OFFS.

I am so pissed off. I just went through all my photos of a lovely weekend and went to send them to the computer to upload them to flickr.

Instead of send, I pressed delete.

I could cry.

Ahhhh Bless..

Rowan’s first ever ‘concert’ today…

It was Nursery’s ‘Animal Menagerie’ … she was too little for a part but she took part as a lion (she picked the animal she wanted to be) …

A little bit disappointing that we misread the tickets and arrived 5 minutes late and they’d already started… we walked in and Rowan was sat quietly near the side of the stage.. twiddling her thumbs a little and listening to the other children singing..

We stood over at the side and I tried to catch her attention… she was definitely scanning the audience and then she saw us and my heart just melted..

She leapt up and shouted ‘Hello Mummy Hello Daddy!!! Look at me!!! I’m a lion!!’ …. and I just sprung into tears…

… bless my little girl…

I felt just awful that she must have thought we weren’t coming. And I vowed to myself there and then that no matter what happens, one of us will always be there for whatever little performances and special days she is part of.

Rooooaaaarrr!

She was so proud of herself and so pleased to have us there and what a fabulous little lion she was.

Is it just me..

Or does Ella look like she has spock ears in the picture below?

Things seem so normal at the moment.

Life is quiet and work is busy. Ticking over and relatively drama free. For the time being at least. We all know that won’t last long.

The girls are being good, Ella is still teething ……….. and still pooing in the middle of the night.

I’m beyond bored of that now.

I’m beginning to think she believes there is some kind of midnight chat necessity ~ although all she seems to want me for is a nose rub and a cuddle.. post nappy change.. she’s all sweetness and light… and unconscious.

Trust me. I know it could be worse. But hey… I’m tired.

BN and I grumbled “fuck offs” to each other in the night as the tiredness talked … we giggled about it this morning but really… why do all parents of older children only feel the need to inform you of how much worse it gets?

Is it just me or wouldn’t it be nice to be positive to future & brand new parents?

I saw a young girl today when I popped out for a coffee ….. ….. sat red eyed and bleary, clearly exhausted and alone, on the verge of tears sitting in Starbucks weakly holding a very tiny new baby.

She had all the modern accoutrement of motherhood 2000s style… the Quinny buggy, the change bag with compartments for everything, the Dr Brown bottles and gorgeous new blankets swaddling her tiny bundle.

But she looked just so sad.

I nodded at her and smiled at her baby while I queued for my coffee.

~~We belong to the same club you and I. I’ve been there. It’ll be OK.
I recognise the shock on your face and the bags under your eyes. In actual fact – you’ll see I sport a rather fetching pair myself today~~

She smiled really pathetically at me and kind of gulped a breath in with her drink.

‘It gets better’ I offered … ‘honestly’

‘Does it?’

I got my coffee and I sat down next to her. I asked if she was out alone.

She explained briefly that her husband worked and hadn’t been able to get leave off work for longer than 2 weeks. He works away and she’s now at home with their first baby and alone for nearly all of every day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So often, we have found anyway, that people feel the need to jibe and poke..

‘It’s only worse when they get older you know!’

‘Once they start walking you can’t keep track’

‘Once they start talking they never shut up!’

How many times I have heard these little jokes. People that think it’s funny to goad because they are past the harder times.

Twice just today in fact, I’ve had two chaps tell me things only get worse… ‘Wait till you have teenagers! Then you’ll know what hard work is…’

Great. Yeah. Thanks.

Really encouraging. I really enjoyed that comment… it really helped when I haven’t had a full night’s sleep for over a month and I’m changing shitty nappies in the middle of most nights whilst working 50+hour weeks..

Thanks..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So instead I gave her hand a little squeeze and told her how it all changed and got better with Rowan… how shocked I had been and how I had reeled at the hard work, the emotion, the lack of sleep …. how I understood…. but…. how beautiful and brilliantly rewarding it was to get her first smile .. and how joyful both of them are now.. their first steps, first words, first I love you ……. how I couldn’t be without them and how she would be just the same in a few months time when she saw a girl tiredly soldiering on in a coffee stop… hoping for some reassurance and a hug..

