Category Archives: Motherhood

New Year – true you

30 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by in Infertility, mental health, Miscarriage, Motherhood, Parenting, Postnatal depression

≈ 11 Comments

true-2

I have always hated New Year’s Resolutions, because I have always failed spectacularly at them.

The trouble, I think, is that too often our resolutions are to change ourselves. A diet. An exercise regime. A new hobby. A new outlook. A new philosophy.

And change is hard.

It is even harder when the foundations upon which you are trying to build that change, are crumbling.

About this time last year, though, I started to think. Not about changing myself – but about trying to strengthen my foundations. Trying to find myself again.

No, no! Not that way. I didn’t feel the need to go on a pilgrimage to Nepal or to explore the wilderness’ of Borneo, to seek refuge with Tibetan monks or Swedish yoginis. Travel has never been my thing. (I get homesick after a week in Devon).

I felt the need to write.

I have always best processed my thoughts and expressed my emotions in text. Words are always where I have found solace, succour, sanctuary. It started with novels as a small child. Each book had a self-illustrated cover and back-blurb about it being one of my ‘best ever books’. Inevitably this escalated into astonishingly bad angsty poetry in my teens, and then became the focus of my studies and even my work.

Not writing had become – quite honestly – physically painful.

I didn’t lose myself because I stopped writing. I stopped writing because I got lost.

Parenthood was part of it. Miscarriage was part of it. Infertility was part of it. The physical trauma of ongoing procedures. The obsession of it, the tunnel vision. The all-encompassment. Sleep deprivation. The impact of all that on my relationship, my job, my friendships – the stabilising factors of my life. All the things I’d carefully constructed around me to allow me to cope, all of the things that had tumbled down around my ears one by one. And I couldn’t write any of it down because I got lost in the middle of it all. And by the time I realised how lost I was – by the time I could look up – I couldn’t find my way back. To the life I knew, to the ME I knew.

So last January I didn’t make any resolutions to change. I simply make a decision to try and be me – and do the things that make me feel like the best version of me. That would help me to think clearly again, explore hurts, expound on the ridiculous, and express – something. Anything. Everything. Whatever was blocking me from me.

And that’s where Mumonthenetheredge was born.

I worried – and still worry – that some people might think I’m trying to be the next Unmumsy Mum, Peter and Jane or Hurrah for Gin – or any one of the marvellous parent bloggers I personally follow and love, and who have blogging awards or book deals or millions of followers. I honestly don’t think I’m any of them. The point is – and has always been – to be me, to find me – not someone else. I don’t need to be the biggest, brightest or best fish in the pond. I just needed to to swim again. I just needed to write it all down.  

What’s more, if I was suddenly struck with notoriety and ostentatious success I would be both alarmed and terrified, and either run away or sabotage it, as that’s basically what I do whenever I’ve sniffed any kind of personal triumph or success, because yes, for unknown reasons I am apparently that fucked up. (I really wish I could blame this on some set of interesting personal trauma, but I can’t. I’m just a drama queen knobhead with astonishingly low self esteem, OCD, and a fulfilment phobia.)

Anyway, instead of just talking about it, or thinking about it, or persuading myself out of it, or second guessing it, or worrying what other people might think of it, I actually did it. I started a blog.

My first posts got about 14 likes. But gradually, people started responding. Not in vast droves, but in dribs and drabs. And whether placing value in the validation of strangers is sad or desperate or not, each one FELT like a connection. And suddenly I wasn’t lost. Suddenly I found something.

And I think – I think it was me.

Not all of it has been great. I’ve struggled with not feeling good enough. The posts that bombed. The friends I told about it who haven’t liked it, or haven’t found anything to connect with (I quote, and it still hurts). The people who have taken the piss when I’ve been vulnerable, or taken me seriously when I’ve been taking the piss. (Shout out to the guy who thought I seriously wanted to garotte farmers over the October clock change).

But actually, all of that, all of that I’ve needed, in a way. Because actually it’s good for me. I need to question myself. I need to check when I’m being an eejit. I need people to tell me to lighten up, or to knuckle down. I need to grow a thicker skin. To stop letting doubt freeze me. To stop being afraid.  

In many ways I’ve gotten off lightly – I’m sure if I carry on blogging the negative bits will get worse. But so far, so far the good bits have very much outweighed the bad.

Because it turns out the thing I needed most of all, was simply to know that I wasn’t lost alone.

Oh I’ve got people I can call on, but the truth is I don’t, not when I most need to. And even when I do I can’t really articulate what I want to say, or why I want to say it. It’s like I need to write it down to think it through. To process it. To understand my own narrative.

And like any story, it has two halves – teller and listener. And it is the act of listening that really brings life to any story – that really completes any narrative.

Writing wasn’t enough – I needed to be heard, too.

So I’d like to say thank you, to everyone who’s listened. Anyone who’s read something I’ve written, and liked it, or commented. I really, really appreciate it – more than you can know.

I would like to say a very special thank you to the people who’ve got in touch in private – especially after my Rainbow Woodlice post. I’ve talked to some wonderful women, also struggling, also lost, also trying to get back to themselves. One new stranger-pal in particular talked about needing to write things down to get them out – something I totally, totally get. So I told her how ridiculously easy it is to make a start – so easy even I could do it – and her first blog appeared on Selfish Mother the very next day. It’s a hell of a read. And for me that’s been a rainbow woodlouse in and of itself.

In fact, it’s been one of many.

Mumonthenetheredge has helped me connect with all sorts of people, in all sorts of ways. It’s helped me reconnect, for instance, with some old friends – people I’d lost a bit when I lost me.

Then there’s the wonderful group of mummy mates I talk to about writing, including a writer who works on a grander scale than I, and who is infinitely better than she thinks she is. There’s the brilliant Kate over at Little Sheffield (a fantastic resource for Sheff parents – go check it out) and the other pals who support the blog willy nilly, good or bad, and boost my Facebook ratings whether they’ve read the bloody thing or not, because they know the algorithms kill me if it doesn’t get out and about fast enough.

It’s also helped me find some other creative Sheffield types, of which  there are quite a few. There’s the poetry guys – check out Lyrical Events and Verse Matters, and then there’s the fabulous Sophie over at Imogen’s Imagination (seriously stylish retro hats and hair stuff) and lovely Lydia at Studio Binky (cute designs, cards and prints) and all the other Sheffield Etsy folk. These are all people who also need to create to be themselves, and I’ve found a foot-hole in a community I never knew existed, and I never knew I needed.

So if you are thinking about making a resolution this year, I’d implore you to make it about you. Not someone you want to be, one day. You. Now. And whatever makes you the most you. The best of you. The real, authentic, bone-deep you.

Whatever makes you feel the most like yourself, do more of it. And do it for you. Not your kids, your employer, your partner. Just you. If you can’t remember you, find the people that do and spend time with them to remind you. Avoid those that drain you, or bring out the worst in you. Spend time doing the things that are special to you. It might be something creative. It might be learning, or sport, or fashion, or music, or walking – or just laughing – or ANYTHING. Find it, and do it.

Don’t reinvent a new you for the new year – recognise and reinvigorate instead. Regenerate YOU.

Go get ’em tigers. Or woodlice. Or fish – big or little. It really, really doesn’t matter. Don’t compare yourself. Don’t compete. You don’t need to be the best. Just listen to yourself. Just stop for a moment, and think about you for a change. Nobody else.

Because come February you really can’t fail at being you – the true you. You are uniquely qualified. And you can rock the shit out of it.

And maybe you can join me in stepping away from the (Nether) edge, wherever or whatever yours may be.

Cheers all. Happy new year.

Mumonthenetheredge

 

When children stop crying

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by in mental health, Motherhood, Parenting

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I have always been very good at hiding, probably because I’ve always been quite small (lumpy, but small), and good at fitting into tight spaces. When I was a kid I would fold up and shut myself away from everything when I got overwhelmed.

As an adult I hide behind a smile. In humour. In familiar, re-read books. In the comfort of my routines, my distractions. Away from the things and the thoughts that are too big and too scary for me to hold on to. Things my mind shies away from. Things that still make me want to curl up in a ball and forget.

