A realisation on Conference Eve: She's for keeps!

I'm up before the sparrows and it would feel like groundhog day, except.... there are boxes in my house and Steve's not going to work today and he'll be driving the LGBB to school and I have a bag packed and ready at the front door.

Today is no ordinary day at all! Today is Conference Eve! In my home city! And I am mightily excited about it. There are so many great posts out there in our Digital Parents community about it, I would really just be copying theirs if I did one. So, instead...

I am off for a long, vigorous run with Jazz in a moment. Just waiting for it to get a tad lighter - neither of us are really that keen on being in the dark, literally and figuratively speaking - and I will have a head full of To-Do's that I must remember to execute over the next 48 hours as part of my role in the planning team.

I woke at 5:20am today. My first thought was Lolly. I won't see her until Saturday night. For some reason, I miss her keenly already.

Yesterday morning, she stopped me from walking her to her classroom when we got to school. I was both impressed and taken aback. She's so quietly self-assured, this untainted girl. I am so pleased about that. Of course, it makes me feel somewhat redundant but... so what? This is what is supposed to happen. I guess it's just the first time that smarts the most, that's all.

To think that five years ago I was not buying baby clothes much beyond her current size. It was a crazy mindset I got myself into, not wanting to be left with an over-abundance of gorgeous clothing meant for her if I lost this baby too. After all, that had been my experience the time before her. It was a somewhat mechanical, certainly self-protective, thought process that I didn't really articulate at the time but acknowledged it as the reason behind my not going crazy at the till. Lucky Steve. At least I saved us lots of money.

So when my automatic first thoughts as I woke to this new day were "the end of first term and she's already ditched me, I'm so impressed! I guess this won't stop, this maturing will just keep going and going," it didn't surprise me much that I was somehow shocked by the realisation.

She's for keeps, this one. The fact still sneaks up and surprises me every so often.

Remembered into being

Ellanor was borne into being long after she became a thought. I had introduced her to my closest confidantes before I got pregnant. She included herself in our lives before she was born. She touched down here for the most fleeting of days - 31 to be very exact - and then tripped back off again. Leaving me to gather together all the memories she had left me with, so I could lean on them. Desperately at first. Despairingly, longingly. But always fondly. Even the hard memories. And then I got stuck into sharing them, mostly here on this blog (and my old one). The more I did, the more I discovered that she remained vital in not just my life but the lives of others.


Later in 2004, I had not a clue, not a whisper of a dare of a hope that I might ever feel like opening my eyes for one more day on this Earth, let alone wonder if any more children were to be our fate. It's just lucky for us that it was. That I never continued my thought process to my eventual untimely end (and how to do it).


It's a tricky thing.


She had to leave. I had to stay. But I know why now. 

Miss Lolly, a month after she burst my heart open even wider

The most endearing face in my world, 2008

Even when she makes more work for me, she is still my Heaven - 2011

For if she had not, the world would not have been able to welcome the shining light that is Ellanor's little sister. Like revolving doors, the two girls slipped past each other. Never destined to meet in the flesh.


But those memories I hold in my soft mother heart are Lolly's. They are there for her to wade in, explore, develop for herself. Memories that did not bring Ellanor into being but that ensure she has no beginning or end here on Earth, as it is wherever she goes now. She is the one who is free. She is the one who had the vision to come. And to go. How can I ultimately be anything but impressed by that sheer will? I am frankly in awe of her.


As long as we keep remembering. Their existence will continue to flourish.

In dedication to all the babies who are being cradled 

in the memories of their families this festive season. 

Peace be with you all. 

Together, we will never let them fade.

Where I get all sentimental over a lost tooth

Since the age of six months, the LGBB has been sporting teeth. I remember so well the day Steve pulled down her bottom lipso I could take this photo:

Look Ma and Pa, I done gone and grown a toof! Or two...

We were so excited to see this milestone. She was so excited we were within her vicinity. In fact, her ability to be chuffed at herself hasn't ever really been an issue for our LGBB.

The first tooth became wobbly about a month ago. It felt like it still had a lot of staying power to me.

But what do I, her mother, know?

Our little Lolly lost her tooth yesterday at preschool and didn't even realise. I was greeted by her gapless grin when I came to collect her. "It must have just happened!" the teacher said. "They were just outside eating broccoli from the garden..."

The culprit vegetable eaten and swallowed, the options are obviously that she either swallowed it or it fell out somewhere, never to be recovered for her scrap book. I have my first tooth. I thought it was a bit eugh growing up. But now I have my own child, I appreciate that my mother did that. It was more special to her than it ever will be to me. I get that... now.

I'm sad. I'll admit it! I am a sentimental sap, I am really quite glum about it. Of course, in the grand scheme of the state of the world, hey this is nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Still... we will never get to keep the first teeny, tiny, marvellous wonder of a tooth that was the first to grow and the first to fall out.

Our teeny, tiny, marvellous wonder. She's growing, she's growing, slow down, my tiny love, my beautiful growing big girl! Mummy has got to catch up and try to get used to this.

Complete with a big teardrop for good effect.
Awwwww.

Not by choice

If I had had my way, the LGBB would be a big sister by now. Possibly even twice over.

If just one of any of the four pregnancies I have had since her birth in 2006 had come to fruition, she would be that big sister.

If just one of the three pregnancies before she was born had eventuated, or if her sister had lived, then she wouldn't even be here. Not the same wonderful, unique being she is, anyway. Or, heck, if any of the four pregnancies before her sister died had happened then we wouldn't have even had her sister! That's a lot of missed opportunities.

