On not reading the signs
There are always signs. I get home so late on a Friday night that most of the time both kids are already in bed, fast asleep. I kiss them goodbye in the morning and I put my faith in other people that they will be safe, and cared for and safe. I always pray they will be safe. When I get home of a Friday night I go into their rooms, and kiss their cheeks and wish that my life was so simple and carefree. I wish to dream their dreams and know their lives as they know them.
Seven nights ago Lucy had a nightmare. She scared me when she came into my room, she was so quiet and so gentle. I don’t know how long she was there for but when I woke up and realised she was there she was crying, silently. She told me she had a bad dream, and we sat on the couch and talked about funny things that happened at school and what we were going to do on the weekend and drank milk together and wiled away a half hour before she felt ready to get back into her bed. She slept late on Saturday morning and her life, and mine continued on with me blissfully unaware.
When I was seven my Mum caught me at the fence with the boy from the house behind us. He wanted me to show him mine, and he would show me his. He already had his pants down when Mum came up behind us. She scared him half to death, but it never stopped him from trying again. He came from a broken home, we came from a home where we were taught that you don’t show people your private parts, that those parts are special and only for us and not to show them off at the back fence. Still, there were times I was tempted because so what? It’s just a body part.
On Monday, Lucy came home from school starving. I had left work early because I hurt my back, and had picked her up, instead of her usual routine of going home with friend for an hour until I could get there to pick her up. She asked for something from her lunch box and without thinking about it, I handed her the whole box. We went to pick up Oliver and she ate a packet of biscuits, a muesli bar and a piece of fruit. She told me she hadn’t eaten her sandwich because she wasn’t hungry at first break, and ran out of time at second break because she was helping the teachers on duty. No wonder she was so hungry. Make sure you eat it at first break tomorrow, instead, I said.
There was a man, when I was a kid, that we were never allowed to be around. My mum used to tell me that there is something inside of all of us that warns us of danger. It was a special sense, and it told her to never leave us alone with this man. He went to our church, and was always friendly to our family, particularly we kids. It must be a Mum thing, because I can’t recall my Dad ever saying anything about being concerned or worried by this man.
On Tuesday, Lucy didn’t eat her lunch again. I got a bit annoyed, but the usual Tuesday afternoon rush took over – getting something sorted for dinner and getting Lucy to swimming lessons on time, and then I had to be at a CPR training session that night. I switched parenting duties with Matt at swimming, and got home long after both kids were in bed, again. Lucy didn’t eat her dinner which undoubtedly will have ended with Matt sending her for a shower, frustrated about yet another cooked but uneaten meal.
I always walked away from those conversations about personal space and private parts of the body wondering how it would feel if someone ever did cross that unmentionable line. I was told not to keep secrets, that if anybody told me to keep a secret big like that it was a sign that I should tell someone right away. But the only person to ever tell me not to tell anyone was my boyfriend. I kept that secret.
Wednesday was my day off, and with my back increasingly painful I dropped Lucy at her classroom. She asked me to walk her in both Tuesday and Wednesday this week and I had because she never asks and she never wants me to, and maybe this week she just wants me around. So I walked up that hill, with its up’s and downs, limping as though I’d been in a terrible car accident and kissed and cuddled her goodbye. She begged me every day to stay until the bell and so every day until the bell rang I did.
I hated OSH care when I was a kid. We went to this horrible place in a big shed with kids from all the local schools who all knew each other and never wanted to know us. I would sit on the play equipment, at the highest point while deathly afraid of heights and watch for the car that would deliver my parents to us. We didn’t go there a lot but when we did, I hated it. It was a big reason I was so scared about sending Lucy to OSH care, but the nature of the beast is that what is perfect for a family isn’t always perfect for a boss and there has to be compromise. And so, with a heavy heart and sweaty palms I enrolled Lucy for one afternoon a week and prayed to God that he would keep her safe there, too.
