"The Third Nearly Killed Me"

One of the things I miss most about having my mum around is being able to ask her about when she was at the stage of her life that I'm at now - being a mother to small children. Gosh, how I'd love to sit her down now and have her answer a few questions. Like, were we (my siblings and I) ever this much of a handful? Were we this funny and delightful?  Did we test every single boundary and push every single button?

Last night, I stumbled across a little card in a box of keepsakes. It was sent to my parents when I was born. It was probably one of only a handful - poor, deprived third children don't get as much attention as the first ones, don't I know!!!

Oh, how it made me laugh, that one small line: "Trust you are not too frazzled and have help - the third nearly killed me." Reassuring words from one mum to another. Proof that life and mothering was just as...challenging back in the mid-'70s as it is today.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.

First Day Nerves

There was a rumour going around that I'd been looking forward to this day. After three years and six days of twin-wrangling, I felt I deserved a couple of days a week to myself. I'd had the day on the calendar for months, and have been planning a whole lot of life to coincide nicely with it and the weeks to follow.

We've had a month of milestones and major life happenings for the small people in this house. First days, birthdays, and now this. I expected to feel a pang. I didn't anticipate the kick-to-the-stomach smack of emotion that I got as I drove away. They were excited, kissed me goodbye happily, didn't look back. I edged away feeling unexpectedly bewildered. My babies.

And I returned home, looked about vacantly and was suddenly overcome with exhaustion. A bone-tired exhalation and collapse.

So busy are we clearing the path and smoothing things over for the big stuff in their lives, we forget that they're the big stuff in our lives too.

My babies.

(They had a wonderful day, were dancing in a circle at pick-up time, and we had a hard time convincing them to come home. Tonight I feel OK again. And now I'm going to sleep.)

Abundant

"I have abundant patience and love for my children. I have abundant patience and love for my children."

I've been repeating the affirmation to myself as often as possible, as often as I think to, over the past couple of weeks. Sometimes it's with a gentle half-smile on my face as I watch them over the top of my knitting playing delightfully with each other. Usually, however, it's in a kind of high-pitched, manic imaginary voice, desperate and breathless, as they fight or scream or push the endless buttons. I HAVE ABUNDANT PATIENCE AND LOVE FOR MY CHILDREN. I DO I DO I DO.

But I don't. Becoming a parent has shown me the depths of my impatience. I know all the right things to do on an intellectual level, but in practice, in the heat of the moment, I've got nothing. If you don't count my screams. At the end of a run-of-the-mill tussle over a toy or a dress or a bike, they move on unscathed, forgetting the moment, but I'm left panting, a worn-out heap in the corner. I've never been good at conflict.

And what of the love business? I love my kids, yes, adore their tiny pink socks off at times, miss them heartily in the rare moments I'm away, go to sleep at night remembering all the funny things they said that day, whilst automatically, quite cleverly I think, erasing all memories of the horror. But nonetheless I had to add 'love' to the affirmation because while it might be a given in theory, in practice it is far more fleeting. It can leave the room in an instant, then waft back in, only to vanish again a moment later. I might love them because I just do (because we do, we just do), but I don't love everything about them and I don't always love being with them. I don't love doing playdough. I don't love reading the 305th book of the day.

I don't know how to reconcile all of the madness with all of the mush.  I don't know how to make sense of 'besotted' and 'crazy-angry' when they're lined up together on the shelf.

I do know that my kids are being kids. They're doing what comes naturally. And the thing that needs to change in this high-stress whirlwind isn't them.

Thus, I have abundant patience and love for my children.

Butterflies and Rainbows

This one, she sleeps well. And she wakes looking like she's done 10 rounds with the doona. Hair askew, puffy eyes, gorgeous.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Yesh."

"What did you dream about, baby?"

"Bufflies and wainbows."

She reels it off in her croaky little voice, and while I know she's only repeating something she heard me say a long while ago, it always makes me smile.

