A blog in words and pictures
Yes. Alone time was my present on Mothers Day.
I went walking, took photos, watched a movie. ALONE.
I always enjoyed my alone time before children and I enjoy it more now because it’s so rare.
I’ve heard people occasionally say about mothers who stay at home ‘you won’t know what to do with yourself when they are at school’
To which I respond. Bwahahahahahahahaha
Don’t worry. I’ll know EXACTLY what to do.
Home has always been a strange place to me.
I moved around a lot.
People ask me where home is and I don’t know what to say. I was born in Byron Bay, before it was popular. I lived in Sydney and Melbourne and Fiji and Northern California. So when people ask, I don’t know what to say. I’d like to have a place that was home. But I don’t think I’ve found it just yet.
Time passes, as it always does. I hear the wind in the trees. Telling me it’s Autumn. And time slips away from me as it will. I see my babies grow gangly and tall in front of me. The bottom of their feet knocking my knees as I carry them around when they are tired or just wanting to be held.
I wonder if they will know where home is. I wonder if I have done enough to make them feel that we might not have a home just yet, but I am their home, forever. I hope they know that, as they grow. And are embarrassed by me, and resent me. One day they won’t tell me how much they love me. They will say how much they hate me. That’s the trade off. They won’t need me as much. But they probably won’t realise how much I gave to them until they have children of their own. And if they don’t have children, they will probably never know. And no matter what happens, what choices they make, I hope I can be an ever fixed mark.
When Riley first started to walk she would touch a reflector down at the park every time she passed it. It’s gone now. For some reason, it was removed, I don’t know why. But I see the shadow of it there. And I remember how she used to touch it as she passed. I hope I can be that touchstone for her as she grows. I hope she can tell me the truth, even when it’s ugly and uncomfortable and know that some things never change.
I hope that her and Piper grow together and not apart. Riley has a hard time calming down when she’s upset. Always has. Perhaps, always will. She bemoans the fact that Piper can calm down so easy, and she can’t. But Piper can turn that around for her in a matter of seconds. Their connection is not something that I understand always, but you get to glimpse at it occasionally. I hope they get to keep that. Or at least, hold the knowledge in their hearts that it was there. I hope that I can remind them that they cuddled one another in their sleep when they were both just babies. And if they were sleeping on opposite sides of the bed, they slowly move closer until they were sleeping together in a sisters’ embrace.
I hope that they are home to one another, when I no longer am around to be their home. I hope that they know how heart-breakingly kind they were to one another as babies.
And if I could do that for them, well I think I could be happy with what I achieved as a mother. I wasn’t the best at playing. I wasn’t the best at cleaning. I wasn’t the best at cooking. But if I could give them their true north, like my mother gave me. Well then, that would be truly something.
True North.
Not a place. It’s just people. People are home, more than any place could ever be.
My brother is true north. My mother created that. Even though I didn’t grow up with my brother. She created something beautiful in the face of adversity.
Imagine that. And on mothers’ day I will probably get her something meaningless, that falls horribly short of everything she’s done. But she created a home, where there was none. A permanent home. An ever fixed mark. I wish I could give her something more worthy, more substantial. Something that says I know who you are, and I know what you did.
And one day, I hope that my girls will give me something meaningless that belies the truth of how they feel. But more than that, I hope they find their true north, wherever that my lie.
The journey of compromise is made in centimetres, not in giant leaps. It’s sneaky that way. So you don’t notice.
And then one day you wake up. And you think to yourself: What the ever loving fuck happened?
Over the last five years of parenting I’ve learnt to accept certain things. Like the house will always be a mess, I do everything (computer, eating, reading and even crocheting) standing up because apparently I’m invisible when I’m standing up, but if I sit down I’m fair game. I don’t really listen to music because it interferes with freaking Dora. To name a few. And somewhere along the way, all the things that made me myself lost their way.
Really, those things seem like small things. And in the grand scheme of things, kids are only little for such a fleeting period of time, who really cares? And that five years? I just blinked and it’s over. But those things aren’t little to me. They are little, tiny pieces of myself that I have sacrificed for the greater peace. And even if it’s a short time, this is my life now.
