Date Night

On Monday night, I went out to the movies with a girlfriend. Our Date Night, a little less regular these days than we would like, but something we relish. The time out of the house, the night off from the unpaid portion of our working lives, the good catch-up conversation beforehand. And we saw - aww, sorry for using the same word for a fourth time in one paragraph - the movie "Date Night."

Despite quite liking Tina Fey and Steve Carell, I did not have high hopes for this movie. The few reviews I have read have been, quite simply, that the movie was, in a word, ".....meh." Well, I just might be very easy to please in the movies stakes, because while it was no Avatar on the scale of blockbusters to end all blockbusters, this little movie was very alright by little old me.

My friend and I cackled our way through the movie, probably to the disdain of the only other members of the cinema audience - several sets of early 20-somethings who most likely could not understand just why the opening scene was so hilarious, it was just an ordinary, everyday, mundane, unfunny "whack to the head by a 3 year-old" depiction of married life, wasn't it? Then the heart to heart the couple have in the car, where Claire (Tina Fey) gives her husband the low-down - and he gives it right back - was another scene that caused us to wheeze laughter over the familiar (very not funny when it's inside your four walls) made funny. And the outtakes at the end were so cute. Hilarious. Make sure you stay for those during the credits, if you go see it.

Quite simply, I enjoyed this bit o' over-the-top-action Rom-Com. And I rate it 3 over-easy eggs, sunny-side up, but of course.





But the funniest joke of the night was on moi. I decided to bring home the popcorn I didn't eat so that I could give some to the LGBB the next day. My friend and I wandered back to our cars after the movie finished, sauntering, discussing this and that, taking our time. And that's when I saw it, while we were standing in the highrise car park entrance and saying goodnight... The trail of popcorn I had left. I cringed and then dissolved into uncontrollable giggles, my friend joining me. What had been a quarter of a box-full was now reduced to at least half that again, dropping out of the poorly put-together bottom. A little trail of white popped corn went from my shoes, through the carpark, across the darkened road and as far as my eye could see towards the cinemas. We had walked past packed restaurants and a pub full of raucous young people.... and I had been doing my best Gretel impersonation.

Back at my car (well, Steve's actually, for I had taken his), I laughed even harder when I tried valiantly to retain as much of the left-over popcorn as I could - a mother's efforts know no bounds, it would seem - and could not stop the inertia of my body from flopping into the driver's seat straight after I had emptied most of the remainder of the contents onto it. By accident, of course. In Steve's new car. A virgin to crumbs, spills and popcorn. Whoops.

Back home, giggling once again as I tried to fix the box but only succeeding in tipping out more popped corn onto the passenger seat (d'oh), I carried the box gingerly inside the house. In the morning, I'll tell him about the state of his car, I thought. And next morning, Steve laughed uncontrollably along with me, despite the corn crumbs I'd smooshed with my derriere into his new upholstery, when he stepped onto the front porch and saw the little trail of popcorn.

At least I would be able to find my way home if I got lost. Right?

The one Steve likes to call...

... "Here's your forkin' tea"

*slamming imaginary cup of tea, with the fork in it, down on the table*

I was presented this morning with a cheese burger, a slice of pizza on toast (warmed in the toy microwave, of course, as is customary of correct reheating of - apparently - the world's favourite breakfast fare) and a cup of tea. With a fork in it.




My handmade gift from Lolly was the obligatory, gorgeous kindergarten teacher project. She proudly told me that her picture for me had "TWO photos on it" when apparently the other kids' only had one on theirs. Don't know why. Perhaps because they tried (and failed) twice to get her to actually look at the camera and stop grimacing? Cheeky minx. I love the bottom photo of her because it looks so much like the old grandmotherly type look of 'sufferance' that comes out in her when she tries to over-mother Steve and me. Look at her! Is that a shawl draped over her 3 year-old shoulders? I think it is....

I was also very spoiled by way of the LGBB's first ever self-chosen Mothers Day gift for me: a pretty pink candle. I have decided it will be the candle I light on Mothers Day, in honour of all the mums who have lost a child. Today, I remember one mum in particular who I know is doing it really tough - her first Mothers Day without her 9 year-old daughter, who was tragically killed in January - and it makes me choke up today, just remembering the staggering number of mothers trying to get through today and willing nightfall to come, mercifully, to take their pain away for the brief hours they are spared by sleep.

I remember my first one well. To be dealt the crushing double-whammy blow of coping with this oh-so-stigmatic, largely commercially driven day as well as it being the first one without our daughter here..... Well. I thought I would surely spontaneously combust. How would I get through it? How could we go anywhere on that day and NOT see countless cars full of (not necessarily happy-looking) family, driving alongside us, claiming more rightful positions in every single restaurant, at every single table. It was like the world's biggest middle finger salute in my face, every cotton-wool-haired granny's head visible in the rear of every Camry being driven around to the rhododendron gardens, all put in my way to taunt me about how old I would grow. Never to be driven around by that little pink bundle who slipped away, so painfully recently.

