……The Naked Mum 'Uncut'……

Motherhood really does remind me of Charles Dickens famous lines ” It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. 

After a long week at work I am finally on my day off, today is mummy daughter day, and we get to hang out together. 

Unfortunately like many of our days off together we have to run around town doing errands.  The doctors, the pharmacy, the shopping, the bakery.  Whilst we do manage to try and have some fun together, some days, these simple chores turn into a full blown battle to get a few simple tasks accomplished in a reasonable amount of time, whilst still amusing an excited and energy filled toddler.

Today was one of those days.  Today the little princess had no intention of sitting peacefully in the trolley people watching.  No today she wanted to stand in the trolley.  Climb down my leg and run in the opposite direction to the trolley.  Grab dozens of packets of biscuits off the shelf and throw them into the trolley, and then help speed up the process by pushing the trolley at a speed of two metres an hour. 

After this hour of fun, we then had the battle of paying for the groceries, picking up the script and getting the food into the car without getting the baby killed.

By the time I got home I was exhausted, and there were still bags to get in, nappies to be changed, cold food to be packed away and lunch to be made with the mid day  nap time inching ever closer and her happy go lucky nature going down hill fast.

After a near miss with a grab and projectiled dirty nappy, a battle over today’s dose of antibiotics and a unconvincing game of let’s each lunch, I finally exhaustingly decided to give it all a miss, put her to bed with liquid yoghurt as a reasonable excuse for lunch and try to have a hot cup of tea for once.

As I sit down at my laptop and sip my warm tea and eat my apple teacake (yes my idea of a quick and healthy lunch) I physically and emotionally feel like my soul has been ripped out, dragged behind a bus and shoved roughly back into my tired and weary body. 

I will get an hour or so to wind down, before the afternoon play time begins.  Motherhood is fun but so exhausting.

Mmmm what was that? Did I hear a mummy coming from the other room.  Oh well no more down time for me today.  It is off to get my baby so the afternoon’s games can begin………

I have had a pretty bad run of luck lately when it has come to my daughter’s health.  In the past 3 months she has fallen off a chair at day care which resulted in a split lip and two chipped teeth.  Ended up with a full leg cast after experiencing a toddler fracture in her leg (again at kindy… Mpphhhmmmm!!), been hit by a bike, had a cold and most recently suffered through a middle ear infection.

What you find most apparent when you become a parent, is how much time you see to spend at the Doctor’s and the pharmacy with your baby. 

When you are pregnant you usually dream about gurgling babies and rolling on a blanket in the park whilst baking in the warmth of the morning sun, but the harsh reality is, that once you take your baby out into the big bad world, then those nasty germs and inevitable ‘Murphy’s Law’ is waiting there with bated breath to reek havoc on a new innocent body.  And you spend many of those sunny days sitting in  a cold dark Doctors office.

Last week we visited the Doctor in the hope to get some medicine to clear up my little princesses sore ear. However, mornings, being mornings, we ended up arriving at the clinic 3 minutes late.  I was already in a fluster, as I hate being late, but what took me by surprise this morning was that I was chastised by the Doctor for being late.  Me! You are chastising me for being late! Mmphhh! I thought!

I was actually shocked.  I do not know how many hours I have spent staring at the bleak white walls of his waiting room, whilst he did, who knows what in my office. Whilst I sat patiently wasting my precious time.  Being too busy to make a comment, I just took it on the chin, got my script and got out of there.  But this story does not end there.   Yesterday I needed to go back for a follow up visit to see how the little princesses ear was healing and I made sure I arrived 5 minutes early.  And I bet you can guess what happened, I saw a patient walk out of his room, and then proceed to sit there and stare at his bleak white surgery walls, for another 20 minutes. 

He wanders out without a care in the world and ushers us into his room… No comments here about ‘his’ lateness or any apologies for making ‘me’ wait.   It really must be nice to think that your time is more important than others……. Grrrr!

