Barren Mare

Comfort

After that last round of comments, consider me reassured on the subject of extended breastfeeding. I now feel like a  young grasshopper compared to some of you. Seventeen months- while perhaps not "nothing"- is not even all that extended, really. I suppose it's another case of mothers feeling like they can never do the right thing. If you don't breastfeed for whatever reason, you feel guilty and judged, and if you do breastfeed, you feel furtive and odd if you don't flick the "off" switch on your boobs by the child's first birthday.

 I often get the sense of disjointedness in living in a culture which pays a lot of lip service to the benefits and promotion of breastfeeding, but where relatively few women actually seem to do it. Or if they do, they seem to stop relatively soon.  No doubt a lot of it depends on your personal circumstances and surroundings but I sure seem to be the odd one out. When I was still in the hospital with Botany, I shared a room with three other women in the maternity ward, and I was the only one breastfeeding. All the other babies lay in their cots, sleeping contentedly having slurped down bottles of formula, while Botany wailed through the night like a pinched monkey. I was then the only woman in my postnatal group (of about fifteen mothers) still nursing after six months, never mind seventeen months. And if I mention it to certain people, I do quite often get that slightly raised eyebrow accompanied by a comment along the lines of "Oh, really? Still nursing? When do you plan to stop? ", as if I had already missed some important deadline. 

So while the experience of breastfeeding has (for the most part) fortunately been a breeze, there has been that vague sense of isolation at times. It is therefore particularly  nice to know I'm not the only one with a dedicated boob monster on my hands.

Having mulled over the formulation of a plan to get Botany to stop, I suddenly realised I'd rather not be so driven by my underlying fear that if we don't stop soon we'll never be able to. That and the sense that there is some hidden clock ticking, counting down to a point my child becomes scarred for life by my inability as a parent to get a grip and make her grow up.

You see, I often worry that in my attempts to keep all the plates spinning, I may end up being too permissive with Botany. That sometimes I do things so as to avoid additional hassle and stress, only to find I've created problems for myself. The nap thing is a good example. I avoided putting her down on her own for months and months because I just couldn't stand what I predicted would be hours of screaming and protest. I loved napping with her, so what was the big deal? Well, after a couple of weeks of napping in her cot, she woke up after a very short time. I wanted her to sleep longer, so I resorted to the tried and true method of curling up in my bed with her. Mmmm; cosy baby with warm feet pressed against my tummy, mmmm nappity nap the afternoon away. Except ever since then she has taken to waking up early at nap time and wanting to nap with mummy. It's hard to resist- she is a snuggly item and it's very endearing the way she takes me by the hand and leads me to my room before trying to clamber up onto the mattress. What to do? If we go back to that old way, then it looks like naps on her own become a battle again, which I do not relish. But having had a taste of a break during the day, I am not keen to forego that free time either.      

Anyway. What I decided was that at this stage, nursing is working for Botany, it works me for me on a lot of levels. The reasons for forcing her to give it up are nowhere near as compelling as the joy and other benefits of carrying on. I do think it very likely that we may come to the point of my wanting to be done before she is. But whenever we get there, we'll muddle through it, much as we have with all those other little developmental milestones; solids, taking the first steps, sleeping through the night. (Wait. Sleeping through the night?)

Ultimately, I want Botany as much as possible to take away from her childhood a sense of comfort and security. I remember as a child being very attached to certain objects and having these things taken away or lost, because I was a big girl now, because it was silly to carry around that [teddy/blankie/pacifer], because it blew out of the car window by accident and there was no way to drive back. And I can still recall that small, crumpled forlorn feeling when the thing I loved was gone forever. That feeling may be an inevitable part of life, something to be faced up to, and it will no doubt be something Botany will experience no matter what I do.  In the meantime, I want her to have as much comfort as I can give. For her to know that I will always be here for her- even if the boobs are not on offer.  

Twin Fin-Fin Fish*

Ha! It amuses me greatly that I have inadvertently nicknamed Knox after a brand of gelatine. Well, he does turn my knees to jelly. 

 

As I once again take up the burden of weekday single mothering, I continue to rely on two very important weapons in my coping arsenal. The first: online grocery ordering. I gather this hasn't caught on so much in the US, and I cannot fathom why- it rocks my world. No tedious trips to the supermarket, hog-tying a tetchy kid into the trolley seat and making the mad dash up and down the store, shoving pancakes in her mouth to keep her from melting down while we plod through the checkout, hoisting loads of shopping bags out of the car in the rain with one hand while perilously balancing the baby on your hip and trying to find the house keys.

Instead, I sit down in the evening with a glass of wine, and click click click through the virtual aisles. Then, a couple of days later, at a time of my choosing, a delivery truck pulls up to my building and a strapping man lugs all my purchases up the stairs and to my door. All I have to do is unpack it and put it away.  In my opinion, it's worth every penny, of the relatively small delivery charge.