I imagine being able to plant seeds for her real dreams so easily, filling her sleeping visions, and the imaginings that may come to life, with little waymarks, guiding her forward into a wonderful future.

What did you dream about, baby?

Endless play. Adventures, big and small. Passionate learning. Far-flung destinations. Deep and lasting friendships. Fulfilling, creative work. One true love (but only after a handful of lesser ones). Beautiful, healthy, funny children, in a long time, after many other important things have been done. 

Long life. Contentment.

Butterflies and rainbows.

Serious/Not Serious

Some serious and some not so serious reading this week. After my plaintive cry for help a few weeks ago, a small book order was placed. I added Simplicity Parenting to the basket because it has been on my wishlist for a while and I thought it might supplement the toddler titles well. And the ideas within already make such sense to me - less stuff, less screen time, less rushing, less stress - so I'm keen to back up my own thoughts with somebody else's science and professional viewpoint. 

When the opportunity for a quick escape arose this afternoon, I popped the book into my bag with some knitting - another hat in green. But upon arriving at the cafe on the corner and ordering my soy latte, suddenly I didn't want to read about parenting, or childing, or mumming, or familying, or any other serious 'ing. And then the latest glorious Gourmet Traveller bounced into my hands...with its chocolate and banana French toast with salted caramel oozing off the cover, I mean, how could I resist...

Seriously good.

Yarn Along over here.

And when not knitting hats, I'm making merry progress on the pink queue-jumping jumper too...

H.E.L.P.

This is my 400th post. I had plans for a celebration-type thing. Instead, I'm here with a plea. Those of you who have a two-year-old or have ever had a two-year-old - better yet, TWO two-year-olds - I need your advice.

My first child wasn't much of a tantrum-thrower and, being number one, she had no-one to fight with. The pair, however, love to chuck a good wobbly, and fight with each other and their big sister and their parents over pretty much anything. Colour of bowl. Method of getting into car seat. Order in which shoes go on. You get the picture.

I'm a reader, so hit me with great parenting books you've come across, or links to websites, or just your own pearls of wisdom. They don't have to be twin-specific, though that would be helpful. And nothing too scientific, please. Just good commonsense advice, tools and techniques to help me get through the day with less screaming and crying and flailing of limbs and tearing out of hair (and that's just me).

I've googled a few titles that I think will help, but 'Parenting Through the OCD Years' and  'Knit Your Way to Sanity' haven't been written yet. I need something that sheds light on what's so bloody important about the purple spoon or the pink stockings (but not the pink stripey stockings, the ones with the flowers, unless they're in the wash, in which case the spotty ones...)

You can see the glint in her eye, can't you? And she's just half of the problem. A large half, admittedly...

Pearl Time

I had all sorts of lofty ideals when I was pregnant with my pair about how our family would handle the twin thing. I read lots of books and agreed with them all about how important it would be to foster my babies' individuality. We succeeded at many things. On only a handful of occasions have the girls been dressed in matching clothes, and then usually at bedtime. And I almost never refer to them as "the twins". They've always been "the babies", "the girls" or just Pearl and Stella. Or Stearl and Pella, if I'm having a bad day.


But the one in which we scored a big fat fail was the idea to spend lots of one-on-one time with each of them. I remember the fervour with which I discussed this plan with the GM. It will be really important, I said, that we each get a chance each week to get out of the house with each baby, on their own. To foster and develop our relationships with each of them as unique and beautiful individuals rather than part of a unit, like. 


Uh-huh.


This on top of my determination that Lola's life be disrupted as little as possible by quite possibly the biggest thing that can disrupt a two-year-old's life - not one but two interlopers. That we get lots of one-on-one time with her away from the babies. And of course, the GM and I would need to have lots of one-on-one time with each other to nurture our relationship as friends and lovers as distinct from parents. Uh-huh. Oh, not to mention lots and lots and lots of special solo time, each of us, on our own, so that we could return to our parenting role with renewed patience and vigour.


