One year, one month and two weeks.

That's how long I expressed for.

From the moment I found out that Elizabeth had a cleft lip and probably wouldn't be able to breastfeed, I vowed to provide her with expressed breast milk for at least one year. I'm very proud to have achieved my goal.

How easy it would have been for me to buy a tin of formula every week instead...but I simply could not do that. My baby deserves the best, not an inferior imitation.

The first six months were the hardest. I literally was a slave to my breast pump- expressing every 3 hours meant that I had to plan all my daily activities around pumping sessions. I had an abundance of milk and our freezer was struggling to cope. When Elizabeth was a few months old I found a mum and baby in need of donor milk and was only too happy to help out.




As the months wore on, Elizabeth's feeding requirements changed, as they do. She started sleeping through the night after her surgery at 4 and a half months, so the overnight pumping stopped. We introduced her to finger foods around 6 months and she was eating a fair bit by around 8 months, so she was taking less milk at each feed. Before I knew it, I was only expressing 3 times a day.

About a month before her birthday, I started to think about weaning. Although she still loved her booby milk, I wanted my life back. So I dropped down to two sessions a day. After two or three weeks, my supply started dropping right off and I went to one session a day. Gradually I went from a 200ml yield at each session to 100ml. Then I started noticing that my breasts weren't feeling full at the end of each day, so I skipped a day. Then another. Elizabeth refuses to have breast milk now, pushing the bottle away if we try to give it to her.
Now it's been 3 days since my last pumping session and where I once had firm, full breasts I now have two pathetically small, loose, soft dumplings. But I know that when I look at them, I'll be proud of the fact that they fed two children for thirteen months each.

Hey there!

I just noticed that since I wrote my last post, my page has had over 90 visits.

I know of maybe 5 people who regularly read my blog, so I find it really intriguing that there have been so many visits. I started this blog as a way of keeping a record of my feelings and documenting my parenting journey. It's a very boring blog.

So, if you're reading this post, I'd love it if you'd humour me and leave a comment telling me who you are.

Happy birthday to Jimmy

Yesterday was our little man's third birthday.

It just seems like last week that I was staring at him in the hospital crib, tears running down my face as I thought how quickly he would grow up and not be a baby any more.

He has grown to be such a funny, entertaining, intelligent, caring little boy. I feel very proud about the way I've raised him. He is still my baby in many ways, and never likes being away from his mummy for too long. He loves cuddles and climbing up into my lap for a kiss.

Although he's a great talker, he gets some things wrong which never fail to crack us up.
- "Look I what made/ look I what did"
- "Did you didn't do that?"
- " What are we're gonna do?"
- "Look what I'm got!"

Anyway, about his birthday. MIL and I were planning on taking him to Fleay's wildlife park. DH wasn't too happy about that as he was working but I said we could all go together another time. Jimmy had a runny nose and a slight cough the day before but woke up on his birthday as sick as a dog. Poor little man. I ended up in his bed with him and we were woken at 7am. He was pretty happy with his presents. He got a magnetic drawing board thingy, a plastic Ikea toolset which he adores, an Ikea abacus, a pair of light-up sneakers, and a mummy-made outfit.







After the school run, we went to see Gran and Granddad for morning tea and gifts. He got a cool educational wooden floor puzzle and a Very Hungry Caterpillar board game, which I've tried to play with him but he's been more interested in putting the little round pieces back into the piece of card they came in. Sigh.



His cough became steadily worse, and after his nap he had a huge coughing fit that had him very distressed so I decided to go to the chemist. The lady I spoke to thought it sounded like croup and suggested I go nextdoor to the doctor. I knew it wasn't croup as he's had it twice before but we went to the doctor anyway. Jimmy was a very patient patient and the doctor gave him two lollipops after telling me it was just a virus and no medication apart from Panadol would be necessary.

We had burritos for dinner and birthday cake for dessert (made by MIL, iced by me!). I felt really bad that he had such a dull birthday.
All week I'd been telling him that we were doing something special for his birthday, and on the way back from morning tea, he kept saying, "Are we going to something special now?". Poor little man. We wanted to go tomorrow, but he is still quite sick and so is Elizabeth. DH and I have it too but we mostly just have runny noses and the sneezes.

A happy post

Things have been great this week.

I've recovered from my little hissy fit last week and have decided not to worry about other people's opinions because they have no idea. Things with T have been really good this week and I've been trying to relax, have fun, and let her dad deal with her when he's home.

