On the Homefront

In few days our happy little family will embark on a great adventure. We are going to South Africa, husband's homeland.
We met when I lived out of a suitcase, to travel was the most natural thing. As we settled, there was less and less traveling. I used to go 'home' - the place I paid rent in to rest, do laundry, sort my bills and haircut, to relax. And now, suddenly, there was Home. And I would view travel as a means for a holiday - a whole new concept, to travel to rest and think and have some quality time.
So my life turned upside down but in the process it became normal, average so to say. Which proves that I wasn't normal in the first place and that may explain why some very ordinary things still make me nervous. I am someone who was raised by wolves (or raised by myself).

The thing is, now I am not excited at all. Traveling changed a lot, I am very glad I had my time on the road and in the air in the good old times. Before the paranoia, the 100 ml limit on toiletries, the striptease before boarding and extra one if you have a connecting flight. Airports lost their magic, their sense of adventure, even a little sense of exclusivity. Flights became less interesting as the standards dropped with the price war between tradition and no frill.

Plus there is a child. To travel with a child is different. Our child did have to short flights within Europe and did great but a long flight is a whole new level. But the most annoying part is to get into the plain. A cup with water and a pot of yoghurt take about twenty minutes to properly investigate. Not to mention the folding and unfolding of a pram with one hand in about ten seconds while the annoyed member of staff stares and people behind you tut. For child, all of it is a game and pram in the x ray, mummy being probed and daddy taking of his highly suspicious shoes is an invitation to a great run against the long curvy queue. Lets face it. Travel is annoying. Terrorists and budget airlines ruined it for all of us.

I am seriously considering only traveling by car to Europe in the future. I believe that it may actually be faster considering the endless waiting, delays and, my personal favorite, endless queue for passport control when you reach the sweet Great Britain again (without a pram as a bonus). But with Africa there is no choice, we will have to discover what happens when two people and a 22 months old decide to go and visit the friends and grandpa.
Wish me luck....

Is it just me, or...?

...Did anybody else notice how the days suddenly got longer? With the arrival of February there is new lease of light. The afternoon is definitely longer, the morning brighter. It is bitterly cold and the heating is still running non stop but it is OK, it is supposed to be like this during winter and I prefer anything to the constant wind and rain - the soundtrack to living in Manchester.

But yup, the light is coming back to us! One day next month there will be spring!

What a long and sad winter it was. And this morning, sitting around with our teas and breakfast while having the news on, the scary main story was hammered into our hearts: one in two of us will develop cancer. What a way to start a morning. Husband and I usually comment on morning news and developments, it is one of the reasons why we abandon our dining table in the mornings. We slouch on the sofa instead for a while, before we go on with our jobs. But this morning we said nothing. We just sat there. Because it was the two of us on the sofa. Does it mean one of us will be the unlucky one? Or will our household be spared but both of our lovely neighbors will go? Statistics are cold and there are too many of them. They are meant to be helpful, but are they, really?

Few weeks ago they said in the news that scientists found out most cancers are just a bad luck. A mistake that happens to our cells while they are busy renewing themselves (so to say, very unscientifically). Dah! Of course it is, thanks. Didn't we all know it already? We are not preventing illness with our healthy living, we are trying to prevent the bad luck, the mistake. We can not prevent bad things from happening, but we must try.

However, since I started exercising to loose weight, I find it much harder to motivate myself. When I tried to diet, I was craving all the bad stuff. I would eat healthily before just because, but suddenly all I wanted were biscuits and endless cups of tea (they did keep me going while I breastfed and didn't sleep so I gained weight as the breastfeeding went down). I used to exercise a lot before I had my child, now it is so hard to find the time and it is not the same when I feel I have to do it.
 I am tired of scare mongering  statistics, nurses who never knew me sitting in front of computer ticking boxes while questioning my lifestyle, saying 'is that all?' after listening to list of activities and choices. I am also a piece of statistic. I don't know which way I will go but I don't want to feel bad for having a slice of cake or few glasses of wine with a nice dinner and friends. Do I want to live for hundred of years afraid I will endanger myself or do I want to enjoy myself and live responsibly for 80? As long as I can take care of myself I don't care how long I live. I do try to be healthy but I am a human being. Could I just go on about my life without being constantly scared by newest discoveries?