I always wanted three children. We have two. One on this Earth, one not. So really, we are raising at least one less child than we ever expected. But it is as it is. And I am eternally grateful.

I recently read an article on Kleenex Mums about only children which brought these feelings up all over again. By an adult raising an only child (have you met Christie from Childhood 101? Oh, she is an absolute delight and I hope we can one day continue our conversations which began in March in Sydney). The tips she shared were relevant. Further, I was buoyed to read such a well balanced piece on the... I don't know what to call it - Issue? Phenomenon? Situation, is the best way for me to see it, I think. Because this is a "situation". This is our "situation".

It seems a hotly debated topic sometimes, and there is always an opinion to be had. Of course. As with anything. But this one seems to bring more out of the woodwork to weigh in than others regarding families and decisions (or not) of size/number of children. Isn't this an incredibly personal thing to be spouting off about? The size of other people's families?

It is painful to see/read/hear the derogatory opinions of so many against only children. Against my child. (I hasten to clarify the prejudice is not necessarily in that blog post I have directed you towards in the previous link, but in its comments section and so many other places, and not necessarily even online - as well, I hasten to add that I adore Maxabella deeply and she and I have discussed this at some length.... the "only child" post, not my adoration of her...). Opinions that range from them being "odd", that we are "making them miss out on something" by not providing siblings, that they are "spoilt" and "don't know how to share", that "they lack negotiation skills" and perhaps the one that surprises me most, that my husband and I are "being selfish parents" by not giving her a sibling to share her life with.... On and on the self-opinionated lay in unfairly. And I cannot help but take more than just a little bit of slight to it.

Can I just point out the obvious here and say.... have we all not at some point or another come across a child (who is not an only child) who is odd? Who is missing out on something because they actually do have siblings? Appears to be spoilt? Doesn't share? Can't negotiate?? It is really difficult to break out of a label once "society" (or the proverbial "they") has slapped one on a child. Please don't label my child before she's even gone out into the world and truly begun.

I also feel inclined to state that it is not for anyone, not even other so-called "onlies", to speak on behalf of my child. Who knows if she is lonely or not? Or will ever be? One cannot deduce that, simply because their life as an only child was isolating, it goes without saying that every child suffers the same fate. My father was an only child. I have not once in all the years I have heard him speak of his youth express even a tinge of loneliness.

But is this because he never felt it? Or because he had a glass half full mentality about it? Food for thought.

Further, I was third of four children. I was painfully lonely at times. Just as I really do believe my daughter must be lonely... at times. What I am saying is, when an adult only child (or any other adult who presumes to know, simply talking from their own experience) steps up and says they were lonely so, therefore, all only children will surely suffer the same fate, they are speaking about an immeasurable experience - how would they know, if a couple more brothers/sisters were thrown in the mix, that they wouldn't have been just as lonely?? They can't know.

The LGBB will always be a little sister, but that means little to her in the present moment, in terms of someone to bounce off, play with, argue with and plan to grow old together (and share the responsibility of possibly taking care of either or both her elderly parents.... not that I feel I will ever get old, nah! Rather, will never *feel* old enough to need taking care of).

To see opinions floating around that virtually condemn us for compelling our child to live an only, lonely life is rather unsettling. Why are we, as human beings, so hellbent on warning others and being self-asserted "forebears" of the what if's of anything that we feel has harmed us detrimentally? I can certainly understand an only child who lived a lonely life because of their family's circumstances would want to speak to that loneliness and ensure others don't make what they perceive as "the same mistake" their parents made. But the thing is, I am not about to assume I know the entirety of one's situation. How am I to know what that only child's parents were thinking? What they were going through?

More to the point, there surely can't be different rules of engagement either - that is, we can't say to parents who would desperately love to bear a sibling for their child that these warnings about only children don't apply to them, but only to those "selfish" parents who have only decided to have one child. That is just so disappointing. And downright scary (that such bigotry exists).

Stories come out all the time - ALL the time - if we care to listen, they shed light on just some of the legitimate reasons (that I can see, anyway) a couple might "decide" not to have any more children. Stories about mothers who couldn't cope after the birth of their child. Stories about subsequent (or earlier) children being put up for adoption. What if the thought of having a second child brought her to her knees? What if they tried for the next ten years but it never happened? What if? What if, what if? There are so many what if's, this is but one of them I can think of off the top of my head (heh, can you tell who suffered depression after the birth of a much-wanted child??.... cough).

We have only just started to come out of era of not talking about this sort of thing. If any older adult only child out there thinks they know the whole story, perhaps it would pay them to think again. Perhaps it's simply time to forgive their parent/s the "decision" not to give them a sibling (if that is the case, for is it even known if they perhaps had difficulty conceiving any more? Or miscarried and it was too painful to try again?? Miscarriage alone has only just in the past ten or so years, if that, started to be given the credit it deserves for so adversely altering the course of a woman's life).

The LGBB draws houses these days. Chalk board after chalk board of houses with many windows. Faces in all the windows. She proudly rattles off who is at every window. The family in the drawing always consists of me and her Dad, herself, Ellanor, and then variations of the following:

"My little sister, my big brother, my little brother, my baby sister, my brother the baby, my sister the adult..."

She goes through bouts of this and where once it used to stun me into a frozen pause - a literal *pause button* stand-still where I am, can't think, can't move brain and body freeze - now I am not so taken aback. See, to Lolly she apparently IS from a large family. Her imagination is stellar. Her intuition is sharp and insightful. She is a child who is matter of fact and organic.