Her first adventure there was a big success. She talked about the kids, she talked about the games they played and how she wished she could have stayed longer than one hour, but that is when Grandpa picked her up and the arrangement suited us. The next time she could stay longer. The next time, she did stay longer. Cautiously optimistic, I broached the idea of a possible second day at OSH care, in the mornings to allow me greater flexibility with my roster with Lucy. She was interested, so we went ahead and enrolled her. The first day was a success and so I felt satisfied that maybe, I had been projecting my fear and my memories on her, and robbing her of this opportunity and maybe I was mistaken and this would be a good thing for her.
Today I spoke with a very kind, and very stern deputy principal, who used terms like sexual assault, intimidation and bullying. Today my husband asked me if I knew that someone had tried to put something in Lucy’s bottom. Today, I shook and my eyes filled with hopeless tears of rage and fear as I realised that someone had done something to my baby. That fear only lessened slightly on realising that it was another child because she is six and she is innocent and pure and someone else has done something, or let their child see something that has led him think that this kind of behaviour is ok. Someone else’s’ child is also a victim, and someone else’s child tried to make my daughter one as well.
Lucy is strong. She is educated. We have talked about good touch and bad touch, about what people are allowed to do to you, what is ok and how to handle it. She was so let down by semantics. My six year old reported what happened, but she didn’t know enough. I didn’t teach her enough, I didn’t tell her that she has to be specific when she reports someone for trying to be inappropriate with her. I didn’t tell her that she needs to tell the teacher that someone tried to put something in her bottom. She told them that he was bugging her. They brushed it off, and a little piece of my beautiful six year old daughter gave up, and believed that nobody would help her.
My vibrant, funny and sweet Lucy stopped eating her lunch, stopped playing on the playground and started hanging out with the teachers. She had nightmares, she wanted me to stay at school. Every sign. All of them. They were all there. I missed them all.
The crux of it.
Twenty seven years and loose change ago I was born. My mother tells me all the time that all she ever wanted was to be a mum – to have her babies. She loved being home with us, in fact, she was a stay at home Mum until I was in the tenth grade. Mum saw us out the door for school each day, she was there when we got home. For a while when things changed at home my father stepped into that role and Mum felt as though she lost a limb. Suddenly she didn’t know which day we were supposed to wear a sport uniform, what special events were happening at school or even when parent teacher interviews were happening. Being a full time mum was her job, and she was great at it. I credit her being home those years for catching me the one time I skipped school – ever. For finding out about my smoking, and sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night. I don’t think we ever really pulled anything over on her; even now if we are talking about our teenage years and we bring up something that we did, or that happened she just smiles and again we realise that mum-tuition strikes again and yep, she already knew about that one as well. Despite what she will tell you – she did a fantastic job raising my siblings and I; she’s the reason none of us have been in jail although we’ve all had some questionable moments where things could have gone horribly wrong.
Motherhood didn’t come so easily to me. For a really long time, I didn’t want kids. Then when my body suddenly did want a child, I was in no position to have one. I remember wanting a baby so badly – but I was young, engaged and not married as my religion and family beliefs dictated I ought to be. It didn’t stop us discussing it – wondering the ‘what if we just got pregnant now?’ But in the end, we waited, we followed our hearts and got married.
I fell pregnant almost immediately after our honeymoon. Obviously, my story wasn’t as easy getting pregnant and having a baby and after we lost our ‘peanut’ the desire to be a parent, to have my own baby increased tenfold. The practicalities of actually having a baby took centre stage as we continued to have miscarriage after miscarriage and went through an increasingly difficult period in our marriage. Lucy saved us. I had stopped my partying ways already but finding out I was pregnant with her drew Matt and I back together in a way that we possibly couldn’t have done on our own. The negative side to this is that I rarely considered how I would feel about being a parent, how I would adjust.
As it turned out, I sucked. Lucy’s first year was terrible; for her, for Matt and for myself. I lost so much of my identity once I had my baby, along with friends and a lot of self esteem. I felt harassed about breastfeeding – caring for a newborn after a traumatic delivery was so much harder than I ever let myself think it would be. I was still fat (breastfeeding was meant to take care of that for me!) and had exactly no self confidence in any aspect of my life. I spent almost every day at home with the baby, afraid to go out and face the world because with no car, nobody to see and still in pain months after delivery it really was just too hard. Every day I felt like it would be the day that Matt only came home from work because he loved our daughter. No man would want to come home to the train wreck that I had become.
