S e a s o n s

The other day it was hot and sunny and then overnight the rain started falling along with the temperature and then daylight savings was over and so was summer.

Except it wasn't the other day, it was a couple of weeks ago. And since then it's got hot again and then cold, and now it's Easter.

I don't know why it is that I can never remember this time of year, the crisp brittleness of the autumnal sky and the golden glow on the trees.

It always comes and I find myself saying 'ah yes, there it is, it's this season, this time of year... ' and I think how beautiful this city is, between seasons.

The book is in, at least for this part of the process, more changes to come of course.

Other writing, a short play in the style of my london compadre sbs's miniaturist phenomenon (more seasons) on at a theatre nearby, which went very nicely indeed. Another play, a bit longer, about the riots that happened on a beach. And, funny this, an episode of a popular tv show. Things we do.

And it's also the anniversary of my mother's death which is another kind of season too.

If my mother was here now I would ask her about baby hair and spit.

The other day i found myself licking my fingers and scooting Tricky's locks first up into curls and then down into smooth waves and suddenly remembering hearing my mother talking to someone about my hair, my curls, which were either all thanks to my grandma's spit or else had survived despite it. At the time of hearing I think I was a teeny thing but I felt my mother's disapproval.

And then, a connected memory, on my grandmother's lap, with her fingers damply patting at my hair.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure my grandmother was still a smoker then. Ew. I'm not sure I'd be happy if my smoking mother-in-law was spitting on Tricky's head... (not that she smokes. or spits)

Was the spit meant to curl or straighten?

Neither of them alive to tell.

Letter To An Eight Month Old Water Baby

Dear Tricky

This month you have spent much of your time on your belly scooting around the floor. It looks like you might not bother with the crawling stage, the belly scooting is such fun and so fast. In fact you might miss the walking stage as well and just go straight to the pogo dancing stage or perhaps the legs in the air skanking stage.

Thus will your love of insane bouncing up and down and fast music come together.

You have been spending a lot of time with your dada this month while I have been tearing out my hair and tippy tapping at the computer. These have been lovely days for you both, hanging out at the local ocean baths and swimming.

Or at least, he swims, backwards, and you hover on his chest and happily spit out seawater. You have become a tiny little celebrity at those baths, people approach your father and ask for his secret because their child only has to look at the ocean and they start screaming.

I’m sure the regular visits help as does your father’s patience and determination that you learn to love the water and learn how to swim. Your mother on the other hand, while also loving the water, is afraid of it and sometimes would rather sit on the sand with a book then go for a swim. Most days in fact. I blame those two near drowning experiences as a child and my lack of proper, consistent swimming lessons.

Anyway, you, your father, water. A truly lovely combination. Especially because you come home completely knackered and usually sleep very well that night.

You sit up now, easily, playing with your toys, but you can also just as easily roll to one side and pick up a book. We try and read to you everyday and your favourite is currently entitled “Commotion In The Ocean”.


I’ll be glad when this fad passes. I’m not expecting Encyclopedia Britannica but geez, talk about factual errors?

The crab likes walking sideways
And I think the reason why
Is to make himself look sneaky
And pretend that he’s a spy.

When have crabs held any ambitions for espionage? What sort of testing was done to come to this conclusion? Is this finding published anywhere? (Apart from in Commotion In The Ocean?)

It goes on and on, scurrilous comments about jelly fish (“loves to jiggle”) octopus (eight arms purportedly to “hold all my children and tickle each one on the tummy.”) and swordfish (alleged to enjoy chasing small fishes and when hungry to “skewer a few on my sword.”).

I have been curious about the book reading, which we do everyday, because to be honest, although you sit quietly for a while, as a book is being read, you haven’t seemed to enjoy it as such. Large books have worked well, perhaps because of the large bright pages, perhaps because the size provides a useful barrier for trapping you on my lap and preventing you pitching forward onto the floor.


I use silly voices and hand gestures and point out the pictures but it’s actually only been in the last few days that I have noticed you responding to things on the page. This morning you saw that flimsy missive of lies, aka Commotion In The Ocean, and you began to gurgle and reach for it and when I picked it up and showed it to you, you laughed. Then you sat very still as I read it, silly voices and all. You stroked at the dolphin, you shrank from the shark, you giggled when tickled ala octopus offspring on the tummy.

I think that maybe my determination with the reading is like your father’s with the swimming. I love that we are each sharing something special with you, teaching you and guiding you.

And although I go swimming with you too, and your father also reads to you, it’s nice to have an activity that maybe one day will be a lovely memory for you… “when I was little my dad and I used to…” “when I was little my mum and I used to”…

I hope you love reading as much as I do.
As much as your dad loves the ocean.
As much as we both love you.

And that’s a lot.

Love,

your very own

OvaGirl

xxxxx

Better

Things have become way way waaaay more manageable thanks to the following:

Rescue remedy

Acupuncture session

More sleep

Whinging to writer friend who then gave stern advice re prioritising and knocking over website stuff ("which should be skeletal not agonised over and all overwritten to buggery") before attacking book stuff "which is what you want to be doing".

Dinner party with grownup type conversation about art and politics and hilarious George Bush joke told by precocious 11 year old which for the life of me I can't remember. Something about the definition of tragedy. Meanwhile, baby looked after by sister in law N who was up every half hour as he squarked.

Weekend quicky type stand up sex in the bathroom while baby having nap.

Coming up with not one but four potential book titles and emailing them in on deadline only to discover Editor is away at conference till tomorrow.

C deciding he will not be going away again without me and Tricky and he will take baby with him EVERY DAY so that I can work. Hooray! More quicky stand up sex for you!

And for some reason, the other thing that helped was taking out Naughty Nephew 3rd (he with the once fluffy chicken hair-now buzzcut smooth, and the big blue saucer like eyes) for his birthday outing over the weekend.

His birthday is on Wednesday and when the girl at the teddybear factory asked how old he was he said, quite truthfully, 4.

But you will be 5 on your birthday, I said.

Oooooh yes that's right, fiiiiive, he smiled winningly, earning himself TWO TEDDY BEAR STICKERS for being so gorgeous.

I remember when the family first came to Sydney, from London via the rest of the world, and NN3 was a small tot-in-arms, sitting in highchairs with bowls of avocado and mashed banana, gurgling happily and being bathed in plastic containers.

I know that very soon the time for teddy bears and stuffed toys will be gone. NN3 started school this year after all and he is all about his Pokemon cards and tennis and also, humiliatingly, beating me in chess! (Yet with the most charming smile.)

But on this day, he carefully chose his bear (actually a penguin) and entered into all the hoo hah of stuffing it and cuddling it to make sure it had just enough fluff inside, and then inserting a love heart and making a wish...all done very solemnly and enthusiastically as his uncle and I stood to one side, holding his little cousin, and squeaking with the cuteness of it all.

Later we sat around as he ate an enormous iced donut, waiting till he was half way through to remark "Mummy doesn't let me have these." About two seconds later he slipped backwards off his stool and hit his head on the floor.

I grabbed for him and half caught him but it didn't save us from tears and I held him close and rubbed his head and generally cuddled him and made soothing noises till he stopped and resumed donut duties.

It occurred to me that I was much more comfortable cuddling him now.

Not that I wouldn't have comforted him before, just that it would have been a bit more patting and shushing rather than automatically grabbing and cuddling him close and not only that being confident that soon it would be ok.

I was aware of the sensation but then also the accompanying thought: that's what mothers do.

And it was nice.

But I did feel guilty about the donut.

Insert Title Here

When did I first want to write?

I wondered about this hazily, at some ungodly not meant to be up hour of the…morning? Night? Fuck knows. For some reason all that great sleep training I did weeks ago has gone to pot. Something about all that physical and mental development in that teeny little body is affecting his sleep.

I was one of those kids who could read before they started school and, due to the wisdom of the education system, I was hence also one of those kids forced to sit quietly next to the non-reading kid beside me as they struggled through the individual letters that made up the enthralling tales of Dick and Jane and Baby Sue. I distinctly remember getting into trouble for trying to pry open the pages and see what happened next.

A couple of years later, different school, I was told that I was a “pest” because I finished my books quicker than any other kid and the teacher had to keep going back to the reading room to get me new books.

That was probably the same year that I got into trouble for trying to “running write”. We were all about printing our letters and I tried to write my name the same way I had seen my mum write, all curly and joined up. For some reason my attempt seemed to infuriate the teacher.
“Look!” she shouted as she flounced up to the blackboard. “Can you write this?” And in a horribly symbolic moment she wrote MY NAME in huge letters on the blackboard in cursive script. I stared, speechless, horrified and guilt stricken for being so terribly naughty that my name was being written on the board. “Can you write this? No, you can’t. YOU CAN’T. So stop wasting everyone’s time and PRINT PROPERLY.”

When I replay this moment in my head, sitting behind the seven year old version of myself, I shudder and then I get up and grab hold of that teacher and rip off her head. It makes me so fucking angry because I know how hard, how difficult is to write, and moments like that scar a kid, they don’t just perpetuate a lack of confidence or self esteem they actually kick start them into being. They are the poisonous seeds of self doubt.

At the age of thirty eight those seeds have well and truly born fruit.

