Separation anxiety

As a slap-bang-in-the-middle-of-middle-class mother I spend most of my time worrying about how wrong I am doing everything and the other half of my time pretending that I am not worrying. So the most recent worry was that I am depriving Cass by not sending her to nursery. As you will know from previous rants, I decided to stay at home with her, so nursery was not on the cards, but clearly this was another something to worry about.

Perhaps we were creating a princess of gargantuan proportions by not socialising her in a nursery environment - would she be a teenager who could not tie her own laces, a university student who had no mates, or worse, a grown up who wouldn’t share her sweeties?! It just so happened that a friend was in a bind around the time that we were having this discussion (when I say we, I clearly mean I was having an internal monologue as B has learnt not to listen ages ago) and he needed a new member of staff for his business. So I got myself a job - how exciting, I get to wear my work wear again... No seriously, that was my main motive. So that meant that Cass needed somewhere to be for my two days a week.

Luckily the nursery down the road had spaces so off we went for a look. I’m not sure what happened between my house (empowered working mum) and the nursery (blob of weeping jelly), but somehow I lost my cool. And we were only there to have a butchers. I couldn’t control myself, pretty much everything set me off; the row of little tiny shoes by the door, the cute handprint pictures adorning the walls, Cass toddling off with nary a backward glance. I was a mess.

Still, we went ahead and I have marshalled myself. It has been a hard road getting her settled (for all of us!) and I still partially wonder what I am doing it for. My logical thinking brain says it is doing her good, but my mummies heart misses her and can’t imagine that anyone else will look after her as well as I will.

Yesterday she came home having painted, played in the woods, eaten loads of fruit, napped, played with her little friend Esther and generally had an all round good time. It just sounds like so much fun - I wanna play too!!

The Mummatron

I hate to say it, but you ain's seen nothing yet! Wait until she goes off to uni. on another continent!

At the age of 17 my baby opted to go to a university in Scotland at the same time as her parents had to move to the USA for Gramps' job. I don't think I can find the words to describe the feelings I had at that time. Of course my baby would ring up with tales of woe and I would spend the next few hours/days fraught with worry about how she was feeling and finally I would be unable to contain my worry any more and I would ring her to hear her cheery voice inform me that she couldn't stop to chat right now as she was too busy having fun! Argh!

I really didn't think it could get worse than that then last Sunday when it came time for Gramps and I to leave little Cassie after a day of fun and games, she put out her arms to us, pulled both our faces up to hers, pressed her face into ours and delivered kiss after kiss and face-hug after face-hug for about five minutes ......... and then we had to walk out the door and leave her!!!!! It may not be separation anxiety but it sure didn't feel like fun driving off down the road!

Granny bloggins

Week 19: Plague House

Other houses on our street have lovely wreaths adorning their front doors, some even twinkling with fairy lights representing thousands of happy yuletide fireflies. On our front door this week, there has been daubed a big black cross, representing that this is a plague house - woe betide anyone who dare enter.

Yes dear reader, this week we have all (me, the big hairy man, and little CK) had some kind of hideous vomity evil residing in our systems, making us feel like yesterdays jam, left out in the snow to fester silently, sadly on the curbside. Hours have been spent communing with the porcelain (in the case of the adults) or the carpet, the cot, the couch, the bath etc etc etc (in the case of the wee’un). But I have been suffering from a much, much worse malady (if that is possible - it turns out that voiding ones stomach when sober is really really not fun...who knew?!). Cabin Fever.

This highly contagious and very serious problem leaves the afflicted swinging wildly from laughter to tears, watching daytime telly and making quick phone calls to the bank stretch to over an hour, chatting to the poor phone lady who just wants to see if there is anything else she can help you with today... “Well actually, yes, I am thinking of redoing my kitchen, what colours do you think are in for kitchens this year?”

It has made me seriously rethink my choice to be a stay at home mummy. I mean, isn’t this what it is going to be like all the time in a couple of months when all my friends have gone back to work? Am I forever now consigned to spending every waking hour entertaining my child; dancing to the music channel to try to make her laugh, building towers out of anything that comes to hand for her to knock over, singing along to all her (deeply irritating) electronic jangly toys? On the days when we have nowhere to go and no-one to hang out with , then the answer to the questions above will be yes.

I guess I should just start booking some stuff in, but I am ‘joining phobic’. I am rubbish at taking part and a terrible cynic to boot. I could take part in pretty much ‘Mummy and Baby’ everything; pilates, swimming, sing and sign (really? babies that do sign language? That is so PC), exercise classes. But my fear of having to play nice and not take the mickey is too much - I suppose that naughty school kid instinct is still the default (and this from a teacher...tsk, tsk.).

