I saw a fantastic film a few years back. I think it was called Doubt, Muriel Strepsil was a nun, and there were some other nuns, and a priest, Philip Seymour Hoffman, who chief nun Muriel became sure was molesting choirboys, so she hounded him out. That synopsis doesn't do it justice: it was nuanced and involving and engaging, and PSH was wonderful as ever, and of course Muriel too, but what's stuck with me most was the final line, where head nun admits to junior nun "I have doubts. I have such doubts".
Subscribing to any set of beliefs about how you should parent, how you should run your life, asks for a certain commitment. Subscribing to the set that has you sharing sleep, breastfeeding for an extended period, practising genuine child-led weaning, arranging your whole life and self around your belief in the primacy of the child's need to be securely attached to one carer, is a pretty firm way of putting absolutely all of your eggs into one basket.
So, a full list of times I've been apart from the boy since his birth, excluding only the odd 15-20 minute walk out with my husband, I've been to the dentist three times (root canal work not long after he was born, ouch), once out to lunch with a potential employer (that was about 2 hours, I think) and once into the office for a morning on my first day of work (work which I've subsequently done completely from home, and only when he sleeps). He and I are each other's worlds. I love him in a way I couldn't have known I could love. I know every minute where he is, how he is, what he's likely to want next. He's always thrilled to see daddy, hurtling across the house to him when he gets home at night, but for the upsets, or the day to day things, or pretty much everything else, only mummy will do.
Problem? I'm lonely. I'm parched. I can't think how I would have done any of this differently, but my colours are leached into him. I can't remember sleep. I'm never not-touched. And I can't talk to adults. If we go places, he just wants me, me alone, me and him, in fact now he can say "home" he usually just wants us to go. We've almost completely stopped going to toddler groups - if he's only going to want to haul me off into a corner to do a jigsaw, we may as well do that at home. We went (very briefly) to a party this evening, husband met and talked to some people, I just took bonz repeatedly to the buffet table, walked him round the room, cuddled him, etc. It just seems there's absolutely no opportunity for me to talk to adults, because we go everywhere together, and he needs me. Even if there was a chance, though (and of course I'm generalising a little bit - he does *sometimes* go and spend 5 minutes on his own scrapping with other toddlers over use of the toy kitchen) I don't know what I have to offer to any conversation. H comes home at night and I find myself in silence at the dinner table, when that's the alternative to offering up a description of how many times we did each puzzle, which words he's attempted, what our favourite colour crayon was today. I don't mean that I find it boring, but this truly is stuff only a mother could get emotionally engaged with, but it's all that I have, and I have literally nothing to report to the world.
I suppose this explains the blog silence - I could tell you these day to day minutiae, or report on my writing about financial instruments, but it's not credible, is it? It's not interesting, and it doesn't make me the kind of person you'd want to approach at a party or toddler group, even if I had torn myself away from my boy for a moment.
So, doubts. My heart is in my choices, but if attachment parenting is so great, why am I the only one feeling like this?
Saturday, 13 April 2013
Sunday, 6 January 2013
I miss having friends
I miss the university days of dropping by to each others rooms, hanging around drinking coffee or wine, setting the world to rights; I miss the work days of knowing so much about these people you see every day, sharing a private language, sharing angst and frustration and terrible jokes. I miss my old pre-baby friends, regular contact, making plans, spending easy time together.
Lonely isn't the right word at all. Perhaps isolated? Of course I still know the people I always knew - I sent Christmas cards, many of those dear and close were at our wedding, on the text-list when Isaac was born, and so on....but I feel unconnected. I know I'm terrible at trying, always was, to be honest, but now the logistical difficulties just seem overwhelming. I can't go out in the evenings, Isaac needs me; I can't make phone calls at the weekends, Isaac just grabs the phone; I can't write lovely long chatty emails, because every minute that he's asleep, I'm working.
My pre-baby friends without children go off and do fun adult stuff at the weekends (that's not, as a rule, anywhere near as rude as it sounds) and there's no space for mother + toddler. A year in South London had me just about getting to friendship with some other mums (after a sparse few months in west london before that), but now we're not there, and I'm meeting people here, but how on earth do you get to the stage of being actual friends? How do you move to inviting people round, to having proper conversations with them, to being open enough with each other to get close? They're all settled already, they know people, or they have other children, or whatever else, I don't know..and of course at weekends most normal women are spending quality time with their other halves - no one wants to meet up then.
