Big bellied girl.

Maxie keeps asking me questions about love and the quantification of it. He doesn't say it like that of course, he just asks me if I love Ash or the baby more than him and that sparks a huge conversation about love and its many ways. He's also ardently opposed to any kind of love between two boys, you can't kiss another boy or love them. Love is only felt for girls if you're a boy. I wonder where the fuck he got this idea.

Also, boys can't be pretty.

Now I am so inlove with that boy, everything he does is stunning to me and sometimes I revel in his skin as if he was my lover. His boyness intoxicates me and I love holding his body against me. I know this is pure love, love for his newness, love for his innocence and, lets face it, love for his intense love for me.

But ultimately it's a love for his future. The one that stretches beyond me. This is my son and I find him infinitely beautiful because he's a part of me yet totally unique and separate too and he will be loving and hurting and growing for along time after Im dead.

But there's a physicality to it too, his skin is so joyous yet restrained, I can almost see the thoughts and passions jumping around underneath it and I love being close to it, marvelling at its kinetic force. The simple joy of being alive.

Germaine Greer bought out a book celebrating boy beauty a while ago and she copped some flack for it for obvious reasons, shes over 40 and a feminist, two peculiarities that are not considered to be conducive to intelligent thought. And also, she might be a paedophile. Because she was willing to talk about the beauty of the boy.

I am comfortable with talking about this too.

I've been aware that boy beauty is just as poignant and multifaceted as girl beauty for a long time now. I don't know about you, but when I was young my boy friends experimented with their looks as much as I did. They wanted to paint their lips and drape themselves with the same velvets and lace that I was festooning myself with and I loved the gender play that evolved. Loved watching their male selves transforming into ambiguous sylph like beings with a lust for sensuous life. I was doing the same, saving up to buy coat tails, cream dress shirts, intricate 40's silk ties and spats. But I still knew I wanted to fuck boys despite all the play I indulged in with my girlfriends, and I knew it was the same for some of my boy friends too, they wanted a girl despite all their boy pash play.

I wonder about love and all its ways and how will I convey such a vast subject to my beautiful 5 year old without making him feel like its all impossible.

I had awful dreams last night. Epic ones that spanned over months of emotional hell and woke me over and over again with wracking sobs.

I dreamt that Ash left me, that I kept pushing him away and he finally snapped and ended it. The loss was acute and absolute and so I spiralled out of control and ended up drunk at a pub in town with ex lovers sleazing all over me and poor little alcohol-poisoned Charlie kicking me feebly from inside my belly. My home life crumbled. Bridey stopped doing her fire brigade work and school so she could obsess over her boyfriend more easily and they trashed the house. Threw things and upended bins and turned it into a hell hole while I sat and drank and tried to find people to take Max every night so I could obliterate myself. Every time I talked to Ash he was more and more distant and resolute about the breakup. I could tell he'd met someone else and didn't care about me or Charlie or our family anymore.

Fuck it was horrendous.

So I woke about 20 minutes ago, still crying, and stumbled out to the beautiful sunny kitchen. The newly painted cherry red fridge was humming away in the corner, everything was sparkling and clean from my recent nesting frenzy, there was no hangover or upended bins, so I sighed with relief and sat down to write this post.

But not before I contacted Ash. I couldn't fully shake the dream until I heard him tell me how much he loves me. I've finally come to depend on someone after years of keeping people at arms length, and sometimes that really scares me because I fear the loss of him would destroy me.

That bloody dream did not help to allay those fears.

Well after such a lovey dovey, 'aint pregnancy grand' post, here comes a 'bloody hell when will the torment end' one.

Yes, it's been lovely, a special time of dreaming about the future and anticipation for meeting the new baby. But it's also been coupled with some pretty crippling insecurities and doubts which I know are normal, but fuck they suck.

