Our morning, the way-too-real version

I'm going to start this post by saying this: motherhood is amazing. Beyond amazing. People talk a lot about how tough and trying it is - and yeah, it is. But it's also wonderful, full of moments that transform you and what you thought about love and humanity and family and life.

Then there are mornings like this morning.

Let me set the scene by telling you that Audrey has never been a great sleeper. That's fine, it happens, we deal with that with a lot of love and patience and acceptance (and whinging about how tired we are). But last night, she was distraught and not sleeping and I was so exhausted that I fell into a sort of half-comatose daze on the bed while Ian took her downstairs where she would cry for me and hyperventilate and be so distressed that he would bring her back up, and I would drag myself from mostly-dead to barely-awake and try to calm her, nurse her, until she would get fed up of being in bed and run to the stair gate screeching "Dada dada DOWNSTAIRS!" and the cycle would repeat. This went on for quite a length of time, until eventually she fell asleep.

Audrey lately has been refusing to wear clothes or nappies (or to use a toilet or potty). Friends, I am trying SO. VERY. HARD. to be understanding and patient about this, but I'll be honest with you. This pushes at the very limits of my sanity. We can't go out anywhere, we're always late, and I am FOREVER cleaning up "accidents" from the carpet, the bed, even (on one very memorable occasion) the vacuum cleaner. So when she eventually fell asleep last night Ian and I managed to scrape together the presence of mind to put a nappy on her before we collapsed, still fully clothed, into bed.

This morning Audrey was not happy that we'd had the temerity to put a nappy on her over night. She didn't eat breakfast, wouldn't let me put a nappy on her, wouldn't let me put clothes on her. Normally fine, I'd give her some space and let her cool off and we'd try again later while she's distracted watching endless episodes of Pocoyo. But today was a bit special. See, today I'd organised a special meeting of the creative writing group I run. I'd been trying and failing to organise this for a couple of weeks, since I'd had no time or energy to get it properly sorted, but finally I'd managed to get it settled for this particular day - and due to exhausted bad planning, I'd had to cancel another meeting that I'd managed to cross schedule for the same time. I'd organised this meeting for fairly early, 10am, so that it would be done before Audrey's nap time. And now, with about an hour before we were due to arrive there, I got a message saying that the place we were supposed to meet was actually closed and we'd have to change the meeting place at the last moment. Argh!

Friends, I don't - as a rule - force Audrey into things that are to do with her own body, like nappies and getting dressed. Yes, that means more work for me. Yes, that leads to the mind numbing futility of trying to argue logically with a 2 year old (if you want to go outside, you have to put your shoes on!). But for me, it is so very important to respect her autonomy, her consent. Her no and yes. There can be consequences - no time outside if you're not dressed. But I'm not going to forcibly put clothes on her struggling body while she screams no at me. That feels REALLY WRONG. What am I teaching her about consent? What am I teaching her about who owns her body? I'm not going to do that.

Except, this morning, stressed and harassed, I did. I forced her into a nappy and her clothes and I felt awful about it. I said to myself - it's not worth it. Being on time, being there at all, it's not worth it. I hugged her tight and apologised, we had a quiet moment of recovery, and we were off.

I was so overwhelmed and exhausted and guilty that it wasn't until we were most of the way into town that I realised I'd gotten on the wrong bus. A bus that takes me to the new town, when we were meeting in the old. I look at my phone - we're already a few minutes late. Damn. I decide to tough it out, to get Audrey off the bus and carry her all the way to where we're meeting. It's maybe a mile away, up a very steep hill. But I'm a mum, I'm a badass, John McClane's got nothing on me, I can do this.

When we get off the bus, I pick Audrey up and sit her on my shoulders, because that's the quickest way to carry her without my arms falling off after two minutes. We walk up the wide, busy Princes Street, get to a crossing. Audrey pushes the button, we wait for the green man, we start to cross.

