Barren Mare

Things to make me feel better

This is going to be relatively short because I am just exhausted this week and I desperately want to go to bed by 9pm. I crashed out at 9.30 the other night and was astounded at how much better I felt the next day after having had a decent eight plus hours of sleep.

I think one reason I am so tired is the usual grind of the day to day wearing me down. The other part is that it seems like every weekend is one long battleground with Botany. For awhile there, Knox and I thought things were improving, behaviour- wise but then the parenting gods promptly jumped up and slapped us around the head for displaying such smug complacency. Cue endless boundary testing on Botany's part. She has perfected the art of selective deafness when asked to do something. She has developed a very annoying (and slightly disturbing) habit of voicing her refusal to comply in an expert Exorcist-style demon voice. When ignored or not given what she perceives as the requisite amount of attention- that is, undivided- she will clamp herself to my lower limbs like an obsessed limpet, relentlessly chanting "UP! Up! UP!".

And the tantrums- my God. We've implemented the technique of the naughty spot, which I might have have said she might still be a tad young for but she is so bright that I seriously doubt that she doesn't have some comprehension of what goes on. It works, to a degree but it infuriates her when she sees it coming. One problem is we don't actually have a very good physical location in the confines of the flat- an appropriately bland neutral ground- in which to to carry out the naughty spot routine. At the moment we've tried the hallway but it's not ideal.  Getting her to stay on the spot is the main challenge, especially since she managed to physically rip the damn thing apart, screaming at the top of her lungs like a possessed fury. Knox is about ready to move to Australia and I was seriously contemplating downing a shot of whiskey around lunchtime one day, while my child raged, howled, stamped and just generally behaved like a complete horror.

Remaining consistent and firm in the face of all that is of course essential, but ever so draining. We keep telling ourselves it's a phase, it's a phase, it's a phase and it will pass. Meanwhile, though, it's causing quite a bit of stress.

But then we have a moment like today, when Botany and I arrived home from work and nursery. I drove home in foul weather, the rain slashing across the road in the dark. I told Botany, "oh dear, we will have to run, run, run into the house so we don't get wet."  Then I contorted myself into the backseat of my ipod sized car, removed her from her seat, lifting her up and out. The wind gusted and for a moment, I thought she might whine about it, since she hates the wind blowing on her. As I moved quickly to cross the road, she raised her sweet little face to mine. She held on to me tightly with one hand while patting my shoulder gently with the other and she said, "Run, run, run mummy. I got your arms. I'll keep you safe".         

And you know, suddenly it all seemed a lot better again.

The arguments for and against

Having struggled to compose something coherent, I came to the conclusion that my feelings on having a second child are proving difficult and big and complicated (read: long-winded)- too much so to be dealt with in a single post. So I'm going to chop it up into a series, which I hope doesn't come off as too navel gazing- but if it does, at least it will be bite sized. Also, I realised that I tend to frame all my considerations on the subject quite negatively, so to ensure a sense of balance to the overall question, I'm going to try to put more in terms of arguments for and against. Ultimately, the whole discussion is perhaps futile in some ways, other than making me feel like I've thought it through properly since in many ways, it's really not all up to me.

Let us begin.

A.  How can I even think about having another child when I am often completely exhausted by the one that is already here?

This is probably the biggest stumbling block for me, and the area in which I have a lot of trouble deciding if I have I anything resembling perspective. I love Botany, I love her I love her I love her, but as I've explained previously, there are days when I feel like I've had every last wisp of energy sucked out of me by her relentless life force. In all honesty, it's recently become a tiny bit better- some of her behavioural wobbles have calmed down a bit and she is beginning to embark on a certain amount of imaginative play which does not seemingly require my constant, focused input. Some of the raging tantum tendencies have subsided. And she is quite a bit less prone to supergluing herself to my leg every moment and wailing the second I leave the room for any reason. But there are still good days and bad days; on the latter I want to hide in the pantry until her bedtime.

