Temper

Kai has always had a bit of a temper.

It was one of the first observations made about him actually, at barely a day old, the midwife holding up this tiny, rigid, screaming bundle, him emptying his lungs with a cry that made the metal bed vibrate, the bed I remember banging my shins on over and over as I jumped up to try and get to him before he woke the whole ward. Frustration and rage even then, breastfeeding proving quickly to be problematic as he wanted milk NOW but didn’t have the patience to try and latch, his intense and almost instant frustration lasting what felt like hours until he calmed down enough to try again . Over and over I would try, trying to coax him to calm down and stay still long enough to just OPEN YOUR MOUTH CHILD IT’S RIGHT THERE, just to have a little patience. Just TRY baby, please my darling, please just try.

We got through it. After two hard weeks Kai was latching well, barely coming off at all to be quite honest and there he stayed, thriving, for 18 months. We got there.

But that anger, it’s continued to weave it’s way through the day to day. That unfocused, immature mix of fear and confusion and some instinctual sense of it JUST NO BEING FAIR MUM. It was in the not-wanting-to-be-put-down, in the not-ever-EVER-mummy of sleeping alone, or even sleeping at all at times. No matter how firm or persistent or how many well-meaning books I read, soon disregarded to be used to prop up the cot an angle as suggested by ANOTHER book, and then the un-slept-in cot abandoned altogether in favour of just doing whatever bloody worked.

It was in the absolutely-not-drinking-out-of-that-plastic-thing mummy, or eating-ANYTHING-off-a-spoon mummy. It was in the temperature-must-be-exactly-right mummy.

It was in the it-must-only-ever-be-YOU mummy.

It was in every thing.

And we worked through them. All of them.

You wouldn’t think it. To look at him, to meet him. That’s always been the irony. He is such a calm, serious child. You get it right – and we have for the most part, life carefully arranged to suit what he needed – you get it RIGHT and this boy could win prizes for his exemplar angelic behaviour. With those blue eyes shining, those blond curls sitting pretty on top, that full, if rather hard-won smile, who would doubt he is anything but a model child?

“He’s so GOOD!” they gush at me. And he is, he really is. He is a super star. I am so proud of him. Proud of the way he shines in company and thrives on interaction and different environments, such a change from the problems of a few months back. He is good. Whatever ‘good’ means.

But he is not easy.

Kai started having temper tantrums about eight months ago, just about the time he learnt to walk. Proper temper tantrums, not just crying. Those angry, screaming, fist-pumping, full body kicking, plank-like, spectacular floor and buggy and bed shows. He has stamina this child, half an hour or more, not a hope of distracting him out of them. And never in company of course, oh no, or very rarely. Those everyday, just me, or just me and his dad, days. When you just need to GET STUFF DONE, and aren’t able to give him that constant interaction and variety and amusement he so seems to crave.

“Just you wait!”, people would say, as they so love to do. “Just you wait for the terrible twos!” But honestly? I didn’t believe them. Because it couldn’t get much worse than this, right?

Last night Kai proved to me just how laughingly wrong I was. Ten days after turning two it seems that the Terrible Twos have well and truly arrived. And oh BOY! Don’t you just love the way the universe loves to prove a point!

An hour. Over an hour. Of the most intense, animal, hysterical screaming and flailing and head banging and VOMIT! Oh yes! That was a fun new addition. Screaming until he was hoarse, in fact, until all that came out was husky, muted noise, but still he kicked and fought and NO’d with his whole body.

All because I wouldn’t hold his hand to sleep. A habit I had taken weeks to break some time ago, the last vestiges of the I-won’t-sleep-alone days, only for me to relent one night, one night like last night, and then for it take MORE weeks to break again.

I wasn’t going to do it. I wasn’t going through all that again.

So I didn’t. I stood firm. I sat with him and talked to him but I did not hold his hand. And he screamed until he couldn’t scream any more and passed out in a little exhausted ball of sweat and anger and sadness.

Needless to say I was broken, running from his room and the house the second his head finally hit the pillow. Running and running and just not stopping because I had to get OUT. Away. Two hours of breathing and walking and my heart still raced. My sensitive nerves frazzled with sound and my sensitive heart frazzled with emotion. I never, ever knew how physically stressful dealing with this sort of temper can be.

I know it will pass. I know he is frustrated, that the lack of speech and difficulty expressing himself is a part of it and THAT will pass. He starts nursery soon which I think I will make a huge difference, if only to give me a BREAK! I know that we will get through this just like we got through everything else.

But right now?

It is hard. It is really, really hard.

I just needed to say that.

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Thanks to everyone on Twitter for their support last night. All the stress was tempered with some very, very exciting news today which I will share as soon as I can. Life-changing news. News that make temper tantrums suddenly feel a lot more bearable Updates very soon xx

The Gallery: Motherhood

It was a long night last night.

