Hello Brain? Anyone in there?

Help me, I think I am growing complacent with age. I am turning into a Dummy Mummy.

Normally my brain comes to easy conclusions, forms strong opinions and questions authority.

In the week since I posted last I have formed opinions about absolutely nothing.

So much has happened for me to form opinions on. Like a change of Prime Minister. Other than the fact that they INTERUPTED MASTERCHEF TRANSMISSION to show Rudd the Dudd announcing a showdown, I couldn't care less. Then a women became the Prime Minister. Yeah thats....GOOD?

What? You say she doesn't believe in God and she is in a DEFACTO relationship. Well well. What a scandal. Good luck to her. What about the other 3,459, 433 Australians living in a defacto relationships (or Living In Sin)*. I don't care. What's that? You say her partner is a hairdresser! That's one lucky lady! She doesn't have to even leave the house to get her hair jooshed. If I am feeling anything that would be known as JEALOUS.

Then some old evictees came back into Masterchef. Not one. Not two. THREE!! NUMB.

Socceroo's got eliminated. At least Tim Cahill got his shirt off. BORING.

Then Italy got eliminated. Husband shattered. Me - OBLIVIOUS

The lawnmower man failed to show up. WHATEVER

My gluten free scones came out of the oven tasting like rocks, AND they were on fire. YES OKAY.

I think I have been too busy looking after sick kids. Mr 2 has had more illnesses this Winter than I have whinged about being pregnant in my lifetime (A LOT). He is not sleeping well and neither am I.

Then I realised something. I had an Oprah Winfrey "A-ha" moment. Could it be that complacently is direct correlated to lack of sleep?

I think that's my problem. I have approximately 5489 hours of missed sleep since Miss 3 arrived. I am owed sleep in buckets and it's only going to get worse before it gets better.

*That statistic is based on my own approximations and is only loosely based on fact.

20 Weeks Pregnant MeMe

It's time for a MeMe. If you don't visit Blogland often, a MeMe is when you talk a lot of shit about yourself. For me, personally a MeMe doesn't make much sense - because EVERY POST on this blog is pretty much about me talking about myself.

I am 20 weeks pregnant. Over half way. I even have a date for my C-Section as well as the time. Not that I will be sharing that. Let's just say the baby will be a few weeks old before I become the hostess with the mostess at my 15 year High School Reunion on the 13th November. Needless to say that roughly 2 weeks after birth I won't be looking my best. Things will be a bit wobbly. While everyone else is looking svelte from their diet, I will resemble a deflated balloon. Noice. I was cutting that very close but made it. *Wipes sweat from brow*.

Here is how I look.

My scan showed a very healthy baby with very active hands! Every time the sonographer tried to give us a 4D image of it's face it would hide behind it's hands. So seems it might be a bit shy and a bit cheeky. Bit like it's Mum. Already.

We don't know the sex. It's one of lifes best little surprises and makes a 9 month pregnancy all the more bearable.

I am definitely not as big as I was with the other two. In fact. I feel a lot different to my other pregnancies. Firstly, I don't feel pregnant. I don't feel exhausted. I don't feel the need to lie on the couch all the waking hours of the day. This had me a bit worried. But all is good.

I still have the same cravings and I still have the same dodgy Sciaitic nerve which shoots down my leg and causes a lot of pain.

I would like to thank:

1. The supermarkets in close proximity to my home. For providing endless quantities of fruit, juice, milk and Nesquik. Thankyou for your dedication in keeping the shelves plentiful.

2. Australian Dried Apricots

3. My son's toilet training chocolate buttons which I have eaten before I have even tried to toilet train him.

4. Go Natural Fruit Clusters. I single handedly ate all the stock in Perth.

5. My husband for nodding his head understandably when I whinge and complain about my bung leg. And while he really wasn't listening. I know he cares.

When Macca's feels like a Brothel

I had some firm ideas about raising children before they actually came along.

I would judge people who fed their kids crap. Walking through a shopping centre, if I saw a toddler eating a cheeseburger I would be horrified. I am not sure why. Not sure why this even concerned me because, clearly it was none of my business. I did not know the family. The mother. The toddler. I did not know what meals the family were providing for the child for the other 20 or so meals through out the week.

When my kids did arrive, things changed - as they are sure to do. I had to weigh up the situation with the strong views residing in my small brain.

Before I knew it, I was taking the kids to McDonalds. Not every day. Maybe once a month, sometimes even once a week. For a special "treat" to meet friends. It really is the best place to take kids to muck around in the play area. It's fully enclosed, with no little people entertaining the thought of taking off. In Perth, there are not many places like this - where you chat openly with other Mum's and actually HAVE A CONVERSATION. So that is why we kept going and kept taking our children there.

At first we started calling it the "Ice Cream Shop". Why? Because it's McDonalds. It has a bad reputation on all things nutrition. Admitting the actual name of the place we were going to was somehow admitting to the absolute failure of a mother I had become. Taking the kids there made me feel a bit ....dirty. Everywhere in the media we are bombarded by this research and that research and somehow things got a bit bloody inflexible and 5 serves of vegetables and 2 serves of fruit became the mantra of all new mothers.