But those were my issues. It was my chemistry in my brain making me feel unworthy and unloved. It was my naive expectation that having spent a fair bit of my professional life caring for and educating other people’s children that I would be a natural at parenting. I believed, mistakenly, that I had to be one hundred percent Mum at all times, or I was failing my child.
I ended up failing her, but not because I wasn’t one hundred percent mum, but because I was.
When I lost a part of myself after Lucy was born I stopped being the best version of myself. I stopped doing things that made me happy. I became so totally involved in her that I forgot to care even a little bit about me. I can admit it now that there were days where I looked at Lucy and knew how lucky I was to have her, but I felt so totally out of my depth and just dreamed of days when she was older and that tiny bit more independent. I’ve never resented her, or Ariana or Oliver. And I have never, ever regretted having them. I have never felt like I ruined my life by having kids.
For a short while I ruined my life by letting other people dictate to me how I should feel about having a baby, and by not trusting myself. I regret listening to the wrong person so many times. Instead of listening to my baby, I listened to people with an agenda. I regret forcing a dry, cracked nipple into my tiny 24 hour old newborn daughters mouth in an effort to be the ‘best’ mum. I regret wiping her down with a cold washer in the middle of April to ‘wake her up a bit’ to get her to feed, on the midwives’ recommendation. I regret thinking that I had to be with my baby every.single.second to the extent that I would take her in a bouncer, into the bathroom with me while I showered. Sometimes I would wake her up, to take her in because I needed to shower but I have to be with my baby all the time and how on earth do people do this, and not only survive it but actually act like they enjoy it?
Some days, it all felt so hopeless and pointless. I had high expectations of myself, and society made me believe that this was meant to be the most joy-filled time of my life. I struggle to find joy or even rational thought when I’ve been awake for 48 hours straight and the baby won’t stop screaming.
And that’s the crux of it. Parenting is the most rewarding and precious gift. It is also the messiest, most frustrating gift I’ve ever been given. Sort of like a “so cute you want to squeeze it” puppy that you’ve dreamed of for years finally coming into your home and systematically peeing on, and chewing up everything you own. It’s hard to always look with love and joy when your five thousand dollar leather lounge is missing pieces. At the heart of it, there is always love. I always love my kids, I always love that I am their mum and that pieces of my heart walks around this world in their bodies and I am so grateful for them. I don’t always like them. And I was so relieved when I worked out that not only was that ok – but some days, they don’t like me either!
Some days, being a parent just sucks – it is hard work, and it is often thankless work. You are allowed to be beaten down and frustrated. You’re human! Nobody should be expected to believe, and act as though they are experiencing the greatest moment of their life, every single time their child takes a breath. It’s unrealistic. Be kind and honest with each other – tell people when it sucks, rejoice when it doesn’t suck. And most importantly always tell your child that you love them unconditionally. Always love. Always.
Everything else is just gravy.
Unorganise me
Someone linked me to this post a few days ago and asked what Mum’s think about it.
Honestly, I didn’t even finish reading it because it made my head spin. What I did read, I LOVED. I wish, I could be that person. I wish I was the person with a designated spot for everything, with awesome storage solutions, with pretty boxes and signs and racks. I am only organised insofar as paperwork goes. Everything else goes to pot in my house, shoes are dropped in the vicinity of the garage, bags go somewhere between the front door and the backdoor. Sometimes I’ll remember to get Lucy to put her lunch box and drink bottle on the bench but it’s more likely that I’ll be digging through Lucy’s bag to find and wash her lunch box and make her lunch three minutes after we were supposed to walk out of the door.
Organisation is not my strong point. Most days I feel like I don’t have the time to set up organisation systems like those and that if I had time to do all that, I wouldn’t need them anyway….
But then I sit back on the lounge and think about what my mornings actually entail and I realise that not only am I not organised because I don’t want to be, but I like my haphazard crazy mornings at home. I like sitting down with a coffee and catching up on the latest news and scanning facebook. I like watching my kids play and tear around the house like little maniacs. I like sitting around with no pants on until the last possible minute where I jump in the shower and run out the door.