Because If I look away, if I pretend they’re not there, they aren’t as real. And they can’t hurt me.

But looking away isn’t always a good choice. Sometimes we have to look. We have to make ourselves. Because if we don’t have the courage to see, to feel, to let it – whatever IT is – thunder through our bodies, buckle our knees and break our hearts, something even worse will happen. Something we can’t choose to avoid. Something that doesn’t have words. Something that will break everything.

So this is a post about coming out of hiding. About looking. And this week I stopped hiding from – and started looking at – Aleppo.

Oh God. I’m not in the mood. Yes, yes it’s bloody terrible, and horrific, but it’s Christmas, and I’m tired and busy and broken, and I want to be happy, and for my kids to know magic, and I can’t cope with much more, and I can’t do anything to help anyway because I’m too small and too far away, and how can I solve the world’s problems when I can’t even solve my own?

That’s pretty much where I’ve been. Avoidance. Abdication. Distraction. Distance. (All personal specialities). And it’s so easy to not look when you can fill your newsfeed with mum blogs and celebrity gossip, and turn off the 10 o’clock news because it’s bedtime, anyway.

Until the Big Small Person asked me a question, as small people are wont to do, that floored me.

I’m not always careful enough about my phone, you see. When I crack under the inane monotony of Mr Tumble, or the sodding Twirlywoos, or – God help me – the millionth episode of Peppa Pig, I get my phone out. And on this occasion Big Small Person eyes looked away from the big screen to the small one, and saw a picture. A picture I was scrolling past. A picture of a boy from Aleppo. You’ve probably seen it too – or many like it.

So I explained, in child friendly terms, that there were a lot of old, old fights in another part of the world far, far away, where different groups of people disagreed so much about so many things they thought it was worth a war. And the ordinary people living there got caught in the middle of their argument. Ordinary people like the boy in the picture.

“Is he hurt mummy?” She asked.

“Yes”, I said. “But he’s getting help now.” And I braced for more awkward questions.

I wasn’t expecting this one.

“But,” asked the Big Small, with small person logic, “if he’s hurt, why isn’t he crying?”

I found I couldn’t answer.

I was once accused of being an attachment parent. It made me laugh – not because I in any way disapprove, but because if I’d actually given my parenting that much thought I’d be considerably a better at it than I flagrantly am.

I have no particular parenting style or philosophy, but what I have always had is an aversion to screaming.

In common with proper attachment parents, I have always picked up my babies when they cried. I never really put them down, to be honest. I have spent nearly two years with the Small Small Person napping ON me for nearly two hours a day because she cries when I try to place her in her cot. (Feel free to judge me for my weakness – I do).

Meanwhile the Big Small is the world’s most sensitive child. We still sing her to sleep every night. She howls when someone so much as brushes past her, and at every minor injury or slight slight (hence, I suppose, her particular question about this particular boy). Although this is occasionally irritating, I’ve found the problem is best and swiftest solved with sympathy and cuddles. Because I don’t want her to have to toughen up, or suck it up. I don’t want her to learn to hold it in, or to hide away from the things she finds painful.

But most of all, though, I don’t want to have to hear her cry.

Whenever there is a cry – of any sort – from anyone, I rush to be there, to soothe. And I do so simply because I CANNOT BEAR THE NOISE.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, even before kids my sensitive ears (over compensating, I believe, for my myopic eyes) couldn’t stand their incessant caterwauling. But afterwards, Lord, afterwards it grinds on my soul like flaking, fungalled nails on an old slate blackboard. That grate. That weight. That excruciation.

As a parent I think this either happens to you or it doesn’t, but that noise is pure torture to me. It has pulled me up and out of the most exhausted newborn-phase coma, dragging me like a puppet on invisible, intractable strings straight through the heart and – if breastfeeding – through the nipples. It physically HURTS.

Even now they are older, my very worst parenting moments are still when both the smalls are screaming at once, and I am alone, and too powerless or too useless to help everyone who needs me, and I can’t give anymore, and I’m not enough, and I can’t handle the noise, and I feel like I’m going to shatter under the sheer, unrelenting awfulness of it. Sometimes I even cry, too. Sometimes I even scream.

I basically spend my time plotting and planning how I can minimise the day’s crying, and I count my good days in terms of hours of non-wailing harmony.

It never occurred to me that there was something worse than crying. Not until my daughter asked me that question, and the answer hit me like a sledge hammer.

That boy in the picture isn’t crying, BUT HE SHOULD BE.

He isn’t crying because he is in shock.

He isn’t crying because there is no one left to comfort him.

Because crying doesn’t work.

Because there is no help, no relief, no one to tell him it’s all going to be okay.

Because he knows that it’s not going to be okay.

Because it doesn’t matter whether he cries or not.

Because the sudden nightmare of his life doesn’t go away when he opens his eyes, or when tears fall from them.

Children are SUPPOSED to cry. It’s how they communicate before they can talk, or even think. It’s their voice. And we are supposed to help them. We are supposed to be there. We are supposed not just to look, but to respond. We are supposed to make it better. It is supposed to hurt us, and make us act. It is the most basic biology.

Tonight I know my Small Small Person will wake me up, because she is ill. And when that cry pierces the air and my slumber, as I stumble exhausted to reach her in her nice safe cot in our nice safe house in our nice safe city, I will be extra glad to go.

If you too are up in the wee small hours with a wee small person, console yourself with the thought they are still seeking comfort. That they believe you will make it better for them. That they still trust you, someone, anyone, to dry their eyes.

Because when I looked, when I really looked at Aleppo and at that boy, I saw my own children. And that silence, that terrifying silence, slayed me – far more than the noise of tears ever could.

I wish I could see him sob, hear him shriek and hold his flailing limbs through his meltdown. I wish I could tell him I’m there. That I’ll fix it for him. Shush in his ear. Rock with him. I wish he was making as much sound as his lungs could muster. I wish he was letting it all out, and being cleansed by it.

I don’t know where his mother is, if she still is, but if he is mine then I am her, too. And she is me – just somewhere, somewhen else. Not so very far away, after all. Her anguish at his quiet, her impotence, her rage, her desperation; they are all mine. They are all yours too.

And unlike me – unlike you – she cannot hide from it.

Tomorrow I am going to be festive, and Christmassy, and try and make magic for my kids. But tonight, tonight I am going to cry. I am going to cry because there are children in Aleppo who have forgotten how, and why.

And I didn’t even notice until my five-year-old pointed it out.

And it is quite the most awful thing I have never heard, and could ever imagine.

 

Oxfam –  donate.oxfam.org.uk/emergency/syria

Doctors Without Borders – donate.doctorswithoutborders.org

White Helmets – peoplesmillion.whitehelmets.org/donate/peoples-million

Save the Children – secure.savethechildren.org

The Red Cross – redcross.org.uk

 

Bah Mumbug – confessions of a Scrooge Mother

16 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by in Humour, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ 1 Comment

merry-christmas

Christmas is overrated. There. I said it so you don’t have too. Yes, yes, it’s all sooooo magical, and it’s all about the children, and look at their little faces, yadda yadda blah etc.

But actually children make Christmas an awful lot of hard work, and when you own them there is an awful lot of pressure on Christmas to be super-mega-brilliant.

Well I crumble under pressure. And my kids act like feral animals under the influence of even small amounts of chocolate, over-excitement, shiny new things and flashing neon lights.

So I’m going to get my Bah Mumbug list of anti-xmas confessions off my chest.

 

  1. Real trees are stupid

Let’s start with the needle dropping thing, and the fact the branches are usually too limp to hang even a normal bauble, let alone the ceramic paint-a-pot hand/footprinted ones you are now obliged to get for each baby.

But what really annoys me about real Christmas trees is that they are all short and squat. Yes. I am going to BODY SHAME CHRISTMAS trees. And my reasons are both aesthetic and practical.

First off, they don’t fit in my long thin living room. Secondly, I already have enough short and squat in my life. I live short and squat everyday, and I do not need an overdressed foliage echo of my own existence sat in the corner as a reminder.