I have a lively, intense, spirited child. From the moment she was born until quite recently, I've been more or less left to deal with her on my own much of the time, all the while juggling the demands of dealing with a messy breakup, holding down a job and starting over. Now that Knox and I are finding our groove a little bit, we're doing better at sharing the parenting burden (at least as much as possible with him still away three days a week). It's lovely to see us gelling as a family and on those occasions, I feel like someone has lifted a weight off my shoulder. And I suddenly realise that this is what a great many other mothers have always had. That this was the way it was meant to be, with two parents in the equation. That the fact that I was grossly shortchanged on the help and support I needed for a major portion of her life should not colour my expectations as to what it would be like having two childen. And I get this wave of hope that we could pull it off, that it would be OK, that it wouldn't be like last time. But- at least in the short term, I'm still partly stuck managing on my own with Botany, which makes it hard to see my way to that with complete clarity and certainty. 

Knox once pointed out to me that he didn't want the fact that Botany has been, to a degree, "difficult" to be the deciding factor in whether we had a second child. I thought that was fair enough point, since why should be effectively be up to her? I am also perhaps foolhardy enough to believe that all kids are different and we could actually wind up with a easygoing baby. I also think that some of the problems I have encountered with Botany are largely the result of my inexperience and anxiety as a first time parent together together with the circumstances we found ourselves in and my role as the one constant presence in her life (as well as my earlier tendency to give in to her every whim so as to function day  to day/keep the peace).

But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that- whether due to Botany's inherent temperment or from other factors- there are some things which I am very loathe to even contemplate going through again.

So, argument one for- Chances are, it'd be so much better the second time around, for so many reasons! I'm older! I'm wiser! Inow know that I am one tough cookie and clearly I can handle all manner of chaos and complication. Plus, two parents in a committed relationship! Imagine! 

Argument against- I've already been through a certain amount of crap in the first two years of my first child's life and I'm feeling a little drained as a result. I'm not sure I'm up to dealing with whatever comes my way. If anythings went badly- not so much in terms of the short term bouts of suckiness but more in a large scale pemanent sense, I fear I would probably go nuts or else expire in a quiet *whuft* of tired air.

 

The tiny dictator has a birthday

Botany has recently perfected saying, "I want" and "I need". Having learned those key phrases, she has also discovered how to deploy the expression of her many and varied wants and her needs at every possible interval. 

"I want a banana! I want pink milk! I need to go potty! I want to go in the garden! I want an ice cream cone! I want to go to work! I want to go to the beach! I need my nappy changed! I want a pony! I want to go for a wee walk!" (I'm actually not making any of this up. The first time I heard "wee walk", I nearly died at the cuteness. The eighth time, not so much.).

Clearly, she is delighted at the reaction she gets as she observes certain adults in her midst scrambling to comply to with her whims and much, much less delighted when certain other adults do not. Denial leads to screaming, thrashing, wailing meltdowns, with the result that a system of time-outs has had to be implemented. Knox and I are hoping for the best at the wedding next week but frankly, pretty much bracing ourselves for the worst.

Tomorrow, my girl turns two years old. I can honestly say that despite the moments when she is being a pain in the ass, I remain completely, utterly, totally besotted with her. She is amazingly intelligent, funny, silly, challenging and adorable. I never tire of looking at her sweet cherub's face and the smell of her delicious baby neck. I still sometimes slip into her room once she is finally asleep to stand over her crib and marvel that this little person is here at all. I have the sense that time is going to slip through our fingers at a frightening pace now- and in between wanting her to snap out of whatever hissy fit she is pitching, my heart wrenches at how soon babyhood will be left behind. Happy birthday, dear Botany.

Meanwhile, in other news, the entire flat is covered with a heavy layer of dust from the essential maintenance on all the windows. Every day for the last two weeks I have come home to find the toilet seat being left up and worker deitrus everywhere (including those lovely tabloid newspapers which feature bare breasted women on page three, a quaint British tradition that I have never completely gotten my head around.) I could probably overlook this, but the other day I arrived back to discover that my poetry fridge magnets had been rearranged into a message so graphically obscene that it's not even possible to have a sense of humour about it. I mean, what the effing eff?  Who does that? 

