Leaky fish tank and other emergencies ….

Me sitting re-editing 400 images I already edited, but made a photoshop 101 error on, so I am sitting and redoing the editing, and not exactly loving every moment.  Editing once is fine, editting the same thing again because you are a tosser, really is somewhat unsatisfactory.

Phone rings.

Me: “Hello….”

Little voice: “Hello Mommy…”

Me: “Hi Connor, what’s up my boy…?”

Connor: “Mom, are you busy?”

Me: “Er, a little bit, what’s up Connor?”

Connor: “My fishing tank in my class has a leak, can you go to the pet shop and buy another one, and bring it to school now?”

Me: “errr…..”

Connor: “Please Mommy….. please …….”

Me – wondering how to argue with the fact that he knows I am not working.  He knows I am at home, he has a fish tank leak, which I can offer little in the way of advise for. Can I actually say NO when he is obviously speaking on his teacher’s cell phone with her and all the kids listening?

The short answer is I went to buy a fish tank, a cover and some pebbles and delivered it to Connor’s school within 45 minutes of his call.

So that gets me a Mommy of the Week Award.

The part where I lose it, is that I had his teacher’s name wrong (not slightly, totally wrong).  So could not find her class (as I had never attended a teacher-parent meeting clearly).

Fortunately only managed to find Connor’s class because he was standing at the front of the class and I was looking through the little glass window in the class room door.

Where do babies come from #5

I thought this was really funny and probably is a great example of the answers Siri gives me ….

I am not a fan of filling in lists … however ….

1. Why you started blogging:

I was weighing up whether I should throw my child against a wall so she would stop crying, and that maybe I could have 15 seconds of peace, or whether I should fill the second script of Zoloft or whether maybe if I sat and actually said the things out loud that bothered me it would make me feel better.

I had never read a blog – I was naive enough to think I was the only mother in South Africa who was blogging.  Well I sort of thought I was the only person in Africa who was blogging, I just had no idea actually.

2. What you love about it/ hate about it:

I love that people stop and read what I write, and I really get a “rise” when someone says “I feel just like you” about something – it makes me feel a little bit less alone in my madness.

I am not sure there is something I hate about blogging.

I think there as bloggers we place some pressure on ourselves to blog regularly and also to try to be better bloggers.  I am not sure what that means exactly – but I look back over the period I have blogged, and I think I have grown as a person, as a mother, as a partner because I have been blogged.

3. How you came to choose the name for your blog:

I can’t recall specifically, it was really just a name that came to me.  As with all things I think I am wildly original, and then when I registered the blog and the domain I realized well the idea of “reluctant mom’ was not that unique.

But I do like the name, and use it on forums and it is my avatar – my little alter ego.

4. Who would you give your last rolo to?

That would be tricky as odds are I would hide it and then sneak it in to my mouth when everyone has left the room, or no one is looking.

The reality is that one of my children would steal it, so it would not so much be a case of giving my last rolo to anyone as it being taken away from me by the fruit of my loins.

5. If I were a colour, which would I be…and why.

I am sure this is a very scientific question and will reveal much about me and how I relate to the world, but in short:

If I was a pair of jean pants: a dark colour

If I were a shirt: probably white

If I were a wine: definitely white

If I were an ink: indigo

If I was choosing a favourite: blue (or pink….)

6. What 3 moments defined your life and explain briefly.

Moment 1: I think the moment when I realized that I had a father and I did not want to have him in my life.

The moment when my mind said “sure you cannot pick your family, but you can sure as hell pick who you want in your world.”

I did not do it with peer pressure, or because someone sat me down and said that it is for the best or the worst, I just decided that this was the way it was going to be.

Moment 2: I think driving to Hermanus with Kennith in the car in 1999, and when I looked over to him and said “I think I am ready to start thinking about us having a baby.”  Kennith did proceed to get blind drunk with our friends and puke on the carpet in the room we were sleeping on to which I thought “What a total prick, why would I ever think of having kids with this idiot?”

