Today I attended my weekly college course - I'm working towards a professional qualification in teaching adult literacy. We started the session by discussing how we were feeling about the course and what might be influencing our learning. Everyone was saying they felt tired, demotivated, stressed... when it came to my turn, I was the annoying happy little bunny everyone hates. Me, I love the course. I explained that Friday is my 'day off' - my other half does the school run as I scurry off to the station. My younger child goes to a childminder. From 8am to 2pm, I'm FREE! I don't have to worry about anyone except myself. I can get a coffee from Starbucks. Oh, the joy! I can read the paper on the train. I can browse in the shops on my way home. When I sit in the seminars, people ask me my opinions about things and give me information I can use in my teaching.
My peers looked puzzled, most are young and child-free. There is a nervous titter here and there. I blush. I realise I've given too much away. They are thinking what a sad life I have if sitting in a windowless seminar room for 3 hours is the high point of my week.
How right they are!
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Sleep is for Wimps
Lack of sleep does terrible things to people. In your case, it alters your whole personality, your view of the world and your ability to cope with your new life, which throws different problems and challenges at you on a daily, sometimes an hourly basis. The big problems started when the Boychild was nine months old. That summer, he woke every day at 4.30. You tried taking him into bed, feeding him, singing to him, walking around with him. Nothing would convince him to go back to sleep. Wide eyed and raring to go, he would cry if you put him down and wriggle around if you tucked him up in bed with you.
The first few times, you decided it was better to get up than try to get him back to sleep. He’d only wake his sister and stop the ManChild from getting his sleep. You took him downstairs and put him on his playmat with a few toys to look at while you flicked through your Penelope Leach for some solutions. The only piece of advice you could find was that it was a stage that some children went through but quickly grew out of. Now that you thought about it, you did remember the GirlChild doing the same thing and it only lasted for a few weeks. After that, she’d got into the habit of sleeping until about 7 which was very reasonable and you assumed the BoyChild would follow suit.
By September, sure enough, his waking up time was creeping towards a more respectable 5.15. Then the clocks went back and 5.15 was now 4.15. Who’s idea was this clock changing business anyhow? Didn’t the powers that be realise how difficult it was for people like you with small children? You ask your mother for advice. “He’s probably waking because he’s hungry,” she tells you sagely. So you give him a bottle of formula as soon as he wakes each day. But instead of having the desired affect, all that happens is that as soon as he’s had his milk, he does a big poo. Once you’ve had to turn on the light to change his nappy, there’s no turning back. It’s as if he’s saying right, now I’m all fuelled up, clean and dry so let’s start the day properly and give me some toys to throw around. When you tell your mum, she agrees “Once they’re awake, they’re awake. There’s probably nothing you can do about it” and instinctively you know she’s right. That doesn’t stop you asking the health visitor for her nuggets of wisdom. She tells you the only solution is to leave him to cry. But what about the other people in the house, you ask. If we leave him to cry, he’ll wake his sister up. We’ll all be wake instead of just you and him. But the health visitor is adamant. Walk away or you give him the signal that it’s OK to get up at 4.30 every day and he’ll get into the habit. You try her suggestion the next morning. He cries pitifully and with increasing intensity. He can’t understand why no one comes. You go in and reassure him, then close the door and wait. But less than a minute passes before you decide it’s not going to work. You fish him out and take him into the bedroom. You walk around with him for a while, shussing him and rocking him slightly. He looks up and you and giggles because he knows he’s won the game. The ManChild gets out of bed and takes him from you. He walks around, singing and humming softly to him. You get back in to bed.
You realise you’ve dozed off whenthe MC gets back in beside you. His is alone and his body is cold. “How did you do that?” you gasp admiringly. “It took an hour,” he explains. You’re so much in awe of his achievements, and he’s so high on success, you roll towards one another and make the most of an opportunity for a rare early morning session. You’re beginning to get things going when - no, it can’t be - you hear the familiar cries. He’s awake again. Ten minutes. That was ten minutes’ sleep. After an hour of persuasion, it seemed a poor return. You get up, put on your dressing gown and pick the baby up. There’s nothing for it to take him downstairs. Its’ now quarter to six. If it’s going to take an hour to get him back to sleep for a mere ten minutes’ more then it doesn’t make sense. The logical thing is to get up when he wants and hope he grows out of it. Another piece of advice from the health visitor is to make sure he’s well tired out. But you know he is. He’s so active, crawling around, climbing the furniture, always on the go.