Based on previous experiences with tradesmen, I decided that while what had happened was creepy and inappropriate in the extreme, it was also prudent for me not to mention it until the job is completed. So I just quietly took down all the magnets and hoped they would be gone by the time I got back today. Unfortunately not- and worse still, Botany decided she wanted to "help the men with the work", complaining vociferously when I tried to haul her into the haven of her room until they finished packing up for the day. Then I discovered that while most of the work is done (and the tools thankfully carted away), the painting is to drag on into next week. Next week! My friends, next week is the week of my wedding. I want to have a day or two while Botany is at nursery to go back to bed immediately after dropping her off, sleep until eleven, tie up some loose planning ends and then lie in a bubblebath applying face packs and polishing my toenails while listening to catchy pop music. Goddamnit.

On a happier note, I bring you a photo of wedding shoes. There was a bit of a saga behind finding something I wanted; the purchase of order of an expensive French brand online proved disappointing (and way too ill fitting to contemplate dancing). I flirted with an art deco-esque design, going so far as to try them on twice but the colour was ultimately wrong- and well, it was just not meant to be.

Finally, I spotted this pair in the shop window, from across a crowded street and it was love at first sight. Love! I even negotiated a 10% discount, which was either savvy or obnoxious, depending on how you look at it.

Tropical Storm Botany

It feels like there is a big, black thunder cloud over my home some days. Once upon a time, Botany's tantrums were like storm squalls at sea. Out of nowhere, she'd lapse into tears, wailing about some freak, unspecified strange little problem- and then, especially as she became more articulate, with a bit of consolation or minor adjustment (take shoes OFF! MOVE tray with the cats on it! SHUT door!), it would pass. But lately, it's become more like a reoccurring typhoon and the duration is longer, fiercer and more draining than I could have imagined. 

Yesterday, for example, Knox and I wanted to take her to one of her favourite places. It's a bit of a drive to get there, though. So to achieve the visit with enough time to enjoy the requisite amount of rapturous gazing at the fish and still be home for naptime*, we needed to get dressed and get going. This was explained to her (at least the part about going to see the fish and the needing to put clothes on) and she seemed to understand.  We somehow wrestled her into a top but then would she suffer a pair of trousers to be put on? No. No, she would not. I gave her a choice of two different items, and she flung both of them in my face. I tried a dress, but it's still cold here and there has to be something underneath to cover the bare chubby legs, so that failed. I say failed but what I mean is she flung it across the room and ran down the hallway screaming like a banshee.  Finally, under duress, we managed to get on a pair of rather nice butterfly adorned sweatpants. I assure you, there was nothing binding or chafing about them that I could see, nor were they an offensive cut, colour or material based prior experience. 

Cue 45 minutes of top volume screaming while clawing at her legs, throwing herself on the floor and generally working into a frenzy so spectacular that I wanted to go hide under the bed. In fact, I think I may have done that at one point.

Needless to say, we didn't end up going. In fact, as this was the start of long, grim siege of meltdowns lasting pretty much all day about one thing or another, I don't think we even left the house. Fortunately it was a holiday weekend and so there was nothing much we particularly needed to go and do, but it was less than fun for all concerned. It was still better than the 45 minutes of Botany's howling and screaming in the confined spaces of the car when we drove up to see Knox's mother last weekend; an experience brought on by Botany wanting her coat on then off then on again, despite being strapped in the car seat hurtling down the motorway. COAT ON! COAT ON! COAT OOOOOONNNN! It is still ringing in my ears.      

This morning, I really needed to go to the store. My office has a tradition of having cake every Wednesday, and we take turns on a constant rotation as the cake provider. As there are about 25 of us, it only comes my way rarely. But of course this week of all weeks, I am on Cake Duty tomorrow. And of course, there is never any cake in my house (or at least not of the sufficient quantities needed to feed the masses). And of course, I could have bought it over the weekend prior to the arrival of Tropical Storm Botany but I am of the view that cake is better when bought fresher and besides, even I am not that organised.

