Holiday, it would be so nice...

Holiday is booked for December and I've got my "leisure" time for this period all mapped out. Gonna try some arty stuff, and I have a jumper to finish off for a friend of mine. This jumper is taking longer than I thought, the needles are teeny tiny so it makes up super slow :/ That said, the last time I made a jumper for anyone it was my godson (I made it to age 2 size. He's halfway through Primary school and it still doesn't fit) and even that took months. I'm hoping the inconsistencies will give it an endearing feel... eek!

We will have fuller suitcases going out than coming back, as we are bringing presents for family and friends as well as luggage they had to leave behind because of weight restrictions on the plane. Capsule wardrobes for everyone!

I'm hoping that my eldest son's new fascination with numbers will do us well on the plane. Is 2 too young for SuDoKu? Littlest will hopefully sleep through most of it. It's bad that I can't remember how much sleep a 6 month old needs, isn't it.

0423

Apparently that is the new start to my day. It's the time when I wake up needing to pee, or wake up thirsty and needing to grab a drink. It's also the time littlest usually wakes for his through-the-night feed. Today, I managed to hold off the trip to the loo to get him fed. After he'd passed out I successfully (or so I thought) traipsed through to do whatever little girls do in the bathroom when they've had 2 kids and it can't wait til morning. Just. Sat. Down. and I hear the dulcet tones of my three and a half month old complaining because his squishy milk-scented hot water bottle isn't within reach.

Le sigh.

Took me half an hour of huggling and snuggling and wrapping him in his quilt downstairs to get him back off to sleep. He's snoring in his bouncer now, but I'm nowhere near that. No, I'm awake.

Planning phone calls (to HMRC), planning more phone calls (to the doctor's office), planning yet more phone calls (this time to KLM to see if we can pre-book specific seats for our flights in December yet)... Fixing a glitch on my website (it obviously isn't generating enough traffic - it was a doozy yet I found it myself rather than have anyone whisper the fault to me by email). I'm also going to be scheduling a ton of posts on Facebook and sharing the page and website some more to ensure a steady stream of income from the business. Then, I have me a bunny to finish main construction on and a snowman to start.

Having my hobby as my business is a good thing, it's helping keep me sane because it forces me to find the time to do stuff that isn't MOM stuff. It forces me to do things for... ME. If I hadn't gone all registered and stuff, I wouldn't feel compelled to do that, and my life would be all about the kids and the house and the cooking and the laundry, 5 minutes here and there for smoochies with my husband (if he's lucky) and the rest of the time spent on Facebook on my phone whining to my friends about how I don't seem to have my own identity any more. This way I get enforced time for me, which is what my shrink prescribed earlier in the year anyway. Sadly, it doesn't help with containing the shouty lady who lets rip when small people do things that come naturally to small people but which big people find annoying and/or stress-inducing. That, I have to wait for a referral to fix (hence one of my phone calls to make later today).

Ciao for now.

Mystery typing.

When sat far back from the table because small person is passed out on your lap, the light from the laptop screen shines on the keys in such a way that you can barely see what is written on them. This inevitably leads to many angry red wriggly lines and much swearing. 

You know the whole saying about finding a job you love within a hobby you already partake in? I have this in spades right now. I can make my little crochet beasties. I can do my little scribbles and mount them myself, packaging them all nice and professional like. I can branch out or circle back, I have such flexibility! And my favourite part above all else?

*whispers* Doing the books.

Yup, you heard me.

Organising receipts and invoices. Oooooh! Making entries in my order book and organising my workload on my planner. Glorious! Keeping my website updated with a new blog post or image. Eeeeeee! Tweeting! Love love love!

Of all the paperwork/promotion diversions though, there is one that is king: EXCEL IS SO FULL OF WIN!!!

If I want a break from this I'll re-sub to WoW for a month or so, but the lure of the glowy glowy spreadsheets is far too alluring and I'll get sucked back in there far too quickly.

And I ain't complaining!

Criticising someone else's blog.

This is a new thing for me, and I hope it doesn't happen often - it's exhausting!

TL:DR: There is so much BAD in this. So much.

I follow Katherine Stone on Twitter. She was aghast at a piece published by The New York Times: see it in its full glory here. 

I'll take it para by para. (This is gonna be long. Have the article open in another tab and flick back and forward for best effect.)

1) yes they do, and the fact that they are medicated shows a great commitment to keeping themselves mentally healthy.
2) see 1)
3) key phrase: "UP TO". key word: "MAY". Also, not all pregnant women on antidepressants take partoxetine - so what is your actual shock figure here, eh?
4) the critics are speaking shite. There is a greater risk to LIFE from untreated depression than there is from treated depression. Shut your critical cakeholes.
5) & 6) Barbara is obviously one of the lucky women who have never suffered from depression, let alone depression during or shortly after pregnancy.
7) There is a statement made here as if it has been proven to be fact. It has not. SHUT THE HELL UP.
8) no issue with this one. Ha.
9) the actual paper again uses the key word "MAY". "In boys, prenatal exposure to SSRIs may increase susceptibility to [Autism] or [Developmental Delay]." The study was based on the results from less than 1000 mother/baby pairings and the pairings where the kids were diagnosed with autism well outnumbered the pairings where the kids were designated as having developed normally. Gief better balanced study with at least 10k participants and I'll listen to your stats with no salt.
10) first sentence: PANIC! Rest of the paragraph: actually, what we said there wasn't statistically relevant. The hell, dude.
11) translates to: it don't even matter if you take SSRIs, if you have a mental health issue your kids are just as likely to develop autism anyway. Gief stats comparing prevalence of Autism in kids from "well" moms to kids from "mentally ill" moms, please. Then we can talk.
12) correlation does not equal causation. If the mom is depressed she may not participate in activities with her child that stimulate their speech centres - this correlation may have more to do with environment than chemistry, but has anyone bothered to find out? Not for THIS article!
13) so are mentally fit mothers with gestational diabetes or pre-eclampsia. your point...?
14) not mentioned: depressed moms-to-be who are not medicated when they need to be are more likely to kill themselves, more likely to terminate their pregnancies, and more likely to do harm to themselves and their newborns post-partum than depressed moms-to-be who are necessarily medicated. Perspective, people.
15) based on a study of just over 1100 women. Again, not enough to be statistically significant in a world where the population has surpassed 7 billion.
16) the effect is transient and does not cause permanent damage, stop scaremongering. Bonus scumbag points for comparing pregnant women trying to save their sanity to drug addicts.
17) re: Apgar scores: "scores in the exposed group were typically within the normal ranges," and that is from the actual article. As for low birth weight, the article quoted is a meta-analysis and it doesn't specify if the low birth weights recorded were low for the gestational age of the baby or what. So for all we know, the sub 5.5lbers were all 36w gestation and perfectly average at that.
18) YA THINK???
19) see 18)
20) "their lives" fixed that for ya. It's not just the mom at risk.
21) it may be, it may also be time to give more much-needed support to those moms because to take away meds without offering some other treatment option is frankly irresponsible.
22) actually, I think everyone who is directly affected would beg to differ. They would be happier with the idea that they didn't need to take meds in the first place, that they were mentally healthy enough to cope without. Asshole.
23) oh look, some good advice. Who'da thunk it.

Sorry, but this really pissed me off.