Moment 3: When Kennith and I were at our lowest of lowest patches in 2006, and at some point I decided/realized that the worst that could happen was that I would have to walk out the door and leave Connor and Georgia with Kennith because I could not afford to take them with me.

It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make, and it was something I had anguised about for months.  But that moment of clarity when I realized “if this is the hardest thing you have to do, and you can accept it, and move on” – it was a very powerful moment for me.  It was the equivalent of facing my worst fear, looking it in the face and saying “I am not scared of you boogey man, I am  not scared of you any more!”

7. What song would best describe you?

I really do not have a life-theme song, so  I am really struggling on this one.

I have always enjoyed Smash Mouth – All Star’s and used to keep some of the lyrics pasted above my desk.  It is just a song that sits with me, but there are dozens of others that are more meaningful, and that make me cry.

But right now, this is the one I am thinking of.

The ice we skate is getting pretty thin
The waters getting warm so you might as well swim
My world’s on fire how about yours
That’s the way I like it and I never get bored

Hey now you’re an All Star get your game on, go play
Hey now you’re a Rock Star get the show on, get paid
(And all that glitters is gold)
Only shooting stars break the mold

8. If you could choose another career or job and money is no object, what would you do?

I wish I could combine writing, photograpy and aiding families to adopt.  Yes I realize the three do not connect in anyway, but we are talking “money is no object and what would you like to do.”

9. If the fairy comes with her magic wand and give you one wish that you have to use for yourself (and no one else), what would it be?

To be able to love completely, without the ever present darkness and shadows.

10.What are you looking forward to for 2011?

I want to feel – I want to feel with a sense of honesty.
I want to love completely, and with abadon.

I want to feel that I am enough.

11. What 3 things are on your wish list for the year?

I want to do something for me, without the guilt which I always attach to something.

I want to find a balance between work, love, children, friends and home.

I want to do something for children in an orphanage or a place of safety this year – I am not sure what.

13. Favourite book – one that you can read over and over and not tire of?

I know I should say something really deep and meaningful here, but the reality is that I read Bill Bryson over and over again – he is one of those authors that makes me laugh even when I read him 1 dozen times.

14. First blog you started reading?

I really thought I was the only blogger known to man when I started.  I will be honest and say that I really cannot recall the first blog I read, but I do recall stumbling across Laura, Sharon, Lisa (site unfortunately not up anymore) and also Wenchy fairly early on.

15. You get to make over one room in your house – which room would it be and why? Maybe add a pic of how you would like to change it!

I want to redo our bathrooms – we have these huge bathrooms, but they were done circa 1980 style, and I cannot wait until they are all sleek and modern.  I would be too embarrassed to post a picture, as odds are the picture would record the wee  on the floor and the unflushed floater left by a child.

The above was adapted from a blog post from Wenchy.

I think we are alone now …..

This being the first week of school holidays we have been lucky enough to ship our two older kids off to my mom for a bit of a holiday by the sea.

Right now Connor eyes are rolling back in his head as he is overcome with the delirious euphoria of days spent at the beach and fishing with his oupa. There’s a child with a serious OCD thing for fish.

Georgia got to draw a toilet in the beach sand today, and then proceeded to use it in full sight of the other beach-goers, much to the horror and mortification of my mother.

At home we have Isabelle – one child – one teeny weeny little child who does not argue with me.

I got up this morning – okay, I opened my eyes blearily. Kennith had gone to pick Isabelle up, changed her bum and brought her to me for a morning snuggle. I made a cup of tea, a bottle for Isabelle and then retired luxuriously back to bed while I drank my tea and had a little bit of time for my mind to start functioning.

Sure, I was pushing the lines of being tardy for work or fashionably late, but I was having one of those rare moments of peace and quiet in my home. I even ventured to go the toilet without being interrupted – I know, I am still a bit shocked at the turn of events.

I showered and washed my hair. I even had a bit of time to put some conditioner on it. I do so realize the absolute luxury that this morning was turning in to, and I was reveling in it.

