me and my motherhood

there are times when i feel like i'm doing pretty well as a mum, and it's clear that my child is delightful and sparky and happy if not because of, then at least not in spite of my parenting.
and then there are weeks where i do not, where i lose my zen, where i feel like a failure.
right now, obviously perhaps, it's the latter.

my motherhood journey seems to be all about being either in the former state or the latter.. it's like i'm constantly assessing myself as a mother, using every other mother i walk past or meet or spend time with to feed into that judgement. a constant "so, how am i doing?" questioning of myself.

it kinda sucks.. and a subset of that is that i hold my child up against other children, constantly. "is this child easier or more difficult than dandan?", "does dandan seem to be coming along better or worse than this child right now?" - because answers to these questions are vital to the self-assessment.

perhaps i constantly am looking for reasons for why i'm struggling so much. i am constantly wondering = "is it me?" or "is it him?" - would other mothers, faced with a child as spirited/difficult as mine struggle just as much? because if yes, then that would mean that i'm not a failure.
i'm so sure, after all, that he does present much more a mothering challenge in his personality, than most other babies or children i know. i'm sure of it, and i seem to always be gathering proof of that from every child i come across, and hold these proofs to my chest as a kind of comfort ("see, dandan would never have spent all that time just sitting there as sweetly and quietly as her at that or any age.."; "people who know him seem to agree that he is extraordinarily clingy.."; "no way i could have done all that housework/baked that cake/had a shower while my child played by himself, like she could.."; "ah, she naps for 4 hours, then sleeps at 7pm..". = "that's why i'm not coping, of course.").
i need these constant comforting comparisons, because if they weren't true, then the simple answer is that - i am simply not making the grade. am a failure.

here are my glaring proofs of having abjectly failed somewhere:
- he won't eat. this sucks big time.
often he'll eat a whole meal with his grandmothers, whether a handheld sushi or a spoonfed mush, but often my constantly-available offerings go rejected or ignored.
and i know he's hungry, he boobs ravenously, even after they're depleted. tonight he left bed at 9pm to go to his daddy, saying something like "mummy no na-na" (na-na = boob), because he finally must have twigged that boobs had been pretty empty all evening. he then took a whole bottle of milk, before toddling back to me in bed.
on his grandmothers' days when he comes back fed, he often sleeps better and just seems a bit more settled. big proof of mommy-failure.
- he won't take baths anymore. i can sometimes shower him with a handheld, but usually only if i boob him at some point during his shower when he gets upset, unless it's a super fast one. usually i just let his grandmothers try to bathe him, and i just wash his lower half after poos.
this makes me sad too, i loved bathing him, seeing his little naked body, splashing happily in a tub.
and what kind of mother can't even bathe her kid?
- he won't lie down for nappy changes, pretty much since he started standing (around 9 months old i think?). we nappy change him either while he stands, sometimes while he walks around, and often on my while i boob him, otherwise he's squirms out. i've not known anyone else to have to do this.
- we have no daily household rhythms/routines. we don't even have mealtimes; DH eats when he eats, at the table; i just eat off my lap wherever i have to be. so dandan never has mealtimes happening when he's with me... which probably explains the not eating thing.
anyone can see that this is seriously screwed up.

the daily rhythms thing is partly the fault of my personality; i've never had much of a daily rhythm; pre-motherhood, i've always headed straight out of bed to some introspective activity (reading, net-surfing, craft etc) and stayed there (often crouched in the same posture, always in the same PJs) until it was time for bed again, emerging only for necessities and to get food, then retreating to scarf down my food while i resumed my activity; unless i went out for some reason. i did this for years, and it was great for gathering information, thinking, studying, creating.. not so good for social interactions, being part of the human race, gathering experiences, or living life. i was like that weird cerebral race of futuristic humans in the Time Machine movie. but it suited me, and it fitted my research/studying occupation.
this has obviously changed somewhat by necessity having a toddler who needs the outdoors and activity, but i still pretty much try to fit my weird caveman proclivities in amidst his needs.