This is tough, this baby lark.

x

Booo..

Rowan begged me not to go to work this morning ..

and then when BN brought them to see me this morning she gave me the longest cuddle and wouldn’t let go and then begged me not to back upstairs to my office..

then when I had to go.. she said she’d come with me…

and then said ‘one last kiss’ before I went..

I am wondering…

will my daughters only remember a mother that worked ten hour days and missed lunch time and breakfast and sometimes tea time as well and wonder where I was when they were growing up..?

American Idol

You know I was watching American Idol gives back, the other night. I don’t actually watch American Idol.. I used to really love these programs but after about the 500th one I did get a little bored.

There was Pop Idol, Pop Stars the Rivals then the arrival of the X Factor… then Simon Cowell realised he could make even more money by doing exactly the same thing in America.

Of Course.. Who wouldn’t? Who would settle for 100 Million when they could have 150?

But the other night I was watching the American Idol Gives Back and although I’m a sucker for programs to do with charity for children … this particular one did strike me as particularly grim.

What could be more galling than a load of kids (American or otherwise) that are steps away from their superfluous dreams come true where they stand to make money beyond their wildest ideas and have fame and fortune to boot.. interspersed with orphaned children in Africa, fending for themselves and bringing each other up as they try and attend school and work simultaneously .. where probably their wildest dream come true is not to die of infection, disease or crime any time before their 15th birthday?

It was just grim.

Grim.

After 5 minutes.. I had to switch channels … I was almost in tears (no shock there!) … A poor young lad.. orphaned at 12 and having to bring up his 8 year old sister since his mum and dad were killed … but hey… at least ‘Tiffany’ / ‘Madonna’ / ‘Jessica Simpson’ wannabe is safe and gets to sing for another week!!!

Gross.

Sorry. But gross.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Today wasn’t my first mother’s day.. It was my third.

But today felt very special. More special maybe even than my very first one ever. Because Rowan made my first ever Mother’s Day card at nursery and I didn’t know anything about it until today.

My first handmade card.. with a little help from Nursery…

I opened it and immediately sprung into tears.. shocker!

But she made it.. just for me. And that’s so special.
Also, when Scotty dropped her daughter off at nursery the other day, Rowan went up to her and asked her to say hello to her mummy at work.

Scotty called me to tell me, on the way in to work.

Even though I miss them all day anyway.. I only thought I knew what ‘miss’ meant until I was suddenly reminded that she was somewhere without me.. and thinking of me.

Sniff sniff… so cute.. I could just feel the strings of my heart being plucked like a toy guitar in the hands of a three year old

We had a great day today.. We went for a planned walk to the park and Rowan had a good run around and being that our park is on a hill … unsurprisingly she then slept for two and half hours, got up at 5pm and was back in bed at 7.30..

I love to climb… It frees thy soul…

Mummy and my girls.

The little hat that wouldn’t stay Velcro’d..

One tired little girl..

We then did the walk I will have to do to the new nursery, so I know where I’m going and suddenly all hell broke loose..

Well..

I say hell. Actually hail.

This gorgeous sunny day turned into the most freezing day for ages. We could see our breath and suddenly there was hail everywhere.

BN thought it absolutely essential to take a photo of the moment for my blog..

Now… granted you can’t see the hail here.. but trust me – it was there and it was cold and wet. I was not impressed to be 15 minutes walk from home at that particular time

Nursery Crime..

Well.. today I gave notice on the nursery and explained why.

I saw S, the assistant manager of the nursery and asked if I could have a word in private. I’m just not good at these things when they’re personal and instantly felt myself getting teary.. (something I’m quite prone to!)

S asked me if there was something wrong and I explained that I was giving my notice and I started to explain the reasons why.

I went through the toilet training confusion and the apparent lack of communication between the staff. S got very teary. She had been the one to show me around and give me the ’sales pitch’ so to speak and seemed genuinely upset.

Every time I tried to say that if it was any other thing, but my child was just not something I was capable of compromising on. She agreed.
‘She’s your child’, she said. ‘If your instinct is telling to act, then you must. Whether I agree or not’.