As I type this, Tricky has just fallen asleep for the night which means I stop mothering for a short time and start writing. And it’s hard. I’m fighting for time here, to write and think and imagine, and that’s on top of all the regular stupid fears. It’s not his fault obviously. He’s not the teacher who told me I couldn’t write my own name, he’s not that first teacher who punished me from trying to read to the end of the book. He’s my bouncing, currant bun headed, creepy crawling, trying to suck on electrical cords, baby.

And man, he makes the writing hard.

This is a hell deadline month for me. Every Monday from now till April I have a deadline – title for book, then first draft of a new website on playwriting for young people, then final draft of book and then final draft of website. At the end of this month I have a new ten minute play on at a local theatre and mid month I start work on a new play with young people in Newcastle. And amidst all this, C is going to be away again for work.

Friends offer to take the baby but I feel guilty for being freelance and then taking on too much. Except that’s the point with freelance, you sometimes have heaps on and then you go for ages twiddling your thumbs and redoing your cv and writing yet another fucking play (and this is a whole other post, my building rage for the theatre industry and its attendant gatekeepers)…

The answer to that first question is that I can’t remember the time when I decided I wanted to write.

I just know that there’s never been a time when I haven’t.

No. I don't like it.

The new blogger I'm talking about. Where does it get off forcing me to change L'Eggs Up to the NEW blogger when I was perfectly happy with the old blogger. Previously I had a choice as to whether I wanted to change but today, no, no choice at all. And why is newer better anyway?

See this is just like my so called new mobile phone. C changed our phone plan and so we were offered free upgraded phones. I have barely managed to learn all the doodads on my old phone, but no suddenly I have to use new spanking completely different brand phone with irritating whistling oaf ring and stupid side volume buttons that I press whenever I try to answer the phone. So then I end up shouting 'hello' 'hello I can't hear you...wait wait' as I try to push both little buttons (because of course there are two to confuse me).

The only good thing about the new phone is that it has camera phone on it. C is away for a week, much to his distress, he has only spent 2 nights away from Tricky before and he misses him terribly (bugger me, no not really, he misses me too but Tricky is cuter). Today, I rang C using the stupid irritating phone but using the cunning camera call thingy. He was able to see Tricky's sweet little currant bun face and I was able to see C's bed hair and too much red wine from the night before pallid skin.

Sing It Baby

You can put coins in my slot and you can take them out.


Who sings this?

If you guessed a perky bargirl on a tabletop in Manilla you would be wrong and also frankly go and look in the mirror and take a good hard look at yourself. But if you guessed a pink plastic moneybox in the shape of a pig, one that not only sings but comes with a hoard of plastic “coins” you would be right.

Along with those other milestones of Sitting Up, and Sliding on his Tummy, and realizing that Mummy’s Nipples can be Cruelly Wrenched When she is Looking the Other Way, Tricky has reached another important milestone – that of receiving a Very Annoying Toy.

This VAT sings when you depress its snout and chimes when you drop aforementioned “coins” into the ample “slot”. It also counts, snorts, sneezes and giggles. Mercifully it can be turned off.

It seemed merely a very silly song at first, one that made us smirk. But one weekend we accidentally left the VAT downstairs amongst the chess boards and packs of cards and other playthings of the Naughty Nephews. Because children have a natural affinity for things that annoy adults they gravitated towards it, played with it, AND LEARNED ITS ANNOYING LITTLE TUNE.

I AM A PIGGY BANK!
I HAVE A PIGGY SNOUT!
YOU CAN PUT COINS IN MY SLOT AND YOU CAN TAKE THEM OUT!
THE COINS GO IN THE SLOT!
CAN YOU HEAR THEM DROP?!
COME ON AND OPEN UP THE DOOR AND WE CAN PLAY SOME MORE!

You cannot imagine the horror of hearing this sung loudly in unison by three Naughty Nephews.

To be truthful it was only Naughty Nephew the 2nd who continued to sing it over and over, but he also had the accent down pat. As a result the VAT very nearly went the way of all loud annoying toys: a spell in the freezer.

But in other news, the book is in. YAY! Notes have been given and A Meeting had. Now for some rewrites and also some taking out of a few rude words. (The fuck?) Oh, and a title. Because it won't be L'Eggs Up And Laughing. It will be something else.
(Please don't pout. That doesn't help)

When will it be published?

Well here’s the funny thing. The editor and I were talking about it and she said February probably. For some reason I thought it was going to be way further in the distance and so February seemed kind of close.

Then she emailed back and said no, actually September. And that brought me down a bit because I thought…but September is so far away. Tricky will be over 2 by then and also of course we will have a second child.

It wasn’t till today’s meeting with another editor when she said no, September THIS YEAR, that I perked up because that seemed very jolly and close indeed.

And then, I realised the bizarre train of thought that had wound itself up in that publishing date. We will have a second child.

What I should have thought was we have a frozen embryo and because time is ticking on for me and my uterus that we would have at least had a go at bunging it in and embarking on that Great Big Fertility Ride again.

How could I have forgotten?

How could I just assume?

Was I insane?

The mind, I decided, protects its own. Just as the intensity of childbirth trickled out like water through the sleep deprived sieve of my mind, so too, it seems, did the memory of daily injections, bloodtests, dildocams and betas.

In that moment I was treating myself as... normal.

We will have a second child.

The line sings itself in the back of my mind, over and over, annoyingly persistent, smugly optimistic.

And it doesn’t take this half-Filipina bar girl more than the flick of a coin to realize that it’ll take more than a spell in the freezer to shut it the fuck up.

Letter to a Seven Month Old Flying Dinosaur

Dear Tricky

I begin this letter to commemorate your seventh month by noting that although our loungeroom is littered with sitting devices for you, your current favourite place to recline (apart from in the arms of your many slaves) in is a cardboard box. Here you lean back and view the world, or abuse Mr Caterpillar or sometimes just have a refreshing suck on the cardboard sides.

This month has been all about the crawling or at least not the crawling per se but the preparation leading up to it, the stretching and the reaching and the tapping of feet against the floor and the rocking.

The first time we saw you on your hands and knees rocking with an intriguing expression on your face we hailed you as a genius child whose physical development was far beyond any child ever yet born and then a few minutes later we changed your nappy and realised that you were actually just working an enormous smelly poo through your system.

Which is, in its own way, cause for celebration but perhaps not for cake and party hats.

At one point I watched as you got onto your hands and knees and then, because you’re not sure what comes next, you lifted your butt high in the air so you were on hands and feet doing the down dog yoga pose and then you sort of flipped yourself to one side so you were half sitting half reclining.

Wow, I thought, that’s new. And then I thought: he hasn’t fallen on his face yet and I swear no sooner had the words gone through my mind then you fell with a splat on your cute little button nose. And lo the screaming.

But then, in a little show of how things change so quickly these days, in between starting this letter a few days ago and now, you have started speeding about on your tummy. You drag yourself on your arms and kick with your legs and slide forward and away you go. It is an exciting time and also a time for putting on stair gates because we can’t keep you trapped in the playpen all day.

All this month, while I have been writing my book, you have been gallivanting with your father. I say gallivanting, he says Important Meetings (which often take place in coffee shops). The first time he took you out, with a little lunch packed for you, I felt very strange indeed. Previously the most you could be taken away from me was four hours and you would have morphed into Screaming Tomato when you return. But now, you go, fortified with mashed potato and pumpkin, and strained fruit with rice cereal, and your own little cup and you can be away with your father all day, meeting to your hearts content. I do know that sometimes he takes you swimming at the baths and you both love doing that.

I have come to realize that you are not the most smiley baby in the world. Others your age are gappy grinners and they radiate their sunny little personalities everywhere they go. You on the other hand are quiet and watchful. You observe things, with a faint frown creasing your forehead as if in your mind you can’t quite believe this world and all its weird shit.

People stop and smile at you and make with the goo goo noise and you gaze at them, unsmilingly, almost to the point of being creepy and then you give them one tiny little smile, not even a smile, more a very slight bending of the corners of your mouth and a little flutter of your eyelashes and they go BANANAS.

Sometime this month we were in a café (having a Meeting) with your friend Annie and she took you for a little walk about because you were getting bored. There was another baby in the café and she wandered by in case you and the other Baby wanted to have a little chat.

As soon as the other baby saw you its sweet little cherubic face lit up with the sort of wattage that could power a city and it gaped and grinned and gurgled and all those other words starting with g because it recognised in you a kindred spirit and an equally small human being. Annie smiled at the other Baby’s glee and then she glanced at you and nearly coughed up her latte because you were not smiling at the baby, you were not grinning or gurgling. Instead you were staring with a faint horror, a sort of “why is it doing that, its scaring me” expression. In the end Annie took you away because she saw your bottom lip quivering which she interpreted as acute embarrassment for your peer.

However reticent you may be in the public arena, though, you always smile for us.

Whether it’s the moment when your father brings you home after a hard day of coffee and you spy me rolling about on my office chair, or when I take you out of the bath with daddy and then roll you in your towel on the bed. You laugh like a joyful baby pterodactyl, all squeals and harsh cries and calls for raw flesh.

This morning I watched as your father danced you about the room. You were laughing your pterodactyl laugh and I clapped as the two of you tangoed right up to me and then suddenly I started to cry.