DH has a full morning routine going; coffee, toast, sit at table for brekky, brush teeth and get dressed. he takes dandan out of the bedroom when he wakes, and lets me sleep-in, and the two of them go through this morning routine together.
so this is how i know that dandan, like any other child, thrives on routine - on days where DH leaves home early, dandan will request my assistance to run through this same routine; he switches the coffee machine on by himself (no real coffee), and gets bread from the bag to put in the toaster (even says "pop! bread, pop!"), and messes around with cups and tupperwares, not moving on until a breakfast-length of time has passed.

but it's not like i don't want a household routine. i would love to have family mealtimes, i even got a cut-down family table to fit dandan's little chair (is that the problem? would dandan stay a bit longer if marooned in a high chair?) but it's just too damn hard.
i would love love to be able to do houseworky stuff while dandan entertains himself.. and the routine DH has set up now allows me that breakfast time. but i can't get that at any other time. because,
- he's just so damn clingy. he's just so full on with needing my attention and physical proximity literally 100% of the time, and i literally can't get anything done.
if i surrender to it and just sit by him all day, we often have a pretty good day.. but i feel like - it's been 2 years, he should have grown out of this now, everyone else his age or even younger has; so what the hell is wrong here?
- and because we're always out. out and about. he's always happier and calmer when we're at a park or a playgroup or something; often at home he/we degenerate into a whiny mess; plus i hate having to go into the yard with him and stand around and wish i were inside, while he plays. we're out all day as soon as i can get things together to go, and we don't come home for as long as i can manage.

i'm just so tired of everything being put on hold. goddammit.
- the house is still stacked with packing boxes from having moved house a year ago, i'm buying things i already own but are packed in boxes somewhere. visually, my home environment is chaotic, and it bothers me. (and meanwhile, our wardrobes/cupboards are all still empty, because we haven't unpacked of course).
- we can't establish sit-down family dinner time, because it's just easier to eat in shifts while he demands attention. and when it's just him and I
- i can't do the grocery shopping with him, because i can't control him at the store and he'll have a meltdown if i try to stop him from poking holes in the meat trays.
- i can't cook with him around, it's simply impossible. i can barely get my crappy meals to the microwave, and retrieve them, without his fussing at my being unavailable or having strayed more than 1m from him for more than 10secs. not cooking makes me feel like a failure, and somehow unfulfilled. and i miss eating decent food (or any dish not 4 days running), it gives me a funny empty feeling in my spirit.

and yes, i get breaks from his grandmothers. but because i'm exhausted (and hungry) by then, my rest breaks are are just enough to rest to feel halfway human again, then grocery shop, and do some primitive housework; then he's back home again in the evening for more wrangling, and a night's-long of boobing (another thing i feel like i've been dealing with for too long already).

i need an overhaul of the way i do things.
but some things i'm reluctant to let go of, like things i feel i need/want for myself (eg i could rest less and do more housework on my breaks. i could try to read less when i'm with him.)
and other things are just a daunting process to tackle:
- like nightweaning (dauntingly difficult/painful, and requires the right timing..)
- or, a home-overhaul (just a long process which needs to be kicked up a gear). i did go and get a whole bunch of storage boxes, to start to organise our chaos into something livable. i'm starting to unpack things properly a bit at a time. surely when this is all done (and then some basic decorating), it'll be a big relief?
but then most of the problem still remains. i have a difficult child (surely.?), and maybe i'm not doing very well as a mother.

(long before i was a mother, from some things i came across, i once believed that most motherhood challenges could be solved and sorted just by leaving a tshirt with your smell on it with your child - in your baby's cot, or as a lovie with an older child. how simple, all sorted)

when i'm in a good place, i can feel like - sure, he's clingy, but it's because he's so mentally agile, and just thrives on and wants a high level of interaction, and because what he wants to play at often requires some grown-up assistance. all good things.. inherently, i really like the person that he is, right now as well as projected to adulthood. intensity is a great trait, as is passion, emotional vitality, and being highly involved in your work. it's just that these things make parenting very full-on.

i recognise that i'm good at some of the mothering stuff. i occasionally have a good attitude towards parenting, even some wisdom, some insight. and i cerebrally recognise that to be harassed and angry just means that you're not coping, and that it's not your fault.
but then surely if i had more of what it takes, i would be coping better?

or maybe it's just about doing things a different way. i'm so fascinated with how other women run their households and mother their children.. apart from comparing and damning myself and my child, i suspect that i simply just don't know how to run a household. if it were socially acceptable, i would grill women about all the ins and outs of their household, how it's run, organised.. i'm always surreptitiously looking around when at others' houses, seeing how things are done there, and wondering how they manage to get things so cool and together (easier children, is always my first answer; then, bigger homes). i'm always reading blogs trying to get this information/insight, but they always make it sound so simple, and seldom seem as lost and overwhelmed as i feel.