She said she has worked there for 8 years and no-one had ever removed a child before and that she was shocked and felt responsible. I did feel bad. S didn’t work on the floor that Rowan was on but is responsible for showing round new parents. Her effort in bringing us in was being let down by the approach of the other staff.

‘I’m not good at this.. I hate to be the reason that someone is upset..’

‘It’s fine’ she said,‘This is so unprofessional but I’m no good at things like this either’ more tears..

I explained that the reason we were concerned is that in the beginning we were ’sold’ that Rowan would be treated by them exactly as she would be if she were at home. If we wanted to skip ‘potty’ training and go straight for the toilet, then they would support that 100% and follow our wishes.

‘It’s your choice.. we do what you want us to do.. we should be an extension of your parenting not acting against it’

What was so frustrating for us was repeatedly hearing from the staff (like every time BN picked her up) that she had gone to the toilet on the potty ..

‘We don’t want her on the potty – we want her to be encouraged to go on the toilet’

staff: ‘Oh well – now we know that, we can do that for you. It’s just here at this nursery we do the High Scope method and we like to let the child lead and we follow that lead..’

‘Yeah that’s fine, but I want her to be encouraged to go on the toilet so please could you do that for her?

‘OK, well now we know that … we can do that for you…’

The trouble is… this was said every time. Two weeks in a row – this was said to BN, by the *same* woman!!

You can see our frustration..?

I said to S, if only they had said, ‘we’re trying to encourage her to the toilet, but she won’t go on it’, or ’she’s desperate to use the potty because every one else does and she feels left out’ or even that ’she’s trying to get to the toilet but she’s just not making it that far’… anything but

‘well .. now we know…’

It was just that this was so annoying, irritating and frankly just worrying.

We were told that each child had a file where everything was written down and each member of staff could refer to it and check the details for each child. In that file was supposed to be our preferences for toilet training, but also in that file, they have the identities and photos of people that we trust to collect Rowan if for some reason we can’t make it…. so do they not look at that either..?

I said to S that there have been days where I sent Rowan having just given her Calpol. (They are free to give her paracetamol and Neurofen at our instruction).. so if they don’t communicate about toilets and potties etc.. what does this leave me to wonder about the administration of drugs and the organisation in that regard…?

Does one staff member tell the other accurately the message I give at the front door?

I just don’t think we can take that chance.

One of the last things was the nits. Now nits aren’t an issue. Clearly nurseries and schools, they get nits.. not a problem. But.. Scotty got a letter and I didn’t. Why didn’t I get a letter that they had nits?

It turns out they have a peg system for communication. I found out today that each child has a peg where letters are left for us determining new activities coming in or things she needs to bring with her to the next session.. Only problem is with this fantastic communication system is.. they didn’t actually communicate that to us..

But then today.. seeing how upset she was.. genuinely.. I could see it was real.. I felt so sorry for her and tonight all I feel is that maybe I haven’t been fair..

My instinct was to protect my child and make sure that she was safe and looked after in the way that we wish but the reality of doing that is that I almost feel that I may have jumped the gun and all I feel is guilty..

Awwww.

Things are a changing…

For the first time ever …. after noticing a little development in her communication today, Ella is lying in bed jabbering away.

‘mamamama… ya yi yeye mamamamam…ya yeyey yae yi…’

Thems is words.

Weird wyrds.

But still words.

Ah well…

I could protect the whole world. If I could just stop crying.

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while. Ever since someone replied to me

‘So….. you keep crying at everything..? Do you think you may be depressed?’

I seem to have developed an inability to refrain from tears at any given moment that involves a remote link to sadness or happiness in any degree. I’ll cry at the news, sure, the news is sad sometimes. Sometimes its happy. That also makes me cry.

Not strange you think.

I’ll cry at a good drama on TV, or a good movie.

‘Sure. Don’t we all?’ I hear you mutter back to your screens.

But.

I have started crying at adverts. X factor for god’s sake. It’s now a running joke at my house.

I’ll cry when I’m just trying to tell someone that sad story that made me cry in the first place!!

