Yesterday marked a very special day in the extended Barton Family.
We are absolutely over the moon to help my brother and his wife welcome their second child and second son into the world.
Our new little nephew.
Jesse’s new little cousin.
A gorgeous little (and while I say little, he did weigh in at over 9lb) boy named Flynn.
Welcome to the family little guy. We all can’t wait to see you grow and get to know you!
So let’s talk about online bullies… Internet trolls… keyboard warriors…
Whatever it is you want to call them, they are usually that pathetic kind of person you wouldn’t even waste a single breath for; who have nothing better to do with their time than hide behind the anonymity of the internet and post abusive and insensitive crap on social media platforms usually directed at a person or group of people and almost always to either feel better about their own pathetic lives or to get some kind of reaction out of the person to which they are directing their drivel.
Wow, that was a mouthful. Actually, have I just bullied internet bullies? Does that make me an internet bully?
Anyways, so what is it exactly we need to talk about in relation to these low life’s?
Well, for some reason, it seems we need to talk about internet trolls because people somehow seem to forget that they exist. And not only do they exist, they aren’t going to go away any time soon.
A few days ago a news article popped up in my news feed that caught my attention. A mummy blogger broke down on YouTube, after being personally attacked by internet bullies when a post she wrote about having a ‘quickie’ with her husband went viral.
While she has received hundreds of messages of support from fans since posting the YouTube video to her Facebook page, the reaction to the whole story has been mixed, with some people saying that if she can’t handle the abuse and negative feedback, than she shouldn’t share so much of her life online.
The author of the article even goes as far as to suggest that this mummy blogger shouldn’t be the one that has to put up with the horrible, nasty and insulting comments and that it should be the bullies and the trolls that are told to get off the internet. Come on… really?
Are we really that naive that we think we can just wave some sort of magic wand and make all online bullies and internet trolls disappear forever?
So with all that said, where do I stand on this issue… Well I’m sorry to say, I tend to lean toward those who are saying if you can’t handle the abuse from the trolls, than you shouldn’t be posting about your personal life online.
Let me just say at this point that this is simply my opinion on this topic. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to agree with. And I am writing this not having had to deal with online bullies or internet trolls ourselves.
But with that said, let’s just think about this for a minute. Internet trolls operate largely under a banner of anonymity. This means they can pretty much get away with saying whatever they want. It’s almost impossible to regulate what everyone does on the internet. When you post your private life to the internet, you are opening yourself up to both the good and the bad comments from others. And if you do decide to post your private life to the internet, you need to be prepared to handle any abuse and negative comments that are thrown your way.
Unfortunately, those are the cold hard facts. It may not be fair. But unfortunately, that’s the world we live in.
It’s like becoming a famous actor or musician and then complaining about the paparazzi chasing you everywhere. You put yourself in that situation. You have to deal with the consequences.
So getting back to the article. While I don’t condone what has happened to this mummy blogger on the back of her viral post, I find it somewhat hard to feel sorry for her due to the fact that online trolls are such a common problem.
Also, after reading the article and watching her video, I call bull s*** on her argument about not wanting to go viral. It’s pretty clear with the way that post was written that she was hoping it would get some sort of traction. And you don’t create a public blog if you don’t want some sort of popularity to enable you to make a living from it.
So what’s the solution? Well, we can’t get rid of internet trolls. So the best way to deal with them is simply to ignore them.
Regardless of whether you like her writing or not (I don’t personally but that’s just me), new blogging sensation Constance Hall has dealing with trolls down to a fine art. She just doesn’t give a f***. If she gets hate, she ignores it and moves on.
So I’m sorry you’ve had a rough time with trolls mummy blogger. But unfortunately, that’s the world we live in. If you believe in what your doing, just ignore the hate, and keep on going.
Because if we continue to let the trolls get to us, then they’ve won!
So Jesse loves bath time!
Whenever he hears the bath filling up, he heads straight to the bathroom to watch the water spurting out of the tap and to wait until he gets to hop in.
