Pearls of Wisdom

Christmas over, new year running smoothly, I even won £2.80 in euro millions lottery (would love bit more zeros there but hey, at least I know that it works). I can look at my little family with satisfaction. We made it! We had our very first Christmas and it was great.

To make good Christmas means: buying gifts early enough not to be pressed to buy stupid things and to avoid crowded shops, plan food, drinks, shopping and stick to the plan. Plan meetings and visits. Spend week before Christmas with cleaning, baking, cooking, decorating, preparing. It is hard work. I love to do it. It makes me feel good when I see the house ready, all is done, Christmas is here and I can finally relax. I don't mind the hard work, the excitement of Christmas and the completely lazy days afterwards are very much worth it.

I learned to plan and stick to my plan and husband usually tries to change it, do something later, add something on... This year, on Saturday 22nd, just 2 days before Christmas Eve, when I was about to make my special sweets and truffles in between feeds and nappy changes and baby entertainment, he contemplated visiting the Christmas market for one last day so we can catch up with friends. When I listed all the work ahead he just shared this pearl of wisdom with me: 'It will work out just fine at the end. It always does. They (he named 2 friends' families who knew very well how long the market was on) didn't have chance to go yet and it would be nice to catch up and enjoy.'
'Of course it always does work out at the end, of course that Christmas always happens. And you know why? Because I bloody work my ass off every year!!!!!'

Well, we didn't go to the market at the end and Christmas happened. Husband bought the tree and put it into the stand I ordered in advance knowing he now loves bigger trees which don't look like big plants and give you the illusion you could live in your garden happily ever after once Christmas is over. Otherwise, I can proudly announce he still assumes elves do more than helping Santa, he was just amused by all the festivities and since I managed so well, why do more, right? I am looking forward the post festive clean up while he is back at work and getting ready for conference in Mexico, the poor thing. And before you sat something, I did ask for help. But he was so very busy and on the last weekend he had to do his Christmas shopping because the overcrowded shops are part of the magic - better to face hundreds annoying shoppers than one demanding wife!

8 months

In my head, I expected to be a very organized mother by 8 months. I thought baby will not have many ways of surprising me. I was wrong.
Apparently, even 8 months old have troubles. If they are not teething (have 6 good teeth, lets take a break), they may suffer from separation anxiety or have a disturbed sleep due to their fast development. I don't know which one it is in our case but we are not sleeping. Again. Up at 1, 3, 5 am and feeds are very much expected.
We are co-sleeping. It is the only way to get baby to sleep. It started sometimes in September, during the teething times. Suddenly, my child developed a radar which made it aware of its body approaching the cot while fast asleep in our arms. Baby screamed murder. The only way to get it to sleep at night (and I mean at night 10 - 11 pm, we don't do early bedtimes in our house) was to breastfeed or hold half sleeping child after the hopefully last feed. So I wasn't very keen on yet another feed and negotiation over lying in cot. I slipped baby next to me in our bed. And baby slept. It was supposed to be temporary. But nobody has the energy to persist with the cot, it is still a big enemy of our darling child.
We pretty much don't do naps unless on top of me or in a pram - maybe. When I have no chance to go out due to mountain of house work or bad weather, there is no chance. During the day even our bed is making sleeping child to wake up and get hysterical.
Baby is very mobile, practices all fours, but who needs crawling when it is possible to roll all over the place and grab everything and anything that is not suitable for children. I am so busy....
I had to swallow my pride and ask a health visitor to give me some advice. Dinner, bath and story don't work. Baby is manic till 11, expects company and entertainment, there is no calming down. I am still seriously lacking me time and relationship with husband is taking its toll. We are tired, don't manage to do all we want to and need to do and tiredness makes us argue. In one way, we are great team, in the other way, we hate each others' guts.
So after being mother for 8 months, I am not sure I know what I am doing. But I manage to do much more than I could some 6 or 7 months ago, I am physically back where I was before pregnancy and I have a baby that is healthy, strong, beautiful and developing nicely. So all is not bad in the house of terror.
I am thinking a lot about my past, my life that was and I think I should go back and reflect, to stretch my creativity a little. Lets hope I will be able to do this in the following weeks. Also, I should make more effort to keep in touch with other mums, talk to people and tweet some amazing words.
This month, my challenge is much simpler. I decided to look after myself more. I style my hair and try to do a little bit of make up, take more care about my appearance. In my head, I would do something different every day and take a selfie. Reality: I do what I can, as usually, I don't do much when I don't really sleep and tracksuit is still the outfit of choice. But my beauty regime is much better and my skin is thankful.
Anyway, enough for today, somebody is getting impatient while busy trying to soil the carpet. Where are the times baby would lie on the changing mat giving me a break?