Not, I should repeat, that I'm feeling lonely. Isaac is a delight to spend time with, and we're busy, and I never find myself wondering what to do with my time. I just miss having that genuine warm connection with people, and I don't know how to get it back with my old friends when our lives have charged off on such different paths, or how to strike it up with new ones. I don't know how to reassure my old friends that they really are still so often in my thoughts even if they never hear from me, I refuse invitations, I take weeks to respond to emails - and I have no idea when I'll be back in a position to do that nurturing. It's not like being busy at work for a few weeks when you know it will be over. This is my new life, now (well, no longer particularly new) and I've chosen it, and I love it, and I wouldn't swap it, but what can I now offer, how can I be interesting when all I can talk about is sheep and horses and pompom matching, and technical accounting, and the things I'd be reading if I had more time? I've got a whole post brewing up about staying an interesting person while so occupied with the crucial trivialities of toddler world, but at the moment it's mainly just a general cloud.
I expect that patience is the answer, and turning to inner resources, and leaning on the new kinds of connections it's easier to make in internet-world....but it doesn't stop me from having the occasional sense of a kind of melancholy detachment. Any tips, anyone?
Lonely isn't the right word at all. Perhaps isolated? Of course I still know the people I always knew - I sent Christmas cards, many of those dear and close were at our wedding, on the text-list when Isaac was born, and so on....but I feel unconnected. I know I'm terrible at trying, always was, to be honest, but now the logistical difficulties just seem overwhelming. I can't go out in the evenings, Isaac needs me; I can't make phone calls at the weekends, Isaac just grabs the phone; I can't write lovely long chatty emails, because every minute that he's asleep, I'm working.
My pre-baby friends without children go off and do fun adult stuff at the weekends (that's not, as a rule, anywhere near as rude as it sounds) and there's no space for mother + toddler. A year in South London had me just about getting to friendship with some other mums (after a sparse few months in west london before that), but now we're not there, and I'm meeting people here, but how on earth do you get to the stage of being actual friends? How do you move to inviting people round, to having proper conversations with them, to being open enough with each other to get close? They're all settled already, they know people, or they have other children, or whatever else, I don't know..and of course at weekends most normal women are spending quality time with their other halves - no one wants to meet up then.
Not, I should repeat, that I'm feeling lonely. Isaac is a delight to spend time with, and we're busy, and I never find myself wondering what to do with my time. I just miss having that genuine warm connection with people, and I don't know how to get it back with my old friends when our lives have charged off on such different paths, or how to strike it up with new ones. I don't know how to reassure my old friends that they really are still so often in my thoughts even if they never hear from me, I refuse invitations, I take weeks to respond to emails - and I have no idea when I'll be back in a position to do that nurturing. It's not like being busy at work for a few weeks when you know it will be over. This is my new life, now (well, no longer particularly new) and I've chosen it, and I love it, and I wouldn't swap it, but what can I now offer, how can I be interesting when all I can talk about is sheep and horses and pompom matching, and technical accounting, and the things I'd be reading if I had more time? I've got a whole post brewing up about staying an interesting person while so occupied with the crucial trivialities of toddler world, but at the moment it's mainly just a general cloud.
I expect that patience is the answer, and turning to inner resources, and leaning on the new kinds of connections it's easier to make in internet-world....but it doesn't stop me from having the occasional sense of a kind of melancholy detachment. Any tips, anyone?
Thursday, 3 January 2013
It's not exactly like office-worker productivity
Things I have not done today:
1. Any more unpacking or decluttering
2. Any of the work I've promised myself on friendship-maintenance
3. Sorted my tights drawer
Things I have done today:
1. Played with trains, for hours, using all available nearby objects as bridges and tunnels
2. Gone out looking for horses (FAIL)
3. Had glorious biscuit-making fun
4. Wallied around on the floor on my hands and knees, a lot
5. Giggled and caused giggles6. Stared in wonder at my so-changing, so-delightful son
7. Read "messy me" around a dozen times
8. Three hours of editing my chapter on financial instruments
9. Had some of the best hugs in the world
10. Scrubbed some wee off the carpet
11. Changed three pooey nappies
12. Daydreamed
13. Made a lovely big fish pie which, to my delight, the child ate an enormous portion of (did I mention, HE EATS, HE FINALLY EATS!!!)