In fact, he has always seemed to enjoy his baths, even when he was a little baby.
But what he loves more than just regular bath time… is bath time with Aunty Lia.
Yup, LOVES IT!!!
As you can see in this video, Jesse and Aunty Lia have a lot of fun at bath time. And then mummy and daddy have a lot of fun mopping up the water from all over the bathroom when bath time has finished.
So… One of the long running discussions in our household has been who is Jesse’s favourite? Mum or Dad?
Well, we may have finally gotten to the bottom of it with Jesse telling Renee first hand, who he thinks the best parent is!!!
HOW YOU LIKE THEM APPLES MUMMY!!! I guess we can call this competition… GAME OVER!!!! Oh hang on, how does the score stack up… well lets see…
Dad: 1
Mum: 0
BOOM!!!
I’m taking this s*** to a higher level Mummy. Come and join me up here. The view is great! Time to step up your game!
Couples argue. Couples fight. Couples don’t always see eye to eye. It really is just part of normal life when you’re in a relationship with someone.
Despite the fact that this blog is generally pretty positive (which is a conscious decision, as we think there is enough negativity out there already), we also have our own arguments and fights every now and again. And it has only been recently that I have come to notice something quite funny about the arguments and fights we have been having of late.
It has come as a bit of a revelation to me to discover that the subject of our arguments has changed. Where we once argued about everything from how to wash the clothes properly to money (yes, some of our arguments were that petty, but that said, aren’t all arguments???), we know exclusively argue about one thing…
JESSE!
It’s pretty funny when I think about it now. But all our fights are centred around Jesse and how we care and raise him. Hey, at least the dirty laundry gets a break from our sparring tongues.
And look, at the end of the day, we always kiss and have make up se… I mean kiss and make up. And at the time of the argument, it always feels like it’s about important issues that will shape the future of our family. But when the dust settles, we can usually sit back and laugh at just how ridiculous the fight was!
So what are some of the fights about I hear you ask. Well, you know, earth shattering stuff honestly. Here are some of the arguments we’ve had that I can recall us laughing about at a later date:
1. OMG… I THINK JESSE MAY HAVE SWALLOWED A CAT CLAW AND I THINK HE IS GOING TO DIE!!! While he did actually have the claw in his mouth, he didn’t end up swallowing it. And he obviously didn’t die. And after a phone call to 13 Health and being told she was an idiot for calling, Renee constantly likes to bring up that she was right and I was wrong.
2. DID JESSE JUST FALL OFF OUR BED? WHY WERE’NT YOU WATCHING HIM??? OMG, HE IS GOING TO DIE!!! He did actually fall out of bed. Renee felt really awful about it too. But alas, he survived through this one also. And apparently, babies falling out of beds is more common than I realised.
3. IS HE ALLOWED TO EAT THAT? IS THAT TOO BIG FOR HIM TO EAT? IS IT COOKED PROPERLY? IS IT COOL ENOUGH? IS IT TOO HOT? BECAUSE HE MIGHT DIE!!! Yes I tend to worry too much about silly things like this. But yes, Renee’s cooking is also that bad…
4. GOD… HOW LONG ARE YOU GOING TO LET HIM CRY FOR… JUST GIVE HIM SOME NUROFEN ALREADY!!! I did have to apologise for this one. In my defence, I had a late night and was really tired and I had to work the next day. Hey, I never said it was a good defence.
5. WHY ISN’T HE WALKING YET? WHY ISN’T HE TALKING YET? ARE WE DOING ENOUGH WITH HIM? DO WE NEED TO READ MORE? DO WE NEED TO PLAY MORE? IS HE DYING??? He isn’t dying. He is doing just fine. He has only just turned 1! Every baby is different!!!
So we are just like everyone else… we argue… we fight… maybe not about the same things we used to… But, we are just like everyone else out there.
And like I said, at the end of the day, we always come to realise that in this new adventure we’re on called parenting, we are doing just fine. We aren’t perfect parents. But then again, no-one is. But the way our little family is developing is just perfect.