Normally I am in the shower and the curtain is being pulled back as Connor is coming to tell me his sister is doing something that she should not be doing. As soon as I have sent him on his way, I will have Georgia pulling back the curtain to tell me her side of the story – usually at the same time as I have shampoo dripping into my eyes and my good sense of humour is evaporating in the morning light. Usually this progresses to them both standing in the bathroom and shouting at each other, so that I am supposed to listen to the story and decide who is right.

When I was ready to leave this morning, I picked up my bag, found my keys, gave Isabelle a wet slurpy kiss and climbed into my car. I actually sat for a minute before putting the key in and thinking that this is all decidedly odd. No screaming, no return visits to the house to get something, finding something someone needs for school.

Usually my morning routine from the time I enter the garage has the sound track along these lines:-

“We are late, hurry up!!”

“Move, move, move, we are late”

“Get in the car, no I do not care what that is in your hand, just get in the flippn car.”

“You have tennis today, did you remember your racket. Damn it, we have to go back! Why can you not remember your stuff.”

“Georgia just leave that alone, you do not need to take that to school, I said no, leave it!”

“Stop fighting, just share the middle seat, I said stop fighting!”

“No, I did not remember to buy you the board. You did not tell me you needed it – you cannot tell me on the drive to school about something you were meant to tell me two days ago.”

“Yes, pass me your school homework book, I will sign it while I am driving.”

“No Connor I do not know what bait one uses to catch Strepies, I have no idea.”

Today I even listened to 567 Talk and heard what they were saying. As a treat I drove a new route to work, it really was blissful peaceful. I started feeling all carefree …….

CSI New York in my Bathroom….

I am not sure how brushing teeth goes in your house, but my kids need to be reminded to brush teeth – and I have to include the words P.R.O.P.E.R.L.Y in the instruction.

I tried just saying “brush your teeth” then I realized that my eight year old has no problems following instructions. What he does do is he takes it quite literally.

He brushed his teeth, sure there was no toothpaste on the brush, and sure the entire process lasted less than 8 seconds, but if quizzed: “Did you brush your teeth?” He could always answer in the affirmative and not be lying.

On the weekend, I had my hands full. Sick baby on my hip, four year old who would not get dressed and was throwing a wobbly about something or another. I was trying to get eight year old and four year old to brush their teeth after getting dressed. There I am barking out instructions.

You know how you do not realize how you sound, until you have house guests and start seeing and hearing yourself through their eyes (and ears). You then realize that you possibly do look a little trailer park in your bathrobe, no slippers and with snot and vomit (neither your own) on the front of your night shirt and some other unidentified matter in your hair.

That however did not dissuade me from my goal of enforcing good dental hygiene in my house.

Connor trots out from the bathroom, I look at him and immediately assess that his blue t-shirt does not have any toothpaste on it. They don’t teach this sh*t, one learns this at CSI and motherhood school – it’s a combined course done through correspondence, with a huge emphasis on the work experience part.

Now a clean shirt and an eight year old is compelling – not definitive (I watch the crime channel a lot) – but nonetheless compelling circumstantial evidence that no tooth brushing has occurred. The toothpaste spatter is not evident on this eight year old in my passage.

I used to use the dry toothbrush as my evidence – but I got about 6 uses out of that tactic until Connor twigged how I knew he skipped the brushing. Now he wets the toothbrush. Kids – they are like drug dealers, you always have to outsmart them!

Me: “Connor have you brushed your teeth?”

Connor: “I went to brush my teeth.” Now a niave person/not a mother would take this that he has brushed his teeth.

Again, you are not dealing with the Connor-master, who knows a thing or two about negotiation and word play. This boy could be the spin doctor for Julius Malema.

Me: “Connor have you brushed your teeth?”

Connor: “I WENT to brush my teeth.”

Me: “Connor H.A.V.E Y.O.U. brushed your teeth?”

Connor: “I WENT to brush my teeth.”

Me: “Connor H.A.V.E Y.O.U. brushed Y.O.U.R. teeth?”

Connor: “I WENT to brush my teeth.”

