Momentary revelry of life

Hi.

I am still here. I never said goodbye. I thought I was ready, but I miss you so much which is why although I let go of the other domain, I couldn't help but want to salvage and reinstate this for the old posts and memories. So much has happened since I'd last left here for Wordpress. Moving to UK, fun employment, living the expat life, pregnancy, motherhood. I am still trying to figure it all out. This is the first time in a long while that I thought I've got it in the bag by now, this motherhood thing. I can go through my daily routine working five days a week really smoothly. I feel happy at work and feel like I can contribute and then I get to come home and be with my child and each her grow and establish her own little personality. What has helped immensely so far:
1. The toddler finally having a routine and sleeping longer hours in the day and at night. Her being more predictable meant we could plan our schedules better.
2. Planning ahead and packing ahead the night before or when she sleeps. Meal planning on the commute so that when I get home I am not planning whilst a fussy toddler is hanging on to my leg begging for food/attention.
3. Working one day from home makes a world of difference as I am able to clean the flat quickly before the toddler gets home.
4. Keeping meals simple and meat and three veg is mainly done in one pot with the toddler eating the same thing as us. I used to make different meals for her but it was running me to the ground and she was not enjoying food the way I wanted her to so we just threw caution to the wind . She eats healthy at nursery five days a week, so if we follow the 5:2 diet, she's doing just fine. Our weeknight dinners can range as follows:

Mon: Lemon and Orange stewed vegetables and breaded chicken breast nuggets
Tues: Pan fried minute steak with wilted garlic spinach and minted peas
Wed: Herb and nut stuffed chicken breast with stir fried wombok
Thurs: Fish curry stew with a medley of root vegetables
Fri: Homemade Pizza night ( My Thermomix kneads the dough whilst I work from home).

Sometimes Thursday is leftovers night and fried rice or casserole of some sort is always a good way to use up the leftovers so we can clear the fridge for groceries and fresh cooking on the weekend.

It's good, the little one is happy and ever ready to learn these days. Just the weekend passed, I discovered she can say book, mmm for cow, she can point to her head when I say it and throws her hands up high and opens and shuts her little hands for Twinkle twinkle little star. All from me just slowly listening to her carefully and not being dismissive of her babble. I am stoked (and stunned) that she is communicating and developing more skills. But on the other hand, this makes for a very active child that is constantly bugging me to read book after book to her if we are at home, or to walk her around the restaurant if we are out. This latter one I am not a fan of. She just won't sit in a high chair anymore whilst I catch up with my friends. I have a feeling that this smugness and confidence in being a working mum is about to dissipate. I am on the cusp of parenting a walking toddler and fearfully awaiting the tantrums, arguments and more teething.

Until then, I wanted to note down this momentary revelry of life. Things are good and I don't want to take it for granted. Shall I disappear again, you'll find me on my Instagram account until I emerge again for air. Holding my breath for now. Talk soon...or later.





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Three months on

This is it. I survived the fourth trimester! But I no longer have a newborn. I have a baby diva with a full blown personality. She knows I have magic under my shirt now and will turn her head to it if I am holding her a certain way. If she doesn’t get what she wants or God forbid we try to substitute a teat for a tit she will scream the flat down until she gets what she wants. Sometimes even when she gets what she wants she will still try to finish her complaints before she latches on. After all she is my number one customer and she hasn’t been too happy with the level of service she’s been getting.

Without trying too hard, I feel as though we have a routine. I stick by the 10 am and 10 pm nap/ sleep ultimatum. If she ain’t down before then I stop all activities and will focus on her getting to sleep. Her feeds now coincide with our meal times. She always has her 6am, 12pm and 6 pm feeds. And loads of feeds in between when she tells me off, after all I am raising a proper fatty here, doubled her birth weight already shy of the three month mark and wearing the same size diapers as the eight month old boy we saw yesterday ( his mum looked incredulous when I offered her a right sized diaper when she had run out).

By now I know her a bit better. I know she can self soothe when I am not there and will call out to me when she needs us but she chooses to regress sometimes and want mommy sitting by her side with her holding on to my finger. Mostly she wants cuddles, hating her car seat which we introduced when her daddy got his new car because I sit next to her and she doesn’t want to be strapped in but rather held in my lap. Made our first road trip to Cotsworld that much more interesting.




She’s started to like distractions albeit us tongue-clicking parents still being her best toys. She likes looking out the window on a train, bell rattles, watching the French Open (ok and Made in Chelsea) on TV, kicking the water in her bath and I am not sure if I imagined it but I swear I’ve seen her reach for her toys once or twice. I also notice her imitating us when we eat and we tease her by pretending we will share our food with her although she wasn’t impressed by how cold the Magnum shell felt when pressed against her cheek.