{Unrelated side note: Yesterday, I lost Oliver. Honest to goodness – could not find him anywhere. I was calling him, he wasn’t answering and I just couldn’t figure out where he could be. I knew all the doors were locked so there was no way he’d gotten out into the street so I wasn’t too panicked but I was starting to feel a little….’OK, this isn’t funny anymore…’ when I remembered there is a whole extra bedroom in our house that I always forget about. Popped into the guest room and sure enough,there he was with his baba and a book busily ignoring me. I am so used to living in a three bedroom house that I keep forgetting about the fourth one! Turns out he’s not the only one getting lost in our new house!}
I think it’s great that people are that organised, that they enjoy setting up their spaces like this. It’s just not for me. I’m more of a sit around and wait until I HAVE to do something, then do it fast and then feel accomplished that I got done sort of girl. I work better under pressure – the more organised I am, the later I am!
Still, storage options are so pretty and I do love to spend money….
Are you an organiser? Or do you sit back, and then rush around? Will I grow out of this?
A lesson in humanity
There are rules of school and if you break the rules you are guaranteed to get the stink eye from other parents and teachers at the school. Nobody likes to be a nag, but nobody likes to see someone taking advantage of others. Small rules include not sitting outside the classrooms before school starts. There are designated areas for that. Making appointments to speak with the teachers instead of standing inside the door for a half hour while everyone tries to work around you trying desperately not to listen to you telling the story of how “little johnny fell out of bed and is there something bigger at play, do you think?”
You don’t park in drop off zones, you don’t park inside the school grounds unless you have a permit and you don’t park other people in, regardless of how far away the school is, how late you are, and how heavy the rain is. (Which has been me, every day for the past three weeks – parked four blocks away with a cranky toddler on my hip holding my umbrella in it’s still folded down state because I don’t have enough hands to carry the umbrella, him, run and avoid puddles.)
I’ve spoken before about a friend of Lucy’s from school who uses a walker due to brain tumor and subsequent complications when he was only 18 months old. They are the most beautiful family and while Lucy isn’t in the twins’ class anymore she seems them out in the yard and we stop to talk to them each afternoon on the way out.
A couple of weeks ago I was picking Lucy up from school and we we bumped into Lucy’s twin friends and their Mum. The boys were rambunctiously throwing themselves against the windows of the car, yelling and waving at us as we walked by. Mum (I’ll call her May) was urging them to sit down and buckled in because they have a hospital appointment – par of the course when you have a son with additional needs such as his.
Next thing, a clearly marked disabled van pulled up behind her, and parked her in. Parking people in out on the street is bad enough but seriously Internets! You just don’t ever park in a vehicle that’s parked in a disabled park! May came to the back of her car, where the van’s driver had gotten out and was assembling ramps and asked her very politely to please move her van, because she’s parked her in, and she’s not parked in a car-space, she’s parked illegally.
The driver shot back with ‘I’m parked in the wheelchair bay. I have to pick up a disabled child”
May again politely responded. She told her that actually No, she’s not parked in the wheelchair bay because MAY is parked in the wheelchair bay and can she please move her van because she has to get her son to his appointment.
Lucy and I were standing by, observing this happening. May was clearly frustrated and upset but she was still being polite and kind. Then the driver of the van dropped her zinger.
“Well lady, this is a car park for disabled people so you have no right being here. When I’m finished loading my disabled child into this van I will move it and you’ll sit there and learn all about how you shouldn’t park in places you don’t belong.” {Verbatim}
I have never been so angry and upset for another person in my life. May, to her credit is always gracious and simply turned to the woman and said to her ‘My son____ has _______, ___________, ____________ and ____________” Then she opened the boot of her car, to show the walker frame, the special equipment her son uses every day to just attend school like his peers. NOW is he disabled enough for you?”
Then she calmly got into her car, waited for the woman with the van to reverse out and using a series of amazing maneuvers did a complete turn and left the school.