14. Got him to bed with no tears, just co-operation, fun and patience
Things I would change about today:
0
Tuesday, 1 January 2013
Testing...
Well, after my long confessional last night, I stand more chance of keeping the blog up to date if I have a mobile thing - let's see...
Monday, 31 December 2012
Best day of the year!
Seriously, it's better than Christmas.
I just love the liminal phase between Christmas and new year. It feels like a forced "opportunity" to reflect and review, and there's so much potential, so much possibility of fresh starts and new beginnings and hope. I suppose it's tied in with the passing of the shortest day, too - by now, you know you can make it through winter - but mainly it's just the chance to look back on all the great stuff in the year and think yes! It can be even better next year!
I'm not as pollyannaish as this sounds, but the more time I spend in my new phase of existence, the more I realise I've got, at least, a kind of resilience, which is a muscle exercised by having a small child.
So, the big things that have happened for me/us this year, in sort of chronological order:
1. I quit my job, because when it came to going back from maternity leave, the choice was 4/5 days a week or nothing, and I could not make myself leave my boy for more than half of each week. This was, without a doubt, the right decision for me - it's working for all of us, and giving me the chance to see every sweet moment of him. I'm so glad they turned down my 3 day request - I'd have hated it.
2. I set up some alternative income, a bit of part-time employed work (but home-based, and letting me do the hours whenever I want) and some freelancing. It's pretty taxing - I sit down to work every time that Isaac sleeps (though I did have Christmas day off) but so very worth it. And, what might be the biggest thing, I am actually, properly, earning a living through writing. OK, it's writing about accounting, but still, people are paying me for making words, and that has to be a start, a step along the path of getting paid for making words on other content that might inspire me slightly more.
3. I became very involved with the fantastic La Leche League - more of this to come
4. I finished my degree, fireworks, bells, whistles - it took me four years, which isn't bad for the OU. For the first two and a bit years I was working full time, then pregnant and with a new baby (I did an exam at the end of year 3 when Isaac was about 6 weeks, with him tied on me in the stretchy wrap for the second half of it), and then perhaps the hardest academic year was the last one, covering Isaac from about 5 months to 14 months, also overlapping with the start of all my new work. But, I did it, I got my 2.1, and I'm very proud of myself.
5. We packed up and moved away from grimy Brixton to beautiful, hilly, green Bath. We've only been here a few weeks and it's sinking in slowly. I can feel my insides responding to all the openness, to the hills I can look out on from the study window, to the way we can walk up the lane and see sheep and horses and mud and wondrous country things...
6. I've seen my unutterably gorgeous, compelling, curious, funny, loving, absorbing boy grow for another 12 months - he's 19 months now, and gets more interesting and loveable by the hour, I swear. Each morning I think my heart is full, then it gets fuller.
The things I "failed" on, or want to do more on next year, take a bit more reflection, and merit longer than I'm going to give them tonight (self-imposed deadline, MUST get this post up tonight or it won't count). But broadly, (and these are in no order at all):
- I don't feel I've been anywhere near good enough at looking after friendships (this was really brought home to me when someone I have thought of as a very close friend indeed told me of her pregnancy when she was about 25 weeks - I'd been so appalling at connecting with her that she'd not felt any need to tell me earlier)
- I don't make enough effort to make the journey to see my family
- I am, in general, too wimpish about travelling with a toddler, which has definitely been part of my failings with friends and family
- I've been rubbish about writing the blog, which frustrates me, because I love having the record, and I love feeling that anyone ever reads it, and I know I'd have more chance of people reading it regularly if I actually wrote anything on it...
- Somewhere in the mix I'd love to work on my wifeness, on being sure to make sure that him downstairs feels he has a place, doesn't feel nudged out by my overwhelming absorption in Isaac and then work
- I'd like to get some kind of writing published this year that isn't about accounting
- I want to give some focus, sometimes, to things I used to love, like knitting - I don't know how to fit it in, but I know it settles and soothes me, so it seems important to find a way
- Of course I will eat healthily and get better at meal planning, and let's put domestic perfection in there too
- There are two non-bloggable secret goals, which I'll share if I manage them
- I need better ways of keeping records of things that happen with Isaac - already I realise he's not a baby any more, and I can't always track what's changed - at the moment, if I needed to generate an archive, it would be mostly from emails sent to my mum, which is better than nothing, but I want to record, record, so I don't miss a minute and don't forget a thing.
