I swear I'm not going to write a boring post like this every day of my life. It's just, as I explained at some tedious length a couple of days back, this need to assert some discipline over myself and to demonstrate that I can do something, even if there's not much to it.
One of his naps was in the buggy (stationary in the hall) today so I got some time to do a bit of OU stuff, and a bit more this evening - I'm on track with where I should be for the next assignment, which is pretty good going. I've also managed to write a couple of emails, hacking through my list of must-writes. I wasted a chance to read while he was sleeping on the walk home this morning - couldn't manage anything demanding but I'm so near the end of Jamrach's Menagerie and enjoying it so much, so I really should have taken the chance, and all it requires is that I walk a little slower. Still, the baby had a lovely time at our group this afternoon, and some splendid mealtimes, and plenty of, but not too much, chance to try and move for himself, and so far as only woken twice since bedtime...
Monday, 23 January 2012
Sunday, 22 January 2012
All bets are off...
...on days where the only place he will nap is my arms, and where he repeatedly seems to settle for the night and then wakes howling. Trying even to think about anything else would ruin me: all I can do is throw my strength into the night ahead, pull him in more closely each time, and remember I wouldn't swap this position with anyone's. These bits just come with it.
Saturday, 21 January 2012
Does keeping alive all day count as an achievement?
Oh, dear. Today hasn't been a good start to the plan to achieve great things. The beautiful darling delightful baby began his delightfulness for the day at FOUR so really all I have managed is to stagger through, lots of housework and cleaning and washing, and a sneaky quick co-nap with him this afternoon, but these things were in the category of "to be done before any achievements for the day" and in fact are all I've managed. Tonight I expect to make the tea, maybe clear up the tea, read a bit of the paper, and collapse into an early night.
FAIL! But hey, at least I managed to blog about the fail, that counts for something, right?
FAIL! But hey, at least I managed to blog about the fail, that counts for something, right?
Friday, 20 January 2012
If you don't have time to read, you don't have time to write
I've got to say I'm not a big Stephen King fan. I'll admit he makes you turn the page, but I don't really seek out horror and gore so his novels are never going to appeal to me (I couldn't put down Cell, the only one I've actually read, but I still have nightmares just from the film of Misery (watched as a teenager, stupid mistake) and I can only imagine the book is even more horrendous). But, his On Writing is a classic, a work of genius, a book everyone who has ever considered writing anything should read. (I could write a list of such books: it would also include Francine Prose's Reading like a writer and Dorothea Brand's Becoming a writer, oh, there's a whole post worth of material here).
What was my point, before all those brackets?
It was that I'm standing at a crossroads, to use a terrible cliche. I'm trying to decide what to do with myself for the future, probably the next few years. I'd convinced myself that I needed to go back to work at least part time, for financial reasons, but actually I think we could, with a squash and a squeeze, manage if I didn't.
[brief interruption there as the milk siren went off]
The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes to me that I want to be the one looking after him while he's still small. I don't want him in daycare, not in any kind: I'm scared that no one but me can be tender enough to him. I know, I know, he will be older then, and tougher, and an altogether different baby, but I feel fairly sure that I want to avoid it at least until he can tell me (in words and sentences) how his day was. Plus, I want to wean him slowly and gently, and, and, and. But, and this has onlybecome clear to me by my pretending to myself that I'd made the decision not to go back, I'm also terrified of what I can only think of as the loss of self that would come with "officially" being a SAHM. I need to believe that I would be able to make time to do something else, not big or important or showy, not even necessarily lucrative, but something.
So, as part of the thought experiment, I want to start using all my pockets of time better. Taking as given that I will do the babywrangling, shopping, cooking, housework, life admin, and general erranding, my challenge to myself is to make sure that after all this gets done, and with my baby as contented, stimulated and generally joyful as it is possible to have him, I will do things, things that are in some sense important to me, every day. To make it conscious, I need to start by writing about it on here (yes, in my slightly pathetic idea of "doing things" writing my blog does count). Catching up on emails to those who are dear to me counts. Investigating (as long as it's not just idle web browsing) ways to make money through freelance writing or accounting stuff (any mumpreneurs reading this: would you be tempted to use an accountant who was a mother like yourself and would look after the bookkeeping/tax bit of your business in a way that suited both your and her other time commitments and need to get off the phone in a hurry sometimes? Would the thought that all that aspect of the admin was in safe hands be something that would encourage you to get going with a business idea?) counts. Even reading a book, pretty much any book, counts. What doesn't count? Blank wallying around on the internet; following blogs I'm not interested in (there are only one or two I plan to purge. Most of the blogs I follow have become very dear to me, each in their own way, despite never having met any of the writers); sitting blankly next to the baby while he's perfectly busy and entirely ignoring me; worrying about what people think about me.