Audrey starts to vomit. All over my head, my face, into my clothes. She keeps vomiting. I can't put her down - it's a wide, busy road. I have to keep going. So does she. When we get to the pavement I stand her on her feet and she keeps throwing up onto the ground for a few moments. I bend down to stroke her back and can feel the vomit dripping off my hair and face.

I have spare clothes for her. None for me. I scrub at myself with baby wipes, but there is vomit inside my clothing, on my breasts and my stomach and down the back of my shoulders. It mats my hair. The wipes hardly help. I take Audrey's clothes off and she instantly insists she isn't getting dressed in the clean clothes. I have a most-naked, vomit covered toddler shrieking "NONONONONO" in the middle of Princes Street and everyone is staring at my coat, my hair, my child. There's no bin to put the dirty wipes in so I stuff them into my bag. There's no way to get home that doesn't involve getting on some kind of transport which might make her throw up again. I'm starting to feel about as vulnerable as I've ever felt.

I manage to get her dressed, and we go for a walk because that might settle her stomach, right? And it does seem to, so we keep walking. I carry her when I have to. We walk a long way, towards where we live - an impossible distance away. I know I can walk that distance in just over an hour when I'm on my own and in good form. Audrey could never make it, even when she's not ill, and I can't carry her that far. We stop in to a newsagent and I buy her anything she asks for - a sausage roll, a bottle of water, a bag of salt and vinegar crisps. She eats them while we walk, and I feel like this is all my fault - she didn't even want to go out today. I pushed it, I organised things, it's my responsibility. I'm a terrible parent, if I was a better parent maybe she would sleep better, maybe she would get dressed easier, maybe she'd learn to use the toilet instead of the hoover. I think "eff it" and decide to try a bus again. I put my arm protectively around her and give hard looks at anyone who wrinkles their nose at us - at the smell and the matted hair and the way my two year old scoffs down vinegar crisps instead of the banana I lovingly packed for her snack. I'm daring someone to say something, because if I can snap at someone then maybe I won't cry. I send distraught text messages to people explaining our absence, and tell Audrey over and over that I love her, very quietly. I point at things outside the window and try to get her interested, thinking it will help any nausea.


We make it home. My eyes are stinging from the vomit. I carry her, my arms aching, the short way from the bus stop to our house. Up all the stairs. In our front door. She takes off all her clothes, as she does, and we crawl into bed in the dark side by side and lie there until she falls asleep. I sneak a nappy on her.

I take a bath. I write this post. I wait for her to wake up, for it all to start again.

To the people who skim this blog only looking at the pictures: you're probably the winners today! The photos are entirely unrelated to the text. You'll be glad to know I didn't take a single pic of what went down this morning.

Outside

The weather is finally starting to turn - away from frost and unexpected snow falls into daffodils and tree blossom and the occasional patch of cold sunshine.

It's a change we enjoy. We're going out more often (hello year pass to the zoo) and enjoying the city in new ways. Fewer trips to the museum, more trips to the Botanic Gardens, to the zoo, to the Hermitage. More swings and slides and see-saws. More paddling in the burn.

Audrey's sleep has been unsettled for months now and nothing we try seems to help - until last night, when we put a black out curtain up on the nursery window and she slept until gone 7am! This is a very welcome change to the 5am mornings, although a part of me will miss waking up with the sun. I am such a morning person, and I love the quietness of that early time - especially in spring/summer, when it's light out.

I have to confess, I really struggle with how dark it gets here for so much of the year. Days where we only get a few hours of dim day time. It seems to go on for so long, and it's so very draining. Especially with a two year old - we want to be outside! It's only spring and already I'm dreading next winter. Ah well, I suppose I have all summer to get used to the idea.

Letter to my baby

Dear Audrey,

It's your 2nd birthday today, and I'm writing this while watching you sleep, waiting for you to wake up and have breakfast and presents and all of the fun things we have planned.

This time two years ago, I was also waiting. I was sat in a hospital waiting room and I knew I'd be meeting you that day. I was very scared, so scared I felt sick and my hands were shaking when I tried to write you a letter. I knitted instead, a little green dress for you. I couldn't imagine you wearing it. I couldn't yet imagine you at all, even when they scanned you and I saw your beautiful squished up face pressing into my rib cage.