Someone send me some of those 37-hour days, please. Maybe nine a week. Uh-huh.


Not counting the hundreds of hours of 'special time' we've spent with Stella in the midnight hours, or the dozens of hours (a day, it seems) I spend with Pearl hovering just to the right of my elbow, one-on-one time with these babies of mine has been a hard thing to come by. And I admit, I've always put the chance for a solo coffee or a solo movie or even a solo supermarket trip ahead of precious ambles in the park with just one of my children, if a spare hour or three has ever arisen.


Until last week when, thanks to the meningococcal scare, I was gifted two awful but very lovely nights alone with my Pearl. Yes, the cannula in her arm was a nightmare, painful for her and a pain in the arse for me every time she moved and set the alarm a-bleeping. Yes, the hourly visits from the nurses to check her temperature were traumatic, not from anything they did but because Pearl thought the worst and would scream and cry until they left the room. And, yes, seeing my little girl lying there covered in red welts, feeling sore and sad and sorry, was heart-breaking.


But it was two nights (Daddy got the daytime) of her and me, cuddling and snuggling, watching 'Playschool', reading 'Nurse Nancy', singing songs, sharing toast, and holding hands across the bed rail. Uninterrupted by the day-to-day. Time standing still.


And I've come out of it with boundless new love and patience for this brave and funny little girl.


Of course, I'm OK if we don't have to go to such extreme measures to find special time together in the future. But however it was delivered, helped immeasurably by the happy outcome, I'm grateful for it.

Big and Fat

I am a big fat food hypocrite. There, I've said it. I love food. I eat a lot of it. And I spend a large portion of my day shopping for, preparing, cooking and feeding it to my family. And thinking about it. I think about food an awful lot. I think about what to cook for dinner tonight, what I might cook for dinner tomorrow night, what I'd cook for lunch if I ever got around to inviting those friends over, what I'll have for lunch today. I think about whether I should eatlessmeatcutbackonsugarlowermysaltintaketrytogoorganiclocalveganraw. But while nothing puts a spring in my step more than seeing my girls chow down on unadulterated, un-'hidden' broccoli or carrots, I could pretty much take or leave the stuff.

I was a fussy eater as a kid. The only vegetables I ate were peas, corn and potatoes. I hated broccoli. Tomatoes made me gag. It wasn't until I worked in a cafe in my teens where the chef, relentless in her determination, made me try new things, that I started to broaden my horizons. And then there was a half-arsed trip into vego-land when I hit 20. I say half-arsed because, though my dedication was pure (to the meat-free diet as well as the vegetarian boy who inspired me), my application was flawed. I pretty much just swapped out meat for cheese. Nary a bean or lentil crossed my palate during that time. It probably didn't help that I spent most of my vegetarian years backpacking across Europe on a very flimsy budget - for two whole years it was all about the cheese sandwich, or variations on it. Cheese and mushroom pizza. Cheese pierogi. Cheese and spinach pastry. Fried cheese, thank you, Prague.

But I'm older and wiser now. And I have grown to really love good food. I love eating out. I love reading about food. I love flouncing about in interesting grocery stores (and boring ones too, I admit). I love farmers markets and dinner parties and the Bourke Street Bakery and Jamie Oliver and Maggie and Stephanie. And Hugh. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, food/farm spunk.

And I'm all about the home-cooked, unprocessed, local, seasonal, fresh, whole, when it comes to food for my family. I eat broccoli now, and lots of it. Spinach too, and tomatoes.  A whole lot of good stuff. Meat, yes, that's back on the menu, ever since the day many years ago when I was taking a little nanna nap at my sister's house and was awoken by the gentle, persuasive waft of her lamb roast sizzling away in the oven. My arteries are grateful - there's far less cheese now as a result.