If I can do this, if I can get into consciously using the bits of time that aren't occupied with my darling boy, then it gives me some faith that a longer hiatus from work wouldn't break me.
(It would help if he'd sleep, dammit)
(I've overused my bracket allowance for the year already. I could edit them out, only I actually think it illustrates pretty nicely the whirl of thinking that I'm in at the moment).
(So, today's items in this category: writing this post, some time reading fiction (because I am still going to manage to progress my novel); at least a couple of emails (about to be written)).
Did I mention that any positive thought waves would, as usual, be appreciated?
What was my point, before all those brackets?
It was that I'm standing at a crossroads, to use a terrible cliche. I'm trying to decide what to do with myself for the future, probably the next few years. I'd convinced myself that I needed to go back to work at least part time, for financial reasons, but actually I think we could, with a squash and a squeeze, manage if I didn't.
[brief interruption there as the milk siren went off]
The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes to me that I want to be the one looking after him while he's still small. I don't want him in daycare, not in any kind: I'm scared that no one but me can be tender enough to him. I know, I know, he will be older then, and tougher, and an altogether different baby, but I feel fairly sure that I want to avoid it at least until he can tell me (in words and sentences) how his day was. Plus, I want to wean him slowly and gently, and, and, and. But, and this has onlybecome clear to me by my pretending to myself that I'd made the decision not to go back, I'm also terrified of what I can only think of as the loss of self that would come with "officially" being a SAHM. I need to believe that I would be able to make time to do something else, not big or important or showy, not even necessarily lucrative, but something.
So, as part of the thought experiment, I want to start using all my pockets of time better. Taking as given that I will do the babywrangling, shopping, cooking, housework, life admin, and general erranding, my challenge to myself is to make sure that after all this gets done, and with my baby as contented, stimulated and generally joyful as it is possible to have him, I will do things, things that are in some sense important to me, every day. To make it conscious, I need to start by writing about it on here (yes, in my slightly pathetic idea of "doing things" writing my blog does count). Catching up on emails to those who are dear to me counts. Investigating (as long as it's not just idle web browsing) ways to make money through freelance writing or accounting stuff (any mumpreneurs reading this: would you be tempted to use an accountant who was a mother like yourself and would look after the bookkeeping/tax bit of your business in a way that suited both your and her other time commitments and need to get off the phone in a hurry sometimes? Would the thought that all that aspect of the admin was in safe hands be something that would encourage you to get going with a business idea?) counts. Even reading a book, pretty much any book, counts. What doesn't count? Blank wallying around on the internet; following blogs I'm not interested in (there are only one or two I plan to purge. Most of the blogs I follow have become very dear to me, each in their own way, despite never having met any of the writers); sitting blankly next to the baby while he's perfectly busy and entirely ignoring me; worrying about what people think about me.
If I can do this, if I can get into consciously using the bits of time that aren't occupied with my darling boy, then it gives me some faith that a longer hiatus from work wouldn't break me.
(It would help if he'd sleep, dammit)
(I've overused my bracket allowance for the year already. I could edit them out, only I actually think it illustrates pretty nicely the whirl of thinking that I'm in at the moment).
(So, today's items in this category: writing this post, some time reading fiction (because I am still going to manage to progress my novel); at least a couple of emails (about to be written)).
Did I mention that any positive thought waves would, as usual, be appreciated?
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Self improvement
Bit of a placeholder post here, really. I'd hoped to write something proper for the end of 2011/start of 2012 , and I really wanted to get my book list updated so that I could start afresh this year, but Isaac's been having a particularly challenging time with his sleep so most things have fallen by the wayside. I'd perhaps be letting myself off the hook over this but have been deeply struck by a series of blog posts I read on Claire Bidwell Smith's 'Good enough project' - I can't possibly write a summary that does them justice (honestly, go over there and read them) but it resonated so strongly with me - she's worrying about how all her efforts are around being a great mother and with all other areas of her life she'd lapsed into being just "good enough".