I. WAS. SEETHING.
Lucy could see I was angry, and was worried I was angry at her. I told her that Mummy just needed five minutes of peace, to calm down, and then I would tell her exactly why I was so angry at the lady in the van, but that she was not in trouble at all.
Then, in the car for the next thirty minutes we had a discussion about different abilities, about disabilities and about additional needs. We talked about silent illness, about people having things wrong with their bodies that you can’t see. We talked about judging others, about saying rude comments to people when you know nothing about them or their situation. I told her that I never want to hear her make a comment about where someone else has parked because at the end of the day, it’s just a car park and it’s not worth getting upset, or making someone else feel upset or hurt over.
Most importantly though I told her that what the lady in the van did was so wrong because if anybody should have known better about judgement and rudeness it was this lady who will have seen more than most already and will continue to do so. And maybe she was just having a bad day and took it out on May and her boys but that the most important thing to remember is that behind the car park, behind the car in the space where you want to be is a person. And people have feelings and emotions and as a fellow person we should never intentionally upset or be rude to another person.
Lucy took a lot away from our conversation. I know she did because she still talks about it. Not about the lady in the van, but about May – about how she was still kind, how she still used her manners and she didn’t shout or get angry at the other lady. “That’s the sort of grown up I want to be, Mum” she said to me later.
Me too, lovely girl. Me too.
They call me
Lazy.
Lazy.
Lazy.
That’s the one that hurts the most.
I’ve been called names. They say them behind my back. They think I can’t hear them. They think that the walls which have ears, don’t also have mouths. Mouths which talk.
I don’t explain why. I don’t make excuses.
I let them say those things. I don’t fight back against it.
I know that it’s not true.
And some nights I cry.
Lots of nights I cry.
Lots of days I cry.
“The dead baby card”.
That broke my heart.
Apparently, I chose that.
I chose this cloud above my head, this wound in my heart and this pit in my stomach.
For a while, I thought I found a home.
I felt secure.
I let my guard down.
The walls, they have mouths. They tell stories.
Believe half of what you see, a quarter of what you hear.
I hear a lot.
I see a lot.
I don’t defend myself.
Because I know that they will always say those things.
They will believe those things.
And I will cry.
Be happy.
I don’t remember how.
Fake it.
I don’t know how.
Lazy.
I am called lazy.
They call me lazy.
And I say nothing.
Because I know better.
But I still cry.
Ticking Time Lessons
“Mum, can you stay just a little bit longer today? I know that you have to go to work, but today I just want you to stay for a little longer…”
Of course I stayed. Being a few minutes late for work is the compromise I must make if it means that on the 5th day of school my girl needs some extra reassurance. But I watched the clock, and saw those precious minutes slipping by, and just knew the traffic would be unbearable.
“Mum, my teacher said that we need Mum’s and Dad’s to help in the tuck-shop… can you do that?”
“Oh sweetie, I’m terrible at math. I still count on my fingers and need a calculator to make change. Plus, I have to work. Tuck-shop isn’t’ something I can do but if there is something else that comes up I promise I’ll make it work….”
Phew. Got out of that one.
“Mum, there is a meeting on Monday night at the school. Can you come? It’s to learn about what we’re doing this year.”
“Sure, sweetie. Let me find someone to watch you and your brother, and I’ll go for sure.”
“Thanks Mum. “
God, I hope this isn’t a waste of a baby sitter….
“Mum, my teacher said that she needs a parent helper to come in every day of the week! That means a Mum or Dad has to come to school and stay in the classroom with us and do jobs so we can learn better and learn more! Can you do that?”
“Let me talk to your teacher. Wednesday is my day off, so I can do Wednesday each week for a little while.”
“Yay, Mum! Lets go and tell her!”
Yes, lets. I have to get to Aldi, and the sale is on this morning on those hand-wash / teeth brushing timers that I wanted for home and for work. If I stay until the second bell, then I should be able to get out of here and down there before they are all gone…….
“This is my Mum! She’s going to help you change your home reader! And she’ll help you pick a new one! And then she will help you put it in your folder, and help you put your folder away! This is my Mum! She’s our parent helper today!”
