(almost) one month later

I haven’t written in almost a month. This is my first November entry, and in a week November ends. And when November ends, BOM is awfully close to turning six months. Six months. About half of my time, I feel as if I have been a mother forever, but the other half I stare at myself in the mirror and go: “Six months. WTF? It feels as if we have only just left the hospital, like we are still just learning.” I guess the “just learning” thing will be constant from now on, and I guess it will continue for the rest of our lives. For the past 30 years it has been okay to give up after a couple of months – or after a week if it was really that bad, but this time it is for good. And it is fantastic. FANTASTIC!

In a couple of days, maybe even in a couple of hours, I will regret having written that, when BOM won’t eat or sleep or when she – once again – clings to her mother like she is thinking I am about to leave her (according to books it is actually just what she is thinking these days). But right now it feels so right to write it.

We have had a great day today. We were supposed to start swimming when she was three months old, but then we went through a rough phase and I didn’t feel like introducing her to the water, and then we had no one to go with, and then there was another phase and so on and so on. Things kept preventing us from going until today when she was finally introduced to the element which has probably given me the most pleasure in my entire life: Water. And she is not the kind of girl that laughs out loud, but she smiled at me when I blew bubbles in the water, and she let me swim her around in the water without even the faintest sound of being unhappy. And she looked at me with huge blue eyes and I came close to bursting into tears because this is my girl, this is like mother like daughter.

I will grow tired of many things, BOM. You will hate me for not wanting to play the same game over and over with you, but I promise you (and the internet will make me keep my promise): I will take you swimming, at the pool, at the beach. I will let you throw water at me – and I will resist from doing the same to you. And when your daddy is tired of being in the water, I will stay with you for an extra 10 minutes (and maybe even more), because that is how much I love you (and water).

i should be on twitter

Drinking champange and eating brownies. Christening leftovers are great. Cookie up next.

***

Still breastfeeding, but girl’s got to taste champagne sooner or later.

***

BOM now officially has real name, no longer just known as her social security number.

***

We fit 24 adults and 6 children into the apartment this weekend. Should not complain about lack of space.

***

Can’t wait to read the great books we got as gifts to my little girl.

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Or see her wear the bracelet my dad bought for her in Santiago after walking 600 km.

***

BOM will not take the bottle. Spoonfed the child milk this evening instead.

***

Good thing J will be the one doing it tomorrow while I watch Shakespeare and enjoy my first night off in 20 weeks(!)

idiot

Sometimes I am an idiot.

***

Back story:

During all those months of wanting and hoping it took me to become pregnant, I needed new jeans. My favourite Diesel jeans no longer left the colour of my knickers a secret piece of information which would be disclosed to J at night time. Nor did my second or third best Diesel jeans (let us get it over with: I am a Diesel girl). But I didn’t see the point in looking for new jeans since I would be pregnant in no time. No time turned out to be almost a year, then came the nine months where it seemed completely ridiculous to look for new jeans because my stomach kept growing, and then came the months after giving birth where my stomach was all blawahhhblah and I didn’t feel like getting undressed in places such as shops with skinny 18 year old asking me how the jeans fit.

I actually fit into my old jeans quite quickly after giving birth so for the past three and a half months I have been wearing black knickers because that is after all more discreet than white when you wear them under jeans which will reveal their colour.

We went to town Saturday to look for new jeans for J. Not for me, because I didn’t quite feel ready yet. It took J less than 30 minutes to find a pair of great jeans which fit him like a glove. That made me courageous. We left the children’s department (where we had gone to get something for BOM – it is not where J finds his jeans) and headed for “my floor” where I hoped I would find some sweet and plain looking girl who would throw great jeans at me before I had even stated my purpose for the visit. We did not.

I had a meltdown. Right there, among very few jeans (it seemed) and girls wearing too much makeup, but great coats, I had a meltdown. I grabbed a pair of jeans which I knew wouldn’t fit, but were the only ones close to my size, and tried them on. They did – surprise – not fit. So I left. J ran after me with BOM and the pram trying to convince me to keep on looking or ask for another size, but it was too late. I stormed out.

I felt tired and worn out. “I hate the pants I am wearing, I need a haircut, I hate myself,” I told J outside the department store. I was on the brink of crying (hormones, definitely hormones), because basically what I wanted was a pair of great new jeans sans holes. And I wanted them now.