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Today, my princess and I attended our weekly swimming lesson.  We had a great time splashing around and trying to blow bubbles, but as usual it was over way too fast.  Whilst we enjoy the lessons, the getting out, getting showered and dressed, is always a long and tedious process. 

Whilst we were hanging around waiting for a spot in the showers to become free, I couldn’t help but overhear a conversation between two mothers standing just adjacent to it.

The jist of the conversation was that one of the mums was asking the other mum about her kids, and the other mother actually replied that they weren’t her kids, that she was actually their nanny and she had been looking after them, since the eldest was 5 months old.

Now I must admit that I nearly chocked with schock on the spot! Not because the children had a nanny, but because this woman that I had chatted to on numerous occassions and asked for parenting advice, was not these kids mum.  I just couldn’t believe it… She just looked so much like their mum. 

Not only do they look like her, and obviously adore her, she has an air of complete competence and efficiency that only comes with being a mum a couple of times around.  She is so wonderful and natural with these children that no-one could possibly guess that she was anything but their mother. 

I just shook my head in disbelieve and thought to myself, that mother’s do come in all shapes and forms, and that you do not necessarily have to birth a child to have them love you like a parent and for you to look to the world like their mother.  If only I could clone another of her to take home for my own family.

Elizabeth Stone once said “Making the decision to have a child – it’s momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body”…….

Whilst this really is so true of parenthood, she did forget to mention that you will also quite often have a knot in your stomach and a lump in your throat. 

Today we decided to visit the park on the way home from the shops, hoping to let the little princess have a run around and let off some steam.  We had only been there five minutes when a young boy on a bike literally ran into, and rode straight over the top of her.   I felt like someone in one of those movies where everything is going really slow,  frame by frame, where you stand still and watch in horror as something terrible unfolds in front of your eye; powerless to stop it. 

My baby had only taken two or three steps away from me, and as I lent over to point her back in the direction of the nice soft grass.  A young boy on a bike ploughed straight into her, throwing her face first and skidding into the concrete path.  I must have screamed in terror as my fingers missed her tiny body by inches. 

As I bundled my sobbing and bleeding baby into my arms,  the little boy in question was gone, racing off down the path without a care in the world.

My heart was racing and I think I almost threw up on the spot.  My little one has only been out of  a leg cast for a week or two, and this happens!!!  A leg cast you may ask?  Yes!  Now don’t even get me started on how a well supervised 16 month old baby falls so hard at daycare she ends up in a full leg cast. No, that is a story for another day. 

So back today, we were trying desperately to find the wipes and look for a cold pack in our picnic bag, when the father of ’said’ child, came over.  I thought, ‘well this is nice,  he cares enough to come and check on how she is’.   As he approaches us he sees the two giant eggs forming on her tiny little face and mumbles ‘Oh! I see she has a big lump coming up’, to which my partner says ‘Yes! She did just get ploughed face first into the concrete’. 

Now what happened next, shocked both ourselves and everyone in earshot, the father of Speedy Gonzales then proceeded to abuse us, telling us that it was our fault that his son ran over our baby.  His son who was not hurt, his son who didn’t bother to swerve, or stop once he had hit her.  According to him a 17  months old baby should know better than to step out onto a pathway in a park, where kids could be riding bikes (now let’s not hold it against him the fact that it is a footpath not a bike track -  and one can be found only five metres away may I add)

Now I don’t think anyone is really to blame when kids are playing in a park, as kids are… well kids… but I don’t think I was quite ready for another parent to abuse me for my child being hurt by theirs.  This was a surprise of it’s own altogether.   After not too politely asking ‘Mr Dad of the Year’ to leave, we proceeded to clean our daughter up and ship her home.