The last "of course" in all this is that "of course", Botany also refused this morning to put on her clothes so we could go get the goddamn cake. I confess to complete exasperation. I hate to admit it, but I resorted to something which I very rarely do, and I raised my voice. I think, in fact, I actually shouted. Yes, yes, I did shout, flagellate away. The funny thing is, perhaps because I so rarely do it, Botany was immediately cowed and ran to me saying OKOKOK and sorrysorrymummy. And stood there in perfect compliance as I dressed her, wiped her little tearstained face and got her coat on. Inwardly, I was a crumpled mess while maintaining a stream of soothing yet upbeat chatter about the delights of cake procurement.     

I know her behaviour is perfectly normal and developmentally understandable and all that, but at the same time, it's very challenging. It's baffling and frustrating- she's not sick or teething or hungry or thirsty or especially tired. I am beginning to feel shaky and less than confident about managing her day to day. I don't want to have to yell at her to get her to comply; however, it's hard to know what to do when nothing else seems to work- not firm, down on the level direction, not reasonable explanations, not walking away, not negotiation. Nothing.  And some days, you know, we need to leave the house, and for us to do that, she's got to be wearing something other than a thin blue onesie with scooters across the chest.    

[*I might normally have been inclined to try to let her sleep in her buggy, but past attempts at this didn't work so well at this particular place. Also, I'd been up with her since 4.45 am, as we seem to be doing on a regular basis these days- on which more next time- so frankly, I was looking forward to a snooze myself.]

There's a moose loose aboot this hoose

Or, to translate the title from Scots to English, "there's a mouse loose in the house." Or possibly mice, plural- likely a whole family.

I do my very best under the circumstances to try to maintain at least a basic level of hygiene around this place. True, the area around and under the highchair often teeters on the brink of becoming a biohazard zone. But for the most part, toys get tidied away, the dishes get washed, the laundry gets hung up, the carpet is hoovered once a week and the bathroom wiped down with all manner of aggressive cleaning agents on a regular basis. I thought I was keeping on top of things.

So it was with some dismay that just before Christmas, when in a burst of festive scrubbing, I found myself making a grim discovery in the less frequented areas of the flat (i.e. behind the fridge and the toolbox). The telltale signs of mouse visitation, namely, dried mouse poo and mouse wee. Lots of it- and it stank.

"Oh my god," I said to Knox, "we've descended to a state of vermin infestation. What kind of mother am I? " 

It's hardly surprising, he said, noting that on any given day, Botany drops enough food on the floor to fatten a mouse colony. It's impossible to keep up with sweeping up every scrap.  And it's pretty common for both new and old tenements in this city to be overrun with mice; the little bastards burrow into the walls and run up and down between the floors as they please.

We poked around the droppings site and found a large hole in the wall behind the fridge which is clearly serving as a mouse portal to the delights of Botany's discarded blueberries, cheerios and smoked bavarian cheese. That night as we sat on the sofa, we heard (or imagined we heard) the sound of tiny rodent feet scuttling under the floorboard. When Knox went to the kitchen later on to get a drink of water, he surprised a mouse making its way to the buffet table under the highchair; both of them leapt about 10 feet in the air.

"Right," I said, "we're getting some traps." He looked horrified, even as I explained that having had a go-round with a mouse problem in a previous flat, experience had shown me that the humane kind of trap is pretty much useless and that accordingly we would proceed straight to the draconian death method. Please understand, it's not that I am keen to be cruel to little animals, but in terms of housekeeping standards, I pretty much draw the line at sharing living space with rodents. 

"But it's Christmas," Knox said. "What happens when Father Mouse doesn't come home on Christmas morning to open the presents? Think of his little stocking hanging by the mouse tree, all forlorn. The mouse children crying. His mouse widow, alone over the holidays!"