My fake tree is tall and rather elegant. Or at least it was, until I had to decorate it with children. Now it has lost any claims to taste it may once have had – again, very much like my good self.

Instead of co-ordinated and artfully arranged glass decorations I now have haphazardly applied tinsel in a range of interesting rainbow hughes, flashing multi-coloured lights, and sh*t Christmas drawings/crafts where my children have made no effort to use a realistic palette, have clearly failed to follow basic instructions, and haven’t even coloured within the lines.

The first year of having children old enough to ‘help’, I’ll be honest, I struggled with this. Now I’ve given up.

Another personal metaphor…

 

  1. My kids are sh*t at art, and if possible, even SH*TTER at Christmas art

There is A LOT of craft at Christmas. Most of it seems to have found it’s way onto my bloody tree (see above).

I always had visions of myself as a crafty mum, painting, cutting and sticking with my children. Turns out my children are terrible at art.

Obviously ALL children are a bit sh*t at art, having only just learned how to effectively operate fine motor control etc, but mine are particularly bad. I see others drawing recognisable people with facial features actually in their heads, and the traditional number (and placement) of limbs. In contrast, mine very much follow the school of Picasso. They may be abstract, impressionist proteges, but frankly I doubt it.

This used to give me a tic in the corner of my right eye, and I used to helicopter over them – leaping into to ‘help’ with pictures and projects and pretty much taking over.

Now I make myself a strong cup of tea, benignly tell them they’re doing a great job, and do my own version of whatever we’re making so I’ve got one thing that actually turns out nicely.

At Christmas time I am forced to endure more than their normal levels of creativity. Which are prolific. And horrific. And then aided and abetted by friends and family buying them craft-based presents.

Roll on bloody January.

 

  1. Elf on the Shelf is also stupid

I understand that it’s all about keeping the magic alive, etc, but frankly I’m more likely to attempt to resurrect Paul Daniels than I am to Elf on a Shelf.

Let’s start off with how incredibly creepy the ‘real’ Elf on the Shelf is. Does this not take anyone else back to doll-based horrors of the 80s and 90s? Why would you do this to your children??? A manically grinning doll, sent by Santa to spy on them, creeping around the house at night doing stuff. Brrrrrrrrr. ALL KINDS OF WRONG, ALL AT ONCE.

Then there’s the fact I already have two little devils running around spilling, moving, unravelling and ruining my sh*t. I do not need to personally aid and abet this.

Finally, there’s the effort. And I’ll be honest, this is by far and away my biggest barrier. I simply do not have the time, imagination or energy to get this done every day. And actually, that makes me feel rather disappointed in myself – certainly in the parent I always hoped I’d be.

And if I don’t understand or can’t do something, I will therefore deem it ‘stupid’, and continue to judge it in some sort of public online forum, because that is the modern way.

 

  1. Nativity plays are rubbish

Look, I know I’m supposed to go all gushy and gooey over the nativity play, but I can’t be alone in thinking they’re usually pretty awful affairs, right?

I mean, the production values are ropey, the costumes are shoddy, the acting is – at best – wooden, no one’s ever learned their sodding lines and they’re either projecting too much or not enough.

I’m also not sure anyone really understands their motivation for the role of ‘third star’…

In all seriousness, at most nativities you mostly get to watch the teachers doing an over-animated version of all the singing and actions and some poor, overwhelmed kid having a meltdown. Usually mine.  

The Small Small Person is as yet too small for this stuff, but I think it’s safe to say that RADA are probably not going to call for the Big Small Person any time soon. Luckily the most emotion she conveyed this year was at the side of the stage, where her squirming boredom took me right back to my own experiences of assemblies and concerts, the parquet flooring grinding into my sitting bones, and the agony of waiting literally rolling my head on my shoulders. Horrid.

Just for enduring this she got the biggest hug at the end and I told her she’d been absolutely brilliant.

You see I am not completely cold-hearted! I cried at the first few school drop-offs, for instance, and I would even go as far as describing a tot’s ballet production the Big Small took part in as womb-clenchingly cute.

But I’m afraid the nativity just doesn’t float my boat. It feels as if there’s too much obligation to get everyone on stage en masse, and too little actual joy.

Also I’m too short and squat (see no 1), so I can never see a bloody thing over other parents’ heads anyway.

 

  1. I hate wrapping

I am officially the world’s worst wrapper. I can’t get the folds right, and every end of every present of every single shape looks like it’s got a pair of socks stuffed down it. My own hair or cat fur is always caught underneath the tape, and I never have any labels so I write on them in felt tip, which usually smudges.

You’re welcome, gift receivers!

Last year, as a particular highlight, I was tearing sellotape with my teeth and actually sellotaped off the top layer of skin from my bottom lip. It hurt like b*ggery.

At least now I can blame the sheer wretchedness of my wrapping skills on the children wanting to ‘help’. Children never actually want to help, btw. The reality is it’s usually just me, at midnight on Christmas Eve, getting backache, soul ache, and lip ache on the living room floor.

Sounds like it ought to be way more fun than it actually is. ;(

 

  1. I hate unwrapping

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE presents! I even love the middle-aged mum presents that I’d have hated 15 years ago. Like handheld vacuum cleaners or slow cookers. Wooooooo! This year I’m hoping for new pjs and a hot water bottle. Fingers crossed!

No no, I mean the unwrapping on behalf of Small People. Parents will know immediately where I’m going with this.

At some point in the past, master criminals must have made a point of stalking toy aisles with nefarious intent, slipping toys out of their packaging and selling them on for HUGE profit. Big toy companies must have gone bust, the economy must have faltered, life in the UK must have been on the brink of collapse.

Because there is simply no other explanation for the excessive security now deemed necessary for bits of plastic retailing at £9.99.

All toys are now strapped down with so many plastic tags, wires and zip-ties they look like kidnap victims, or willing participants in some pretty heavy-duty bondage. (I imagine). Cars, dolls, pianos, action figures – all get the same treatment. And then they are then wrapped in more stink-wrap plastic and sellotape for good measure.

It takes 20 minutes with two pairs of scissors (industrial and nail) and a fresh-bladed stanly knife to free anything. All the while your children have gone savage under enforced delayed gratification, given tantalising glimpses of toys they can’t play with – and snippets of words they can’t say.

Once child and toy ARE united, you then have to dig in the garage for the screwdriver set, only to find out the toy takes 5 billion batteries in a size you don’t have anyway.

I’ve googled the Toy Heist Crash, but as I can’t find anything on it I can only assume toy packaging designers hate all parents.

B**tards.

 

  1. I’m coming to hate Santa

Yup. I went there. #sorrynotsorry.

Santa has made me into a big, fat liar.

I’m afraid I was #soblessed in the Big Small Person with a person in turn blessed with unusual incredulity and skepticism. (This is particularly galling as I myself am horrifically credulous, and even downright gullible).

When she was only 3, I was answering detailed questions about how Santa came into the house, why the fireguard hadn’t moved, and how he could use the catflap without a special collar like the cat?

IT’S MAGIC, OKAY DARLING?

Ffs.

This year, at 5, she’s looked me right in the eye and told me she knows he isn’t real (damn you Big School!) and that it’s the parents leaving the presents, and that it’s okay, she won’t tell anyone else, and she’ll know when she’s a grown-up anyway.

“Tell me the truth, Mummy.”

I can’t help but feel she’s too young for this conversation, but that left me directly lying to her face.

This made me much more uncomfortable than I expected it would, given my fondness for hyperbole, stint in PR, and tendency to edit my own life-narrative in order to appear less of a kn*bhead to myself.

It’s already become a tangled web of lies as she continues to present me evidence of his non-existence, and tries to trip me and her father up in our mistruths. It’s exhausting. And possibly morally reprehensible. But mostly exhausting. 

Santa in general is fraught with issues. There’s the fact he gives a slightly different service to every family, looks different at each grotto and in each film, and then – like the Elf and AXE MURDERERS – sneaks into houses in the dead of night. Should we really be overriding our children’s natural instincts (and our own instructions) not to talk to strange men, sit on their knees, let them wander around their bedrooms at night, or accept presents from them? I don’t know.

