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.)

Lights, Action, Spew

My play which was produced this time last year is having another production here in Sydney. New Australian plays have a tendency to be done once and then disappear into the ether, so I’m lucky to have a couple of bites of this particular cherry (with a third to come in Melbourne next year).

On the weekend C and I went to see a rehearsal – and we took Tricky thinking this might be a good chance to introduce him to the feckless artiste existence of his parents. All very casual, just three people in the audience, opening night still a couple of weeks off. It would be a gradual introduction, like solids.

Some of my friends have brought their babies up in the theatre, they tell jolly tales of their little ones sleeping in the seats at the back of the theatre. Other friends, children of thespians, tell grand tales of having the run of the theatre and being inspired to put on their own little plays, with nothing but an empty chocolate box and a used pair of tights – precocious little moppets that they were.

I love the idea of Tricky being a theatre baby but having cast an eye over our finances we've realised that our best plan for retirement lies in our son becoming a plumber.

Before the run Tricky flirted outrageously with the director and was at his current-bun best. He’s so gorgeous, she shrieked. And I bet he’s so talented.

C and I hung our heads and muttered our modest denials. As soon as she turned her back he exercised one such talent – the Inappropriate Exploding Nappy.

Having dealt with that small crisis, the show began. Tricky sat on C’s lap and watched with interest as the four actors did their thing. Five minutes in however and the heckling began.

Small grunts at first and then tiny high pitched squeals. In vain did his father try to keep the dummy in his mouth. As the volume of the play became louder, so did the volume of the world’s tiniest theatre critic. Squeals became shouts became wailing gurgles. I attached him to one nipple and there was welcome silence. To be broken by snorting snuffling noises. The actors soldiered on.

The play came to an end. We clapped. Tricky vomited, leaving a small spattery puddle on the floor and a large trail of sick down my left breast.
I mopped ineffectually at myself.
Then I gave notes.
Then we left the rehearsal room.
Swiftly.

We have decided we will need a babysitter for opening night.
Either that or a plumber.

Attack of the Screaming Tomato

Uggggg

Have just managed to clear head from total brain fog after three nights of hellish Screaming Tomato every hour on the hour from 2am….

Amazing how with just an uninterrupted block of 4 hours sleep a person can go from feeling like maniacal non-coping Mother of Screaming Tomato to calm, slightly bemused, coping-well-enough mother of dear little Current Bun-head boy. Can wash hair. Can wash clothes. Can even tend to blog. Will now stop writing like a demented Helen Fielding character.

Last week C and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary (which is 12 years of being a couple – we enjoyed a long engagement) with a posh dinner out.

Yes! Dinner! Out! Sans Tricky, who was looked after by his Blessed Aunty N.

At 7.30 I mooched up to her with the baby.

What are you doing still here? she hissed, in a quite good impression of Gandalf clinging by his fingernails to the edge of a Morian mine chasm with a Balrog dangling from his knees while the rest of the Fellowship milled about aimlessly, wringing their hands.
He’s been fed, burped and changed. And had a top up. Quickly! Fly you fools. Fly!

And so we did as if all the orcs in Middle earth were at our heels. I left my cruddy maternity jeans on (the only pants that still fit me) but swiftly popped a fresh, slightly fancy top over my less than fresh maternity bra.

In a few seconds I had gathered up my hair in one of those fashionable ‘bed head’ type pony tails and slung on an enormous beaded pendant necklace that would draw the eye down from my dark circled eyes. In the car I applied some lipstick I found at the bottom of the handbag I never use anymore because it’s too small to hold disposable nappies, wipes and a warm hat.

And lo I was set!

C proclaimed me beautiful and after a large glass of wine, so did I.

We tried very hard to not talk about Tricky and we almost succeeded. I told C how my sister AJ had explained when I would know I was a proper mother. The moment would occur when I sat down for a couple of moments peace in front of the telly and suddenly realize I had baby poo under my fingernails. Instead of leaping up in disgust and rushing to the bathroom I would casually pick it out and wipe it on my jeans.