It took me by surprise, I could not believe how happy I was in that moment. And then your dad sat next to me and he was crying too and then we had one of those three way hugs and you just kept laughing and gurgling at your ridiculously soft and soppy parents.

And just writing that word ‘parents’ is making me cry again.

Love

Your very own

OvaGirl
xxxxxx

Some stuff

UG! I have been submerged for what seems like ages now, tippy tapping away on the book based on this blog plus extra bonus stories about me and my family. The deadline is next week and so far I think it's going well. C is being delightful and takes Tricky away for hours during the day which helps alot. Tricky being on solids is also helpful because I suck at pumping (strange juxtaposition of terms there.)

We have had a few days in Newcastle which was jolly as ever. Grumpy Grandad, now living in a retirement home that we are not allowed to call a retirement home referring to it only as The Lodge)visited and gave Tricky the kangaroo keyring he was given by The Lodge nurses on Australia Day.

In a sort of sad reflective moment he unwound it from his walker so I could hang it on the stroller. The kangaroo held an Australian flag and my Grandad said that was good because "IT'S NEVER TOO SOON TO WAVE THE FLAG" (yes, even The Lodge can't stop him speaking in capitals). Of course, after he left I removed the little Australian flag and threw it away. I did this because I think there are enough dickheads out there waving the flag in a very strident and unpleasant manner, exhorting passersby to 'kiss the flag', and usually drunk, sun burned and violent. But also the pole part of the flag was a lethally sharpened toothpick and I don't think we give those to babies anymore.

Despite this, GG was lovely. Flaky and shouty but lovely, referring to Tricky as mate and offering him a ride on his walker or a slide on his walking stick. This time he was wearing longer pants which was a good effort but sadly still failed to hide his catheter. I noticed when flicking through all the christmas photos my dad took and helpfully burned onto a cd for me that The Catheter is apparant in every single photo that also features my Grandad. Like Cate and Andrew, you just can't separate those two.

While in Newcs I also told my Dad about the car exploding out front and failing to wake us up. We have since learned that when the police, ambos and fire engines arrived they didn't actually have sirens going (why? is it really that common in our suburb??) but even so you would think the sound of windows blowing out, petrol igniting, roaring flames and people standing on the footpath saying "oh my god" a lot would have disturbed our slumber. My Dad then reminded me that last year the HOUSE next door to theirs was firebombed and yet my dad and stepmother slept through the whole thing. For some reason I felt reassured by that. It's obviously in the genes.

Meanwhile Tricky is bounding through a range of wholesome strained foods. It is delightful seeing his little mouth open into a tiny o and then seeing a spoon piled high with mush disappear within. Perhaps a little too delightful, after a large quantity of vomiting this evening C and I worked out that we may be feeding him a little too much. The words 'goose', 'funnel', 'engorged liver' and 'fois gras' come to mind.

Back to the grindstone.

One Night In A Pleasant Beachside Suburb...

Here’s something interesting I’ve just learned about our sleep deprivation.

Even though Tricky may wake us at odd hours (last night he woke at 3am and then 4.30am), in between those waking times C and I are obviously sleeping like the …ahem…dead.

And the reason I know this, is because last night at 1.30am a silver hatchback parked outside our front gate, maybe 20 metres from our open window, was firebombed, but we slept through it.

The tree outside our house was set ablaze, there was a police car, fire engine and ambulance on the scene within minutes and neighbours standing all over the footpath, but we slept through it.

Thick black smoke and the smell of burning car swirled through the neighbourhood, bats filled the sky and the moon shone blood red (ok I'm making that last bit up) BUT WE SLEPT RIGHT THROUGH THE WHOLE THING until around 3 when Tricky woke up crying (no doubt traumatized by the sirens or nearly asphyxiated by the fumes) and immediately woke me up too. I sat up, fought my way out of our mosquito net, and hung over his cot mumbling shhh, mama's here, go to sleep as I patted his bum. I do remember that it seemed to take a while before he settled. I thought briefly about getting a drink of water, checked the clock, fought my way back into the mosquito net and instantly fell asleep again.

By some little quirk of luck we had parked our car in the back yard overnight and drove off happily to the markets (as we like to do on a Saturday morning) without even a hint that anything odd had happened in our pleasant neighbourhood.

So it wasn’t until we drove home and parked on the road and saw the burnt out shell of the car, the scorched tree, the glass and debris all over the road and the ash all over everything that we thought…what the? Our next door neighbour gave us the grizzly details, including the fact that the petrol canister sitting on the backseat was a dead giveaway that it was deliberate.

The whole place smelled of burning car he said as we turned to look at the open window which seemingly blocked out all trace of noise or mayhem from our slumbering bodies.

How could you have slept through that? We didn’t bother knocking on your door because we thought you must have gone away.

We’ve been sleep training, I said with a shrug.

Later C and I mused on how weird it was that I leap up at the slightest cough from Tricky but remain snoring despite the CSI scene on our doorstep.

Did you hear anything? I asked C. Because I do seem to remember some bangs. Like car doors. Yeah, I remember some bangs, said C. Vaguely.

God, it must be the whole sleep deprivation thing, I said. That, and the bottle of wine we drank last night.

Solid Gold (6 Months)

Dear Tricky

You are actually nearly a week over 6 months now but due to bushfires cutting off the freeway between Newcastle and Sydney we have been trapped for a few days at your grandparents’ house without my laptop (or a spare pare of undies). Hence my tardiness. (But also, you know this monthly letter thing is a deadline of sorts and we know how good I am with those.)



Let me start by saying that you are the Master of The Bounce. When we hold you vertically you like to bounce and bounce and bounce. It’s very Riverdance on crack cocaine, all we’re missing are the lace up shoes and the twirling Celtic drums. And that little smoking pipe thing. The other night when your friend Toby came to visit, he of the dampened toes, we held you both up, face to face and then you started your insane jumping and he just stared, fascinated but also deeply disturbed. Then you had a bath together (which meant two babies in the bath and five adults hovering over the bath), which started well but ended in tears when you started to bounce in a horizontal position and kicked water into poor Toby’s eyes. He still loves you but I’m sure he’ll plot his own revenge.


You are now taller but since you are often horizontal we call that ‘longer’. Your dada told the Baby Capsule hire service that you were 70cm in length but he based that on lying you beside Mr Caterpillar who has a 60cm ruler on his plush purple body and stuffed caterpillars are not known to be truly reliable measuring devices.

However, we do know that you are exactly 7.12 kg (with clothes). Well done you. And also well done me because that was basically all my breast milk that went into those 7.12 kilos. I look at your chubby thighs with great pride and think “I made those”.

Of course all that will change now and I will no longer be able to claim credit for building you up because you are officially onto solids. How exciting! But also scary because now you have to start trying new things. Like yoghurt which you loved and avocado which you hated with a strong and bitter hate so fulsome, so all consuming that I was forced to stick a finger into your mouth to remove all vestiges of the loathsome snot green fruit/vegetable. Not only that, when I put you to my breast to wash away the evil taste you could still sense the nanomicrobes clinging to your tastebuds which in turn must have attached to my nipple and tainted it with the Evil Avocado and then suddenly my breast milk which has always been such a big hit with you and your chubby thighs was deemed similarly loathsome and rejected with much wailing and Screaming Tomato impressions. I had to go into the bathroom and wash my breasts before you would deign to even look at them and I felt a strong maternal urge to hunt down and destroy every single avocado in the world.



You have started sleeping on your tummy. I last tried to swaddle you around Christmas when your previously marvelous sleep routine went to shit. It was all that rolling that did it because in the dead of night you would roll onto your stomach and then howl at the strangeness of it and also because you couldn’t roll back. The sleep-on-tummy thing was a little bit freaky for your father and I and for several nights we would leap up and flash our mobile phones at your cot to check that you were still breathing. Even having mastered the art of rolling you were still waking and crying and we felt like screaming ourselves because after having slept for some time from 7.30 to 5am with nary a peep we were now back to the bad old days and nights of 2 hourly feeds.

But at 6 months, so Ms Babylove tells us, you are old enough to be “sleep-trained”. And so you were. It was a horrible first night with me lying in bed beside you in your cot, listening to you shout obscenities for a few hours on end but then it was over. One night it took. Suddenly you remembered all the good things about sleeping for ten hours, and so did we.

We still have an early morning feed at 5.30 in the morning, and for those I’m grateful. I’m tired and woolly headed and you’re all sleepy and floppy and as we sit in that half light I hold you and nurse you and love you with all my might. I have been remembering my own mother, and in my muddle headed state I wondered if I was having flashbacks of feeding as a baby myself, the smell of the milk and her softness and the heaviness of the dark and the feel of her cotton nightie against my face. She was thinner then and her hair was long and I think I wound it in my hands just as you wind my hair in your hands.

Thankyou for that.



It was hard at times but I loved nursing you, I loved that it was me that solely nourished you with my milk. And although I and my breasts are looking forward to time off, it’s a little sad to let it go. One morning, while I slept in, your dad took you for a walk along the breakwater at Nobby’s lighthouse and then to breakfast at a café and when you got hungry he simply gave you the yoghurt off his bircher muesli. I was aghast when I finally rang to ask where you both were, primarily because I had bowling ball breasts that needed your attending to but also because your father told me you were happily asleep having eaten several teaspoons of yoghurt. It was the first time that you hadn’t needed me and it stung.