The problem with getting up so early is that it makes your day seem so long. By the time the GirlChild is ready for a morning at pre-school, you’ve been up for five hours! No wonder you sometimes give in to a sneaky nap at ten in the morning, when the BC has finally realised he needs to catch up on his zeds. But even though you claw back half an hour to an hour now and then, it’s not enough to stop you feeling woozy and cotton-wool headed all day. In fact, you suspect daytime sleep actually makes you feel worse. You’re biorhythms are completely messed up. All out of kilter.
The first few times, you decided it was better to get up than try to get him back to sleep. He’d only wake his sister and stop the ManChild from getting his sleep. You took him downstairs and put him on his playmat with a few toys to look at while you flicked through your Penelope Leach for some solutions. The only piece of advice you could find was that it was a stage that some children went through but quickly grew out of. Now that you thought about it, you did remember the GirlChild doing the same thing and it only lasted for a few weeks. After that, she’d got into the habit of sleeping until about 7 which was very reasonable and you assumed the BoyChild would follow suit.
By September, sure enough, his waking up time was creeping towards a more respectable 5.15. Then the clocks went back and 5.15 was now 4.15. Who’s idea was this clock changing business anyhow? Didn’t the powers that be realise how difficult it was for people like you with small children? You ask your mother for advice. “He’s probably waking because he’s hungry,” she tells you sagely. So you give him a bottle of formula as soon as he wakes each day. But instead of having the desired affect, all that happens is that as soon as he’s had his milk, he does a big poo. Once you’ve had to turn on the light to change his nappy, there’s no turning back. It’s as if he’s saying right, now I’m all fuelled up, clean and dry so let’s start the day properly and give me some toys to throw around. When you tell your mum, she agrees “Once they’re awake, they’re awake. There’s probably nothing you can do about it” and instinctively you know she’s right. That doesn’t stop you asking the health visitor for her nuggets of wisdom. She tells you the only solution is to leave him to cry. But what about the other people in the house, you ask. If we leave him to cry, he’ll wake his sister up. We’ll all be wake instead of just you and him. But the health visitor is adamant. Walk away or you give him the signal that it’s OK to get up at 4.30 every day and he’ll get into the habit. You try her suggestion the next morning. He cries pitifully and with increasing intensity. He can’t understand why no one comes. You go in and reassure him, then close the door and wait. But less than a minute passes before you decide it’s not going to work. You fish him out and take him into the bedroom. You walk around with him for a while, shussing him and rocking him slightly. He looks up and you and giggles because he knows he’s won the game. The ManChild gets out of bed and takes him from you. He walks around, singing and humming softly to him. You get back in to bed.
You realise you’ve dozed off whenthe MC gets back in beside you. His is alone and his body is cold. “How did you do that?” you gasp admiringly. “It took an hour,” he explains. You’re so much in awe of his achievements, and he’s so high on success, you roll towards one another and make the most of an opportunity for a rare early morning session. You’re beginning to get things going when - no, it can’t be - you hear the familiar cries. He’s awake again. Ten minutes. That was ten minutes’ sleep. After an hour of persuasion, it seemed a poor return. You get up, put on your dressing gown and pick the baby up. There’s nothing for it to take him downstairs. Its’ now quarter to six. If it’s going to take an hour to get him back to sleep for a mere ten minutes’ more then it doesn’t make sense. The logical thing is to get up when he wants and hope he grows out of it. Another piece of advice from the health visitor is to make sure he’s well tired out. But you know he is. He’s so active, crawling around, climbing the furniture, always on the go.
The problem with getting up so early is that it makes your day seem so long. By the time the GirlChild is ready for a morning at pre-school, you’ve been up for five hours! No wonder you sometimes give in to a sneaky nap at ten in the morning, when the BC has finally realised he needs to catch up on his zeds. But even though you claw back half an hour to an hour now and then, it’s not enough to stop you feeling woozy and cotton-wool headed all day. In fact, you suspect daytime sleep actually makes you feel worse. You’re biorhythms are completely messed up. All out of kilter.