If I don't get my act together soon, Steve and I will miss the chance of having another child anyway. That is fact. But I shall not be tempted to do it just because apparently, according to some in society, I am crippling my child's emotional wellbeing or chance to be happy or burdening her with my heady ambitions for her.

All it takes is for us to consider what we're contributing to before we go jumping on a bandwagon about which we can't possibly know the full story. Wide public opinion doesn't necessarily make something fact or lore. Being an only child doesn't make one any more remarkable or less capable of knowing how to fight a good fight. It simply means these are the circumstances that contribute to them being the unique individual they are.

So, please.... Can we just stop with the stereotyping - Stop with the guessing - Stop with the labelling and the judgement?

Right. Hot hat off. And just lastly, if you have been offended by this - I offer my hearty apologies. My intention is not to offend or divide further. I am merely seeking to give a voice to all those out there with hands tied, waiting in IVF clinics or otherwise simply unable to bear another child for their "only". I can safely bet they are grateful for the one they have, regardless of the choice that has been taken from them.

Crafty For A Cause

Well, I'm a month late (because I usually do this on Ella's birthday), but the cot sheets for donation to the NICU she called home are all ready to go.

This is something I have adored "giving back" and although I missed a couple of years in the past six, I daresay I will find it a very hard habit to break. When I was in the NICU, the day I had - as mother hoping desperately this nightmare of drugs and needles and doctors' orders would end very soon - was often dependent on whether someone had at least used "baby girl colours" for her humidy crib setup. The fact was, beggars couldn't be choosers and with the amount of soiling that went on, it was first in, best dressed when selecting cot sheets out of the massive clean laundry bins. Sometimes I got to go and choose, but most often, of course, it was a nurse's job. And I would often hear them mention to parents that they'd tried their best to "get her something pink" or "get him something to suit a little boy."

I remember asking more than once, "Where do these cute ones come from?" because they were fairly few and far between, the really nice ones. The reply I received was that they were mostly donated and that they used to have better ones but with the amount of washing they endured, the supply changed fairly often and was only as good as what had been freshly donated. Of course, at that point I couldn't have known that I would be pitching in to ensure they got new sheets if from nowhere else then from me. But I do remember watching pilled and frayed-edged sheets being unravelled from the better ones and thrown out.

So here we are. My 4th or 5th (I can't remember) contribution. Unless you have been in the Special Care Nursery or NICU with your tiny baby, you can't know what a difference it makes to have linen with baby prints on them. Not just any old curtain-fabric looking stuff. But the sort of cuddly patterns that you might have in your own nursery, on their own cots, if only they were home.

If ever you have wanted to do something useful and EASY.... I would highly recommend going to your local fabric store and picking out some lovely polycottons. Check with your local hospital first, but that's easy to do, and I can assure you they'll probably be very glad to accept new sheets! Run your machine around each edge to finish them, so the final size is about 90x75cm (no less) - they are tiny beds, after all! - and they will also be used for making "nests" and for draping over the top of the isolettes to reduce light for sleeping bubbas. Very handy. Vital. Such a lovely gift for a parent as they watch over their little one if they can see some cheerful colours.

I absolutely adore the fabrics I found this time. Then again, I tend to say that to myself every time. I actually picked these fabrics up months ago, but what with our house renovations/extension and the parents inlaw staying for two months at the end of last year... yada yada, I just didn't get the chance to get these ready to take to the hospital any sooner.

So. I plan to take them tomorrow with the LGBB, after dancing. I hope to see some of the familiar faces I haven't seen in over a year since we last went in, but that will really just be icing on the cake.

Me time

For the past couple of weeks, my posts have been light on. Much of the reason for this has been a combination of workload and personal burnout. But the bigger, more important reason for this lack of www-time has been this...

Good old-fashioned attack of the guilts at some of the obvious things our little Lolly Gobble Bliss-Bomb (aka The LGBB) has been saying - imaginative, innocent and honest insights into her inner world - that have left my Maternal Radar in overdrive.

Exhibit A:
One morning last week, I was hastily patching together a section of my book which I had been working on before the house woke up at 7am. Not wanting to leave the train of thought hanging when Lolly had come up for cuddles and breakfast, I distractedly tended to her and made a dive back to the laptop before I lost my place in the story. She found her way to her Etch-A-Sketch on the rug near my feet and was happily lost in her drawing for a time, before I asked her, "Whatcha drawin', Lollypop?" I only had half an ear out for her reply, as I was still steeped in what I was doing.

"A baby dragon," she replied, not looking up.

"A what?!" I asked, incredulous and not sure I'd heard correctly. Lolly has no interest in dragons and doesn't speak of them. She repeated herself and had, indeed, been drawing a baby dragon.

"What's the baby dragon doing?" I asked, stopping my work and giving full attention this time to my daughter, who had still not looked up.

"She's curled up, reaching out for her mummy," she said, more just out-loud to the room than to me in particular.

"And... what's her mummy doing?" I hardly wanted to know her answer.

"She's working."

It's all I needed to hear. I dropped the lappy like a hot potato and made a casual dash (you know those ones, where you don't want them to know how eager you are to capture a moment?) for the camera, asking if I could take a photo of her baby dragon. She obliged politely by saying I could. The dragon was, indeed, reaching a 'paw' in the direction I had been sitting.

After an intensely trying weekend, in which everything basically piled in on top of me while I was down a pit, I surfaced to face a new week only to find that my daughter was deeply affected by my exhaustion. She has always mirrored me in this way. Even as a young, young baby, the LGBB would preempt me getting run-down or sick by going under herself. As she became older, she had spells that would force her to sleep for a day or two at a time - following the pattern for the past four years (and she has mostly grown out of these 'moments' now), they seemed to coincide with me being called in to be of energetic service to someone, somewhere in the world. Odd. Fascinating. Just The Way We Are. She is a sensitive, deeply intuitive little kid and I always, always seem to forget. I STILL smack the back of my own hand sometimes when, in hindsight, it always seems so clear.