And when I woke up and surveyed the place I had landed after five years of parental compromise, I said no. No. This is not acceptable. In no way, shape or form is this is a fucking acceptable version of my life.
And in one week I changed it. Just like that. It’s amazing what can happen when you wake up.
Sometimes the way people talk or the way they act is intensely disappointing.
Sometimes I just want to block all of that out.
And tell my children.
Don’t pretend to be less intelligent.
Don’t pretend to understand less than you do.
Not because it’s convenient. Or funny. Or easier. Or lets people off the hook.
Don’t pretend that people who accept that from you are worthwhile.
Don’t pretend that if you dumb yourself down, eventually you won’t have a hard time standing up.
I was shopping for a dress a few days ago. She asked if I was buying a dress for something in particular and I said i was going to a conference. The sales woman peered in at Piper in her pram. Piper had temporarily forgotten how cranky she was with the whole shopping trip and was playing with the curtain in the fitting room.
‘Your first time away from her?’
‘No. I went to New York for two weeks. She’s a seasoned professional.’ I say it with some pride and some sorrow. And they mix into an ache that I can’t quite put my finger on.
The ache will be permanent, I suspect. The price of who I am as a mother and who I am as a person not always matching up or complimenting one another. Sometimes they argue. Sometimes they mumble their complaint and sometimes they roar their defiance. And sometimes they sit happily next to one another, enjoying the view. But they are not the same person.
And yet sometimes when one of them is lost and in the dark, the other one is able to shine a light and lead the way. In that respect, they are both mothers.
This week is babywearing week.
A year ago, this was the Squishy’s favourite place to sleep. Now her favourite place to sleep is in her cot or horizontal on our bed. But she still slept like this today, just briefly.
I see porridge.
She said that this morning. I much prefer it to I see dead people.
Love is . . . getting back in the water for swimming lessons, which start TOMORROW. I have to buy a pair of swimmers today because my last pregnancy destroyed my last pair.
You know what one of my most favourite thing as a parent was? When Riley was able to go into the water on her own. When I got to graduate from hopping in that water to sitting in that dank, humid environment, heavy with the smell of chlorine and the smell of old people and dirty nappies somehow combined – I was so freaking happy.
Now I have the pleasure of somehow containing Piper while we watch Riley in the water and then hoping that Riley can be adequately bribed with food and/or iDevices to sit on the sidelines quietly while I’m in the water with Piper. That doesn’t sound like fun. That sounds like a high stress situation.
There is some light at the end of the tunnel though. Riley used to sleep for four hours after her swimming lesson when she was Piper’s age. I’ll hold on to that carrot, right there. And you know, my children’s happiness. And, I guess, a life skill. Or something. I can say that to myself but all I hear is blah-blah-blah-blah-have-to-get-in-water-blah-blah-blah-damp-blah-blah-blah-old-people-and-dirty-nappy-smell.
I hope they appreciate this supreme act of love on my part. Or at least behave like non-feral children when we are at lessons. I’d accept that. That would be a fair compromise.
She likes noise. She bops along to loud music. She checks out bright lights. A balloon could pop in her face and she wouldn’t react. Not even grimace. But close a door on her and she loses her mind. Even though she is obsessed with closing doors herself. She’s going through her mandatory toddler frustration/whinge period. I assume that it will pass as soon as she can talk more. Or as soon as she accepts that an hour of napping does not equal a well rested munchkin. It equals a crabby, shouty, whingey munchkin.
It’s a great marvel how different siblings are. Even though you know that they will be. They both have their own kinds of normal, which are completely different.
I took Riley to see Tinkerbell on the weekend and there were so many people and it was noisy. I found her pressing my hands against her ears, hard. She didn’t say anything, she just pressed. And all of her extroversion seemed like bravado and there was just my vulnerable baby left.
Seventeen months.
One. Beautiful, contagious, addictive belly laugh.
Two. Hours that you nap for.
Three. People who adore you.
Four. Breakfasts that you eat.
Five. Minutes that it takes you to destroy half of the house singlehandedly.