50 000 words later

My inbox is filled with pep talks, yet it took me almost two weeks to realize that nanowrimo started again. I did think about it every now and then but I was quite sure I will not make this year. Then I didn't even manage to remember it.
I have very fond memories of last year. Pregnant, starting to get uncomfortable if sitting for longer period of time, I wrote my 50000 words in one month. It was great. I think lots of women experience sudden spur of creativity and desire to organize stuff during their pregnancy, I had a strong urge to get on with my writing. It was a good idea. After nano I took a break in December and then, shortly before my due date, I finished a draft of my novel.
In my head, I expected to be busy once I had the baby. I thought I will need to recover after birth, get over the first weeks, slowly set some sort of routine and finally return to writing. Yes, nice thoughts indeed.
Baby is seven months old. There is no routine. When a hope for one started to appear during summer teething started and is more or less constantly present in our lives. We have times of peace when I am gathering strength and times of teething when baby is very unpredictable, needy, sleepless.....
So I am coping with running the house expect for cooking - evenings are too busy for mummy still breastfeeding. But I did bake couple of nice cakes! I do have an occasional exercise, manage to maintain simple beauty routine, but my book is still lying on the bottom of the drawer. I do hope to fit some reasonable time for writing into my routine soon, but so far even to post a blog is a challenge.
How do all the women who publish or start a business while on maternity leave do it? How do the perfectly put together mums on the street find the time? Not everybody is coping alone, some have their mothers and sisters and friends near by and it makes a big difference.
Besides writing, I am also realizing that it is a year since I joined twitter and facebook in order to keep up with nano and what was going on generally. I am as hopeless at this simplified version of communication as I am with real friendships. Again: where do all the mums find time to hang on all the networks and chat? Every couple of days (or weeks), I try to catch up with what is going on, save some interesting articles to read 'later' and very very occasionally I manage to post an update or tweet. I can not be bothered to be constantly on smart phone taping away and lots of ideas for clever funny remarks are missed, but at least I still see the world around me and don't ignore it as majority of people out there hung over their precious gadgets.
Not only do I have a pile of books to read, I also have a pile of magazines and interesting Sunday papers columns by the bed. Baby feeds for shorter periods of time which means no more long reads in the small hours. Thank goodness for i player, I can not watch TV in real time, I need to pause and do what is needed when it is needed.
In one way, I find it quite refreshing not to be up to date with what is going on in the world. Most of the things don't really matter in the day to day existence. I am locked up in a parenting bubble and see the world through the eyes of a baby who is trying to make sense of all the new things around. I find mothering rewarding and interesting. Now, at seven months, the progress is really fast, baby learns something new every day, I wouldn't want to miss it. I am as much needed as in the first weeks if not more.
Yet I would love to be able to get some me time and write again. An hour a day, nothing more. Husband goes to work and it is work, I know, and sometimes when he is leaving and I am there with a laughing baby, he seems quite jealous. Of course, he doesn't see the endless washing loads, the negotiations around house chores, and the endless feeding and nappy changing, but he doesn't understand that he does get his time out, away from it all. Even when he entertains baby in the evening he tends to come over to me and engage me, or leave the baby with me too soon because he has got some emails/calls/whatever else to do. He wants us to socialize more, I really need some ME time. He thinks I have got me time all the time.... We argue when we don't get enough sleep and rest, the arguments are over stupidest little things and don't last.
Sometimes I catch a glimpse of other mums together in coffee shops, or partners with pram and at the very moment I see them they seem so sorted and happy. I must remind myself that many people who see me with my baby assume the same, that nothing is at it seems, everybody has good and bad days, good and bad moments. Altogether my life is good. I just really need to sort out some writing time....

Already???