A very, VERY long night….

… but we’re still smiling this morning.

To my boy. Who always makes the sun come out again regardless of how little sleep you gave me the night before.

I love you.

Now, mummy’s just going to lie here a while. No, no I’m not sleeping, I’m just pretending. Yes, it’s a game. It requires you to be very, very  quiet and still. Oh, no? You’d rather play trains? Oh, ok…

Zzzzzzzz……

This post was written for Week 15 of The Gallery.

The theme was Motherhood.

Bad Day/Good Day

Bad Day

I open my eyes. Damn it, it is early. Too early. I stagger, bleary eyed down the landing, the need for more sleep so overwhelming that I want to cry. I know I will feel tired all day. He sits there, the complaints already on his lips, the shouts and screams and protestations forming like a queue at the back of his tongue, ready to roll off in endless thick torrents the whole day long. Ready to drown me.

He wants to TV on. I am too tired to argue. And so begins the battle of figuring out the endless demands, all met with a firm and angry NO! Pulled and pinched, punched and prodded. Go away mummy. But then needed, oh god needed so much. Come here mummy. Come here NOW. Look at this. Read my mind mummy.

Resentment. Guilt. Inadequacy. A dull anger that sits in my stomach.

The niggle to write builds, through breakfast, the need for space and quiet, through the frantic dance of protesting limbs of getting washed and dressed. The endless noise, the endless nonsensical chatter wearing me down, wearing me out.

I look in the mirror. What has happened to me? Who is this tired, faded woman? I do not bother making myself look good. Who would care anywhere? I am not seen, I am not wanted. I am just a mother.

I try. I do try. To fill his days with things to make him happy. But I am tired. And nothing is good enough, it seems.

I fail. I give up.

I count the hours, the clock ticking past so painfully slowly. Consumed with the things I am not doing. I have got nothing done, my whole day filled with managing this complicated puzzle, I cannot get the pieces to fit.

Is this it? Is this my life now? Is this who I am?

Bedtime. At last. An evening filled as I try to desperately to regain some sense of self.

It is not enough, I must do more, be more.

I push away the person that loves me most, too worn out to talk or engage. Just wanting to retreat, to take solace in darkness and aloneness, but then yearning for touch and contact in a way that makes my stomach ache.

I stay up late. Stretching out every minute of free time and falling into bed exhausted. Empty.

At least it is over, this day. But the thought of tomorrow fills me with a an inner panic that builds and builds.

I want to run. I don’t want to be here.

Good Day

I open my eyes. Damn it, it is early. Never mind, I have a whole day ahead. There will be time to sleep later. And there is fresh coffee in the fridge and the sun is shining.

I open the door to his room and his frowny face, ready to tell me off for something or other makes me laugh at its seriousness and melodrama. I silence him with a kiss and pull a silly face and he laughs, his eyes crinkling and a stream of soft and musical expression and life and personality burst forth from his lips. I am bathed in them. Renewed.

He wants to TV on and I smile and say yes. There will be time for outside and play and interaction later, and besides, Telletubbies makes him laugh, deep and free. Why wouldn’t that be ok? He is hard to figure out, of course he is, he is a complicated little soul but I am listening. I am tuned in. And I will keep trying. YES! The pulls and pinches are soon turned into cuddles, and opportunity to teach about gentle hands and how to take care of those you love. Go away mummy. I give him the space he needs, using the time to eat and soak in the odd moment of peace. Come here mummy. Of course my darling, relishing the soft curls and arms wrapped tight around my neck. Breathing in his need for I know it will not last.

Love. Acceptance. Peace. Pride. A sense of rightness that sits in my heart.

The niggle to write builds, of course it does. I could deny it as easily as I could deny breathing but that’s OK. I use the slow rhythm of the day to let my mind wander and dream, letting the moments inspire me. I am present, and somewhere else too, writing in my head if not on paper. The chatter washes over me, makes me smile in its bright energy.

I look in the mirror. I smile. I am beautiful, confident. I always will be, the woman I am shining through. I chose the clothes I love, that make me feel sexy and alive. I am seen, I am wanted. I am full of femininity and sensuality and youth and I relish it.

I try.  To fill his days with things to make him happy. And the moments I get it right eclipse all else. If something isn’t working I try something else, and I remember that bad days are always rescued by a cup of coffee in a cafe somewhere and a feed of the ducks in the park.

I am doing so well. I am good at this.

The hours fly by because I fill them up. And the things that don’t get done can be done tomorrow, or not at all. I am under no obligation. This is my day and I am in charge. I haven’t figured out the complicated puzzle that is my life but that’s ok too. I am young, there is time. And it is the journey that counts, I don’t have to have figured everything out before I turn 30.