i was never taught how a household was run, you see. i was raised a bit like colonial children in those novels, where the parents go to india and the child is left with an ayah and boarding school. in my case, my parents worked 70 hour weeks, while we had a maid to receive us at home after school (straight home, we weren't really allowed to go anywhere else by ourselves. sometimes we'd sneak out to go to the bookstore, that's the kind of kids we were). i had a brilliant school career and even friends, while being completely introverted and living inside my head. my sister and i spent our after-school hours milling around our flat and its private park, and making up amazing games which horrified the maid and trashed the house.
the maid took care of all housework, back there in that half of the house where things happened. certainly as family members we'd never approach any housework, it just always got silently done. but dad would come home of an evening and get angry and yell at us about things being messy.
when our parents were around on the weekends, we'd go out and do family things like shopping or the zoo, or else we'd stay home and have massive fights. we'd have the fights when we went out, too.
and always, my mum would be detached and separate and unavailable, always reading a book or watching videos, lost in her private emotional world.

now that i'm recalling this, perhaps some things are starting to make sense.

pissy cranky vent

these last couple of days, my inner monologue has been little else besides a string of dark red expletives. i seem to be bursting with a seething mass of petty and violent rage. i'm at what they call the end of my tether..

there's a simple explanation, i suppose;
dan has the flu (or some generic brand of viral throat infection), and my last few nights have been consistently broken by large bouts of crying and howling, or else a constant pawing at my boobs and a small child unable to sleep unless he'd heaved his entire body on top of mine.

so my weariness is palpable as a constant heavy pain in my head.

and he is CRANKY, boy is he ever cranky. he's reverted back to a pre-verbal state of whining and crying, even throwing his body on the floor and sobbing, for little to no reason at all. his ability to wait up to 2 secs for something he's asked for has disappeared, so there's a split second gap between his asking for something and his having a fit about it.

and there's none of my usual relief from grandmas around, as his crankiness is such that he is impossible around others...
i've made the mistake, repeatedly, of trying to get some relief by hanging around my sister/mum/MIL with him, but that's in some ways even more difficult and frustrating than if i'd just brought him to the playground by myself.

some of my recent inner rages:
- i waited 55 minutes today at the GP for my appointment, with a toddler in tow. almost 1 hour!!! that strikes me as totally unacceptable. it turns out that "an emergency" cropped out for my GP, but even so no one had said a single word to me, just let me wait there for an hour with a toddler while the waiting room emptied around me, and not even cared.
he was ok with the wait, thankfully, though we did go outside and play on the steps for a while. some kid coughed right into his face though, while his dad watched indulgently; i grabbed a baby wipe and tried to sanitise dan's face.
i felt all sorts of murderous rages towards the receptionists. i signed out without a word, and tried to hurl the pen down as pissily as i could, and even tried to make the door slam on the way out (it didn't, only hissed slowly shut rebelliously). i envisioned hurling a rock through their windows, denting their cars, running over random innocent pedestrians. truly i did, this is the ugliness of my inner darkness.

- watching my MIL constantly grabbing dan's upper arms in death grips, as he WALKS around, "in case he falls". FOR FUCK'S SAKE.
what drives me up the wall, though, is that because of this constant tussling, he actually does fall quite frequently at her place, and only at her place. he's always trying to get away, and does things he would never do normally, like climb things and take big weird steps, or just be clumsy in general. and today he slipped on her oily kitchen floor, and got a raised hard red bump on his forehead, just to satisfy her underlying fears.
he would never normally fall like that... so my blaseness is constantly battling with her over anxiety, i can feel the tension in the room, and imagine all sorts of unspoken accusations about my laxness as a mother.
i absolutely and wholeheartedly believe that if you're constantly telling a child he's "going to fall", and gripping his arms with deathgrips (not even his hand FFS, but his upper arms!), he's going to switch off the part of his brain that evaulates how to do things safely, and he's just going to go hell for leather towards as much as he can get away with, just to attain that vestige of desperate freedom. it's anti-enabling at its best.

besides, everything in her home is designed to be treacherous for a toddler anyway. he always has to wear shoes indoors there, so he doesn't have the normal traction of bare feet or even flexible soft soles. the floor is tiled, and often oily. there are small steps everywhere, every living area indoors and out are at different heights. the garden is liberally scattered with concrete blocks and terracotta pots and raised uneven conrete edges everywhere.
and these are people who have their toddler grandson over 3 times a week, every week. simple things would make big changes, like putting a soft non-slip rug
at the single stair between the 2 living areas (which he crosses 1000 times a day, each and every time being accompanied by her frantic run and then The Grip), or even a small handle in the doorframe for him.

drives me up the wall, i tells you. of course i appreciate her involvement and help... but the costs seem big.