Six. Times I have to put your dummy back in every night.
Seven. Smiles: secret, cheeky, amused, hysterical, sleepy, proud and over the moon.
Eight. Ways you can say no.
Nine. Number of times you will shut a door and lock yourself in, despite becoming outraged that you are now locked in.
Ten. Kisses because when I start, I can’t stop.
Eleven. Items of tupperware that must be emptied on to the kitchen floor at any given time.
Twelve. Mandatory snack times throughout the day.
Thirteen. Thunder of two stamping feet. For stamping when you are really happy. And when you are really cranky.
Fourteen. Words that sound like words but that I can’t understand. Yet.
Fifteen. Ways you aggravate your sister. Actually it’s more than that. But she also cries because she misses you when you sleep.
Sixteen. Toiletries that end up in the bathtub if I ever leave the bathroom door open for even a second.
Seventeen. Months. Of trying to get pregnant and being pregnant. Months that you have been here. I asked Riley today what her earliest memory was and she said it was when you were both babies. Because she can’t conceive of when you weren’t here. I can’t either. Or I just don’t want to.
When someone asks me what the most important purchase I have made for looking after babies, the answer is always the same – our King bed. Riley slept in there off and on until she was about three or so (and still comes in now in the cold weather for early morning snuggles) and Piper still sleeps in there. She usually has her first sleep of the night in her cot and then when I go to bed I take her in with me because I am not keen on getting up in the middle of the night, in the freezing cold. NOT KEEN. Often all four of us will be in there, quite comfortably. And I am grateful for the extra snuggles and the extra body heat.
There’s only one problem with this scenario. Piper rejects all form of bed covering. Doonas, blankets, sheets. EVERYTHING. She kicks everything off and when you have one doona covering four people and she’s in the middle this is a problem. It also causes me concern that she is not in fact related to me at all. Riley exhibits the kind of doona love that demonstrates our genetic connection rather beautifully.
I had a few sleeping bags with Riley when she was a baby. They helped when the coverings came off in the middle of the night and kept her nice and toasty. I also used them when I was helping her get to sleep on her own because I would lie next to her, tuck the bottom of the sleeping bag underneath my body so she couldn’t crawl away and lie there until she finally went to sleep. Creative, yes? I hope it is considered creative and not some form of baby torture. But I always disliked that the sleeping bags were polyester. I’m not rigid about a whole heap of things but I am a bit particular when it comes to bedding. I sent my mother on a mission to find a wool doona for the cot and I’m pretty sure she went to every baby store known to man. Now if I’d known about The Sleep Store then, I think everything would have been much easier. And cheaper!
Woolbabe sleeping bags are Australian designed for babies and toddlers and it is the only sleeping bag made with a wool filling. The outer fabric is 30% merino and 70% cotton and I assure you it makes babies extra snuggly. I am a bit devastated that they don’t make them in adult size. A discerning reader might tell me that the adult version is called a snuggie. And I would inform them that I will purchase a snuggie when I have given up on life and not a minute sooner.
I was given a front-zipper sleeping bag (great for wriggly toddlers who are excellent escape artists) which was great because it’s a double zip and Piper likes to be able to touch her own belly button to self settle, so I was able to open the zip a little for her to do that without sacrificing the warmth. But you can also get a side zipper version. They come in two sizes – 3 months to 2 years and 2 to 4 years.
And the result? A very warm baby who was happy to be above the doona for a change, and I think she even slept a bit more soundly than usual too.
I’m really excited to be giving one away too! A big thank you to The Sleep Store and Woolbabe for giving me one Woolbabe duvet weight sleeping bag to give away, valued at $129!
To Enter:
1) Like Good Googs and Woolbabe on Facebook.
2) Leave me a comment telling me what your baby (or toddler) does when they are tired or to self-soothe themselves. I am prepared for a cuteness overload!
3) Entries close on the 6th August, 2012 and you must be an Australian or New Zealand resident to enter
4) A winner will be chosen based on the most creative or unique or entertaining response.
5) And finally, use the form below!
I received one Woolbabe sleeping bag to keep and one to give away in return for this post. All opinions are my own.