I spent the trip home and all this afternoon feeling sick to the stomach… No one prepares you for how horrible it feels, and how terribly helpless and guilty you feel when your baby gets hurt…

Whilst parenthood is filled with joy; it is also filled with a tremendous amount of fear and sorrow….  I wonder how I will go when she starts climbing trees and learning how to ride a bike herself… I fear for my own poor heart as much as I do for her soft little knees……….

Well better sign off now, so I can check, again! that she hasn’t died in her sleep from a head concussion …. And here I was thinking that if I had a girl I wouldn’t be at the ER every second week…..

Once a rock princess and now a yummy mummy…

It wasn’t that long ago, though sometimes it does feel like forever, that my Friday nights were alot different, and were quite frankly all about me.  After a huge week at work, I would get home, crack open a beer, and start winding down.  A bottle of wine would be opened as I started preparing dinner, and the evening would be spend hanging out with my partner.  Just chatting, listening to music or watching DVD’s.  Sometimes we would even ‘pull out our fingers’ and paint the town red.

We would stay up late doing whatever we liked, knowing that we could sleep in as long as we liked the next day, but now that I am mother to a super energised toddler, that resists sleep with the force of a Category 5 cyclone, my Friday nights are completely different.

After an hour of fighting to get her into the bath, then fighting again to get her back out of the same bath, my energy was starting to diminish.  After three laps of the lounge room avoiding getting  dressed, and a four part battle to get her to eat dinner (well decorate the floors and wall with the three types of dinner I prepared for her) I was already losing all interest in Friday night. 

After playing tag team for half an hour with my partner, I managed a semi warm dinner and a mouthful or two of wine.  The wine and the hope that I might get her to bed in time to watch the latest episode of Dexter re-energised my hope for some me time that night.

However, after six separate avoidance tactics when story time arrived, I was ready for bed.  But of course my parenting time was long from over as she had other ideas. 

Six stories, two escapes to the lounge room and three songs later we finally took our battle to stage two.  The rock and the lullaby.  After an hour of kicking, squirming and protesting the sleep bus finally arrived, and she reluctantly handed over her ticket and went for a ride.

I flicked on her night light, closed the door and drudged my way back down the hall.  Looking more like a solider returning from a bloody battle then a women that was out partying to 4.00am not that long ago.

After a couple of hours work on my website (the only time I get to work) I sipped the last of my wine and started wrapping up for bed.  But then that dreaded sound came… the 11.55pm wake up cry.

I felt my heart sink down into my stomach and sighed deeply, I was so tired and who knew how long this re-visit to the sleep bus would take.

An hour later I was dying to pee, the muscles in my back were spasaming and I would have paid a hundred dollars for a mouthful of water.  As I paced the halls I peeked into the master bedroom to see my ‘I’ll wait up for you’ hubby fast asleep in bed.  After another ten minutes of cruising the cold tiles I resided myself to a night of fighting for blankets and getting kicked in the belly as I wearily climbed into the spare bed with my little princess.  As she happily snuggled into my chest and finally blissfully drifted off into the land of nod, I stroked her hair, kissed her beautiful baby cheek, and thought about different my Friday nights are now.

The Naked Mum

Hello World,

Well here I am…..

Five years ago I didn’t even know what an IPod was, and now I run and publish my own website, and have branched into the wonderful world of ‘blogging’.  Kicking or screaming, or a natural transition, most of us will eventually end up here.  Throwing away our phone calls, postcards and scented matching stationary for a chance to feel less lonely in this big bad world.

Social networking is growing by the day, and I think it is a wonderful way for people to share their thoughts and feelings and find some truth from their peers, that really can only be found with true anonymity.

I am a new mother and my world has been completely thrown upside down… some days I have a blast and some days I nearly have a meltdown on the floor, but every day no matter what, I love being a mum, and look forward to sharing some of my chaotic ramblings and views with you all.

If you are a mum, a dad, a mother to be, already a proud mother of a little baby, a toddler, or a crazy little child, then drop by and see what I have been up to.

So Hello World I hope we will become good friends…………