This is it, for now. But life will change, as will I. It is exciting.

Bedtime. A long evening, I can fill it anyway I like. But there is no rush. If I want to sleep, or to read. If I want to do nothing that is fine. I have no job, no obligation. There is no pressure to do anything other than what I chose.

I am so much already. I don’t need to be anything more than I am tonight.

I gravitate to the person that loves me most, needing his touch and his smell and his warmth and knowing he knows me better than anyone.

I go to bed early, leading my lover by the hand. Full of everything I am and everything I can be.

It is over, this day. And the thought of tomorrow fills me with hope and promise.

I want to stay here forever. I am exactly where I need to be.

____________________________________________

Why are the bad days so pervasive? Why are the good days so fleeting, so fragile?

I want more of them.

What is different those days? Me? Is it as simple as that?

What makes the difference between your good and bad days?

New

I lie in sickly soft fluorescent glow,
numb in mind but not in bone.
Ten marathons run hard and long
in just one day and night.

My eyes are fixed on the plastic crib
for signs of life, for need. I do not know you
yet my every nerve is tuned
to each new foreign snuffle sound.

And then, a cry. I pounce
and join you in your wail as stitches pull,
looking down in shock at this strange weight
my arms have never known.

A red mouth opens wide with rage.
The blood-loss shakes me empty, cold.
This rigid, curled tight horror that you are.
My world turned inside-out.

_______________________

I know that some of you may find this poem rather shocking. It was the second poem I wrote this week for my assignment based on the study of autobiographical memory, prompted by my reading of a wonderful, healing book called ‘What Mother’s Do’ by Naomi Stadlen that explores feelings experienced after childbirth in one of its early chapters.

I love my son, I hope that fact shines from the pages of this blog, but when thinking back to the first few hours after his birth, my memories weren’t those of love, or sudden infatuation, or that magical sense of ‘knowing’ this beautiful new baby in my life. No, my memories were of shock, fear, confusion and complete bewilderment at what on earth I was supposed to do with this thing that I had absolutely no understanding of.

I wanted to share this because I know many, many other mothers feel the same, and that those early emotions are often hard to acknowledge or to talk about.

And I wanted to say that I think it is ok that we feel like this. That shock at such a life-changing event is a normal part of the process, that MOST women feel like this, some dads too. But at the same time, from these terrifying first beginnings, most parents build a deep, powerful and deeply satisfying love for their children and a confidence in their parenting abilities. And it takes time, for some much longer than you would expect, and that too is normal. We’re not talking days here, we’re talking weeks, even months.

Nearly two years on and I’m still getting used to my little stranger to be honest. But knowing that my love for him is something that wasn’t exactly given to me on a plate, but is something that I worked for, nurtured, grew, makes it all the more precious and significant to me. A love hard-won and all the deeper for it.

How about you? How does your experience of early parenthood compare? Did it take you some time to move past that shock and overwhelming feeling of being out of your depth? Or was it a gentler transition?

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I have put together a page with a selection of some of my recent poetry which can now be accessed from the page menu at the top and to act as an archive for some of the work I may have previously shown here. There you’ll also find the finished edit of the ‘Accidental Meeting’ poem I shared with the workshop yesterday, if you fancied a read. Thank you for all your feedback, encouragement and support. It really helps me in developing my work and gives me the confidence to keep going. Special thanks to Deer Baby and Muddling Along for their time and feedback yesterday x

Toddler Wars

I can feel it building. I’m getting a sixth-sense for it these days. You’d think that would give me a fighting chance of being able to avoid it.

Sometimes, yes. But not today.

We’re in the supermarket for starters. Always a bad idea, especially after an afternoon of tears and frustration, building, building. But we need groceries and I thought, stupidly, that a change of scene would cheer him up.

I didn’t even bother with the pushchair this time, not fancying having to force him, plank-like into the harness, knowing he would fight to get out the whole way round.  I figured I would let him potter round with us as we picked up the few things that we need. We’d let him put things in the basket. The supermarket was quiet. It would be ok.

But of course Kai didn’t want to potter. Kai wanted to run. Fast, and in the exact opposite direction to the one we were heading.

“Look Kai, let’s go and find Daddy. Let’s go and find some CHEESE!” Squatting down, I try not to twist Kai’s arm as he pulls away, my face locked into a big smile as I try to catch his attention.

It’s not happening. He won’t look at me. He pulls and pulls, twisting and wriggling to get free of me, digging the fingers of his free hand under mine to prise me off him. And then he’s off.

Shit, when did he get so fast?

I chase. I try and distract. I smile. I plead. I try to lead him back, calling instructions to Ant down the aisles for things we need.

Nope. Not happening.