I don’t know how he did it, but J convinced me to look a little more instead of going home (which was where I was headed – and preferably straight to bed). He took BOM and the pram and let me hit the jeans store nearby. 30 minutes later – after opening the door to the changing room a lot more times than I am used to (and comfortable with), and after letting one of the 18 year old shop girls who fit into the skinniest of skinny jeans (who, I have to say, was really great a giving jeans advice and didn’t laugh at my post baby stomach blawahhhblah) see me in jeans that were both too big and too small (way too small, way too skinny) – I walked out of the store with two brand new pairs of jeans. Two great pairs. One pair which looks a lot (or exactly, to be exact) like my most, my second most and my third most beloved pair of jeans (I am not only a Diesel girl, I am also a “if the model fits, buy it – even if it is again and again” girl) and another pair that doesn’t. I had hoped for a pair of skinny jeans which would give me a chance of showing off my new short biker boots, but even though I had no such luck, I am extremely pleased with what I walked away with.

(And after today’s success, I have decided that maybe somewhere someone has created a pair of skinny jeans that will fit me and allow me to show off the boots. Whether or not, I am going to look for them.)

***

Sometimes I am an idiot. But thankfully, luckily, fortunately I am married to a man who won’t let me be an idiot for very long. Thank you…

the difference a year makes

October 16th, 2008

***

A year ago today:

• I found out I was pregnant
• My biggest wish finally came true
• J and I began the journey towards becoming parents
• J brought me yellow roses
• J kissed my belly goodnight – not for the first time, but this time certain he was kissing someone goodnight
• I cried with my trousers ’round my ankles (and I didn’t care one bit)
• I realised why I had loathed the idea of tea and toast (two things I normally love) for some time
• I watched the second line show up on a stick

***

October 16th, 2009

Today:

• I am in love with my baby daughter (four months) (18 weeks two days)
• I am in love with my husband: The father of my child, my best friend, my one of a kind
• It is raining and nothing could suit the day better

***

2008 was great, but 2009 is turning out even better!

toast

(Lesson learned this morning: Turn on the toaster when you want to toast.)

***

I have a draft from Monday which begins: “It’s one of the best Monday mornings in a really long time. BOM is happy and content, she slept until 7:30am, and she smiled at me when I change her diaper in a way that melted my heart and made me give her another 1,008,424 kisses.”

Then came the rest of Monday.

***

At 9pm J is home after a long day at work and an evening meeting. He finds me on the sofa. I am exhausted and on the brink of crying. He holds me, and I whisper what I have been so afraid to admit, what I don’t really want to say: “She exhausts me. Tonight, I had to lay her on the bed, close the door and sit in the room next door and take some deep breaths.” “How long did she lie there?” he asks clearly nervous at the thought of our baby daughter lying on a bed crying like mad and me being in another room. “For a minute or two,” I assure him remembering how loud the crying was and how it cut through the walls and went straight to my heart. “I just needed a minute or two without her in my arms,” I say. “She didn’t calm down until I sat with her in front of the TV and watched a film. Then she fell asleep” I tell him.

***

Tuesday evening I go for a swim. It is my second excursion to the pool since giving birth. I have always loved the water. I have always loved swimming. I have always loved the ability it gives me to clear my head and feel far away from everything. And this Tuesday evening, I like that it allows me “me-time” and time away from a baby girl who is still the cutest thing ever, but is wearing me out with her current phase.

She is on her father’s arm, crying, when I return, but even though my body is tired and heavy, my eyes about to close, I feel more capable of taking care of our girl than I did two hours earlier.

***

I text a friend of mine to tell her that BOM and I are coming over Wednesday night when the boys are all off to watch football. She invited us a couple of days ago, but I hesitated and didn’t know what to answer. “If she freaks out, we will just leave and go home,” I tell J – and more importantly myself – when we talk about it, and so I text her to say I am coming. We are taking a chance.

you feel stupid…

• when you can’t fall asleep at night and are awake between 12 and 3.
• when you spend those hours writing invitations for your daughter’s christening and folding the laundry.
• when you consider getting out the iron and ironing your husband’s shirts.
• (I didn’t.)
• when your body feels hungover the next morning without a single glass of champagne being involved.

right now

Her eyes are still blue, she still breathes, she still sleeps through the night. She still has ups and downs. If you asked her, I bet she would tell you that she is just fine, that she enjoys her life and that she just wants the milk to continue flowing.

I, on the other hand, am feeling a little bla bla. It’s autumn, my favourite season, and I can’t seem to get into it. I wear too much clothes or too little and my head is about to explode with way too many thoughts. One day it’s Monday and then it’s suddenly Saturday and I try to remember how I spent the days inbetween, but I can’t. There’s a lack of organisation that doesn’t really agree with me. I don’t want to miss out, but on the other hand I can’t contain everything, I need time on my own.

