Good Morning dear readers (it is morning yes??).... As Meegan's post just reminded me, the Farmer's Markets were on in Blackwood St Mitchelton yesterday (Sunday); an event I had been looking forward to attending. I had visions of walking there, having some breakfast, doing some shopping for fresh produce and then walking home, having some lunch made with said fresh produce and then all curling up for an afternoon nap after a big morning out.
How the weekend went was really in reality, incredibly different.
Friday morning began bright and early after our night out to dinner. Despite not having small child in the house, we, out of habit, woke early and began our respective days. Me, on the computer PhD-ing. Dave, having worked in excess of 60 hours that week already had the day off and headed over to a mate's house for a few hours before having the bring the car back to me at 10am so I could head out to Uni. I went and saw my supervisor and attended a compulsory seminar (What Happens to Your Thesis after you Submit). On a side note, I was relieved to hear that only 3 theses in the past 10 years have been failed outright and only about 3 per year (out of 500 or so submitted) are recommended as a Master's instead of a PhD.... so I figure the odds are with me and I'm focusing on "Revise and Resubmit" as my worst case scenario - which would still be pretty bad but not life-stopping. So I left the seminar feeling heartened - but stopped back in to see my supervisor, where I was reminded that she would be on holidays for the 3 weeks PRECEDING the week before my deadline. I'm not sure how I had overlooked this fact - perhaps I never knew it, though she said it as though she had told me 1000 times. Either way, panic (again) set it. My timeline had just been decimated and I drove home in a near state of tears (narrowly avoiding some idiot who backed out into 2 lanes of traffic straight in front of me while I was driving 60km/hr). Went and picked up Charli girl, managed to get annoyed by my MIL - which is an easy thing at the best of times, but in my then current state it was almost inevitable. by the time I got home, I was a mess.
Dave, meanwhile, had not had a leisurely day off. From the moment he had handed over the car keys to me, his work mobile had rung. The email server that had been playing up all week (hence the 60 hour week by Thursday), had fallen over and completely died. Now I've probably got the facts wrong on this one, but the point I am trying to make is that something at his worked was majorly SCREWED and it had become his responsibility to have it fixed by Monday.
So Friday turned into Friday night and then the fun really began. We put Charli to bed and Dave and I kept working - he on his email server, me on my PhD in a panic-driven state. Then Dave started to feel sick and went to bed - I kept working... and working. And before you know it it's 11.15 and I freak out - you don't want to sit up that late when you know you'll be up again at 5am with small child. So I head to bed. On the way I do something to my back and by the time I hit the bed I'm in tears with the searing pain rocketing up through my pelvis and hips (have I mentioned how much I love being pregnant??). After 20 minutes or so of tears and wriggling I manage to find a position that stops just short of agony and try to go to sleep. The screaming begins. I bash Dave to get up (sick or not I was NOT moving!!). He struggles out of bed and throws a bottle of milk in her direction - it does nothing to stop the incessant noise emanating from our child. We bring her into bed with us, we give her drugs, we give her water, we cuddle her. Nothing would console her. She slept for 1/2 hour. The whole routine started again (of course without the drugs next round because you are only allowed to drug them every 4-8 hours!!). We lose track of time. The sun comes up. Our eyes are hanging out of our heads. We pray she will have a morning sleep.
Lunchtime comes........ and goes. Still no napping. Dave is back working on the computer. I'm entertaining devil child. Noon to 2pm is spent putting her back to bed after she figures out (why now??) that she can get out of her bed without waiting for us to say it's ok. Finally she sleeps..... for 1/2 hour!! I go in to discover her waking up - no wonder she didn't sleep long, she finally passed out from exhaustion on the bloody floor!! The afternoon begins. I decide to take her to the pool - if she's going to be in pain (and hence a pain in the bum!) we may as well try some distraction. All goes well - apart from the fact that by this stage I'm not sure I should be driving a moving vehicle.... in fact I'm not sure I should be attempting to even care for a toddler but anyway.
She's asleep by 5.30pm and Dave and I - so overtired by this stage, don't go to bed as we should but keep working.......because the email server is still not functional and not surprisingly my PhD had not finished itself!! Dave gets up at 4.30 and goes into work until lunchtime. While there he goes out into the foyer of the building (where the loos are) and in the meantime security decide to mess with the system and he ends up locked between the front doors and the inner doors of his building.... because of course, this weekend couldn't get any better could it?? Needless to say he managed to get out of that situation and was able to join us at home in what could be argued was a less enticing situation.... still teething child.
I'm going to shorten this post somewhat by saying that Saturday night was pretty much a mirror image of Friday night. I'm really not sure by Sunday how we were still functioning - it's not just the lack of sleep (about 5 hours in 2 nights) but that screaming will really wear you down after awhile. I think that taking sharp knitting needles and scraping them across my eardrums may have been more entertaining that watching my small child scream in pain and clutch at her mouth and look at me imploring to make it all go away!!
I'm not really sure what we did yesterday. It's a blur. I vaguely remember her crashing out in my arms at 10.30 and me putting her to bed. Some people would say we should have gone and had a nap ourselves. Anyone who has been through this before will understand that we were now so dosed up on caffeine and beyond what anyone could describe as tired.... so what did we do? Yep, kept working.
Last night I was in bed by 8.30pm. Dave was about 1/2 an hour behind me though I had to check that with him this morning as I've got no recollection of hearing him come in at all. I got up at 1.20 to change her nappy and then again at 5.30 this morning when she woke. A much better night by all accounts. Of course Dave and I have a sleep debt now that needs about another week's worth of good sleep to counter-act. I sent Charli off to her Nan's and Dave off to work (where it will no doubt go un-noticed by every IT user in the company that my husband has just worked pretty much non-stop for 3 days, while listening to his daughter scream ... just so that they could get the latest jokes emailed to their Inboxes bright and early this Monday morning). I went back to sleep 'just for another hour' and just woke. So now I'm another 1/2 day behind on my thesis and still feel like I need to go and chug back some caffeine.....
Charli girl we love you..... and it's lucky we do. Monkey #2, if you are in there and listening (and I know you are because the whole time Charlotte was on the outside screaming, I had you on the inside kicking out in response to her.....), then take note: you are not to ever cut teeth - I'll puree your bloody food until you leave home if you promise me that I will never have a weekend like this again!!