 

There are a couple of minor downsides, to be sure. The main thing is that it involves an element of planning ahead. Historically, when it comes to food, this has not been my forte. What, we can't eat cornflakes for dinner every night? Damn. Admittedly, I'm getting better; it helps that I now have a repertoire of certain meals to be repeated on a regular basis. Plus, the shop website remembers what I ordered previously and I can just click back through and get most of the same items if I wish. But I do have to build a couple of days into the equation, since there is a gap between order and delivery. This is disconcerting because my brain knows I have ordered and paid for certain items and yet we don't have the stuff yet. I often find myself opening the fridge to look for the blueberries, only to recall with a disappointed lurch that there will be NO BLUEBERRIES UNTIL TUESDAY.

 

Also, depending on whether you allow the order pickers to substitute out of stock items with an alternative, everything may not show up. Or if it does, you may find you've paid more for the alternative that you would have liked. On one occasion, I seized on the offer of 1/3 off on my favourite brand of nappies and I ordered about a dozen packs. Not wanting to risk getting something else delivered instead of my usual brand, I clicked on the "no substitutions". Of course, they were out of stock. I ended up with a small diminished remainder of the order consisting of, say, a lemon and a tin of beans, making me wonder why I had bothered.

 

The second trick up my solo parenting sleeve is Botany's undiminished love of the boob. At 17 months, her zest for nursing is still going strong; only now, in addition to shoving her hand down my shirt in quest of a nipple to tweak, she can actually articulate her demand. "Ah boo, mama. Ah boo," she says.  She wants boob first thing in the morning, at nap time, when we get home from work/nursery, before bed. I sometimes feel a trifle mangled by the force of little grabby hands and teeth, but nursing is usually an oasis of calm in the daily toddler tornado. I don't honestly know how I would survive the ongoing 4 am wake up calls without it, since it's generally a sure fire way to get her to go back to sleep in bed next to me for a couple of hours (never mind that it might be the reason she is waking up in the first place. Let's not go there.)

 

There is a part of me that sometimes feels vaguely apologetic and embarrassed when I have to mention to others that I am still nursing, as if I am confessing to some freakish habit. And then I get annoyed with myself (and with anyone who dares raise their eyebrows). Why should I apologise? When did extended breastfeeding become a shameful secret (as if seventeen months was really even all that "extended"?)  Occasionally I sense unspoken judgment that somehow, by letting Botany continue her boobylove, I am fostering a bad habit and an overdependence on me. That if I don't stop soon- oh my god- she'll never outgrow it.  That she's too big for all that now, she's not a baby anymore. It's that last one that makes me particularly sad sometimes. I know she has to grow up eventually- and that ending nursing will be a natural part of that. But I still see her very much as a baby in many ways; a small sweet squishy little person even though she is turning into a child at such a rapid rate it makes my head spin. Why should she be deprived of the thing she wants most for comfort?

 

Admittedly, there are two worrisome problems in all this. The first is that as Botany sprouts more and more little fangs, her tendency to bite down on me has gotten a lot worse. It's especially bad when she is sleeping- she has this knack of letting her latch slip right to the end of the nipple and then clamping on with her teeth. Aieeee. And since she's usually sound asleep when it happens, it's up to me to prise off her crocodile jaws as I gibber helplessly in pain: ohpleaseohpleaseletgolehehehetttgoooo.

The second problem is slightly more daunting. The truth is, I am lucky that I still enjoy nursing her-, because I actually have no idea how to stop. I foresee that even a gradual attempt on my part to discontinue "ah boo" before she decides self-weans will cause considerable upset and upheaval.  It's not a tempest that I want to take on alone- I feel I need reinforcements. And it's hard to know when we will be that position.

So there are times I fear when I am going to be breastfeeding forever.  I would, at some point, like to wear an underwire bra again, or at least one without nursing clips. I'd like my bosoms to resume an even keel, rather than the current lopsided tilt to starboard. Plus, at the risk of sounding coy, it would be lovely to reclaim the territory for adult entertainment only.  If anyone out there has a magic wand recommendation for pain free de-boobing of a toddler(or else reassurance that I am not alone in the practice of nursing someone old enough to attempt to stand on her head while doing it)- I would love to hear it.

*The title of this post comes from one of Botany's favourite books- "Hooray for Fish", which I read aloud to her about sixty times this evening. When it came time to title this post about "two things", it's all I could think of. Random or what?

