How to be mother how to be wife

I used to fancy myself as quite a vivacious, sassy woman. I never even thought about the idea of how to strap a man down because I was too distracted by my confident strides and assuredly walking about town knowing just knowing I was the tits.

Then my vagina popped out a person.

In the process my body scarred, my mind sleep deprived and my ego battered.

I see now how my husband no longer comes home to his ferociously fun and strong woman but to a mother whose face is relieved as she hands him a baby before he's even had a chance to sit down.

I hear now the two concentric circles we talk in when we tell each other about our days. Him and I simultaneously carving out our lives as we talk in separate spheres, angling and savouring the shaded areas where our lives overlap, grappling for the shaded areas to come together into one perfect circle where our new family can live happily ever after.

I taste the chicken that I forgot to season because I can't lose myself into a pot simmering on a stove top without stopping midway to attend to baby.. Or to be honest don't blame the baby...I just plain forgot.

I feel how my husband could and maybe does get his dose of giggly excitement from people in his outside life now that I am more often grizzly mumma than sexy mumma.

That is the most vulnerable feeling of all. That my husband has an outside life and we are just the inner shell of life he comes home to. Right now I love how exciting it is when he comes home, the first family hug after he walks through the door. A daily pause enjoying a moment of completeness. I just hope and pray he will always be excited to see us.

I feel a seedling army attempting to invade our love's immunity, growing things that could potentially destroy a marriage if left unchecked. Insecurity, things unsaid, exhaustion.

And the worst is the irrational fear that family and everything I now devote my life to is impeding his full potential in life. Would he do things differently if it wasn't for me and baby? I know if I asked him this he would be devastated for me even thinking it.

We spent six hours in the car today. A scouting road trip for a rural life we will be embarking upon in a few weeks. Left baby with the grandparents because it would have been a terribly hard 15 hour day for a four month old.

We went to go find a new house for us to live in. I found something more valuable. In the car we joked, we sang, we ate drivethru junk food. Most of all we reconnected with the person we married and not just the person we live with. And I'm glad to report that I still find myself hilariously fun and searingly sassy.

Playtime

Playtime is getting better and better these days. He's awake for longer, talks (well babbles) a lot more and likes to smile and laughs at times. The other night he played a game with my husband instead of going to sleep like he was meant to. Eyes locked on each other, Daddy would stick his on tongue out at Buddyboo and he would copy only reflected with an added cheeky grin. Then he would laugh at himself for being so clever. He did this a few times it was very cute. Makes getting up every hour through the night worth it. Poor thing has terrible eczema and he wakes wanting a scratch or even just a cuddle. Sigh.

Watch me grow

I love watching him grow.

The signs of his growth are increasing at an accelerating rate. They really do grow so quickly.

I'm filled with bittersweet pride and joy as in the last month I packed away his size 000 and brought out his size 00 clothing. My little Buddha boy is a four month old squeezing into 6-9 month clothing. What a healthy little munchkin. The most amazing thing he has outgrown is a hat that is labelled suitable for 9-24month olds. How could he possibly have such a large head? Larger than a two year olds? Anyone who has met my husband will find it easy to figure out. His head is preposterously large. Many people were visibly afraid for me when I announced my pregnancy.

Buddyboo has also moved on to 'crawler' sized nappies and indeed he started making the appropriate leg kicks on the floor, the seedling starts of a crawl. My husband and I were together when he first started attempting a crawl. It was nice and made me think of how many more firsts we are going to witness in the next years.

He started trying to roll from his stomach to his back this week. I left him on the mat on his tummy so I could pop some toast in the toaster. The next minute I turn around and he was sprawled on his back just off his mat like an overturned beetle legs and arms flailing gently with a quizzical look on his face. Probably wondering how his world view just got switched so swiftly without mummy coming to move him. So cute.

He also seems to have found his voice. His cries are no longer confused lengthy crying sessions but distinct calls and communicative babbling. I swear the little guy thinks he is talking sometimes. Strangely enough he talks the most when prone while I change his nappy. He must think its a bit of a hairdresser's chair...or a shrink's couch. A place he can unload his thoughts and worries while I groom him and tend to his needs. He is a headstrong little boy. Quick to voice his displeasure but so genuine with his smiles.

His sleep has been an issue but he is doing his best and has his star days and off days like anyone. The poor lil boy also has developed bad eczema on his face like his father before him once suffered as a child. It's heartbreaking having to hold him through a terrible night of itching and holding his arms down to prevent scratching just so he can get some sleep. How can I blame the poor sod when I as a full grown adult could barely control myself from scratching an itch during the terrible pregnancy rash (see first post). I now have a house full of discarded jars and bottles of creams, lotions and potions as we work our way though the chemist shelves for something that works. Fingers crossed the current regimen we were put on by the paediatrician this week will work. 

Newborns are a bit pinochio-esque but he is definitely a real little boy now. I still miss him all the time. I miss the him from the gangly little newborn he was, to the Buddyboo of last month, to the Buddyboo of five minutes ago. He is asleep in his cot right now in the same room as me as I type this and I still miss him. The depth of a mothers love is tremendous if not wonderfully obsessive. Oh dear he is going to find me so annoying one day.

Sleep my baby sleep

The last time I wrote I was at my wits end with a baby that wouldn't sleep.