A letter came for me this week, a questionnaire for mothers of children under two. It is supposed to be a research on 21st century motherhood. And they mean to find out how to make our lives easier in the future. Beside ticking some boxes and telling them how old me and my child are they are asking me: what is most challenging about being a mother in 21st century? I don't even have time to think about it. Plus, how does it really compare to motherhood in any other century, as I have only experienced being a mother in this one. And do I want to help to create another 'helpful' statistic? Not really. Letter goes to bin and I go on with my mothering and home making.

I will cook a wholesome dinner which will quite likely contain more than our 5 a day. I will have a cake made with xylitol and coconut oil. I will drink few cups of tea during my day. I will have a long walk in the crisp cold day because the sky is blue and I want to be outside. I will exercise if I like it and I will try to sleep as much as I can. And I will not ask if I am doing enough.
My father was the mistake of cells, his life style couldn't contribute to the fast and deadly cancer that took him from us last November. Cancer was always scary but now it is personal. Yet, like with the thread of terrorism,  I refuse to let it rule my life. So statistics can go. I am too busy living today.

I am back

It has been a while since my last post, not because I was too busy publishing a book... My dad passed away 2 months ago to the day which meant lots of things to do, to think about and not much mood for writing. The time when there are so many feelings to process, so many memories to sort out in my head, the very action of writing seems so....inadequate?.....wrong? Like writing down what I feel and why, what I think and what I do would be somehow wrong. Mourning is a very private thing, best done alone. I don't know how long it is appropriate to keep mourning. I think part of me will mourn my dad forever.

There was also too much to do. All of a sudden Christmas preparations went aside and there was a trip to organize, a family get together we didn't plan. Than there was a quick run to Christmas. Few days before them baby got fevers. After Christmas, while enjoying the calm time, I got down with tonsillitis. So I opened the year with antibiotics and fevers. Hey Ho....

A month after he passed was a very emotional day. In the very day I witnessed a struggle of an ambulance crew to resuscitate a lady on the street (if I left home few minutes earlier I could have been the one who found her and called them). I passed by quickly knowing she is getting the best care possible and didn't want my child to see it, but suddenly, on the side of a busy road, I was fighting tears, wishing for her to be well, thinking that she probably is someone's mum. I felt helpless and so sad.
And then, couple of minutes later few blocks down the same road, I saw our midwife going into somebody's home holding a familiar bag with scales in her hand. I didn't see her since she discharged us when baby was six weeks but I do remember her very well because she was so great. Seeing her on that day at that very moment made me feel so much better. Just knowing that not only do people carry on dying all around the world but that they are also being born, that there is lot of happiness and nobody down the road knows about the tragedy up the road, it made me smile again. Tears and smile mixed up, I didn't care anymore and walked.
If it was a dream it would be a very poignant one. But it did happen. And the day was so strange because of it.

To be remained by my mum that it is 2 months today shows how much my mind shifted. I am living in the new reality now. I do think about dad, just not counting the days without him anymore. Mum still is.

So I am glad I could close a sad year and open a new one. I hope to get pregnant this year and we hope to find a home of our own, too. Fingers crossed it will all work out!

Are naps over?

I was told that newborns sleep 20 hours a day. At the late stages of my pregnancy, unable to sleep comfortably, constantly getting kicked from the inside, anxious when the labour will finally start, I was really looking forward to this. I knew it will be hard. But I was so looking forward napping alongside my newborn! No matter that it will only be for 30 minutes, an hour, maybe 2, it will still be a nap.
Ha. My child NEVER slept unless hanging on my boob, lying in our arms or snuggling in the middle or our chest on top of our heart, bless.... There was no putting it down after a feed and nodding off - not for me at least. Exceptions to that sleeping arrangements were: in a car seat in a moving car and occasionally in the pram.
It didn't get better for a long time. There was no 'me' time  and I could only nap when my husband took mercy of me and went for a walk or a drive with the child, or, when I was trembling and crying, spent 4 hours late in the evening downstairs watching tv with the baby comfortably in its favorite sleeping position... These rare moments of being left alone in bed were no naps, it was more like a coma. Gradually, the night sleep got slightly better. Then we started teething and our child decided it will not sleep in the cot any longer. Ever. I can not remember how many middays I spent two hours reclining on a sofa with my child sleeping on top of me, watching stupid day time tv, congratulating myself for the peace and quiet. Because the alternative of me putting my child away would be a grumpy tired needy awake child.

