2 May 2013
It’s only lunchtime and it is already one of those days where I have cried way more than I have smiled. And the frustrating thing is that as I stood in the sunshine, hanging out the washing, crying in that face distorting way which is never how it looks in the movies – I know that this will pass.
What I have not yet learnt to do is -.
- Not let the opinions of a few, matter so much more than the majority.
- Stop defining myself, even temporarily, by another’s perception of me, however inaccurate.
- Not care.
I have always wished I was one of those people dripping with confidence and a sense of entitlement that even deserved criticism fails to dent their self perception. And they do exist. I always used to think maybe it was just a front, but I have these people in my friendship circle and they are actually very confident of their own awesomeness. And that is not a dig. It’s essentially faith, and faith is a grand thing to have – whether it’s in yourself, a deity or others.
And then there are others of my friends who are lovely without knowing it, beautiful without realising it, extraordinary but believing otherwise. And I recognise that all of us have the capacity to be more than the sum of our own minds but that self belief is a blessing that not all of us lined up to receive.
And so, as I am still learning to process self belief rather than it being instinctive, its taken some time today to get back to the point that I am able to intellectualise the emotional and feel calm, be accepting of myself, and remember that the lingering feeling of sadness will go.
I really thought that being a grown up would get easier as time passed. I really did.
1 May 2013
Hello everybody – very pleased to announce I am guest blogging on The Flying Drunken Monkey today, a fabulously entertaining (and quite educational) blog about one woman’s struggle against housework. And as you all know – I’m the most domestically challenged individual alive – so we’re a natural fit.
Check me rambling today at The Flying Drunken Monkey
29 Apr 2013
Rightio – Fred Nile has just agreed with your suggestion. Do you
a) continue thinking its a good idea
b) give yourself kudos for having tried but concede its probably not the right direction?
Look – it was a suggestion to move the issue along which is more than Tony or Julia have managed but any idea that gets Fred calling on the ‘Anglican and Catholic churches to come out in opposition to gay marriage’ NON-IRONICALLY is not the right direction for this country.
The fact that we still continue to muddy the waters with bollocks about religion and sexuality is annoying. And repetitive and really really boring.
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| www.change.org – thanks for the image to illustrate my point |
The question is: are you human?
Answer Yes: Great stuff – you get the same rights as the person next to you.
Answer No: Chances are you’re Mr Ed the Talking Horse and this really isn’t about you.
NEXT!
I’ve just solved it. It doesn’t infringe upon anybodies rights and if churches want to say “None of that malarky in my building of worship” – fine. Let ’em. Choose another building. I align with ‘those of faith’ on a general basis but I think people that argue that religion should dictate the laws of a country are daft. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the law of our country should apply to all individuals regardless of sexuality, religion, ability, gender, stupidity or bigotry.
And referendums never ask sensible questions like ‘Do you want to be a republic?’, they say ‘Do you want to be this really specific type of republic that nobody wants?’ and of course, it fails and the idiots get to bang on about it for 1000 years. Martin Luther King and Ghandi would have yelled ‘referendum my arse’ if they were about today…. and both of them were ‘aligned with faith’ and equality. Imagine. They didn’t make history or change the world by being negative nellies or risk adverse now did they?
So let me say it for them – ‘Referendum my arse’. Just change the freakin’ law, let them homosexuals go at marriage with gay abandon and please god – smite Fred Nile with one of those thunderbolts like old Saul got on that road to Damascus. Let him preach words of love not hate, acceptance not bigotry, peace not war.
24 Apr 2013
I have been seeing a psychologist since I was diagnosed with Post Natal Depression and PTSD following a particularly crappy first birth experience. It’s not a secret and my only regret is that I didn’t accept the diagnosis at first figuring that knowing I had it was essentially dealing with it.
We’ve done pretty well working me through that and we’re still working on a few things around depression and anxiety and since I’m there, life in general. So generally, she knows a lot of stuff about me. We’ve worked through stuff I’ve talked about with nobody else, my inner thoughts, my outer thoughts, my not quite articulated thoughts. It’s a pretty intimate relationship and obviously I have to trust her because she knows EVERYTHING.
Like everything.
Which is why it ALWAYS makes me chuckle quietly to myself when I pay at the end of a session, she takes two steps away and turns her back, so I don’t feel she’s looking at me entering my PIN. If she asked me I’d give it to her. I know she’d do nothing with the information apart from make a note that I’m an idiot and we need to discuss that in another session.
And it got me thinking as I left her yesterday that a lot of people practice small acts of polite which are respectful but unnecessary.
Like the doctor turning his back while you get dressed after your pap smear. I mean really, I think we are way past that. We’ve just chatted that whole time, so we might as well continue talking now that I’m upright.
And anything to do with childbirth – asking how my day is or whether the traffic was okay when you’re examining my insides with an instrument larger than the child I’ve grown or as you’re cutting my stomach open to move things aside and pull out a baby – is essentially superfluous good manners. I’m touched that you care but I’m assuming that you’ve currently got other things to focus on and I am completely, totally okay with that. No really.
But it’s not just the medical profession. There are hairdressers that chop off your ponytail and then say ‘that length okay?’. Um, should we not have checked before you used the scissors? Just quietly it’s a bit late now but yes it’s fine, I’m just thinking that was a ‘before’ question, rather than an ‘after’ question.