And this time, there is a direct correlation between all this happening and all of my spare energy and time being frittered away on the strain that is sharing the house for this extended time with my parents inlaw. "Fourteen more sleeps," Steve tried to console me tonight. Dear oh dear. And it's not anything necessarily awful, it's just simply that feeling of not being able to completely relax in your own home - I hadn't quite realised how much it got to me, but my little sponge-child has shown me just how deeply it is affecting us all.

As her mother, part of my duty is to guide my child and help her to both embrace her gifts and abilities (as any mother would with her child and his/her own unique strengths and talents), to normalise what it is she feels, at the same time as helping her see herself as a special gift to the world, as much as she is a gift graced to her father and me.

I can't give her my undivided attention all the time - a difficult thing for an only child (for in essence that is how she is being raised) to understand because there is nobody else vying for my attention - but I can see by these utterings lately, as evidenced by her baby dragon drawing, that my balance of work-Lolly-me time is sorely out of whack lately.

On Monday afternoon, after four hours at occasional care (the only day she goes now), I knew exactly what she needed. I had told my mother inlaw in the morning that I would organise dinner. By 4pm pickup time, it was quite clear I was needed as a mummy first. I spent thirty minutes at the park pushing Lol on swings, riding on giant bendy-"necked" animals, applauding at slide dismounts and generally just hung out with my daughter. Then, as we made our way home, I phoned Steve and told him that he and I could grab dinner later and if his parents could please get theirs, as there had been a change of plans. As it stands, I'm still not quite sure they understand why I reneged on the dinner-cooking I had promised (for my mother inlaw had offered but, honestly, I was too tired to even do the "are you sure, it's no problem for me to do it... now, what do you want, where is everything, what does Lolly not eat..." caper that it seemed easier for me to just handle it myself). But I don't really care. My little girl went to bed that night much happier, having been absolutely soaked in an afternoon of my undivided, uncomputerised attention. We read stories, did Christmas jigsaw puzzles, had a bubble bath... reconnected.

It is difficult, I would gather, for all parents to get that balance "right" - and that is a rather dicey word to use here, but for want of another I'll leave it in - between attending to all of their children, if they are blessed with more than one, juggling work commitments, holding extended family at arms' length when needs of any of their children dictate it, and of course spend that all-important alone time together. Let's not even touch on how messy my house is right now, either. I can't do it all, I see that. We went to the library for two hours today and returned to the house exactly as it was at 10am when we left this morning before dropping in on friends prior to getting to the library. I despise a messy, unclean house. BUT...... I'm more concerned with a child who has begun to act out her need to see more of me via her pictures and toys.

This "me time" I keep hearing getting bandied about, I had let it go to my head. A reflection on myself only, which I am doing here "out loud" for the sake of reminding myself down the track if it ever happens again, I see now that I had begun to act out against all these demands placed on me as the family Maypole. Desperately clinging to whatever "me time" I perceived I had to fight for, I was missing the one obvious thing. This very blog, and the collective blogosphere (and ... er, Twitterdom, shall we call it?), this is my "me time" and I have previously been getting scads of it. I have simply allowed myself to incorporate "blog time" in "work time" and it's simply not the case.

Rather like a budget, where Groceries allowance can be separated into household items, nappies, cleaning products and the likes, so that your actual food allowance is much more healthy-looking, I need to make clearer boundaries in the way I am conducting my free time. My "me time". It's not entirely accurate of me to say I get next to none of it. In my own feeble defense, I recognise it's because my entire work life is also spent at the computer - the book and my paid work all cause me to be chained to this thing I'm sitting in front of at this very moment - but it's time I started clock start/stopping so that I can get a more accurate Time Budget going here. And if my computer time has crept into this so-called "me time", then I need to seriously ask myself if I am cutting my nose of to spite my face if I "just quickly check this blog to see if she's updated her comments" or "hop into Echofon to see who's on Twitter" because in my mind, I'm here working already and a brief drop-in on a site won't make much difference at all.....

But it does make a difference. A huge difference. I need to spend time to make time, this distance I have placed between me and other blogs (and my own) this past fortnight has really helped me see that. I'm thinking a whole lot more internet surfing and blogpost writing is going to be happening after a certain little someone's bedtime in future. And then, I will be choosing between sacrificing couple-time (which I will be answerable for to my patient, tolerant - up to a point - partner) in favour of "me time" and I will be forced to see that THIS, what I'm doing right now, counts as that "me time".

Confused?  I'm not!

And I'm raring to go with it, for I see that my work life is not about to change anytime soon. So the balance has to be redressed by me and me alone. I have to stop whining about what I don't get and don't have to myself and start looking out for those moments where I can make some more of this happen:

Ultimately, that toothy wide-mouthed, all-over-face grin is the reason I still live and breathe.



This post is also part of Naomi's Mother Heart linky - every Thursday at Seven Cherubs.

Now... let's go flogging on this fine Friday!

Looking in your own backyard

Hello, bloggy folk, how I've missed you! Life has been uber-busy and I have hardly even been able to trawl around my favourite blog-haunts :( Perhaps sometime soon when things are less hectic....

What is your passion as a parent? 