For this year I’ve gone with the ‘don’t believe, don’t receive’ defence, but the kid isn’t actually that bribable. (Also unlike me).

Santa, I think your days might be numbered, love. 

 

  1. Turkey is just slightly uglier, less tasty, chicken

You know it. I know it. From the betrayed look on their ball-sack faces, even turkey’s know it.

If you want to eat a Dr Who monster’s pale, dry, crumbly flesh, that’s quite your own affair. I’d prefer to stick with a nice juicy, greasy chicken.

Only I’m not going to, because it’s not traditional.

So I’ll be eating turkey, but all the time I’m doing so I’ll know it’s just crap chicken. And so will you.

 

  1. Christmas jumpers are stupid

Here’s the thing: I LOVE Christmas jumpers! The brighter, brasher and more garish the better. I know this is wrong, but I am fatally attracted to them. And I therefore don’t own any.

This is because I know that once I start down this route, it will spiral out of my control and it won’t stop at Christmas.

I fear, you see, that I am on the brink of descending into a full blown case of what I’m calling ‘Timmy Mallet syndrome’. I blame the children. Basically, if I see clothing adorned with cute, cuddly animals, or even in their favourite shade of pink, I want to buy it.

Children are NOT a good enough excuse for dressing like a children’s TV presenter. Hell, even BEING a children’s TV presenter isn’t a good enough excuse for dressing as a children’s TV presenter.

I must resist. For the sake of my horrified pre-child self, I. Must. Resist.

And so should you.

 

Despite my Scrooge tendencies, I will admit there is also much to LOVE about Christmas! The excuse to eat interesting cheeses, MULLED WINE, opaque tights, sparkles becoming acceptable day wear, MULLED WINE, time off work, lindt chocolate season, and of course, just looking at their little faces when they open their presents.

After all, it’s all about the children, really, isn’t it?

Happy Christmas. 

Mumonthenetheredge

The 12 days of Christmas (parent edit)

11 Sunday Dec 2016

Posted by in Humour, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ 2 Comments

img_4862-jpg-12-days

On the first day of christmas my children gave to me:
A stinking f**ker of a cold.

On the second day of Christmas my children gave to me:
Rubbish Rudolph handprints,
And a stinking f**ker of a cold.

On the third day of Christmas my children gave to me:
3 broken baubles,
Rubbish Rudolph handprints,
And a stinking f**ker of a cold.

On the fourth day of Christmas my children gave to me:
A tinsel tug of war,
3 broken baubles,
Rubbish Rudolph handprints,
And a stinking f**ker of a cold.

On the fifth day of Christmas my children gave to me:
5 LATE SANTA CLAUS REQUESTS
A tinsel tug of war,
3 broken baubles,
Rubbish Rudolph handprints,
And a stinking f**ker of a cold.

On the sixth day of Christmas my children gave to me:
6 seconds peace,
5 LATE SANTA CLAUS REQUESTS
A tinsel tug of war,
3 broken baubles,
Rubbish Rudolph handprints,
And a stinking f**ker of a cold.

On the seventh day of Christmas my children gave to me:
Advent calendar meltdowns,
6 seconds peace,
5 LATE SANTA CLAUS REQUESTS
A tinsel tug of war,
3 broken baubles,
Rubbish Rudolph handprints,
And a stinking f**ker of a cold.

On the eighth day of Christmas my children gave to me:
Festive Peppa-Pig loops,
Advent calendar meltdowns,
6 seconds peace,
5 LATE SANTA CLAUS REQUESTS
A tinsel tug of war,
3 broken baubles,
Rubbish Rudolph handprints,
And a stinking f**ker of a cold.

On the ninth day of Christmas my children gave to me:
9 stir-crazed injuries,
Festive Peppa-Pig loops,
Advent calendar meltdowns,
6 seconds peace,
5 LATE SANTA CLAUS REQUESTS
A tinsel tug of war,
3 broken baubles,
Rubbish Rudolph handprints,
And a stinking f**ker of a cold.

On the tenth day of Christmas my children gave to me:
10 sprout-based tantrums,
9 stir-crazed injuries,
Festive Peppa-Pig loops,
Advent calendar meltdowns,
6 seconds peace,
5 LATE SANTA CLAUS REQUESTS
A tinsel tug of war,
3 broken baubles,
Rubbish Rudolph handprints,
And a stinking f**ker of a cold.

On the eleventh day of Christmas my children gave to me:
11 (billion) “What’s in this one?”‘s
10 sprout-based tantrums,
9 stir-crazed injuries,
Festive Peppa-Pig loops,
Advent calendar meltdowns,
6 seconds peace,
5 LATE SANTA CLAUS REQUESTS
A tinsel tug of war,
3 broken baubles,
Rubbish Rudolph handprints,
And a stinking f**ker of a cold.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my children gave to me:
Ingratitude and whining,
11 “What’s in this one?”‘s
10 sprout-based tantrums,
9 stir-crazed injuries,
Festive Peppa-Pig loops,
Advent calendar meltdowns,
6 seconds peace,
5 LATE SANTA CLAUS REQUESTS
A tinsel tug of war,
3 broken baubles,
Rubbish Rudolph handprints,

AND A STINKING F**KER OF A COLD.

Mumonthenetheredge

Rainbow woodlice

21 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by in mental health, Motherhood, Postnatal depression

≈ 2 Comments

barbie-2

This has not been a good week. There has not been a good week – a really good week – for a little while, now.

Sometimes, I think I have an invisible shield that makes me impervious to happiness.

From the outside I have a perfect, even charmed life. I’ve got my two beautiful girls. I live in a nice Nether Edge house, with a nice husband who puts up with me, some friends, and a cushy part time job that lets me spend time with my babies.

But.

But.

I am often sad. At my core I am lonely. I am frequently overwhelmed. I am swept away, almost daily, by a sense of gnawing unfulfillment and crushing inadequacy. I am confused at my own discontent, and frustrated by it. Too often, I am angry, at nothing; at everything.

Everyday, I chase happiness.

I wake up and I try and I strive and I drive to get to the next place, the next goal, the next thing that will create happy. But it never quite comes – I can never quite get there. The irony in the pursuit of happiness is that the more doggedly you chase it the more elusive it becomes. The more you try to grip it, force it, the more it slides away. It remains tantalisingly just beyond my fingertips – I can almost, almost reach it… but somehow I can’t get it right, and I fail to meet my own expectations over and over and over again.

Even when I should be happy, I can’t feel it properly. I can’t be in the moment. It’s like something is blocking it, numbing it, muting it. Like there is a barrier – a grey veil between me and the world.

Some days, that barrier is just a light fog. Things are bright enough for me to see clearly. On those days I can taste happy on my mind’s tongue. Other days it is a dense black smoke, filling my lungs, stinging my eyes, choking, cloying and clogging. I can’t see my hand in front of my face. I can’t feel anything. And I can feel too much of it.

The cloud, the trying, the failing, the thin veneer of functionality, all has a name, these days. It’s called high-functioning depression.

On the outside it looks very much like a smile. A joke. Clean hair. Make-up. Plans. Days out. It looks like happy, fed, washed children. A hoovered carpet, a job.

But underneath, underneath it looks different. And the iceberg goes deep.

It looks like a pile of never-ended, never-sorted washing. Overflowing drawers. It looks like unopened post, unanswered emails. Fear of text messages. Excuses. Not turning up at the last minute. It looks like a haphazard diary, short-term, hand-to-mouth, because a micro scale is all you can cope with. It looks like late nights, because if you go to sleep, the next day – the one you can’t face – comes quicker. It looks like too much sleep, in search of oblivion, none of it replenishing. It looks like shitty romances, to anaesthetise the brain. Struggling to make yourself pick up the phone at work. Lung-seizing panic at the smallest of tasks or deadlines. Zoning out over tea, until the four-year-old asks why you’re staring. It looks like spending too much, because that pair of boots, that dress, that’s the thing that’s going to make you happy. That’s going to fix everything. It looks like an unused gym membership, an unread self-help book. It looks like paranoia, obsession over tiny details, mistakes or slights, and then it looks like overcompensation, over brightness. It looks like filling your days, so you don’t have time to think. It looks like tunnel vision, blinkers, deliberately closing your mind off from big news, big thoughts, the enormity of real life. It looks like drinking too much. Eating too much. Not being enough.