Another recent favourite is the carjacker that forced a man at gunpoint to drive him a couple of hundred kilometres and finished with a ‘thanks for the lift’ kind of statement as he jumped out and buggered off at the final destination.
In a world where manners are becoming scarcer than a non-racist Liberal party policy, it is lovely that people still use them and I do appreciate being on the receiving end of good manners, no matter how random they seem. I’ve just been noticing them used at odd times. Is this because they are not the norm, therefore I’m noticing them or is it just a heightened sense of the absurd which make them obvious to me?
Thoughts?
23 Apr 2013
This weekend when we spent some time hanging out at Gran and Granpa’s house, we had cause to wash our hands.
The Tullinator was fascinated by this square of white sitting on the basin.
“What’s this Mama?”
“Soap sweetheart”
Confused look on her face. She knows soap comes from a press pack either attached to a wall in a public place or in a bottle on the side of the basin if one is in a house.
“Soap?”
“Yes, old fashioned soap”
“Ohhhhh”
She has no idea what “old fashioned” means but she’s good like that, runs with an idea until such time as she’s worked it out.
Not all that long ago, we’re hanging out with the neblings and took them for a drive to somewhere we thought they’d find exciting. I can’t remember where – but I do remember what they found the most exciting.
The fact that our car allowed them to wind their own windows down. That’s right – our older car didn’t have electric windows and winding the windows down kept them entertained for a very very long time. Up. Down. Up. Down. With our feet. Using our elbows. Woohoo!
And then we recently gifted a pull along telephone with an old school dial mechanism and a cradle to put the earpiece in.
It’s a classic toy in that it has absolutely no relevance to the one year old that received it but they love the sounds it makes and anything that is pull along generally entertains small people.
And it came in a box. Either way, the gift was surely a winner.
The fact is – things that to us were the everyday not that long ago – are already history for our children.
They are items of novelty. Hilarious. Funny. Enjoyable for being unusual.
And the fact that my childhood and even my teenage years are now officially the olden days is slightly bewildering.
What about you? What things have you discovered aren’t instantly recognisable to smaller people?
18 Apr 2013
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| Perfection |
Lordy me but the glossary of terms for new parents needs to be refined. I read article after article where people are beating themselves up because they didn’t understand the basic terminology and judge themselves harshly as a result.
I was one of them. I have two perfect children aged 1 and 2 and lots of my friends have had babies, so basically, I’m an expert now. Here is my starting list of misunderstood or poorly marketed phrases which would make life for new parents so much easier if promoted accurately.
Natural or Vaginal birth
It hurts. A fucking lot.
Caesarean birth
It hurts. A fucking lot. But after the drugs wear off and for a couple of weeks. Basically, those women that do it on a wing and whale music for a couple of days are soft. Caesareans when you already have a small person or persons basically make you more awesome than Mother Teresa.
Breastfeeding
A way of feeding your baby. So it like, uh, doesn’t starve. A good basis for successful parenting.
Bottle feeding
A way of feeding your baby. So it like, uh, doesn’t starve. A good basis for successful parenting.
Co-sleeping
Any situation where the child has more stamina then you. Which is basically all the time. So you co-sleep pacing the corridor, on the couch, at the dining table and occasionally in public places. Generally, try not to co-sleep while driving. Hard to explain.
Controlled crying
This is where nothing you do makes the slightest bit of difference and you try only to cry when nobody is watching so that everybody continues to operate under the misapprehension that you’re coping okay and that the baby rearing stuff is a breeze for you. Everybody does it – nobody admits to it. It’s like a cult of denial because we’re basically all daft.
Supportive partner
Somebody that appreciates for the last nine months you didn’t get to do anything that was entirely selfish because if you even looked sideways at soft cheese some eejit in stained crocs from the North Shore was standing out the front of your house yelling ‘Child Abuser!!!!’ and organising pogroms. Especially supportive partners (the kind that win Father of the Year) are the kind that bring you champagne to accompany your first breast feed and are prepared to punch the midwife in the face should they criticise you.
Weaning
The strict definition is moving a child from its mother’s milk onto either a bottle, sippy cup or food. Where this is contentious is that the accepted age for weaning depends on your parental affiliations from the vaguely maternal to the militant earth mother and can happen any time from birth to age 49. It is generally agreed that most children don’t graduate still suckling at their mother’s breast so if you have children or grandchildren of your own, you probably have a problem. Otherwise, tell that pushy bitch at childcare to fuck off.
Health Insurance
A woefully inadequate but simultaneously extortionate amount of money that you pay over to some faceless institution that makes you feel protected until such time as your child actually requires medical attention and then you’ll find out that they are too young to qualify for major dental, you can’t prove conception date or because they turned up 8 weeks prior to due date, that all your plans to give birth in the same suite as Erica Packer will be null and void because Junior turns up 13 minutes the wrong side of ‘the qualifying period’.
Yummy Mummy
All of us. And anybody that disagrees can, well, go get fucked.
Perfect children
All of them. Absolutely every single one of them. Admire their resourcefulness, their stamina and their ability to beat you down into a weeping, apologetic mess. That’s the kind of balls they are going to need to make it in the modern world and you should be encouraging that.
What are the definitions you wish you’d more accurately understood when you embarked upon your parenting journey????