I read an article today about the size of the Australian suburban back yard (and the structure) and, whilst it contained nothing I had not already pondered regarding the sterile, formal, clipped, concreted and otherwise contained backyards you see more often than not these days, it did cause me to wonder: just how many people with young children have these resort-style looking yards? And who are they building them for?

Don't get me wrong, I think some of these places can look amazing, with their formal box hedges, paving, decking on tiered levels and whatnot. And they are simply stunning to feast your eyes on. But for me, at the end of the day, a backyard requires something much more than this if you have children to cater to. Even our attempts at a pretty neat low-maintenance garden at our last house would not have made for an imagination-inspiring place for any children.

When Steve and I were your not-so-typical (in that we were trying hellishly hard not to be) DINKS - dual income, no kids - our back yard looked like this:

 

I loved it. Truly loved that garden. But there wasn't much more than a 2x2m bit of grass (if that) and the rest was covered. I did as much with the small space as I could and think we did fairly well with making it interesting, using a lot of indigenous natives as well.

We sold that place when the LGBB was about 18 months old. I had an idea in my mind of giving her something similar to what I had - I grew up on 2 acres in what was termed in the '70s and '80s as "the sticks" (not anymore, the urban sprawl has ensured that suburb is now quite civilised with curb and guttering, sealed footpaths and most pastureland now taken up with more ginormous houses on tiny blocks) - but we were in no real hurry to leave.

And then, the house we are currently living in just plopped into our laps. We bought it before we had even really thought about what we were doing. Our old house wasn't on the market, we hadn't even considered estate agents, we had done the real estate no-no: bought before we sold.

But in my mind's eye, the 1/4 acre we now found ourselves in charge of would ensure our little girl would be able to sample the delights to be found in her own backyard. Granted, it's mostly been a building site in the three years we have owned it, but we are now officially a Garden For Wildlife (a local council incentive, encouraging members to plant and establish locally grown Australian natives to responsibly support and sustain the area's birdlife and other creatures who call these backyards "home"). It's a win-win, surely. And it feels so much more like home, even though strangely, I could never imagine myself leaving our last place which we built from the ground up.

Funny how your perspectives change so much once you are a mother. You make do with what you have and build on that, in whichever is your passion and hopes for your family. One thing close to my heart just happens to be nature and wildlife (flora and fauna). I love attracting it, I deeply adore growing purpose-"built" gardens from the ground up using sustainable, indigenous native plants. That my LGBB appears to be similarly enthused is heartening to me.

I was interviewed two weeks ago by a woman who is preparing a report about humans and how they relate to nature and I found myself crying. I never realised I was *so* passionate about it. But to me, there is not too many more things more important than developing in my child a sense of belonging to the All - that she is a part of it and it (all) is connected to her. If we don't have that.... I wonder, what do we have? For me, when I am feeling low, I know I have lost my connection to that natural world. When I was recovering from losing our firstborn daughter, I planted many of the plants you see in the images above. We also built that pond (our memorial to her in lieu of a cemetary plot to go and visit). Without those projects, cultivating and watching young plants grow and then feed and nurture tiny birds, butterflies and other flying insects, I would have quite lost myself.

This post may seem far removed from anything to do with "mothering" (for it is part of Naomi's linky today), however, to me it is an underpinning staple part of how I nurture and "grow" my child. The two interlink like the branches of our glorious liquidambar tree!

 

A tree this large would never be safe to grow in a small suburban backyard.

 

Just the lawn behind her in this shot is more than we would ever have had

in our old garden. And this is our front yard! (which is smaller than the back)

 

Far from exuding anything formal at all, our back yard has loads of potential

and a load more work to do to get it looking like how I can visualise it.

But it will happen! We'll get there, slowly.

This post is part of the regular Thursday Mother Heart linky over at Seven Cherubs' blog. Go check it out!

The birth quilt

This is a repost of something I wrote just before Christmas 2007, just before we moved in to this house. My days of painting seemed endless and I relished the thinking time alone, just me and the brush strokes, when I came here to the empty house we were polishing little by little into a sparkling jewel.

On this day, as I listened to Triple R, I became a little more educated in the birthing rights/situation of fellow mothers up north of this vast country we live in. And I paused with shock and horror several times as I listened to the interviewer and interviewees giving accounts and discussing the concerns of Aboriginal Australian expectant mothers and women from the islands surrounding the far north coastline of Queensland.

Birth quilt

I was painting endless timber panelling this morning - a lovely tinted white, very cool and calming - and as I got on with the job, my mind turned to pregnancy. Heh. Now isn't THAT something I've thought about before.

Not me being pregnant, but the trials that some women (so many women) face both getting pregnant, keeping the baby and then also once it's born (safely or otherwise). Over the past couple of months, I've heard a few pregnancy announcements to women who've withstood some of the most gruelling tests of their lives... the waiting, the angst, the sadness, yet a couple of surprise effortless ones thrown in to the mix which are a blessed wondrous gift. And congratulations to all/any who may still be reading this blog who are newly pregnant ;)

But my thinking went further than that today. I was listening to a woman being interviewed on the radio. They have made a birthing quilt to bring awareness to the issues faced by Aboriginal Australian and Islander women, who are forced to travel outside their communities, sometimes outside of the country (not just their country/nation but across the seas to a completely different land) to receive medical assistance to birth their children safely. These women go alone. They leave in the final weeks of their pregnancy, leaving behind obviously their partner and any other children they have, they have no birthing support, their mothers and sisters or aunties do not travel with them.

So here they are, completely alone with unfamiliar caregivers, and then basically left alone to birth by themselves - or at the most, with a stranger they've just met - before returning with their newborn/s on their own again.