It looks like me.

Perhaps it looks like you too.

The thing is, that almost when I least expect it, the happiness does turn up. If I let it. If I’m not looking. If it sneaks up and takes me by surprise.

And it is never the unicorns or fireworks I’m always searching for, expecting or trying to engineer.

It is an impromptu bedtime disco. A hug. A baby’s belly laugh. A stranger’s validation. A recognition of ridiculousness. A well-turned sentence. A connection. A lolcat. It is moments of unforeseen, unpredictable, unexpected wonder and grace and joy – like rainbow woodlice crawling out from under slightly rotten logs.

I like to say that postnatal depression was my introduction to mental ill-health, but that isn’t true. I have lived with anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder since I was a child. And the worst thing about it is that I can see it in my daughter. It’s all there – obsessive behaviour, fear of germs, hand washing, repetition, the importance of rituals. Worries – so many big worries for someone so very small.

And it terrifies me.

It terrifies me that I might have condemned her to live under my same cloud.

I don’t want a grey veil for her; I want technicolour.

Perhaps one of the reasons I try so hard – too hard – to squeeze happy out of our lives all the time is that I want so badly for her to know it, and recognise it. But I don’t want her to learn to manically chase it, and risk chasing it away like I do. I don’t want her to learn to run away or hide from the black cloud, either.

Because, I am learning, living with depression is not a matter of outracing, outwitting or outmaneuvering. What I want her to know – need her to know – is that more often than not it’s about resilience. It’s about endurance. It’s about patience.

If I met someone else living with depression, someone like me, if I could tell them just one thing, I wouldn’t try and tell them how to find happiness. I would tell them about the rainbow woodlice.

It doesn’t matter how thick or black the smoke. It doesn’t matter how huge the nuclear fallout of your life. It doesn’t matter if everything has crumbled to dust around you. The one thing that will always survive, will always come scuttling out of the rubble and dying embers, is the woodlice.

And some of them – some of them will have rainbows.

Sometimes they will swarm, and you will feel their tiny feet across your soul and their rainbows in your heart. Sometimes you realise you’ve not seen one in a long, long time. You can search for them, lift some rocks, poke the woodpile. Maybe you will find them by looking – but don’t look too hard. Grit your teeth, dig in your heels and just remember that they will come. They will come to you eventually.

They are inexplicable, incongruous, alien, absurd, but always, always inevitable. And they are weirdly, creepingly, crawlingly, astonishingly beautiful. They are the meaning of life.

You just have to hold on.

Just hold on and wait for them.

 

Mumonthenetheredge

Goodbye baby, Hello Big Girl

12 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by in Motherhood, Parenting, Poetry, School

≈ Leave a comment

Well, it’s finally here. The Big Small Person starts school. And despite my best intentions (and indeed my disgust) I’m an absolute WRECK. I know it’s just school. I know it’s exciting. I know she’ll be fine. But if I’m going down, dagnammit, I’m taking you all with me. Through the medium of mediocre poetry…

 

Goodbye baby, starting school
Decked out in uniform –
So big and strong and different
From the baby that was born.

Goodbye baby, four years old
So small and yet so wise.
I still see you as my baby,
Through your gingham disguise.

Goodbye baby, off you go
To start a brand new chapter.
I’ll be here, my mind aspin
With memories I can’t capture.

Goodbye baby, always active –
Finding your new groove.
But I know the flutter deep inside
Of your first flickering move.

Goodbye baby, whose tiny foot
Once fit inside my palm
Whose soul burned mine forever,
Both tinder and then balm.

Goodbye baby, suddenly
Turned into a young girl.
Whose pudgy thighs and gurgles
Disappeared in life’s cruel whirl.

Goodbye baby, and forgive me
For I know you still exist!
But time is moving far too fast
One blink, and so much missed.

Goodbye baby, my chest hurts
With pain and joy and pride.
I told the world I would be fine,
But now I know I lied.

Goodbye baby, you ARE ready –
It’s me lagging behind,
Astounded by your beauty
And the quick twists of your mind.

Goodbye baby, please don’t cling
I don’t think that I can bear it.
You’ll love it here, I know you will –
Like I know that I can’t share it.

Goodbye baby, I will smile
And keep the tears inside.
Because this is yours – it isn’t mine
I’m just here for the ride.

Goodbye baby, don’t be scared
It’s new, but that’s okay.
Those butterflies are helping you
Feel light enough to play.

Goodbye baby, I see you
Put on your bravest face,
And battle with your body
To keep the mask in place.

Goodbye baby, I am sorry
You have my fears and woes.
They’re heavy, but I promise
You’ll have highs as well as lows.

Goodbye baby, feeling wobbly
Just always think of this –
The brand of love you wear all day,
From every goodbye kiss.

Goodbye baby, good luck too
But I know you’ll find your path –
Because you are bold, brave, kind and true
With sunshine in your laugh.

Goodbye baby, go explore
And laugh, and learn and TRY
You’ve crawled and walked and run along,
But now it’s time to fly!

Goodbye baby, time to go
And learn to change the world
As step-by-step and thought-by-thought,
Your potential is unfurled.

Goodbye baby, please be kind:
Be the best you you can be.
I can’t wait to hear about it,
Counting down to half past three.

Goodbye baby, I LOVE you.
Remember on weekdays,
That part of you lives in my heart
And me in yours, always.

Goodbye baby, once for all
Because when you come back home
You’ll be my babe in arms no more,
Less mine and more your own.

Goodbye baby, please just promise
You won’t grow up too fast.
I still need my baby in my arms,
And not just in the past.

Goodbye baby, hello big girl –
Look back once in awhile.
Because I’ll still be here watching,
Just waiting for your smile.

Home Judgement Teacher Visit

06 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by in Humour, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ Leave a comment

Has anyone else with a new school starter got one of those Home Judgement Teacher Visits this week? These are a bit like the Home Judgement Midwife Visit you get when you’re pregnant, basically to check whether your abode is fit for infant/Small Person occupation.

Anyway, the Home Judgement Teacher Visit is now a THING, which I gather happens across the country, not just in Sheffield on the Nether Edge.

I’d convinced myself I was totally fine and cool with this, until I remembered that I’m pretty much never totally fine and cool about ANYTHING, and that my visit takes place VERY SHORTLY.

Oh, I know it’s all about smoothing the transition for my child, etc etc, but I STILL feel like I have to frantically prove my worth as a parent.I have therefore found myself making the following To Do list for today, by way of preparation. Feel free to use it yourself, if you too have to endure a Home Judgement Teacher Visit this week.

  1. Reduce debris and increase visible floor-space by creating skyscraper piles of miscellaneous crap.
  2. Apply hoover to newly exposed carpet.
  3. Fail to find air freshener and spray old perfume around house instead.
  4. Open windows to reduce lung-clogging, boudoir musk.
  5. Run baby wipes over toilet and check bowl for residue/s.
  6. Ban everyone from further toilet use.
  7. Realise Big Small Person may wish to show off its room, and throw everything into wardrobe.
  8. Inform Big Small Person large monsters now live in wardrobe and they MUST NOT OPEN IT.  
  9. Make a note to deal with this fall-out before bedtime.
  10. Locate educational jigsaw-type toys from the bottom of toy box, and assemble neatly on table.
  11. Attempt to prevent Big Small Person from throwing these novel items around in excitement.
  12. Attempt to prevent Small Small Person from eating them.
  13. Run dishcloth over both children in lieu of flannel, which keeps inexplicably going missing (Baby?).
  14. Ignore complaints they now smell of old cabbage.
  15. Consider spraying children with perfume.
  16. Change stained clothing and make futile request that children not dribble, draw or splodge on themselves for at least the next two minutes.
  17. Park them in front of TV in desperate attempt to achieve 16.
  18. Locate remote to switch TV off as soon as doorbell goes in case of screen-time based judgement.
  19. Promptly lose TV remote.
  20. Check for teabags and fill kettle.
  21. Try and find biscuits which aren’t made by Organix and don’t taste of cardboard.
  22. Dig through miscellaneous piles of crap for child artwork, to display on fridge.
  23. Battle magnets for a wasted 20 minutes, swearing under breath and getting a bit of a dab on.
  24. Brainstorm list of Qs for teacher, including what to take on the first day (PE kit? Does this involve plimsolls or bare feet? Change of clothes? Snacks?)
  25. Consider how to broach the fact the Big Small Person still refuses to wipe it’s own bum, and my own personal fear of skid marks, (the biggest worry for all new-starter parents after nits and worms).
  26. Frantically try and get the Small Small Person to nap, so it’s not too much of a dickhead and allows adults to momentarily converse.
  27. Do final sweep of the living room for cat sick, errant slut-Barbies (why do they all end up looking like this??), and stray cheerios.
  28. Dismiss the idea of medicating social anxiety with wine before lunchtime.
  29. Repeat, repeat, repeat: I shall not be intense and weird; I shall not be intense and weird; I shall not be intense and weird.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong???