When I was infertile the most commonly used phrase was “just relax”. Now, it’s “enjoy this time”. Sometimes I think if I had a dollar for every time a kind well wisher smiled and whispered those three magic words I’d have enough money to hire a nanny so I could finish my deadlines and really enjoy this time. But mostly I hug you a little tighter because I realize it’s true. (Unlike the “just relax” comment which is complete bollocks).

You have been with us for six months. Six wonderful, miraculous, joyous months. Yesterday your father said he could not imagine a time without you. Neither can I. And I look forward to your growing and experiencing more of this incredible, beautiful, flawed and fragile world in the days to come.

Sans avocado, of course.


Your very own
OvaGirl
xxxxx

This little Piggy

Toby(two weeks late) is officially five weeks younger than Tricky(three weeks early). His parents are very good friends with C and I, and indeed Toby’s dad P and I go way back to the traveling theatre company years.

Oh how I smile as I think of the jolly times we had in the funny old yellow van with the uncomfortable back seat. The miles we drove. The tiny towns we visited. The small Australian mammals we inadvertently ran over.

And the children. The dear sweet innocent uptilted faces, with wonder in their eyes and phlegm in their throats. How we sang and danced and clowned for them. How we laughed at their funny questions and dodged their disgusting spit balls.

Just recently, I was proudly describing Tricky’s rolling skills (“he goes this way and that”) when Toby’s mother interrupted to casually mention that Toby was chewing his toes.

Don’t you mean ‘playing with them’? I enquired. Because Tricky does that all the time, when he’s not rolling…

No no, chewing, she said, with slightly more emphasis than necessary.

Later, talking to P, I heard more about the toe-chewing phenomenon. P affirmed that Toby was addicted to the taste of his own little piggies. He reaches down, pops them in his mouth and then goes to town. Loves them. Adores them. Chews them hour after hour.

Oh, I said. How… cute.

Toes. Chewing? It sounded a quirky little habit but I knew what it meant.

Toby is agile. Toby is able to find small pink wriggly things. Toby is frugal – toes cost nothing. Toby is selective – his toes, no one else’s. Toby enjoys convenience – toes are always to be had. Toby likes variety – fingers and toes, that made twenty different digital flavours. Unlike say, Tricky, Toby’s toes would always be clean and fresh and faintly moist, his sock fluff constantly hoovered away and helpfully swallowed.


Was Tricky chewing his toes yet?

No, I said. But have I mentioned the rolling?

Later, as I was feeding Tricky I couldn’t help staring at his feet. Before I knew it I was gently bending his ankles towards his face, not to shove them in his mouth, just to let him know they were there if he felt he wanted a little something after lunch.

He was faintly interested but not really. That’s fine, I told him. No pressure. We’ll concentrate on that rolling business. Have you considered cartwheels?

With P being a boy and myself being a girl(oddly enough) one might think we never had to compete for roles in the many plays we performed together. One would be wrong, particularly when one considers the great range of sexless characters that are up for grabs in the theatre for young audiences market. Also, one might think that writing and acting for school kids is a doddle of a job and those employed to do so would enjoy endless jolly laughs and hilarious theatrical japes. Again, so so wrong. But the great thing about being human is that we have the capacity to forgive. Also, the capacity to get drunk together and blame it all on the director.

P and I have stayed great friends all these years later and I’m hopeful that our sons will be great friends too. And along with telling Tricky to be kind to actors, I will also explain that competition between friends is fine. The truth is, a little competition never did P and I any harm at all.

Frankly, it kept us on our toes.

I Love the Night Life

All good things come to an end, even holidays with the family in Newcastle. I got to see my first movie since Tricky was born (unfortunately it was the loathsome Happy Feet), I got to picnic with old friends, I got to spend New Years Eve at a little house on Lake Macquarie and I got to eat out for the first time, sans bubba, at the posh harbourside restaurant my stepbrother P is a part owner in.

And so we’re back, back in the Big House, back at the laptop and back to the deadlines which seem to have created a permanent place for themselves somewhere between my brain cells and the corkboard on the wall in front of my desk.

I am in book mode which is exciting on one level and terrifying on most others, even though the editor gave me a little pep talk the other day.

C and I are currently doing a roster system, I have the baby in the morning and he takes him in the afternoon and hopefully we both get our work done. I have always aspired to being one of those organised regular writers. Sadly, judging by my performance throughout my entire conscious writing life, that’s never going to happen. I am always going to be the chick standing at the essay box scribbling in the bibliography at five minutes to five as the lecturer walks purposefully towards me down the corridor swinging the key. I like to think that, like olives, I perform best under pressure.

Tricky is getting bigger, at least we think he is, he seems to be heavier and he’s certainly outgrown a lot of his suits (including, sadly, a beautiful and extremely expensive one that C bought him a few months ago and I said had to be ‘put away for Christmas’). We won’t know for sure until we actually get him weighed and with our record that could be anytime up to his tenth birthday.

He has taken to rolling in a big way which is all very well until he rolls onto his tummy in the dead of night and wakes up, crying. Which brings me to last night and the night before which have been their own special little brands of hell. Having slept from 7.30 pm to 5am night after night he has now taken to waking two or three hourly and demanding food. And of course, since we share a room with him, those cries can be very persuasive. Yesterday I discussed “settling techniques” with my friend LL (her baby Toby was due a day after Tricky: Tricky came three weeks early and Toby came two weeks late so there’s now five weeks between them). We talked about the way some techniques seem to work and make you feel like a complete fucking genius and then suddenly nothing works and you have to start all over again.

Last night, the only thing that seemed to work was me dragging my boobs out and plugging him in.

I am officially tittywhipped.

Since he is almost six months (really? Six months? Good God.) we have tentatively started with solids which really means two small teaspoons of goop a day. For the first three days he had yoghurt which he seemed to love and then pumpkin which he seemed to hate and today banana which fell somewhere between the two.

Maybe it’s playing havoc with his system and keeping him up at night. Maybe solids is activating his testosterone levels and he’s practicing his bullying skills. Maybe I need to swaddle again, maybe he’s too hot, or too cold, or bitten by mosquitoes… Or maybe it’s just how it is this week and next week will be different and the week after that and the week after that…

If there is one thing I have learned, writing this blog, documenting this journey, it’s that things change, even when you think you’ve got a situation sussed. Whatever, all this lack of sleep is hard on the brain cells.

Sitting back in P’s restaurant, sipping wine and enjoying the whole sense of harbourside, red velvet, dry martini buzz of the place I suddenly spotted 80’s icon Lindy Chamberlain sitting at a table outside. Here was a mother once accused of killing her child in one of the most sensational cases of trial by media, many years later, enjoying a meal with friends.

My stepbrother P stopped by to see how the martinis were going down.
I saw Lindy Chamberlain, I told him surreptitiously.
Did you? he said. And what about Silverchair? They were sitting just over there.
I think it says something, that I could pick Lindy out of the crowd but totally failed to notice Newcastle’s most famous export.

Something about getting old, or priorities changing, or motherly mushbrain. I’d like to muse more on this but I’ve got deadlines you know and there’s only so many brain cells I can spare.

So This Is Christmas

Ah Christmas, season of love, peace and competitive card games using those weeny packs that one or two very lucky people manage to find in their Christmas crackers (everyone else having to make do with crappy plastic keyrings or tiny unusable pens or worst of all, miniature sticky tape dispensers.)

When the smoke from the crackers had cleared, I found one of the loathsome sticky tape dispensers amongst the debris. It was actually my sister T, sitting beside me, who got the pack of cards, but recently returning from France and putting herself on a gluten-free diet had left her in a weakened state.

Hey! I said brightly, waving the stickytape in front of her face in an enticing manner, can I swap you this?

Too feeble and wheat deprived to protest, the deed was quickly done and suddenly I was one of the lucky people, shuffling my cards with a pair of tweezers and challenging others to a robust game of whist.

But fascinating though it is, this is not really about lucky me and my cunningly cute little pack of micro-cards.

This is about my baby and his first ever Christmas and the great joy surrounding that milestone event.

This is about us being in Newcastle with my family, my dad and my step mum, C’s parents, my stepbrother, two of my three sisters, one fiancé and one slightly less grumpy granddad. (And his catheter of course which now pops up at all our family events.)

This is about Tricky’s blue/brown/grey (pick your colour) eyes opening wide at the sight of the glittering, flashing Christmas tree, laden with shiny wrapped gifts and sparkling ribbon.

This is about Tricky’s little mouth dropping open at the sight of my dad in his hypnotically flashing Santa Claus hat (also, unusually, a shirt, in honour of C’s parents) and his grinning response to the smiles of all those aunts and grandparents and uncles and great grandparent (and catheter)

This is about his delightful pterodactyl like squeal in response to so much shiny shiny, jingly jingly, smiley smiley Christmas goodness.

His presents were legion, and generous, and exquisitely wrapped. They were a reminder of how eagerly this baby was awaited, in both C’s family and my own, of how many hopes and prayers went into his being.

They were all lovely but just one made me cry.

