Parenting
« Previous EntriesTen things that motherhood gives you
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008From Caitlin Moran, at Alpha Mummy, comes quite possibly the best description of new motherhood I have read:
Can empathise with that right now.
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The writer goes on to discuss what she has got out of becoming a mother, and although it’s sometimes hard to be positive about mothering when you busy treading water through the days with a newborn, I nevertheless thought I would try something similar and attempt to list ten things I have gained out of being a mother (aside from the obvious ones: unconditional love [that is, for something other than chocolate], empathy with mothers all round the world and smiling more than I ever thought possible at my newborn, even if it does make me look kinda like a crazy woman.)
So here are my ten things (and just to make it clear, I am not in any way implying that non-parents do not feel or experience any of these things):
1. No longer having any fear about what my body looks like or who sees it. Changing rooms, fitting rooms, doctors’ examining rooms, all once a source of worry or embarrasment to my teenage or pre-motherhood self? They hold no fear for me anymore. In fact, in this hot weather, must remember not to answer the door in my bra.
2 . Learning to make very gory things sound really quite pleasant. Terrible Things overheard on the news become, miraculously, never as bad as they sound when put through the Mommy Explanation Filter.
3. I’m pretty good in a crisis. Child choking on a grape? Put telephone down, deftly swing child out from booster seat strap, turn him head down and bang until his lungs come up (and the grape too, hopefully), resume very important telephone conversation.
4. Gaining a ready-made circle of friends. And as a bonus, due to the shared circumstances that is early motherhood, they (mostly) couldn’t care less what I look like. Which is just as well given the state of me most of the time.
5. The ability to appreciate the good days with my children after suffering severe post-partum depression. Spending months crying all day does not for happy motherhood make but when I think I’m having a bad day now, I remember those times and it puts my day into perspective.
6. Learning about nutrition. Because basically I didn’t have a clue. Coffee and cocktails with the occasional pastry thrown in to mop it all up were my staple diet throughout my twenties. Add in a brush with pregnancy diabetes and I’m now an over-zealous nutrition expert.
7. Learning to appreciate any amounts of me-time. As the years have passed, the number of children in the household has increased, the daily chores have increased exponentially and the homeschooling duties take increasing hold on our day. I have never been more organized or efficient. And this is mostly to ensure that there is some time for me and, my God, if I don’t savour every two minutes of peace I get. Unfortunately these moments are never in the bathroom.
8. Having a dreadful fear of Things Happening To My Children. But, at the same time I have absolutely no fear where protecting them is concerned and I would throw myself in front of a train without hesitation if I thought it would save them. Although that’s not high on my list of priorities of things to do before I turn forty.
9. Coping with little or no sleep. They say sleep deprivation is a form of torture but in this house that’s only half the story: torture is sleep deprivation while having to look after four children.
And finally,
10. Feeling no guilt when I have a very strong G&T at the end of the day. Because, unlike my twenty-something days - you know, back when I thought I was busy, but I so was not - I have definitely earned it.
What have I missed? What has motherhood (or fatherhood) given you?
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Posted in Parenting
Mothers day
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008Last Sunday was Mothers’ Day here. It didn’t get off to a good start when Ben woke coughing at 2am and didn’t stop until about 6am. So around 5am I brought him into bed with me in the hope he would settle. Instead this was possibly the most exciting thing I could have done and he spent the next hour kissing my arm over and over and flicking his muslin painfully at me in a form of masochistic love.
By 7am we were both dead to the world so Matthew got up with Harry and William while Ben and I slumbered on. At 10am we finally woke but, even then, Ben was reluctant to get up. He looked up at me, cuddling my arm and reaching up intermittently to stroke my face. After a while Harry and William appeared, offering me breakfast in bed (although that never actually materialised). They jumped on the bed to kiss their pink-cheeked little brother. The baby kicked in my stomach, less with love though I fear, as more likely demanding breakfast. The sun was shining through the blinds, promising another beautiful spring day.
I don’t often stop to think about it, but just then I remembered: I am the luckiest mother alive.
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Posted in Parenting
More about the behavioral issues
Monday, November 12th, 2007The last three days have been near-perfect.
The weekend was wonderful, with Harry’s behaviour back to normal after I made it clear to him how upset and disappointed I was (edited to add: about his violent behavior, NOT about the fact that he was crying about school). I laid it on thick, I’ll admit, but we were on the brink of making another major decision about removing him from school and I figured the circumstances required a bit of drama on my part. Matthew and I discussed his behaviour at length over the weekend and decided that if it reverted to bad this morning or after school today then we would almost certainly have to take action because he is clearly not happy.
