Re-writingMay 11, 2015

Anyone who writes for a website that ‘posts’ regularly will testify to the amount of time it can eat. With each post taking over an hour to write, many trebling or quadrupling that time. For a new mummy that means a lot of snooze breaks.

I’ve been blogging for over a decade now and I’ve probably got just as many rejected and re-written posts as I’ve graced the digital airwaves with. While feeling like a sort of digital journal, blogging is much more like a letter you intend to publish in a book. It’s both cathartic and potentially chaotic. I learnt the hard way that pushing the publish button prematurely can give you a lot of trouble. I’ve left a ragged digital footprint, haunting, naive, deeply poetic and too often cringe worthy to boot.

Then it occurred to me, I did have that time to ponder once and perhaps the wisdom I discovered then can be rediscovered now. I’ve spent a little bit of my free time looking back on those old posts lately, it’s been a joy in the most part, and rather than re-invent the wheel I thought I’d repost some of my favourite musings. Today’s offering isn’t so old, from just 2011, and it’s entitled :

Pulling Open the World.

We live in a falling apart world, held together by sticky tape and paper clips. Our components are failing, layered with dirt and infection. Some of us fight with tiny rags, others rub oil onto fractions of worn joins, some of us push the dirt down the holes and lay a button on-top and pretend it’s pretty.

Sometimes the cracks are called art, celebrated, embraced. Mostly they are feared. Occasionally I wonder if the cracks are what is quite so wonderful about this world. For out of the cracks come dependence, out of the cracks comes need, out of the cracks the world recognizes that it can’t hold itself together. Out of the cracks one small human voice is not enough to drown the panic, but one divine love is large enough to fill the hole left behind. That love is large enough to make the healing, large enough to let those lines on the ground be a picture of compassion, and a beautiful fragmented, fluctuating dance.

Grub grub – Part 2 : bottlesMay 9, 2015

I love our chunky bottles, and munchkin loves facing the room while he eats! Bottles are one of those essentials that even the ‘earth mama’ type people know they will have to get eventually. As you know, bottles entered earlier than I would have hoped, I placate myself by knowing many contained expressed milk in the early weeks.

Whether I expressed, decanted, or mixed up there were plenty of googling moments. Follow the guidelines and it will take you over half an hour to make one – with a screaming baby… oh yeah! – we ended up using the prefilled with water to 80% workaround, but there are plenty of others out there to discover. Then there is the minefield of seterilising methods and the joys of add-ons. For my pennies worth, get the handles and the powder pots, they are VERY worth it. I’m also glad ours are all interchangeable, it’s the little things you know!

The powder is horrifically high priced, a box will only last 4 days. Think we’ve tried about 7 different types now, and while they are all essntially and legally quite similar, it doesn’t feel that way. The best thing about formula is the guidelines for amounts, you can deviate from them as much as you dare, yet their presence is really helpful if you don’t have a midwife on speed dial.

Overall, bottles are both essential and great, they negate the two big uncertaintiess of breastfeeding – Did they get enough? + How long should I continue? – Plus, they throw in modestly and the ability to hand your child to someone else. And this is true weather you express religiously or hang the cost and pour straight from the fridge. The only thing to remeber is to change out the teats as they get bigger, not that we forgot…oops.

Washing the bottles each morning is now as much part of our daily ritual as putting the washing machine on at night. When we are off out we grab a pre loaded powder pot and a topped up bottle. It’s not the natural mother way, hang that, it’s our way and it keeps us smiling.

Losing the bookMay 5, 2015

There is a rush in life to be on to the next stage, and this is no more acute than during childhood. Parenting sites bombard new mothers with life stages and goals, it can often seem like your child is miles ahead or lagging sorely behind.

One of the great lessons I’ve been reminded of recently is that sometimes we just need a little push to get to the finish line. Adam developed so much in the time we spent in England because he was pushed into a new environment. With his six month dawning I wanted to move him onto the high chair, but we had a problem, and that comes in the form of being short. His little arms kept getting stuck below the tray and we needed a little push up. Hence an old book was placed beneath his bum-bum, bonus – the old cover actually ended up having more grip than the plastic seat.

Adam has always been a strong baby and he’s been sitting up semi-supported for a LONG time. This week he’s starting to manage more and more time sitting without nosediving, enough to sit unsupported for short bursts. I think a big contributor to this has been getting him in a high chair more often. So we say goodbye to the book, he’s more stable and he’s grown a little, it’s no longer a needed.

As I slid it back onto the bookshelf I felt a sort of sadness, for battered and old as it was it marked both a beginning and an end. It made me stop and wonder how much we’ve placed back onto the bookshelves and forgotten over the years, what nudges, catalysts, and shoves we’ve shrugged off in the rush to get onto the ‘next stage’.