Good luck, folks.

Mumonthenetheredge

We need to talk about returning to work

02 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by in Motherhood, Parenting, Returning to work

≈ Leave a comment

Return to work

This week’s report about the rise in discrimination in the workplace against new and expectant mothers comes as no surprise to me. It probably didn’t surprise you either.

Unfortunately, though, this is not just a simple matter of recognising injustice and redressing the balance. I’m afraid it’s far more complicated than that – and goes deep into the very fabric of our society – not to mention biology and psychology.

And that means we’re going to have to have some potentially awkward, and unnervingly contentious conversations.

Returning to the workplace after having children is HARD. Waaaay harder than I thought it was as going to be.

It’s hard for everyone. (It’s clearly hardest – as the report points out – for those in low-paid jobs on zero hours contracts forced to go back before they or their babies are ready).

I naively thought I’d slip back into my work shoes and carry on pretty much where I’d left off. I forgot that my feet – quite literally – grew an entire size during my pregnancy and didn’t shrink back down. (Yes this is a thing). Anyway, for whatever reason – those work shoes didn’t fit quite as they had done before.

The truth of the matter is that whatever your role, whatever your level, whatever your industry, when you return you are NOT the same employee that left. You can’t be – because you’re fundamentally not the same person in the same place.

That doesn’t, by any means, take away your talent, experience or expertise. It doesn’t necessarily make you any worse at your job – it can in fact make you better if you get the chance to be better – but it certainly makes you different. And amongst other things, we need to talk honestly about that difference.

We need to talk about the fact that return to workers have new priorities and commitments. They may not have the hours to throw in for that big pitch or urgent deadline. They may not be able travel anymore. They may have to drop everything at a moments notice for a sick dependent. Their job – shock horror – may no longer be the be-all and end-all of their lives.

We need to talk about the UK’s prevalent long hours culture, and the level of commitment employers require and reward. That unwritten expectation that people will go above and beyond if they want to go far – which basically precludes primary carers.

We need to talk about what we can’t change – like it being women who physically have the babies, and then the boobs to feed them. Making them often, ergo, the primary carer.

We need to talk about why since legislation came in to allow parents to share parental leave, so few families have taken this option.

We need to talk about the cost, quality, and availability of childcare.

We need to talk about the lack of funded support services for new and expectant parents.

We need to talk about school hours and holidays and how that’s supposed to fit in with the expectation parents will work 9am-5pm +

We need to talk about the army of unpaid grandparents taking up the care slack and plugging the gaps in the system – and what on earth you do if you don’t have any.

We need to talk about the lack of part time roles or job shares at all levels, and across all kinds of industries. We need to talk about why it is so hard to excel in part time work, and advance a career.

We need to talk about why and how females  – despite performing better than their male counterparts at school and university – face discrimination in the workplace even before they have children. Why they are paid and promoted less.

We need to talk about why girls are choosing subjects and careers that are ‘worth’ less and paid less than boys. (Why, for instance, having been instrumental in early computing, they are now under represented in the modern tech world).

We need to talk about the fact that in so many UK households the male still earns more than the female, making it financially sensible for her to make the career sacrifices for their family.

We need to talk about the reality that parenting is a choice which inherently involves sacrifices – of all kinds. That no one can have it all, and that ALL families have to juggle to find their balance – to keep all the balls in the air.

We have to talk about what some of those sacrifices really look like.

We need to talk about how much harder that balance is to achieve for single parent families. And why the majority of those single parents are women.

We need to talk about how such a big life change can change someone’s perspective, and with it their career aspirations. We need to talk about how that’s okay, too.

We need to talk about the impact sleep deprivation has on the cognitive functions, personal performance and even personalities of new (and old) parents.

We need to talk about the wider impact of parenthood on mums AND dads. We need to talk about hormones, postnatal depression and mental health.

We need to talk about why rearing children continues to be so undervalued in our society. We need to talk about attitudes to stay at home mums, to working mums, to mums on benefits, to young mums.

We need to talk about why as a society we SHOULD be collectively supporting the growth and development of the next generation – the workers (and carers!) of the future – by supporting their parents. (Because people clearly aren’t getting it).

We need to talk about the legislation and loopholes that are allowing – and indeed encouraging – employers to save money by avoiding their obligations to parents.

We need to talk about the fact that even organisations obeying the letter of the law still aren’t really supporting or empowering their female employees.

We need to talk about the fact that meeting maternity requirements can put small and even medium-sized enterprises under extreme pressure, and how that might be mitigated or subsidised.

Look, in short, this is not an easy subject. It IS quite an emotive one.

I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I do believe the very first and most important step towards solutions must be just to talk about it, full stop.

This week’s report gives us that opportunity. And I’d really love to hear about your experiences.

 

Mumonthenetheredge

9 things I have learnt about breastfeeding

03 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by in Breastfeeding, Humour, Motherhood

≈ Leave a comment

IMG_4237.JPG world boobs

This week, in case you missed it, is/was apparently World Breastfeeding Week. (Go Le Boobs!)

I personally met this news with relatively mixed emotions, as I am reaching the end of my own breastfeeding journey.

Yes, as the Small Small Person wobbles into toddlerhood, her interest in the boobies is waning day-by-day, and things are definitely getting generally emptier and dryer. (Apart from my throat and eyes, which need no encouragement in getting fuller and wetter).

I’m going to miss it. A lot.

So I thought this was as good a time as any to share with you 9 things I have learnt about breastfeeding.

 

  1. FED is best

I had one baby that I was determined to breastfeed. It tried to starve itself, got hospitalised, and I ended up bottle feeding it. I then had one baby that I swore to bottle feed from the word GO. I mix-fed for a bit, and then ended up exclusively breastfeeding it.

Meh. I know this: Breast is not best. Fed is best. Whatever is getting you all through the day is best.

And aren’t we bloody lucky that some genius out there invented formula so if and when things go tits up, so to speak, your baby can eat, and grow and thrive?

2. It’s hard.

Nope, harder than that. And IN SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS.

When I first thought about breastfeeding in an NCT class more than four years ago, I thought I knew it would be painful etc, but that I was strong and tough enough to power on through it.

Ha ha ha ha ha! I was so cute. Stupid, but cute.

The bleeding nipples. The thrush. The mastitis. The hot and cold chills, the hallucinations, the sweats. The bullshit cabbage thing. All of that. But then also the fact it’s a knack – a physical trick of coordination – that for someone who can’t throw, catch or even hold a pen properly – was never going to come particularly easily or naturally.

Instinct? PAH! I have no instincts. If I’d have been born in a time where people needed basic instincts I’d have been strangled at birth, or I’d have eaten the wrong berry, cuddled the wrong sabre tooth or fallen off the wrong cliff. And the baby IS RELATED TO ME. By, like, birth.

Basically, neither me nor the Small People had a Scoobie Dooby Do what we were doing. I expected the babies not to sleep. I expected them not to want to be put down. I had no expectation at all that they would not eat.

Which brings us to 3.