Thursday, 17 September 2009
Is Not Working Working?
There are two obvious side-effects of not having a ‘job’: no money and no one to blame for a bad day but yourself.
You never planned to be a SAHM.
You always assumed you'd be a WAHM.
You started off as a WAHM; with your first child it's not too difficult. Work when she naps. Do a bit more when the ManChild arrives home from work. Still got a few contacts who give you bits and bobs to tide you over.
Then the second child comes along. A mere 18 months after the first. So now you have a baby and a toddler on your hands.
The naps are impossible to synchronise.
As Stephanie Calman (Confessions of a Bad Mother) put it,
“Trying to get them to have their nap at the same time is like trying to do those impossible games with the little silver balls: as one goes in, the other rolls out.”
There's no down time. You can't be a WAHM, feed a newborn, look after a toddler, the house and the ManChild. Something's gotta give.
So you find yourself now a SAHM. It's not something you feel comfortable with. It has connotations of Earth Mother types, or Domestic Goddesses or, worse, 'homemakers'. These are the kind of people who think there is something amiss if you don't grow your own organic alfalfa sprouts and hand-sew all your children's garments, fashioned entirely from ethically sourced banana skins. These mothers don't work because they think that having a working mother is Bad For the Children. You hope to betsy no one mistakes you for one of these lentil suckers. You're no martyr. You're a SAHM because you let things slide, couldn't fit it all in, didn't somehow get round to sorting out childcare. It was an accident.
And now your home is your workplace. It isn't somewhere to go to relax, unwind and switch off after a hard day at work. There is always something needing to be done. Meals to cook, beds to make, washing to put away. So if home is no longer your sanctuary, where can you go to relax?
All those mothers who have jobs they go to outside the home, feeling guilty that they're not with their children, take heart. Even when you're at home with them all the time, you hardly see them. That's because you're usually tidying, cleaning, cooking or otherwise engaged in drudgery.
They sit transfixed, eyes saucer-like, watching the TV while you rush around trying to 'get on top of things'. Why you kid yourself you ever will is as much a mystery to them as it is to you.
You never planned to be a SAHM.
You always assumed you'd be a WAHM.
You started off as a WAHM; with your first child it's not too difficult. Work when she naps. Do a bit more when the ManChild arrives home from work. Still got a few contacts who give you bits and bobs to tide you over.
Then the second child comes along. A mere 18 months after the first. So now you have a baby and a toddler on your hands.
The naps are impossible to synchronise.
As Stephanie Calman (Confessions of a Bad Mother) put it,
“Trying to get them to have their nap at the same time is like trying to do those impossible games with the little silver balls: as one goes in, the other rolls out.”
There's no down time. You can't be a WAHM, feed a newborn, look after a toddler, the house and the ManChild. Something's gotta give.
So you find yourself now a SAHM. It's not something you feel comfortable with. It has connotations of Earth Mother types, or Domestic Goddesses or, worse, 'homemakers'. These are the kind of people who think there is something amiss if you don't grow your own organic alfalfa sprouts and hand-sew all your children's garments, fashioned entirely from ethically sourced banana skins. These mothers don't work because they think that having a working mother is Bad For the Children. You hope to betsy no one mistakes you for one of these lentil suckers. You're no martyr. You're a SAHM because you let things slide, couldn't fit it all in, didn't somehow get round to sorting out childcare. It was an accident.
And now your home is your workplace. It isn't somewhere to go to relax, unwind and switch off after a hard day at work. There is always something needing to be done. Meals to cook, beds to make, washing to put away. So if home is no longer your sanctuary, where can you go to relax?
All those mothers who have jobs they go to outside the home, feeling guilty that they're not with their children, take heart. Even when you're at home with them all the time, you hardly see them. That's because you're usually tidying, cleaning, cooking or otherwise engaged in drudgery.
They sit transfixed, eyes saucer-like, watching the TV while you rush around trying to 'get on top of things'. Why you kid yourself you ever will is as much a mystery to them as it is to you.