The little ones are doing well. Elizabeth is trying really hard to walk. She walks if we hold her hands, and sometimes if we hold just one hand. It's so sweet to see the determination on her face! Her sleep has been all over the place lately. For the last few nights she's woken around 2 or 3am and won't go back to sleep so we've been bringing her into our bed. Sometimes she goes straight to sleep, and other times she just squirms around like a lunatic until I get the shits and put her back in the cot. We were hoping to move her in with her brother soon but I really don't want to be getting up 4 times a night to put her dummy back in when she's in another room.

She has a few words now- Mum, poo (she curls her lips inwards and goes pppppp whist blowing air), and ball. I'm not worried about her speech at all, even though I know babies a lot younger than her who have a much wider vocabulary. Jimmy wasn't really saying very much at the same age and now he's an amazing talker.

Jimmy is such a joy. He entertains us all day long by saying silly things and showing off. Unfortunately he is spending far too much time in front of the television but I'm doing my best to whittle down the time spent in front of it. Now that he and Elizabeth enjoy playing together, I'm trying to get them both involved in activities together.

Jimmy is moving up to a different room at day care as of next week. The teachers have decided he is going to skip the next room (for 2-4 year olds) and go straight to the 3-6 year old room. The classroom is amazing and full of really interesting things to see and do, and Jimmy loves it. He spent the whole day there after morning tea for the last two weeks and will again this week. It's his third birthday on Friday and next week he will be able to formally join the Rembrandt room.

We are going to take him to Fleay's wildlife park on Friday. It's a surprise and he will love it. I haven't been there since high school so I'm looking forward to it.

Okay, no more woe-is-me blog posts. Only sunshiney, happy family ones.

I wonder how many of you reading my last few posts have judged me?

There is only one person on this earth who knows what it is like to try to be a mother to my steapdaughter, and that is ME. NOBODY ELSE KNOWS WHAT IT IS LIKE. So please don't tell me how I should feel.

Yes, funnily enough, I did know that DH had a child when we got together. Did I know that, 8 years later, her mum would be happy for her to be living here practically all the time? No. Am I happy with that? Fuck no.

I see my friends with their happy little families...sure, their lives aren't perfect, but they aren't expected to love a child that they didn't give birth to.

Fuck, her own mother doesn't even like her. She doesn't give anyone any reason to like her. Her flute teacher told me that she, quote, 'doesn't go out of her way to make people like her'.

Maybe I'm a selfish bitch for wanting my kids to grow up in a household that isn't ruled by a spoilt brat.

I don't like doing this. I don't have a choice. Leaving my husband is not an option. I am allowed to feel like this.

She is a difficult child. Yes, the way I have been acting lately in response to her behaviour has not been acceptable. But fuck, I can only deal with it for so long until I crack.

I'm sick of having to justify my feelings to people. I wish they could come and be a fly on the wall and see the shit we have to put up with from her. She is a very, very difficult child- why the hell do you think her mother doesn't want her, yet is happy to have her 3 adult sons live at home? Yes, I realise her mum is an idiot.

This is the last blog post about her. It hurts too much to have people judge me.

I'm still here, and I'm okay...last week was a really, really bad week. DH stayed home for 4 days and T went to her mum's for the weekend, so I had some breathing space. I had a good session with my psychologist yesterday and am feeling confident that I can deal with things. We talked about the fact that I feel I have to shoulder all the parenting, due to my need for control and having things done my way, and she wants me to step back and leave it to DH when he's here. So I've been doing just that. I've realised that I don't need to be her parent 24/7, and I don't need to be the bad guy all the time. I deserve a break and I should give myself one.

Just in case anybody out there is worried about my sanity...

I had a very difficult session with my psychologist on Thursday. I cried pretty much the whole time and she said she couldn't see any of the Noelle that was there the previous week. She made me sign an agreement stating that I will not be alone with T until our next session. She said that she will have to report me if I ever lash out at T in a physical way again. Talk about a wake-up call.

My confidence is feeling shattered this week. I was so sure that I had my emotions under control, but not only did I engage in an argument with her, I hit her. Something I swore I would never do. The implications of it are too scary...what if her mum tells the police...I could have my blue card taken away, or worse...

Anyway, she is at her mum's for the weekend, and DH is off work for a while. He showed his boss the abusive text I sent him and his boss saw how serious things are.

I'm just so full of hate and I don't know how I got to this stage. It sucks.

This sucks.

I'm so sick of this.

This post will probably get deleted, just like the dozen or so others that I've written about my rocky relationship with my stepdaughter. Why? Because I don't want people to see my ugly side. My kids have been seeing my ugly side too much lately and I hate myself for it.

*Deleted*