Wondrously Other: September 2014

The Bond Between Man and Dog

I know I have already posted this photo over on Instagram but I couldn't resist posting it again.

There are so many moments in my daily life that make my heart sing ... and this wasn't even one of them!

This was a photo I took by mistake when I was trying to get Miss Olive to do what she had been doing only moments earlier and hug Harry.

I know that they adore each other, so I think the double side eye is aimed at me for having the temerity to interfere.

I get it, I get it, you are not performing seals.

Tuesday, 30 September 2014 Comments: 0

I Am A Woman Of Worth

Last week I went to an anonymous hotel room to meet a complete stranger, strip down to my underwear, and pose for photos.

This is not something I make a habit of doing, especially not as a happily married lady, but this was a different sort of hotel room liaison.

Last week I became part of the 4th Trimester Bodies Project, and it was in equal parts a humbling and empowering experience.

The brainchild of Ashlee Wells-Jackson, this project has profound meaning for her and for those of us who are lucky enough to participate:

The project exists because women are judged too crudely on the way we look and are often told we don’t measure up. Because no real person can compete with the tools in Photoshop and glossy magazine covers. And because motherhood is sacred and should be celebrated.

There is a lot of secrecy around the location and format of each shoot - and rightly so, these are personal and often visceral journeys we are sharing - but Ashlee and her partner Laura are careful to honour them with calm, quiet and safe surroundings.

Before starting the shoot, Ashlee spent some time interviewing me about my journey through motherhood. The final question she asked is why I wanted to be part of the project.

That was a hard question for me to answer.

The truth is that like a lot of women I have a complex relationship with my body. There are parts I think look fabulous, there are parts I think wobble more than they probably should.

It’s wrong to say that I don’t care how my body looks because I am human, so I care that I am no longer a gravity defying 18 year old just as much as I am proud to be a gravity embracing 36 year old.

The truth of me is this: I'm a mama who has grown three children, who has a healthy relationship with food, who puts more emphasis on fitness than thinness.

I work full time, I parent, I write, I live and I love.

All of these things coexist and demand compromise and all of them form a part of who I am.

I am a woman of worth.

There is as much discussion today as there ever has been around the rightful place of a woman. The internet has brought freedom of expression not only to those of us who recognise that we bear a responsibility in how we use our voice, but to any damn fool with a keyboard and an appendage to poke at it.

The world is a noisy place and, for the first time in history, my children will grow up to the sound track of this never silenced crowd: The feminists, the men’s right activists, the backdrop of systemic gender roles, point and counter point, anywhere, any time.

My voice is only one.

I remember St Valentine’s Day as a child. Each year I would receive a card and a little token from my mum and each year I remember thinking that it didn't“count” because it was in her job description to love me. My beauty wasn't validated by her, but by the attentions of whichever awkward boy I had in my sights at that time. Boys who, in reality, barely knew I existed and yet who unwittingly held my entire future happiness in their hands. At least for that week.

It’s a privilege of age to look back at that time with a sense of perspective.

Now it is time for me to pick up the mantle of unconditional love for my children and demonstrate that worth is not bound by physical perfection or the whim of others.

Melissa Atkins Wardy wrote recently about how “the daily, sometimes gruelling work of instilling in our daughters an unshakable knowledge that she has worth. Everything else in the world will tell her otherwise. We have to raise our daughters in such a way that when we send her out into the world she has the heart and courage of a lioness.”

So what drove me to become part of the 4th Trimester Bodies Project?

It’s me, with my one voice, showing my children, with all my heart and soul, as the product of every part of my 36 year journey, what it means to be a woman of worth.

Thursday, 25 September 2014 Comments: 0

Alfie Learning Stay At Home Dad Working Mama

Choosing a Homeschool Curriculum

In three short months Alfie starts home-schooling. In my head that statement reads slightly differently; it reads more along the lines of “holy shit we’re about to become responsible for the entire future well-being of our child!!”