Don't get me wrong. My kids eat well. I plan our meals. We have a fridge full of vege's and fruit and both husband and I eat healthily. My daughter only just asked me to buy her some more chick peas at Coles FFS. Most kids at that age are whinging for chocolate at the supermarket. Obviously a healthy diet is of extreme importance to their lives, both now and in the future. I am not denying that.

So now, many years later I have learnt to RELAX. A fricken Cheeseburger with fries and maybe an ice cream is not going to bloody kill them. Having it each day might very well do that. Surely having a few hours active play with friends outweighs the food we give them during that time.

And what about us, their mothers? They have great coffee. The fries, shakes and hash browns are gluten free, so are their friands. It's like gluten free heaven there for me. I can eat too. Without asking 1,456,987 questions like I normally do.

So when I now see a toddler with a tub of hot chips at the shops I walk on by. I do not judge because now I am that mother. A mum's gotta do what a mum's gotta do.

And if you are going to disagree with me you are more than welcome to. I welcome you to comment and share your view. If you are however going to copy and paste half of what I said into your own blog for your own personal gain then you obviously have a smaller brain than I.

Cravings Cravings.... AHHHHH!

Being pregnant is great, sometimes. You can crave stuff like you would normally but when you are pregnant you actually act on it. Like. Every single time. Because you are pregnant. You deserve it.

I giggle with excitement walking into the Fresh Produce department at the local supermarket. I want fruit and I can't get enough of it. I will chop all the fruit I can find to make the biggest fruit salad and eat it dilligently for every meal until it's all gone.

Pregnancy has me drinking humungous quantities of liquid. I am concerned I could quite possibly drown. I can't get enough. My thirst is insatiable. Today I drank 2L of chocolate Nesquik, 1L ice cold water, about another half litre of milk and another 1L of orange juice. I peer into the chilled juice cabinet at Coles and start to shake. I WANT TO DRINK ALL OF IT RIGHT NOW, RIGHT NOW. GIVE IT TO ME NOW!

Last night I had to do a Thickshake run. Destination: Maccas. Mission: to purchase the biggest strawberry thickshake I could lay my hands on. Thickshakes out of those "machines" are one of the 276,354 food "no no's". Which is all well and good if you can eat anything you please, which I cannot. Macca's thickshakes are one of a few very rare fast food thingies I can buy that are gluten free. So I will have 5. No. Make that 6. Thankyou. Very Much.

I am the very worst poster child for pregnancy. I still have my soft feta cheese. I still have my processed meats. I still have my SMOKED SALMON! *Shock* *Horror*. These foods are a part of me (yes I am fond of food) and I just can't give them up.

Though eating dinner has me feeling queasy. I'm just not into it. Maybe because I have already injested a combination of 3987 different foods during the day, I am just not up to it. It is possibly a case of my stomach rebelling, it just can't process any more STUFF.

But it's not just fruit and liquid. It's American Gluten free sausages which I craved all week. They are like totally gross aren't they? But they hit the spot. And Go Natural Fruit Clusters which hit the spot at the time. Unfortunately I injested a few too many PACKETS and now they make me feel ill.

Are you a bad pregnant lady? What were your pregnancy cravings?

This is me. Yo. Keeping it real. Like. Bro

Wait. Did you hear that? Shhh. That sound you just heard was my brain exploding. It doesn't take much for my brain to be overwhelmed by information because well. It's quite volatile. And when I say that I really mean I am not the brightest Mum at the kindy pick up line.

Yesterday my brain took on more than it could handle. You see. I got fooled. As did many other wonderfully kind, generous and supportive ladies. We got fooled online. I have never had a bad online experience before. Actually yes that time I blogged about High Pants and got pulled through hot coals - but that was different. That was me speaking my mind, about a very important fashion issue *cough*. I wasn't trying to fool anyone.

But some people can't be trusted. An online Twitter and blog "friend" had been spinning some royally dodgy porkies. She had gone to great lengths to pretend she had cancer which is of so much disrespect to those who have actually been dealt that hand in their lifetime.

My involvement with her was not massive. Yes I maybe tweeted her name a few times and she may have done the same to me. She had me as a "friend" on facebook for a short time. We did not send emails. Our communication was limited and I never met her. Being in Perth has it's advantages (sometimes). But there were a lot of online friends who opened their homes and their hearts and purses to this person who are feeling a bit rightly pissed.

Honestly what kind of a person makes up this kind of shit? She had two blogs dedicated to her life and her fight with cancer. All rubbish. She made up doctors. She made up other fake "friends" to corroberate her story. She used pics of sick people in hospital and said it was her. The lies are just starting to unfold.

So I just wanted to reiterate that yes indeed, my name is Taryn. My husband is buff. I certainly can verify I have two kids. Wait. Stand there. ONE, TWO. Yes I have two. And I have one foetus which will soon become a baby which has started to make it's presence known in my tummy.

You know, just keeping it real. Everything you read here is real. There are a few exagerations on a few posts I will certainly admit to that but all circumstances are real. (My previous post about nesting did mention that my fridge was "black" when actually you would find it was more a "brown/green" kind of hue. Which I will insist is worse than black. When you use the word "green" it brings about mouldy mental images and I did not want to be judged as a dirty lady who can't keep her house clean.)

Oh and yes. I have a cold too.