First anniversary is paper, said C in an effort to steer the conversation back to adult topics. What is the second? Wood?

No. First anniversary is paper but second anniversary is diamonds, I explained.

We ate French entrée thingys and salmon and something else that was delicious but too much of a stretch to recall at this point. And desserts. Oh la. The most delicious chocolate cake ever and a rhubarb and ginger cream mille feulle (spelt wrong I believe but too knackered to google).

It was fabulous and too expensive even though a little man did come forth and shave our tablecloth free of crumbs which is always a nice thing to have happen.

The week continued in fine style with Tricky’s 8 week immunization which I believe is for Tetanus, Diphtheria, Whooping Cough, Hep B, Polio, Poor Fashion Sense and Misuse of Apostrophes.

At the GP’s I asked if I could have breastfeed the baby while she gave him the injections.

She looked at me, confused.
I don’t think that’s necessary, she said.
I think it will help, I explained.
Well, she said. In my experience all babies cry but sure if you want to, go ahead.

So I did.

It is a horrible thing to see an enormous needle plunging into your baby’s thigh. He stopped sucking and opened his mouth wide to scream…and then instantly went back to sucking. There were two tears at most. It was as if he’d been half way through a mouthful of the most delicious, if poorly spelt, rhubarb and ginger cream mille feulle ever ...and suddenly seen the bill. But then without thinking he had shoved another mouthful of rhubarb and ginger cream in, and the bill was miraculously torn up and scattered to the wind.

If the GP was impressed she didn’t show it but I like to think she may have learned something at that moment. I felt vindicated. I had successfully comforted my baby.

Even with clean fingernails I felt like a proper mother.

Let Them Eat Cake

C had to go to Canberra this morning.

Canberra is a strange cold wet fish of a city where trees grow in strict formation and politicians come out to play. There are certain laws binding the rest of our sweet nation and ensuring our moral and physical safety that need not apply in this city - it’s that special and magical.

I am insanely jealous of course, not because of the Canberra thing but because C is there for two days and thus guaranteed at least one night of uninterrupted sleep. That is, unless he succumbs to Canberra’s unique charms and spends the wee hours trawling the streets for Xrated porn and firecrackers.

Something I read, or maybe someone told me, or possibly an angel visited me in a dream and proclaimed it so, was that having a baby often makes bad relationships worse and good relationships pretty much stay the same.

C and I are best mates and have been together for many years, laughing at each others crap jokes and taking it in turns to make the porridge (except when C discovered a new and vastly superior porridge making method and then do you think I was allowed to go within two metres of a rolled oat?).

And certainly when I had to do that Will I Kill My Baby? Test they make you do after 6 weeks or so, I ticked all the right boxes (although I paused over the Are You Ever Afraid Of Your Partner box when I recalled his frightening obsession with the porridge).

But still, the truth is things have been getting a wee bit snappy around here of late.

We’re both tired and there have been more terse words and less cuddles than say 8 weeks ago. And there’s been little or no Special GrownUp Naked Time, not for want of trying. It is oddly difficult to get down and dirty when the other hand is occupied with rocking a cradle. A slight soiling is all we’ve really managed.

The other day we decided to go out for lunch with the baby.

Naturally in the car there were tears and the screaming tomato face but this time it wasn’t Tricky. We tried to talk in an adult fashion about the snappiness and the grumpiness and the Too Busy for Special GrownUp Naked Time.

I miss you, I cried.
I miss you too said C. It’s like we’ve both fallen in love with someone else.
Someone tiny, brown and incontinent.

When we got out of the car we stood in the street and kissed.
And said how much we loved each other.
And how sexy we were, even with spew on our clothes and poochy tummies.
And then, in lieu of Special GrownUp Naked Time we decided to eat cakes even though we knew it was bad and would add to general poochiness.

We wanted to go to our favourite bakery and eat their cakes but several thousand Sydneysiders had decided to do exactly the same thing and it was packed. This saddened us. But across the street was another café, a café that had been the height of grooviness and brimming with popularity until the coming of the bakery. Now it was nearly empty and looked lonely and sullen.

