So you think you can dance!

Today I heard a song by No Doubt while I was washing the dishes and a flood of memories of another person came to me - me - years and years and many lifetimes ago - out dancing!! Drunk - most definitely - drunk and dancing. I thought to myself I am just so tired of thinking and worrying all the time. Swine flu, money, spending, house renos, house having some disastrous incident, any member of my family having some disastrous incident. The right teachings, the right foods, the right things to say, the right ways to be, the right things to think?!? I am sick of hearing, seeing, saying, thinking the words eco, green, environmentally friendly, pandemic, economic downturn, economic climate, death tolls, paedophile, insurance, crackheads, junkies, rapist, murder, complex carbohydrates, trans fats, sugars, use your words, snack, potty training, cloth diapers, ......you get the picture. When did I get so worrisome and serious. I find it so hard to relax and have fun these days....it was nice to remember another me and a little bit sad. I think I need to start dancing.

For all my friends who have had and are having babies after me!

I had a little facebook message from an old school friend today saying how she had "joined the motherhood group at last!". I replied straight away saying how gorgeous her baby was, wishing her well and welcoming her to our gang! That was all I said, but there was so much more I wanted to say, so much that there was to say - but we just don't do we? We keep it all in - we smile, we goo, we say all the right things (yes you've nearly lost all the weight already, oh wow you are glowing, you are such a good mum etc etc). How does that leave the new mum? All aglow?? I really don't know - all our experiences are so different, but I do sometimes wonder are they really THAT different. In the quiet, sleepless, dark are a lot of us having exactly the same feelings, but just not able to openly talk abt them with anyone? I remember those dark days still - enough to see newborn pictures and feel a sense of relief (that I am not there anymore) and fear that I might be silly enough to do it all again. I remember being on the brink of something scary many, many times. The baby howling, and me howling too...real UGLY crying. The baby howling and me having bad thoughts of ways to stop the crying, me slowly putting the baby down for his own safety. You think that situations like that only happen for very, very ill people..post natal depression ..not me, but in all honesty with as little sleep as us mums get ...who isn't depressed? We still function (just)..we can still socialise...we look like great mums..but some days, some days. So it is for those days new mums that I offer you the best, best talk I had with a passing friend. Someone I didn't know very well at all was coming round for a quick visit to see the baby and catch up. Baby was 6 months and during that time I had, had no more that 2 hours max sleep at any one sitting. My boy was waking up at least every 2 hours for a feed and slept very poorly during the day. I had great friends, but no family who could come and just take him for a few hours..hubby was working 7 days a week and I was beat. My friend took one look at me and said these saving words ...."Oh honey it sucks doesn't it". You do not know how grateful I was to hear those words!! Thank GOD!! I thought I was supposed to be in motherhood heaven..I thought these were the best times..someone had even told me that all babies did was eat and sleep and that it was a bit boring really, a bit boring!! I wished!! My friend then relayed tales of all the best mothers she knew and told me how many times the kids were shipped to the families, daycare or what anti-depressants they were on!! I felt so much better. I could handle the crap times if everyone else found them crap - it was just the idea that I was supposed to be loving the torture that had got me in such a spin. So welcome dear friend to the motherhood group - I'm so sorry I didn't tell you this in my mail, but rest assured YES it can Suck..and that's ok!!

Body Image Issues - Moi???

OK I am a little addicted to facebook, I admit it! I am a stay at home mum who hops around the computer daily in the sorry, sad hope that someone might have written to me or has some good gossip for me to tut over. What I don't like abt my facebook is that I have turned into one of those saddo mums who has to have their child in the profile picture. I no longer have my own identity - my identity is linked wholly and completely to my son. There is still hope for me, I draw the line at mums who put their baby's name on the answerphone message as soon as the baby is born. I'll go to phone a friend and am suddenly faced with listening to the overannoying "mum/kids presenter loud voice" of HIIIIIIIIIIIIIII you've reached Sally, Ben, Damien, Nova and Orca..WE CAN'T COME TO THE PHONE RIGHT NOW BUT.........BLAH, BLAH, BLAH..phone slammed down. I even just got a mail from a friend who has listed all the family's names in the e-mail address - just stop it!! Yet I do hold my hands up and openly admit that for my facebook, profile picture I will find the damn cutest photo I can of the boy - with my head only just popping out the side of him. My reasoning isn't just overt pride, but more the fact that I like to hide behind him because I look so "mumsie". It is more - yeah I know I look like crap, but look at my boy - isn't he gorgeous - I made that!! or Yeah I know I look like crap, BUT I HAD A KID .....it's not really because I eat cake all day and meals between meals.