I don’t know any of these kids, or their names. I feel so out of place right now. Come on, kid. Time’s a ticking. I have somewhere to be! Pick a book, any book. That one? Great. Rinse and repeat.
“This is my Mum! She’s been helping us! Mum, I have to go and do some work now, will you say bye to me before you leave please?”
“Of course I’ll say goodbye, Luc. Go write in your journal now.”
Oh, now you want me to listen to kids read sight words. Well, sure. I mean, I don’t have anything *that* important on, I can stick around for a bit longer. Oh, the bell has just gone – oh you still need me? Alrighty then… maybe I can call and ask them to put one aside for me…
And then, as I sat there helping a little 5 year old boy sound out the sight words I heart the voice of my daughter, carry over the top of her classmates chatter….
” That’s my Mum over there. She’s pretty busy you know, but today she is just helping here because she’s a great mum and she knows I wanted her to so she just did it. She’s a great Mum.”
Oh The GUILT. Not only had I been half- hearted, wishing to avoid this entire morning, but I’d be convincing myself for well over a year now that all those missed events in prep that I just couldn’t get to, the avoided P&C BBQ’s, the dodged Tuck-shop duties, the missed Parent Helper opportunities hadn’t meant anything to her. She didn’t mind. She forgives me. She understands.
She’s FIVE. And all she wants is her Mum to be a part of her school life.
Today I learned a valuable lesson about time. About being present in a child’s life, even when you think they aren’t looking or won’t notice. About being one hundred percent committed to something, even if your heart wasn’t entirely in it when you agreed. Today I made my daughter proud of me and even now tears spring to my eyes when I remember the joy on her face, and the way she introduced me to every.single.child and parent who walked through that door.
Next week I’m going back again, and I’m not wearing my watch. I’m taking my water bottle and for however long they will take me, I will be there and fully present.
Time isn’t measured in days, in things achieved, in how clean your floors are or how many towels you fold up and put away. It’s measured in seconds, seconds doing the things that make you happiest, things that make your child happiest. Time is measured in the moments today that I wasted, thinking of myself and my own selfish agenda instead of the precious moments I could have had helping other people’s children, talking to them about their mornings, their families, getting to know my daughters new friends. Helping my daughter. Making my daughter proud.
Those are the moments that are valuable and I am going cling to those. Because those moments are worth more than anything.
A Big Grade-One-er
7 weeks is a really, really long time when your kid is on school holidays.
Lucy is a great kid, she’s funny, she’s friendly and she is generally pretty easy going. I know how lucky I am to have her, she’s always wanting to help me out, she’s great with Oliver and she is the kind of kid that people point to and say ‘if you could guarantee me one of them, i’d have more..” She’s five-and-a-half (and you can never forget to add the ‘half’) and generally a lot of fun to be around. But I have a job, and Matt has a job, and her job, as I’ve always told her is to work hard at school, be a good friend and help her brother. Oliver’s job is to figure out how to be cute right at that exact moment where I think I’ve lost every last ounce of patience. He’s still working on it.)
So, what happens when everyone has a job, everyone has a routine, and then suddenly one…doesn’t?
Anarchy reigns supreme, that’s what.
My house, oh my house. It’s been clean one time in the past (almost) two months. And that was when Matt took the kids to his mothers’ place for a week. Lucy has come to work with me for five weeks out of seven. She has shone her cute and adorable on all the girls I work with, and talked their ears off. She looks cute from a distance, let me tell you, but the girl, she will talk all day if you let her. And telling her to please, play quietly for a half hour? Oh she can’t tell time. “Is half an hour up yet? No? How will I know? Can I just tell you this one other thing….?” Sorry about that! <insert inane conversation here>
I’m not sure why any child needs a seven week break from school. As far as I can tell, the only thing she’s gained from having such a long time away from her ‘job’ is a complete loss of appreciation for the people she lives with, and a new word in her vocabulary. It’s the “B” word – “I’m boooooooored.”