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on that note, me and parenting / me and dan are definitely going through a rough patch.
yesterday i even actually shouted in his face, saying loudly "WAIT!" cos he was carrying on for the TV and i was getting it on as fast as i could.... he backed away and cried while looking at my face fearfully.... that is absolutely the pits.

i've been at that point so much recently, when he goes into a big carrying on demanding cryey whinge. like shouting while driving and hitting the wheel.. he got a bit scared and cried a little while hitting his knees in that same forceful way. or just swearing loudly and throwing my book or whatever it was i was trying to do. and that was all bad enough as it is.. but today was the first time i directed that anger right into his face.

it's just wrong that all my frustrations and anger seem to leak out toward him, the only person and thing i care about and above anything else in the world, yet i seem to be fighting the urge to throw him against the wall more and more, and the explosions of rage toward him are becoming more frequent.

and then there's the TV. i hate it, i hate i hate i hate i hate i hate i hate it.
granted, he's sick, so this is more intense than usual. but i don't know, maybe he is like this all the time as well?

it's:
him clamoring for the TV constantly, first thing when he wakes up (sometimes it's in the middle of the night if it occurs to him when he wakes), and he absolutely can't be talked out of it or distracted, he'll howl and cry heartbrokenly until he has it.
and occasionally he'll break away to play with his toys... but after a while he'll remember it and start up again. sometimes he'll go for ages without asking for tv again, other times it seems like we'd just turned it off.
sometimes the tv watching goes for 10 minutes before he goes off to play; other times, like today, it's non-stop...
any time we're at home, this'll happen, no matter what time of day/night.

we seem to only have good days when we go out, spend all day out (eg a music class, playground and park, a bit of shops or library), and even then the mornings and the evenings at home are rough.

i hate it so much. any time that questions of TV watching are raised, i always think - of course i don't want him to watch tv, of course i would prefer if he played or read or did something else.
but it started because a) he was having howling fits in the car, at even the smallest journey. the day i got the car dvd player, i had earlier pulled him out of the seat, thrown him into the front passenger footwell, then carried on driving while he sobbed standing there, almost losing his balance with every turn the car made, and me shaking in rage and wanting to drive us both into a large wall.
and b) the tv watching at home, because i found it bought me spaces in the day to sleep, get a meal, brush my teeth, or do whatever, because otherwise with him i was literally unable to do a thing, and i was losing my mind.

anyway then he's become more and more addicted to it, and our days became slaves to the dvd player. and now it's becoming more specific, it used to have to be the fucking wiggles, and now it has to be dorothy (the dinosaur), no one else, just dorothy, so i don't even get a break now, but have to slowly advance every dvd to catch the dorothy bits and only the dorothy bits.
and he's like this at the grandma's too. which makes me wonder, when he's there, is he just watching tv the whole time? i'd much rather fend for ourselves than that, but will they tell me the truth? and will i just make them as stressed as i am, imposing this on them?

and in the car, he'll clamor for it the instant he goes into his seat, can hardly wait for us to get into our seats and start the engine; every single car ride.

i've absolutely had it.

today when we reached the GPs, while he was still in his seat but refusing to come out because I hadn't let him watch any TV in the 4 mins it took to drive there; i wrenched the dvd player and its mounts off the seat, and threw it in the trunk while saying "No.Nore.TV, do you understand? TV.is.Gone.". not quite a shouty angry mummy, but definitely somewhere in that neighbourhood, and his face had the slight tinge of fear, but only just.

i'd like to really put my foot down more about tv at home.. though i'm not sure how and to what extent, and how much is reasonable anyway. and, should there be exceptions because he's sick right now?

i don't know if other mums who don't do the tv thing are just doing something obvious and simple and wise that i'm not, or whether they just don't have children like mine, demanding to a soul-draining sort of extent.
it feels like a combination of the 2.. surely i have a more difficult child than probably 95% of the population. but also it feels like surely i've made a million mistakes. i must have, or else it wouldn't be like this, right?

i shouted at my mum and made her really sad. she's seen very little of him recently because her family has been visiting. and missed out a few times because he's been so cranky. and when she's here with me present, he refuses to even look at her, i suppose in fear that she'll then take him away from me.