Me: “Connor, I got that you went to the bathroom. Did you make it to the basin, put toothpaste on your toothbrush and wiggle it around your mouth?”

Connor: “I diiiiiiiiiiiiiid…”

Me:  “Connor, did you brush your teeth PROPERLY for two minutes?”

Connor: “Awwwwww…………………..”

Me: “Get to that bathroom and start brushing until I tell you it is two minutes.”

Why do we always sound like our mothers, no matter how hard we try not to?

Surviving the first hour …..

Adventure Boot Camp beat the living crap out of me – I really don’t think I need to actually add more to this post than that.

But I will – they beat me, and humiliated me and made me cry – and that was just in the warm up section of the hour.

At this point I felt I wanted to query where they got the fekn happy smiley people on their brochure, because it really was not taken at the class I attended.

This onslaught went on for a full hour – there was running, jumping jacks – fekn Heidi skips!!!

I ask you when was the last time anyone asked you to do a Heidi skip? Do you know how ridiculous you look when you Heidi skip? Do you know how much co-ordination it take to make your leg sort of hang in the air, while you swing your arms? The fact that the flab on your entire body is getting thrown around at such an incredible pace is probably the reason why only six year old girls do Heidi skips.

The hour went on and on. What shocked me more was the fact that the trainer kept saying this is the first day of the first week and we are going to be taking it easy.

I am not sure if someone stopped long enough to tell my lungs and heart that this was the easy part. I was doing all I could not to throw up on the field.

To add to my already humiliating state, I realized that I have zero co-ordination. Jumping Jacks and Ski-ing Movements are beyond foreign to me. It is like doing line-dancing and being the only idiot who is up when everyone is done. (do not take this as any indication that I know how to line dance – you must see me do the Macarena – it is tragic.)

It was sad, it was humiliating and it was painful! I am so unfit and just so far from being able to move faster than a Chuckles-can-roll-off-a-table, that I want to weep!

Your Mama is so fat …….

I really hate exercise – not a little, but a whole lot.  I don’t gym, I don’t power walk, I don’t WII Fit.  I am more of the bag of Chuckles and glass of wine school of weight loss.  Surprisingly enough, my diet plan is not working out as successfully as I would have hoped. 

I put huge stock in the fact that breastfeeding was going to keep the kilograms off.  But it seems even if your little one drinks from you (and invites her friends over) all day, you really are burning up the equivalent of a chicken wrap – no mayo, just some lettuce.  The result is that my lifestyle of chocolate, wine, pasta and anything that was not moving fast enough, had made it impossible to wear anything I wore prior to falling pregnant.   For the record very little I wore while pregnant looked good – it was more for comfort.

To add to the comedy drama -  our house is full of these wall-sized mirrors.  In our defense, we bought the house this way.  Our en-suite bathroom had Liberace as it’s consultant designer.  Once you look past the faux-gold taps and gaudy light fitting, your eyes come to rest on the rather gi-normous wall mirror (the  E N T I R E wall is a mirror) only off set by the fact that there is another mirror on the adjacent wall.

I am  not denying  that this is not attractive in a sort of Saturday Night Fever sort of way.  But when one is disrobing and catches a glimpse of one’s self it is not pleasing on the eye. 

The time when you are feeling most vulnerable – and you can ask any dog this – is when you are sitting down on your white throne for your morning toilette.

Your hair has that eu-de-morning sleep thing going on, your face is one wrinkle away from Joan Rivers, and your night-shirt is sort of wrapped around your chest so your left boob is kind of hanging over the top.  While seated, you cast your lazy eye to the left only to be presented with a life-sized version of you in all your splendor and glory.

The problem (or one of them) with the toilet is that you really cannot suck in your stomach .  Unfortunately it tends to sort of hang over and find its resting place on your top thigh. 

I withstood quite a few mornings with this image in Technicolor until I decided I had had enough and it was time to get my ass to some sort of exercise.  Like some divine intervention – a rather bouncy happy girl handed me a DL pamphlet at our robots.  I did have to put down my Tempo bar and bag of Chuckles, to roll down the window to take it from her, but that being said, the bright orange and black leaflet made all sorts of promises that really resonated with me.