This year, my granddad finally went to live in a retirement village. There had been two falls and some lengthy hospital stays. He was no longer steady on his feet and needed a walker to get around. But it was the catheter more than anything else that did it, the constant reminder that he was vulnerable and needed help. Most years my granddad did his Christmas shopping at the local supermarket, choosing an array of biscuits which he would then wrap in newspaper as a little joke and put under the tree. In years gone by he supplemented these with jars of home made tomato relish and one memorable year several bottles of home made ‘Irish Cream’ which curdled before the New Year.

This year, there were no jars of relish, no tins of biscuits. Instead he gave everyone in the family an envelope containing some money.

Tricky got the same amount as everyone else but along with the money, was the following note:

DEAR GREAT GRAND SON TRISTAN PATRICK

WELL THIS IS YOUR FIRST CHRISTMAS WITH OUR FAMILY AND I HOPE THAT IT IS A VERY JOLLY ONE.

I KNOW THAT YOU ARE TOO YOUNG TO READ THIS BUT “MUMMY” WILL READ IT FOR YOU.

I HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO GET TO THE SHOPS TO GET YOU A CHRISTMAS PRESENT SO I AM GIVING YOU MONEY INSTEAD, AND “MUMMY” CAN EITHER BUY YOU CLOTHES, OR A TOY, OR OPEN AN ACCOUNT IN THE BANK.

ANYWAY HAVE A NICE CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR LOOKING FORWARD TO YOUR FIRST BIRTHDAY LOTS OF LOVE

GRANDIS XXX


There was something else in the envelope, wrapped in a piece of paper. I opened it reverently. Inside was a rather sticky looking candy cane.

His first lolly, my Grandad explained.

Half an hour earlier, Santa hat flashing away, Christmas music playing, tree lights shining, amidst the laughter and mayhem, my dad had begun to hand out the first of the gifts. He picked them randomly, calling out names and I played elf, passing them round the room.

When he called out my baby’s name, I paused, wanting to savour this moment.

Sitting in my sister K’s lap, he reached for his very first Christmas present. As we all watched with proud smiles and moist eyes, he patted the paper, he fondled the ribbon and then…he fell apart in a Screaming Tomato mess and had to be swaddled and put to bed.

So that was Tricky’s first Christmas.

There were some repeat performances; a few quiet cuddles, some turkey flavoured breast milk, a quick hand of whist, more pteradactyl squeals, but basically, that was it.

It was, as my granddad had hoped, a VERY JOLLY ONE indeed.

ZZZZ is for Zombie Mother (Five months)

Dear Tricky

You are five months now which seems insane, because if anyone had asked me if I could survive five months of broken sleep; broken like a broken thing into itty bitty shards and then scattered over a bare wooden floor to be trodden on by soft, unprotected feet, I would have said no way and that sleep deprivation is a cruel and inhumane torture that turns otherwise sane people into the Living Dead. I had heard the horror stories from other new mothers, the tales of screaming and wailing – and that was the neighbours as they bashed on the walls in protest - and indeed the memory of those nights when you wanted to be fed hourly is still pressed firmly into the playdough of my mind. But things have got better, there is light at the end of the tunnel where the Zombie Mother lives, and the last two nights you have actually slept all the way through. I don’t know if it’s because I’m trying to feed you in a more regulated way or because I decided to swaddle you again, but whatever, it worked for two nights and if I have to swaddle you until you’re eighteen I’m prepared to do that if it means we all get some sleep.

Because there’s work to be done! Yes, even though Christmas is bearing down on us like a demented steamtrain with all the festive fun that entails, even though I’m looking forward to our first ever Christmas together, still the deadlines niggle and whirr and click, for both your father (who even as I speak is muttering like a crazy man at his computer screen) and I. So there’s not quite as much festive fun yet, although I know it’s coming because there are not one but two Christmas trees up in the Big House which your cousin O, the youngest of the Naughty Nephews has helped to decorate.

Just by the by, Cousin O is your new best friend now. Almost everyday he appears suddenly by your playmat. He smiles at you and you smile at him and it’s a complete love-in smileathon and then he lies down next to you and allows you to grip his hair and says gently “Please let go…”

Now and then he will dance and sing to you and that’s a treat for everyone, because his version of Rockin’ Robin is so damn cute. C and I pretend to be solemnly clacking away at our keyboards but everynow and then we catch each other’s eye and silently snort into our screens. On very very special days, Cousin O will do one of his world famous puppet shows with all your finger puppets. These are, inevitably, musicals, and I think we can say that Cousin O has a bright future on the stage awaiting him and his twinkle toes.

But perhaps you too will be struck hard with the showtunes stick because of late we have been utilizing Cousin O’s ‘Honeybear’ to help you with your daytime naps.

Honeybear is one of those musical thingys with a string you pull to make him pop up and down as ‘Teddybear’s Picnic’ hypnotically tinkles away. Honeybear is both wonderful and sinister. His soothing sounds put you to sleep but I worry that you will become addicted and that he will become crucial to your Nap Routine. Worse is when you are almost but not quite asleep and the damn string runs out. Someone then has to sneak into your room and pull the string which makes a nasty clack clack noise and often abruptly wakes you leading to accusing stares and Screaming Tomato.

You are fascinated by balls and baubles and your father shaving in the morning. You have started to enjoy your bath which is a relief because your father was determined to make you love the water. In actual fact you seemed to hate it so much we eventually stopped bothering to bath you altogether. But this month, you like the water and you love to kick the shit out of your new bath toys.

You gave up the dummy a few weeks back, not through strict weaning on our part but through general slackness and forgetting to sterilize the damn things or carry them in the change bag. Now you suck thoughtfully on your index finger and I smile at your fetching cuteness and sometimes you suck on two fingers and your thumb at the same time and make yourself throw up and then I frown because Mummy is weary of wiping spew off the floor.

Rolling is your thing. You lie on a rug on the floor and roll this way and that reaching for your toys…a soft ball, a blue giraffe, a stripy monkey, Mr Caterpillar with whom you still enjoy a ferocious tussle and of course Cousin O’s hair. The other day I was typing away and you had gone silent beside me and I looked down at you and you were staring up at me. It gave me a shock at first, you looked like some crazy Midwich Cuckoo baby but then I decided you were looking at me with love not psychosis and that made me happy.

I think maybe this month is the month you actually saw me and knew me as your mother and loved me. There was a moment when I put you into your cradle and we locked eyes and I started to cry because I realised just how much I completely and utterly love you and I knew that you loved me too.

Just in case you think I am being hopelessly mushy here, I'll just add quickly that your father and I have decided to break that habit we have of chewing on your ears. It's done with love and also because your ears are so soft and cute but we appreciate that all that chewing may not retain the softness and cuteness.

So even though they're doubly delicious because of those regular baths you're having, you can consider the ears chew-free from now on.

Your very own
OvaGirl
xxxxx

Baby And Book

There are certain skills that nearly all who enter the wonderful world of the Arts in Australia must own or acquire.

I’m not talking about the drinking or the schmoozing or the on-tour adultery.

I’m talking about the juggling.

At some stage every single actor must be taught to juggle. Usually in drama class, usually while studying ‘street theatre’ or ‘circus skills’ or that most terrifying and loathsome of all acting courses ‘finding your inner clown’.

You dabble in Chekov, you move a little Mamet and then suddenly everyone is handed three bean bags or skittle things or those balls made with rice and balloons and then it’s all about eyelines and balance and G rated gags (unless you’re going to get one of those casino gigs which I hear are very lucrative).

We do this not because we need to understand the ‘coarse arts’ or are about to seriously delve into commedia but because the employment situation for actors is such crap that everyone needs to know how to busk and /or run a kiddy birthday party. Not everyone, I admit, but basically if your name isn’t Cate Blanchett or Nicole Kidman then you’ve got either an inner clown or a fairy and you’ve accepted money to brightly utter the immortal words “Time to cut the cake!”.

This is possibly why I became a writer.

I couldn’t juggle, no matter how garish my floppy pants were, how bright and cheery my braces. My inner clown inhaled her own rubber nose and died a horrible death and my fairy wafted too close to a birthday candle and combusted in a puff of glitter. This was a relief until I realised early on that writers juggle too. Not rice-and-balloon balls or bean bags, but deadlines which are infinitely heavier and far more spiky and dangerous.

So here’s the thing.

I have a commission to write a book.

It’s based on this blog or at least the bits of blog leading up to this.

There is a publisher. There is an editor. There is a deadline…February 15th

And there’s a whole lot of self doubt and worry and fear but also, also…great excitement.

Yesterday I said to C: don’t speak to me please, I’m working on my book.

There was a slight pause as we solemnly pondered over those words.

And then we both snorted like ferrets (yes, they do snort, some of them. The snorty kind) and silently shrieked because it was too brilliantly jolly.

I wasn’t going to mention it here but the thing is, writing this is becoming a huge part of my life. If I don’t mention it my posts from now on will be limited to Tricky’s burgeoning headsize and his antics with certain stuffed invertebrates.

And I’m juggling just as hard as I can – the book and the baby and a couple of other deadlines besides, but the book and the baby most of all.