They gave a statistic this morning: that for every non-Indigenous mother and baby that dies there are 5 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women that die and 3 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander babies that die at birth (or from complications of).

And so, is it medical negligence? Too much or too little intervention? For a woman to give birth safely, she herself must have some sense of safety, surely. How can it possibly help to ensure the smoothest possible passage of delivery if she has so much stacked against her to begin with? Where are her emotional and other birthing needs being met in such a practice? The more narrow-minded might say "Well they should move closer" (and I have met such folk who use this as the all-rounded, bigoted, racist answer to everything that needs "fixing"). But seriously, wouldn't allowing any or all her support people to travel with her be at least some teeny tiny start in ensuring the process is somewhat safer?

Once again, my perspectives and realities become even more sharply defined as I am reminded of my place.

Today, this is my contribution to the Thursday Mother Heart linky at Seven Cherubs' lovely blog.

Intersections

I've been up for nearly an hour already. It's just gone 6am. Using my time wisely, I'm writing about my other daughter, the one who would be almost seven now.

At 4:43am today, our bedroom door burst open and in leapt the LGBB - yes, leapt - announcing in measured statement, "I had another scary, scary, SCARY dream and I won't go back to sleep very well." How eloquent. Before I had a chance to fire up my brain so it'd make my mouth say something (I had done that thing you do when you're up and standing with your child trying to comprehend what they're doing/telling you even though you're still asleep, back there, behind you, in your soft, warm bed), I scooped her up in to my arms and began to head towards her bedroom.

"Can I stay in your bed for a li'l bit?" she asked. I turned and wandered back to my bedside and bundled her in.

The LGBB slept soundly after that. I, however, was suddenly chock full of the remnants of this lingering nasty infection and, despite my endeavours not to cough and not to sneeze and blow my nose, I couldn't comfortably remain sandwiched between my two loves and not eventually wake them.

So here I sit. On my favourite comfy couch, watching the night mist lift off the hills, revealing the bush and intersections of the three criss-crossing ridges right outside my window. They look so close I feel I could almost reach out and touch them. The mist melds and merges, a life within a life of its own it seems, and I am reminded of the nature of all things getting on with what it is they do. Birds are beginning to fly around (they've been chirping since before 5am), there is the faintest hint of colour now on the top of the highest ridge as the sun finds it. Funny, I muse as I sit here, close to my work on the book, I am reminded that it was actually my first daughter's death that showed me the profundity of life.

Of course, my very first (fur) baby, Pepper, lies in a rather uneasy slumber at the window by my feet. For a dog who is edging towards the age of 18 and who has lived her life 'roughing it' outside in all weather - she's tough, it's an Australian Kelpie/Dingo thing, that's quite obvious now she is ailing and still doing it - she doesn't seem too perturbed to be made to at least sleep inside during the day on a dog bed. I just can't handle seeing her on the hard floorboards, not in her arthritic condition. She has been with me since day dot of this journey to parenthood. That she is still here, carrying the lantern so to speak, humbles and amazes me. The loss of her from our lives - for she has been in it since 1995 - will be a keen and sore one, when the day comes. My mother-heart very much encircles this very special canine "child" and the locking of her gaze with mine (she always wins, I always look away first! - testament to how often I don't allow myself time to stop still from my busyness and business to simply  be in the moment with her/something) confirms to me that she receives that connection as well.

I've not been up this early in a long while. Two joys intersecting with one circumstance: our daughter is comforted and sleeping peacefully in our bed, whilst being awake at this time has allowed me to fill back up, even if just a little, with the beauty of my natural surroundings.

Timely, I should think.


Sharing via the Thursday Mother Heart linky at Seven Cherubs' blog.

Off with her head!

I have been in bed for three days. No easy feat with a four year-old. Mind you, the LGBB has been getting over the end of this nasty cold herself.

Seriously, in the middle there, I wanted to just sever my head at the neck. It may have been less uncomfortable. Ear ache, face ache (aka sinus pains from hell), head ache, blocked and runny nose (whaaaat? why not just one or the other?) and I've almost finished coughing up the complete Lego set to make my green fort. Seriously. How does the stuff on your lungs settle into lumps with sharp corners??*

I don't know, colds these days aren't "just" colds anymore, are they? Some strains can absolutely flatten you. I've had this for a week and there's not much let-up yet, although I can feel it's moving through, not settling in. No good when you're trying to run a house. Fortunately, Tuesday was a public holiday here so Steve was home. He and Lolly had a great day together. I stayed in bed. Yesterday, I hobbled her over to kindy and then hobbled back, did a bit of work (I was desperate to get to bed but am a tad more desperate to get paid at the moment) and then went and picked her up. Oh, how very fast three hours goes.

I am ashamed to say, the afternoon was spent under the covers - the two of us - watching movies. We watched The Wedding Singer and then The Polar Express. I was in agony. Lolly LOVED it. The closeness to me and my complete focus - albeit on my eyelids, even though she assumed I was watching with her - was tantamount to bliss for her. On more than one occasion, she cupped my face in her hands and gave me soft kisses and when I opened my eyes, she'd be grinning at me. My child has the most divine wide-mouthed smile. Her entire face beams. I was told, "I love you so, so, so much." And it made me grin too, despite the strain it placed on my snot-filled cheeks.