They promised me that I would lose 3kg, I would be happy and make friends.  I have always wanted to be thin and popular so it seemed like a win-win situation all around.

I went on-line and signed myself up for Adventure Boot Camp. 

My first sense that something was amiss was when it was being referred to as a Boot Camp – immediately this conjured up images of a sergeant major (or what ever, I am not particular good with ranks) screaming at me to “hardloop na daai boom” or something equally as scary. I shrugged this off to my over-active imagination and happily did the EFT.

I dusted my training pants off, scrunged up my hair, pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge and headed out to Adventure Boot Camp ………….. waist line here I come!!

The ridiculous stuff my kids fight about …

On the way back from fetching the kids from school. Connor and Georgia in the back seat of the car. One on either side of the back seat.

Georgia screaming in a shrill voice – reserved only for little girls, and nuclear fallout sirens – because Connor is looking through her window. He retaliates by making his eyes bigger and staring all the harder out of her side of the car ….

Georgia is screaming at the top of her lungs – C O N N O R! Don’t look through my window!! C O N N O R! Don’t look through my window!! C O N N O R!

He is only doing it to get a rise out of her, and I really can’t tell him NOT TO LOOK out of the flaming window.

What is left of mom’s sanity goes | POP| Mom dreams of having enough money one day to employ a driver to do these menial tasks while she lies on the bed at home and reads her book.

Why more than two children is challenging …

1. They outnumber you – and can flank you and infiltrate your weak points.
2. You only have two hands – so if you are holding two of them, then that means a third is allowed to run free with disastrous results.
3. If you have one in the front of the trolley and two inside the trolley, there really is no space for groceries.  If you are me, you try to then push one of those small trolleys with your free hand – which you do not have.
4. Two kids and people smile at you politely, three kids and people look at you as if you have single-handedly been the responsible for the ice-caps melting.
5. The kids always argue about who will sit next to mom – three means someone is going to be sitting on your lap, which leaves no space for mom’s sanity.
6. Backseats of standard cars don’t lend themselves to three safety seats, so one of your kids lives dangerously on the edge sans car seat.  The option is baby is in the front seat in a rear facing seat, while two are in the back, and then you sit in the backseat like a toddler.
7. You never quite get on top of what is going on – and always seem to arrive at places to realize that either one of the kids did not brush teeth, is still wearing jammie bottoms or you have totally forgotten the nappy bag.
8. The chances of all three children E V E R sleeping at the same time in the day is such a statistical anomaly that it is not worth calculating.  The chances of you ever getting “time to yourself” has finally left.
9. It’s pretty easy to hire a babysitter when you tell them you have two, when you tell them you have three they get that scared look in their eyes, and that funny buzzing sound of the telephone as they put it down on you.
10. Kennith calculated that if my kids all attended the same primary school – I would be driving to the same school for thirteen years!! We might have to move just to spice things up ….
11. Evening and bedtime is about as logistically challenging as the D-Day invasion.
12. Having five in the bed for a cuddle means that you have to have either a Queen or a King sized bed, double beds are just not feasible.
13. Even with three I still fall under South Africa’s fertility rate of 3.3 kids.

Why more than three children is cool …

1. When someone starts giving you baby/child rearing advise, you can just say “I have three…” in a condescending voice, and they sort of scurry off into the distance and stop offering you more useless advise.

Close the fek’n door ….

Yesterday I attempted to go the bathroom.  For me there are a lot of attempts.  I am like the dog you see who just has to find the right spot before it can go.

So I dash in from work, thinking I can throw the kids out of the car and make a quick b-line.  I try to go past Isabelle, but she starts to cry when she sees me.  Thinking quickly on my feet – I don’t have much time now - I grab her and some toys and take her to the “little girl’s room” with me.

No points for hygiene here, only for making a plan when there are pressing issues at play.