Last weekend she only wanted me and not daddy (broke his heart), but this week she’s all toothless smiles throaty laughs and babbles for her daddy when he comes home from work and I get all the cranks. She certainly is precious and knows how to wrap us around her little fingers.




But we know this is just the beginning of a long journey as parents. We’re looking forward to many more toothless smiles and imploring gazes from her yet as we explore her first summer together.




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Two months

I should be sleeping but I keep thinking about things I’d like to get done tomorrow. The irony is that now that I ain’t working there seems to be more to do and less time to do it. Perhaps the endless feeds/ daytime TV/ web-surfing/ cooing at a two month old has contributed to it.

But as I think ahead to tomorrow, I reflect back on the two months past and can’t believe the way we have emerged from the woods now. There was a point when thing after thing about her worried me and kept me up on Google, but bit by bit I am letting go. Last night I said to the Mister completely out of character, ” The dishes can wait, it is more important to cuddle your daughter” and we turned off the TV to watch her play on her activity gym, admiring how strong she kicks, lovingly stroking her arched back as she strains keeping her head lifted, teasing her with the hidden sounds in the mat that she hasn’t yet discovered for herself.

I love how we are now a solid threesome. She joins us without fail for every dinner. She’s always been like that but now all the grandfolks have gone home and I am glad she still wants to share meals with us. She is steadily putting on weight now, her rounded belly so cute to massage ( she let me massage her this week!) and bathe. And when she hated being taken out of the warm bath, her reflection in the mirror distracts her fussing, she then coos at herself.

Sleep at night is easier with her not kicking up a fuss to go into her Bednest. Some other mothers have already moved their kid to the next room but I couldn’t quite yet. She’s my baby still for now.

We are proud that we didn’t turn to mush at her first fever after her shots this week. We managed to be there for her and not over fuss. She was so good at the doctor’s office, not even upset at her surprise soiled nappy, until nurse Hannah jabbed her with those two large needles and I held her as accomplice. It was a tough moment, the firm grip that I hoped she felt was comforting rather than betrayal. Thank goodness she forgave me and wanted me to continue to cuddle her after.

It’s been a good two months, moving into our new home, taking her on her first car ride and first disco sesh. She’s getting more used to dinner dates too having slept through the Pembroke, the Crabtree, Alquimia, Duck & Waffle and then wide awake at Dishoom. She’s starting to coo more often and has discovered that it’s soothing to suck her own hands.

We wish for her to develop more, particularly a smile in response, but am afraid she’d outgrow the 240 accidental order of Size 2 nappies I have in store. The dillemmas of parenthood, but they cannot compare to how blessed I am to wake up to her stretching every morning knowing that I may just stay there next to her all day and not need to leave her side for the rest of this year.




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I thought I'd be a hippy mum

I thought I’d be a hippy mum,
Birthing pools, delayed cord clamping, drug-free delivery and all
12 hours of being in labour later,
I gave in when I was tired and had an epidural.

I thought I’d be a hippy mum,
I’d baby-wear her on my chest
We weren’t going to spoil her with unnecessary cuddles
And with her diet, breast is best.

I thought I’d be a hippy mum
rewarded with a healthy baby’s beam,
if I eat organic and not use chemicals,
But one whiff of her cradle cap, I’m applying steroid cream.

I’d thought I’d be a hippy mum,
But I confess I’ve topped up with formula and tried
hard to not harbor angry thoughts when she wouldn’t settle
and given her a binky when I didn’t know why she cried.

Those who’ve met her think I’ve got it together
but I’ll admit it is a front. Don’t aspire to be me
She seems so well behaved in public
but will scream my wits off in a jiffy.

So I know now I’m not a hippy mum,
yet amidst daytime TV, I cuddle her with ease,
The housework’s undone, I eat chocolate by the ton
and I nurse her whenever she please.




NB: Apparently I fancied myself a poet too, but I clearly am not anywhere close, but thank you for putting up with me whilst I try to not overload this blog with too many boring motherhood posts but not much else that I used to be all about before has been happening in my life right now to warrant blog posts. Will hopefully be back on track soon after this ‘break’.




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In the haze of a new mum

It is a wild and wonderful new world now that my darling daughter is safely delivered into our arms. I won’t lie, the first week has been traumatic and almost like I wasn’t quite who I usually am. There were moments when I left my dignity at the hospital door and allowed all sorts of things to go on that I normally would squirm uncomfortably at.

