Under The Sea

I've almost made it through the first six months of the transition to 2. It's no joke. It's not fun. And yet, there have been those few and far between times of feeling like everything was perfect and in sync - and my heart might have grown a few sizes. 

But for every good day, there are 5 hard ones. And yet if you asked me if I was questioning our choice to reproduce twice I would say no. I know my family is whole now. It's exhausting but it is correct. 

I'm going to pretend to be the type of mum I long to be until I am her. Until I can handle every tantrum, sleepless night, and body fluid explosion with ease and grace and laughter. 

Or perhaps that will be the sure sign that I've lost my mind for good and proper. 

Either way, I'll start over and over again until I get it right. Or right enough. 

X 

Both ends of the candle.

Just when you think you have a handle on things, you realise you don't. 

Evenings are the hardest time. Once DS is asleep, I can breathe a little but getting SS to sleep is another can of worms. The result being that I am so tired all of the time and mostly have to go to bed at the same time as they do, to get any amount of sleep that I can work with. And on the evenings that DH is home and we might otherwise have an opportunity to speak to each other or watch a film or be together in a non co-parenting capacity - I am too tired and go to sleep instead. 

But hey, at least I feel like a rubbish wife as well as a rubbish mum with the constant guilt - not doing this right - never give enough to everyone vibe, so there's consistency. 

There's that. 

Even to write this now I am in the dark. On my phone. Hoping that SS will drift off to sleep after enough hand sucking, at the same time as listening to DS breathing deeply and contentedly in his sleep. 

In my head I know that we will somehow turn a corner, in the same way that we did when we became a family of 3 and suddenly at some point it all made sense. This will make sense too. 

I hope it's soon. 

The New Normal?

I'm listening to my baby coo happily in the other room. He should be asleep, but he's happy, so I'm not bothered.

I've been thinking about how I vastly underestimated how hard it would be to go from having one kid to two. I anticipated being constantly stressed out and overwhelmed. What I didn't realise was how emotionally tough it would be, or that I would be in a near constant state of guilt and anxiety thinking how I was failing one or both of my sons - loving and missing my eldest intensely while simultaneously feeling completely unable and somewhat unwilling to cope with being around him. And of course feeling like a monster and an unfit mother for feeling the previous.

It's a near perfect storm of love, loss, growth, change, fear, excitement and dread.

This I feel is much more tiring than the actual physical output needed for the care and upkeep of two miniature humans.

It is a mental struggle, and for someone like me who is already mentally struggling with lots of plates in the air all the time anyways, it has brought me to the point of almost no return a few times. I have said aloud, "I cannot do this! I am an unfit mother! They'd be better off without me!"

And yet, here I am, trying to do this, trying to be fit, knowing that for my children, there is no 'without' me and for me there is no 'without' them.

I don't read The Books, so I can't be sure if no one really warns you about this part of coping with two, but I am fairly certain they don't. Who even has time to worry about sleep strategies and shared bathing when slowly losing their grip of all possible reason and sanity?

A few times I have had to ask, "Am I depressed, or am I just tired?" I was always under the impression that if one had to ask then one, in fact, was categorically Not Depressed. But now I'm not so sure. Maybe it's not your standard meat and potatoes PND, maybe it's just a little sneaky sadness that creeps into your day - along with the realisation that your first born, your special little one is getting less little each day. He cuddles less, demands less, needs less from you - and him slipping away from you and his toddlerhood is an almost palpable, very painful feeling. It takes your breath away. Suddenly, I don't care if he wants to sleep in our bed, I don't care if he wants me to stop what I am doing and COME RIGHT NOW MUMMY AND LOOK AT THIS IMPORTANT THING. I know that one of these days it will be the last time he does, it will be a sweet memory and not my reality - and I assure you, I desperately want those memories.

Coffee and Cuddles

Another long stretch of silence on this thing. I suppose I have been a little occupied, my eldest turned four and I gave birth to our second son. I'll refer to him as SS from here on out. I don't like the idea of using names or getting too personal on the details, I liked to retain some vague sense of anonymity, even though I share all this with my friends and family anyways.

I am going to try going about this a different way. I am just going to do it. I used to feel being a writer was a huge part of my identity. It used to take up a lot of my time. Until there was no more time left for it to take up. Now I never write. I worry about grammar and punctuation and sounding witty or making some huge point really eloquently, so even when I do have ideas I worry I won't express them properly so they don't get expressed.

No more.

I'm just going to approach this like a child learning how to speak. First it will come out mostly unintelligible, mainly gibberish. Slowly I might start to form some coherent thoughts. These might become narratives. Maybe I'll even reach a few people who might appreciate what I have to say.

But for the time being I will just write, because that's the only thing which I ever felt made me a writer, and I never used to worry about finding my voice.