I wish I could be comfortable staying in bed and letting her have run of the house. Heck, I even wish I didn't mind her watching so much tv. But being that I was the only adult in the house and that I literally couldn't stay upright, I just couldn't rest. Not really. Not completely. I just have a "thing" about being in bed when the LGBB is not. So she had to stay with me. And because she stayed with me, and being four, there wasn't exactly much "rest' going on. By the time 5.30pm rolled around, I knew I would have to muster up some energy from somewhere and begin tea. If I didn't, we'd be waiting until 7 o'clock if I wanted Steve to help me. So I asked the LGBB earnestly if she would please stop moving so that Mummy could rest for a moment. The tv was off and she had stopped moving. Within a few minutes, she was asleep. And Mummy, being the opportunist, lifted her sore and weary head off the pillow and shuffled in to the kitchen to make dinner. Then I agonised over whether/when to wake her. She was obviously in need of sleep, her nights have been broken by bouts of coughing and sore tummy that have gone with this cold-bug-horridthing.

It's just how it goes, isn't it? With us, anyway, this is how it goes. Steve and I have.... well, only Steve and I to rely on. Oh how I wish for one parent, just one, to be both within reasonable driving distance and hands-on enough to just get in and do things for us. But we don't. So we make do.

After dinner (I had no appetite, I stayed in bed while the others ate), the LGBB went to bed and was happy to go to sleep straight away at 7.30 as per usual. I had taken Panadeine - something I rarely do but I was desperate - and by 9pm was just beginning to doze off and feel comfortable, when I heard her little voice. Crying to Steve, who was working still, and complaining of a sore tummy. She sounded a bit worried and quite upset. I knew he could handle it if I didn't get up.

But that instinct can't be settled. There is no way I, as a mother, could lie there feeling comfortable (even if it is after a day of pain!) if I know my child needs help. Even when the other parent is perfectly capable of settling her. So I got up and went to see what was up. Steve let me step in when she wasn't settling. I sat by the LGBB's side and explained to her the basic mechanics of food and where it goes. I had been trying to keep tabs on her bodily functions these past few days - hard when you're stuck in bed! - and in the back of my mummy-mind, I had flagged "Check this out" on the file marked "Bowel movements". It's been a few days since she's had normal function in that area (she says, tactfully) so I'm pretty sure by now there'd be some monster pains rearing up every so often. So I explained to Lolly that lots of sips of water all day would help, as well as a warm pack and some gentle rubbing of her tummy.

Hearing all this, she settled down. And then did one almighty trumpet that ruffled her sheets. After much guffawing, the LGBB was back out like a light (she is obviously still not well because normally that would never happen).

When I was walking back up the hall to bed, feeling very light-headed and giddy on my feet, I marvelled at how everything in my own body is put aside in order to attend to my child. I rely on that, I count on it, to step in and give me everything I need countless times during any given day. But I don't often notice it, not until I feel so ill myself. I am not sure there would be too many things that would keep me from my child's bedside.

How about you? What happens when you're sick? Do you have other adults around who help? Do you recognise that part of yourself that "kicks in" even when you are in the throes of trying to kick an illness yourself?

 This is part of the weekly Thursday Mother Heart linky.

That's us in 2008, back when she didn't notice a camera at ten paces

* My most sincere and humble apologies for that visual

What does your kids' lunchbox say about you?

Psssst..... Join me here tomorrow for a Cocktail give away!


This is something that I've always genuinely wondered but I am also always too nervous to ask because of the fear of backlash. Seriously! There is a certain defensive contingent of the Motherhood that bands together and takes down anyone seen to be having fun being a mother. Come on... you and I both know it's out there. You hear it in the play centres and playgrounds. I don't know about you, but when I come across it, I can sometimes (depending how strong I'm feeling that day) feel like hiding my efforts for fear of being picked on by fellow mothers for being a "try-hard" when, really, it's a usual and normal thing for me. Let me explain.

Ever since the LGBB has been going to occasional care, I have really enjoyed packing her a lunch (for the most part, you know, except those mornings where I just can't get going... rare for me as I'm an early rising morning person). Call it my hark back to Enid Blyton books - although there will NEVER be any tongue sandwiches served in this house, the LGBB has a no-tongue sanga guarantee - where the characters always sounded so excited to have their bottles of pop, cold chicken drumsticks and ooble-ooble biscuits, but I just get into the whole segmented, pieces of sandwich, little smattering of something sweet, healthy medley of snacks, lunch thing.

Lately, I have been experimenting with the Japanese bento box style of lunch. Think of it as scrapbooking but with food. With this, it can be as simple as taking a cookie cutter to a cheese sandwich and bingo! You have something that looks so special that it is devoured, no matter what action is going on around them.

A while back, Lolly also used to enjoy eating healthy things like cherry tomatoes, grapes and salmon sandwiches (if I took the crusts off, flatten with a rolling pin, then spread with cream cheese and thin sliced salmon before rolling up and cutting like sushi, it was even more exciting than triangles!). But then I started to notice that more often than not, particularly when she was at 3 year-old kindy two mornings a week, her lunchbox would come back with just the sandwich eaten. Lots of wasted, good, fresh, healthy food. And THEN.... she let slip one day that "Chelsea shared her yummy biscuit with me."

"Oh, really?" I asked, eyebrows so raised I thought they might lift off my face. I would have thought that was against some sort of policy. "What kind of biscuit?"