Again and again, he breaks free and runs and runs. Narrowly avoiding trolleys and people’s feet, making a bee-line for the checkouts, the furthest point he can run in a straight line. I scrabble after him, murmuring apologies, calling his name. Each time I catch him, he fights and pulls. His grumbles turning into a low whine, gaining momentum.

This time I’ve had enough. I pick him up.

His body stiffens as he takes in a lung full of air and lets it out in one outraged scream, kicking his shoes into my stomach, pushing down on my hip bone as he arches and pushes.

I’m not letting go.

“Come on mister, time to find Daddy”.

Catching up to Ant and the screams keep coming as he fights me. Outraged, the anger and frustration expressed with every jerk and tense of his little muscles.

“Let’s just get the shopping and go ok?”. I do my best to keep a hold of him, struggling to keep a grip of this writhing ball of fury. Why is he so angry? Why does this seem to happen so often these days?

I can’t keep hold of him. I set him down. Crouching down to try and calm him, reason with him.

But he’s gone, lost in his own world.

He won’t stand up, he won’t be held. He writhes and kicks on the cold floor, in the middle of the supermarket aisle, his screams louder and louder, over and over, his dad’s soothing words lost in the noise.

We look at each other, helpless. Why here? Why now? What the hell are we supposed to do with him?

I feel my world closing in.

Kai is not the only one sensitive to lights and noise. The noise of the supermarket mixes with the sound of Kai’s screams as I try to hold him, calm him down. The fleourescent light making my head throb, my ears burning, my cheeks burning.

He is so loud. Everyone is looking. I can’t get him under control.

We debate taking him back to the car, but we have half a basket of shopping. We only need a few things. We’ll push on. He’s bound to give up in a minute.

I pick him and trail round the rest of the supermarket wrestling with Kai, the pitch and desperation of his protests getting more and more intense.

He won’t stop, he can’t stop.

It takes all my strength to hold him. Fists push against my chest. Feet in my stomach, in my ribs.

We bump into a friend. He tries to stop and chat and say hello. I smile faintly through the tangle of waving arms and thrashing blonde hair. It takes all my willpower not to snap at him. Do we look like we have time to chat? Ant why are you talking to him! Come on! Let’s go! Move move move!

We pass mothers with their toddlers sat demurely in supermarket trolleys, in pushchairs, contentedly chatting and waving toys, eating snacks. We have never had that. Why the hell have we never had that?

My ears are numb from the sound of the angry siren in my arms. It goes on and on. Why isn’t he calming down? He’s barely taking a breath. The screams coming in wave after wave.

It’s probably been ten minutes, fifteen max, but I feel like I have been here, listening as his wails echo off the high ceilings, avoiding people’s rue smiles or annoyed frowns,  for hours and hours.

Come on come on nearly there. I bark out items on my internal shopping list. My pace quickning, faster and faster, Ant almost running to keep up, the pounding in my head a dull, heavy throb.

At last we are done. Ant pays as I manoeuvre as still-screaming Kai through the check out queue and out, out into the fresh air. I take in a lung full, propelling us both across the car park by sheer adrenaline to push him down into the waiting car seat where at last he quiets, turning to stare morosely out the window, his face red and wet and blotchy.

The pain in my head shoots down my neck, my jaw unclenching. I ache all over, my muscles knotted and tense.

And that was my afternoon.

I know it gets better. I know. I know that no language means no way for him to tell me what it was he wanted. I know that he was probably tired, or that he was teething, or hungry, or if I’d done something differently, picked up on his cues a little better, it would have been fine. I know supermarkets are a trigger for him, like lots of other things. I should know better.

But he’s 21 months old for christ’s sake. We’ve not even hit two yet. Already in the physical fight of mummy vs. Kai, Kai is winning by sheer brute force of will. Give him another year to get bigger and stronger.

I don’t stand a fricking chance.

How do you people do this?!

A Familiar Feeling

An old familiar feeling has crept back of late.

It lurked back in slowly, quietly, lodging in the back of my brain and deep in my stomach. It was the feeling of something missing, like that feeling where there is a thought floating just outside of your mind that you can’t quite get a tangible grasp on. Like you’ve forgotten something really, really important.

It’s left me grumpy, and sensitive, and confused about myself and life in general.

You may have noticed.

It’s been a feeling of wanting. Of being in a kind of limbo and not feeling, well, ‘right’. And for a long time I didn’t know what the hell it meant.

I think I’ve figured it out. Actually, I know I have.

It’s hormones.

More specifically, it’s those longing, stomach-churning, completely beyond your control, weep every time someone announces they’re pregnant biological clock-ticking, baby hormones.

I want one. I want another baby.

It started with the ‘almost baby’ in January. Which knocked me for six and left me very low. And since then it’s built, rearing it’s head in the odd, deep twinge as I heard of another friend’s pregnancy, or looked at their new baby pictures, and in vivid dreams where I wake up with my arms aching, feeling like something’s missing. But I’ve been trying to ignore it.