I love  Christmas. It is a very special time of a year, time to be with the loved ones, connect with those who are important to us, time to slow down and enjoy the end of the year and the beginning of the new one. Part of Christmas is decorating the home, preparing nice food, giving and receiving presents. During the weeks leading to Christmas I get the feeling that the stuff and endless spending are the most important part of the holidays and it annoys me. Comes boxing day and sales craziness (I've never been to the shops on that day, just watching it on news gives me reason not to leave the sofa), it seems the holiday is only an excuse for yet more consumption.
It usually starts right after Halloween, the shops clear the scary things and the treats and in comes the Christmas theme. With each week the pressure builds.
I thought I was used to it. It's part of the deal, retailers need to make money. But this year I feel annoyed. Only at the end of September did I walk right into a display of advent calendars placed very conveniently right against the entrance to Morrisons. As if to 'gently' remind us that before we even started autumn we should begin our count down to the spending time...
Week after that Tesco displayed first few shelves of cards and wrapping papers probably for the part of population who can not wait to wrap the presents and write some cards.
Now every year people say that Christmas produce and offers come sooner and sooner and I always thought I know how it works - January is about sales, then we have Valentine, Easter, summer stuff, Mothers' and Fathers' days thrown in between, summer sale, back to school, Halloween, Christmas... But this year is a little different and it threw me out of balance.
Why all the pressure? Retailers must know that people will spend money on Christmas, they do every year. No matter how tough the times are, people either budget or simply go crazy with their credit cards. So why can they not let us breathe and look forward to the special time of the year?
This will be our first Christmas with baby and I am looking forward to it. Baby will not be aware of anything, we have got a chance to have really great time, be together without compering what we bought . We will be lazy or have some nice long walks - depending on weather and mood. No matter what the advertisers throw at me, no matter how early in the year they start, I will not get crazy and start redecorating the house, buying bigger and better telly and zillions of useless gifts. Our food will be home cooked and our sweets will be home baked, because this is part of the celebrations. Preparations for Christmas are as great as Christmas itself, if not more. Our decorations will stay the same because they carry memories. Maybe I am not making my bit for the recovering economy but I refuse to give in to the dictate of spend spend spend and I hope I will bring up a child who doesn't measure its success with things or money. I still remember how I loved Christmas as a child and I will do my best to make this time of the year special for my child and family, but the secret is that I do not need more stuff in order to have great holidays.

Week 24

Baby is 24 weeks old, we are approaching half year of our existence together and this relationship is definitely not fading. I am one big proud mother.

Speaking of mothering, I am still recovering from a visit of my mother. We didn't spend so much time together since I left home many many years ago, I time my visit at parents' place carefully, a weekend is more than enough. Mother came for a week because of baby - she never visited me in any places I lived no matter how far or close I went. We are not close, we didn't have a great relationship to start with. She brought me up but she never understood me, never tried. I never realized what she wanted from me, I just knew I wasn't the way she thought I should be.

I only started to feel as a valuable daughter once I settled with husband. That is what she always wanted: me settled with a good man. She lives a very isolated life, married for a long time, my father and her grew very dependent on one another over the years, but I wonder if they are together because they really want to. I was always proud of my independence and my achievements, she couldn't understand it. So I settled, she could understand me better, she was happy. Then I was finally married - good. Then there was my first pregnancy - even better. I miscarried and paradoxically the person I wanted to call first was my mother even though she never helped me in any of my crisis before. But after the loss of a baby she understood, it is women thing,  the time we need one another. I couldn't get pregnant for a long time and the feeling of connection and approval faded again. She couldn't understand that I wanted a child but didn't insist on having one, in my opinion life was still worth living even without being a mother, she thought I should have go for medical assistance few months after the miscarriage. I don't know if it is a generation thing or if women in general tend to blame themselves but all the time she assumed my miscarriage happened because of something I have done and I wasn't getting pregnant because something was wrong with me.

Once she found out about my second pregnancy she was happy as never before and so proud. And now she is the happiest grandmother, so happy that she even made her first big trip overseas by a plane. That is the power of my baby.

