WHAT IS MOTHER LOVE?

What is mother love?

Is it waking up to a mozzie buzzing by your ear and not swatting it away but rather patiently letting it bite you on the cheek because you realise that if it doesn’t bite you, it might pick your child instead.

Perhaps it’s feeding your child in the middle of the night, then having them spit up all over the bed and just deciding to lie in it and go back to sleep. Actually, having re-read this I’d say this is more like laziness.

Could it be wearing maternity bras. I don’t know how other ladies feel, but for me they rank as the most uncomfortable contraption second only to wetsuits. Although that could be because I’ve only ever worn one wetsuit and it was borrowed from a friend with a distinctly smaller frame than yours truly.

Maybe it’s staying in undies soaked in your child’s wee for half the day, unable to change because you’re feeding, changing, playing, cuddling and finally settling them. I defy any parent to say they made it through the nappy stage without wearing their child’s excrement at least once. I don’t care how fancy your nappy is, it’s a right of parental passage.

Mother love could be finally managing a meal at 2pm, so hungry you could eat your shoe, only to watch it go cold and stale as you feed your child for the fourth time that day instead.

It could also be defined as denial and self-sacrifice. Ie still not drinking and coming home early from parties while your husband stays and drinks beer and smokes (more) celebratory cigars. Yes, I can hear the sounds of the violin too.

Then of course there are those late night feeds, your tired eyes gritty and dry as you keep the lights off to lessen the pain and let your marsupial fossick about till it finds what it’s looking for. Just you and your peanut, her father snoring softly by your side, and you marvel at the creation feeding from your breast. You know you made her with the man you chose, that you nourished and protected her while she grew inside you. And now she’s here, thinking and dreaming, learning and smiling her happy grin, a smile that says ‘I know you, you keep me safe and I know the beating heart I hear when I lie on your chest is the same one I heard every day of my forty weeks and one day of growing.’

A heart that used to beat just for my family and friends, but has grown now, to unimaginable proportions, as it tries hold all the feelings I have for my child.

That’s mother love. 

WHEN IS THE PERFECT TIME TO HAVE A BABY?

I thought having a baby in the summer was absolutely genius and here’s why;

1.     The hospital recommends ‘skin to skin’ contact to aid bonding between parent and child. Much less painful in the summer than on a cold miserable ‘we don’t know how to heat our houses properly’ Australian winter’s night.

2.     Cleavage tops. Probably not as big a deal to someone who pre-baby actually had boobs, but for those of us who are mammary challenged, the chance to bust out our newfound bosom is rare and should be shamelessly exploited.

3.     Baby clothes are cheaper – all the peanut needs is one of her fancy cloth nappies (check out greenkids) and a singlet. Done.

4.     Daylight saving. Great for the requisite ‘I really want you to stop your whinging’ run which tends to occur at her birth time (7.16pm) every single night.

5.     It’s much easier to get your boob out in summer clothes than under a sweater, skivvy and maybe a lovely warm scarf. In fact, how do you breastfeed in wintertime? Am I going to be cold for an hour every two hours while I expose half my torso in order to feed my darling child? Please don’t tell me I have to wear button down shirts. I haven’t since 1996 and with good reason. Firstly, they’re ridiculously uncomfortable and secondly they remind me of the brown skirts and lace up shoes I endured throughout my entire high school career. While we’re on the subject of fashion, someone should start a breastfeeding clothing line. Seriously, I hate shopping at the best of times, but now I enter a department store and my usual state of confusion and panic escalates rapidly as I realise I am ineligible for most of the clothing on the racks and am forced to ask assistants for help, actually try things on (normally I pick a size and hope for the best) and sift through clothes looking for the few items where I can whip my boobs out at the slightest sound of my distressed child. Truly, there is a market for this ladies. I don’t have the skill set, but if you do I guarantee you’d be a success. And when you are, feel free to name a lovely boob-accessible moo-moo after me.

And in the negative for having a baby in the summer we have;

1.              Christmas. You haven’t drunk for 40 weeks and you still can’t because you’re the food source for your new human. This might be alright if you were on a Buddhist retreat, but Christmas in Australia calls for champagne, gin and gingers and the odd late night tipple or two while you wait to make sure Santa makes it through the back door.

2.              Beach holidays. You’ve got the ‘I just gave birth gut’ going on, but you’re baby is too small to go out in the surf with you, so people just think you ate too much Christmas pudding.

3.              Relatives, house guests and people on holidays in general. December 24 until January 26 are some of the finest days in the Australian calendar, but it means you keep a punishing schedule of park dates, tourist activities, summer festivals and general social events accompanied by any number of people desperate for their touch of the new human.

4.              Sydney knows how to do humid and when you hold a human against you for an hour at a stretch you both come off a little worse for wear.