- Also I will keep my desk tidy
- My mum really generously enabled me to get some new clothes for Christmas, and for the first time in years I feel as though my outside matches my inside - when I catch sight of myself, I look like my own image of myself. It's shallow, but I'd enjoy it if this carried on happening.
- I will be working on my frugality - a family with one part time income and some PhD funding doesn't have lots of spare cash to throw around, and I'm sort of relishing this challenge. After all, a walk up to see the horses is free...
This list doesn't please me. I feel as though it's shallow, in its stated goals in some cases (wear more skirts? really??) or in its expression of them in others. The punctuation is also terrible (but I'm on a ticking clock now - he's woken twice, and if I'm not there by the third waking there is considerable trouble). But then, part of the point of this for me is to look at what I want to think more about, and write more about on here - and part of the point of all of us is having a few hidden shallows.
Anyway, at least it's a start, it's something for me to work from when attempting a bit of accountability...
Happy new year! And here's just one shot of the Christmas jumper (his, not mine. Mine is on about its fifth Christmas, I think, there's some frugality in action already)...
I just love the liminal phase between Christmas and new year. It feels like a forced "opportunity" to reflect and review, and there's so much potential, so much possibility of fresh starts and new beginnings and hope. I suppose it's tied in with the passing of the shortest day, too - by now, you know you can make it through winter - but mainly it's just the chance to look back on all the great stuff in the year and think yes! It can be even better next year!
I'm not as pollyannaish as this sounds, but the more time I spend in my new phase of existence, the more I realise I've got, at least, a kind of resilience, which is a muscle exercised by having a small child.
So, the big things that have happened for me/us this year, in sort of chronological order:
1. I quit my job, because when it came to going back from maternity leave, the choice was 4/5 days a week or nothing, and I could not make myself leave my boy for more than half of each week. This was, without a doubt, the right decision for me - it's working for all of us, and giving me the chance to see every sweet moment of him. I'm so glad they turned down my 3 day request - I'd have hated it.
2. I set up some alternative income, a bit of part-time employed work (but home-based, and letting me do the hours whenever I want) and some freelancing. It's pretty taxing - I sit down to work every time that Isaac sleeps (though I did have Christmas day off) but so very worth it. And, what might be the biggest thing, I am actually, properly, earning a living through writing. OK, it's writing about accounting, but still, people are paying me for making words, and that has to be a start, a step along the path of getting paid for making words on other content that might inspire me slightly more.
3. I became very involved with the fantastic La Leche League - more of this to come
4. I finished my degree, fireworks, bells, whistles - it took me four years, which isn't bad for the OU. For the first two and a bit years I was working full time, then pregnant and with a new baby (I did an exam at the end of year 3 when Isaac was about 6 weeks, with him tied on me in the stretchy wrap for the second half of it), and then perhaps the hardest academic year was the last one, covering Isaac from about 5 months to 14 months, also overlapping with the start of all my new work. But, I did it, I got my 2.1, and I'm very proud of myself.
5. We packed up and moved away from grimy Brixton to beautiful, hilly, green Bath. We've only been here a few weeks and it's sinking in slowly. I can feel my insides responding to all the openness, to the hills I can look out on from the study window, to the way we can walk up the lane and see sheep and horses and mud and wondrous country things...
6. I've seen my unutterably gorgeous, compelling, curious, funny, loving, absorbing boy grow for another 12 months - he's 19 months now, and gets more interesting and loveable by the hour, I swear. Each morning I think my heart is full, then it gets fuller.
The things I "failed" on, or want to do more on next year, take a bit more reflection, and merit longer than I'm going to give them tonight (self-imposed deadline, MUST get this post up tonight or it won't count). But broadly, (and these are in no order at all):
- I don't feel I've been anywhere near good enough at looking after friendships (this was really brought home to me when someone I have thought of as a very close friend indeed told me of her pregnancy when she was about 25 weeks - I'd been so appalling at connecting with her that she'd not felt any need to tell me earlier)
- I don't make enough effort to make the journey to see my family
- I am, in general, too wimpish about travelling with a toddler, which has definitely been part of my failings with friends and family
- I've been rubbish about writing the blog, which frustrates me, because I love having the record, and I love feeling that anyone ever reads it, and I know I'd have more chance of people reading it regularly if I actually wrote anything on it...