But for all my consciousness and conscientiousness and outright dedication in this area, I can turn on a food binge like no-one I know. No sooner are children in their beds than I'm seeking out chocolate in the fridge. Who am I kidding? I seek out chocolate most of the day, in various forms, often secretly. I'm not above ripping open a packet of choc chips from the baking cupboard. And someone should put white bread and chocolate in the same aisle at the supermarket, because they are entirely related in my world. We long ago converted to wholemeal bread in this house, but every now and then a craving hits, and it's very specific - soft white sliced bread with peanut butter. Slice after squishy, salty, sugar-laden slice. I might as well dive headfirst into a vat of hot chips for all the good it's doing me.


And sometimes the mummy martyr comes out. You know her? The fridge may be heaving with lovely blueberries and strawberries, there may even be bananas in the fruit bowl - $13 bucks a kilo until a few weeks ago - but at that price, I'm not gonna waste it on myself when there's a chance I can go to bed knowing my girls have eaten something fresh and fruity and oh, so wholesome that day. I'll just have a biscuit instead.

I won't go on. Suffice to say, when the bad food binge hits, there can be days at a time when I wouldn't recognise a vegetable if it walked through the front door and hit me over the head with a carrot. Except for when I'm lovingly peeling and slicing and steaming said carrot, then feeling my heart swell with 'good mother' pride as my little ones munch away on them for dinner.

There. Hypocrite. See?

The Worker

I recently read a blog post by a woman who wasn't sure if she should say it but, oh, heck it, she was a stay-at-home mum and she loved it. She'd found since having kids that all of her career aspirations had gone out the window and she wanted nothing more than to be at home raising her babies and nurturing her family. Good for her. But I was taken aback by the response - comment after comment of stay-at-home mums saying how misunderstood they felt, how they were made to feel ashamed because they were no longer in the work force, and that society only values you if you work etc etc. I was shocked by how divisive the topic was, and how much the word 'choice' was bandied about. 'Cause from where I'm sitting, if you're lucky enough to be able to choose not to work, then what's the problem?

Most of my friends and acquaintances who have kids work in some form or another, be it full-time, part-time or in their own businesses. I know a few stay-at-home mums, most with very young children, all who plan to return to the work force some time in the future. And the handful I know who don't work have the financial freedom to be able to make that choice. The reality is, for most of the women in my world, working is a necessity. Sure, there's a level of fulfilment, even sanity-preservation, involved in heading out to the office, but most just need the cash. Perhaps it's a Sydney thing - the city that demands a double income. There just isn't a choice.

And yes, yes, I know, there are always choices. There are always changes that can be made if something is important enough. You could leave the city, move somewhere more affordable, look for ways to cut costs around the house, eat beans three nights a week. Forgo the annual holiday. Get rid of the car. Sell a kid. It sounds so simple, but it never is.

I wonder how these working women would be if money was no longer an issue. Would they happily remain at home with their children all day? I guess it depends on the work they're doing, whether they consider it their career, or just a job, whether they'd feel fulfilled as a full-time mum, whether they have good childcare options.

I've been thinking about this stay-at-home/working mum dichotomy, and I don't think it's so cut and dried. And I also think there's a side-effect that the stay-at-homers aren't really delving into, and that's the dads. One thing I know for sure is that, unless you're really swinging in the big-time, if you're a single-income family then one of the parents is working out of the house a lot of the time. It's all very well that kids get their mum all day and night, but do they get any quality weekday dad time?

The GM and I have a slightly unusual arrangement. We're double income by necessity, and  while my job isn't always fulfilling or inspiring, I do ultimately derive some satisfaction from it and look forward to my working days as a necessary 'break' from all the kid stuff. The GM is a rare breed - I know he isn't joking when he says he'd happily be a full-time stay-at-home dad.