Back to the saltmines

Wow- thank you all for your lovely comments and good wishes. I didn't mean to blog good news and then disappear completely, but tonight as I was hanging up my new 2009 calendar I realised that nearly two weeks has elapsed. Where does the time go? Well, I'll tell you- in this case, New Guy was here for the whole of the festive holidays, which was lovely. But it meant that most evenings after Botany was asleep, I found myself spooned up on the couch with him watching rubbish television, drinking fizzy wine and working my way through through the vast box of chocolates he bought me for Christmas. Aside from filling up my spare time, contentment of that sort does not generally lend itself to riveting writing.

Incidentally, New Guy knows of the blog but has indicated he does not wish to read it and will not be seeking it out. Some things, he said, should be able to be private. I appreciate the sentiment, although frankly if the shoe were on the other foot I am guessing I would want to know what was being written (or not written) about me. I think it's a given that he will feature; I'll try not to embarrass him even unknowingly too much. Oh, and I need a blog name for him- New Guy obviously not being a feasible long term moniker. Keeping in the equine theme I was thinking famous racehorse names, but was having trouble finding one that was not too long, creepy or just plain goofy. So I've settled on a name which is based on something of an in-joke between us. Henceforth, he will be known as Knox.

We took an extra week off together and with Botany at the nursery for three days, there was a shimmery, splendid notion of having some rare adult couple time. Instead, I mostly ended up running around doing a whole slew of boring crap that needed to be done and I hadn't easily been able to get to with a wee one in tow- like going to the bank branch to finally update my address, recycling the festive wine bottles, obtaining and setting mouse traps (don't ask), going to the doctor, buying a shoe storage thing at the big box store and drooling over the covetable boots that I love but can't really afford (why is it the ones that make my heart go pitter pat are sooo not on sale? )

Anyway, Knox left on Sunday night to head back home and the normal routine now resumes. I've found the last couple days to be a little bit like being hit with an anvil. Aside from missing his company, what with Botany's 4.30 am wake up calls the last two mornings, I am reminded afresh how much more preferable it is to have two adults available to assist with the parenting, as opposed to me doing it all on my own.

Botany's sleep patterns continue to frustrate me somewhat. We'll get a good run where she will sleep straight through from 7.30 pm until 5.30 or 6am. Bizarrely, over the holidays, she had a couple of gloriously long lie-ins (albeit with the latter part clamped on to my boob)- sleeping up until about nine o'clock sometimes. It was bliss. Then, as soon as I am growing accustomed to a decent amount of sleep, it all goes to hell, reverting to the 4 am or even 3 am wakings. If I get up with her, as she demands, before 6am, she is inevitably a complete crankypants about an hour later and looking to head back to bed for a snooze. Not ideal. 

On the upside, after nearly seventeen months, I have finally succeeded in getting this kid to take an afternoon nap on her own in her cot. I knew she could do it since she manages to do so three times a week at nursery, but I lacked the guts to try it here at home. One day last week, after about the sixteenth attempt to get her to fall asleep as per usual lying nursing next to me, I became a trifle exasperated and popped the clearly tired poppet into her bed on her own.  She howled for ten minutes and then slept for two hours. I actually had to go in and wake her up eventually. Realising I had been a weenie for not attempting this before, I decided I would continue to try it and today, she went down without so much as a whimper. I am cautiously delighted- I think she actually gets a much better nap when she is not barnacled to me the whole time, and I definitely benefit from having a chance to eat some lunch and have a wee break during what is otherwise a lone 14-16 hour childcare stint. But  I reckon the 18 month sleep regression is about to bite me in the ass anyway so I'll try not to get too attached to the idea.

Phoenix

Happy New Year!  Here, at long last is my news- with a bit of background and introduction:

When E. left, aside from panicking and wondering how I was going to cope as a single mother, I seemed to spend the first couple of weeks crying. Crying and crying and crying. I cried over Botany's head as I nursed her in the morning. I cried in the bath at the end of the day. I cried myself to sleep more than a few nights. And on the nights when I couldn't sleep, and at all points in between, I did all the usual agonising that tends to accompany a break-up. You know- "Why? Whhhhhy? What's wrong with me? Why doesn't he love me? Why doesn't he love me? Why doesn't he love me? Why doesn't he love me? Why doesn't he love me?" 

But underneath all of that, a little voice, one I had not heard from in a long time, was starting to reassert itself. Call it the voice of self-esteem, of dignity, of self-respect. And it was saying, "Oh please. Puh-leeeeeze. Enough already. We've been here before, remember?  We've already done a lifetime's worth of broken hearted sobbing on the bathroom floor over this man. For whatever reason, he clearly cannot or will not give you what you need (for example, love and commitment). The bottom line is that he is just not that into you. Evidently, having a child with you has done nothing to alter that. Nothing will alter that. You can't change it and by now you should be realising it's not even worth trying. Come on, girlfriend. It's time- in fact, it's well overdue- to MOVE ON. "

So at some point shortly thereafter, I made a conscious decision that I was going to reprogramme my brain. Instead of rehearsing all the doomed, self defeating messages, I was going to simply change the channel to one that played on a continual loop: "I deserve better. I can do better. I am going to be fine without him. I deserve better." 