So the next time you and your partner get into a fight about how you’re raising your kids… just remember that you’re probably not the first and you definitely won’t be the last parents to fight about exactly the same thing.
And just remember to forgive each other, so you can one day look back on those arguments and laugh. I know I sure will.
A few days before we celebrated Jesse’s first birthday with our family and friends at his party, we spent his actual birthday together as a little family.
Amongst the routine of meals and bath time we opened presents, played together and enjoyed a picnic in the warm sunshine.
It was a perfect day.
On the verge of walking, talking and world domination. Here is Jesse’s 11 months milestones video.
Enjoy.
Two days ago, our little guy turned one! Can you believe that? One! Jesse has officially been part of our lives for a whole year. Where has all that time gone?!
Today we celebrated this wonderful milestone with our closest family and friends at Jesse’s first birthday party.
All the festivities has me reminiscing about our amazing journey into parenthood. From right back to when we first kicked off trying to conceive, to falling pregnant, Jesse’s arrival into the world and those first few days and weeks as new parents. It all still seems so clear in my mind.
So following Renee’s last blog post, I thought I’d give my perspective on Jesse’s birth story. Because let’s face it, how many birth stories have you read from the perspective of the dad?
The last weeks – The calm before the storm
I was loving the fact that I had access to a permanent designated driver ever since we had found out that Renee was pregnant. It was just a shame I didn’t take advantage of this fact more often.
In all seriousness though, in those last weeks of Renee’s pregnancy, we were both starting to get very excited about meeting our little bundle of joy. But it wasn’t just excitement that was starting to build inside me. It was a mixture of emotions that included excitement, nervousness, joy, panic, elation, fear… you get the picture. I was excited but freaking out at the same time about becoming a first time dad.
Renee and I would constantly talk about the impending labour. We spoke about the birth plan, when I should start my parental leave, what kind of labour we thought Renee might experience and when the baby would finally decide it was time to greet the world.
In those last few weeks I constantly joked that I didn’t mind when the baby was born, just as long as it wasn’t born on State of Origin night. And if it was, well there better be a TV in the birthing suite, because I was not going to miss Game 1!
On the weekend of the 23/24 May 2015, Renee and I agreed that I should start my leave earlier than I had initially planned. While the plan was to work right up to when Renee was in labour, I started my leave on Monday, 25 May 2015, so we could enjoy some time together before the baby came.
The day before
We didn’t have much planned for the day. A casual stroll around the shops (or “the mall” depending on where you’re reading from) was the most exciting thing we had planned for the day. Mostly because we wanted to keep things as relaxed as possible to not put any undue stress on Renee.
After walking around for about an hour, Renee looks at me and tells me that she thinks she’s been having mild contractions the whole time we’ve been at the shops.
“What?! Really?! Do we need to go to the hospital?! Your water isn’t going to break in the middle of the shopping centre is it?!”
I have a slight tendency to overreact to certain situations sometimes. So after Renee assures me that it’s nothing too serious and that perhaps we just head home, I calm down we head off.
For the rest of the day, Renee kept me updated on how she was feeling, how intense the contractions were, how far apart they were and whether she needed me to do anything for her. There didn’t seem to be any consistency to the contractions with regards to how far apart they were, although they were getting more intense.
Later that night at around 11pm, as Renee was leaning up against the kitchen bench to help get her through each contraction, I asked again if we should tell anybody or ring ahead to the hospital. But again I got reassurance from Renee that we don’t need to ring through to anyone just yet, as for all we knew the contractions could stop. Plus, our midwife had told us to stay at home until the contractions were 3 minutes apart, which they weren’t.
So on Renee’s approval, it was off to bed for me to get some sleep, just in case things ramped up during the night.
D-Day
Renee gave me an update over breakfast about her night and how she was presently feeling and as she suspected, throughout the night, the contractions eventually began to get lighter and further apart until they faded away almost entirely. Regardless, we had a midwife appointment at 10:30am, so we could talk through what had happened with a professional soon enough.