ovulating-time nesting

i'm so sure i'm going through or starting a fertile phase.
did you read that so called research on women?, when observed without knowing what was being observed, paid much more attention to their outfit and appearance during their ovulating phase than otherwise.. obviously that primitive peacocking to invite potential mates to give us a baby.

anyway, here are the signs:
- my mind is packed with circular obsessive incredibly trivial thoughts (all this shopping bizzo, my hair, my clothes, the fine scratches on my glasses, dandan's bad haircut (DH did it quickly, so now he has a blunt high fringe, grr)).
(i have had the occasional non-trivial thought.. today i wrote an email to the dr phil show who's doing a show on homebirth).

(dandan says: q2wqqqqqqzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzg; all while boobing)

- my stomach is gigantic. it's as it was at 4 or 5months of pregnancy, firm and round even, disproportionate to the rest of me which is fairly normal sized (though i'm definitely a bit chubbier in my key areas). it's the fluid retention, i get that with ovulation.
hence the clothing obsessions. how does one dress to hide a pregnant belly? how very grace kelly.

strangely, this little tummy of mine makes me feel a bit misty eyed and sentimental. i spend a lot of time standing there caressing it, pushing it out, smoothing my shirt over it and pushing my waistband below it.. rubbing it and looking in the mirror (ooh i'm showing already! my little baby inside..)

it's highly disturbing... i suppose it's a form of ovulation-time nesting.

- and the most troubling, is that i start again considering what kind of partner i could be with instead. i imagine the characteristics this imaginary partner might have, flesh him out with notes taken from hearing other women speak of their partners (the good and the bad), and wonder if i'd be happier and better with someone very different to what i have.
i've always done this... hence the trouble we've always had in our relationship.
i feel he's great, really appreciate all that he is and does, and i like the kind of life we have, plus he's a great dad to our boy... but.. some part of me feels sure that i've had to shut down many parts of who i am, over time, just because they didn't fit with this person or this relationship. i feel like i would be more with someone completely different, more of who i intrinsically was, maybe.
which is why i'm just ignoring our relationship right now, cos now that i have dandan who makes me so happy and brimming with so much love, i just can't be bothered making all that effort to sustain our lacklustre relationship right now.

today i bought

.. maternity jeans!

and no, i'm not pregnant (more on that later)..

i seem to be on a theme here of shopping-confessions of some sort. well heck, if it's what's going on right now..

anyway.. i bought maternity jeans today.
they're black denim, skinny leg; make my bum look a bit flat (it is, very), but my calves look skinny (they are)... so they're really just ok as a clothing item.

and why? because they're comfy, of course.
i always think the big deficit in my wardrobe is that i don't wear jeans. almost anytime i see someone and think - ooh i'd love to look like that, how cute (they can be male* or female**, that's how i am), they're often in jeans.

and i have some normal ones, but i don't wear them much, cos - they keep slipping and i have to hoick them up with a big jump in the air (i don't see anyone else doing this so i don't know what's wrong with me), and then, when i sit they're too tight and dig into my gut which makes me crabby after a while.

so of course the logical answer, is maternity jeans with their high and deliciously stretchy waistband. it makes so much sense i'm surprised not more people do it. (this thought makes me worry that i lack a certain key something in the way i think).

the sales assistant asked me when i was due. so of course i had to lie and say "next year". i quickly and surreptitiously did the math on my fingers in case she asked which month (i would have said february, i decided as i left the store).

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*if i were a man, i know exactly what i'd want to look like. it'd be this guy i once dated briefly but thought was so incredibly cool, a supercilious and trendy and funny and clever and arrogant art director. (i generally always am attracted to arrogant self-centered clever men, except the one i actually married)

i'd wear red-on-black hightop Cons, distressed jeans, lots of cool bangle bracelet things and wacky watches, funny vintagey Ts, vintagey jackets, and punky knitted scarves; and carry a guitar on my back everywhere i went.

**if i can look like any sort of woman, i'd have white blonde hair, or even snowy white hair, and be very pale, and quite thin and flat chested. i'd only wear white or silver or shades of pale green, loads of colourful makeup or none at all, and never a bra.
sometimes i'd backcomb my hair into a big diaphanous cloud.
sometimes i would put in a million little braids, and colour a few of them all different colours.
mostly i would keep it very long and straight and flat, like a shiny sheet hanging down to my tiny pert bum.
i don't know why i fantasise about looking like a doll..