It’s not a new experience, this. Before Kai I had two years of intense wanting. But I was too ill then to make it a realistic decision and we decided to wait until I was better and after we had got married. I’m really glad we did, but it wasn’t easy. I’d go through patches where that longing for a baby was so real and so intense I would feel like a physical pain deep down in my stomach. But I needed to be well enough so I waited and it became one of my main motivators in working to get better.

I never, ever, knew before that time how much my body’s hormones could affect me. It was completely involuntary, nothing to do with logic or reason, just a pure, guttural feeling I had absolutely no control over. My body wanted me to have a baby, and I was pretty powerless to ignore it.

And now it’s happening again.

I know that maybe those of you who have been reading this blog for a while may be rolling your eyes at this point. “Oh Josie!” (you’re probably sighing), “when are you going to figure out what it is you want? Writing? A Career? I thought you found motherhood hard enough already?”.

All of which would be valid points of course.

But part of what I’m finding so confusing right now is the future prospect of baby number 2. We’d always planned another and being in the inbetween of having Kai and a sibling I’m finding that I don’t know what to do with myself. I want to take my writing somewhere but I find myself thinking, what’s the point in starting something seriously if in a year or two I have to stop again to concentrate on a new addition to our family.

Maybe I just need to focus my priorities. Recognise the reality of where I am right now.

Right now I am a mother. A mother who writes, yes, but a mother who writes for fun and for experimentation and, mostly, to test to see if she can do it.

So, if that’s the reality, couldn’t I be a mother of two? Wouldn’t now, in fact, be the perfect time to add to our family? In this time where my writing is just a big experiment, before I am committed to a career, or a book, or a publisher or any of the other things I dream about for my future? Right now, while I have the time and the space? Maybe a sibling would take some of the focus off Kai, ease the intensity of having all our energy poured into such an intense little guy.

Or, maybe I’m a fool. I find Kai almost impossible at times as it is. What on earth would I be thinking adding a new little personality to the mix? I’m already exhausted, feeling torn between wanting to be a mother and wanting to pursue my own personal dreams and ambitions. Isn’t another child just going to make it worse? Just make it harder?

Honestly I don’t know.

But I know what my body wants.

This is either going to be exactly what I need right now, or exactly what I don’t need.

But me and the man, who’s decision this is just as much as mine, have talked. And we’re both pretty clear about what we want to do.

We’re going to go for it.

Wish us luck.

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How did you know you were ready for a baby, or a second, or a third? Is there ever a ‘right’ time, do you think? Or do you just have to take a chance and go for it?

Learning to pay attention

I know I talk a lot about how hard I find things with Kai some days. I’ve become so aware of the negative voice into which I seem to slip:

“I’m exhausted”,
“He’s so difficult”
“Why does he have to make everything so complicated?”

That’s me off-loading.

I need to do it because he is difficult. But it’s only one side of the coin and I’m beginning to see that the other side is far richer, and far more significant. It’s a side I need to concentrate on more, need to talk about more. Because it is the ‘good’ things that define Kai far more than the ‘bad’, and actually affect and enrich our time together far, far more.

This post is about one of the good things. One of many that make my boy so special and being his mother, being in his company, such a privilege and such a gift.

I realised something recently. Kai’s lack of language is forcing me to pay attention.

Without a simple word or words to hear, understand, maybe instantly dismiss, I have to become a detective, hunting for clues of meaning. The body language he uses, the intonation of his voice, his gestures and made-up signs. What is he telling me?

Kai is incredibly sensitive to noise at the moment. It’s his big obsession. Sounds seem to affect him in a multitude of different ways. Of course there are the bad noises, the ones that make him quiver and shake and cling and scream. Or that will seem to mesmerise him and leave him wired and overstimulated for hours afterwards. The hoover’s the biggy here, and the food processor and the hair dryer and the shrill noises on some toys. These sounds cause frustration and tears and stress.

But then there are the sounds he likes, the sounds of sirens in the distance or aeroplanes in the sky, or a dog barking, or the sound of a bin lorry or a million other different noises he will detect in his environment instantly, no matter how quiet or how much background noise there is. His little eyes light up, he cups his ear and excitedly he will grab and point and dance and babble to tell me in his language “Listen Mummy! Listen!”

And listen I do. And I hear the thing he has heard. The thing I have nearly always failed to notice. And with my boy we will hunt for the source of the noise, scanning the sky, or stopping to work out which direction it’s coming from, or listening to what the dog might be saying and if another will answer back. And when we work it out I will share in his glee and his excitement. If it’s music that has caught his attention I will pick up on the sway and bounce of his body as he tries to find the rhythm, and I will listen to the beat and the way the music fits together.