I remember however that despite how calm things appeared on the surface, I was still a little anxious underneath it all, as all signs were starting to point to this baby making an appearance sometime in the next few days… if not earlier. And so while at the midwife appointment, I again make the joke that the baby better not come tonight because I really want to watch Game 1 of State of Origin. We all have a bit of a chuckle. We then head to Renee’s parents for a quick visit.
We barely last an hour there before Renee ends up bent back over the kitchen bench as the waves of pain from contractions start again. Renee’s mum looks both excited but supportive as she comforts her through each contraction. Not long after the contractions start again, Renee gives me the nod that she wants to head back home to ride them out.
I leave Renee at home (again, with her permission) to grab some lunch. When I get back, I find Renee doing what could be described as some sort of squatting manoeuvre beside the bed and in what appears to be a world of pain. Even I can tell that this time, it looks like it’s all systems go. Time to call the hospital!
Again, excitement, nervousness, joy, panic, elation, fear all washes over me and I feel my legs start to shake as I start to freak out. Wow… This is actually happening… Right now… This… Is… Happening… Right now… I must hide it well though, because it appears as though Renee doesn’t seem to notice my wave of emotions. Although, given the state she’s in, I can hardly blame her for taking notice of anything else other than the pain she was experiencing.
And while all this is happening, in the back of my mind I can’t help but think, “dammit… all that joking around about how I didn’t want the baby to come on State of Origin night, and now it’s happening!!!”
So I get all the bags we prepared for the birth together and start packing the car. I hit schedule TV to record State of Origin Game 1, just in case we do end up missing it (priorities right) and we head to the hospital.
The drive to the hospital was probably one of the longest drives we’ve ever had to take. I was a nervous ball of energy. Renee was in tears because of the pain she was experiencing with each contraction. And all I wished was that we could somehow teleport right to the doorstep of the hospital.
We make it. But the battle is far from over. I pile myself up with all our bags and help Renee out of the car. But it’s even a slow journey up to the maternity ward with Renee having to stop every few minutes to ride out yet another contraction. We make it to the maternity ward counter and our midwife team is called. Renee gets down on her haunches while holding onto the counter for another contraction when one of the midwives appear and says “Wow, looks like you ready to go then. Follow me.”
In the birthing suite
My first job was to call Sharon and Lia (Renee’s mum and sister) to ask them to come straight to the hospital as Renee wanted them both there for the birth. From that moment on my sole responsibility was making sure I helped Renee as much as possible and whenever she needed it.
And like that it was on… like Donkey Kong!
It was such an intense experience. I often felt a little helpless, as I watched Renee have to push through waves of pain as each contraction got more and more painful. I got her water when she needed it. I helped her move around the room when she needed. I let her squeeze my hands so hard at times that it felt like she was about to break my fingers off. Actually, at one point her mum took over the hand holding and I think Renee did cause her some finger damage!
But I wasn’t going to complain about a single thing, because I knew I’d probably get a slap to the face.
The most annoying thing for me however, was the fact that I must have either been nervous or I drank too much water heading into the birthing suite, because I remember having to go to the toilet nearly every 20 mins. It was quite inconvenient, but whenever I did need to go, Sharon and Lia were there to continue to help Renee through the pain.
I couldn’t believe how well Renee was coping with labour. She wanted the birth to be as natural as it could be and with the exception of a little gas, she did it completely unassisted. And I don’t think I’ve ever told Renee this, but the midwife must have had more faith in Renee than she had in herself, because she turned the gas off well before Renee knew it was off.
And then, at 7:50pm, our beautiful boy was born. Wow… A wave of emotions flooded through me. There he was. A boy. So tiny. So beautiful. All 6lb 2oz of him. Renee caught him in her arms, brought him up to her chest and held him close as he took his first breaths. I nuzzled into them both. So proud of Renee for what she had just done. And so completely overwhelmed with what was now in front of me.
