Posts Tagged "moods"
Right Now
You have all been so lovely the last few days. The comments on my post about the Health Visitor’s worries about Kai have been endlessly comforting and supporting and I am so grateful for you taking the time to respond so thoughtfully. Thank you.
I had a bit of bad day with it all yesterday. Actually, I had A LOT of a bad day. There were moments there were I could genuinely have opened the front door and run as fast as my legs could carry me.
I didn’t, obviously. Instead I wrestled the ferocious ball of frustration and bad-temper that is my son till bedtime, put him to bed without a bath and went downstairs and cried. And cried. And cried some more.
I doubted everything yesterday. EVERYTHING about myself, about Kai, about my abilities and suitability as a mother, about my perception of my life and how perhaps that differs from reality.
And do you know what scared me most? That maybe there is absolutely nothing wrong with him at all. That he is just spirited, and wilful and frustrated with the world – no different from most other toddlers.
And weirdly, this made me feel like shit.
I convinced myself that every toddler is like Kai, that all mums have to manage behaviour like his, and as such, the fact that I’m struggling to cope with it so much means I am just weak, neurotic and failing miserably. You probably have three children like Kai. Ten. And you still manage to do normal things like brush your hair, and eat, and go out.
Everyone tells me he is delightful, and fun, and charming and he IS! Maybe what I endure behind closed doors I have blown vastly out of proportion.
Maybe I am just not cut out for all this at all.
No, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want there to be anything ‘wrong’ with Kai. It’s just that the thought that it is supposed to be like this, supposed to be so impossibly hard and feel so unmanageable ALL THE TIME just made me go cold.
Luckily, I have good friends. Good, kind, honest, supportive friends who listen (and I could list hundreds of you, thank you so much).
I have a husband who has been through it all with me and keeps me grounded.
And after being told an awful lot of sense, I realised this.
Do you know what? Kai is hard work. He is really, really hard work.
I’m not saying its some kind of competition about ‘who has it the hardest’, or that other parents don’t find it hard either,but the reality of life with Kai is incredibly challenging and I don’t think anyone could question that.
He’s always been hard work – early months of constant crying and refusal to be any where but attached to me, followed by endless battles getting him to cope with transitions and change and him resisting everything. The speech delay and the near-constant tantrums and the freak outs at the slightest thing are just a continuation of something that’s been going on from the beginning.
He can be lovely of course. He is obviously bright, and can be so much fun and entertaining. He charms everyone around him and can be fabulous company. He plays beautifully, when in the mood to, and if you get it right with him you get it SO right and it is wonderful.
But this is offset by the most rigid personality I have ever come across. It is offset by moods completely dependent on things being just how he wants them to be and endless frustration and tears and anger when they are not. And I can honestly say? The hard times far outweigh the good times right now.
I am not enjoying motherhood right now. It’s not much fun to be honest.
A vast proportion of my day is spent ‘coping’ with Kai, managing his moods and single-minded determination and enduring the frequent screaming, crying, hitting, pulling, outpouring of his emotions. Every single day involves a good deal of time listening to long bouts of crying. It’s incredibly draining, exhausting. And I defy anyone to not find it hard.
And the speech thing IS worrying. The constant, weird, babbled gobbledegook? The fact that has somehow ‘forgotten’ how to say the odd word he could say a few months back? That he makes NO attempt to imitate words yet will copy the sounds he hears himself making on recordings? Of course it’s worrying. I’m not saying it won’t right itself, I’m sure it will, but obviously it’s going to be a concern to me. What kind of mother would I be if it wasn’t?
Whether he fits some kind of ‘label’ or not, whether he is like other kids or not, whether I find it harder than you or anyone else? It doesn’t really matter. Deep down I know it will be fine. I know that he will be fine, that he will grow out of most stuff, and we will survive. I know that really I am very lucky, he is healthy, so am I. I know it could all be so much worse.
But it doesn’t change how hard it is right now. It doesn’t change how much I am struggling.
What matters is I love him. I love him so much it actually hurts me to think about it. I see so much positive in him, despite all the bad stuff, and I am so enormously proud of him, of his fierce strength and passion.
I know I am doing the best I can, I know I am doing a good job, even, because I care about all this stuff and I think about it and I want to make Kai happy.
I just want to be a better mother for him.
I want to figure out what is he needs that I seem to be missing.
Mostly, I just want to see him happy.
And I want to see me happy too.
Read MoreI have confidence in… erm… something?
Picture if you will.
I am sat here in my jeans and over-sized sweater and my messy boy hair, wearing novelty socks and eating too many chocolate digestives. I haven’t brushed my teeth yet. Unlike most mornings, today I did manage a whole fifteen minutes under a hot shower while Kai emptied the bathroom rubbish bin of tissues (don’t judge me – I’m strengthening his immune system), but absorbed in my hot-shower bliss I may have absent mindedly shampooed three times and conditioned twice so the messy boy hair is slightly lank. The over-sized sweater despite being clean on this morning already has some banana on one sleeve and what I think may be snot on the other. In the last 24 hours I have burst into tears a record number of five times and kicked two inanimate objects. I have had four hours sleep.