I’ve got till February the 15th to complete the manuscript and if I don’t, well let’s just say they know where I live. The publisher sent me a Christmas card yesterday with a whole bunch of pink cupcakes on the cover. It sparked several thoughts, all at once… ooh card, isn’t that nice… sweet mother of god, is it Christmas already, fuck I’m running out of time… cupcakes mmm mmm…actually the gum drops on top of those cakes look like my gnawed leathery nipples…

and finally it reminded me of those long ago birthday parties, those will-clown-for-food-and-spare-change type gigs…



Would write more now but baby is screaming, clock is ticking.



Must go apply rubber nose and get those balls back in the air.

much like the double sided Kandinsky

This morning at 5.45 am I finished feeding Tricky and then put him on the bed.



And first I thought look how beautiful he is, and how sweet he looks fast asleep next to his dad.



And then I thought wow, his head looks really big now, imagine trying to push that through your clacker.

One Year Ago...

...Hope came charging back into our lives, swished her tarty party skirt, clacked her fancy high heels together and said...how 'bout it?

How 'bout it indeed.

It seems incredible, miraculous, insane.



That this...

And this...

And much more of this...

could lead to this...

She said what?

C and I watched this amazing show last night.

Well in fact it wasn't that amazing, it was just some bog standard crap tv but it was about this woman who claimed to be able to understand what babies are trying to communicate through their array of piercing shrieks and cries.

This seemed ridiculous at first but then she (let's call her Babytalk Lady) explained that she was musically attuned as it were, and when her own baby was born Babytalk Lady was able to remember and recognise the noises he made at different times.

And hence, eight years on, and having closely watched many many babies (slightly unnerving don't you think?), she was able to create a dictionary of baby language which any parent, of any nationality, could use to identify their baby's needs. Apparently they are formed from the baby's physical response to the need.

She shared five of these with us but I am assuming there are many more since she has a dvd to flog somewhere. Here are the five and their meanings:

Neh ..... I am hungry, damn you!
This was a sort of general crying sound but you could distinctly hear a 'n' sound. It is created by the sucking action of the tongue against the roof of the mouth, which makes sense when you think about it.

Ow...(as in cow) Bed! Put me to bed before I have the welfare people onto you.
This is the sound for tired and I have to admit that I had already noticed that when Tricky was tired he would make this mournful owowowow shout.

Eh...burp me, for the milk it is mixing with the air and churning in a hellish manner in my gullet...
This is a sort of short eh eh eh kind of noise. Babytalk Lady says if they make that noise in the middle of the night one needs only to throw bubba over the shoulder and burp him/her before putting back down for restful repose.

Eairh....My tummy hurts, I want to make the bottom burp noise...
This is a sort of longer sound then the noise for burp me. Babytalk Lady says this will not be the quick burp back in bed scenario and probably means you are in for another hour of 'colic hold' ie cycling junior's legs like a pair of egg beaters.

Heh...I'm not happy. My clothes are too tight. I'm too hot, no wait I'm too cold. I'm worried about the proximity of those lemons...
Or "discomfort" as she described it. This noise was a sort of breathless huffing sort of cry.

The babies will often combine sounds because they are cunning like that but eventually one will dominate and when you have attended to that need the next will make itself known and then the next and the next and then you will drop with exhaustion.

Today I have heard Tricky say Neh when I was taking too long swapping him from one boob to the other, eh quickly followed by him spewing over my lap and owowow at which point I lay him down in his cot and he immediately closed his eyes and went to sleep.

It is both satisfying and also slightly creepy because I've been reading Spot And His Dad and singing Galumph Went The Little Green Frog to him over and over and for all I know he wants Proust and La Boheme.

Sadly, Babytalk lady did not divulge the secret words for... You scare me with your smiling or... These socks with the crocodile face on the toes are not cute they are demeaning or... For the love of God, drink some coffee mama, quickly!

Breaking Up With Kate Bush

Dear Kate

As I’m sure you know, having sex with an ex is always a bad idea.

Too much baggage whizzing about. It’s like a demented British Airways carousel after a horribly long flight with cheap chardonnay and way too much turbulence.

It’s not so much One-More-For-The-Road as You-Made-A-Mistake-Breaking-Up-With-Me-Look-Nah-Nah-What-A-Good-Root-I-Am.

There’s all the recriminations.
The spiteful accusations.
The lame Breakup Lines to try and ease the parting.

It’s not passionate, it’s petty.

I’ve realised that a similar thing occurs when you revisit the music of your past.
That’s Past with a capital P.

Specifically, the music that you played when you were with an ex.

It’s been so many years since you and I were pals Kate.

How I loved your whimsical lyrics (“You’re like my yo-yo…” how craaazy is that?) and creepy whispering melodies, your mane of dark hair and your wild, wild I’m a bit-mad-you-know-eyes.

But those days of flouncy white frocks and one armed swaying and of course the high pitched eeriness of all your beautiful not-of-this-world songs are long gone.

As are the associated men. And that’s a Very Good Thing.

This weekend I was lingering in a music shop and I saw your cd The Whole Story. It had Wuthering Heights and Hounds of Love and all manner of reedy wierdy high pitched creepy whispery hits. I was looking for a cd to play in the car while I drove up north for a weekend away and I suddenly thought what a lovely idea it would be to revisit Kate.

I could one handed sway as I pootled up the Pacific Highway.
I could flip my hair and roll my eyes in a madcap Kate-ish fashion.
I could wear cheesecloth, or at least a blouse that flounced as well as allowing easy access for breast feeding.

And I could sing along of course because all those words were etched indelibly in my 19 year old brain.

And so it came to be. And I sang along and so did my baby and the high notes were met and lo surpassed, although not by me. And the car was fall of floaty, swaying, cheese clothy loveliness.

For about ten minutes.

And then the memories came flooding back.

It was creepy and not in the way you intended.

It was grubby. It was petty. There was a nasty taste in my mouth that I’d prefer not to identify but if I was going to be brutally honest I’d say was regret. Creepy whispery floaty regret.

And that’s why, I’m afraid, it’s over. No really.

It was beautiful while it lasted but I’d rather it stayed a wonderful memory. We've both gone too far down our respective roads, me, married with a baby and you, still floaty and whispery but now doing craazy songs about your washing machine.

We’d spoil it if we tried to start up again.

But don’t blame yourself.

It’s not you, it’s me.

(No Longer Yours)

Ova Girl
xxx

It seems odd...

...that if I'm trying to snatch a few moments sleep in the afternoon and I hear someone using a lawnmower I relax and imagine Sunday afternoons and pleasant cut grass smells but if I hear someone using a leaf blower I want to fling up the window and scream like a banshee:

'TRY USING A FUCKING BROOM'

Sometimes "wrestling the caterpiller" means just that. (Four months)

Dear Tricky

Coming up to this month I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of being your mother.

I’m aware that this is probably a tenuous sensation, like thinking I’ve finally got the gist of semicolons, or finally know how to reattach the wireless router when our internet connection bites the dust. The whole of the me-mother-you-son playing field will shift and change and reset itself mysteriously and without warning, probably for the rest of our lives.

But for this moment of this month I feel as if I really know you; when you’re tired or you’re hungry or you just want to kick Mr Caterpiller’s stripy butt.

Mr Caterpiller is your current favourite Stuffed Friend. Your previous fave was Jingly Cow but soon after we got back from our big road trip around the state you dropped him like a fat stinky nappy.

I’m a little sad on behalf of the bovine, the two of you seemed such firm friends for the whole of that three weeks. He dangled and jingled and you laughed and burbled. He did his special medley of cow-centric show tunes as we made our torturous way through Melbourne traffic during one particularly special day and you, cranky as all get out, fixed him with your Evil Eye and your pouting lower lip, just daring him to stop.

Sing, damn you, you clinking four-stomached ruminant, sing! you seemed to be saying, and so he did right through The Sound Of Music (High on a hill lived a lonely Cow-herd, moo moo moo moo moo moo moo moo-oo), The Rocky Horror Picture Show(Toucha toucha toucha touch me, I want to be milky…), Godspell (Prepare Ye The Way Of The Cow) and Jesus Christ Superstar (Jesus Christ! Super Cow! If you were a dog then you’d say Bow Wow).

And then Mummy collapsed in a heap.

Now it’s all about Mr Caterpiller and his 60cm of crackly, stripy, squashable body parts.

He used to be longer than you but now you’ve caught up and also you’re much thicker than him, not that wrestling is all about who’s taller and fatter. You like to grab him as he hangs off your playgym and then you wrestle his caterpillar arse into the ground.

Your eyelashes are grown quite long and gorgeous and so I’m filled with both admiration and deep envy and you have become the Master Of The Wry Smile, often employed as you ‘posset’ yet again over my clothes or your father sings Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (the Pitjantjatjara version).

At 4 months I am much more aware of how dangerous the world is for tiny wee folk like yourself.

When you were smaller you weren’t aware of the Outside World, you were curled up and cosy in our skins. But now you see the sunlight flickering against the curtains while you feed and you break off (often with my nipple still in your mouth) and marvel at the light and why we still haven’t put up proper curtains despite it being nearly a year in the Big House and the whole hilarious nature thing.

Birds! Leaves rustling in the breeze! Flies!

You reach up and adjust my bra strap or finger the fabric of my singlet top and muse on the strange way cotton is Good because it is so light and breathable yet Evil because as a crop it sucks up so much water.