Saturday, 29 August 2009
The Journey
You used to enjoy travelling to your holiday destination – as far as you were concerned, your holiday started as soon as you’d slung the suitcase in the back of the taxi. But this time round something’s changed and suddenly you find yourself reminded of your experience of childbirth: the endless waiting around, the expressionless professionals, the dry mouth and the queasy stomach. The constant interruptions just as you are about to relax; the temperature checks and monitor bleeps replaced with tinny-voiced announcements and requests for the loo/a biscuit/yet another visit to the duty-free shop.
Inside the aircraft the parallels continue: you have that headachy feeling from being awake all night in brightly-lit rooms. You have to hand it to Easyjet – what they don’t charge you in seat cost they certainly recoup by keeping you awake all night so they can flog you stuff from their on-board shopping carts. The delays, just like in the maternity ward, are experienced in an information vacuum. You’re too hot, dehydrated, weary from gulping in recycled air, disorientated from the lack of sleep and the irregular mealtimes.
That roller-coaster feeling is also there: you can’t get off, someone else is in charge, your fate is in the hands of others, you feel out of control. The jargon, the uniforms, the machinery all convince you that this is a subject you just don’t understand: you could no more deliver your baby on your own than take over from the pilot should he have the temerity to keel over mid-flight. And then, at last, you’re ejected from the plane and step onto fizzing Greek tarmac. You start to feel rejuvenated as you breathe in the sweet scent of aircraft fuel and hot rubber. Holidays, here we come!
And then you remember the kids.
Inside the aircraft the parallels continue: you have that headachy feeling from being awake all night in brightly-lit rooms. You have to hand it to Easyjet – what they don’t charge you in seat cost they certainly recoup by keeping you awake all night so they can flog you stuff from their on-board shopping carts. The delays, just like in the maternity ward, are experienced in an information vacuum. You’re too hot, dehydrated, weary from gulping in recycled air, disorientated from the lack of sleep and the irregular mealtimes.
That roller-coaster feeling is also there: you can’t get off, someone else is in charge, your fate is in the hands of others, you feel out of control. The jargon, the uniforms, the machinery all convince you that this is a subject you just don’t understand: you could no more deliver your baby on your own than take over from the pilot should he have the temerity to keel over mid-flight. And then, at last, you’re ejected from the plane and step onto fizzing Greek tarmac. You start to feel rejuvenated as you breathe in the sweet scent of aircraft fuel and hot rubber. Holidays, here we come!
And then you remember the kids.
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
Nappy Rot
“I read somewhere that you lose 3 per cent of you brain volume while pregnant.”
Anne Enright, Making Babies, Stumbling into Motherhood
You’ve been trying to ignore it but the fact is something strange has happened to your brain. Without you noticing, it seems to have shrunk to the point where you have become an imbecile. Perhaps it’s something to do with breastfeeding: the baby is literally sucking the sense out of you, draining the brain’s lubricant away, turning your thinking tackle into a dried up old lump of grey stodge. Or maybe it’s been so long that you were approached for advice, since anyone canvassed your opinion on anything outside the domestic realm, that the synapses have rusted up. In any case, it becomes clear when Manchild is writing a job application that something is amiss.
“That’s weird,” he says, staring at the computer monitor.
“What?” you ask, shifting baby from one boob to the other.
“How do you spell ‘obstensively‘? It keeps getting highlighted on the spellchecker.”
“Let me see.” You scan the word, the sentence, the context and are equally baffled. “Looks fine. Get the dictionary.”
He goes upstairs and brings down the hefty brick. You hand him the baby while you flick through.
“Gosh, that is weird,” you conclude. “‘Obstensively’ isn’t listed in the dictionary. You look at each other in confusion. It takes a while for the penny to drop.
“Hang on, it’s ‘ostensively’, not ‘obstensively’,” you announce, relieved that your intelligence and insight are still intact. You flick forward a couple of pages and run your finger down the margins.
“Oh, erm… well, nearly right. Mmmm,” you trail off. “Well, it’s here. That’s the spelling.
‘Ostensibly’. Is that what you were looking for?”
“Can you look up something else while you’re at it?”
“What’s that then?”
“Nappy rot. A brain disorder. It’s an affliction of the newly parented.”
“Ha, ha. Well, at least it’s not just me that’s got it.”
