Embracing the messy, mundane & momentous
Her security; her comfort…
Something amazing happened today. My two-year-old daughter fell asleep in my arms.
To many, this may not seem all that extraordinary. But my daughter has not fallen asleep with me since she was about 8 weeks old. In the early days she rarely slept at all, and when she became a better sleeper, she opted for the cot or pram over my arms. I used to envy (and still do) the mother’s whose babies so effortlessly fell asleep in their arms.
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Beautiful Coastal Natives
Life as a stay-at-home mother of three pre-schoolers is tough. It is also very busy. My three children are heavily dependant on me and they shadow me all day long. Life is spent primarily at the home and it’s a fairly domestic existence. Ground Hog Day is a common syndrome in an endless cycle of feeding, washing, nappy changing and sleeping. And, as every mum knows, there is no such thing as ‘free time’.
These days I do everything fast. I eat fast. Drink fast. Talk fast. Email fast. Walk fast. Shower fast. There is nothing leisurely about my day at all. It can be hard to enjoy your kids amidst the noise and business of daily life. At the moment I am focusing on meeting their primary needs and there’s not a lot of time leftover for anything else. A friend of mine recently asked me how I make space for ‘slow mothering’ as opposed to ‘fast mothering’.
I have just enjoyed four tranquil days of slow mothering.
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A hangover is a pain worse than labour
I am going to dispel a myth. The pain does not end when labour does.
Recently I was bedridden with acute bronchitis. It was agonising and I was incapacitated for days. As I lay in bed, wondering when the pain would end, I thought back to a defining moment in hospital after my first baby was born.
I remember, 24 hours postpartum, weeping in excruciating pain whilst feeding my baby. It felt like I was experiencing labour all over again. “Oh they’re just the afterpains,” the midwife said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Your uterus is contracting again, just like during labour. It shouldn’t last more than a few days”. And then she was gone. I felt like I’d been had. As if 30 plus hours of uterine contractions wasn’t bad enough, I now had to endure more of them. Everyone had told me that as soon as labour ends, so too does the pain. They had lied.
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This has to be the most loathed question to the stay-at-home mum. And it is what I got asked last night. It was the question I had been dreading from the moment I started talking to the Gen Y’er . “So, what do you do?”.
I am not exactly sure why I hate this question so much. But I feel uncomfortable answering it, particularly if the person who has asked me doesn’t have children. Perhaps it’s because I don’t feel like what “I do” is interesting or likely to incite further discussion.
Last night I was at a party and decided to meet some new people, instead of only talking to my friends, all of whom have young children and it’s hard to avoid the talk of kids. I was frocked up, the champagne was flowing and I was in the mood to party. I was enjoying my conversation with a girl I had just met about her work in the film and television industry. Pretty exciting stuff. So when she turned to me and said “so what do you do” I found myself stammering and awkward.
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Sleep deprivation is just the beginning….
A chorus of complaint generally follows the announcement of a pregnancy, shortly after “Congratulations”. Before I had children I repeatedly heard parents lament their former lives. “Your life will never be the same again,” and “I don’t do anything for myself anymore,” were common refrains. I had also read articles proposing that childless people were happiest, and that the joys of parenthood were fleeting at best. Surely, this couldn’t be true I thought as I fantasised at what motherhood would look like for me – leisurely strolls with my baby, baking cakes with my toddlers, baby chinos at the cafe and catching up with girlfriends over lunch. Fast-forward three years and life is far from this fantasy……