You were born at 10.20am and I'll never forget that moment as long as I live. It didn't feel like the moment I became a mother - I had already felt like a mother for months as I struggled through a very difficult pregnancy and felt every movement you made inside my swollen body. But it did feel like an entirely new kind of love, an entirely new kind of emotion all together.

I had been worried that I wouldn't get that, that bonding rush. That instant flood of love. I really needn't have worried. It took a few moments before I could see you, as I was lying down on the operating table unable to move, and the nurses had you behind me. I kept pleading with your dad "can you see her? can you see her?" It must only have been a minute or two but it felt like forever before the midwives handed you to your dad, and he showed you to me. He held you against my chest, close to my face while I struggled to be able to support you.

I had thought you would have fair hair, or no hair, as both your dad and I had really blonde hair when we were little. But you had a shock of very dark brown hair and eyes the colour of mushrooms when you blinked up at me, unfocused and amazed.

The moment of your birth is such a sacred time for me now. A time when those moments when I touched your impossibly tiny hands and cried and told you over and over how much I loved you in front of your dad and that theatre full of strangers are vivid in my mind. The moments when you made me a mother.

Our bond was instant and beautiful and has only grown since then. Now you're big enough to fling your arms round me for a hug, to sit on my knee and read stories, to hold my hand while we walk outside. It's hard to believe sometimes that my big girl was that tiny baby with the mushroom coloured eyes and tiny, grasping starfish hands. The one I felt move inside me all those months.

And it's funny, but as long as I keep hold of those moments - as long as I remember how much I love you - parenting becomes so much more straightforward than it can sometimes seem. I love you. We're in this together.

And now you're waking up, so it's time to go.

Have a wonderful day, birthday girl!

I love you forever and ever.

Mum x

Birthdays

I have yet another horrid cold just now, boo. So to cheer myself up, here is a post with pics from my birthday last month!

Ros was here, and we went to Butterfly World during the day, always a favourite with Audrey because of all the butterflies and caterpillars (not to mention the reptiles and spiders and other insects), and a favourite with me because it is SO nice and warm.

We had lunch at the garden centre, and bought Audrey some books (I can't help it, I have a COMPULSION when it comes to buying children's books!) and she also chose a glittery purple dragon, who sat next to her on the bus home and who now goes everywhere with her in her rucksack.

In the evening we went out for dinner and Audrey drank a lot of chocolate milkshake and then fell asleep on her chair. Bless her.

It's Audrey Bea's birthday on Saturday and we're all looking forward to it, in a very relaxed sort of way. It will be a wonderful weekend.

Gold fish, silver fish, big blue pond

Yesterday Audrey picked up a piece of paper. It was a leaflet with a picture of a fish on it. "Oh no!" she said. "Got to put it in the pond!" We were supposed to be heading out. I'd struggled to get her dressed, struggled to get myself dressed, struggled to get her to put her welly boots on and keep them on. We had things to do, Important Things by boring, grown up standards. I was tired, we were late. I was boring and grown up and fed up. "I don't think we've got a pond, darling," I sighed.

"The pond!" she insisted. And I had a quick and slightly stern mental chat with myself about exactly what is really important, about the kind of parent I want to be and the kind of life I want to live and... well, long story short, we've spent the last 24 hours constructing one freaking awesome pond in our living room, guys.

We did still go out. We did still get things done. But in between those boring, grown up things we dyed rice blue with food colouring. We cut big pieces of sugar paper and taped them together. We've ripped up tissue paper, we've spread glue around with a little plastic red glue stick, and we've stuck fish shaped stickers onto paper fish.

What's the point of all the grown up have-to-do stuff? It's this, isn't it? Paper ponds and fancy fish. Mess and creativity and pretend, crammed into the spaces between all the ordinary brickwork of our ordinary lives.