I’m getting better at the listening. I’m getting better at picking up on the source of his interest. I’m hearing the bird song and the sound of the wind.

Did you know that the world is filled with such beautiful and fascinating sound?

Of course there are the visual interests too. What it he has seen? What is it that has caught his eye and his attention? A cat darting under a car, a bird on the TV aerial, a bus or a digger in the distance, the light flashing on the answering machine. Again, all things I wouldn’t have noticed. Again, all things I am learning to see.

I am getting better at looking. I am getting better at noticing the tiny details. I am seeing the shine of a treasure in the hedgerow and the way the leaves dance in the gutter.

Did you know that the world is filled with such endlessly intoxicating things to look at?

Why would I want to change this way of perceiving the world?

Yes, the lack of language, the sensitivity and frustrations Kai experiences, sometimes they make my days more exhausting and overwhelming than I feel like I can handle.

But in the moments in between, when I feel like this boy is opening my eyes and my ears in ways I never could have predicted, I am so glad of it all, every little bit.

He is making me a better mother. He is making me a better person, and a better writer too. I really believe that.

And I am so grateful for it, so grateful for him.

What have your children taught you? How has responding to their personalities and their needs changed you?

Too tired to change

I have been sat here staring at a blank screen for nearly half an hour.

A flicker-show of thoughts and worries plays on the back of my brain in a constant, dim haze. Ever so often one with extra clout will leap out of me at full volume. A doubt, an anxiety, a feeling of guilt or pressure. SOMETHING. It will make my heart beat a little faster before slipping onwards, before the wave of fatigue sweeps me back into numbness.

I am seriously tired. Even for me. Tired to the point of losing the little spacial awareness I have at the best of times. Tired to the point of losing my ability to string more than half a dozen words together. Tired to the point that my eye sight is poor again.

Really tired.

A month long illness has catapulted Kai back into the realms of sleeplessness. Wake-ups are getting earlier and earlier – 5am if I’m lucky, and that’s often after long sessions of restless tossing and turning throughout the night and many tears. I know it won’t last but right now it’s close to finishing me off.

I am hopeless at getting up early. Even after nearly 20 months of very rarely sleeping past 6am I am not used to it. I struggle to fall asleep much before 11pm, however tired I am. I’ve always worked best later at night – it’s the time when my brain seems to come alive and earlier bedtimes usually just mean a couple of hours lying awake watching the flicker-show again. If I’m lucky I’ll get six hours, lately nearer four or five with time spent settling Kai through the night.

Mornings are spent battling the effects of the night before. My body shakes, I find myself falling asleep if I sit so roam around in an endless fog to try and keep myself awake. If Kai has an earlyish nap I gratefully pass out for an hour but wake-up groggy and unrefreshed. However part of my strategy for trying to get Kai to sleep a little later and not be too wiped before bed is to make sure his nap is late enough in the day to give him a good rest, by which point the adrenaline has kicked in and I struggle to switch off. I live for the weekends when Ant can watch Kai and I can go back to bed, and where I would stay the whole weekend if only I could.

I know not all if it is the lack of sleep. The Fibromyalgia plays a part too – it makes my body less efficient at recharging and adds muscle aches and a feeling of being muddled, like I’m moving through thick custard that don’t help.

I’m sorry. This isn’t making very interesting reading is it? I did have a point somewhere…

Ah yes. That was it. I just needed you to understand how tired I am right now so you get what I’m trying to say.

There are a lot of things right now which I need to change. Things that I know will make my life better. Things that I need to change about myself, about my routine, my attitudes, my thinking. Things I want to do.

But I am just too tired.

It sounds pathetic doesn’t it? A complete wimp out of responsibility and self-motivation.

One thing I hate in life is an ‘I can’t’ mentality. I’ve always been an ‘I can’ kinda girl. I make stuff happen, me. I sneer at people who are forever making excuses, forever opting out. Yet that’s exactly what I’m doing.

And yes, I know I know. You’re all going to tell me to go easy on myself, that I can’t do everything, and you’re probably right.

But what I want to know is, when is it right to just give-in, surrender to the fatigue until things change on their own and inevitably more energy comes, and when is it right to push, to fight through the fog and not let it rule my life?

I consider myself a strong person. I think one of my best traits is an amazingly persistent instinct for self-preservation and survival. Nothing ever stops me for long. I have learnt that even when I feel at my most low, most overwhelmed, or blocked or anything else, if I give it time SOMETHING will kick in and pull me out again. A new idea, or a new inspiration will come from somewhere and push me forward, even if it’s just a little way.

