Another Win for Mummy!

Mummy had a win....
I have been working, since she was born, to break the little angel's wilful spirit... Mummy is BOSS - thats B for Bubble, O for Octopus, S for Swing and S for Sleep!
Recently I have had the dawn banshee to contend with, and she almost got the better of me.... But never fear dear readers.... in the end.... Mummy won :-)
My angel was waking up at 4:30 every morning... I am sure you can imagine how thrilling this is... I have never been a morning person, and frankly, I never want to be someone who functions at 4:30am - that must be some kind of sickness....
So I was engaged in the battlefield of staggering back and forth to her room to try to persuade her to go back to sleep.  My rule is that we don't get up until 5:30 at the earliest.... I mean really, have some decency child!  So there I went, stagger, groan, plead, stagger.... as the day slowly lightened and I listened to my internal voice wine pittifully about having to go to work in a few hours.... So then, in the past, when 5:30 finally rolled around I would stomp into her room and get her up and out of bed.  At this point she would beam at me beautifully and I would feel like the evil witch of the east growling weakly at her...This was our pattern for more days than I could bear...
And then I realised.... I realised that of course what she thought was happening was that she was yelling until I cracked!  She had learned, thanks to my brain dead attempts to maintain sanity and the rules, that I would eventually give in! She had no idea that the clock had ticked its painful way around to the appointed hour of permission... duh!
So I thought I was winning because she stayed in bed til 5:30 - but she thought she was winning by wearing me down! Nooooooooooo the baby MUST. NOT. WIN!
So when that clicked I bit the bullet the next morning and when I was gently awaken by the melodious screech of my dear heart angel.... I marched in to that room and told her, in no uncertain terms, that mummy was no longer a fool, and she was not getting up til she went back to sleep...
Consequently she screamed the house down from 4:30-5:45.... and then went back to sleep til 6:20! Woopee... and that was our last big screaming episode... since then she has woken up at 5:30 each morning... and today when she did wake up at 4:30, I went in and told her to go back to sleep...and she complained for about 3 mins and then slept til 6:30 :-)
Ah the wins! the wins!  Waaa haaa haaa haaaa :-)

Turning One!

My angel is turning 1!  In a little over two weeks this little bundle of yumminess is no longer new!  I forget how big she is... yesterday I was going through the "too big last winter put aside for this winter" box.  A little striped jumpsuit was admired by ga ga (grandma) and I, but I was concerned that it might be a little tight in the length...so we though we would just try it... the next time I was changing the angel I picked up the jumpsuit and lay it over her pleasantly round little tummy... and lo!  There was at least 4-5 inches of leg protruding beyond the foot of the suit.  I guess she is a little taller than she appears.... must be the optical illusion of finding someone I am actually looking down on (a novel experience!).
And she is growing up so fast... it seemed only last week she was laying helplessly, cooing mildly at the shadows on the ceiling... now she is pushing her little chair over to the bookshelf, standing on it, and pulling mummy's books off the higher shelves.  Today she turned on the TV - AND changed the channel!  Seems she prefers MASH to the current affairs shows...well, she is my daughter after all.
How strange it is to say that..."my daughter"... after 37 years of not having a daughter...of course I thought some miracle would happen and I would feel like a different person - a "mum" for heavens sake... aren't they a sort of different species?  The women who can suddenly get twice as much done in a day, whilst being endlessly patient, know how to do everything, and are always right?  When do I get to become that?  Its kind of like growing up - like the day you suddenly realise you are no longer growing up - you are a grown up... yet you don't feel any different!  Its sort of a ripped off feeling, like coming out of a day spa feeling stressed and grotty (someone got the mud-bath all wrong?)...And of course I don't feel ripped off about being a mum, not at all... its the thing I will always cherish most in my life... but I do feel that perhaps I should have morphed into a younger version of the golden girls or that partridge mum or something... my hair has gone grey but perhaps I need a short perm and a cardie and I will be let into the secret mum club...
Heavens-to-Betsy my little girl is turning 1!

my followers??

Good heavens... I just glanced at my blog dashboard on the way in... and it seems that I have SEVEN followers!  AND... two of them are people I don't know!  Well I'll be dashed... people are really reading this little meander through self indulgence?
How tickling for my blushing pride! :-) 

welcome to puke town, population us.