You could say that is a point of stress for me.

Keith is his usual nonchalant self: “we’ll un-school” he shrugs, “just take every day as it comes”.

To a highly organised person like me, that’s a shrug away from a nervous breakdown.

I'm the sort of person who has lists, and maps and itineraries, preferably colour coded and available in the cloud in case I need them when I'm half way round the world.

I need plans people, PLANS. I need to be able to measure and record and tick shit off.

We all play to our strengths I suppose, and it’s not that I hate the meandering organic approach to life; it’s more that I also love being organised.

Being organised frees my mind to allow me to enjoy the meandering you could say.

A lifetime ago, Keith and I went on a ten day tour of Ireland on our bikes and after we had come up with the general idea, I told Keith to “leave it with me”.

A week later I presented him with a map showing our route, rooms booked at suitable intervals at local pubs, and “must-see” attractions marked along the way. It was a masterpiece of organisation.

My cosmic punishment?

Keith’s bike broke down before we had even left, one of the places I had booked was in a village so small they had forgotten to signpost it, the EU funding had run out for road building so half the ride was on dirt tracks, one of our Guinness posters came flying out of our luggage on a stretch of motorway and we nearly crashed going to see a local celebrity dolphin.

All in all, it was the best holiday of my life.

None of this has any bearing on home-schooling of course, but it should go some way to explaining how I roll and why, at the moment, my brain is consumed with home-schooling nightmares.

I might not be worried, were it not for the fact that someone in the family (i.e. me) has to fill in some very official forms that need to convince the government we have some small idea of what we are doing.

And I don’t think they go bundles on “take every day as it comes” as an answer.

So I went on-line and searched for “Home-school Curriculum” which led to the internet delivering me 1,430,000 head fucks in 0.29 seconds.

According to the internet, approaches to educating your child, include (but are not limited to) Traditional, Charlotte Mason, Montessori, Lap booking, Note booking, Unit Learning, Un-schooling and for the indecisive amongst us, Eclectic.

How do you choose?

Well you pick a style that suits both you as a teacher and your child as a learner.

Apparently.

Or if you are me you spend days looking for sites that offer free resources, read them until you never want to see another piece of free clip art and then try and work out which ones you will be able to convince your family to use while also being able to convince the government you aren't making it up as you go along.

Dear future well adjusted children, I hope it now becomes clear why your father was the one who stayed at home with you.

Also why we never had any money for holidays; we spent it all on laminators and field trips, that shit doesn't come cheap.

Tuesday, 23 September 2014 Comments: 20

Attachment Parenting Breastfeeding Co sleeping Review

A Review of “Sweet Sleep: Nighttime and Naptime Strategies for the Breastfeeding Family”

What if there was a parenting advice book that started from the premise that you were already an expert? What if there was a book that gave you a big warm hug and said “you got this mama”?

How about if that book was also full of evidence based advice presented in a supportive and non judgemental way? How about if it gave you solutions to problems and told you that all that crazy newborn shit that your child is pulling is all totally normal?

That’d be a pretty awesome book, wouldn't it?

It would be the sort of book that would have made the first time mum I was in 2009 realise that my instincts were more valuable than the opinion of a “baby expert”. It would have given me the tools to know how to deal with the scare-mongering of health visitors and the sniffing disapproval of family members.

If only such a book existed .....

I was asked to review Sweet Sleep: Nighttime and Naptime Strategies for the Breastfeeding Family and I have to admit, part of me was wondering whether this book was going to heal my rift with “parenting books” or whether it was going to give me an excuse to buy a dart board.

The children and I are unanimous in our view, this book will only be a force for good in your life.

It will not make you feel like a failure for your choices, it will not pretend that your difficulties are a result of you doing something wrong.

It WILL, however, give you ideas and tools to help you achieve safe co-sleeping, breastfeeding friendly night times. It will remind you of what “normal” really looks like and it will quote the experiences of other parents who are going through EXACTLY the same problems as you!!