Sometimes this year I managed to slid my child on the bed after a midday feed. We had proper real naps! I had time for myself. It was so great. The new ritual of us going into the bedroom, getting a feed, child falling a sleep for something between 40 and 90 minutes was so great. I remember the sense of freedom, the pleasure combined with a pressure of what to do first? Exercise, read, have a cup of tea, do the laundry, clean, sort emails, write.... Sometimes I was very efficient. Some days I day dreamed. Some days were all about house work which left me grumpy. Some, very few days, I slept, too!

Am I saying goodbye to this? During the last 3 weeks I am keeping up the routine but my child falls a sleep only 2 or 3 times in a week. I am feeling very exhausted because somehow I don't know how to cope with my new day structure. Again, I am the last one to get any needs met so there is not much exercise, writing, reading or generally talking to people who have nothing to do with me being a mother, I believe they are called friends? Every milestone takes some getting used to but I will forever miss these precious few hours of the day when I could stretch and do whatever. Is 18 months too early for no naps? I don't have time or energy to consult clever books. The usual message is 'every child is different' anyway and our child seems very very happy. Maybe we will have free evenings thanks to earlier bedtime from now on? Fingers crossed.

Behind

Sometimes I feel an undeserved satisfaction. I assume that I am in control of my life. I have a good day, child cooperates with me, sleeps reasonably and I manage most (never all) of my tasks. I might even have a moment to myself. I start to plan. I dare to dream about all the things I could do, all the projects, and I hope I will catch up with all missed things, important and unimportant.

Because the reality is I am behind with everything. I can not manage to do everything I want to or even need to do. When I was pregnant I expected my life to stop for a while. I knew that the newborn baby will take over and I will have to accommodate my child. It was natural and right. I also expected that it will get better. I assumed I will get in control of things, I will learn how to do mothering and have my life.

What I didn't realize was that a child is an ongoing project. That once the 20 hours days are over it doesn't mean that it gets any less demanding. It just gets different. And always when mothering seems to get simpler and I sense a pattern of a routine and start to plan some other activities than playing, feeding, washing, tidying,  something happens, a new milestone comes and I am back at square one. And no matter how many times that happened during last 18 months, I am still so naive that I hope there will be a routine, an undisturbed sleep, a time for myself.

Couple of weeks ago I thought I will be able to do nanowrimo this year. I assumed I will be able to commit to the daily writing. Yet I can not even blog once a week or compose a daily tweet. There was a glimpse of times getting better and then it changed again.

My child is developing so fast at 18 months and keeping me so busy and so awake that I actually think about the first very exhausting weeks with nostalgia. Because there are so many more needs now. But at the same time I am rewarded with a healthy strong and very happy little person. If she only kept on napping every day! The child assumes naps are for smaller people and fights it off few days each week. It is becoming very regular. And my precious me time (or cleaning time, whichever is more pressing) is disappearing. Plus I am facing a full day with an increasingly tired and clingy toddler. Yes, child might go to sleep early, but I can not function after 7 pm. I am left as a zombie in front of i player and decide to count it as a quality time before I fall into a coma. Until child decides to demand some more space on my pillow.

But there are signs of me getting used to the life style. Instead of trying to change it, I am embracing it. After six weeks of rigorous exercise and experiments with 5:2 diet I found myself weighing exactly the same as at the start of my experiment but leaner looking and stronger. I must say the number on my scales was disappointing, no matter how much better I felt.
I didn't step up my challenge. There were some sleepless nights with our child, some bad family news, few trips and visits, I started to go to child groups which changed my morning exercise routines.... So I slipped again.
But on the other hand last month was the first month I felt my is husband completely on board with our trying for a new child. We argued less, made time for each other (actually sneaking away from our own bedroom once our child fell a sleep in our bed, very funny), something shifted and although we weren't successful this month, I am feeling very confident that we will be. We are nicer to each other and it is actually so important and good.

With all the demands, lack of sleep, lots of things to accept and take care of, I gave myself much easier challenge. For a month I tried to pay more attention to the way I present myself. I picked a colour each day and did my makeup, took care of my hair, tried to wear some child proof accessories. Some mums are always made up. I wasn't one of them. But I must say that it felt good going out of the house with nice make up and some little touch to my outfit. Specially with meeting new people through baby groups, I felt much more confident. And taking extra time in front of the mirror each morning wasn't as impossible as I thought. After my little challenge passed I slipped again, but I hope I will keep it up - just not for home days. Although, was that the secret to the new spark in our relationship? Will report later.

So, maybe, in a very small way, I am making progress and maybe, just as putting on make up and brushing my hair each day, I will elbow in some more time for simple things like reading or writing or meeting friends. Maybe I will even sleep undisturbed one day.... Can not wait.....