This argument was just Brambly Hedge enough for me to relent, so I agreed to stay of execution until the New Year. Whereupon we procured a trap, baited it and stuck in behind the refrigerator by the mouse hole. By this point, of course, Knox had proceeded to name the various members of the mouse family. All the more distressing therefore that after a couple of days of trying tempting lures of peanut butter and Belgian chocolate, we did succeed in bringing about the demise of one "Graham Mouse". The head of the mouse household. Still, I felt less sorry about it when last night, I found his widow, "Sarah Mouse", making a mad dash to safety under the cabinets when I came into the kitchen at midnight to adjust the central heating. Sarah Mouse does seem to be a rather less prolific pooper, though, since there is considerably less evidence of her continued presence. I'd like to think perhaps she has taken the hint and decamped, along with any of her attendant mouse brood, but that seems somewhat naively optimistic.

In other news, Botany has discovered the moon. We drove home late one night from a visit to Knox's mother; despite having gotten Botany into her jammies so she could sleep on the ride back, she stayed awake the entire trip staring in rapt fascination at the glowing orb in the sky. Since then she has become completely moonstruck; even more so when she found it was sometimes actually visible during the day. All she wants to do is to be lifted up at the living room window and to stand, for what seems like hours, shouting "Moon! Moon!", interspersed with sightings of Cat! Cat! and Woof!Woof! and Car!Car!  It's really extremely charming, although she's no longer a lightweight and my arms are starting to feel the strain. Such is her current moon obsession I may actually have to bend to convention and get that book.

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?

Little red riding hood

It seems Botany and I have had a cold forever. It's getting to the point I can't even remember a time when I wasn't hacking, spluttering and mopping both our noses in a futile effort to keep the snot at bay. I'm taking my vitamins, I've tried various boosts of Vitamin C, zinc, you name it. Nothing works.  It feels like I will never be free of it for the rest of the interminable winter, caught in a veritable Pleistocene epoch of rhinovirus, the Ice Age of nasopharyngitis.  

One of my greatest fears as a single parent (other than my child's death, maiming or disfigurement, abduction, long term illness, profuse bleeding, vomiting, or excessive poop disasters, roughly in that order) is that I myself will at some point be so unwell that I will be either unable to function, or function very poorly and that there will be no one else to help.  Back in the pre-baby days, I remember coming home from work with a storming migraine, lying prone on the sofa making small whimpering noises, and thinking, "actually, maybe it's a good thing I have no kids. How on earth do people manage in circumstances like these?"

As it happens, I have had two opportunities to answer that very question. In short- pick up wriggling child from nursery, stagger to car, drive home with temples on fire, stagger out of car, up the stairs, wrestle coat off child (who now has hands vigorously thrusting down front of my shirt in effort to attain boob), pick up wailing child, stagger to kitchen, throw up in the sink, grab bottle of painkillers, swallow large dose, stagger to bed. Flop. Nurse. Hope she wants to nurse for two hours or at least until drugs kick in. Fortunately, on both occasions, I was back to functioning by dinnertime or at least able to move around without feeling of steel spikes through brain. But it was...a little grim.

On Sunday night I woke up about midnight and started vomiting. This continued on and off for the rest of the night. Aside from feeling like death, I worried what I would do once Botany was up at her usual crack of dawn and in bed nursing with me, since I wouldn't exactly be able to jump up to run to loo to puke. My solution- a pot strategically placed within arm's reach above the pillows. I figured, she's slept through my hacking up a lung so she might not even notice me barfing over her head. Happily, there was no need at that point- but when we woke up for the day, I was on the phone to E. first thing for assistance. Luckily he was off work anyway and so able to help out, but it got me thinking. What if he had been out of town, as he sometimes is? What would I have done? Who would I call?  I feel I need to put some back-up systems in place, but I'm feeling a bit limited in that regard. And it scares me.