I didn’t even watch X factor further than the audition episodes which make me cringe . But I did catch up with the final episode – just to see who won – when they announced Leona’s name – I could have burst into little sobs. For her though.

The kind of welling that you know you could allow to turn into a good 10 second cry – out of happiness. Pride almost. I was thinking if she were mine.. I don’t even know the girl. Hadn’t even watched the series. But I was proud of her. Proud of her humble acceptance of the result and how shocked she looked.

But anyway. This post is not about X factor.

(I restrained it to a little ‘wah-huh’ and then pulled myself together )

So I have resolved to think about this behaviour. To try and understand it. Dig into my brain and try to understand this reduction to tears at sometimes the slightest thing.
It’s never great wracking, heaving sobs you understand, but not just a tear to the eye either.

I have always had this tendency to be a little over emotional. Sensitive. Over sensitive I suppose I have to admit. So I have wondered if I just have this heightened ability to empathise. I have always found it incredibly easy to read thoughts so to speak – to put myself in someone’s place and imagine what I would be feeling if I were them.

I can be quite snappy. Quick. Sharp even, sometimes. I also always had the tendency, as a child, to cry when I was at the extreme of any emotion. For example, if I got really angry, it would provoke tears. In domesticky situations I still do cry sometimes. (It’s not the same if I were to get angry at work. That’s different and doesn’t have the same effect).

It can be very frustrating though. Especially if it’s not the true representation of the emotion that you’re feeling.
I remember having a full blown shouting argument with one of my parents when I was about 13 or 14 and I was so angry that tears just started.

‘Don’t cry’ they shouted ‘it’s so annoying’…

‘Oh, to have the choice’ I thought.

It’s just not that simple for me. So maybe I just cry now because I have always cried. Whatever the emotion. It just seems that these days, post children, the instances of tears are just a lot more frequent. Does that indicate depression? Or am I just tired?

Kids are very draining. I am constantly tired. When you have small kids you are working 7 days a week. Forever. They are never quiet. They are repetitive. It can be like having the worst kind of repetitive, mind-numbing job you can think of. And then having it talk to you as well. Saying the same thing over and over again. Whilst hitting you on the head with a rubber hammer.

SO. Am I just knackered? Could that make you well up at every snippet of sad, bad or happy news, story or TV show?

But that comment keeps coming back to me. The word depression filters through to me every now and then.

So now I have started to think, ‘am I just thinking depression because I am thinking about it? Or does it keep coming back to me because it’s only a matter of time before I admit it?’

I mean talk about over analysing!

Since having children, my ability to remove almost any person from the role of ‘child’ is almost zero. I look at sad news stories like this and I am instantly thinking ‘if that were my child..If anyone ever did anything to my child…’. and I well up.

Stories of starving infants in the 3rd World, reports of murder victims, abuse, neglect, accidents whatever. I’m there with my tissues

That comment filters through again. Am I depressed? Or is it normal to think maternal thoughts toward any person that looks like they need them?

I know I am unlikely to be alone when I say that since having my children, my realities have shifted. My world isn’t just about me. It’s about my girls.

I want to keep my girls safe at my side. Always.

Protect them. Keep them from harm. Keep harm away from them.

So maybe the reason I am moved to tears at so many things that move me is because any person that has something happen to them is someone’s child. Not just an infant child but any child. A grown child. An adult. Through fault or neglect or abuse or from just not being in the right place at the right time.

There was a news story that hit the headlines at New Year about a poor couple whose daughter was killed by dogs at the pub they lived in in Leicestershire.
How would you ever get over not being in the right place at the right time? They left her for a minute and then she was gone.

So I suppose, tears at sad events are pity but could it be they are also relief to an extent?

I am sensible. I have been sensible in my life. Fairly. I know that the lessons I have learned from ‘don’t talk to strangers’, ‘drugs can kill’ to ‘don’t walk home alone in the dark’ are things that I have got from my parents, my friends, my TV, magazines, books … But where will my girls get these lessons from and will they be listening?

Will they be sensible?

Will they be as sensible as me? Will they say no to experimenting with drugs and avoid being dead on the dancefloor? Will they realise I’m not just being a killjoy when I won’t let them into town at night at 15 years old or will they sneak out and go with their friends anyway? Like I did.