 

  1. There is no right way to do it.

Nobody else will tell you this. When things got hard, you see, I sort of expected there to be actual answers, and for people in the medical profession to give them to me. You know, in order to do the best for me and my baby and stuff.

NOT SO.

In fact I received so much conflicting advice from the endless rounds of midwives, health visitors, healthcare workers, Doctors and breastfeeding support workers, based on so many different organisational, social and personal agendas, I – a relatively intelligent and heavily educated woman of some maturity and experience – couldn’t make head nor tail of it.

Here, you try.

– No, love, use the cradle hold.
– Don’t put your hand there.
– Support the head.
– Make sure she can move her head.
– Don’t put your fingers there!
– Use the C shape.
– Support her back!
– Try the rugby hold.
– Try it lying down.
– Don’t lie down! You’ll suffocate her!
– Make sure she’s got breathing room – press down just by the nipple to create a space.
– What are you doing? Get your hand out of the way!
– She’ll eat when she’s hungry, let her sleep.
– What? Why haven’t you fed her? Wake her up every two hours to feed her!
– Every three hours.
– Every four hours.
– Three hours from the last feed.
– Three hours from the end of the last feed.
– Three hours from the start of the last feed.
– Four hours from the division of the last hour of sleep you got, plus the number you first thought of.
– Feed her on demand.
– Babies don’t starve themselves you know!
– What do you mean she won’t drink anything?
– Your latch looks good to me.
– She’s not latching properly!
– Wake her up by tickling her feet.
– Wake her up with a cold cloth.
– Try an ice cube.
– What are you doing with that ice cube??? They don’t do that in Guantanamo Bay!
– Pump after every feed.
– Pump before every feed.
– What are you doing pumping before a feed? She won’t get the foremilk!
– Pump until you get to the hindmilk.
– Foremilk and hindmilk isn’t really a thing anymore, love.
– Why are you still pumping? It’s time to feed again!
– Keep it in the fridge for six days.
– No! Are you mad? Freeze it for six days, and keep it in the fridge for 24 hours once it’s been opened.
– 12 hours if it’s steralised.
– Take away another three hours.
– She’ll take as much as she wants.
– You’re not feeding her enough!
– Try a pipette.
– Don’t use a pipette! Try a feeding cup.
– Don’t tip it up so much – she’ll choke.
– She’s not getting any like that is she? You need to tip it further.
– Don’t obsess over the millilitres.
– What do you mean you’re not counting how much she’s had?
– She needs at least eight feeds a day.
– She’ll let you know when she’s hungry!
– If you use a bottle now you might as well give up – it’s a slippery slope.
– Why aren’t you topping up with formula after the breastfeed?
– Before the breastfeed.
– Halfway through.
– Just mix pumped breastmilk and formula in the same bottle.
– Don’t mix milks! Are you mad??
– Have you tried a Nuk/Nimby/Dr Browns/other expensive brand?
– You need a latex nipple.
– Boil the water first and refrigerate.
– No – the formula powder has to be made with boiling water to get rid of the bacteria!
– Let it cool on the side.
– Don’t leave milk on the side! Put it in the fridge!
– You’ll have to throw it out now.
– Let’s look at this latch again.
– Try flipping your nipple in.
– Not like that.
– No, wait for her to open her mouth!
– Open her mouth for her.
– Always bring the baby to the breast.
– Always bring the breast to the baby.
– Support the breast with your hand.
– Don’t lift the breast!
– Try and catch her bottom lip.
– She might have a tongue tie.
– There’s no evidence of a tongue tie.
– Try nipple shields.
– Nipple shields are the work of the devil! You’ll just end up on bottles!
– It’s not thrush.
– It’s definitely thrush.
– Go and see your GP about the thrush.
– Ask your midwife about the thrush.

Etc. Repeat to infinity.

Confused yet??? Well I was. Until I figured out that despite all the research and the science and the medical professionals etc, you basically just have to apply common sense and do what feels right for you and your baby.

Which sucks, as nothing feels right because you’ve just had a baby and three nights/weeks/months/years of ZERO sleep.

Big fun.

 

  1. It’s easy

If you made it through the above, this might seem nonsensical to you. But once you’ve cracked it, there’s no denying that breastfeeding really is very convenient.

The first time around, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was wrong with my formula fed baby to stop her crying. Or desperately trying to make, warm or cool bottles in time to stop the crying.

Second time, I just gave my breastfed baby a breast. Sad? Boobie. Wet? Boobie (and then change). Overtired? Boobie. Wind? Boobie.  It solved all problems, always. And life was much calmer and quieter as a result.

I’ll give you that it’s a bit of a tie. I’ve done all the night feeds, and all the early mornings. I’ve missed weekends away with friends and any opportunity for a real lie-in. But the fact remains, overall, it IS easier.

You’re programmed to have a sleep cycle that matches your infant (ACTUAL science, people), and for me that meant that getting up and getting out of bed didn’t feel as deathly as it did with baby number one and the bottles.

Literally, with the first baby, I was homicidal for the first five minutes of being awake, then suicidal for the following five minutes. And then just depressed forever.

Forget all the shit about having the baby weight sucked right out of you etc etc – the big sell pro-lactivists ought to be pedalling to women is this – you’ll find it slightly easier to get up and go back to sleep in the middle of the night.

And sleep – after your baby – will soon become THE  most precious thing in your life. (For approximately the next 5-10 years).

 

  1. Breastfeeding with big boobs (conversely) SUCKS

Having dragged my double Gs around for a good two decades (there isn’t enough alphabet left to explain to you what happened to them when filled with milk), and having spent years spending upwards of £30 on each ugly bra with two inch shoulder straps, I naively thought they would finally come into their own when it came to the real life work of boobs.

Nope. Turns out that that all the extra fatty tissue gives you no lactating advantage whatsoever, and can in fact get in the way.

The logistics themselves are challenging. The sheer ratio of boob to newborn head (approx beachball:apple) is a physical nightmare. The nipple angles and positioning of baby involves both contortion and a lot of propage.

Plus, it is completely impossible to breastfeed discreetly. You are not flashing a sliver of mammary here, you have to drag an entire boob clear of your clothing in order to get your nipple pointing in a direction that’s vaguely latchable.

There’s a word for this process.

And that word is Flollop.

No one want to have to Flollop out a boob in front of their father-in-law. It’s undignified, to say the least.

That of course meant a lot of time sneaking off to the car/bedroom/back room, or planning my day around places with enough cushions, camouflage or other breastfeeding women to feel vaguely comfortable.

Of course it was really terrible for a extro-introvert like me to have to go off on my own all the time for baby cuddles, Facebook time and naps. Awful. Terrible. I don’t know how I got through it, really.

 

  1. Pumping rocks

One of the things that ended my breastfeeding journey with the Big Small Person was how utterly gross I found the process of pumping. Seeing my nipple pulled into an inch diameter and rhythmically sucked two inches down a tube, was not how I thought of my breasts or wanted to see them.

It was ugly, and it was graphically reminiscent of a school trip to a Dairy when I was about 7, which I also found pretty disgusting. (In fact to this day I can’t drink milk and think about udders at the same time. I bet you can’t either. Try it and see).

I also went with a cheap handheld version which only did one boob at a time, which cost 40 minutes I didn’t have in between the two hourly feedings, and which had to be spent with my baby cuddling someone that wasn’t me.

Second time around I hired a hospital-grade pump which did both boobs at once in under ten minutes, I got over my udder phobia, set my alarm for two nighttime pumps on top of nighttime feeds, and I built up my milk supply until demand and supply finally evened out.

Pump up the jam, baby. Or milk. Whatever.

 

  1. Everyone has an opinion: Ignore it.

Breastfeeding provokes strong, strong opinions. People will share these with you, whether you wish to hear them or not. Some will be pro. Some will be anti. All will be influenced by their own personal choices and experiences. (They often will wish to tell you about these, too).

I am opining about breastfeeding in this bloody article.

My very best advice to you is to stop listening – hell stop reading – and do what you want, where you want, how you want.