Anne Enright, Making Babies, Stumbling into Motherhood
You’ve been trying to ignore it but the fact is something strange has happened to your brain. Without you noticing, it seems to have shrunk to the point where you have become an imbecile. Perhaps it’s something to do with breastfeeding: the baby is literally sucking the sense out of you, draining the brain’s lubricant away, turning your thinking tackle into a dried up old lump of grey stodge. Or maybe it’s been so long that you were approached for advice, since anyone canvassed your opinion on anything outside the domestic realm, that the synapses have rusted up. In any case, it becomes clear when Manchild is writing a job application that something is amiss.
“That’s weird,” he says, staring at the computer monitor.
“What?” you ask, shifting baby from one boob to the other.
“How do you spell ‘obstensively‘? It keeps getting highlighted on the spellchecker.”
“Let me see.” You scan the word, the sentence, the context and are equally baffled. “Looks fine. Get the dictionary.”
He goes upstairs and brings down the hefty brick. You hand him the baby while you flick through.
“Gosh, that is weird,” you conclude. “‘Obstensively’ isn’t listed in the dictionary. You look at each other in confusion. It takes a while for the penny to drop.
“Hang on, it’s ‘ostensively’, not ‘obstensively’,” you announce, relieved that your intelligence and insight are still intact. You flick forward a couple of pages and run your finger down the margins.
“Oh, erm… well, nearly right. Mmmm,” you trail off. “Well, it’s here. That’s the spelling.
‘Ostensibly’. Is that what you were looking for?”
“Can you look up something else while you’re at it?”
“What’s that then?”
“Nappy rot. A brain disorder. It’s an affliction of the newly parented.”
“Ha, ha. Well, at least it’s not just me that’s got it.”
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
The Butternut Squash Incident
Even while puréeing veg for the baby and simultaneously scouring your Annabel Karmel cookbook for delicious meals to entertain your children’s palates, you'd half-suspected that they’d end up eating toast and yoghourt again. But that didn't stop you busting a gut in the kitchen in your unrelenting attempts at Trying To Be A Good Mother. Scanning the pages of Annabel's beautifully photographed creations, you’d been seduced by the pictures of a scrummy-looking butternut squash risotto. No child could resist butternut squash, Annabel assured you, not even a ‘fussy eater’ like your firstborn. So you’d decided to go for it, hacked away at the skin, chopped the flesh up into cubes as per instructions, followed the recipe to the letter. MC had even taken the children out for a walk so you could concentrate on recreating this culinary masterpiece. You’d hovered over the pan, stirring the rice, making sure there was enough water. You’d nurtured that dish, tended to it, brought it to life. And when you’d presented it to your children? Child #1 had tried one spoonful and instantly spat it out. Child # 2 wouldn’t even look at it and instead used the back of his hand to remove it swiftly from his high chair with one careless flick.
That was the first and last time you attempted to cook à la Annabel.
That was the first and last time you attempted to cook à la Annabel.
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Your Birth Story - Flashback
“They say men can never experience the pain of childbirth… they can if you hit them in the goolies with a cricket bat … for fourteen hours.” Jo Brand
You are beginning to doze off when you something wakes you with a jolt. You’re suddenly wide awake and realise you’re sweating and your heart’s beating like the clappers. You were having a flashback. Remembering the delivery room, the harsh lights, the jumble of people coming and going. The paediatrician, standing by the resuscitation machine, looking impatiently at his watch as yet another push failed to produce the baby’s head. The doctor between your legs, her hair askew, losing patience because the ventouse wasn’t attaching properly.
“You’re not pushing hard enough,” she’d snarled. “If you don’t get on with it I’m going to have to wheel you down the theatre for a Caesarean.” Her threat held no impact for you. Legs up in stirrups, exhausted and running out of steam, you had little say in the proceedings in any case. You winced as she inserted the ventouse contraption; it felt like she was pushing a cardboard tube up inside you. “Stop it, you can’t feel anything, you’ve had an epidural,” she’d scolded. But epidural or not, you could feel it, it was uncomfortable and wasn’t working. Finally she’d looked at you and sighed.
“What about forceps?” you suggested, trying to be helpful.
“All right, I’ll try, but I’ll have to cut you. That’s the first failed ventouse delivery I’ve had in fourteen years.” Tutting, she’d reached for oversize pliers and set to work.