I think I have it sorted – it all seems to be working out nicely.  So I think.

Connor – my 8 year old – then pops in to tell me something so irrelevant that I was speechless.  He leaves, and leaves the door open – so I am screaming at the top of my lungs “Connor, Connor, close the DOOR!!”

“Connor!”

“C O N N O R ! ! “

This goes on for some time as little boys appear to move out of ear shot really fast.

Connor does return at least two more times to ask me totally inappropriate questions considering the location:

“Can we play on the computer?”

“Can you watch me swim?”

In between his visits, Georgia pops in only to argue with me that her sister is using her toys – also leaving the door open.

The final straw was when Connor came back in – and gave me a jar of yohurt and a spoon and said: “Pepe said to give this to you…”   (it was food for Isabelle)

Tom Thumb and Ogres who eat Children

Last night I read Tom Thumb to my kids before bed.  First recognize that I am showing off that I found the time and some semblance of order to actually read to my kids before bed – so right there I get a gold star.

Tom Thumb is the smallest of seven kids : Right here we start to wonder is it because he is not getting sufficient nutrition and this has affected his growth. Did his mom smoke and drink heavily during her pregnancy?  Did she not have this boy checked regularly at the clinic?  Are his parents of a faith that does not condone birth control?  Can his mom just so no for once?

His parents realize that they do not have enough money to feed the children so decide to leave them in a forest nearby: Why could his dad not have got a second job, because clearly this woodcutter gig was not working out for him?  Surely if you can’t feed your kids, leaving them to starve to death or get ravished by animals in the middle of a dense wood does beg questions regarding your ability to parent and make mildly good decisions.

Tom, being the clever lad that he is, makes it home by dropping stones on the path.  All 7 kids get home and the parents are disappointed as they will have to take them out to the woods again tomorrow: I really was amazed at this turn in the story.  Surely if you have dropped your kids off in the woods to die, you are not just going to skip home and go to sleep.  Surely you are going to drink a little, maybe be a little depressed, nope not these two.  Mr and Ms Thumb are cut from a very resilient cloth.

On the next jaunt into the woods, Tom leaves bread crumbs as a track back to his house: He unfortunately did not learn anything from his mate Hansel (which might further allude to his mom drinking while she was pregnant with him, which may be the cause of his not-so-fast-learning speed.) No crumbs = no way to get home  Tom his 6 siblings can’t get home, so knock on the door to a house out in the forest.  Again clearly Tom and Hansel are not Facebooking  or Twittering each other.  Tom has no idea that a house in the middle of the woods often spells doom and the sound of children being eaten.

Cut a long story short, there is an Ogre who eats kids (I can’t believe this is what we read to our kids when we are trying to get them to go to sleep – night terrors begin here).  The Ogre has magic boots so in one step he can go seven leagues (no I do not know how far seven leagues is, but I imagine pretty far).  Tom  steals the boots, him and his siblings escape and run back to his parents. The same parents who abandoned them twice!!

Said parents are really happy to see Tom (and his magic boots) so happy in fact that they send him out to be the Kings Messenger – as the boots allow Tom to travel quickly.  The book ends with a happy picture of Tom who is holding lots of money.

What the hell happened in this story?

• Parents abandoned kids twice.
• Children went into a stranger’s house and ate food.
• Ogre-who-eats-kids came home and chased kids.
• Ogre fell asleep – as you do when you are chasing kids.
• Smallest child steals boots and take siblings back home to parents.
• Parents send youngest off to work to support the family

The issues I have with this book are: bad parenting, abandoning children, lazy parenting, no internet access for youngest, threat of being ravished by wild animals, stranger-danger, stealing from others and child labour.

I am  planning to read Cinderella next …..