I feel so sure that I'm doing a good job with Isaac - I'm certainly giving him all I have. But with everything else there's a nagging sense of being a bit of a flop. I'm not being the person I want to be with my family and friends; I'm not doing some of the things that used to make me human. I need to work out what these things are and cautiously investigate a bit of balance. Let's be clear, this isn't about spending less time with the baby or giving him less of myself: it's about making more of the rest of myself, of using the times when he's asleep or busy to, I don't know, just get *better* at stuff. Watch this space...
I feel so sure that I'm doing a good job with Isaac - I'm certainly giving him all I have. But with everything else there's a nagging sense of being a bit of a flop. I'm not being the person I want to be with my family and friends; I'm not doing some of the things that used to make me human. I need to work out what these things are and cautiously investigate a bit of balance. Let's be clear, this isn't about spending less time with the baby or giving him less of myself: it's about making more of the rest of myself, of using the times when he's asleep or busy to, I don't know, just get *better* at stuff. Watch this space...
Saturday, 17 December 2011
Every moment
I've been feeling quite reflective recently.
To be honest, things have been slightly bumpy with the sausage in the last few weeks. While I've never come close to wishing I didn't have him, and never stopped liking him, I really faltered in my confidence in my ability to be a good mother to him. He seemed never to be satisfied, and for a couple of weeks he just cried all the time - relentless, insistent, despairing crying that I could at best delay by holding him, but sometimes even that didn't work. I was starting to ask myself what I was doing wrong, particularly after each version of that conversation where someone asks your baby's age, and you tell them, and they say OOOOOO such a lovely age, you can really enjoy them at this age, can't you? And I'd nod and agree, and walk away thinking well, I love him, but I don't seem to be enjoying him that much. It was just firefighting and I was devoting so much attention to making him not-cry that there wasn't much left in the tank for anything more positive.
So it's a joy for me to able to say things have moved on. Whatever was troubling him (or me) seems to have passed for now and for the past week I have really, truly, actively enjoyed pretty much every moment with him. The cries have always made sense to me, and I've known what to do, or when there's not much I can do; I'm understanding his cues for feeding, sleep, or a change of activity; he is engaging so very much with me, so much eye contact and laughing and smiling; he has periods of at least a few minutes where he will sit in his chair while I get on with something, or where I can lean him on me and let him happily play with something. I feel as though we have weathered something significant - we've come out of the other side of a time when we weren't quite synchronised, when there was something he was telling me that I wasn't 'getting', and I'm reaping the rewards now in a baby who seems to like me almost as much as I like him.
Oh, and he's sleeping for the odd stretch longer than 2 hours at night now. Of course this makes a huge difference.
I'm not silly enough, or blindly optimistic enough, to think that I now have it nailed and it will be plain sailing right through to adulthood. The draft post that I've been writing in my head called "attachment parenting fail" may well still get an airing when it's been refined a bit further. I also know that it's not as if we weren't having plenty of nice times during that difficult period - it wasn't weeks and weeks of living hell, or anything close to it. But still, it feels as though a page has turned. Bliss!
To be honest, things have been slightly bumpy with the sausage in the last few weeks. While I've never come close to wishing I didn't have him, and never stopped liking him, I really faltered in my confidence in my ability to be a good mother to him. He seemed never to be satisfied, and for a couple of weeks he just cried all the time - relentless, insistent, despairing crying that I could at best delay by holding him, but sometimes even that didn't work. I was starting to ask myself what I was doing wrong, particularly after each version of that conversation where someone asks your baby's age, and you tell them, and they say OOOOOO such a lovely age, you can really enjoy them at this age, can't you? And I'd nod and agree, and walk away thinking well, I love him, but I don't seem to be enjoying him that much. It was just firefighting and I was devoting so much attention to making him not-cry that there wasn't much left in the tank for anything more positive.
So it's a joy for me to able to say things have moved on. Whatever was troubling him (or me) seems to have passed for now and for the past week I have really, truly, actively enjoyed pretty much every moment with him. The cries have always made sense to me, and I've known what to do, or when there's not much I can do; I'm understanding his cues for feeding, sleep, or a change of activity; he is engaging so very much with me, so much eye contact and laughing and smiling; he has periods of at least a few minutes where he will sit in his chair while I get on with something, or where I can lean him on me and let him happily play with something. I feel as though we have weathered something significant - we've come out of the other side of a time when we weren't quite synchronised, when there was something he was telling me that I wasn't 'getting', and I'm reaping the rewards now in a baby who seems to like me almost as much as I like him.
Oh, and he's sleeping for the odd stretch longer than 2 hours at night now. Of course this makes a huge difference.