There are many things this scene screams. Confident, secure, fully-functioning grown-up is not one of them.
I have been struggling especially with the C word lately. No, not THAT C word. Confidence.
You see I seem to have mislaid mine. It’s not down the back of the sofa with the half-eaten rice cake. It’s not in the overflowing washing basket (hell it wouldn’t fit in there). It is not hidden behind the pile of clever books I can’t bring myself to read.
In fact, I don’t know where the frick it is. I haven’t seen it in quite a while.
More and more I envy those people who seem to ooze it from every perfect blemish-free pore. Those people that manage to combine motherhood with work and successful careers, with exciting projects coming out of their every orifice . Managing to fit deadlines around school runs, gym sessions and skin care regimes.
It’s like they are privy to a secret I have no idea about, passed about in hushed whispers while I was in the loo.
Around you – yes you accomplished people, I am left feeling so ineffective. So immature.
Why do I feel like this? Where on earth was I when the confidence ticket was handed out? (in the loo again probably – really should have worked harder on my pelvic floor).
I am 27. But I look kind of young for my age. I have a tendency to get written off by people, spoken to by strangers with that unique mix of patronising sympathy and instant dismissal. Old ladies can never believe it when I mention a husband, “but my, you’re too young to be married surely?!” and act surprised when I manage to come out with a vaguely intelligent or articulate comment. I always get asked for ID – once when I was buying PETROL which was more than insulting (surely I look older than 17? Don’t I??!!) My brother is two and half years younger then me and I look like his scruffy kid sister.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m sure when I’m 40 I will be grateful of this fact but right now it’s not really helping in the confidence department.
Social situations? Oh god where do I start. The stuttering? The complete brain freezes that make me incapable of speech? The completely irrational habit of coming away from all social encounters feeling dreadfully insecure and convinced I am the most scorned and despised person on the face of this planet?? I’ll stop there.
And then there’s work. Or ‘work’ as it should probably be referred to. Finding your way as a fledgling writer is not easy I can tell you. One of my opening exercises with my writing course was to free-write about your doubts about becoming a successful writer. I wrote six pages without even blinking. The thought of me ‘making it’ seems laughable. Successful writing seems to require a breeziness and articulate confidence that I can only imagine.
(Oh god. This is turning into a whiney post isn’t it. I apologise – there is a point I promise.)
It’s just I’ve been wondering what it is I’m missing? The right hair cut? The right clothes? The right pen? An ability to speak in whole sentences?
It’s easy to feel like those things would make all the difference but somehow I doubt it.
It’s also easy to feel like I’m the only one in the world left feeling so small, so insignificant.
But I’m not. I know I’m not.
I casually mention on Twitter about feeling like this and all of sudden I’m met with dozens of responses. All from women who say they feel the same. Many of them successful, accomplished women whom I admire.
And I’m left wondering… maybe the idea of a mysterious, innate secret to confidence is a misnomer? Perhaps, actually, none of us are the secure, confident people we imagine each other to be.
Maybe it’s not about FINDING confidence at all but actually just about FAKING it? And some people are just much better fakers than others?
So do you know what? That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give up trying to find it and settle for faking it instead.
And we’ll see what happens.
Now where’s that guitar case? I need to go swing it round on a mountain top.
—————————
Taking a bit of a breather from the Sleep Carnival today – but do keep your submissions coming in, especially if you want to get your hands on the prize of all prizes which still seems to be causing a ridiculous amount of hysteria (not that I can blame you).
—————————
Recipe For A Bad Mood
Add…
- 1 sick husband.
Ok, a genuinely sick and suffering husband with 24 hour migraine and all night vomit-a-thon, poor love, but also A MAN with all the associated brave sighs and whimpers and inability to do a thing for himself. Thus systematically removing what little help I get during an average day and depriving me of the small amount of free time/space to do important tasks like take a shower, make a sandwich, and have an uninterupted wee without a child trying to bite my knees.
- 360 nights of very broken sleep
Which coincidently corresponds with the number of nights since baby bear made his grand appearance. He didn’t sleep the first night, or the 359 that followed. Being woken between approximately every hour, to an hour and a half for almost a year would probably be considered to be some form of torture by the International Court of Human Rights were it not delivered by a innocent, hyper-active, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHY WON’T YOU SLEEP small child. He is getting better. Just V-E-R-Y slowly. Apparently I didn’t sleep well as a child either so quite possibly this is all just the universe extracting a horrible revenge on behalf of my parents. How I am still alive some days is a complete mystery to me. I think chocolate can be held mostly responsible.
- 2 unbelievably early starts
5.45am this morning. 4.30am yesterday. Apparently Kai operates in a different time zone to the rest of us and thinks these are very good times to get up. Mummy disagrees.