I felt a stab of sympathy. This café knew only too well the bitter taste of rejection.

Let’s go there, I said. At least they’ll be happy to see us.

I waited outside the ex-groovy café, rocking the pram as I watched the bakery queue across the road go round the corner and down the street. After a moment C came out with a face like a slapped arse.

They said no, he told me.

No? I repeated, confused.

No, he said more loudly, they said we couldn’t bring the pram inside and I’M NEVER COMING BACK TO THIS SHIT HOLE AGAIN.

I looked at C’s outraged face and in at the once groovy near empty café that wasn’t into prams and I started to laugh. Then we crossed back over the road and found a couple of orange milkcrates outside the bakery. I sat on my crate on the footpath while C joined the queue. When an old woman, passing by exclaimed that Tricky was like a beautiful apricot I smiled and agreed.

A few minutes later I held a Styrofoam cup of Belgian hot chocolate in one hand and a strawberry and chocolate tart in the other. My beautiful apricot baby lay in the pram to my right and my sexy funny porridge-fascist husband sat on an orange milk crate to my left.

And the traffic zoomed by, and the sun shone, and satisfied customers walked past with fragrant loaves wrapped in brown paper under their arms…

And life was good.

Surfacing

When I was 4, I lived with my family in Penang and on one memorable day I nearly died there too when I happily flung myself into the Grownups Pool at the Chinese Swimming Pools.

My parents and little sisters were eating lunch by the fountain. No one saw me run off in my kiddy brown skirted swimming costume with my Hiawatha rubber ring under one arm and by the time they realised I was gone I was hovering, suspended in greenish water, eyes boggling, lips firmly pressed together, marveling at the way the filtered sunlight played against the tiles.

In this moment there was no panic, more a sort of curious calm.

The world’s volume was suddenly switched down, reduced to the faint gush of the distant fountain, the rush of water in my ears and my own heartbeat. After what seemed like years I looked up to see a Brown Man in Batik Togs squatting on the edge of the pool, watching me.

I raised my arm and he lifted me out and that was that.

It’s been nearly 8 weeks since Tricky was born and that means I’m nearly all out of Ecstatic Birthing Hormones. This is the good stuff, the stuff that makes you ignore the tiredness and the ravenous hunger and the rectocele (yeah, go on, google that, I dare you) and the sore back and the flabby belly because you’re floating happily on your Hiawatha rubber ring inflated with pure motherly doting goodness.

It’s not that I’m out of the Motherly Doting Goodness, because I’m not, I’m reeking with the damn stuff – it’s splattered all over my bedroom floor, it’s just the other bits are starting to catch up with me.

On Thursday night the short film I wrote last year had a screening at a local cinema and I was there with C and Tricky and most of my family and a whole bunch of other people too and my face nearly fell apart with all the smiling and my head nearly exploded with all the convivial social chatting.

Because with the tiredness comes the shrunken vocabulary and the inability to focus.

I hear the voices, the questions, the conversations, but they seem oddly filtered, like through smoke or water.

Also, when standing about, I have a tendency now to rock, not in a groovy frayed denim and electric guitar kind of way, but in a bobbing boat kind of way – even when I’m not holding the baby. I noticed this for the first time when C took Tricky for a walk around the park and I stood holding the pram and after a few minutes noticed that I was rocking my handbag to sleep. (My friend Michelle tells me that I will find myself rocking the empty shopping trolley next.)

And then also there’s the soft haze of incredulity, the lordy lordy, My Whockety cloud of astonishment each morning when I wake (after two hours or perhaps three and once or twice five!) and see that lovely rounded currant bun face and those blue/brown eyes (colour yet to be finalized) and that worried wrinkled brow.

In the first week I could see my baby’s face everywhere, in the shadows on the blinds, the rolled up sheets on my bed. I saw his almond eyes in the grain of the wooden chest of drawers, the ceiling beams and in the whorled skin on my own fingertips. It was like being perpetually stoned on joy. In this state I can forgive all my shortcomings, the baby vomit on my cardigan, the breast milk drips on the bedroom floor, the failure to respond to text messages and emails.