The book is written in an informal conversational style which I really loved. If you are used to an instruction manual approach to parenting books then this might throw you a bit because this book is more about offering research, suggestions and then telling you to take what works and do what feels right.

Oh yes, your eyes are not deceiving you, this book puts parents front and centre as the experts in their own children (the scandal!) and while it might offer suggestions and guidance, it’s not going to tell you that what you are doing is wrong.

It covers everything from the early days when you don’t know which way is up, to the days of toddler sleep regression and nap dropping. It looks at how to help sleep to happen and how to keep it happening. In fact, it looks at pretty much every permutation of every sleep issue you can even think of, including possibly the best ever come back to the question of how you will have sex if your baby is in your bed

“Well we didn't make our first baby in a bed, so I don't see why we would need to make the other ones there”

If you are one of those normal parents, with a normal baby, who doesn't sleep 12 hours a night straight off the bat, then this book might well save your sanity.

If you know a parent who fits that description, be their best friend forever; buy them a copy and place it quietly on the chair beside them before retreating to the kitchen to make them some tea.

They may well name their future child after you in gratitude.

Pinter and Martin Publishers sent me a copy of Sweet Sleep: Nighttime and Naptime Strategies for the Breastfeeding Family to review. You can purchase your copy directly from their website or from any other good book retailer.

Thursday, 18 September 2014 Comments: 0

Attachment Parenting Learning Working Mama

Everybody Feels Blue Sometimes

There are some days when I look out of the window and wonder how the day can be so sunny, so beautiful, and I can feel so utterly miserable.

I have precisely nothing to complain about in my life and yet some days, like every other human being, are days when I want to climb into a hole and hide from the world with nothing but a bar of chocolate for company.

One of the unspoken rules as a woman and as a mama is that you don’t give in to days like these; you carry on regardless, soldier on, put on your game face and get shit done.

In all the years I've been doing that, I think I've been doing a huge disservice to my children.

I'm not saying that I should be selling ringside seats to those times when I sit on the sofa and cry for no bloody reason at all. No, because that would be highly self indulgent for a start.

I mean that timing and circumstance means that my children have almost never seen me upset and I worry about how that must seem to them.

Do they think that people stop crying when they grow up? Do they think we stop being sad? Or that we still get sad but just that we don’t show it?

One of my friends has Post Natal Depression a few years back and the thing that she comes back to when she talks about the experience is that her young son had seen her at her lowest. In hindsight, I think her unintended honesty probably did him a big favour by showing him that adults are as vulnerable and emotional as any child.

It’s an intensely uncomfortable experience to let your child see you cry, not least because it provokes questions you would rather not answer when you are busy blowing snot bubbles.

I try to find strength in answering those questions, and take comfort in knowing that my honesty is giving the children more words in their emotional vocabulary.

Wow, did I just write the words emotional vocabulary in a blog post?

What I mean is that it gives me a chance to answer all the questions they haven’t yet asked me: Yes mama does get sad, yes she does cry, yes she is fallible.

It gives me a better connection with my children, not as a traditional “protector” perhaps but as a fellow human being who is subject to the exact same quirks of mood. It gives me a chance to show them that emotions are transient and that there is endless healing power in a hug.

I don’t want to be the “perfect” mama to my children, I enjoy showing them that we are travelling this road together and that I am learning from them every day. I truly believe that while “happiness is a skill. It’s something we can get more of by intentionally changing our brain chemistry“ we have to leave some room in our lives for its counterpoint.

I have to be honest with my children that while we work hard to be happy, and to live in a positive way, sometimes there are days where the world loses its shine. I need to show them these emotions exist for everyone and that feeling that way isn't the end of the world, it’s just another facet of being human.

Tuesday, 16 September 2014 Comments: 0

Babywearing Olive Travel

This Is Why You Should NEVER Fly With Children

There are some things in life that are universally regarded as a stupid idea; hula dancing in front of a lion, playing Russian roulette with a semi-automatic weapon and taking three children under 5 on a two week trip to the other side of the world.