Anyway. As I mentioned before, I am somewhat conflicted about putting pictures of Botany up on this site. However, I was looking through the photo albums recently and noted there are quite a few shots where she has her back to the camera. Forever on the move, it's quite hard to get her to stay still to take a picture and often by the time the shutter has clicked, she's off and away. I then had the amusing notion of posting (for your enjoyment and mine) a series of pictures entitled "Botany from the Back". I don't think she is all that identifiable (thus assuaging my guilt about potential violations of her privacy) but it's enough to give you the general flavour of the goofy cuteness. Here's the first one:

       

Incidentally, she pitched a major fit when I took off that red cardigan for bathtime. I tried to explain that wearing jumpers in the bath was a bad idea but she was having none of it. Little red riding hood must have her armour against the wolves.

Marathon

I've been following a couple of blogs doing NaBloPoMo, with a certain wistful longing. There's something quite appealing to me about taking on the endevour of writing even a little something every day. Unfortunately for me at the moment, (if I want to get to bed before midnight), it sometimes comes down to a choice of: do I take a shower and actually make something for my dinner other than cornflakes, or do I blog?  Not exactly conducive to daily posting. Let's face it, I'm barely making once a week.

With Botany on the move, the flat is...well...perma-chaos. There are toys, clothes and random items, like a compass and a calculator strewn from stem to stern. At present, she likes to limber up in the morning by toddling into the living room and removing all the books and DVDs from the lower shelves. As I chase her around trying to get her to stand still for a second while I wrestle her into a nappy, she embarks on opening up the wardrobe and flinging her clothes everywhere. Later, for kicks, we will mutually disembowel the toy chest or "her" cupboard in the kitchen.

 I seem to spend the whole day returning items to their proper place. I know it's probably only going to get worse and I should probably resign myself to living in a heap. But the disorder is stressful for me, not to mention it actually seems slightly hazardous to have stuff lying everywhere, since Botany has not quite grasped the notion of walking around items in her path but persists in trying to plow through (and trip over) the aforesaid random stuff. 

I knew also that things would be much harder once my parents left; when first they departed, I seemed to be carried on a wave of insane adrenelin, so determined was I not to let the standards slip. There must be porridge in the pantry at all times! We must never run out of loo roll! Let us not be without fresh milk and copious quantities of extra butter. And there must be enough of a nappy stockpile to survive the longest of sieges!  Of course, the reality is that my folks had nothing better to do with their time besides do odd jobs around my flat (my dad) and make daily runs to the supermarket for whatever item was in demand (my mother). With me on my own, I can't keep up and have had to accept that in the event of needing a barricade against the zombie invasion, there will be less than optimal stashes of tinned tomato.   

There are days just now where I stagger out of bed in the morning to start the daily treadmill- the breakfast ballet, the nappy wars, the naptime vigil, the endless repetition of certain games and stories, coaxing lunch down her gob, battling over coat on/shoes on/hat on, the dinner time scramble- and I think to myself, in a small self-pitying whimpering tone: I can't. I just can't do it. I'm so tired and I haven't had a break in weeks from the childcare/work routine grind. I can't face the high pitched squealing when I strap my daughter's wriggling, resistant body into her car seat. I can't deal with trying to put on my underwear and a pair of clean trousers suitable for work with Botany clinging on to my leg. I now hate some of the programmes on the children's TV channel with a vehement loathing, forced as I am to put on the box for 30 seconds of distraction long enough to sprint to the bathroom. And I can't stand the horrid monotonous whine that Botany's been emitting lately, rising and falling like a deranged, moaning siren until I want to scream and pound my overheated head against a wall. 

When the day finally ends, and I finally sit, nursing her to sleep in darkness, I feel sometimes guilty for any bouts of impatience or resentment during the day. My sweet baby, my much longed for daughter- how could I not love every moment? It's a lesson I'm learning over and over- that the joy of parenthood is necessarily tempered with a certain amount of mourning of the loss of the self, of time to do as I please, of the right to think of only of me. And I remember, as I must, that I really never intended doing it all on my own. There were meant to be two of us picking up the slack, keeping the homefires burning, maintaining some semblence of order. Of course it's that much harder that it's just me.