But I don’t want to sit and wait now. I don’t have the energy to do the things that make me happy. I’m increasingly slipping into more and more unhealthy habits and tendencies, things that aren’t doing me or Kai, or Ant for that matter, any good at all. I’m withdrawing more and more from my friends, retreating into myself more. My confidence is at an all time low. Those relationships and friendships that I seem to have lost lately I’m finding harder and harder to rekindle and establish contact. Online friendships increasingly leave me feeling easily hurt and left-out, even if those feelings are completely unfounded.

Most importantly, getting up so early, being so unbelievably wiped in the morning and needing Kai to have a good nap at home in order for us both to survive the day, is making it harder and harder to get to morning playgroups and other social activities (and I can’t find any later ones) – I just don’t have it in me. Given how hard Kai finds social interaction anyway, I know I need to make this a priority but…

…yep you guessed it. I’m just too tired.

I AM trying. I’m trying to remember to eat, to go to bed earlier, to sleep during nap-times rather than write or browse online. This week I’m working hard on projects for Kai, trying to make his environment a bit more enabling and ‘Kai friendly’. But I am so aware of all the balls I’m dropping right now. My family, my friends, my virtual projects and pals. Myself.

Do I need to just try harder? Is it simply a case of mind over matter?

Or should I accept that the greater force rules and find a way to ‘make do’ till this time passes. Even if it’s to mine and my family’s detriment?

How about you? Are you ever too tired to change, even though you know you really need to? How do YOU deal with it?

Personality Types and Parenting

Ever so often you come across a book that changes your life. Well, I do anyway.

They catapult you down new roads of interests and discoveries, or they bring new insight into something you have been struggling with, or they just leave you feeling lighter and more at peace with yourself and the world.

‘Women Who Run With the Wolves’ was probably one of them. ‘Sophie’s World’ almost certainly another.

Right now I’m reading ‘Raising Your Spirited Child’ by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka and it is blowing my fricking mind.

I’m only a few chapters in but already it is really making me think and do a whole internal shift around. About Kai (who I SWEAR Mary had in mind when she was writing it, 16 years before he was born!) and what his behaviour and ‘needs’ might be telling me, and about myself as a parent – why it is I struggle so much with him and what I might be able to do to make our life together more manageable.

I will no doubt end up blogging more about the ideas and challenges it presents. I’m not naive enough to think it holds all the answers to my problems and that somehow after reading it Kai will morph into a super easy and compliant child, or that I will morph into a super patient and wise parent, but it does feel like a little glimmer of hope in the dark and I am holding on to that.

One of the first concepts the book talks about is the idea of Introversion and Extroversion, not just our children, but in terms of ourselves as well.

The idea springs from my friend Mr Jung again, who suggests that if we take Introverted and Extroverted behaviour as a spectrum, all of us will slot in more towards one or the other. In other words, even if we all show some characteristics of both, we will, fundamentally be either an introvert or an extrovert in that we will fall more naturally towards one tendency or the other.

Raising Your Spirited Child works through a series of questions that help you to identify both where your child and yourself fall along that spectrum. By working out which tendency we take, it helps us to work out the motivations behind both our child’s behaviours and our own reactions to them as well as the things we need to do, for our children and for ourselves to help us feel happy and energised . It’s quite fascinating!

I won’t go into it in huge detail, especially in terms of children’s Introverted or Extroverted natures which is a whole other post, but I am curious to know: which are you? As a person and/or as a parent? An Introvert or an Extrovert?

Here’s some prompts to help you decide. Like I say, you’ll probably find you agree with statements from both but see which one you’re more drawn towards:

If you are an Extrovert, you probably:

• After a hard day, you need to talk to someone, either in person or on the phone
• Are quite gregarious and outgoing
• Enjoy being around people and feel energized by company
• Think quickly and need to talk-out your ideas, thoughts and experiences
• Need and like to hear that others love you and like your work
• Solve problems by talking them through with someone else
• Feel comfortable initiating conversations
• Sometimes feel guilty for talking too much and not listening enough
• Feel exhausted if you have spend too much time on your own or without adult company
• Enjoy sharing your experiences and revealing things about yourself.

If you are an Introvert, you probably:

• Retreat with a book or newspaper or zone out in front of the TV when you’ve had a hard day
• Will do anything to avoid having to talk to someone on the phone
• Find being in large groups exhausting and overwhelming
• Prefer company with small groups or individuals, especially those you know well
• Find it difficult to talk about yourself and your personal feelings
• Find yourself hiding sometimes to escape company or confrontation
• Solve problems by thinking them though before talking about them to anyone else
• Prefer to watch and listen before joining in
• Feel restored by peace and quiet and time on your own.

Which are you?

Society has always tended to favour Extroverts – they’re the movers and the shakers, the people we tend to admire and be drawn to. Introverts are usually more at the fringes of ‘popular’ society. They’re the quiet ones at school, the dreamers, the artists.