Before the haze of the first week escapes me, I wanted to record some of my few memories and thoughts gathered from the sleep deprived, hormonal and bruised mess I was on my first week of motherhood.




The birth process was long and filled with a lot of waiting for the next stage to happen whilst everyone monitored my progress with an anxiety that they didn’t share with me. We thought though that it was all worth it when the pushing stage came around and I hadn’t gone animalistic at that point and then, just like in the movies, the baby was born within twenty minutes of pushing. This next part was odd, we were given dry toast ( neither of us had had much to eat all day and they forgot our butter) and cups of tea to revitalise.

Then it was just me and S our newborn left in a bay together, she kept crying in her cot. The midwife came and put her into bed with me, explaining that she wanted to be near to someone more familiar. I was so overwhelmed realising then that I was her whole world at that point in time.

The next few days I entrusted myself into the care of others whilst I myself tried to get to learn how to care for my new girl. It all proceeded fine as I planned for our new life and home together and focused on learning how to get my milk in on Day3 so that I didn’t starve S. The peace of new motherhood ended when I was into my third night with her and just couldn’t settle her. Wouldn’t feed, wouldn’t sleep. The midwife kept asking me what was wrong and whether I could feed her somemore since she was crying so much and keeping the other babies up. I took her pacing up and down the corridor until we found the reason for her anxiety, S did her first big diaper. From then on I was enslaved to her yelps which crescendoes into shrieks everytime you took too long because my S is a lady and wouldn’t abide a soiled bottom. I learnt how to change a nappy in record time.

The day my milk kicked in, I was a proud mother researching apps for how to schedule her feeds, not realising that that would be the least of my worries. S still hadn’t really learnt to sleep alone in her cot and I was still trying to be super mum sending Mr HEA home each night and braving the hospital alone. Humble pie was served to me when one night I was told by one of the midwives that she couldn’t wake me up when she had come in to give S her drip so she took my baby from our bed and gave her her antibiotics and safely returned her to my side, neither S nor me any wiser as to what had transpired. That made it terribly hard to sleep anymore when I realise how irresponsible I was sleeping in a place filled with strangers around me and my baby.

The last straw came when on the morning of when I thought we’d be discharged from the hospital they told me that they recommend my S went through a Jaundice test, that it would take 12 hours. They explained everything to me but I wouldn’t listen to the risks. The thought of another sleepless paranoid night with S waking up the other babies in the ward was pure torture. I pleaded out.

Then when that didn’t work, I hatched a plan with S to pass the test. I told her if she’d work to a regular schedule of feeding and relieving then we’d be able to fight the Jaundice from taking over.

It didn’t work. S was borderline and as a precaution we were to now stay on and put S under that awful blue light until she was in the safe zone and goodness knows how long it would be. At this point, I needed a better plan. In a very Desperate Housewives manner I hatched my negotiations with the midwifery to ensure my child and I got the ultimate luxuries we could get away with if we were to stay on, otherwise I threatened I would not cooperate with the treatment ( I did apologise the next day saying I never knew what came over me) and it worked. I was left to administer the phototherapy in the most peace they could afford us and I broke visitation rules by having both my mum and Mr.HEA there with me. I even had a ham sandwich delivered in the middle of the night which puzzled me because I had asked if there was a vending machine to buy a bag of chips from. Turns out it was a lost in translation moment where they thought I wanted hot chips and that breastfeeding had me ravenous and delusional.

I never thought I would put my child’s health at risk. I thought the hospital was bad for her. But this is where lucid Mr HEA stepped in to call the shots ( but also S’s condition worsened making it now imperative that we undergo treatment) and together as a family, the three of us became this effective team of established regiment. We tirelessly kept to routine and S’s bilirubin came back under control. She was such a trooper though. Being yellow never stopped her from getting up for every feed. That’s how I know she is a trooper.

It wasn’t that horrific an experience for me otherwise. I learnt to dress, feed, settle and let go of my worst fear that I would kill her. I also learnt that I wasn’t alone and that all the other new parents had equal ( in some cases worse) struggles and fears.

The day we were told we were allowed home, I still had a bit of paranoia that they would find something else to keep me back with. So nervous that my blood pressure spiked right back up and the midwife started reaching for the doctor. Thankfully the benevolent doctor didn’t come. S and I were discharged in time to celebrate Mother’s Day evening at home. MrHEA cracked open a new bottle of Scotch and proceeded to wet the baby’s head with his cousin’s husband who’d come to pick us up from the hospital.




There there, we were finally home. S still misses the babies in the hospital who would wake up with each of her feeds. But she is so well loved and there are so many who love her that we really feel blessed and can’t wait to share her with the rest of our world.




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