- Somewhere in the mix I'd love to work on my wifeness, on being sure to make sure that him downstairs feels he has a place, doesn't feel nudged out by my overwhelming absorption in Isaac and then work
- I'd like to get some kind of writing published this year that isn't about accounting
- I want to give some focus, sometimes, to things I used to love, like knitting - I don't know how to fit it in, but I know it settles and soothes me, so it seems important to find a way
- Of course I will eat healthily and get better at meal planning, and let's put domestic perfection in there too
- There are two non-bloggable secret goals, which I'll share if I manage them
- I need better ways of keeping records of things that happen with Isaac - already I realise he's not a baby any more, and I can't always track what's changed - at the moment, if I needed to generate an archive, it would be mostly from emails sent to my mum, which is better than nothing, but I want to record, record, so I don't miss a minute and don't forget a thing.
- Also I will keep my desk tidy
- My mum really generously enabled me to get some new clothes for Christmas, and for the first time in years I feel as though my outside matches my inside - when I catch sight of myself, I look like my own image of myself. It's shallow, but I'd enjoy it if this carried on happening.
- I will be working on my frugality - a family with one part time income and some PhD funding doesn't have lots of spare cash to throw around, and I'm sort of relishing this challenge. After all, a walk up to see the horses is free...
This list doesn't please me. I feel as though it's shallow, in its stated goals in some cases (wear more skirts? really??) or in its expression of them in others. The punctuation is also terrible (but I'm on a ticking clock now - he's woken twice, and if I'm not there by the third waking there is considerable trouble). But then, part of the point of this for me is to look at what I want to think more about, and write more about on here - and part of the point of all of us is having a few hidden shallows.
Anyway, at least it's a start, it's something for me to work from when attempting a bit of accountability...
Happy new year! And here's just one shot of the Christmas jumper (his, not mine. Mine is on about its fifth Christmas, I think, there's some frugality in action already)...
Saturday, 5 May 2012
Forced pause
Been away from the blog a bit recently because I'm trying to set up our lives the way they need to be. Following on from my previous posts about work, I *think* I've got enough sorted to keep us going - a couple of different things that I can do from home, whenever I have available time, fitting entirely around my childcare priorities. I'd like to write about this properly, and will do (I've been loving the thought provoking posts by Cloud over on Wandering Scientist about balancing work and home), but what it's meant in the short term is a renewal of my obsession with making time USEFUL, rushing to do some work or other, I don't know, USEFULSTUFF, the moment Isaac nods off.
As I say, I think it can work, and I think that I only need a wee time turner to fit in 15 hours a week of work with 168 hours of babylove, and I think I can even deal with my conflicting feelings about whether this means I am mothering him enough, which demographic it leaves me in, etc (so many future posts here!).
But today, my boy is poorly, nothing awful, but had a rough night and woke up blazing hot and so so sad. I've given him paracetamol and lots and lots of love and possibly even more time on the boob (I have never been so earnestly grateful for breastfeeding) and at this moment he is conked out on the floor next to me. I'm not rushing to do anything; I'm not even going to try and work or write important emails. Sometimes, you're called to stop, and reflect, and wait, and give things time, and today is for being right by my boy, ready for the moment he needs me, and letting myself take the time to recharge a little too. It could well be a long day, and we both just need to get through it.
As I say, I think it can work, and I think that I only need a wee time turner to fit in 15 hours a week of work with 168 hours of babylove, and I think I can even deal with my conflicting feelings about whether this means I am mothering him enough, which demographic it leaves me in, etc (so many future posts here!).
But today, my boy is poorly, nothing awful, but had a rough night and woke up blazing hot and so so sad. I've given him paracetamol and lots and lots of love and possibly even more time on the boob (I have never been so earnestly grateful for breastfeeding) and at this moment he is conked out on the floor next to me. I'm not rushing to do anything; I'm not even going to try and work or write important emails. Sometimes, you're called to stop, and reflect, and wait, and give things time, and today is for being right by my boy, ready for the moment he needs me, and letting myself take the time to recharge a little too. It could well be a long day, and we both just need to get through it.
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Hardcore babywearing
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