- 1 horribly untidy house
In desperate need of cleaning, decluttering and/or quite possibly razing to the ground and starting over. And absolutely no time/energy/inclination to do it.
- Absolutely no nice clothes
That fit or make you feel even remotely attractive.
- Agitate for 90 minutes while you try and get your maniac son to lie still long enough to go to sleep.
- Cook in a pressure cooker of an old house in the middle of a UK heatwave at 30 degrees C.
- Repeat until sanity is a long-distant memory and the men in white coats arrive.
The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (that last one's me)
Here it is.
A comprehensive list of all the things making me laugh hysterically and feel full to the brim of magical rainbow-filled joy, AND all the things making me sob till I feel consumed by the evil quagmire of despair. Both can come within minutes of each other so, as you can imagine, our house is a rather unstable place to be right now. Poor Ant. And he thought it was bad when I was pregnant…
GOOD – “I see you baby…”
Now whenever music plays, a little look of glee crosses the baby bear’s face, he scuttles over and stands up against the nearest standing apparatus, assumes the position of legs spread wide a feet planted firm, and proceeds to shake his baby ass.
Yes, that’s right. Kai has discovered dancing. Love it.
Variations of the ass-shake include the bob (bobbing up and down while sitting), the wiggle, and a kind of gentle sway, often accompanied by arm flapping and clapping. Oh and singing! That’s right, he’ll kind of hum along now too! Ant swears Kai once hummed the ‘In the Night Garden’ tune along with the music but I don’t believe him…
BAD - “Don’t Stop Me Now”
Like most first-time parents, I eagerly anticipated Kai learning to crawl, worrying that he wasn’t doing it soon enough, or in the ‘right way’ (he favoured rambo style ‘floor swimming’ at first, achieving motion on his tummy through the frantic propulsion of arms and feet). He seemed so frustrated not being able to get about, requiring constant entertaining. “Everything will be different when he can crawl!”, I would exclaim, dreaming of a quiet, contented baby who would happily play and amuse himself for hours on end.
Oh Boy. Well I was right on one score at least: everything IS different. Except now Kai has got the hang of crawling that is all he wants to do. All the time. Every waking moment. At high speed. And of course with the crawling comes the pulling himself up, cruising and climbing. Nothing is safe and I can’t take my eyes of him for a second. Toys? Playing? Pah! Why play when you can shred (and eat) every piece of paper product in the house, attempt to pull over everything that may squash and kill you (pushchair/highchair/dining chairs/ huge pieces of furniture), and systematically dismantle and destroy every object within reach (which is pretty much everything unless on a very high shelf).
And, of course, our tiny house is not good enough for the Kai-ranasaurus Wrecks. No. He wants to be ‘outside’ (frantic door pointing). And pushchairs and carseats? Well there no good because they require Kai to be stationary for more then five minutes. Initiatate melt-down sequence, high pitched screaming and back arching. He only stays in his highchair because there is food there to bribe and distract him.
I am exhausted.
Needless to say I am now NOT in ANY hurry for Kai to learn to walk. And rather worryingly he looks like he’s not far off. God help us all.
GOOD- ” And I…..ee….I…Will Always Love Youuuu”
Kai has always been a very tactile baby, wanting lots of holding and touch-time but up till now it’s always been a bit more of a ’wrestle’ than a ‘cuddle’. But now he’s really getting the hang of cuddling. Now, when tired or just wanting a bit of reassurance, he’ll put his little arms around your neck, nuzzle his head into your neck and rest it on your shoulder, and go very, very still. For about 30 seconds.
I love it. Makes my heart go ‘whoofph’ everytime. Long may it continue.
BAD – “I’m Talking ’Bout The MOM In The Mirror”
Not a Kai thing but a me thing for once. I seem to have developed a very annoying raging insecurity and self-doubt problem. I am convinced everyone hates me, that I am useless and worthless and a dreadful mother, that I should be doing SOMETHING more with my life and am wasting away my potential, that I HAVE no potential and am no good at anything, that Ant is unhappy with me, that I am ugly and haggard and look like a teenage boy. The list goes on.
I know none of these things are true really (except maybe the last one). And yet this is how I find myself thinking most of the time. It monumentally pisses me off.
I also find myself more and more dissatisfied and wanting more and more. I want desperately to move to a nicer area with more than a few stunted trees nearby. I want a clean tidy house and the time and energy to maintain in. I want a dishwasher and a tumble drier and a kitchen with more than half a square meter of work surfaces and two cupboards. I want to travel and show Kai the world. I want more money. I want another baby (although know it’s completely not practical at the moment - don’t worry Ant!)
I hate this. I hate not being satisfied and not able to just ‘be’ and enjoy where I am. Because I am SO lucky and I have so much.
Grrrr….. snap out of it stupid.
There is more but Kai’s woken up so looks like that’s it for now. Smell you later xx
Read More