I'm not silly enough, or blindly optimistic enough, to think that I now have it nailed and it will be plain sailing right through to adulthood. The draft post that I've been writing in my head called "attachment parenting fail" may well still get an airing when it's been refined a bit further. I also know that it's not as if we weren't having plenty of nice times during that difficult period - it wasn't weeks and weeks of living hell, or anything close to it. But still, it feels as though a page has turned. Bliss!
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Home alone
It's day 2 of a week where Isaac and I are alone together, his daddy having gone away to do interesting things in hot places.
My learning points so far:
1. It's a lot harder when you don't have someone to pick up the slack, even if it's only of the "oh god, can you just entertain him for 10 minutes while I slump and stare into space?" variety;
2. Nights, on the other hand, have been easier so far. He's feeding about a million times a night but I don't mind so much when there's no one who's asleep. I appreciate that this is deeply irrational, and that there's no need for my beloved to be awake while I'm feeding, but clearly (from my reaction this week) it's been simmering with me, because really last night I felt quite serene at each feed, even though they were every hour;
3. The thought of the possibility of my getting ill is TERRIFYING. I felt dreadful yesterday, all shivery and achey and cotton-wooly, and went to bed very very early thinking oh god, this is it, I have the flu, how on earth am I going to look after the baby? Luckily I turned out to be fine but still the fear of breaking my legs, or something, pervades;
4. I have a new depth of respect for anyone who does this alone full-time. My baby is (obviously) gorgeous and wonderful and lovely, but he's also hard work and intensive and really, just a few minutes of being able to share his care (and I don't mean a few minutes is all the beloved provides, just that it's the sanity-provider) makes quite a difference to how exhausted you are at the end of the day;
5. I'm so glad that he's old enough that he's still going to know his daddy when he gets back. Again this probably doesn't sound too rational, as it *is* only a week, but I feel so confident that daddy will get the almost hysterically delighted reaction that he always does;
6. We had two awful nights just before this week, where instead of waking for feeds and going straight back to sleep, he woke, howled, refused to feed, howled, howled, howled, needing us to take it in turns to rock and pace. I was terrified this pattern would continue, but it hasn't two nights so far. I think it would actually kill me, doing it alone;
7. I thought that with all the time I would have alone in the evenings I could do lots of sustained reading, without the worry of being antisocial. So far I've not even picked up a book, though I've done some excellent wallying around on the internet, and have managed some studying (study books don't count as books). Still, three more evenings, even if you don't count the rest of this one;
8. I may be coping just fine without him, but I still miss him.
My learning points so far:
1. It's a lot harder when you don't have someone to pick up the slack, even if it's only of the "oh god, can you just entertain him for 10 minutes while I slump and stare into space?" variety;
2. Nights, on the other hand, have been easier so far. He's feeding about a million times a night but I don't mind so much when there's no one who's asleep. I appreciate that this is deeply irrational, and that there's no need for my beloved to be awake while I'm feeding, but clearly (from my reaction this week) it's been simmering with me, because really last night I felt quite serene at each feed, even though they were every hour;
3. The thought of the possibility of my getting ill is TERRIFYING. I felt dreadful yesterday, all shivery and achey and cotton-wooly, and went to bed very very early thinking oh god, this is it, I have the flu, how on earth am I going to look after the baby? Luckily I turned out to be fine but still the fear of breaking my legs, or something, pervades;
4. I have a new depth of respect for anyone who does this alone full-time. My baby is (obviously) gorgeous and wonderful and lovely, but he's also hard work and intensive and really, just a few minutes of being able to share his care (and I don't mean a few minutes is all the beloved provides, just that it's the sanity-provider) makes quite a difference to how exhausted you are at the end of the day;
5. I'm so glad that he's old enough that he's still going to know his daddy when he gets back. Again this probably doesn't sound too rational, as it *is* only a week, but I feel so confident that daddy will get the almost hysterically delighted reaction that he always does;
6. We had two awful nights just before this week, where instead of waking for feeds and going straight back to sleep, he woke, howled, refused to feed, howled, howled, howled, needing us to take it in turns to rock and pace. I was terrified this pattern would continue, but it hasn't two nights so far. I think it would actually kill me, doing it alone;
7. I thought that with all the time I would have alone in the evenings I could do lots of sustained reading, without the worry of being antisocial. So far I've not even picked up a book, though I've done some excellent wallying around on the internet, and have managed some studying (study books don't count as books). Still, three more evenings, even if you don't count the rest of this one;
8. I may be coping just fine without him, but I still miss him.
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