Also around this time,  my fabulous friend Stella started encouraging me to date. Stella, it has to be said, was a major source of inspiration. Two days before her thirty-second birthday, she was left by her philandering shit of a husband (for the second time) only six weeks after they had moved into the dream home he so desperately wanted to buy. One year later, she had totally reinvented herself, with a fantastic flat, nice car, and smoking hot new boyfriend.

"Look," she said, "I know it's hard. The first date I went on? I didn't remotely fancy the guy. He bore an unfortunate resemblance to Mr Potato Head. But he was charming and it made a nice change to go out with somebody who was going to treat me well, pay me compliments, buy me dinner and generally make me feel like there were decent guys out there in the world. Even if I didn't want to ever see him again.'"

By this point, the continual loop message was beginning to work, and even though I couldn't quite yet imagine how I would ever meet anybody who would make me feel like E. used to, I reckoned that a few dates with even potato headed men would be an amusing diversion. Of course, even with parents on hand to babysit, it's not easy to get out and meet people with a ten month old infant at home. But that's why they invented the internet. I began by testing the waters on a dating site. And my goodness, I discovered it was a surprising amount of fun! It was flattering to receive nice messages, even from people I had no intention of ever meeting. It was good for the soul to do a little flirting, to see what was out there, to feel the odd frisson of possibility with someone new.

To be sure, it seemed there was an awful lot of chaff and not a lot of wheat available. And there was at least one date that turned out to be of the potato head variety. Well, that is a bit unfair- he had more of a turnipy sort of aspect, I suppose.  I went with low expectations and treated it as a sort of training exercise. Which it was-I learned a lot. In particular, I henceforth promised myself that I wasn't going to waste my time with anybody who either gave off any sort of immediate behavioural red flags. Anybody who I had the slightest doubt about as far as their being around Botany was also, obviously, completely out. And while I aimed to have an open mind and give people a chance, I vowed to get involved only with someone I was really attracted to, felt happy with and who was actually emotionally available (oh, and who would worship the ground I walk on) 

In short, no settling.  

Well, guess what? I think I may have found him. Or rather, he found me; it's accurate to say he pursued me from the outset, which was a refreshing ego boost. We had a long exchange of emails and then instant messaging and then a couple of three hour long phone calls. Then finally, in a burst of mutual bug-eyed anticipation, we met. Our first date went stunningly well and over the past couple of months, we've been...em...falling in love. He's just a lovely, lovely guy. Funny, kind and caring. He's wonderful with Botany, although as he has no children of his own, I think he is finding the learning curve pretty steep and more than a little daunting. That said, he's taken on board the whole package of our little family with immense patience and impressive willingness. Oh, and we happen to fancy the pants off each other. I sort of feel like I won the dating lottery.

A couple of people have said to me "wow, that was fast."  I admit in the big scheme of things, after the demise of an eight year relationship, this may seem a little soon. But then again, as I remind myself, E. and I split up over seven months ago and things were badly rocky for a long time before that. So, as explained above, I take the view that I more than served my time crying on my heart out over a relationship that was ultimately was just not going to work out, no matter how much I wanted it to.  Having moved on to something saner, healthier and wholer, I am massively grateful that I finally had the good sense to pull my head out of my ass and not spend one more minute of my time and energy on somebody who didn't want to be with me.  

There are, however, a couple of little snags in the New Guy mix- the main one is that he presently lives and works 130 miles away. Now, before you start rolling your eyes at me and saying "Marrrrre, why can't you get a man in your own town for a change," I would remind you that this is a very small country. The pool of available, non-fuckwitty, non-Potato Headed men is also very small. Admittedly, the distance is not ideal but we try to make the best of it. It does mean that while he travels to see us every weekend, I am still essentially on my own with Botany and that remains something of a hard slog just now. The current plan is that, all being well, come the Spring, we will make some changes to allow him to spend more time here with a view to his making a permanent move as soon as possible.

There's also the challenge of negotiating a whole bunch of other stuff that I'll write more about as we go along but mainly to do with how we find our feet in a new relationship which comes with a certain amount of sweet Botany-shaped baggage, how we go about reshaping ourselves into new sort of  family, how E. fits into all this and where do we go from here?  It's not straightforward by any means and I know there are going to be hiccups along the way. But I feel immensely lucky- and hugely, sappily delighted- to emerge from the smoldering embers of my old life with such a glowing second chance at love and happiness.

So here's to 2009, people. I hope it's a good one for all of us.