This is a bit about our situation: We've both always shared the load when it comes to bringing home the bacon, though the GM has carried a bit more of the burden since I had our babies. We both work for the same company, and because the job isn't 9:00 to 5:00, Monday to Friday, we were able to manage things after Lola was born so that we could avoid childcare. I returned to work one day a week when she was four months old, and when she was eight months old, I picked it up to full-time while the GM had a few months of paid parental leave. After he resumed working, we began the juggle - with a bit of help from aunties and grandparents. There were a couple of days a week when I would drive to work with Lola at 3pm and do the baby handover at the office door. In I went to work, home went the GM and Lola for dinnerbathbed.

Things have been very different since Pearl and Stella came along. The twin effect meant that our company agreed to let us work from home, and now the GM only goes into the office two days a week, then he jams his other three days into two at home. I work three days a week, upstairs in the 'office' - spread out over an evening here and there and two full days when the GM looks after the girls. I haven't set foot in the company office, aside from a couple of social visits, for nearly two years.

We're both tired most of the time. Weekends are not sacred, though they should be. I am always working on Saturday, and often Sunday becomes a work day for one of us too. The reality of our situation is that when we're not working, we're usually single-handedly caring for the kids - two or three, depending on whether it's a preschool day. The GM and I get about 17.5 minutes* together each week, if you don't count sleepytime, and none of those 17.5 minutes are child-free. 

And yet, this is our choice. And yet…we don't have a choice. We need the income. We're not comfortable putting our babies into childcare. We can't afford that childcare, at any rate. We are lucky enough to have an employer that accommodates us and a job with flexible hours. But what's most important, I think, is that our kids get both of us equally. They don't get me all day and Dad for half an hour before bed and on weekends. They don't get rushed out the door each morning to day care, then raced home in time for dinner and bed. And for all the downsides of working at home (and that's a whole 'nother post), even when we are working, our kids can still see us, talk to us, come up for a cuddle or a chat when they need to. It's like the best of both worlds - we're full-time stay-at-home working parents, by choice, yet without a choice.

And I think most other families - be they single income, double income, stay-at-home, work-from-home, home-schooling - don't have a whole lot of choice either. They're just doing what works for them. And making it work as best they can. Those that do have a choice about whether they work or not, lucky for them.


* This figure is slightly exaggerated.

The Night Drive

Wednesday night, midnight: I was driving around Sydney streets in a last-ditch attempt to get the toddler in the back seat to go to sleep. She'd been awake since 9:30. I needed petrol so I pulled into a busy-ish service station on Parramatta Road and, in my pyjamas, filled up, then paid. The toddler was wide-eyed.

It took over half an hour, but it worked. She finally drifted off. I should add, this is the good sleeper of the pair. And it was only because she is prone to snoozing in the car that I even tried it. With all the sleep issues we had with her sister back in the bad old days, we never resorted to nocturnal driving. I doubt it would have worked.

It's been a hellish couple of sleep weeks, thanks to a cold and cough moving through the family. Day naps have been wishy-washy, night-times have been atrocious. It's been babies who won't go to sleep, or go to sleep for a couple of hours then wake up screaming. Babies who need dummies (bloody dummies) to be found, even though there are four in the cot. Babies who are standing up in bed and need help lying down again. Babies who are so tired the next day that they nap in the pram on a morning walk, which means they won't go to sleep at nap time, which means they are so tired by bedtime they can't sleep. Fun, fun, fun. 


Then there's the behavioural stuff. Screaming and whining and pulling hair and gouging eyes and throwing bowls full of food and pushing each other over. Whingeing to be picked up picked up picked up, screaming to be put down put down put down. Crying for a snack, throwing the snack across the room when it's not the right sort. Oh, God, the fun.


I was listening to a radio interview the other day and somewhere in the middle of it the show host talked about the years when the interviewee met her partner, got married, had babies, went back to work, changed careers etc etc etc. "Having babies" was glossed over in the arc of this woman's life. Well, not so much glossed over but with her children now teenagers, it was obvious those early days of babies and sleep issues and tantrums and poo and spew and relentless slog were a thing of the past, and that it was all just one fragment in the big picture. 


