Last week (1)May 12, 2015

Tuesday morning has dawned and with the weekend now well and truly past, and the work week embarked upon, I’m emptying the camera and spending 20 minutes reflecting on the week. Here’s a quick round-up.

Last week it got hot, we went from being criticised by passers by for having Adam’s skin exposed to the sun, to being criticised for coving him up. With the 30°C mark hit, our air-conditioner was working hard to keep the house at 25. Adam is sitting like a pro and eating like a trooper. I got a new wand blender this week, it’s fabulous and perfect for making Adam’s food. The doctor advised us to get him onto 2 meals a day, eventually replacing his 2nd feed with sweet and 4th with savoury. It’s not a schedule I’d come across before but Adam is taking to it well, though he still wants his milk after. I finally feel less daunted by the process of weaning.

Thursday we were supposed to join some extended family members for their slava. First Zeljko had a medical appointment to keep, I suppose it’s predictable that it over-ran. After 2 hours sitting in the heat (just to be told there is nothing detectable) he cancelled plans. I carted Adam off to the shopping centre to get him out and meet daddy half way for a drink. Lo and behold we were not to remain alone, after bumping into a very unexpected friend another came to join us. Soon we were eating fast food and playing in a racing car!

We went visiting friends for the weekend. This meant lots of hugs from non-parents for Adam, a lot of relaxing for mummy, great food and lots of conversations. Saturday night we dined out and I finally got a photo of the limited edition glass coke bottles, the way they have Serbian-ised the bottle is classic. It used to irritate the sense out of me how they rewrite names phonetically, but as I grow used to the strengths and weaknesses of this culture I find them less disrespectful and more amusing. A lot about being cross cultural is recognising that your values are really cultural and therefore more fluid than you may imagine.

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.