Today, I graciously accepted the waiter's well-trained wishes of a "Happy mother's day" to me, as we were seated at a table in a little restaurant nestled in a small township the bush, not too far from here. I smiled as I watched our second born little girl grimace about the "warm wind" - no, not her father, but the patio heater we were sitting under and to which she had taken a great offense - and I cradled in my heart all the mums inching their way through the unbearable, unthinkable, surely unsurvivable pain of this, their first Mothers Day to get through without their child, knowing that the sun would eventually peek through again for them sometime.

One day.

Squeezeland

As in... "This is Queensland."

We were both close to tears (mine of laughter) before I caved and said, "OKAY! ALRIGHT!"

I have just had a ten minute argument with our young daughter explaining that the Tourism Queensland commercial was saying "This. Is. Queensland." She spent equally long trying to get it through my thick head that the place is called "Squeeeeeeze. Lannnnnd." And what's more, apparently, she wants to visit there.

Who wouldn't?

Where else but Squeezeland?

As it was and as it always should be

I did it again tonight.

With the deft stroke of my fingers around her eyes, I lulled the LGBB into sleep. For the past fortnight, ever since I helped her relax one night when I realised she was far too wired/spooked by the wind to settle down and I really *needed* her to go to sleep and not play the 'Up and Down 10 Times For Umpteen Excuses' game, Lolly has requested I rub her eyes.

"Just a little bit," she negotiates.

For me, as a mother, this is delicious unheard-of territory. I can remember putting the LGBB down in her cot, when she was a wee 8 week-old. I joke not, the kid would look at me witheringly if I so much as lingered by her side, let alone try and stroke her forehead, pat her back, rub her chest.... Nope. None of that hands-on lovey-dovey stuff for Our Lolly. She would literally stare me down, a look of confused "Why are you still here? You are dismissed!" on her face, and I would wander out, rather dazed and confused myself, thinking, "But aren't I supposed to comfort her? Isn't she supposed to fuss so I can go back in and do the "shhhhhh, Mummy's here" rock back to sleep?"

Only rarely did this happen, usually in times of teething or illness. And don't get me wrong! I am not looking the gift-horse in the mouth that was my self-soothing child. She just came out that way, even though I tried to make her dependent on me (obviously), it didn't rub off on her. But I do admit to feeling a bit useless as a mum sometimes because of it. A tad... obsolete, as it were.

Now, for some reason, she asks for her nightly eye rub and I am happy to oblige and indulge. Most nights so far, she has not gone to sleep (I was concerned this would start to be the crutch that kept me in the room and I don't want to be encouraging that) and instead, grins at me when I am done, rolls over and hugs her dog and bunny and we don't hear another peep. But a couple of times, while I have been only part way through, her eyelids have just looked sooooo....darn....heavy..... that she nearly makes me nod off with her.

Tonight, the request was no different.

"Mummy... you rub my eyes a little bit?"

And so I began. I use a technique fashioned from something I picked up when I used to do Shiatsu yoga several years ago. Along the principles of the leylines of the body - the Chi? the meridians? depends who you talk to - and it uses little pressure points. Release points, where stored tension melts away. I'm rusty on the details, but do recall being ever so fascinated to find them on my own face that I have always remembered them.

If you move your finger around your eye socket, directly under your eye (inline with the pupil, I believe) you will feel a little tiny divet - a groove - in the bone. You can feel this on both sides of your face, left and right. Applying a little simple pressure (I slowly, almost imperceptibly, make circles when I do this on Lolly's face) for a few moments before moving on to the next points which are part way up the bridge of the nose, I'd say right where your cheekbone meets your ... nose bone? The next point is right in the inside corner of your eye socket, about the closest point your two fingers are going to be when tracing this path around the eyes. Moving up to the top centre of the eye sockets, you should be able to feel another of those ever so slight little grooves in the bone - if not, you're weird just go for that middle point again. The circle is made complete by pressing on the outermost edge of the eye socket.

From there, I find the two centremost points on her cheekbones (these too have a little groove in them - on my face, they are not very obvious but they are there) and give them a good slow-motion pulse as well. These points are great for stuffy noses and sinus troubles, it just eases the face a little from all the tension of sniffing/nose blowing/blocked sinus.

And then I do various other feather-light fingered traces over her forehead and a super trick to calm the toddler-beast: Make a V with your pointer and middle finger at the hairline, trace it down to a point at the third eye area of the nose between the eyes. I like to infuse my fingers with a little bit of energetic colour as well - usually Electric Blue. A few of those strokes should begin to see a noticeably calmer difference, colour or no colour application.

Whenever I do this, I find myself relaxing into it too. I know that it's no good rushing this and, given I have finally been bestowed with the honour of assisting M'Lady with her slumber routine, I'm not about to wish the time away. So I really get into it. Another 10-15 minutes out of my day, bringing peace and deep relaxation to her in this way, while she is willingly requesting it, is the least I feel I can do.