Mommaliciousmammas

A new website that encourages communication between South African moms – still getting off the ground, so not a lot of members.  But they also have a blog area which is nice to link to other MWB (moms who blog – I might have just made that acronym up)

http://mommaliciousmammas.blogspot.com/

and a forum – which really needs to get going, but has promise.  Always good to encourage moms doing the web thing in South Africa.  Could use your assistance in increasing membership.  They run fun competitions that encourage moms to stop by which is a good idea – might just steal their idea

<she looks around the room wondering what she could competion off…. I have an electric can opener, never used and an electric 8-egg boiler – so watch this space, might run a competition soon and you may just be the proud owner of these two wonderful pieces of kitchenware!!>

Before I was a mommy…

I saw this line on a blog recently and it really made me sit back and ponder what there was before I was a mommy.   I would acknowledge the blog, but did not bookmark it, so I apologise for that.

I know I existed and was happy in my childlessness.  I recall the free and easy manner I would go for a shower – on the drop of a hat.  Spend a  few hours lying in the bath reading a good book.  I would even go to the toilet by myself – and finish what I needed to do …. oh the good old days.

I had time to sit and stare into the distance. I could and would wander around stores uninterrupted.  I could go out late at night and not worry what time I was going to wake up the next morning.  I could sleep late and if I wanted to go and have an afternoon sleep.  I ate my meals in peace.  I would even decide on the spur of the moment to drop in at a corner shop for a loaf of bread and some milk, and it would be easy and non-complicated.

I really can remember the “before” part.  The “after” part has become a bit hazy with the fury at which it has evolved.  Some days I feel like I am starring in an episode of 24.  Sidebar:  I really would like to have Jack Bauer skill set – when he stares at someone and his eye twitches, assume that person has less than 15 minutes to live.  Imagine if you had that as your super power! But I digress. 

I know that you can never wish to go back to a “before mom” stage as that would mean you are then wishing for your kids not to exist, and well that sort of behavior is only condoned for a few people – Mr and Mrs Hitler Snr for instance.  So it really is socially improper to ever voice that longing.

I have been a mom for just over 8 years, and I really have no idea what I am doing.  Like no idea – still!  I keep thinking that there has been a terrible mix up and some how I have appeared in some one else’s life and mine is going along in another direction without kids and blissfully unaware.

Here are some of my thoughts around

Before I was a Mommy…

… I never thought I had any sort of maternal instinct. The idea of a small person coming near me would fill me with dread.  Never held a baby, babysat only once and it was a frightening evening – for all concerned.

…. I knew I never wanted to have children. (How’s that working out for you then?)

.…  I had no empathy for mothers who worked and were struggling to balance the two.  I would get really annoyed and wonder why these women could just not balance their lives.

…. I thought I had a handle on how to juggle home, work and all things relationship.  Throwing a baby into that mix, has showed me that I am totally fallible.

…. I could look at a child who was abandoned or in need, and it would not affect me.  Now I see all these children as someone’s son and daughter and I always seem my children in them.  It makes me so deeply sad and my soul bleeds.

… I had not factored in how much puke and baby poo would actually become part of my day, and somehow it would be considered normal.  I often end up with poo under my finger nails, and it does not bother me as much as I thought it would.

…. I did not realize that some days I would be so busy that brushing my teeth, combing  my hair and getting out my jammies would feel like a luxury activity.

….I didn’t understand that no matter how much you try not to be like your parents – part of you is wired to behave just like them.  It’s not always a good thing, and takes a great deal of self-control and awareness to break the cycle.

…. I did not appreciate how easy it was to get in a car, start the engine and drive away.  Now if I can get everyone in, buckled up and not have to return to the house three times for shoes, underpants and my cell phone, I am making a fast get away.

…. I did not realize how something so miraculous and life changing can be treated as such a pedestrian event.  To have and raise a child is awe-inspiring and is often taken for granted.

… I did not realize how much guilt I would feel.  It starts when that baby is in the womb and never stops. 

… I did not realize how having a baby would make me question who I was and how I fitted in to society and really make me ask the question  “who am I?”

… I did not realize that I could look at another human being and literally feel my heart swell.  I think we love our partners/husbands/significant others and we love them dearly, but when you are lying there at night with your soft baby in your arms and feeling that weight of them sleeping, your soul turns to jam.