Start as you mean to go on.

This is kind of a prelude to the actual update that I want to write. I don't know when I will have the time to write it though - my son's birth story.

I will get on that, I will.

I guess I'll see you around then. I'm still here, I'm still trying. My voice will return.

X

A note on conventional wisdom.

They said that if I didn't take the pitocin, he wouldn't come. 

I didn't, he did. 

They said if I didn't wean him at six months, he'd never stop breastfeeding. 

I didn't, he did. 

They said if we didn't sleep train and cry it out, he'd never sleep through the night. 

We didn't, he did.

They said if we didn't hit and shout and "discipline" he would never learn, never listen. 

We don't, he does. 

And they say that unless we force him, he'll never get out of our bed, he'll never be confident or independent. 

Well, guess what. 

We won't. And he will. And he is and he is. 

Just in case some mom, somewhere, is tired of being told that her instincts are leading her down the "wrong" path and that she's making a "rod for her own back" she can read this and know. 

You're not. 

It gets better, it gets easier. 

And if you want to gentle parent, you go right ahead. 

They don't know the half of it.

(DS just leaned over and said to me, "Mummy, I just really love you so much." This is why we do the hard graft.)

Stand Together

Wow, it has been five months since my last post.

A lot has changed.

We've bought a flat, moved in, tried for a baby, got pregnant.

DS will have a little brother due only 8 days after his fourth birthday.

I started writing this blog when I was a new mum, terrified and bewildered, amazed and alone on a new path which nothing in my life before had prepared me. I figured this would be a good time to sit back and reflect on my first four years of Motherhood, before the whole deal changes completely, again.

Sure, there are things I would love to go back and re-learn or un-learn. More the latter than the former. Sure, I've made a ton of mistakes. But I'll tell you, I do not regret a second of it, because I have led with my mama heart and my instincts. Together with the support of of my husband and some amazing friends I've made along the way, I've made it through.

In a way, having another baby will be like a second chance - although not necessarily one to do things all that differently, but to be rid of the anxiety and self doubt that accompanied the decision making of my firstborn's babyhood. No one is going to make me question what I know in my heart to be right for my children. Not anymore. That is the kind of freedom I wish for all my sisters in Motherhood.

I support you and your choices, even if they are different from mine, because you make them from your heart, with the best intentions, with the best information, with the knowledge that you are the only person who has ever been the mother of your child, or ever will be.

So even if you don't plan on having any more kids, or you're undecided, or some other circumstance means you will only have one - be confident, don't take guff from anyone, remember that the world spends most of its time trying to tear you down so it can sell you a product to bring you back up again.

You are not a consumer, you're a caregiver, and I support you.

X

Sticks and Stones and Dial Tones.

It's been an awful morning. Really awful. 

I'd had a string of confident days where I almost felt like I knew what I was doing, and in the bliss of those successes, I let loose my grip on the knowledge that they too must come to an end, there are always hard days on the horizon. 

I forgot to breathe in and out when DS refused to sit in the buggy on the way to nursery, even as he tripped over and over and complained of needing a rest every few feet. 

I did not count to ten as he fought, screamed and wrestled against me eventually putting him in the buggy mid journey.

I certainly neglected to recite a calming mantra as I watched him take off running into the lobby and down the hall of his nursery: squarely the opposite direction of where he was meant to be going. 

I was a gentle parent failure this morning. I forgot about how easy it is to feel failure and turn it into shame and frustration. 

This is why Mama Tribes are so important, and why being an immigrant thousands of miles from most of the people who have known you longer than three years is so taxing. Chances are, if you walk into a room post-bad morning, and you're in a bad mood, someone who doesn't know you that well will simply think you a miserable sort. They might brush you off. They don't know any better, it's not their fault. 

Of course, you could easily just be mirroring your own current state of self deprecation onto these silent participants. That's the other trouble. 

How nice it would be to walk into a room of history, one look at you and someone would know you needed a chat, a shoulder, an old funny story about that time you did that thing that was hilarious. 

Before motherhood, before the muddle of walking through life mostly hoping you're doing the right stuff, knowing you won't really see the full result until twenty or thirty years have gone by. 

On these awful mornings, most of all, I need to be reminded of the life that came before this one. Not because I crave it, but simply to remind me of the transient nature of it all. This too shall pass, et al. 

I am confident that I am doing the right stuff, I am. After this blog entry, I will breathe in and out again and it will have passed. Another string of good days and successful times are on the horizon; but so are times like this. You're a little gun shy, a little hard done by. You just need an origin story to cheer you up. 

That's the stuff you don't realise before you pick up all the sticks and move them well across the globe. 

Still, I'm quite glad of where they're currently planted.