On a closing positive note, we do seem to be working to a 5.30 am wake up call now. It's not perfect, but I'll take it. As a commenter helpfully pointed out, I do know of the Weissbluth mantra; namely sleep begets sleep. However, the trick of an early bedtime doesn't seem to work in Botany's case. I've tried it. I tried it for months- she used to routinely go down at 6.30 pm. All it seemed to do was result in a wake up approximately ten hours later from whenever it was that she went to sleep. So in that respect, I think I'm an advocate of the Ferber approach- that is, that the kid can realistically only sleep so much at a stretch and the average is actually in the region of ten hours. A 7.30 pm bedtime appears to be giving Botany just that wee bit longer in bed in the morning and for me, it's a crucial extra half hour I really need to feel less than insane when I start the day. 

There are still moments where I lie there in the dark dawn thinking: I can't. I just can't. But of course, I must and I do and I will. Onwards.

Realignment

When the dust settles after a crisis, there can be such a strange, breathless calm.  All the endless energy spent shoring up the battlements, fighting the fires, rebuilding from the ground up after the siege- where does that go when suddenly everything comes to a halt, when peace is restored?  I'm glad to be getting back to a more normal state of being, but I still find myself waking up in the middle of the night, heart pumping in panic; until I remember where I am- safe in my flat with Botany down the hall.  I'm so used to be in constant chaos mode over the last several months, I hardly know what to do with myself now.  Time to get back to knitting, I think, an outlet for restless hands and a fretful mind. And dancing around the living room and cooking and catching up with friends and writing and lavishing affection on people I love.     

 

Botany has started sleeping through more regularly until 5am. It's not perfect, but I'll take it. Considering she goes down with nary a whimper at 7pm on the dot most nights, it seems not the worst trade off in the world.

 

There is the prospect of a weekend away on my own; my parents have offered to take her. Having been on hand for so many bathtimes and the odd bit of babysitting when I do need to go out, they have the bedtime routine down to an art form, and Botany will go to sleep without nursing down if my mother deals with it. My mother also regularly wakes up at the crack of dawn anyway so it wouldn't be a huge problem in that regard.  I am very daunted at the notion of being away from my baby for two! whole! nights! but at the same time, the notion of being able to sleep in as late as I want for the first time in over a year is proving very, very appealing. It also seems to me to be an important step to take, as part of the realignment of myself as an individual with my self as a mother.   

 

On a more practical note, I have no idea where all the bits of the breast pump have gotten to- I haven't expressed in months and months. On the rare times when I felt the need to do it just to keep myself from exploding (i.e. the first couple days when I was back at work), I just did it by hand. But I am wondering perhaps something more industrial might be required to cope with being away for two nights.  I have no intention of weaning by accident but I have no idea how much I'd need to express to keep things ticking along. At this point, I also have no idea how much Botany is actually consuming; much of the time she seems to be comfort nibbling rather than eating. Which is fine by me, but I would hate for her to latch on and discover that the well had run dry when she was in fact looking for some actual sustenance. If anyone out there has any tips or stories about leaving a nursing thirteen month old for the first time, I'd be glad to hear it.

 

The other breastfeeding issue is more cosmetic. Due to the  positioning of my bed and a number of other factors (like Botany's own preference), I somehow ended up nursing primarily on the right side for all the naps, early morning and nursing down at night. I do try to occasionally give the left side an outing for good measure, but the truth is I'm now mainly a one-boob nursing wonder. The result is a certain amount of lopsidedness. It's not so bad that people are pointing and staring at the imbalance, but I think it is noticeable. I wore a fairly tight sweater the other day and suddenly felt a little self conscious. I suppose it could be fixed with a certain amount of diligence in nursing on both sides, and I keep meaning to do it, but we're pretty set in our nursing ways now, Botany and I.  Again, if there's anyone out there with a similar issue, do share-if you set out to correct it, how long did it take? Or did you not bother? Or am I the only freak in the village?