The Pecking Order of Home

I have started to think abt the changes in dynamics of my home since hubby and I moved to our beautiful blue house 4 years ago. The first night we stayed, we had a futon by the open fireplace and that was pretty much it! We bought takeout, had a bottle of wine and just enjoyed being in our new home with all its possibilities. Our first baby came to us that night - a little cat - missing her tail and mewing to come in. She was the previous owners second cat and when we told them that we had her, we also found out that this little cat was off to the rescue if a home couldn't be found. We kept her in with us that night and while she purred so contendedly on my lap I said to hubby "If we were to keep this cat......" .. he looked at me, looked at us and said ...."What do you mean IF". He knew me too well, it was a done deal then and there. Our first baby of the family came and we loved her with all our might. Then we went and did a terrible, terrible thing. We went and bought a puppy. A big puppy, with big bouncy paws and sharp bitey teeth. The cat was not impressed and we were too busy with our bouncy, bitey baby to notice. We moved the poor cats food around the house daily, trying to protect it from the bouncy one. We moved her toilet daily too to try and protect it from the disgusting, bouncy one. She hid all day, but then at night, when it was really quiet ..she would creep into our room, jump on the bed and nuzzle up with us. That brute might have us all day, but she would get us all to herself at night. Then strange things were happening...someone was getting very fat....so fat that she might pop and then one spring day pop....and the screamy, screamy one was home. They didn't have any time for bouncy, bitey or cat....day or night....but sometimes ....when the house was quiet, when the house was really quiet for just a few minutes, maybe a whole hour..the little cat would creep into the bedroom and jump onto the bed. The bouncey, bitey one would nose into the room, put her paws onto the bed and nestle her head on the covers. Then they would both look at me with their somber eyes and say.....what the !*#$ have you done!!

Hooray for Stay at Home Dads

The monster and I went swimming yesterday and we met a Dad playing with his little boy. We got chatting as you do and it turned out that he was now a stay at home Dad for 6 months and had been doing it for just 2 weeks. When I asked him how it was going he paused thoughtfully and replied "It's tiring isn't it...it's the constantness of it". I was so touched by the instant, open honesty from this young man. I don't know what sort of reply I was expecting - I was just making conversation at the time - but it was just such a sweet, honest thing to say and I guess it made me feel some kind of validation for some of the feelings that I have had abt this still relatively recent thing called motherhood. Some of the battles I have with myself are those feelings that you get as a mum which are not very mother earth or madonna pictures. The silent anger, the unsilent anger (at hubby usually), the boredom, the monotany, it isn't like that all day or all week, but it isn't all kisses, baking and tickles either. It is poo, mess, screams, more mess, no don't do that, I said no, more screams, people telling you what to do, people looking like they want to tell you what to do, it is living small and it is living 100% for someone else's needs. Yes that is of course what you signed up for along with the kisses, baking and tickles, but you really only thought of the kisses, baking and tickles when you were pregnant and blissfully naive.

This is a journey which it is very hard to explain or understand when you aren't the one living it every day and sometimes I feel that can cause some distance between mums and dads. I get the feeling that when my husband takes little man out for a couple of hours or watches him for a morning there is some unsaid competition between us as to who little man has the most fun with. I feel like when they return and I ask how things went - everything went great and there is a feeling of - I don't know what the problem is or why you're so tired at the end of the day. Aside from the fact that you have packed the bag, got the snacks ready, got them ready, probably told them where they are going, prepared the lunch for return and taken over reading, nap, rest of the afternoon and dinner. All so you can have 2 hours to clean the house. I feel bad if we have this discussion because my husband does work so very hard, he isn't getting any free time to have fun himself when he is home - he is either doing necessary work on the house or playing with offspring. Yet I do feel that he does get validation for his work - customers love him, he gets paid, he is achieving goals - he just seems so much more satisfied than I sometimes get from being a stay at home mum. I guess what I am trying to say is I know that it looks like we are off swimming, drinking coffee and writing blogs, but it was nice to hear a guy acknowledge that actually it can be very hard work!