At this point, one of the greatest dangers to yourself seems to be us, your loving parents.

While we were away you and your father had a special bonding experience. He was holding you in his arms as he shook lemons from the tree and inevitably one fell on your head. It scared you but it scared your father more. I think you both cried. I was in the shower at the time and he didn’t tell me about it for another few hours, all the while “monitoring” you (yay St John’s first aid course).

Later, back at home, I left you on your tummy on the bed, with pillows on each side, as I flittered about trying to clean up the disaster that is our bedroom. I could hear you making protesting noises and I could see you had propped yourself against a pillow but I waited till I had rolled all our socks (because that’s essential, that rolled sock thing, crucial) before I picked you up. Surprise… your arm had gone almost blue.

We feel terrible about these things and we confess them to each other in shocked whispered voices and then we laugh derisively at how horrible and incompetent we are.

When we tell our stories to other parents they nod and then confess their terrible stories; the ill hung mobiles suddenly falling with pointy precision and the chasing of toddlers under prickly vines with a baby in the backpack.

I am reliably told that the most common accident for babies of your age is “father throwing baby in air and failing to catch”.

You forgive us constantly. When we drive for six hours and you sit alone in your car seat facing the back window, nothing to look at but hard blue sky, nothing to listen to but your parents singing Hits From The 80’s. When we get our timing arse about and have you out too late at night or forget to carry a spare change of clothes and you’re forced to wear an emergency crumpled dry sick singlet.

When we drop lemons on your head.

You give so much to us. It’s amazing that this could be so when you are still small (but heavy!) and wake me twice a night (not that I’m complaining) to feed and you don’t even have an email account but it’s true.

You press against us when we pick you up and you smile and blow spitty bubbles in our direction and we feel as if we’ve won the Lotto. It’s like magic to see your father’s mood change when he’s been dealing all day with idiots on the phone and feels stressed and anxious about work. If he picks you up when you’re crying, or need a nappy change or best of all when you have just woken, he can’t help but smile.

When someone you love dies and you emerge from that experience, shaken and transformed, you know how precious time is and how important it is to love each other, to be kind to each other.

And when someone you love is born, it’s the same thing.

The truth is, I know that I can’t protect you from the Outside World (although I can prioritise you over the socks) just as I can’t really fix our Wireless Router (it was a fluke) nor properly; place; semicolons;

But I do know that you encourage us to strive more, to care more, to love more.

You make us want to be better people. And we fail of course, over and over, but any time we despair or despise, if we feel depressed or downtrodden, we look at you and see in your eyes and in your face all the potential, the hope, all the Good in our lives renewed.

Fresh. Clean. Forgiven.

And on we go through the lemon infested minefield that is our life together.

Thankyou for these past four months.

Love

Your very own

OvaGirl

Fails Yummy-Mummy Class

I realize that my last post may have indicated that I am exercising like a fiend, or at least like some kind of fit and healthy eastern suburbs yummy-mummy.

Ha! I laugh once, very loudly, at this ridiculous notion and three minutes later my atrophied belly fat is still reverberating with mirth.

When I said “a special exercise class’ I meant it.
“a”

Just the one.

Because they’re hard those special exercise classes. Also, when I said I did an exercise with my baby I lied because in fact he was asleep in his pram at the time. Which was a shame because that’s the highlight of the class really. The bit where you lie on your back and roll them about in your legs or dangle them on your knees (all the time sucking in your belly and clenching your lala). No doubt it was a blessing in disguise because Tricky would probably have heaved a gutful of cottage cheese all over my maternity(still) shirt but it was a little disappointing having to pretend I was holding a baby while everyone else had the real thing. At the end of the class he woke and I went to pick him up just to prove to everyone that I had a real live baby lying in the pram and not, say, a sock puppet, and the whole back of his pants was dripping with something that wasn’t gravy, leaving a large and fragrant stain on my stretch maternity (still) jeans.

So then I had to hastily wheel him out of the room which necessitated annoying some of the thinner firmer younger mothers who wanted to sit languidly on the floor in front of the doorway and chat. Just go around, one of them told me with a wave of her beautifully manicured hand and so, smilingly, I did.

And then I ran over her fingers. (Another lie.)

In the so-called change room, I stripped everything off my child and dropped it into a plastic bag and then, as he lay buck naked on a skuzzy exercise mat, I realised that although I had a nappy I had neglected to pack another set of clothes for him for just such an occasion.

And then he pissed over me.

At that point I laughed gaily and made free use of the paper towels and then, as if the gods had seen me and sighed at my crapness in maternal preparation, they granted me a small miracle and lo, scrunched in a ball at the bottom of my bag I found a singlet.

True it had been sicked on, but the sick was dry and it could only be seen by someone who was really really nosy.

I did mean to go back, I really did, but then I realised my abdominal muscles were actually coming back together of their own accord, albeit a little slower without the flappy metal things and the big rubber balls.

But sometimes, mornings mostly, I reach for my baby and roll him about on my legs and wave him in the air. Sometimes I even remind myself to hold my tummy muscles and clench my lala at the same time.

Also apropos of the last post (ooh, how very ANZAC of me) I realize that writing about getting a lump in your breast, even when you eventually discover that said lump is actually a cyst, is worrying and perhaps even frightening for some who read it in my blog (although these days it appears that’s happening less and less what with all the apparently loathsome ‘mommyness’ my blog now contains).

Yes well I’m sorry about that but guess how fucking scary it was for me?

Sometimes, when bad things happen, I get so worried I actually don’t write about it until it’s over. It’s like holding your breath and putting your hands over your eyes when the monster bit comes up in the movie. And when it was happening, the thinking and the being scared and the wishing I had been a bit less like my mum, I did think that I should blog it because that's sort of what I did when I was going through the infertility shit and it helped so much to just write out the fear and the anger and the completely soul destroying despair. But I didn't, because ultimately I was too scared to write the words I think I have cancer. Instead I rang my sister AJ in New Zealand and she was great and very calm, and just once I said to C in the middle of making dinner I'm scared about that lump and he grabbed me and said oh so am i, so am I.

All those weeks I thought about it and I thought about writing it and I thought about going to the doctor and I did sweet F.A.

In retrospect I realise it's not an effective strategy, all that agonising and procrastinating.

And I now realise it would be far more sensible for me to actually just get the lump checked out immediately and fuck the blogging.

So yeah, sorry and all.

But you know.
No one’s perfect.

Six Degrees Of Abdominal Separation

I blush at the great yawning expanse of time between my last post and this one but there has been, you know, Stuff going on.

My play has come and gone and was all good with reviews and everything. We went away soon after opening night, to Melbourne and various dry dusty interstate places but came back for the final night of the show.

It was evident that stuff had been going on there as well, the actors were so much more relaxed and able to be, well, funny. I mean it’s a serious play and all but there are these sort of funny bits in there, deliberately, and on opening night the actors were being very reverent and solemn about the play and came across as a wee tad uptight and tense. But by closing they were all relaxed and loose and floppy and actually milking some of those high farcical moments for laffs, god love them all.

I can tell time has passed because the muscles of my abdomen are now only a finger width apart.

Way back, somewhere in the first trimester, the two halves of my front torso began to drift apart. We all know those couples who seemed to be joined at the hip for say…38 years and then suddenly decided to go their own way. So it was with my tummy muscles.

It could have been something as simple as ‘She prefers to inject her Lucrin on your side’ but however it started, it got worse and worse and before I knew it there was a line drawn down my centre and a window on my solar plexus and ligaments were all that stood between my intestines and the outside world.

Just after Tricky was born one of the hospital physios checked me out as they do. She discovered that my abdominal muscles had separated far enough for her to fit seven fingers between them. And I’m not saying she had big clumping man’s hands with large sausage fingers but, you know, they weren’t overly spindly digits. Then she made me put my own fingers in so I could feel for myself the void that was once my cleverly contained internal organs. The horror.

The exercises started soon after. Every now and then I would drop into the hospital and meet with J the physio who put me and my pelvic floor through our paces. But gentle paces you know, nothing strenuous. Mostly they involved holding my tummy in and clenching my lala.

When I was about four fingers apart I attended a special exercise class at the hospital, it involved flapping bits of metal and lolling about on large balls and lifting your baby with your legs. I quite enjoyed the work out but the instructor was of the formidable variety, whenever she noted me hesitating over an exercise she would say loudly and a little impatiently: It’s alright, you won’t herniate.
Well maybe I won’t, scary lady, but that still doesn’t stop it hurting because I just had a baby don’t you know.

Anyway whether it was the hurty type of exercise or the gentle type those muscles seem to have crept back together again, last seen meeting for coffee at a local café “just to talk”.

And then, amongst all the theatre stuff and the work stuff and the life stuff there was this lump.

I had noticed it on the right side of my right breast several weeks ago now but I had chalked it up to being one of those pesky blocked ducts. And I would dutifully mash away at it in the shower or while feeding, thinking that it would shrink away or unblock or whatever. But it didn't. And then I thought I better get it checked before I went away because otherwise that would be another three weeks before I saw a doctor.

And I didn't do that either. And it wasn't until a week after I got home that I finally made an appointment to see the doctor and get it checked.

