The first parents evening

Last night we had Taters first ever parent's evening and it was great to actually talk to the nursery about how he’s settling in there – without speech therapists, early years inclusion teams, any of that.

I was pretty nervous about what I would hear, could I take it if they told me he’s not interested in other kids, won’t mix, can’t do half the things the others do? If he’s markedly different from other kids his age? Could I handle that?

The Introverted Mummy

I've been struggling with how to write this post for a while. It's a tricky one to verbalise.

You see I’ve always known I was an introvert, but I kind of expected myself to behave differently as a mother, to force myself to behave how a mother "should" behave and just not be introverted somehow. I struggled and it had a knock on effect on my confidence.

Nursery - the first few weeks

So yes, Taters has now officially started nursery. And what with speech delay issues and his general clinginess I was really rather worried. The nursery has been utterly amazing though at helping him settle in and because of them he’s really enjoying going. I’m thrilled to bits.

The Monkey Tater

Taters is going through a funny phase at the moment and since he can’t talk, I can only guess at what’s going on in his head. He’s suddenly become scared of other toddlers. Well, sort of, he’s fine with them unless there’s a toy involved somewhere in the equation. Basically if another toddler or child interrupts him when he’s happily playing with something, he gets devastated. As in he totally falls apart, first his little mouth turns down, then his chin quivers, he shakes his head and then cries hysterically. It's not good.

Take the weekend for example, usually he adores spending time with his cousins, but this time as soon as his eldest cousin came near him he started to cry. He was playing with a toy and I don't know whether it’s that he doesn’t want to share things, or he thinks they're after his toy, I don’t know. Either way it’s giving me cause for concern.

Last Thursday Part One

I know it’s a combination of sleep deprivation, the fact it’s “that time of the month” and the events of the year to date, but it just feels like there’s too much going on right now and I’m having a hard time coping.

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life...

I’ve been finding myself obsessing over things lately; having another baby, moving houses. I can’t seem to stay in the moment, I’ve got myself convinced that if I only had this, this and that everything then life would be grand. Except it would it? Really?

The results are in this month and... I'm not pregnant. Boo!

Whenever I take a knock I always like to have a bit of time to feel bad about it, to brood and feel a bit sorry for myself, then it’s time to dust myself off and formulate “a plan” - which gives me the illusion of getting some control back. I’m not really a control freak, in fact the plan usually gets ditched along the way, but I just like to feel like I know where I’m heading.

So I’m not pregnant, which is fine, it’s not been all that long (though secretly I was hoping I’d turn out to be uber-fertile and fall pregnant the second I decided I wanted another child). Balls, looks like I’m a mere human after all – how disappointing.

Why we co-sleep

A night in the life of Taters, aged 18 months…

It’s uncanny; every night as I’m drifting off to sleep the sound of stirring in the room downstairs breaks the silence on the baby monitor. How does he know? Does he sense my brain waves changing? Is this the maternal bond they speak of and if so, why is he using it to torture me?

I don't think I'm doing this right!

Sorry, this isn’t the "life lesson" post I wanted to write, but I need to vent. I’ll come back to that later. Things are a little tough right now and I’m feeling hacked off with, well, everything!

From the kitchen sink to the office desk

One thing I hear regularly from both my mother and mother-in-law is this: “It was different for us when we had babies, we weren’t expected to work.” And it has made me think. While it is wonderful that I am no longer chained to the kitchen sink the way my female ancestors were, instead I am chained to the office desk and I’m really not sure this is what the early feminists intended. Or that this is the best thing for the human race in general.

An Introduction

I'm scratching my head trying to decide where to start this. So perhaps a brief introduction is in order. This is me...

I'm 36 and a mother of one. This is a photo of Taters...

He is both the light of my life and my tormentor. He's a few months short of two. We live with my husband and two glamorous cats up North in England where it is allegedly grim (but is actually rather lovely). Right that's the basics.

What else can I tell you? Aside from parenting, I would describe myself as an agnostic with pagan leanings. I know my way around a Tarot deck, I have a few crystals scattered around my house as well as a fair few green men. I’m pescatarian because I love animals and can’t bring myself to eat them, but I can bring myself to eat fish for some reason so there you go. I give a shit about the environment and I don’t use anything tested on animals. I’m far from rich and live in a cramped little terrace house because I haven’t yet found a way to make money from the things I love (namely writing and art) – work is just a means to an ends. But I do work, I’m not a stay at home mum, sometimes I wish I was but it just isn’t an option financially. I love all things vintage, predominantly the 1920’s-1950s, with a good dose of Victoriana too. In fact I love a bit of history in general.

So the Domestic God-Help-Us bit: I despise housework but also hate to live in squalor – so this is a particular source of conflict. I’m not an awful cook, I can follow a recipe just fine (so long as it isn’t too long), but I find it all a bit tedious. It is my husband who describes me as the “Domestic God-Help-Us” – for my lack of culinary skills, my inability to use an iron, my general sloppiness around the home… and so on and so on…which would be fine if I didn’t throw such massive hissy fits at the end of the month along the lines of, “I can’t live like this, this house is a pig stye, Argh! Argh! Argh!”

Anyway, I don’t want to spend too much time dwelling on what has already gone but so that you understand where I’m coming from as a “Mother” here is a little trip back through my motherhood journey to date…

My foray into the world of mothering has thus far been rather different than I how I had envisioned it. I saw myself as something of an earth mother-to-be,  I genuinely wasn’t afraid of giving birth because I believed my body would ultimately know what to do (I thought so many women ended up having caesareans because they were out of touch with nature, with their bodies, too brainwashed by modern society and removed from our natural instincts – I still believe there is a lot to be said for that in a straight forward birth). And there was no doubt in my mind that I would breastfeed, you should have seen the paddy I threw when a well meaning relative bought me feeding bottles!

The reality was somewhat different: a knotted umbilical cord resulted in a closely monitored labour (strapped down to monitors, nothing natural about it) followed some 13 hours later by an emergency caesarean. The breastfeeding was absolutely nothing like I expected – I worked my arse off to make it work, I almost drove myself insane and I know I couldn't have tried any harder than I did. My inability to "successfully breastfeed" completely broke my heart (the full story can be found here  if you’re interested.) But the bottom line is my baby ended up being mixed fed. It was never the plan but it resulted in a happier, healthier baby and a mother with her sanity just about intact.

But all of this left my beliefs in tatters and I could feel my imaginary crusty peers turn their backs on me. (I didn’t, and still don’t really know that many real mothers – I’m not a signed up member of any mummy mafia) I didn’t know where I fitted in on the mummy spectrum anymore. Had Mother Nature abandoned me? I’d had a miscarriage before this pregnancy so perhaps I wasn’t supposed to be a mother in the first place? Had I bulldozed my way onto a road that was never intended for me? Nothing seemed to come naturally after all. My confidence as a mother was completely shattered. And yes, I still struggle with the rough start we got off to, this is one of the motivating factors behind writing a blog, the urge to find my new voice and own it, now I’m not the crunchy domestic goddess I assumed I’d grow up to be. Ah well!

But no, I don’t want to spend too much time looking back, as my recent driving lessons have clearly demonstrated to me, if you spend two much time dwelling on what has just gone – you’re not paying enough attention to what is happening now (my driving instruction has nerves of steel I’m telling you, because I do that a lot). So I might do a little dwelling from time to time (I’m the kind of woman who needs to make sense of something before I can move on) but hopefully not too much. There’s enough going on now to get my head around thank you very much.

Well, I’ve already said too much so I will leave it there for now and just get on with it…

My beautiful furry boys