I used to have to be on death’s door before taking so much as a Panado. Now, at the slightest inkling of a sniffle and I’m reaching for the Cold and Flu remedy. Having a baby has turned me into a man.
Archive for 2008
Give me the drugs
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008Competing or merely participating?
Saturday, September 27th, 2008I’m writing an article for a competition and while writing it I get stuck on answering my own question: Why am I actually participating when there is a greater chance of me winning a half marathon?
In going through the process I can’t help but realize that perhaps as parents we are always competing … but perhaps we are competing purely to participate rather than competing to win. After all, I don’t enter half marathons to win but just to be part of the experience … to be granted access to a part of life that I would otherwise not be part of. But if I don’t think of the – even remote – possibilty of winning, I wouldn’t bother entering. You can’t be part of parenting unless you participate but you won’t ever win … it’s the kind of race where you can win a heat but never the whole race. I’m going to get a medal anyway because it’s not a race I intend quitting before the finish.
Luck Chance Accident – exploring the meaning
Thursday, September 18th, 2008Luck is like God. It isn’t real but we believe in it anyway. We pray to the god of chance. Waiting for things to happen albeit pure accident. Was he an accident or a stroke of luck? Do I write by chance? Am I lucky to have a craft? Give me Morgan Stanley’s share option rules to decipher. Hand me that clipboard. Prove there is a God. Show me probabilities and percentages. Accidental drifting across the sea. Across thresholds. Chance encounters. Destiny. Decided. There would be no love without luck, chance or accident. The need to believe is all-consuming … unless it is belief in oneself. Take God out of the equation: I have a better chance of believing in myself without her. Are there any accidents in life or do we make them in order to go forward? He pushed me out of my inertia. He is my luck. My little god. My noo-noo. My boy. My child.
CONTROL
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008I challenge anyone to prove to me that smacking your child shows more control that not.
The reason I don’t smack my child because I was beaten as a child … so perhaps I can’t be totally rational about this. This is, it was my parents’ attempt at gaining an element of control when they thought all was lost. They used this as their way of showing that they had the control. I believe not. I believe that the point a parent crosses that line is a point where all control is lost – by the parent – as well as a fair amount of trust and respect by the child. Parents think (well, mine did) that using the wooden spoon, leather slipper and cane remove them from the pain inflicted and thereby absolves them of their guilt.
Having said that though, I can’t help but wonder whether, in holding back that anger that produces the lashing, the anger finds a less resistant route and finds a way to hurt in even deeper ways.
Something to ponder. But in the meantime I cannot slide that slippery slope. I cannot bear to lose my child’s trust and most of all, I cannot even comprehend hurting that perfect being no matter how much abuse he throws at me. How do they learn so quickly, not only where all the buttons are but how and when to push them to maximum effect?
Discomfort Zone
Thursday, September 11th, 2008Remember the first time you farted in front of your partner? Remember when it became quite normal to sit on the toilet with the door open? Remember when things just got way too comfortable? It all happened slowly, with years of time to adjust.
And then you have a baby together and you will never see each other in the same light … ever again. There’s, oh so much more dignity in performing your daily ablutions in front of your partner than there is caring for a baby.
Off Limits …
Thursday, September 4th, 2008So simple yet seemingly unique, these are two words I started using as soon as my inquisitive and tactile child began to crawl. I’m not entirely sure where I got the idea so can only guess at the fact that I probably used it when training my ridgeback puppy (who, by the way, only ever chewed one item not intended for him). It is only now, when entertaining mothers of infants, that I realize how this should have been the one piece of advice I imparted months ago. The use of ‘NO’ is more an over-Â use and no child ever takes it seriously when repeated so many times with no follow through consequences. My child still understands ‘off limits’ but now it is not used frequently at all and he understands the actual meaning rather than just holding back on hearing the words. I’ve regressed with the dog and find uh-uh works just as well.
I am … therefore I am the one
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008I’m only having the one child … as you by now know. There are many reasons but I have come to realise that by far the most important one is the fact that every parent has their favourite child. By having only the one I am assuring my child of never feeling like he is not the golden one.
STABBING
Tuesday, August 26th, 2008STABBING at the people around me. Solitary existence. Pushing them away. Violently resisting any more feeling. Nerves pricking the edges of me. Stabbing at the pity and stabbing at the judgement. I stand by my choice. Fell them; watch them fall. Trespassers will be … er … stabbed. This is my bubble. My vacuum. Don’t pop it. Don’t let air in. Don’t let me breathe. Suffocating left here alone. But it is my Choice. Mine. I own it. How can I own my own solitude? There is nothing in a vacuum. Creativity is an illusion and my writing is pure impulse. I have to work at the talent. Stabbing at the pages with sharpened tip. Pencil threatened. Pages exposed. Stabbing at my heart – make pain release words. Words now stab the page and watch it bleed. Inspiration flowing away on a stream of blood and pencil lead. Poisoned before it left the page. The poisoned creative Genius. Afraid of success. Afraid to write. Stilted. Stabbed in heart and head. Death comes to the lonely. Self-inflicted and sore. Missing the point. Sharp. Metal. Buried. Dig with dagger. Dig it out or die alone. Balance on the blade of blame. Lashing. Falling. Rising. Writing. Pencil sharper than sword.