So I have three choices; suck it up (as the Australians would say) and get used to the cabin fever, my own (mind numbing) company, and find some small joys every day to keep me sane; join some social groups in order to expand my mind, body, soul and social circle, and indeed just have something to do every day; or return to work...shudder.

Or I could just call my new pal Brenda down at the bank and ask her what she would do.

p.s. No Granny Bloggings wisdom this week... she is still shovelling her way out from under a snow drift and can't take the time off for blogging.

Week 16: The Trappings of Parenthood

Help! I’m Drowning

When me and my lovely hubby were married we set off on honey moon for a 4 month camping trip around Southern Africa. It was awesome (and a little bit scary at the same time) - the travelling was amazing, the adventures we had were fantastic and experiencing other cultures was mind expanding. One of the things that really touched me was how the women I saw in some of the less developed cultures coped with three children around their legs, one slung on their back and some kind of farming implement in their hand. They didn’t have Fisher Price Jumperoos, the newest quinny buzz, or the Stokke high chair. And they were coping, seemingly, quite well without them.

So I decided that when we had kids, this was the approach we would take. Just sling it on my back and get out in the fields to work (because obviously teaching is a profession where you work in the fields often).

Did it happen? What do you reckon? No, I don’t have the Stokke, or the Quinny, but I do have the jumperoo and a myriad of other ‘essential’ items that I swore I wouldn’t buy. And now I am drowning under a sea of stuff.

I contend that there are two reasons for this; 1) everything I have purchased has made my life easier in some way, whether that is because it entertains my darling daughter for a couple of seconds in the day, or because it means I can put her down and have a break... and 2) Mothercare is, like, one of the only places around here with a really big car park, with mummy and baby spaces, and is close to my house.

Oops.

So how do you combat this problem? Do you remind yourself of the women in developing countries who manage with nothing? Do you remind yourself of the environmental threat that all this plastic is contributing to? Nah. Just wait until your maternity pay runs out, and your credit card is maxed, and paypal tells you that you have insufficent funds. That is the only thing that has stopped me. And then only for a minute or two...
The Mummatron

Clutter Control

How can something as small as a baby fill a house to bursting with acres of clutter? Just minutes after a positive pregnancy test result it seems that the house begins to look like a landfill site. So many machines, so many cute outfits, so many hats, so many adorable-can't-live-without-them-ridiculous tiny shoes .....so much crap! Whatever happened to saving the planet by avoiding rampant consumerism? And don't even get me started on plastics! Does this make me sound like the sort of woman who only wears natural fibres, who only takes homoeopathic medicine, who knits her own yoghurt? Oh no, I have bought little CK enough clothes and cutsey hats to clothe a small African country, I have cornered the market in brightly coloured plastic toys and am already saving for her first bike - although I have set a rule that she has to at least learn to crawl before she can have it - see what a tough granny I can be?
We used to live in America and I was a member of something called the Newcomers Club. This is a wonderful institution which is in most of the states of the US and provides a great network to make friends and join all sorts of groups from book clubs to building a nuclear reactor in your kitchen type things. A friend suggested I might like to join the British Womens' Group - argh - I asked if it involved a uniform., maybe some jack boots? However, I was duly dragged along and now, many years later am still friends with several of the women I met there. The meeting I want to tell you about was the one about 'getting your life organised', I thought this sounded quite interesting. So I found myself with several hundred women at 'The Y', in Princeton being lectured by a 'Clutter Control Management Consultant', - only in America!

She talked for a while about things like organising your paper work, paying your bills immediately when they arrived, all of which made perfect sense, then she asked us to raise our hands if we had kept our childrens' milk teeth? Several hundred hands waved guiltily in the air, mine included. Then she asked how many women actually had those tiny teeth with them at that moment and quite a few hands rose again - not mine! She asked us why we would keep them? Did we think our children would ever come to us and ask for them back? Several hundred women sniggered, not me. I know why I keep my daughters little milk teeth. My dear old dad died last week and in amongst his things I found a tiny envelope with a lock of my baby hair in it - yes I know my dad loved me but that he kept that little curl in a special place for nearly 60 years let me know the depth of his love and one day when I shuffle off this mortal coil I want my daughter to find her little teeth and know how much I love her!

Keep it all, live with the clutter, use the attic, use the garden shed, dig a cellar, but don't call in a Clutter Control Manager and turn your home into a sterile minimalist house.
Granny Bloggings