Now I know I’ve always had Introverted tendencies but until I’d really thought about it I hadn’t realised just how strong that Introverted instinct was. And what came as a real revelation is that THAT is why I struggle being a mum so much.

As an Introvert I need time alone, space to think and work on my own projects, like I need food and water. It’s what gives me strength and keeps me feeling sane and full of energy. However, my problem is that as a mother and a wife I very, very rarely get these things any more. More often than not, in fact, I am pushed more and more into an Extrovert’s world – one of constant company, activity, needing to talk and communicate. As a mother there is an expectation that I will be sociable, outgoing, spending time with other mums and children and taking part in lots of activities. Time alone is an almost non-existent commodity.

Is it any wonder that I’m exhausted?!

How about you? How does your life as a parent ‘fit’ with your needs as an Extrovert or an Introvert?

Perhaps as an Extrovert you feel isolated without enough opportunities for adult company and people to talk to? Perhaps this has influenced the way you structure your day or decisions you’ve made about returning to work? Perhaps this has meant ‘salvation’ in the form of baby and toddler groups?

Or perhaps, like me, you find parenting seemingly at odds with your Introverted nature? How do you find ways of managing this conflict? Or are you still struggling?

I would love, as ever, to hear your thoughts.

Young At Heart Photo Album

The cake mix on my face was the giveaway huh?

According to the very lovely Bumbling Along who kindly tagged me in Tara from Sticky Finger’s Young at Heart Photo Album meme, this blog mentions cake around 94 times. That’s an impressive cake-to-post ratio don’t you reckon?

Looking through my old photos to find one for this meme I was struck by this one. Because in a weird sort of way it sums up everything about my childhood, and, inadvertently, everything I learnt about being a mother.

I feel like I was incredibly blessed growing up.

My parents marriage wasn’t a particularly happy one but all I remember is feeling loved and safe. And I remember time, endless time. Time spent together, especially with my mum who postponed her social work career until me and my brother were in school, and then only worked part-time till we started high school.

I remember baking, crafting, making huge dens out of cardboard boxes, trains made out of  chairs that stretched from one end of the house to the other. I remember reading to my parents at bedtime, doing ‘paperwork’ in my dad’s office, the dressing up box in my wardrobe, and the excitement of being given my own ‘patch’ in the vegetable garden you can see out the window there.

We never had much money. We didn’t go on fancy foreign holidays. Our clothes came from friends and church rummage sales (not that you’d ever tell from this photo!). Life was mostly about ‘making do’ on my Dad’s small income, saving up for those things we really wanted and being grateful for what we had.

I am grateful for everything we had.

I am grateful for space to play, and parents that listened, a dad that taught me about ‘funny’ and a bookcases full of old books.

Memories like this and many others are what made me to decide to try and stay at home with Kai as long as I could.

Memoires like this make me try to prioritise time over money, to try not to worry that Kai is growing up in a similar ‘make do’ household.

I know that not everyone can afford to have a parent at home but we can, just. There’s nothing left over and we have to live very frugally but we do make ends meet. Sometimes that’s a tough choice to live with, we have a lot less in material terms than most of our peers, and I have to watch other women leap frog over me in terms of ‘success’ but I believe we made the right choice for Kai.

I wish I could be the mother my own mum was – she made a far better stay-at-home mum than I do, but the memories she’s created for me make me want to try to be better. Mum went on, after her career break, to have a very successful career, just like her mother did before her, and even though I struggle with letting go of my ambition for a while this is gives me the hope that my own time will come, and that the time I’m giving to Kai is worth sacrificing a bit of fame and fortune for in the meantime.

I guess the funny thing is that even though I’m a mother now, I’m still the girl in that photo too. I don’t think I’ve changed that much at all actually.

I’m still kind of small and freckly. I either talk too much or not at all. I still spend most of the day with bits of food around my gob… and I still am filled with dreams of being ‘something’ even though now I am already something very important.

A memory-maker myself.

A mother.

Now. It’s time to pass on the Young at Heart baton to the next victim worthy recipient.

My tagee is sat in the front row there, third from the right, looking very stern and not AT ALL like she’s having a lovely time as she sits (and I quote) “looking like a swot in those horrible shoes”. I can’t imagine anyone less swotty actually. Although she is rather an expert in her professional field, she’s just as likely to be making you giggle with her funny stories and silly videos then be found doing lots of  serious stuff. She also happens to be someone I am honoured to call a friend and one of the nicest people you could ever hope to come across in this blogosphere of ours.

Can you guess who it is? Leave me your ideas and then click on the photo to find your way to her blog where she’ll be posting her own post, and naming her own tagee soon! All she has to do is include the meme name “Young at Heart Photo Album” in her post so Tara can follow it as it winds its way through all the lovely blogs out there…