SCRATCHING
Tuesday, August 26th, 2008SCRATCHING around in the depths for the words. Scratching my brain for the structure. Scratching my heart for the emotion. Scratching the dog for inspiration. Scratching the surface. Clawing my way deep inside myself. Nails and Teeth. Grit. Torture. Physically exerting the quiet writer inside. Teeth. Biting through the heartache. Covering over with sand. Startled at what was there. The bedlam. The mystery. Use the angst to write the story. Coffee Bay and Beds. Scratching at my truth. Whose Truth? Twisted and Dark. Delusions and Delirium. Chalkboard. Silent scream. Mice behind the skirting boards: bleeding from nose and gums. Tragic death. Gory. Brutal. Honest. No compassion for the words on the page. Putting up boundaries to break down the barriers. Feel enough to no longer have to feel the pain. Scratch at the heart because the head does not respond. Scratching tired eyes. Close the book. Put down the pencil. Enough now.
Welcome to my Flower Chamber
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008There is a matriarchal tribe in China called the Masuo. They don’t believe in marriage and having babies in a relationship. They believe in flower chambers and love and desire. These women choose who gets invited to their flower chambers and who will give them their baby seed. They raise their children with the males in their immediate families and there is no need to either settle or settle down with anyone for any indefinite amount of time.
If I wasn’t before, I am now totally into cultural diversity. What a healthy outlook. Why limit yourself and stunt your spiritual growth by having to constantly work around the needs of another. Selfish, perhaps, but definitely healthy. Simple rules, simple pleasures and realistic expectations.
I have waited a long time for things in our relationship to get back to normal post baby. But, when normal has shifted, how long does one have to wait to find it again. When everything has changed, how does one ever go back to being the same?
Perhaps our individual priorities have shifted in such a way that we will never be the same individually and, therefore, never the same together.
Love on the merry-go-round
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008“I’d have more children if I didn’t have a husband”, says a mother of four.
This may be because there is just not enough love to go around … after all, when you run out of love … Who do you love more? The man you have been with—seemingly for an eternity—who has ‘gotten used to you’ or the child who has just rocked up in your life and ‘needs you more than you will ever know’.
This tiny little human who has stolen its mother’s every waking moment, and every last drop of effort and energy usurps your husband’s position and deprives him of a little bit of your love.
It transpires that something’s gotta give when there just ain’t enough love to go around. In my case, the fairground attraction ended when my husband, used to a high dose of merry-go-round, had to make do with the swings. Back and forth didn’t do it for him; he went tummy-butterfly cold turkey and ditched the fair completely.
Aaaaanyway, fair or not, he suffered without his full dose, dished out a fair amount of rejection and lost a fair amount of passion in the deal. The baby ended up getting all the love for a while … and the husband is only just managing to function on his reduced dosage.
Kick the dog
Monday, August 11th, 2008Almost three years later I still haven’t gotten used to being pulled in so many directions. I like to think that mothers of more than one child treat all their children as one collective rather than separate people pulling her in different directions … mainly, I think, because I can’t even imagine having to deal with another human being wanting my attention.
And then the dog starts whining because he wants a walk and all I can think of doing is kicking the damn animal over the garden fence.
Life comes with no guarantees
Thursday, August 7th, 2008The eternal debate about whether or not to have a second is almost over. I sit and wait and look at my husband’s cute fluffy bottom peeking out of the hospital gown that only has three small bows at the back. He is embarrassed but that’s to be expected; he doesn’t, after all, have need to wear a dress all that often … especially not one that reveals his bottom.
Yes, he is having the snip. My extreme body piercing has been removed to open up the energy flow and allow my body to function ‘how it should’ … although, after 20 years of hormones and IUDs, I have little idea how that should be. I will no longer be responsible for pregnancy prevention. Wow, that feels good! Seven months have slipped by so stealthily since this discussion hit our radar … seven months of no intimacy compounded on top of all the months prior when my cervical body piercing was threatening to pierce my uterine walls as well and the pain was … hmm … it just was. But it was seven months ago when sterilization was considered as an alternative and I was determined it should be me to go this route since I was 36 at the time which means my use-by date is almost up and my husband is capable of procreating well into his 60s – he swears this is not his wish but I don’t want to be the one to stand in the way when my shelf life expires. So he has cryogenically frozen his sperm in the event that the procedure is not reversible and he now has a back-up plan for when he meets his second wife.
It’s perhaps less the liberal and more the new cynical me at play here … or maybe just the pragmatist in me.
Person to person
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008In case my last post caused people to wonder about my ability to actually be a parent, I am surprisingly a really good one. Perhaps not from a traditionally maternal perspective but definitely from the
perspective of perfectionism. Everything by the book … and then some. I love my child to the point of obsession and that may not make me the perfect mother but it’s a good start. I nurture him just enough,
discipline him, and ensure that he has all the tools to help him grow into an intelligent, pragmatic (well, the fact that he’s a Virgo may help there), well-balanced man. He is not mine. He is a perfect little person who has chosen to come to me and I am going to do my best to ensure he gets everything he needs … from an adult perspective.
Scathing sceptic
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008I always believed I was the proverbial optimist … one of those rare breed that believe everything is wonderful unless proven otherwise. I have proven myself horribly wrong. It seems I cannot believe that anyone would actually enjoy … I mean enjoy to the point of elation … this terribly common thing called parenting. When told by a woman I met through one of those dreadful classes that I am loathe to call ‘moms and tots’, that having a second has been absolutely wonderful and that she is loving it so much … well, I balked. Honestly, she must surely be hiding something … a dark secret that involves all those awful things I imagined doing to my child when he was such a tiny baby.
I can’t help but wonder how people can be so overtly happy about being a mother. Happy fathers I can understand to a point – they are, after all, relatively removed from the drama and mayhem (and I mean this from a purely emotional perspective).
I’m not convinced.