I haven’t gotten to the point yet where I miss my job, but I sometimes miss being an employee. I miss being bossed around by an adult whose instructions I understand instead of by a four month old who sometimes cries because, well, she just cries.

I am thinking it is a phase and that I am not the only one going through it. We’re slowly settling into a routine and with that comes the desire to return to parts of my pre-baby world. I want to read a book. I want to nap when my eyes are heavy and not when she (finally) sleeps. I want to sit in a chair and just stare, let go of every single thought in my head.

My baby girl is absolutely smitten with her mother at the moment. I know I should cherish the moment because it isn’t necessarily coming back, but it’s difficult. J longs for her smiles and to be someone she recognises, someone who will make her eyes big and happy. I long to be one of many – or just one of two – who can make her happy.

I chose the life we are living right now. I longed for it. LONGED. I would not change it for the world, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that some days I wish I didn’t have to sit on the floor and entertain my baby girl, some days I wish I didn’t have to cook at night with her in a chair on the floor, never really happy, always crying a little and looking at me with those big “pick me up and entertain me” eyes.

***

2009 has just three months left. I look at my baby girl. By the time 2010 knocks on the door, she will be eating real food, she will be attempting to crawl, she will sit in a high chair. I shake my head and blame myself for not enjoying right here and now some more. This will only happen once. If we have more children none of it will be new, a second child will never be “alone” like the first. And this is basically where my days end at the moment: Longing for something that is difficult to put into words and blaming myself for not enjoying every hour of the day enough.

one, two, three

(I wasn’t going to do this. I wasn’t going to write you monthly letters. Others do that. I was going to not do it. I was going to do something else – maybe. And here you have it: a letter. Just like all the others get letters so do you. Why? Because you are three months old today and you deserve one. The past three months have seen me happier and more sleep deprived than ever – and not necessarily at the same time – so I deserve to write you this letter. Here you go:)

Dearest BOM,

One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. 13 weeks, one day. Three months.

The short version:

You came, we cried and laughed, held you in our arms, fell in love.
We came home, you cried, you rarely laughed, we held you in our arms, we were wornout, but still in love.
We let the weeks go by, you cried less, smiled more, we held you in our arms, we decided to never stop loving you.

The longer version:

Boy do you know how to make sure we will never forget the summer of 2009. Boy do you know how to cry. Boy do you know how to make your mother decide she will never get pregnant again. And boy do you know how to make her change her mind all over. All over.

You arrived. Quickly. 5: 10am on a June Wednesday you started kicking your way out of your mother’s belly. 12:43pm you were out. You made me happy, you made me nervous, you made me ask your dad to sleep by your side the first night, because I didn’t dare. You were tiny and fine.

You cried a lot and slept very little the first 19 days. Then we found out you weren’t getting enough to eat. We fed you some more. You liked. You started sleeping more, crying more.

Dearest BOM,

You cried almost all through your first seven weeks of living. Around week four or five I decided to never have a child again. That’s how much you cried. I think it was around this time you looked at me and thought to yourself: “If I keep going like this for three months, she’s not going to make it, and what’s that about not wanting to give me baby sisters and brothers? I better mix the crying with a bunch of smiles, some babbling and some general sweetness. That should win her over.”

Dearest BOM,

It did. You won me over. If we can, your dad and I will have more children. You did right in switching on the happy button when you did. Your mother needed it. I needed more smiles, less crying. I needed days of no crying. I needed you sleeping peacefully on my chest making me think there’s no place like mum.

The past month has been good. The past month and a little more. All of a sudden you had more time as a happy baby and less as a sad. You slept through the night for the first time, the second, the third – and you started doing it every night. I can’t think of any mother who doesn’t like that.

The past couple of days you have been ill for the first time. Running a fever because of your first injections colliding with a cold. Last night you and I slept on the sofa. We haven’t done that in a while and to be honest, completely honest, I don’t miss it all that much, but there was no getting you to sleep in the crib so sofa it was. You are still coughing, but are much better today and that makes me happy. One cold (almost) down.

Three months old. The stitches have gone and so has the memory of the pain. I am left with a little girl, a happy little girl, that I love more than anything else in the universe. Keep sleeping, keep smiling – and please laugh again soon like you did last night out of the blue – then things are going to be alright, fantastic.

Much love All my love

Your Mum