Friday 29 January 2016

The Jolly Green Giant and Me

 I have a giant baby. Nobody quite understands what that means. He doesn't have any kind of medically diagnosed gigantisism (if that's even a word) or anything, but he's a gigantic. And nobody understands what that means. When I say that he's a giant baby, people assume he's overweight and say helpful things like "Don't worry, once he learns to walk, the weight will fall right off him." Except he's not fat. He's just enormous. He's only nine months old, but he has less than five centimetres (two inches) to go before he will be half my height! And I'm not particularly short. I'm on the shorter side of average but I'm not short enough for it to even be interesting. The baby isn't the only giant here either. My brother and my partner both live here and they're both over six feet tall. So I'm outnumbered on two counts by boys and by tall people. Even the cat's a boy and since the baby is already over two and a half feet tall, it won't be long until I'm the shortest person in the house again.

Giant Baby!

 Meanwhile having a giant baby also means I'm trapped at home most of the time. I'm only working one day a week because my partner thinks it's still 1953, and one of the problems of only having one income is that unless it's a good one (and it really is not) there's never any money. And I am bored. Don't get me wrong the giant baby is great. I love the giant baby more than anything, anywhere, ever but I'm not a stay at home with a baby kind of person. I need to be doing something all the time. I, quite frankly, am a workaholic - although don't confuse that with ambition. I will forever be a disappointment to my parents because the only ambitions I have ever had are for peace and quiet and being left alone as much as possible. Being a workaholic that loves routine is hard when you're at home with a baby most of the time. Firstly, I've found that having a baby seems to mean you're rushing all the time to get stuff done. But when you sit down at the end of the day and think about it, it really feels like you haven't achieved anything. And while babies as a general rule like routine too, they also take a demonic delight in destroying the routine sometimes. But worse yet, just as I settle into a new routine and start to make it work for me, he outgrows it!

 Which brings me to the point of this blog. Which is partially to give me somewhere to ramble or rant if I need to (I always think you're better off having a bit of a rant if something's annoying you, than hiding it and eventually snapping and putting rat poison in the family dinner) but also it's a place where I plan to keep track of my projects. I used to always have a thousand projects on the go. But the last year or two, through illness and working and baby I haven't really had time for that stuff. And now I've decided I need to get back to that. Partly because my projects were usually fairly girly - hopefully an antidote to all the boy in this house and also just as something I'm doing for me. Because I want to. Because since the baby was born I really haven't done anything just for me.

 Like with everything else I'm being pretty unambitious with this. I plan on choosing a project (a lot of them will be things I've started ages ago but never got around to finishing) and giving myself a month to complete it. Hopefully I can work faster than that but if not, no pressure. I have a half-built dollhouse that needs finishing, dolls that need clothes and other things done to them, a baby that constantly needs new clothes, I want to learn to make doll's shoes, there's some cooking stuff I want to try (mostly baking and lollies) and about a thousand other things I want to do. If the giant baby will let me.

I'm pretty sure he's laughing at the idea of me being allowed to do
anything that doesn't directly involve him.