When you no longer want to listen to me

A Young woman and her mum presumably visiting her in London are having the same conversation I can picture me having with my mum. The weight of patience from the daughter toward a nagging mum who is unsure of the life the daughter is about to embark upon. Coming from completely different cultural backgrounds, with different values towards ambition and life, both trying their best to meet in the middle somewhere and not land in a fight over touchy topics too early on in the visit. Inevitably I wonder if I'd ever get there with you, my firstborn.

I'll be more understanding and not make you live my life, I say. But the world seems rather scary these days. Without a set of rules and values to help guide you, I feel very insecure. I sit in conferences that tout Artificial Intelligence doing a job I did for the first three years of my career. And I wonder what jobs you'd have as options when it's your turn. What skills do I need to equip you with to get you to where you'd want to be?

At fifteen months you're already developing a rich imagination. You found some cartons of ready formula over the weekend in the lower shelves of the pantry. After unsuccessfully trying to open one to feed yourself, you decided they'd make good planes and 'flew' them over your head for a while until you noticed me watching. You hand me one of them. I mimic you, 'flying the plane', but you protest and push the carton closer to my ear whilst raising yours to the same. We are on the phone now mummy, babble babble. It amazed me that you are so expressive and your ability to gamify what was initially a disappointing scenario for you is encouraging. I love that imagination. To me it means you could never be bored. That you'd always have the tools within yourself to pick yourself up and believe in the achievement of the impossible. It is such a precious gift to have.

That's not the only skill set fueling your child's play. I never thought it but those soft rolls in your legs are now supporting your rotund belly as you charge around the flat at full speed and giggles abound at our guesses as to where you're headed. Usually you'd run right into us for a big warm hug wrapping your little hands around our necks if we are low enough, or our waist if we have our backs to you or if we're standing around our knees. You may be small but you hug with all your might (and big heart) and it is as strong a hold as a half hearted adult cuddle.

You chat. You want me to listen. You try to chuck my phone if I am on it and not paying full attention to you. You know the words, cheese, banana, book, bird, baba, cheers and animal sounds for fish, cow, snakes and that kangaroos and bunnies hop. You can point to so much more to identify them when I am asking you to.

You are just so clever that I feel myself overflowing with pride. I couldn't have planned you better. And I continue this post three months on from starting it, not wanting to change a word from the previous post because I can never return to that moment now, you have more of a vocabulary now and your pretend play skills have expanded. The day I posted a picture of you delightfully playing with your toy kitchen for the first time I was overjoyed but the dark day quickly turned for the worse before I knew it.



Your beautiful cyan dress that I've always loved you in is cut up now, possibly in landfill. Every time you tense your joints or curl your left hand my heart flutters out of control and nears panic mode as I struggle to push the memories of you convulsing on the floor of the shopping centre out of my mind. I try to not blame myself but I shouldn't have put you on the slide, I shouldn't have clapped stockings on you when we went out to the shops. Sometimes this is precisely when I cannot reconcile the east and west in me to decide what I need to do for you to care for you. I let you overheat that day. I held back on the paracetamol hoping you would cure naturally. I caused your body unbelievable grief that day and I paid for it a thousand times fold as I held your stiff soundless self as your wild confused eyes searched the surroundings and recognised nothing not even me or my cries. Even though you've quickly forgiven me and adore me still.

My darling girl, mummy was never qualified to do this job and being strict on you is tough for me too. But I have to try my best to not fail you and part of that is to make you listen as much as you can now because one day you won't listen to me anymore and you won't forgive me for the mistakes I made. You might not even acknowledge the sacrifices we made. However, despite the tough week just past where you fought me every day through your antibiotics, where you were impossibly spoiled because we slept with you every night, where I ended up in the ambulance myself in Luxembourg cause I had tried to fight the infection you gave me but failed embarsssingly. Despite all that my dear, I will keep trying to be strong for you and to give you my best without failing you again the way I did. I hope you'll listen to me.








- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Being cruel to be kind

Here we are at eighteen months. Not that I could forget it, baby daddy keeps nagging me that this is the point we agreed upon to wean her off her dummy. I know it is important and I have started to see the signs, her muffled speech when it is in her mouth, her pure addiction and tantrums to get at it. It wasn't going to get easier to wean her as she grows to learn how to argue back and fight harder. But I needed to ready myself.

This task was no easier than when I let her cry it out. I put my foot down for ages and fought hard with baby daddy over it. He beseeches me to reason, that sleep deprivation has turned us into a moody gloomy household and that included the baby. I just couldn't do it though, my firstborn wailing for me from her crib, hands sticking out in the dark to reach me. How could I steel myself against it? I think it happened by accident the first night. I was likely so tired I slept through her cries as the husband closes the door on her and leaves her in her own room for the night. I am ordered to not go in until at least five am. I huffed off into bed with a silent stubborn rage, but too tired to fight. I must have slept through her cries. Eventually she stopped crying for me too and there I had let her CIO, the one thing I was dead against.

Same story goes for the car seat. I had to accept it. It was tough love but I had to otherwise we'd be tortured through every car ride and she was going to keep pushing her boundaries. We wanted well behaved children and that means she needs to know some tough love.

Back to dummy weaning, I tried hiding it but she always found it, I tried rules but she fought hard to disobey them and I found myself bending them myself for the easy (quiet) way out. I explored rubbing something unpleasant onto the dummy like Echinacea or olive leaf extract but they don't recommend those for children her age.

Over the weekend, I decided I was ready, I put some medicated oil on her dummy. I didn't like it but that's what my parents said they did with me and I survived it. She glares at me and throws the dummy onto the floor with a loud angry "No!" Then through tears and agony, she picks it up again and keeps sucking it despite the horrid taste and smell. I am at my wits' end, staring at her stubbornness with disbelief.

Her daddy comes home at noon and I related the story, he reminds me that there is another alternative that I have ignored but is also our traditional way to wean a child.

We took her to the fair that afternoon and let her pick a Giraffe balloon to take home. She was so happy yet at the same time so insecure that we would take it away (we hardly ever buy her new toys) that she wouldn't let go of it and so we had to carry her together with the giraffe. It was ridiculous really if you see the size of the balloon.




That kept her occupied enough to not storm us for her dummy. But the peace didn't last long. I take deep breaths as we pulled up at home. I knew it was the last resort that I needed to turn to. I took all four dummies and dipped them into my homemade chilli sauce. So hot that it brings tears to my eyes but I could trust it for kick above and beyond the store bought stuff. So cruel, but it's short term pain for long term gain I keep telling myself.

I feel numb, as though the chilli had made its way into my heart, as I hand over the loaded dummy to her, as I hold her afterwards whilst she sobs uncontrollably onto my shoulder in pain, and this morning in the dark hours of the morning when I couldn't give her the dummy and she really wanted it. My resolve to help her wean has created a heavy dull void in me where I must have not allowed myself to feel in this very moment. Echoes of her cries, her frustration, they all wash through me as I file this inside me as an achievement under motherhood, for future reference and for building resilience.

One huge leap for me, but perhaps it's a small step for mankind. Several reassuring sympathetic nods from colleagues at work reminds me that I am not the only parent that has exercised this horrendous feat. This isn't uncharted territory. Traditional methods yet again has proved effective despite me not agreeing with the journey, but we all seem better on the other end. Perhaps this hippy mum thing is not my cup of tea.