We were out and about all weekend visiting a French market, shopping, visiting friends and generally not being at home where all the bad behavior has been. Today I got everyone on the school run without any tears (including from Ben, which is a record I think) and then I went to town, shopped for Christmas presents and things I didn’t really need in the lovely sunshine and Ben didn’t cry once (which is definitely a record) and came back to a house which had been cleaned while I was out (I leave so early now for school I haven’t had to do anything about firing the cleaner even though I am still planning to find someone to replace her).
So it’s been a good few days, my lovely boy is back, he had a good day at school today and all in all I’m pretty relieved. Now if only I could sit down with a nice big glass of red wine. And stop reading all those wonderful homeschooling blogs.
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Posted in Homeschooling and School, Parenting
Making friends
Monday, October 1st, 2007The single most important thing has happened in my son, Harry’s, social development and I could weep with relief.
He made a friend. All by himself. And not just any friend but, after all the problems he’s had being frightened by them, an older boy.
I saw a boy from down the road sitting at the end of our drive so I sent Harry and Matthew off to weed the flowerbed, or in boy-speak, muck about in mud. After saying hello to the boy, Sam, Matthew suggested that Harry might like to show Sam his Action Men and Action Men vehicles (that I bought at a recent toy sale, thinking that he wouldn’t be interested in them but that lots of other boys are and it would be a good way to make friends) and now, just like that, he has his own friend.
Even though Sam was inundated with Harry’s life to date, ‘my Mummy has a baby in her tummy, I’m five, I used to go to ***** School (Sam was wearing the school shirt), my dog called Brin died,’ he wasn’t put off. Now it’s Sam this and Sam that, and Harry’s talking about going down the road to play with Sam and the other children (which until now he’s been too frightened to do even though some of them are his age and he knows them from when he was at school).
I spent the first few years of Harry and William’s lives going to endless toddler groups and mothers’ meetings to give them social opportunities and to make friends myself. Despite that they have struggled to go happily into school and one of the friendships I engineered ended up being one of the problematic ones for Harry when he started big school when the ‘friend’ started pushing him over in the playground. Since Ben was born I haven’t attended one toddler group with him and I don’t even really regret it. And Harry’s new friendship proves that at some point all children will go out and make their own friends, regardless of anything their parents do or don’t do.
And I couldn’t be happier about it.
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Posted in Parenting
Sitting on the floor in tears
Monday, September 24th, 2007I peed in a cup. I waited an hour and a half. Then the consultant spent three and a half minutes telling me that a VBAC was entirely possible seeing as I had achieved one already and that was it.
The upside of the appointment is that she said I don’t have to go back to the hospital unless I go overdue (I’m pretty sure I went several times last pregnancy) so I will not have to endure such another waste of a morning.
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I find it really interesting that those who commented on my last post and those I have spoken to who have had c-sections have found them (me included) to be such a positive birth experience. I know that there are a lot of positive vaginal (sorry, awful term, but can’t think of another less awful term) birth experiences but there are also a lot of awful ones (mine included). I know that a VBAC is the right thing to attempt (best for mine and the baby’s health, especially if the consultant has said it is safe) but I’m already dreading it (but in a bury-my-head-in-the-sand kind of way) even though it’s 25+ weeks away.
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Finally, FINALLY, the sickness has stopped. The nausea remains, sometimes as bad as ever, but my appetite has partly returned so I am at last eating something other than chocolate cake and this baby stands a chance of getting some basic nutrition. And I no longer fear throwing up in worrying places, like the grocery store, or at preschool, and that helps. Not to mention the fact that the people who work in these places no longer need to look at me with that wary look like I’m a shoplifter.
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So you’d have thought that I would be feeling pretty good, right? But I feel really low. Lots of stuff going on, Matthew may be away a lot more over the coming months, we may be moving (hassle), we may not be moving (just as much hassle because we need to), homeschool is not working, I’m tired and Harry is going through a phase - of being frightened at night, frightened of being left in the car when I pop back inside to get my bag even though he can still see and hear me, crying several times a day and annoying the hell out of his brothers. I need a break from him and as usual I can’t help but feel that school might be the answer, especially as things get set to get more busy and tiring around here in the next few months.
I find it hard to judge if I need help for these low periods. I’m just coming to the end of ten terrible weeks and I’m feeling physically very low. Is that, combined with a few weeks of poor sleep and my eldest son going through this ‘tricky’ phase enough reason to be feeling so low? If I’m sitting on the floor dissolving into tears because I’ve had enough, that makes me think I should be doing something to deal with it.
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Posted in Parenting, Daily Life
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