I'm so sensitive to everything, the slightest thing will set me off on a roller coaster of fear and worry. Small things will feel like terrible threats and even something said in jest will feel like a rejection or a veiled truth. Sigh. In short I feel like I'm turning into a psycho woman who no one could possibly love and will end up alone and miserable while everyone else galavants joyously in the sunshine. And of course, feeling this way about myself just compounds the whole thing, compounds my fears and insecurities, makes me worry I'll lose my sexiness, lose my partner, lose my freaking mind. Oh it's bloody wonderful. Only 4 more months to go.

The days are getting cooler and my belly is big and round. Ash marvels at the curve and talks to Lentil through my taut skin. We've been getting closer and closer as the months wear on and as I allow my heart to open. I'm amazed at the gentle patience of this man as I worry and fret and go through various insecurities. He always has a way of pulling me back into what we have, reminding me of our love, our lives together and that it's us against the world.

Us against the world is a sentiment I used to shy away from, felt afraid of after years of codependent relationships where it literally was me and my man up against the world, afraid of it and hiding in each other. But I know that's not what he means, he means we are a team and share something with each other that no one else can have a part of and I love feeling that exclusivity, that safety in anothers heart. I've never experienced a love like this, with someone who can calm me and not react in childish sulky ways to my fears or concerns, he faces things head on with me and pours constant love on me so that I can feel these things and move through them and meet him on the other side. It's pretty amazing to me after relationships where I never felt heard.

We had our first ultrasound the other day and found out we're having a little boy. I am so happy, I know you're not supposed to have a preference, but I was hoping for a little fella. I had such a hard time bringing up Bridey, and while I know conceptually that it was because I was so young, irresponsible and alone, I still had some fear deep down that maybe I'm just not good with girls and it was hard to shake. I also wanted a boy for Ash, to help heal the little boy in him. So we have our little elephant boy and we're pretty sure he'll be a golden haired child as Ash was blonde and so was I. I can't wait to meet him, to lie around on the bed marvelling at his perfection wrapped in the cocoon of our beautiful family.

When I was 13.
I formed impossible crushes on 27 year old musicology students called Fortescue and wondered at the childlike things he built across the kitchen ceiling.

He was towering, languid, thin and broody black hair flopping and stray wild music always sidling out his bedroom door, loping through the rooms and throwing me smiles and rolling his tobacco sexily up against doorjambs, instilling in me a love for handrolled smokes, The Jam and other taboos. I remember waking up at 3am in front of a growly gas heater in time to hear him telling his friend he was inlove with me but he couldn't do anything about it. Even at that age I knew if they can't ask, then they're not worth it.

Douglas Street was an initiation.

Them: 25 to 30.
Me: 13 going on and on and on and on. You tell me when to stop.

But they didn't. I was the Douglas St baby. The baby that seduced everyone and ended up asleep and spent on the couch or in someones bed and everyone had a soft spot for me but they were all too fucked up themselves to save me.

Looking back, being saved was not what I was there for.

Life is truly beautiful.

The sun is streaming through the windows making the yellow walls glow. Maxie is watching Tin Tin and eating yoghurt and banana. Bridey is snoozing, sleeping in as is her want in the holidays. My tummy is popping and fizzing, life bubbling away inside of it. Dog drowsing in the sun.

Later today we'll go for a walk and enjoy the trees and maybe a swim down at the Megalong if it's warm enough. Buy some sourdough bread and avocados to eat by the water.

The life growing inside me has settled a kind of expectant calm over the house. Bridey said last night how nice it will be to have a newborn around the house again, how good it feels to hold such a tiny little body close. I agree, there's a lovely dreamlike quality that permeates a home when there's a baby dictating the rhythms and flows. I wonder if it's going to be as easy as it was with the other two as babies. Both Bridey and Max were so calm, slept alot and had no illnesses or problems. They're both Pisces, and even though I don't let horoscope stuff dictate my life, I still believe theres some truth to it. This baby will be a Virgo if our dates are right, a Virgo Ox just like me. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, could be a bit confronting having another little practical being around. I'm so used to dreamers. But considering both my children and my partner are the dreamer types it could also be balancing to have another earthy type around. We can keep the home fires burning while the rest flit about absent mindedly.