lists of things I’d like to ponder on some more, lists of things I have to do once Moses starts preschool and ducking to the post office (for example) is therefore less of an effort, text messages to send, emails to reply to, yadda yadda yadda.

 

This last few days, those words have all felt like boxes in the hallways of my head that I keep bumping into and having to look out for as I go about my normal brain activities, and they’ve been making me feel grumpy and overwhelmed and stressed. So I’m writing again, unpacking the boxes in my head now that the boxes in the hallways of our new place have been emptied and flattened and moved out. It’s feeling better.