And all that time I kept thinking of my mother and how, when she first found a lump in her breast, she didn't get it checked because she was too busy with Stuff and how, eventually it killed her.

She was 33 when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer. She was 48 when she died. If I died at the same age my baby would be ten years old.

This week my doctor told me that the lump was a cyst, that I had a number of cysts in my breasts and that I could have them treated after I finish breastfeeding.

It's not bad news, she said to me.

No.

Today, I stopped doing stuff and while playing with my baby, I said “kiss for mama?” and conveniently placed my cheek near his little mouth and I think, I’m almost a hundred percent sure, that the wet gumming at my face was his version of a kiss.

And it was sweet.

Now We Are Three Months

Darling Tricky boy

Today you are three months old and you are also in Melbourne.

When I first sat down to write this you were shrieking and carrying on... in short you had become your evil other self, the Screaming Tomato.

Your father was carrying you around the motel room, making hushing sounds and doing that rhythmic go-to-sleep patting of your bum. He had a forlorn look on his face because he was unable to soothe you or else because you were stabbing his arms over and over again with your teeny tiny razor sharp fingernails.

NO! you seemed to be screaming. NO I WILL NOT BE HUSHED! I want to be AWAKE and PLAY and make the MOO! sound and also GRASP mummy's nipple in my jaws and SHAKE it violently from side to side and then SMILE in a goofy fashion up at her with my mouth full of LIVING TISSUE so that she will be reminded that she is COMPLETELY IN MY POWER. And I will DIG my teeny tiny razor sharp fingernails into your arms and push my matching teeny tiny razor sharp toenails into your stomach so that you will ALSO be reminded that you too are COMPLETELY IN MY POWER.

I'm not going to say that you're growing so quickly but it is wierd suddenly noticing changes. It's small things like... you're more alert now, for longer, and you watch things go by and you clutch at things when they're waved in front of you and you make the stabbing claw hand of sharp pointy doom.

And you smile.

Oh your smile! It stops us in our tracks and reminds us that the world can be a kind place, a loving place, a beautiful and hopeful place despite all the current evidence to the contrary... the worst drought in 150 years and the not so secret nuclear testing and the elimination of Bobby Flynn from Australian Idol.

You chat and chuckle and as soon as we hear your voice your father and I cluster around you and say encouragingly over and over 'mama' and 'dadda' - it's like we're having a tussle your father and I, to see who you name first because obviously then we'll know who you love most.
You giggle and look, bemused, from one parent to the other because you know that the winner of that little contest is actually your Jingly Cow thanks to Nanny Annie who taught you to say Moo.

We're in Melbourne because we're back to see the show that was created by the arts company your father and I work for.

And here's the strange thing:

Last year at this time, we were here, seeing the same show (a work in progress version).

And we were heading off to Adelaide after that to see the first production of the play I wrote, which is now on in Sydney.

And I'd just had my first IVF transfer.
And it failed.
And we were broken people.

And that's why, on Monday night while we were watching the show and I was holding you in my arms, rocking you and hushing you, and that part of the show came on where the audience is taught to sing Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes in Pitjantjatjara, I felt an odd tugging sensation in my heart.

I remembered singing this song last year, still remembered the words, and I looked down and sang them softly to you. And you looked up at me with your bright shining eyes, full of everything good in this world.

It was as if someone, God or the Goddess or the Universe had given us that time over again, except this time, we had you.

You're asleep now, clutching your soft bear to your chest. Your long dark eyelashes fan onto your round soft cheeks, your tiny hands are clenched shut and your fingers curled like seashells. You're so beautiful, possibly the most beautiful thing we've ever seen. And you're ours.

And your father and I smile at each other because we know, it's true.



We're both completely in your power.

This Will Be His First Theatrical Experience

So the play went well! Hoorah, yay and other exclamations of joy.

C had flown in for ONE NIGHT ONLY and of course the plane was late and he arrived home at about 7 and the play starts at 8.15...

But to backtrack a little...Tricky and I had a fairly good day but it's so hot around here at the moment and our part of the house is like an oven. I was trying to do the Feed At 4 Hourly Intervals (as opposed to on demand which worked out at 1 and 2 hourly intervals unless he was asleep) thing but I also gave him cooled boiled water from a teaspoon in between times.

And lo there was much of the screaming.

Oh lord the screaming.

Poor little Hot Cross Current-Bun Boy. In vain did I dangle the jingly cow and speak in the manner of my friend Annie (who I shall call Nanny Annie from now on, on account of her miraculous doings with baby). In vain did I say 'moo' at him. We sat in the cooler parts of the house and he smiled a bit and accepted his pathetic teaspoons of water but what he wanted was milk and when he didn't get it he screamed.

But we managed to limp thru the day on a more or less 4 hourly feed cycle. And then, it was time for the theatre. And of course, because this is our life, the babysitter who had said how smitten he was and was thrilled to be looking after him for an hour and a half in the theatre foyer....was missing. C had been ringing and leaving messages all day. Nyet. Nada. Non.

So for Tricky's first ever proper theatre experience, he hung out in the box office with the publicist. He actually slept the entire time. And when we came out into the foyer , he was still asleep. And when I tried to wheel his pram out into open view to ensure he was still breathing, he was still asleep but more, he was now locked in the box office because the publicist was out having a champers (rightly earned) and someone had decided to pull the door shut.

And while I was trying to find someone with a key the Very Important Artistic Director of the mainstage theatre (my play was on in the smaller theatre space) came up to me and told me that he very much enjoyed the play and that I had written a great script. This was thrilling and several things went through my mind. Firstly I remembered that his company had actually rejected my script a couple of years earlier as being unstageable. Secondly I was struck by how much he looked like a friend of mind and perhaps they were twins separated at birth but the overriding thing was that MY BABY IS LOCKED IN THE BOX OFFICE.

Of course I was too professional to wail this out immediately. I chatted about the play and the wooonderful director and the faaaaabulous cast and I didn't say anything about the dire lack of women writers or directors in his new season nor did I say how much he looked like Jo, even down to the kind of glasses they both wore.

But finally I had to say apologetically, actually...is there a key about? And he obligingly went off to find one.

And lo, the baby was released. (Still fast asleep)

So all in all a good night. The play was a success. People liked it. Other writers liked it. Other directors liked it. The lady from Currency press liked it. The gorgeous old semi-retired theatre critic from Newcastle who had come specially to see it (and has seen me grow up on stage both acting and writing) liked it as well.

So much like in the room.


But so SO much better than all of this?





He slept for 10 HOURS.

12 Weeks On...the latest moos.

Tricky was 12 weeks on Tuesday which should mean a jolly little "Dear Tricky here are your milestones" type post (being of course a blogging mother's responsibility) but in actual fact means 12 weeks of me being tired and my brain gradually shrinking to the size of a nut.

And not one of those big nuts either like your brazil or your...well some other large nut but you see? I can't think of one, just go with brazil.

Along with the tiredness comes the irritableness and then the loss of vocabulary (see nut above).

The other day C and I were driving home with baby and there were no car spaces left directly outside house. This meant we would have to park up the road and lug shopping and baby back which is probably no big deal except I was tired (of course) and irritable (mmm yes) and I said, not in a loud way or an aggressive way, just a sort of gently weary way:

You fucking arse cunts.

There was a pause and then C and I both sort of snickered a bit.

Do you think, he said, that we might need to think about curbing our language? Because one day we're going to get a phone call from the school to say "all the six year olds are calling each other 'arse cunts' and we've narrowed it down to your son."

This week the rest of the household are away on holidays and C had to go bush again with The Project and so it was just me and the Tricky boy and then my dad who has had knee surgery wasn't sounding very good on the phone so we packed up and went home to Newcastle for a couple of days.

And this was a good thing because my poor dad was very pleased to see us and I could drive him about for a couple of days rather then him being stuck at home watching bad tv.

And also because my stepmum is a brilliant cook and made delicious (not hot) curries.

And finally because my friend Annie came over one night and played with Tricky and taught him to say moo to his jingly cow toy but also taught me to space out his feeds a bit more and so last night, rather than waking me every two hours to be fed like he did a couple of nights ago, he slept from 8.30 to 1.00 and then from 1.30 to 4.30 and I went back to sleep at 5 and got up at 6 and what this rather boring bit of paragraph is actually saying is that LAST NIGHT I SLEPT FOR 8 HOURS.

Yes they were spread out a bit but I don't care. I see some light and it's not my brain exploding and me being hospitalised and given the sweet sweet relief of ... some sleeping drug I can't remember the name of because after all my brain is still the size of a small nut.

My play opens tonight and while yesterday when asked if I was nervous at the prospect I could say with all honesty I was too tired to care, today there is the potential for caring, what with the extra sleep and all. Tricky is coming with us to the theatre but having learned our lesson in rehearsal he will be snuggly strapped into his pram and awaiting us in the foyer. A friend of C's from work (actually a baby smitten gay chap who, along with a girl friend, is attempting to be a dad himself) is going to sit with him and shake the jingly cow and exchange moo's with him.

(By the way I am not kidding about the moo. Annie did get him to say moo and she also blew raspberries at him and he tried to do that for a while and then cried when he couldn't make the spppppp sound.)