So there she was suddenly in my home very out of her element. She is used to rule her little world, dad pretty much complies with the rules she creates (he wasn't allowed to come with her as her kingdom must be well looked after and a week is too long to leave it unattended) and suddenly she is here, I am the lady of the house and I don't rule, I exist. I leave husband to do his own thing, I don't plan meals in advance, I don't do things the way she does. We do trips and I breastfeed in public which shocks her, we are showing her England and the culture and she keeps explaining to me how she does things and clearly can not understand that it will not change my (or whole of England) ways. She expected me to still feel weak from childbirth (she had kids in her twenties, everyone did back then so I am a geriatric mother in her eyes, no matter how healthy and strong I obviously am), spending time at home, so our itinerary shocks her but she becomes a very keen tourist and observer. She makes me so proud!

There is a woman who, long ago, chose to be unhappy. She seems to look for the negatives on everything. I was constantly told how I should arrange the house and the garden, how the food could  be cooked differently, how I should feed, bath and care for baby, my wardrobe was one big disapproval, too. She didn't want to see that the way we are and do things suit our family, that the way we deal with baby clearly works for us all. Maybe she suffered from the 'passing on knowledge symptom' but we never did that so why to start now?

She kept talking about her many many illnesses and issues, health problems are big part of her life. She collects illnesses like people collect stamps, she even seems disappointed when she doesn't have something that other people she knows have. She assumed I know most or all of her diagnoses since she mentioned them in the past but I lost count long ago. So I fed her all the things that were supposed to potentially kill her and yet nothing have happened. She clearly can digest garlic, dairy, strawberries and nuts and she clearly survives without exact meal times, checking of blood pressure three times a day and all kinds of herbal teas. But she did bring half of pharmacy with her, even the special pills case with compartments for each day of the week. She held to it like people hold to good luck charms. Long car drives didn't make her uncomfortable and she doesn't suffer from insomnia because I could hear her snoring every night. Observing my mother, a stranger in a way, made me think that happiness is our own choice. No matter how hard life is we make the choice how we deal with what comes our way. I deal with troubles when they approach me. She looks for them and sometimes goes out of her way to find them. Why is she like this I will never know.

So husband and I listened to her lists of possible improvements which will never happen and we heard how she does things or how she did things when I was a baby. We tried our best to accommodate her, to make her first big trip special and at the end we took her to the airport, and she was visibly twitching to be back in her own little world, to rule again. We were looking forward being our own little unit again with all the chaos that suits us. She saw her first grandchild and it made her very happy. Me and her didn't get any closer, didn't gain any understanding of one another which was to be expected and I am fine with it. I don't know if she is because we don't discuss feelings in our family - she knows exactly how we feel and explains it to us - one of the reason I left our family home early and traveled far...
Oh dear, I hope that the saying about women becoming replicas of their mothers is not true..... On the other hand, if I had a great mum who was my best friend, I would probably not be so keen to go, see the world, be adventurous, live life to the full, be independent. I might have wanted to stay close to her and everything would be different. So whether she wanted or not she made me who I am and there is a good chance that she is secretly proud of it.

Nappy here, nappy there, nappy everywhere

My life evolves around nappies. Do they need change/wash/ collect/ fold/ put on/ take off... Nappies. I like my terry nappies. I mainly use basic terry nappies, sometimes a muslin square or a bamboo nappy. We learned how to fold them so they sit comfortably, I wash them every 2 - 3 days, they dry easily, especially since we got our outdoor drier (the best thing we ever bought, seriously), they are perfect. My friends believe they are high maintenance but they are not. There is lots of laundry to do when we have a baby anyway, so the extra load every couple of days is nothing special. Some people asked me if baby suffers from nappy rash and I can say that so far we had no problems at all. Not even in the hot weather that we had this year. Years ago, when paper nappies were not a mainstream thing, when babies had nappy rash mothers were advised to use fabric nappies for a while. Nowadays thanks to powerful marketing it is the opposite: old fashion nappies are believed to cause it. Well, they don't, they are great and I feel good about consuming less, saving the environment and saving money. Having a baby is quite expensive anyway, however easy I am trying to make it.
And when explosive nappy emergency comes, no nappy will prevent it. Poo will get everywhere...