“Wait for the next contraction and push as hard as you can!” You’re not sure but you think you might be having a contraction so you do as you’re told.
There are more midwives appearing in the room. It’s early morning now and the new shift has arrived. Eight nurses and two doctors chant “Push!”, “Come on, you can do it!”, “Keep going!” “Down in your bottom!” The noise is deafening, like the roar at a football match. And a cheer goes up: “It’s a girl!” She’s out, her head, then her body and the doctor flops her onto your stomach. In your woozy state, you can only say, “Oh, my God” because you’re thinking “Where did she come from?” The baby lying on you seems unconnected to the hideous and traumatic ordeal that you’ve just been through. You realise you’re crying and tell MC to check her over. Is it definitely a girl? Is she OK? Is she OK? Have you counted her fingers and toes? He doesn’t answer and you look up and see why; he’s crying too.
You seem to cry a lot after that. If anyone asks you if you’re OK, you cry. You can’t help it. You cry because you’re so annoyed with yourself; it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Your carefully thought out birth plan specifically requested low lights, a peaceful atmosphere and a smorgasbord of pain relief options you'd hoped you wouldn't need - nowhere in there did it say anything about wanting sarcastic doctors and noisy crowds.
Your mother comes to visit and asks if she can hold the baby. She’s alarmed by the huge red weeping sore on her head where they took blood gas samples, the swelling inflicted by the ventouse and the red welts left by the prongs of the forceps. That’s enough to set you off again. You cry for yourself and for every woman who has ever given birth.
You are beginning to doze off when you something wakes you with a jolt. You’re suddenly wide awake and realise you’re sweating and your heart’s beating like the clappers. You were having a flashback. Remembering the delivery room, the harsh lights, the jumble of people coming and going. The paediatrician, standing by the resuscitation machine, looking impatiently at his watch as yet another push failed to produce the baby’s head. The doctor between your legs, her hair askew, losing patience because the ventouse wasn’t attaching properly.
“You’re not pushing hard enough,” she’d snarled. “If you don’t get on with it I’m going to have to wheel you down the theatre for a Caesarean.” Her threat held no impact for you. Legs up in stirrups, exhausted and running out of steam, you had little say in the proceedings in any case. You winced as she inserted the ventouse contraption; it felt like she was pushing a cardboard tube up inside you. “Stop it, you can’t feel anything, you’ve had an epidural,” she’d scolded. But epidural or not, you could feel it, it was uncomfortable and wasn’t working. Finally she’d looked at you and sighed.
“What about forceps?” you suggested, trying to be helpful.
“All right, I’ll try, but I’ll have to cut you. That’s the first failed ventouse delivery I’ve had in fourteen years.” Tutting, she’d reached for oversize pliers and set to work.
“Wait for the next contraction and push as hard as you can!” You’re not sure but you think you might be having a contraction so you do as you’re told.
There are more midwives appearing in the room. It’s early morning now and the new shift has arrived. Eight nurses and two doctors chant “Push!”, “Come on, you can do it!”, “Keep going!” “Down in your bottom!” The noise is deafening, like the roar at a football match. And a cheer goes up: “It’s a girl!” She’s out, her head, then her body and the doctor flops her onto your stomach. In your woozy state, you can only say, “Oh, my God” because you’re thinking “Where did she come from?” The baby lying on you seems unconnected to the hideous and traumatic ordeal that you’ve just been through. You realise you’re crying and tell MC to check her over. Is it definitely a girl? Is she OK? Is she OK? Have you counted her fingers and toes? He doesn’t answer and you look up and see why; he’s crying too.
You seem to cry a lot after that. If anyone asks you if you’re OK, you cry. You can’t help it. You cry because you’re so annoyed with yourself; it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Your carefully thought out birth plan specifically requested low lights, a peaceful atmosphere and a smorgasbord of pain relief options you'd hoped you wouldn't need - nowhere in there did it say anything about wanting sarcastic doctors and noisy crowds.
Your mother comes to visit and asks if she can hold the baby. She’s alarmed by the huge red weeping sore on her head where they took blood gas samples, the swelling inflicted by the ventouse and the red welts left by the prongs of the forceps. That’s enough to set you off again. You cry for yourself and for every woman who has ever given birth.
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