5.              The rain. This is an anomaly in Australia after ten years of drought, and fabulous for people’s backyards I know, but it makes it bloody difficult to keep my environmental resolve and use cloth nappies. I have to confess we bought a dryer…any idea if the use of such counteracts the benefits of reusable nappies?

6.              Sunshine. My grandma used to tell me to marry a black man so our kids might have a chance at skin better suited to the Australian clime, instead I married a man with the same welsh heritage as I, forcing us to cover our already hot human in hats and muslin wraps so her delicate skin keeps its glorious alabaster tones.

So there you have it. The cases for and against. Let me know what you think.

THE BENEFITS OF BREASTFEEDING

The other day I hung out a load of washing with one arm while breastfeeding the peanut in the other. There has to be a medal somewhere in the world for that. Seriously. It required great skill and dexterity, wit, (to outwit the wind) patience, (never my strong suit, but greatly improved since the arrival of the peanut) and a very bendy left arm.

It also required a lowered clothes line since I couldn’t stretch and a sturdy elbow for holding down clothes while the hand of the same arm twisted and reached for a peg to secure the item. I can’t guarantee my husband’s jeans were completely dry (one leg was hung at the knee, the other at the hip pocket) and since I couldn’t do a preemptive shake, all the wrinkles formed during the wash are now cemented into the clothes and as I am vehemently opposed to ironing, there they shall stay until next we wash them.

This is atypical in the land of breastfeeding I have discovered. You see the greatest benefit of breastfeeding is a total shonk-off of all household chores.

Making the bed is impossible – try doing hospital corners with one hand. Instead I just wait till the peanut is out of it, (don’t tell the midwives she sleeps with us) pull up the quilt and call it a day.

Washing up is ridiculous and just ends in a broken wine glass - not that I’m drinking of course…

Taking out the garbage is off the cards – would you like to eat your dinner with one hand and hold a bag of day-old prawn shells in the other?

Sweeping - same deal, it’s hardly hygienic.

Mopping, dusting, folding laundry…they’re all nigh on impossible when one of your appendages is taken up by a small human that is stuck like a leech to your nipple.

I have tried eating with some success – so long as it’s my left hand that’s free to feed myself. My right hand isn’t so great with fine motor tasks like that and the peanut wore more of the Weetbix than made it to my mouth.

And I’ve now managed to make this whole breastfeeding gig even more luxurious by having to lie down while I do it. It’s not my fault. My milk flows so fast that if I don’t the peanut drowns – choking and flailing her arms about in a violent, turbulent and desperate pantomime. It doesn’t look good in public people, (people tend to frown at mothers choking their own babies) so I’ve developed a weird sort of faux-lie position to prevent me being entirely housebound and strangers from calling child welfare services.

So there I lie, shanghai-ing passersby into getting me glasses of water, grabbing a book or switching on the computer, even my brothers who would fall about feigning broken legs and other defective body parts if ever I previously needed them will jump to my every request so their precious niece can be sustained. I am charged with a most important duty after all. Raising the next generation is to be taken most seriously. Mothers of such should be treasured indeed. Treasured, adored and praised for their excellent work.

In my defence, this breastfeeding gig takes up A LOT OF TIME. The peanut usually takes the better part of an hour to feed and she likes to do that every two hours, so by the time you burp, change and play with her you’re back to the beginning again. Tonight she fed for nearly three hours. THREE HOURS PEOPLE. She completely drained both boobs, (so I tried to replace them with a hefty serve of ice cream and chocolate topping) and slurped and gulped her way through The Prince Of Persia, a so-so film that kept me company while I was devoured.

I am led to believe by that esteemed journal, The Sydney Morning Herald, that breastfeeding mothers make 1.7 litres of breast milk a day. Seven weeks ago I might have questioned that. In fact, had I read that statistic before the peanut became a human I might have tried to find a way to back out of the whole deal, but now I can tell you that the statistic is most definitely true and what’s more, the little humans need every last drop.

Lying down should be the least us breastfeeding ladies get. Simultaneous foot and head massages followed by a hot spa and a full body rub down would be more like it. But that would take longer than an hour and that’s more timeout than my little peanut will allow.

PARENTING AT FOUR WEEKS...I'VE GOT IT DOWN!!!

The twelve points of 4 weeks of parenting

1.              sleeping for 4 hours in total is an excellent outcome

2.              moving out of the marital bed to sleep squashed up on the couch with my marsupial/pterodactyl is now the norm

3.              sitting in undies soaked with my daughters wee for a few hours until I can manage five seconds for a wash is entirely normal

4.              soft cheeses

5.              sushi

6.              making up songs to narrate my new life. Current hits include; ‘things aren’t as bad as you’re making them seem,’ ‘you’re just fussing,’ and the ever popular ‘you’re awake again my darling child.’

7.              Mothers group…that is a lot of oestrogen in one room, but so far it’s not overly offensive

8.              99% of the affection that used to be directed towards my husband is now focused exclusively on our new tenant

9.              one-handed typing – how am I going?