And it made me think that when I'm in the throes of all this little kid stuff, bogged down in the minutiae of the every day, I should try and remember this is just one part of it. Soon, though hopefully not too soon, it will be over and we'll be onto the next phase. I'll be cheering from the sidelines of a soccer field, or drowning in boredom waiting for my kid's turn at the piano recital, or nursing someone through big exams, or helping them move into their first flat, or cracking a bottle of bubbly to celebrate a new job or watching on (please let me) as they have their own babies. And when I start thinking like that, if I can stop weeping long enough, it makes a couple of weeks (months? years?) of sleep deprivation seem a little less catastrophic.

Isn't that right, grumpy bum?

NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!

Many days - most days, in truth - it feels like a battle of wills. She who is four versus she who is 30...something, clashing all the day long. Please eat your breakfast. Please use your spoon. Please come and get dressed. Please help pack away your pencils. It occurred to me, sometime around two (years old) that one of the things I struggle with most is hearing 'no' all the time. Having endless requests turned down politely, refused defiantly, ignored totally. No, no, no, no, no. And though we have happy days where it feels like our goals align, there are so many stretches of day after day where her ears seem to stop working and I'm on the hamster wheel of shouting, then feeling bad for shouting, then shouting again, then feeling bad again...

She is so spirited, a little fire burning in her. And on the days when she behaves beautifully, trying so eagerly to please me, that spark is somehow diminished. Because her natural inclination is to do as she wants, follow her imagination, meander about in conversation and in thought. And that means, when you're four, that boring requests like "pick up your fork and eat your dinner" or "say goodbye to the little dog and come home now" have to be ignored. And a mummy who has asked for the same thing a dozen times and been ignored or refused several dozen more can sometimes lose her cool.

Yet, here's the clincher - everything's easier when I bend and flow with her rhythm rather than trying to force her to fall into step with mine. She is so alive, so sociable, so curious, I fear that 'fixing' the part of her that is defiant, disobedient, sometimes downright naughty, will damage those other qualities. Do I want the perfectly well-behaved, compliant child who's too afraid to speak lest she say the wrong thing, or do I want my kid, she who is four, who'll stop and chat to anyone, and whose enthusiasm for life can't help but bubble over, even when the more socially correct thing to do is to sit quietly? Obviously that question's a rhetorical one.

Today I listened to this podcast that has been waiting on my iPhone for months, and it was exactly what I needed to hear. Psychologist Hara Estroff Marano talks about the over-supervision of children and how little time and space we give them to play, make their own mistakes and solve their own problems. And she hit a chord with me when she talked about wanting her children to have a backbone - as in, she didn't mind if they answered back, if they were outspoken, if they expressed strong opinions. She said compliance wasn't high up on her list of values.

And I think, until listening to this, compliance has been up there for me. Who is this four-year-old who lives under my roof and still thinks she can defy me? Fall into line, kid! Perhaps it's because I always fell into line. I was so polite. I didn't want to do the wrong thing. I didn't want to step on any toes.

Well, I'm removing 'compliance' from my list. At least, I'm going to start trying. I still want her to understand respect and good manners and courtesy. I want her to be kind and compassionate and to have empathy. But I'm going to stop demanding obedience all the time.

 I want her to be strong and gutsy and funny and vulnerable, and to learn and appreciate my and her dad's values. I want her life to be a series of great bursts of happy, and for her to have resilience against any sad, angry, hurt, disappointed or scared that falls in between. But ultimately, I want to give her the resources to make her own decisions, recover from setbacks and follow her own path.

So when she tells me, as she did recently, that she wants to be three things when she grows up - a princess, a "doctor-nurse who drives an ambulance" and a farmer's wife - I'll say, "Go get 'em, sunshine."

:: I'm hoping lots of people listen to the podcast and take on the ideas, because if I ever work up the courage to open the door and send my girls out into the street for a morning of unsupervised play (like in the good old days when we were young), it'd be nice to think there'll be some other kids out there to play with...