I had three so called s**t emergencies last week:
No1 - Baby was lying on its bouncy chair while I took a load of washed nappies out to dry. Baby was quiet and I thought proudly how my dear baby is growing. Only last week my escape to the garden to put the washing to dry was met with screams from the house. I finished outside, came in and saw a very happy baby on the chair. A suspiciously happy baby if you ask me. Baby lifted its leg and then I saw it: mustardy poo was overflowing from the nappy onto the nappy pants, dress, leg and even the chair. Baby looked very proud indeed. So I untangled it from the chair and holding it away from me hoping nothing more will spill I quickly moved upstairs and started the cleaning process. All that baby was wearing plus the towel it was lying on plus the chair cover needed to go for a wash (didn't I just finish a load? How am I supposed to be eco-friendly and wash only when I have got a full load?  Well it was a full one, full of s**t I mean....). When I returned upstairs I found my child lying naked on the plastic changing mat swimming in wee. I didn't expect that. Where is all the waste coming from? So I quickly fetched a clean towel, wiped the still very happy baby and prepared a bath.

No 2 - Baby lies on the changing mat, this time on a towel. I take its clothes off to wash and change it for the day. I go to the closet to pick up an outfit, muse about how beautiful day we have and before I can pick anything I hear a familiar farting sound. I turn around to see my baby pooing happily on the edge of the mat. If it moved a centimeter it would shoot onto the carpet - lucky me. I quickly run to the baby so I prevent it from swimming in its poo or putting its hand in it - very lucky and I saved one nappy! So here we go, lets run a bath..

No 3 - What is better on a beautiful bank holiday weekend than a picnic? We are enjoying a possibly last summer picnic with our friends, sitting on a blanket near a river, sunbathing, I am breastfeeding, embodiment of an earth mother herself. Baby feeds nicely, then it farts once, twice.. It doesn't sound too suspicious so I don't want to disturb the feed. Moments later I want to adjust baby's position and as I slide my hand down I feel something warm on my fingers. I lift my hand and see the familiar mustardy consistency on my fingers. 'S**t emergency!' I call to my husband who has got a beer in his hand which he is unable/unwilling to put down and risk spilling so it takes all four of us to get the baby of my lap, spread out the changing mat and start the recovery mission. While we fuss around, the passing by dog walkers seem very amused, some of them probably congratulating themselves that they decided to have a dog instead of a baby and thus prevented their brains from melting because how difficult can it be to change a nappy? How difficult indeed....

Just to be clear: most of my nappy changes are very smooth and uneventful occasions. To be so lucky three days in a row is hopefully only a coincidence.

The Art of Survival

Having baby made me a survivor. First I survived labour. I had a nice pregnancy, felt very prepared for my baby to be born, wasn't afraid and waited and waited and waited.... And then came the induction, the labour itself, the doctors and forceps and the biggest pain ever. But with it came great happiness and I survived.
Then I went on surviving not sleeping, constant breast feeding, cracked nipples, frustrated baby, growth spurts, mastitis, thrush, sore back, sore hips, sore everything and my new life, the new role, the new me - very much not me, just extension of the baby.
During last month I survived visits of my father in law, visit of my mother (that's the biggest surprise of all: that she came and that I survived it) and my husband and I are still surviving teething with second wave of non-sleeping.
We built up some sort of routine, baby slept much better but then came the tooth, and the next one... So we have got a light sleeper who hates day time naps, feeds a lot and grows teeth sooner than usual. And we (I) have to cope with it. I am in survival mode for most of this year. I am finding it difficult to put my thoughts and experiences into sentences. Baby isn't very happy about sharing me with my computer and writing. I carry on trying my best.
Husband and I bicker much more, we are both busy. I am full time mother, he is busy at work plus helping around. I didn't cook a meal since early April - evenings are about feeding for the night. But we do eat by the dining table again, as a family, with baby on his or my lap overseeing us. Our baby loves to socialize. Last weekend we hosted a barbeque and baby went from one arms to the next, bathing in affection. 'Does baby ever cry?' People asked me, jealous if they were mums of young kids themselves.
'Just come over when I am home alone, you will see.'
Baby cries when I try to put it down for a nap or for a sleep that it obviously needs. It cries when left alone while I am doing some home work or dare to visit bathroom. Baby knows what it wants and how to demand it. And I am getting better and better at surviving. Baby is a great personality and makes me immensely proud and happy, but there are moments when I wonder how do I manage and how will I manage, how much longer can I go on like this? But then again, lets see how far we came already. I am clearly better at surviving than I thought!!!!