10.           Greeting dawn for 29 days straight. In case you’re wondering, it’s quite beautiful

11.           Almost daily jaunts to cafes with similarly situated women. If you’d asked when I lived in New York, I’m not sure I could have envisaged the scene!

12.           Qualified or not, bumbling or absolute precision, I am completely and utterly immersed in this parenting gig and loving every second of it, even points 1, 3 and 10

THE PEANUT'S FIRST CHRISTMAS

Wishing you all a very happy holiday season and a wonderful new year.
I do intend to blog before then, but in case I don't, (I'm yet to buy a single christmas gift, haven't prepared my part of the christmas feast or packed for our beach holiday that begins on boxing day) I hope yours is a fabulous day filled with fun and family.
Thank you for reading and sharing my adventures, I hope you continue with me on the journey...

CONTRACTIONS, BACK LABOUR AND BANANA FLAVOURED CONDOMS

“Oh, you’re in labour. I just thought you were having really loud sex,” says our upstairs neighbour inviting herself into our living room where I was dressed only in undies and a singlet, bent over the couch and moaning my way through a ‘this is happening WAY faster than the baby school said it would’ contraction.

“Here. I brought you borscht,” she says, heading for the fridge. “It’s beetroot soup. I don’t suppose you want it now though do you?” I manage – just – to shake my head.

Am I in a farce? Did I just get offered traditional eastern-european soup while in the throes of a labour moving so quickly there is some doubt that with peak-hour traffic we will even make it to the hospital on time?

“We’re heading to the hospital,” Gregory informs our neighbour calmly as he comes in from packing the car with a birth bag filled with ‘essential items’ that we didn’t even bother to take in with us. So much for comfy shoes, jellybeans and yoga breathing to get me through this endurance event. No one mentioned it could possibly be a sprint.

“Yes, that’s probably a good idea isn’t it,” she says patting me on the back. “Off you go then. Good luck. We’ll see you later.”

And less than two hours later, we became parents. And that’s all I’m going to say about that birthing biz, because now I too am part of the club that keeps the covenant. None of you ladies told me the truth about evicting a human through your nether regions, so apart from saying that my darling child came out like superman with her fist alongside her head, and that had she consulted me first I would have politely asked her not to do that as there wasn’t much room for her head as it was, my lips are sealed. Although I did appreciate the ingenuity of the midwives who afterwards handed me an ice filled condom – no, not as a metaphor for me to put a freeze on my sex life – but rather to shove between my legs to help with the swelling. My friend (who beat me to the finish line and gave birth the day before) asked her husband to go out and buy her some so they could continue the treatment once they were home. Diligently he did just that, returning with the only variety they had…flavoured condoms. Can you imagine your hoo-ha smelling like a tropical fruit ice block?

The peanut came out very nice and clean and smelling like a salami. But a nice salami – one that had been aged forty weeks and one day. Cleverly, she had managed to grow all the correct parts of her body in all the correct quantities and I am pleased to report that so far her nose looks great…ie not mine, at least not yet. But that’s not to say it won’t morph into the honker I have, because you see, mother nature designs baby’s noses so that they are the perfect shape to fit over the mother’s nipple and boob while still allowing them to breathe when they’re breast feeding. Good thing too, or I wouldn’t have made it past day one if I’d been born with what I eventually grew. It hinders me even now – drinking champagne for example, (which I quite like to do when I’m not growing or breastfeeding a human) is almost an anatomical impossibility for me – my nose is so big it gets stuck on the opposite rim from my lips making it nigh on impossible for me to get any liquid from the glass. Drinking champagne out of a red wine glass is just fine at home, but no one really understands that request when you’re out in public.

So, a day later we brought our little human home and discovered she’s not really a human after all. She’s really more part marsupial part pterodactyl. She certainly defies the statistic that babies her age are only awake 10% of the time, and sleeping with her is like camping in Jurassic park. She screeches and squawks so loudly she startles herself out of sleep thereby forcing us to start the settling process all over again. Still doesn’t manage to wake her father though, and his snores don’t seem to bother her, so it’s just me, sandwiched between my very own family orchestra – percussion, brass and a fair bit of wind. Thing is, as tired as I am, it’s still music to my ears.

A TWO WEEK OLD BABY = THE ULTIMATE DISTRACTION

I know, I know, two weeks and not a peep. This little human of ours is a brilliant time waster. i've also never been more popular than since I became the mother of Quinn. (If your self esteem needs a boost, have a baby. You'll be playing second fiddle to them of course, but you can still claim credit for any of their greatness, good looks or advanced behaviour).
I'm also hesitant to post anything without getting someone else to read it first, given that I'm going on not more than four hours sleep a night since the day she was born. There's a reason they train our military forces to cope with sleep deprivation as a means of torture.
I do declare that a blog is on the way...stand by for updates...