A little while after he was born, I had the pleasure of cutting the cord. And then not too long after that, I got to have my first cuddle of my new born son. Skin to skin. Just me and our baby boy. At that point, I remember thinking how tiny and delicate he was. I was so worried that I was going to break him.
When the midwife had left to complete some paperwork and Renee and I got some alone time with him together, we started thinking about what we should name him. We didn’t want to rush naming him if we didn’t feel the names we had picked suited him. But, as we did already have a few combinations picked out, we thought that now was a good opportunity to go through them.
Once we got to the name Jesse Jack Barton, we immediately knew this was the one. It fit perfectly. He even looked like a Jesse Jack Barton.
And so as if it was always meant to be, we both looked down at Jesse Jack Barton. Our first child. Our son. Our life.
Like Renee said, I’ll never forget the moment my life changed forever. The moment in that birthing suite where I met our beautiful baby boy for the first time. The moment I fell madly in love with our sweet little Jesse.
My dearest Jesse, happy birthday!
Writing regular blog posts can be a hard ask. Especially when you set yourself a task to publish 3 a week. And while we haven’t hit that mark every week we have, for the most part, done pretty well.
So when thinking about what I could write about for my post today, I really had to get my thinking cap on to come up with something interesting.
But… after catching myself in the act yet again, I found the perfect subject for today’s post. And not only that, I feel like today’s post is about a subject that a lot of people out there (if not everyone) might not just relate to, but get a bit of a laugh out of it.
So what in the hell is this long introduction leading up to? Well… as you may have already guessed by the title, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) of course.
As a quick side note, please let me state up front that I know OCD can be a serious and debilitating condition. This post is in no way intended to undermine that fact, and is also not intended to cause offence or stress to those who do genuinely suffer from this condition.
With that said, let’s face it, us humans are a funny species. We all have our little quirks and idiosyncrasies and quite often, they allow us every now and again to laugh at each other, laugh at ourselves and laugh at the strange things we do.
And I am no exception.
I think that almost everyone out there, has a little OCD in them. What might start out as making sure the blinds on all the office windows are level can sometimes turn into where you can’t have the volume in your car on an odd number. Oh, and yes, I know about these quirks because they both relate to me.
But we all have our little quirks, don’t we. So I figured hey, why not share mine for a laugh. Maybe someone else out there can relate and maybe this post will make them feel like less of a weirdo. Because at the end of the day, you’re not a weirdo. You are pretty much exactly the same as the rest of us.
So what are my bad OCD habits? Well, here are the ones that I catch myself doing on a regular basis:
The blinds in the office
When I mentioned the blinds in the office, I wasn’t kidding. This is exactly one of my OCD things that annoys the absolute piss out of me. If you have horizontal blinds in the office, whether you have them raised or lowered, they all MUST be falling at the same height.
If they are not, then you can be guaranteed that I’ll get up and fix this abomination.
And to those in the office who change the heights just to f*** with me, you will feel my wrath! The wrath of a man who is enraged with ‘inconsistent horizontal blind height anger’. Don’t worry, it’s a real thing… I promise!
The volume level on devices that use numbers
Yup, again, like I said earlier, one of my things is the volume level. That said, I think this one may be more common than I think. But when turning the volume up or down on any device from the car radio to the TV, it has to be set to an even number, or in fives. That’s right. It can’t be set at any number that ends in a 1, 3, 7 or 9.
Want the volume set to 22. No worries.
What about 14. Yup, good as gold mate.
35. Perfect. No issues here.
19… OH HELL NO!!! You better change that to 20 or 18 quick smart or I’m going to lose my sh*t!
Brushing my teeth
Now this one I feel is going to be odd to many out there. But when I brush my teeth, I have to brush each section the same number of times.
I don’t know why… I don’t know how it started… All I know is, if I brush my back left molars 8 times and then accidentally brush my back right molars 9 times… bugger… It’s back to square one.
