Flying by the seat of my pants

Man, have I had a hectic couple of weeks. I've been meaning to get on here and write another post, but I've had too much stuff to do. Now that I feel like procrastinating some, I figure that I may as well have some much deserved blogging time.

So, I went to see the endocrinologist nearly 2 weeks ago now. I had a very lovely friend offer to look after Seagull for the day (thank you K!) while Wombat came with me. The endocrinologist is in Richmond and not being native to Victoria, let alone Melbourne, I spent ages beforehand looking at online maps trying to figure out the best way to get there and where the best place to park was. Of course, I happened to have a mother moment and completely forgot to take coins with me to feed into the parking meters. Luckily, as I started to drive off to find somewhere to get money, I happened to come across a street with free 2 hour parking and there was a vacant parking spot! I parked the car, got the stroller out, changed Wombat's nappy and walked to the endocrinologist's rooms. By the time I got upstairs, I realised that I hadn't been to the toilet in about 3 hours and was positively busting. The toilets were key locked and there was no one in the endocrinologist's office (they were out to lunch and I was early), so I had to go to the orthopaedic surgeon's office next door and borrow their key to use the toilet.

The endocrinologist I saw was really lovely. We had a good chat about everything, we did some measurements (weight, height, etc), he had a feel of my neck, did a few other things then explained that as my thyroid is only very mildly overactive, that he didn't want to put me on medication and that we would monitor my thyroid function with blood tests for now. Apparently, it's not that uncommon for transient thyroid conditions to come up after having a baby and the endocrinologist is hoping that mine will settle down without the need for medication. He wrote me a referral to have a blood test done the next day and another one for early April. If the tests show anything that he is concerned about, the endocrinologist will get me back in. In the meantime, I just have to suck it up and push through the tiredness (my words, not his).

Uni also started up again a fortnight ago. I wish I was more up to speed with it, but I had so many appointments and things that had to be done in the first week that it's put me a bit behind where I wanted to be with things. It doesn't help that the uni has started using a new student portal system and the lecturers hide some of the material in the weirdest spots on their subject pages. The way the actual courses are structured and the way in which we are being assessed through the term is also different to what I am used to. Between having a life outside of study and having to do things in a different way than I'm used to for uni, my mind is boggling. I keep meaning to catch up over weekends, but seem to spend all my time sleeping instead. At least I am more or less caught up for one of my subjects. No excuses, I'm going to have a really good crack at the second one tomorrow. I have assessment tasks due soon and I need to get some work done so I know what I'm crapping on about, rather than leaving things until the last minute and winging it. Which is my usual mode of operation.

We had family photos done yesterday afternoon. The photographer thought that Wombat was a lot older than he is and asked me to put him on his tummy on the ground. Rather than pushing up on his arms like the photographer expected, he just lay there like a fat puddle. He managed to turn his head to one side so he could breathe and that was about it. Once it was established that Wombat is only 4 months old, we lay him on his back and managed to coax Seagull into laying down next to him for long enough to get some nice photos.

Prior to the photos, I took Seagull to have a haircut. Seagull has beautiful curly hair, but it was getting quite long and girly-boy looking. You know that when you feel like saying "Get a haircut, you hippy" to your 2 year old and little old ladies tell you that he's too pretty to be a boy, that it's time for a visit to the hairdresser. Oh, and when it starts to get a bit of length in it, it knots up a lot in the back and the knots stay out for all of 5 minutes when I brush it. We're seeing a different hairdresser in the same salon as our usual one because our usual hairdresser is at home with her new little baby girl. Our new hairdresser didn't realise that Seagull's hair is of the type that is going to stay curly and didn't want to take too much length off it because she didn't want to cut his curls off. When I explained to her that it has been cut so short in the back before that there isn't enough length in it to curl and it goes curly again once it has some length in it, she was happy to take a bit more length off it. Last time we had his hair cut, the only way we could get Seagull to sit still was to let him drink spoonfuls of his Dad's coffee. This time around, I gave him the fishies to play with and he was reasonably compliant. I had to sit him on my lap to finish the last bit, but it was a much less painful experience for all involved.

On the way back to the car, Seagull pointed to a puddle on the footpath and said "Water!" I said something along the lines of "That's right buddy, water. Come with Mum, please" and walked on for a couple of paces. When I realised Seagull wasn't following, I stopped and looked back to find him bending towards the puddle with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. I was absolutely mortified that Seagull was about to drink out of a manky puddle. Thankfully, we happened to be right outside a sandwich bar, so I went in and bought a bottle of water for us to share. Obviously, where there is a Seagull involved, sharing is more along the lines of me having a quick couple of sips while he squawks away, then I hand it over and he gets the rest.

Anyway, that's my last two weeks in retrospective. I really feel like I've been flying at a million miles an hour by the seat of my pants.