The next week I sprung into sleep training action. Somehow it worked. For about a week my baby was responding to gentle shushes and lullabies whereas practically jumping on a trampoline while yelling in his ear was previously what calmed him down. Just like the guides said, for a magical week, I could lay my baby down awake and he would gently put himself to sleep while I enjoyed my dinner in the other room.

I was feeling so good, like being lost in a new city and finally figuring out where You were on a map.

I got cocky. I was a walking baby sleeping guide encyclopaedia sprouting all the super nanny theories I had read. I had it all in the works.. The dream feed, the routine, the baby sleep lingo.. I was saying things like, "we have to eliminate catnapping" and "he has to learn to self soothe".

I started aspiring for sleeping through to 5 maybe even 6am.

I started worrying about why we weren't performing better. Why he was still waking once or twice a night.

Then all of a sudden God stepped in and said ha, you wish!

This week all the wheels have fallen off and we're back at square one. Crying and wanting to be held at all times as though he'd completely forgotten that he'd been sleeping on his own all week.

I think has something to do with his sudden desire to put everything in his mouth including his hands. Due to a skin irritation that is very near infection on his face I have strapped him down at all times to prevent his hands from going near his face. This makes a very grumpy crying baby with no way to soothe himself.

I feel like I have to choose between letting him scratch his face out to bleed but sleeping or holding him down and not sleeping. Both terrible choices. 

Either way I am completely at a loss. I think without his hands, so is he.

On the up side, he stared right into me while I held him today. I swear he was memorising my face with his deep thoughtful eyes for about ten minutes.

I already know that in my arms lies a deeply kind and sensitive boy. I can tell already with his expressive faces and his thoughtful disposition. When he looks around in new surroundings it's like he is really seeing everyone and everything for what they really are. He sizes people up when he first meets them but generous with his smiles once he's decided youre alright. He's quiet but not afraid to speak spiritedly. He really feels like a beautiful old soul.

In short, life is pretty hard right now because he is still finding his way as a three month old but I know one day I will have a beautiful friend in my son.

I have a difficult baby and I'm not ashamed to say it

Monday 12 May 2013

*Welcoming back Buddyboo's laid back disposition.

....................

Lol... I started this post almost two months ago.. It's now actually July.... and I seriously don't know where that laid back position has gone or what I was even going to write about.... Because I must have stopped typing in response to a cry that has turned into a two month grumbly cranky crying period which has robbed me of any opportunity to even start a single sentence of what was to be a happy post.

Goddam, I've just realised like a slap in the face with a fish.. I have a difficult baby.

At the moment he cries about everything. He cries when I change his nappy, he cries when he's feeding, he cries when he's sleeping. It's just a war zone here and the enemy is the grumbles.

Of course there are heaps of rewards in between for all the hard slog. He laughs now, even sometimes in his sleep. He laughs when he thinks I'm hilarious which is most of the time when he's not crying. He makes noises like he thinks he is talking back to you like he really believes he's having a conversation. In reality it just sounds like "wowowwowwow" baby speak. Pretty cute.

I'm told not to call him a "difficult" baby because all the books say there's no such thing, only that parents are not giving the individual baby his needs. Well eff off please because for example, a lot of  these books suggest "light shushing" as a calming technique for when your baby is "unsettled". 

Well blow me down. I have cooed a 25minute long "ooooohhhhmmmmm" into the baby's ear while holding him swaddled (which is a challenge to put on in itself btw), erstwhile bouncing on a giant bouncy ball with a white noise machine blaring at full blast carefully holding that at the perfect angle to the babys ear without dropping said baby.

I have devised hundreds of different creative techniques to calm my baby for hours and hours on end I try them all one by one in infinite combinations. I've tried gripe waters, oils, massages everything short of a witch doctor. In the end I have no idea if any of them work or whether the baby has just had enough of my shenanigans and gave up the fight and slept.

I just want to go back to that prenatal parenting class all those months ago and right at the point when the midwife taught us eager to learn pregnant-never-been-mums to "gently lay your drowsy baby down to his cot, pat him gently and walk away" ... I would just pause there, stop the class and yell "HAAAAAA!!!" with an accusatory finger right at the midwives know it all face.

And swiftly I would whip my baby out and demonstrate hours of coaxing to sleep and battling cluster bombs of yelling, and the finally drowsy baby shooting his eyes awake and scream like no tomorrow at the touch of the slightest fray of cotton from the cot as though I was laying him across hot coals instead of an expensive latex matress I bought him not realising that babies don't give a shit what material it is if it isn't your arms.

I am sleep deprived, tired but totally obsessed and dedicated to doing right for my baby.

So please, do not tell me that I can't call my baby difficult. 

I love him with all my heart and still I cannot grasp just how much I could love someone this much. Even in the hardest times, I cling to his crying body, cry with him and whisper to him just how much I love him. I see him for what he is: a love hungry, sweet, genteel baby boy who will grow to be a sensitive and kind man. So please baby book gurus, don't judge me just because I am finding this difficult. I have a difficult baby because at the moment its hard for both of us finding our way.

So mums out there, don't feel ashamed to admit that your baby is difficult. I struggle so much with feeling like I'm doing something wrong because he is so cranky. But really I know I should take heart in knowing I am doing my best and I have a healthy boy who gives me his beautiful gummy smiles every morning to show for it.