This morning Audrey is adding some finishing touches to the pond while wearing nothing but a rocket ship pyjama top and a pair of sunglasses. She accidentally hit me in the face with a plastic red glue stick, and when I flinched she laughed. "No," I said, let her hearing how sad and hurt I was that she found my pain funny. I tried to use her own language. "That hurt me. Big bump, ow."

I saw her face change. "Poor Mama," she said. "Oh Mama. Make it better." She stroked my face where she'd hit it, the same way I do for her when she walks into the rocking chair or trips on a toy. She kissed the top of my head. "There. 's that better? Big hug." She folded herself into my arms. "Thank you, baby," I murmured.

"You're WELCOME, Mama. Now come on - hide!"

Nearly Two

Audrey will be two years old next month. It's amazing. As I'm writing this she's dancing with her toy dinosaur, laughing and singing. Audrey at nearly-two LOVES to sing. Incy Wincy Spider, Wind the Bobbin Up, Wheels on the Bus, Bob the Builder. She does all the actions.

Audrey at nearly-two is learning how to read. She has a couple of sight words (cat, dog, hat) and is working on more. She knows some but not all of the phonics sounds. She understands she has to sound out the letters to make the word. She sees the word cat and says "c-a-t... cat!" We play a lot of letter games.

Audrey at nearly-two is great at counting to ten, although she often misses out the numbers 2 and 4. This is getting better with practice - and there is nothing Audrey loves more than practicing her counting! She counts EVERYTHING she sees. We play a lot of number games.

Audrey at nearly-two watches possibly too much television. She has dvds of Charlie and Lola, Bob the Builder, Peppa Pig, the Aristocats. She likes the Wiggles and Pocoyo, which she watches on youtube. She still loves the French cartoon Trotro. She introduces herself to characters on the screen: "Hello Ellie! I'm Audrey."

Audrey at nearly-two loves to "read" books. She sits and looks at the pictures and describes everything that's happening, telling you (or, more often, the cats) the whole story. She especially likes to tell you if anyone is feeling sad. Thinking and talking about emotions is quite a new thing for her, although we've been encouraging it since she was a baby with our emotions flashcards. My feeling is that if we can give her the words to express her emotions and to learn about ours, it will help her to feel understood and to understand where we're coming from. The beginnings of empathy, basically.

Audrey at nearly-two doesn't like eating vegetables, but she does like eating curry. Her favourite food is probably chicken and rice, closely followed by chips. She likes apple slices and apple biscuits, she likes shepherd's pie and pizza, she loves popcorn although she calls it cauliflower. She very determinedly feeds herself, using a knife and fork. Any attempts to help are met with a lot of upset. She is fiercely independent in some ways, shy and clingy in others. I love both sides of her so much.

Audrey at nearly-two loves hugs and kisses. After her nap she likes to lie in her bed next to me and chat and cuddle for a while. She says "And now... kisses!" and kisses my cheeks. She waves goodbye to Ian from the window as he goes to work and, not understanding that he can't hear her, she says "Love you, Dada! See you soon!" every morning. When she hears his key in the door at the end of the day she yells "Dada's here!" and RUNS to meet him and talk to him and tell him and show him everything she's done that day.

Audrey at nearly-two loves the regular museum more than the museum of childhood. She loves the swimming pool. She loves kindergym, but not as much as she loves the play park outside kindergym. She likes going to the shops and helping me carry the basket, then helping me carrying the bag of shopping home by holding one of the handles while I hold the other. She loves her friends, whether they're little like her or grown up like Ally, Cori, Graham, Ros, David, Michael or her many uncles and aunts. She asks for these people by name almost every day. She wants to "see friends, play together!"

Audrey at nearly-two loves dinosaurs, building blocks, cars and motorbikes and regular bikes, diggers and tractors, cranes. She loves all kinds of animals, but especially cats, horses, birds, fish, dogs and guinea pigs. She wants to make friends with every dog we see at the park. She says she loves the snow, but doesn't actually want to go out in it too much. She loves teddy bears, and feeds them raisins.

Audrey at nearly-two is the most brilliant person I think I've ever met.