Let me clarify, I usually don’t count the strokes per se, but I do hum the same tune for each section of my teeth that I brush. It’s the same thing right?
Clean floors
Ok. So I can admit that my level of OCD’ness has somewhat diminished when it comes to clean floors since Jesse came along. But it’s still there, and dirty floors still annoy me.
In the past, I could not stand dirty floors. If I was walking through the house and I felt even the tiniest speck of dirt then look out. The brooms were activated. The vacuum was out. The mops were loaded. And the floor would be buffed to perfection.
Since Jesse has come into our lives, our floor is in a constant state of uncleanliness that I have had to learn to respect. It is near impossible to keep your floors clean when you have an 11 month old baby crawling around the house. And then there’s dinner time… Ahh dinner time… The once civilised activity where we used to eat our meals has turned into what Jesse thinks is a fun game of ‘let’s throw every little skerrick of food to floor for no other reason than I just don’t want it on the table in front of me.
I am lucky I have come to terms with my dirty floors, because the old me would have thrown the brooms and mops in the air and shouted “F*** THIS SH*T… I’M OUT!”
Morning routine
Ok… Now I know this one isn’t strange, but it still shows that little part of my that is OCD.
Every morning when I get up for work, I do everything in the exact same order. That’s right, I have a morning routine and I stick to it every… single… day… (Well, work days that is).
I can recite my whole routine and can guarantee that each morning, I do not break it. It goes like this: Wake up, toilet, eat breakfast, take vitamins, brush teeth, wash face, put deodorant on, put pants on, put socks and shoes on, do hair, put singlet and shirt on, belt on, aftershave on, watch on, pack lunch, pack bag, leave.
Now not everyone will be that OCD with their morning routine. But I’m not ashamed by it at all. In fact, I’ve read a couple of articles that suggest having a morning routing that you stick to like the one I have is actually beneficial, as it frees your mind to think about other things you need to accomplish rather than thinking about what you need to do as your getting ready. So the jokes on you… you who doesn’t have a morning routine.
Anyways… So that’s about it… Those are my (or some of my) idiosyncrasies that I have a laugh about with others every now and again. Like I said, we all have them, so why not just have a laugh and accept the fact that we do all have a little OCD in us.
So with that I ask you… What about you? What are your OCD quirks? What do you do that you think is strange but in actual fact might be quite common?
Let’s share and all have a laugh together about the fact that we all, are a little bit weird!
It’s a special day in the NSSLOU household today.
“So what’s so special about today?” I hear you ask.
Well, today just so happens to be Renee’s birthday. That’s right… The old wifey for lifey is one more year older today. Which also makes her one more year wiser. And when we think back on what’s happened over the last year… wow.
Renee, or ‘Mummy’ as she has now become affectionately known as throughout our household, is one amazing woman. And without her, everything would well and truly be falling apart!
Renee is very much the pillar of our household. Largely due the fact that she has taken on the very big and important responsibility of being a full-time stay-at-home mum to our beautiful boy, Jesse. BUT… Not being content with just being a full-time mum, Renee has also started and is currently building her Kangatraining business on the side. And while being a Kanga Trainer has it’s perks (like being able to take bubby to work), it adds to the already overflowing plate that is Renee’s daily schedule.
But while there certainly are exhausting days here and there, for the most part, you very rarely hear even a single complaint about it. Why? Because like I said, she is amazing!
Renee continues to surprise me with everything she does and everything she takes on. I am forever thankful and lucky to have her in my life. As is Jesse.
Now, as the sun sets on today’s festivities, I cannot wait to celebrate many more birthdays in the years to come with one of my favourite people in the whole wide world. I can’t wait to share more laughs and more fun with you. I can’t wait to grow our family even more with you. I can’t wait to travel with you and experience more and more new things with you. I can’t wait to grow old with you.
But for now, let me just say this…
Happy Birthday babe!
You are amazing and you deserve all the happiness in the world!
All our love,
Kaine and Jesse.
not so secret life of us 