But looking at her on Tuesday morning, wearing last years uniform that finally fits her, with her shiny new shoes, her eye blindingly white socks (WHITE SOCKS ON A 5.5 YEAR OLD. WHY?!!) and her hair tied back ready for her first day of year one I was struck by how grown up she is. She’s changed a lot in these past seven weeks. She’s grown up, grown out. She’s forgotten some of her sight words, learnt others from reading entirely inappropriate materials such as the TV guide. Her skin is browner from a summer in the pool, her posture better from holding her shoulders back, her head higher.
This year, she has gone from a preppie, to a ‘grade oner’. This is big news, you just ask her.
And listening to her chatter away when I collect her each afternoon about her new friends and her new adventures as a big kid, I am struck by the knowledge that this time last year she was a shy, introverted little girl who I had so much worry about. I feared how she would adapt socially within the school setting after spending most of her young life in a Montessori education, shaping who she wanted to be on her terms. I worried about her reading, how would she learn to read? I worried about Math – I am notoriously awful at it, and I wanted her to excel, to be better than I so as she could work out the change for me when we go to get fuel, or out on a sneaky donut date.
I worried about this girl of mine, that this would be too much for her. And now I look at her and I just think… “what if I had never sent her to prep? What if that little girl from last year, that shy, timid, quiet little girl was starting in year one right now…”
Sending her to prep was the best thing I ever did. I can’t imagine sending her, of her development last year, right into a year one setting. She’d be eaten alive. Already she has reading homework. Some kids in her class, they don’t know how to read. They didn’t do prep. She’s doing basic math – some kids in her class, they don’t understand, they’ve never been in a classroom environment before.
Last year I was worried about there not being enough ‘play base’ in the prep curriculum. This year I am so eternally grateful to her teacher for laying down the law, for encouraging her, for pushing her and for making her do her job and participate and be a willing learner so as she would excel and succeed this year. This year, I am so grateful for prep.
But I’m still scared from the seven weeks of school holiday, and I think I need to write a strongly worded letter to the education department. Because SEVEN WEEKS OF HOLIDAYS - aint nobody got time for that. {Unless they would like to pay me to have seven weeks off as well. In that case, I’ll make the time.}
That Word.
When Ariana died people came out of the woodwork from every corner of the globe to tell me how strong I was. I used to get emails almost every day from people I know, and people I didn’t know telling me that I was an inspiration, that they were learning things from me.
I always felt like such a fraud. I never did anything special, I’ve never done anything amazing like setting up a charity in Ariana’s name, or fundraising to promote awareness or treatment of the illness that took her from us. Most days I was just gritting my teeth, and dragging myself out of bed to face whatever life was going to throw at me, at us.
Slowly, I became the go-to-girl for loss. I felt it was my lot in life to be there for those people, to visit people I didn’t know, support strangers through their journey, even to hold a strangers hand in support as she underwent a CVS on her terminally ill unborn baby. {Unbelievably, the doctor assigned to her was also my high risk OBGYN for both Ariana & Oliver’s pregnancy.} I’ve put my kids into childcare extra days, had Matt stay home occasionally so as I can attend funerals for children, to stand in quiet support of those so new to the fresh hell that is the loss of a child.
And still, I felt as though every day I was just putting one foot in front of the other.
Yesterday someone asked me to describe myself in four words. The first word that came to mind was strong. I wrote it down, deleted it, wrote it down again, deleted it again and finally sat back, looked at the blinking cursor on the screen where it sat, directly after that word which terrified me and actually took a minute to consider that.. maybe?
Strong.
It feels as though there is ego in admitting you think you are strong. It’s like telling people you think you’re pretty. Eyebrows go up. There are connotations, a perception that you have an unwavering faith in your ability to overcome and persevere through any circumstance that may be presented to you. That’s not me. The thought of my husband dying, or losing another child rocks me to the core. I have anxiety often. I worry a lot. A lot has happened in the past few years, and usually right when I start feeling like maybe, life is under control again, something else invariably happens and I fall to pieces again. I’ve spent the past 4 or so years recreating so many different parts of who I am that when I look back on old photos of myself I can’t even remember what sort of person I used to be in them.