This is harder than it looks (are you still reading???) because you’re tired and weak and want definitive answers that don’t exist, and the people telling you stuff are often medical professionals and friends or family that you respect and want the best for you.

I’m yet, for instance, to have a conversation with my (lovely and supportive) Dad that doesn’t include the phrases ‘You’re not still breastfeeding that baby are you?’ and ‘It’s time to knock it on the head, love’.

I’ve found it incredibly hard to articulate to even my husband – even to me – why winning at breastfeeding the second time around was so very important to me. And how much it’s meant to me all these months on to be able to do that for my baby.

Because 8.

 

  1. It’s wonderful

Yup, I’m going here, despite no 7 on this list. Sorry, not sorry.

I have loved, loved, loved being able to breastfeed my second daughter.  

The fact is that breastfeeding is an incredibly easy way to bond with a baby – the skin-to-skin contact, the pleasure/pain of the love that you can literally feel ‘let down’ and swell your breast with milk, the instinctive need your baby has for you, just you, and the succour and comfort only you can provide.

It is not by any means the only way to bond with a baby, but it’s instant and it’s easy and it’s amazing.

You can definitely also bond with a baby over bottle feeding. You get the same eye contact, the same closeness, the same reward for satisfying a need, and the same milk-drunk, floaty-eyed bliss and gratitude.

If I have one regret about breastfeeding it’s that Dadonthenetheredge didn’t get to spend as much time with this baby, in the long, dark, terrible/wonderful hours of the night, the hours your souls touch each other.

Just you, your baby…

…and your smartphone.

 

  1. Smartphones are the real key to breastfeeding success

What THE FUCK did breastfeeding mothers do at 3am in the pitch black with a baby stuck to their boobs, chronic sleep deprivation, and burning isolation, self-doubt and hormones?

These must have been dark, dark times indeed.

Now we can all Google ‘green poo’, laugh at the passive-aggressive dickheads on Mumsnet, cry at the news, read trashy books, and Facebook our friends.

Happy World Smartphone Week, everyone!

 

Mumonthenetheredge

I am Sue

22 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by in Humour, Motherhood, Returning to work

≈ 4 Comments

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IMG_2466.JPG Sue

It was the early 2000s, and her name was Sue. (It wasn’t).

She was somewhere in her mid-thirties, with young to middling offspring she would gush over at any given opportunity. She was always hovering somewhere between dishevelled and mutton-dressed-as-lamb, and alternated between brash and beleaguered. She laughed too much, contributed too little, and spent a lot of time talking about her age and her weight. (And other variously inappropriate personal – and occasionally gynaecological – details).

She liked to hark back to past projects and achievements, and seemed resistant to change – surprised by it, even. She may once have been good at her job, but the office largely humoured her and stuck her where she could do least damage. Like a mostly harmless but undeniably grating mascot.

Back then, in my early 20s, she didn’t impact on me very much. I may have felt fleetingly sorry for her, before dismissing her as irrelevant to my hard-working, hard-drinking, rather hard-nosed existence. She was alien. Other. Older.

She struck me, with some degree of hindsight, as a woman on the cusp. There was an unattractive air of desperation and disconnection – a whiff of lost, or loss, or something. There was something brittle about her, confused. Barely contained emotion framed by heavy-handed, clumping mascara.

And because it was clear to me she was in imminent danger of teetering over some invisible edge sooner or later, I steered well clear of the fallout.

I didn’t even recall Sue, if I’m honest, until today. Because I saw her for the first time in nigh on 14 years.

In the mirror.

Because, I realise –

I am Sue.

It happened this morning. I was trying desperately to find clothes suitable for a hot day in the office, and eventually squeezed into a circa 2010 New Look skirt slightly too small for my postpartum body (although my leftover ‘baby weight’ in now more accurately ‘toddler weight’) and teamed it with a ubiquitous black top. On which the toddler promptly, and inevitably, deposited toothpaste which wouldn’t scrub off with a bastarding baby wipe.

To make myself feel better about this I threw on a jazzy scarf and some ancient lipstick. As I did so I planned how I was going to regale my colleagues with amusing weekend tales of small people shenanigans (for the adult interaction, cheap laughs, and momentary validation). And I got a good look at myself in the mirror.

And there she was.

I am Sue.

The resemblance was uncanny – and unquestionable.

I am the slightly inane, slightly insane, slightly manic, slightly depressive, slightly irreverent, slightly irrelevant, under-achieving, over-sharing, out of phase and out of practice, middle aged, middle-of-the-road woman I pitied in passing when I first started my ‘career’.

Middle is in fact a very appropriate word. Because that’s what I spotted in Sue and recoiled from – that cusp, that in between – that displacement. Being neither one thing or another, and not enough of either.

Stuck in the middle with Sue.

Because now I too find myself somewhere in the middle, in between competent and incompetent, functional and dysfunctional, too much and too little, comic genius and crazed bag-lady, 1950s housewife and Melanie Griffith’s Working Girl, creative and random, young and old, thin and fat, mother and worker, professional and personal, good parent and bad parent, asleep and awake, me and – someone I don’t recognise.

Sue.

Now I’m the one that’s interjecting too loudly, crying too quickly, misjudging social/professional cues, getting sidelined, humoured, possibly even pitied. Definitely avoided. I’m the one with waning skills, conflicting priorities, impaired logic, bursts of absurdity. I’m the one slightly flailing, frequently self-deprecating, often bumbling, out of date, and out of sync.

At some point I stopped being one of the young office crowd, a whipper-snapper with oodles of potential  – and I became a part time and part mum-zombie, mid-level manager going nowhere fast, juggling children and work with a spectacular lack of multi-tasking skill, being fast outstripped by the younger, hungrier and better.

I am Sue.

And I’m as surprised about it as she was.

I’m not a exactly sure when Sue arrived, but I very much suspect motherhood was the catalyst. Little shits.

During this special time, some people find themselves – come into their own. Others find Sue.

If I could go back now, I’d be a lot kinder to Sue, because I’ve since walked a mile in her kitten heels, dragging whining children and double my original arse behind me. And I’d give my smug, superior, emotionally detached, well-rested, unburdened and unlined face a well deserved slap.

Now, I think Sue and I would be friends.

We’d probably go to the pub (after bedtime, obvs), giddily excited to put on our glad rags, get pissed on half a bottle of Chardonnay, guffaw in ever-increasing decibels, end up crying about the Disney alligator baby, dance on a few tables because life is too short, declare each other our best friend, and be home to snore at our exasperated spouses by 11.30.

(I personally would of course follow this up with days of social anxiety and personal shame, dissecting every word and move as I gradually and painfully recall them, ‘cos that’s how I roll. Sue probably does too).

I don’t know what actually happened to real Sue, who I think eventually got muscled out of the office, but I like to think that she went on to something better. That she found her feet again, her place outside the limbo of ‘in between’. That she got some proper rest and proper perspective. That she bought some new make-up. That she found appreciation for her humour, her experience, her post-traumatic share-response and her unique sense of fashion. That she shed the extra stone she always complained about. And that her kids grew up knowing how fiercely and stupidly she loved them.

I’d like to tell her I’m sorry for judging her. I’d like to tell her that I get it now. I’d like to tell her that I am Sue, too.

I would like to think that probably, at some point, every one of us has looked in the mirror and seen Sue – and marvelled at how she got there.

If you’ve ever had a Sue, or a Sue moment, if you’ve ever lost yourself in between – in the middle of life, priorities, pressures, if you’ve ever struggled with your role, your identity, your purpose, if you’ve ever looked up and suddenly realised you’re someone or somewhere you never thought you’d be – let me know.

Maybe it was motherhood that sent you to the edge, stuck in the middle, arrested your development. Maybe it was something different but equally wonderful/traumatic. Oh, maybe you’re not carrying the extra pounds, and maybe you’re still mostly competent at your job. Maybe you’re better dressed.

But if you’ve ever caught a glimpse of her, walking past a shop window, please channel your inner Tony Curtis and comment ‘I am Sue’ here or on Facebook.

I don’t need details if you don’t care to share them.  But this week I do sort of need to know it’s not just me.

And Sue.

Mumonthenetheredge