My mum was a worrier when I was younger, still is now in actual fact. She worried just that touch too much and I rebelled ever so slightly. Not masses. I smoked. I smoked some things I shouldn’t have. But I never ever took drugs. Because no matter how much I wanted to be me and I wanted to dictate my own life and not be ruled (yawn ) I understood, even then, that the worrying was not unfounded.

So I was a cautious rebel I suppose.

I watched the news. Sometimes. I knew that drugs did kill. I knew that walking home alone could get you killed. Even walking home with your boyfriend could get you killed.

So how do I protect my children? How do you protect anyone?
I read a blog before Christmas about a 33 year old woman that died suddenly from a cancerous tumour in her foot that she didn’t even know she had. It stayed with me for weeks and to be honest, I still think about her now. I didn’t even know her but I think about her mum and her family. How terribly sad it was for them to have lost their daughter, their sister.

When I think about it though I am usually thinking what if that were my child?

Her mother couldn’t do anything. There was no being in the right place at the right time. It was out of her hands. You would think that by the time they get to 33, you aren’t quite in that same role anymore. But I can see now (infuriatingly ) that my mum was so right when she used to say I was her little baby – when I was 18,19, 20 and so on.

Of course I was.

I suppose that this is what this post is really about. This is what I have concluded. Having thought about this comment for a couple of months now, I have been writing this post and turning the comment over and over and coming back to writing this again and again, trying to make sense of what I want to say. (Hence its rambling process ).
I think it’s this.

When will my girls stop being my babies?

Never.

So. Am I depressed? Or is it just normal to face every day, once you have people to protect, with such a feeling of luck that you are managing to get through each day and keep them in one piece?

Am I just daft that most things make me cry or should I just laugh at the fact I can even well up at how cute the little girl is in the Persil advert pretending to be a penguin…?

You tell me.

End of the first week and Ella had a little surprise for me. What a lovely daughter…

So, end of first week. Not so bad. Today was very busy work-wise and I had a little surprise when First Girl came in to see me.

I quite quickly batted that one out of the park.. there’s plenty of time to deal with that..

Ella had a little surprise for us today.. she only woke once at 1.30 this morning and then slept through until 7.30..

Bargain.

I LIKE the child that has decided I deserved one night of sleep at the END of the week of work.. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not ungrateful … but when I was flagging somewhere around Wednesday, would have been good..

Not only this little gem though – Ella decided this evening would be the evening that she would roll over for the first time.

The first thing I was terrified I may miss – I saw all of Rowan’s firsts – and she saved it till I got home. Bless her.

I cried.

Rowan spent her second session at nursery today and got on really well except she apparently became a little over-exuberant with a plastic hammer and a child’s arm.

Josie may not be surprised to hear this

Anyway – I’m shattered. It’s been an interesting week back and obviously things haven’t been exactly easy. The good news is – I haven’t met anyone new at work yet that I don’t get on with and it looks like we’re gonna have a good year.

Famous last words ….

well. well. well.

So – it was my first day back and it wasn’t too bad. Leaving the girls this morning was hard although I did notice it was leaving Ella that was hard, not leaving Rowan. I certainly don’t mean anything by it but I presume it’s because I’ve left Rowan before and she’s older etc. etc.
I was so on the verge of tears and I didn’t want to upset Rowan so I just left before I got too upset.

First thing this morning was a nightmare trying to get ready and so on. It’s very difficult to think about getting out of the house, getting dressed, getting showered, getting bag ready, what do I need? I even got everything ready the night before and it still took ages to believe I was ready. I know it sounds silly but when you haven’t been doing it for 7 months – it’s a lot more complicated than you’d think! It was all I could do to be out ready for afternoon appointments while I was off let alone getting ready first thing. I am crap.

Anyway so long day – didn’t get back until 6.45pm and the girls were in bed by 7.45pm and that’s a lot later than normal but it was a very, very busy day and I never got to eat anything after breakfast. Such is the life of a busy office manager!!

I’m constantly on the brink…

Somebody please cheer me up….