Or, maybe, I just forget.

I have taken to carrying a notebook around with me because finally I got way too embarrassed to ask my dad for the tenth time when he was going in to have his knee operated on and what Grumpy Grandad’s new address was at the retirement village. I’ve still got a script deadline in October (and one in December and one in February) and it’s like squeezing blood out of a stone (or any number of constipated scenes, see previous posts) trying to get these written with my fuzzy blurry brain.

Eight weeks since I jumped into this wide wet pool of motherhood and my head is still below water.

I am still marveling, still mostly calm and curious, the light is still captivating, but those outside voices are getting louder.

Quite soon I will need to lift up my head and breathe.

I can’t wait to rejoin the land of the living, recover my brain and my body too, but I’ll also mourn the loss of this hovering underwater place, this soft focus, warm haze, babylove world.

The First Father's Day

Dear Daddy

Today is Father's Day. Woo hoo!

Wasn’t that excellent this morning when we went to the Bourke St Bakery and you sat outside on a milkcrate holding me while Mummy was inside buying croissants and then all those people stopped to wish you Happy Father’s Day?

It’s odd the way people in this city don’t generally like to make contact with strangers but when you’re carrying me in your arms they often smile and stop to chat. I did think that it was because of me but when we went through the park the other day I noticed people doing exactly the same thing except with dogs.

You don’t seem to swaddle me as much anymore which I’m frankly a little relieved about.

If you could have a word with Mummy I’d appreciate it because she has become a complete swaddle fiend. Sometimes I like to wave my hands in the air, you know, to express my masculinity and also to poke myself in the eye. And if I’m feeling a little peckish I like to suck on my fists. It’s very difficult when they’re lashed to my sides.

By the way, I also like it when you play your guitar for me.

You used to play guitar all the time for Mummy, in your courting days, and she really loves those three songs. I like them too but if we could extend the playlist I think that would be good. Sometimes when I’ve been “restless” and Mummy says in slightly strained tones Go To Daddy Now, you pop me on your lap and start to strum your guitar and I think that’s just lovely.

Truly.

When I make those screaming noises it’s actually me trying to jam along. For instance I like to throw a bit of seemingly hysterical hiccupping in now and then for a syncopated rhythm effect and that abrupt puking noise is my version of the famous gated drum sound as used so prominently on Phil Collins’ anthem In The Air Tonight and subsequently in much of the recorded pop drum sound of the 1980s.

I’m six weeks and five days old today and just this weekend I’ve started to really focus on your faces and also make little burbling gurgly noises now and then, as if I’m thinking about how much I love being your baby or else impersonating a teeny tiny drainpipe.

My farting is still cause for amusement and I’m trying to perfect a sort of lilting trumpet that could come in handy for those guitar/hiccup jam sessions.

I’m looking forward to growing up and playing with you and learning from you. Hey, won’t it be fun when I’m bigger and we gang up on Mummy together! Hee hee! What a cak. Ooh do you think she knows? Let’s not tell her, let’s just think of heaps of hilarious tricks we can play on her. Won’t she be surprised?

I knew we would be great friends the very first time you held me. It was just after I was born and I was lying on top of Mummy’s tummy. She gave me a little cuddle and then asked you to pick me up.

And you did, you held me and sniffed my head and loved me. And I stared up at you with my bright blue grey eyes and wrinkled my forehead and scowled and loved you right back.

I didn't make you a card due to my current lack of fine motor skills. I hope you're not disappointed. (Although Mummy did think of tying some paint brushes to my arms, propping me up against some thick paper and activating my startle reflex to create something bright and original.)

Still, it won't be long. In a couple of years I’ll be able to make you a Father’s Day card with funny stick figure drawings and wobbly handwriting.

I might even accidentally write Happy Farters Day like you did, in all innocence, to your own father when you were just a little boy.

But instead, this year, I made you a Father.


Happy First Father's Day Daddy.

I love you.



Your Son
Tricky
xxxxx