 

Raining babies

It really is raining babies, isn't it? Well not in our household. As usually I am feeling left out.

So there is another royal baby on the way. Of course it is, why wouldn't it be? I thought the agreement was that we go first!!!! When I was watching the wedding on TV couple of years ago, we were already trying for a baby. Everyone kept having second babies, or first babies, we had nothing. I remember joking with my husband: who will be first - Will and Kate or us? Will they beat us to  it, too?
They didn't, we got pregnant few month earlier. And now they clearly broke their agreement.

The same day husband comes home with the news that one of our friends is expecting. She is married for few years but only during this year did she discover that her husband doesn't actually want to have kids! I suppose they never had the chat. Or he did make himself clear, but she, being a woman, assumed that she will change him. I don't know. There were talks of therapy, keeping things as they are and staying bitter, or going the separate ways. I expected it to be a long process. But no, they are pregnant and apparently he is over the roof, happy and excited, changed man. No idea how they did it but good for them.

Our neighbors had their second baby two weeks ago, we met the little boy for the first time couple of days ago and I could finally see husband getting excited about tiny little baby. Hopefully he is broody.

We are busy - I am taking care of our child who is seventeen months old today and the house, he is back with work plus searching for a new job as he needs a change and a move in his career. Summer with all visits, trips and get togethers was a little bit hectic. Plus my husband was fighting off airport flu (apparently plain flu isn't enough, just going to the airport means being attacked by air conditioned blow which is full of bugs!), cold from our child (we both had it so he couldn't cherish it too much and it only lasted three days), and last couple of days he is coughing again. Apparently it is chest cold, whatever it means. I can not understand how anybody can have a form of cold through most of the summer, but there we go. The point is we are not having sex. He is tired. He isn't well. He has to prepare for work. I am pressuring him too much!!!

I am trying my best but in last two days I ate more than in last two weeks. No 5:2 diet this week! I think my frustrations are taking over me. I simply feel hungry all the time. I don't sleep well because our child is taking too much space in our bed and bad sleep brings cravings. I am keeping up with my exercises but keep forgetting simple things like tracking good days in my cycle and temperatures. I bought special womb tea and ovulation tests but forgot to make the tea every day so far and didn't remember to use the tests when I was supposed to. I am so overwhelmed with it all. Trying for our first child was hard, but to  keep up with it the second time around is almost impossible. No matter how demanding motherhood is I am sure the most difficult part is getting pregnant. Pregnancy, labour, baby care - all doable. And I want it all again.

So I sat down with husband and we set our priorities straight. We do want another child and we can work together as a team. Yes, it is raining babies again but we have been through it already and now we at least know that we can do it, miracles do happen. There will be sparkles soon.... In the next cycle......

Resolutions

I kicked off my healthier life style last week with a bang. Exercise three times a week, 5:2 diet on top of that. My week days suddenly had a whole new rhythm. I didn't realized how preoccupied I can get with food. On normal days there is too much of it, on 500 kal days there is the constant thinking of what can I have, when, if I can squeeze a cup of tea in and what would I fancy to eat if I could.
It is doable though. And it feels good. Aching muscles feel good. I forgot how great it feels. To have a hungry day and go to sleep knowing that I did it is great.
Sweets are my weakness. I have to work my way through the rest of the stuff I still have in the house (I don't throw away food - specially not my favorite biscuit!) and make sure I don't bring home anymore.

So only one week in and I feel better. Until before yesterday. Dear child got a cold, symptoms started on Monday, by Wednesday afternoon husband and I started to feel funny, too. It is the first time of family sniffles, usually it goes from one member to the next one and husband tends to deal with it for about two months while the child is better in a week and I am allowed about of two days of official misery. So we all walk around with runny noses, snore together during the night, cough and  sneeze non stop and clear away tons of tissues. And I have got no energy left to exercise. And to plan special meals (or no meals) feels like too much effort.

I will have to take couple of days to recover and start afresh. Because I like it. Husband needs to feel ashamed by my crazy fitness and get motivated, he could do with some proper life style kick, but so far he just observes me and assumes it will past. Well, I am not him. I stick to things!

I am also writing a page a day and summarize an idea for nanowrimo in my head. It is interesting, once I have got one thing in my life moving, the other issues start to shift, too. It seems that the summer is over, our long weekend will not be spent camping, I can catch up on all my to do lists, kick away my sniffles and get going! There is no stopping me.