And then there are moments like tonight, ones that I cannot ever actually adequately put into words. When the moment of sleep overcomes my daughter and she suddenly looks so tiny again. And her face softens and her cheeks look somehow like those cherubic baby cheeks again. The pulls and tics at the corners of her delicate lips, denoting deeper and deeper travels into her subconscious. And the tugging down of the corners of her dear little mouth and her chin as it furrows like she's about to whimper. And sometimes she does, perhaps already dreaming.

I sat and I watched tonight. I smiled and I melted. And I yearned. For whenever I see the LGBB asleep like this, I see her sister in her. Most times, it is a fleeting moment of recognition. Something lovely and "just is as it is". Other times, like tonight, I have to really fight the urge to wake her back up. Animate her. Because that sleeping image of her big sister, whom she asks after more and not less as these months and years wear on, is the one thing that taunts me and chases me around in my daily life.

Lolly told me just yesterday a great big meandering story of events, one that she had put some thought into, obviously, and I felt my heart hurt about Ella for the first time in ages.

"Maybe... maybe you could... I know! Get a pram! And take it to the hostibool and... and... and get baby Ella and bring her back home in it. And then we could go for a walk. You, me, Daddy and Ella. In the pram."

Aeeeeeeeee. My heart. My achey breaky heart. I just don't think it understands.

What IF: Creating a positive force for change?

I was deeply moved by this video. In the online world, "IF" stands for "Infertility." I found that out the hard, smack-in-the-kisser way. Oh, didn't you know? We are technically infertile. It was a hard thing to admit at the time. A strange thing to wrap our heads around, particularly after we gave birth to our first (and then second) child, unaided by the medical profession. But, be that as it may, our recurrent miscarriage "efforts" afford us that branding. And on paper, yes, we are indeed... IF.

This is a courageous video, made by a woman on a mission named Keiko Zoll. I love her work:

What IF? A Portrait of Infertility from Keiko Zoll on Vimeo.

Read the full description here: hannahweptsarahlaughed.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-if.html

IF. A word of possibilities, choices, paths. IF, the acronym in the blogging community for infertility, a world full of choices, paths, possibilities... IFs.

This video is a response to RESOLVE and Melissa Ford's #ProjectIF, as part of National Infertility Awareness Week 2010. As a member and blogger of the ALI (Adoption/Loss/Infertility) Community, this project is so important this year to bring real stories, real faces to the issue of infertility. My hope is that this video illustrates the "everydayness" of coping with infertility.

I'm known on the internet as Miriam, writing for my IF blog, "Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed." It is my hope that by publicly "outing" myself and my struggle with infertility that I can help erase some of the stigma surrounding the subject. I hope I can be a voice for those women and couples who can't speak up or speak out for themselves. I hope that my legislators can see that yes, infertility IS a disease, and that healthcare coverage of infertility treatment is a worthwhile cause to the health and welfare of their constituents.

When infertility takes so much of your sense of control away from you, it's advocacy projects like these that allow us to take charge again.

What IF we no longer remain silent about our infertility?

What IF we give infertility a face, a name, a story?

What IF we can become a positive force for change?

Cross-promo madness

I've joined the modern world and gone and created my business its own page on Facebook.

Is that wise? Time will tell....

Feel free to visit, and tell your friends!

The Planned Child

by Sharon Olds

"I hated the fact that they had planned me,
she had taken a cardboard out of his shirt from the laundry
as if sliding the backbone up out of his body,
and made a chart of the month and put
her temperature on it, rising and falling,
to know the day to make me --
I would have liked to have been conceived in heat,
in haste, by mistake, in love, in sex,
not on cardboard, the little x on the rising line that did not fall again.

But when a friend was pouring wine
and said that I seem to have been a child who had been wanted,
I took the wine against my lips
as if my mouth were moving along
that valved wall in my mother's body, she was
bearing down, and then breathing from the mask, and then
bearing down, pressing me out into
the world that was not enough for her without me in it,
not the moon, the sun, Orion cartwheeling across the dark,
not the earth, the sea --
none of it was enough,
for her, without me."

This is a poem I found towards the end of my pregnancy with the LGBB. It almost choked with its realism at the time. And it said for me what I had been trying to decipher for myself: that a child so planned, so yearned for, whom I tried to "catch" so often.... was made into reality because our world was not enough for me without her in it.

I can hear that child right now, exclaiming to the descant recorder she fell asleep holding last night (she currently has a penchant for musical instruments, perfecting her baseball and golf swings on the Wii and Chuggington and Waybalu). And without her in my life, I would surely have been tipped over the edge a long, long time ago. She is the salve that soothed my aching, raging heart back then. I would never have come as far in my healing as I have, not without her.

I don't feel quite as emotional now as I used to when I read this poem now - a sign I am either lost to cynicism or have come a fair way in my recuperation of our troubled conception journey. I like to think it's the latter, at least for the most part.