They were Oreo cookies, as it turned out. And it hadn't been the first time little Chelsea had shared her Superstar Mega-Tastebud Eye-Popping lunch box treats with her bestie, my daughter. Apparently, from the sounds of it, Chelsea is a child you want to be friends with - she has all sorts in that box, from the cookies to crisps. Adding insult to injury, the LGBB began to make statements that I knew she had heard from someone else, such as, "My lunch is yuck." You only have to know my kid and her love of not just plain old "cheese n budder" sandwiches but pretty much most foods to know that eating is on her list of Most Fun Things To Do - she is the only child you will find still sitting at the party table, finishing her plate.... and sometimes other people's before she grew out of it, oh dear.... long after the other children have run off again to play. She is a good eater. And I know her well enough to know that I keep her lunch food simple if I want it eaten - none of it had ever before been branded "yuck". Mushroom casserole, that was "yuck" and I could handle that, it was to be expected. Vegetable stirfry, that too was "yuck". But not a plain sandwich. So I knew I had to nip this in the bud quickly.

As it turns out, the biscuits were being sneaked to the LGBB - and I could tell, because she hasn't yet learned to fib, so the cheeky giggle and hand over the mouth as she told me kind of gave her away. I explained to her the importance of letting Chelsea eat her own lunch even if she was being nice by sharing. She kind of understood but, come on, what kid wouldn't pass up their salad lunch for a bikkie!? I know I would!

Far be it from me to decide for another's child what goes into their lunchbox, but I was not supremely pleased that my child's lunch was beginning to continually go uneaten in favour of these other delicacies. So I did my first "real" mum thing. I went to the teacher. She was gorgeous about it. No, they didn't allow children to share and, yes, she was going to encourage the girls to sit away from one another at lunch time (or go in different groups) because there were other issues of exclusivity beginning to form around Chelsea's desire to absorb every bit of the LGBB to the exclusion of all others - something I am deeply diligent about discouraging, but that's another post for another Mother Heart Linky day!

I now skewer those cherry tomatoes with little animal head shaped tooth picks (purpose made) and every cherry tomato is once again devoured. I make flowers with cucumber and 'stalks', I stick 'feet' under apple portions and make umbrellas out of other healthy little bits and pieces. It takes as long as cutting and then sticking them in the bottom.... and it guarantees they get eaten. She gets a cheese slice cut with little cookie cutters as well and, with some of the stamps and cutters my sister in-law sent me (she's Japanese, and lives in Japan... handy for my growing obsession because that is the home of food-in-cute-shapes!), I make penguins, bears, cars, boats.... And the LGBB is delighted. She's back to eating everything.

And now, to my question (and the reason why I ask it):
I have mentioned this food preparation fetish practice of mine to various friends with children of a similar age and their responses - these are friends, mind you! - range from "Oh GOD, I don't have time for any of that in the morning" to "Why would you want to make more work for yourself? Just shove some shit in a sandwich, cut it and bung it in a lunchbox. Seriously." I've also had a couple of "Awwww, I wish I had the patience but I don't" sort of backhanded compliments as well. And it has left me to wonder: With these sorts of attitudes from my friends, what am I setting my daughter up for at 4 year-old kindy next year or school the following year?

To me, when my young child is away in the care of someone else and surrounded by the different energies of upbringings represented by a whole swag of kids, I want her to open her lunchbox and remember that Mummy did something special for her and that she belongs. I don't want to "shove some shit" haphazardly in there and be done with it. I'm also not saying that I do the cutesy cookie cutter sandwich thing every single day either. But by and large, there will be something unique in her lunchbox and I am disappointed that there might (will) come a day that it causes her anguish because of being teased. For if the mothers who are my friends are willing enough to roll their eyes at the care I take, then I can bet there will be worse out there ready to let Junior know, when s/he comes home and says there's this girl who has shapes in her lunchbox (I admit, it probably looks uber-posh but come on! It's just a cookie cutter, I'm not whittling sandwiches into art with a sharp knife for hours!), I can guarantee there will be some whose responses to their children that will not be measured or respectful of the LGBB. And I know it can happen that way. And the only way I see avoiding it is to stop doing it.

From my friends' responses alone, I realise it may be intimidating to some mothers who see other mothers doing something that appears over the top for their children. I know I have done it. Judged, in fact, for if I am honest that is what I am doing. Without a second thought, I can wipe off my own feelings of inadequacy about not doing it "this way" like I have seen someone else do for their child and it sometimes, on a low day, makes me feel better if I tell myself how tedious it must be for that person to be constantly making sure their child is dressed perfectly or has a hair style that looks like an hour was spent on it. That's all MY stuff, though! That's a reflection of my feelings of shortcoming. I grew up with a mum who, now I am a mother I can see, was very self-conscious and used to put down the efforts of my friends' mothers to me. It is deeply sad to me, looking back now, that my mother was in such an intimidated place and, more so, that she found it acceptable to expose me to it.

Hmmmm! This post has ended up in quite a different place to where I thought it would when I began. However, my question still remains.... and I don't expect anyone to answer this publicly, unless you want to! Self-reflection is a personal thing.

What do you put more effort into over other things for your child? Is there any one thing in particular? And how do you really feel, as a person and fellow mother, when you see where an obvious effort has been made by another mother (or father)? Does it affect you in any way, or only on certain days?



 This post is part of Seven Cherubs' Mother Heart Linky, Thursday. 


Addendum: Considering Alliecat's really insightful comment, I think it's probably pertinent for me to point out that I realise the effort I put in to my child's lunch could possibly viewed as over the top ;)  But it is something I get a sense of satisfaction out of doing - it fulfils something creative in me as well as gives enjoyment and an element of surprise to her. Win-win in my books! Although I go to a certain amount of effort here, at least one area of my house or another is always a mess, I never iron, I'm lucky to brush my teeth and have a shower by 12pm some days (yes, still! yes, I know she's four) because I procrastinate about loads of stuff as a mother. So please don't be thinking I'm spinning all plates all the time just because I consider her lunchbox a chance for me to create a work of art. Cheeeeeers!