Finally, after all of this time I look back when we first lost our girl, and remember those comments from friends, strangers, doctors, and family and I think that perhaps, maybe, they were right. Could it be that they saw something in me, all those years ago that I couldn’t have recognised if it were painted in neon on my forehead?
I am strong. I have fought through the worst, fallen in the deepest, struggled through the hardest, lost the most to gain this, an insight and knowledge that yes, I am strong.
I say that without ego, without a sense of entitlement and at last, without any fear. At last, I feel as though I’ve come far enough, been through enough and considered enough to be able to take on those words.
I am strong.
Excuse me while I nod off.
“Well, you had nobody in your house for an entire week, so surely you have many blog posts for us, right?”
I know you’re thinking it. Who knew, I can be utterly lazy and unmotivated without kids just like I can with them?! Truth is, I didn’t look at the blog all week. Thank God for spam filters is really all I can say because some of the crap that gets caught up in it is epic. If I followed even the first five entries I’d have enormous boobs, an erection that would last for six hours, all of the antidepressants available in the world and I’d be kicking back on my yacht which I won with an ipad that I also won.
Instead, I’m surveying the house that the family live in, absorbing the mess and the smell of that bin that really needs to be taken out because Oliver is a very stinky and not yet toilet trained boy and just wondering where on earth did that week go?
By the time Matt & the kids got home on Saturday night I was busting to see them. I was jumpy and excited. It had been an entire week and I think the only way any of us survived it as well as we did was because of Skype. (Seriously – I get what Will Anderson was talking about with Skype, now.)
Of course reality crashed in when Oliver refused – point blank – to get into bed. He’d been sleeping with Lucy, in Matt’s bed for a week. Hell noes he wasn’t getting into his own bed, alone! After we dealt with that minor 45 minute long tantrum then we were faced with another new reality.
I forgot how to sleep with my husband.
Oh the sex thing isn’t an issue. Don’t be worried (i know you are.) NO, it’s that I can’t remember how I used to sleep through that freight train rattling on a rooftop noise that is emitted from his sinuses every few seconds of every night. The man snores, I just forgot how badly. After a week of being on my own, going to sleep wherever I felt like it and whenever this whole coordinating bed space / noise levels thing has taken me by surprise.
I mean really -we’ve been sharing a bed for almost 8 years. It’s ridiculous that in one week I’ve forgotten all those secret lessons I had no idea I was learning about sleeping.
Thank God he’s not Fly in, Fly Out.
I’d never sleep again.
Averting Disaster
150 minutes ago they drove out of the driveway, leaving me standing, waving, and wishing them a safe trip.
148 minutes ago they drove back into the driveway, where I handed them something they forgot, and again stood, and waved as they departed once more.
My husband, he gets me.
He knows that when we travel I never sleep, because I have to ‘scan’ the road. Even if I’m not driving, I have to be awake. What if something happens? I might be able to avert disaster! {You know I have an anxiety issue, right?}
He’s sent me a couple of messages – “Ollie is already asleep”, “This is road runner, we are passing through Gympie. Just going past Maccas to be exact. Beep! Beep!”
My husband, he gets me.
He knows that my anxiety will be at a million and eleventy degrees until I get the call early this evening that they have arrived, and are safe. He knows that I would spend every second while I know they are travelling worrying, internally screaming at myself that everything is fine, and the police are not about to show up at the door, and to stop being stupid and enjoy the beginning of my freedom.
He knows that instead of enjoying the peace, I am maniacally scrubbing my house. Because sometimes my anxiety is at a level that physical activity is the only thing that helps.
He knows. He gets me.
By the time they safely arrive tonight with his Mum, in her home, my house will be sparkling and I will then, finally, be ready to enjoy a week of life with minimal responsibility and the freedom to be as selfish as I want with my time and the effort I choose, or choose not to expend on other people.
Already I miss them, while they are on their great adventure.
Now please excuse me while I go and clean the kitchen again. I’ve already exerted a considerable amount of energy on it, but my anxiety is screaming at me to clean the microwave. Because a clean house averts disaster?
In my head is a messy place to be….
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