Having just returned from the last of these adventures I can promise you I know what I’m talking about. Next time, I’ll be grabbing my grass skirt and heading to the savannah; I can only imagine it will be a less painful experience than our flight home.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

On the flight out I had forgotten to pack a change of clothes for the children.

Thankfully the God of Travel was smiling on us and we arrived grubby, but largely unscathed. I wasn't going to chance my arm on the return journey so I dutifully packed not only a change of clothes for the children but a bib for Miss Olive so that she could eat without me having to find her a steady supply of non-staining food.

Am I the only one who does that?

Anyway, the point is I felt confident that I had this shit nailed. We had even planned an evening flight for maximum sleep potential which meant I could nurse Miss Olive asleep on take-off and post her into the sky cot I had fought to book.

“Awesome”, I thought, “I am a travelling QUEEN, pass me the vino dear, I've got some films to enjoy”.

And enjoy them I did, for exactly 2 hours until I was jolted from my screen by an extremely cross looking Miss Olive glaring down at me from her sky cot.

It was clear within seconds that I was going to have to get out of my seat, collect Miss Wobble-lip and do some good old-fashioned bobbing at the back of the plane. The hideous alternative was that she was going to disturb every last one of the now sleeping passengers for the next 5 hours and we were going to be offloaded at Dubai and have to hitch-hike the rest of the way home.

So I grabbed our Monkey Mei Tai, the now bawling toddler, and ran for the area by the rear stairs.

Once I had her securely fastened to my front I bobbed, and I swayed, I shushed and I patted, but Miss Olive would not be comforted.

And then she did something she has never before done.

She vomited.

And not the little burpy puke of a baby, I'm talking a full-on Exorcist-esque projectile vomit.

While strapped to my front in a sling.

I looked at the stewardess who was standing a few feet away with helpless terror. She looked back at me with a frozen wide-eyed smile that let me know passengers like me were her own personal vision of hell.

The toddler was wailing, I had somehow forgotten how to untie a sling and I had pools of curdled milky vomit over every surface in a 2ft radius; myself included.

A sleeping Keith was a clear 20 rows away from me down a sleeping cabin, AND wearing earphones, so my shout-whispers went unanswered.

I can only assume the lovely hostess went to fetch him because just after I had managed to remove the dripping toddler from the sling and stand her on the change table in the toilet he appeared at my side.

He did well to stifle his laughter.

Faced with a puke drenched wife and a pouting toddler ice skating in her own gastric juices, I'm not sure I would have been able to say the same.

He was even generous enough to lend me his hoody, which was a relief because remember, I had packed spare clothes ... FOR THE CHILDREN.

That felt like a foolish oversight as I stood helplessly while cold sick slowly ran down my stomach from the pool that had been deposited in my bra.

The only tiny ray of sunshine was that this gave me a bona fide excuse to go shopping once we landed. Our next stop being Dubai, a country known for modesty and understatement.

There were many shops at Dubai airport. All but one of them proudly displayed price tags that gave me stabbing pains in my left arm, but there was one contender, and it was optimistically named “Gifts from Dubai”.

Believe me when I say I have never spent longer choosing an item of clothing.

I even changed my mind twice about which t-shirt to buy because in what I can only assume was a poorly judged attempt at cross-cultural outreach, it appeared as if the cast of TOWIE had been put in charge of the entire “Visit Dubai” clothing range.

Miss Olive gave her verdict on my wardrobe addition just as we begun our descent into Sydney by vomiting over me again.

This time I didn't have the heart to care for longer than it took me to break out the wipes. Nor did I have the energy left to care about inflicting my stinky vomity baby on a plane full of people for the final three-hour flight.

Misery loves company people! Who’s up for a repeat performance in 2015?

Thursday, 11 September 2014 Comments: 1

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