There is really nothing quite like it... There mummy sits, peacefully feeding her baby in their favourite spot on the couch...child lays back on a feather pillow, mummy reclines with her head on a velvet pillow... its an archetypal image of gentle beauty, of calmness, of sweet scented tops of baby's heads, and of a moment to enjoy the loving bond between mother and child.  The little angel gazes into mummy's eyes sleepily, her little fingers toy with mummy's, upsy daisy sings a merry tune on the dvd... all is good in the world.   And then it happens... the wee cherub looks concerned, opens her mouth, maybe lets out a little burp, and then it comes... the flood.... the fountain... the tsunami.  From her delicate wee mouth pours a river of the entire day's curdled milk and partially digested pureed vegetables... and still it comes... and that sweet little mouth becomes the gateway of puke town.  And still it comes...she looks horrified, mummy is horrified - and is wearing it all, from chest to knee... and still it comes and soon there is a mini-swimming pool around mummy's bottom where it nestles into the couch... the overflow floods the pillow, the rest of the couch, and avalanches onto the floor...
There is nothing to do but let it all come...then when it is finally over, with a cough and a wail, cautiously lift the child, trying to hold onto the pool in her lap, and slip slop into the shower, dribbling unhappily into the carpet along the way.  Mummy and child sit under the shower and peel off their clothes as the drain clogs and the stench infiltrates mummy's pores.  Even long after the shower she can still feel the bits of her that have been bathed in today's puke treatment, and it ain't no day spa feeling.
So then its time to wash the child, dry the child, sooth the child, re-feed the child, settle the child to sleep.... and then mummy has the lovely task of putting everything in the washing, getting re-dressed herself, cleaning up the pools of congealing puke on the couch and floor, disinfecting surfaces... and then finally she might be able to face cooking some dinner for herself, or perhaps just collapse on the slightly damp couch with a stiff drink.  Again....

All I can say is Bluck.  This is not the fun bit.

the end of summer

Once upon a time it was spring... and a girl wandered in the balmy air.  She smiled a happy smile, skipped a happy step, hummed a happy tune... and in her fingers floated a flower... plucked from beneath the brambles, it was a rare and beautiful flower...and its scent tickled her senses and she smiled.

Beneath the heat as spring turned to summer, the girl danced on, with her flower at her breast, colourful and bright, its scent became part of her days and her nights. Warm though it was, the girl clutched the flower to her, and when she noticed the petals grow soft, she gave it water to drink, and sang to it softly, coaxing its colours to shine.  Beneath the sun the girl danced in her garden, tending her flowers, her scented herbs, her luscious vegies... teaching her little angel to dance... and as the sun dipped and the shadows lengthened there the girl played a delicate juggling game, tending to the flower and all of the rest of her garden...

And so it was til the days grew cooler and the clouds gathered over head, and the girl busily bustled about, tending, gathering, weeding and caring... and one day she noticed that her little flower was wilted, its petals curled, its colour dull... and she paused in all the business, and she missed the sweetness of the scent...she missed the brightness of the bloom... but it was the end of summer and all things that are once young and beautiful pass into memory when their time has come... so the girl layed the flower gently on the earth, a tear fell, and she hoped that the seeds would find their way into the earth to grow new flowers, new beauty in a new garden of spring in the future.

And the girl wandered inside, closed the windows, and cuddled her angel to keep her warm.

rewards

So I helped my friend build a chicken coup... it was exciting on so many levels - exciting for my friend and her little ones to have the thrill of new family members and exciting for me because I was able to be useful!  When I was pregnant I was so frustrated so much of the time about not being able to DO things, help out, be active and useful... laying on the couch being waited on is not my thing it seems!  When I had a little baby, people didn't ask me to help because I was a lactating elephant with offspring attached, and lets face it I was only just managing to breath in and out most of the time... but now things have changed!  I can DO things again!  So I helped my friend build a chicken coup, and the intangible rewards were plentiful.  But today came another reward!  Two precious long awaited hard won little organic home grown eggs for my breaky... yum!

“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.” 

Gabriel García Márquez

happiness

So I used to think that I could make anyone happy... I used to think that no matter how hard it was, I could be the one who would be able to make someone happy, no matter what kind of life they were living.  I worked so hard in my relationships, in my friendships, in my work...I bent myself in knots to be the thing, the very thing, that would make the other person happy.
And now I am all grown up I have learned that I cannot do this.  No matter how hard I have worked, I have not pleased everyone in my life... past lovers, past friends, past colleagues, past clients... I have not made them all happy.  And this has hurt me deeply at times, I have keenly felt the failure.
And recently I have found myself in a place in my life where there are too many people, with too many different wants, and it is impossible for me to make them all happy at the same time, because they all want something different from me at the same time... and no matter how many knots I bend myself into, it is impossible to please everyone.  And I have realised... that in tying those knots, I have damaged the ropes, damaged myself, by not stopping to consider what it is that I want and need - besides making others happy.
And I realise in reality the well known theory that there is a complicated balancing act required between self care and care for others.... If I am not caring for myself I cannot care for others, and in return, if I am not caring for others then I care less for myself because I like myself less...

So rather than learning new knots, I am changing my sport - I am taking up acrobatics in a new way - not flexibility but balance.  I seek balance.
This is what I want to teach my daughter - that there is a symbiosis between her own needs, her own self, and the needs and happiness of others...

my best friend

 

thanks postsecret and my friend who picked that this card suited me!

now these are people with a lot of time on their hands!

click on awesomely cool video....

or not...