ready to roll

Ok, so, you think 'babies', you think 'babies moving around'…. therefore you think 'crawling'. At least I did, B.C.

I ran into the kitchen this morning, asking Tom, "Did you just lie Conrad down on his tummy?" 

"No…" was the answer. 

"Wow - well that means he just flipped from his back onto his front!" I exclaimed.

And so he had. He's been going from front to back for weeks now, so it could be just days until he combines the two motions and he'll be rollin rollin rollin.

I never knew that some babies have a rolling stage and, frankly, I think it's a ridiculous way to get around. I've been told that parents can pop out of the room for a moment, returning to find their baby has disappeared. Only a muffled squawk alerts mama or papa to the fact that their pride and joy has rolled under the sofa.

How am I going to be able to respect Conrad while I'm fishing him out, covered in dust, from under our couch? I hope he'll be one of those who skips straight to the crawling phase, hopefully wearing nothing but a pure white nappy and a sweet grin, like in the ads. 

a slobby day

It's a quarter to five in the afternoon**, I'm in my tracksuit pants and ugg boots, all I've eaten today is a Dickensian diet of porridge and bread, and I haven't left the house or done any exercises. I feel most un-yummy, more like bummy slummy mummy.

It's a long time since I've been so slothful - not since those first six weeks of motherhood, those dark, dark days. Usually now I make a point of getting properly dressed every morning, which does wonders for my mood. Today feels like a slippery slope, and I can see how stay-at-home parents end up isolated, unkempt and wearing stretch fabrics. Actually, I can see why daytime drinking and repeat scripts for valium were popular for mothers during the '50s. 

Some days I feel like I barely cope, and I've only got one baby, plus a helpful partner, a cleaner once a fortnight, two keen grandmamas and lots of friends happy to babysit.  I actually cannot fathom how people do this with several kids, but then, once upon a time i couldn't fathom how people did it with one. You just do, I guess.

**Well, it was when I first started writing this. Yesterday.

super ma!

Oh my god you can get so much DONE when your baby naps for longer than 40 mins! I am showered, dressed, fabulously accessorised, breakfasted, have done pilates, put out the washing, packed the car for visiting grandma, and have now completed a blog post…. and Conrad is STILL ASLEEP!!! I feel like one of those supermother type people!

self supporting

Two little progressions for Conrad this morning: usually, when I lie him on his stomach I have to put his hands out in front of him or he just lolls face down like he's doing some kind of infant planking, but today he brought his own arms out to hold up his body. 

Then, once he had himself supported, I put a rather fetching plastic cow enticingly close to him, and he reached out for it. It's the first time he's ever done that while on his tummy, and it's the same kind of arm extension he would need to crawl! Wow! I thought, and in the next second looked around the room at all the electrical cables, exposed bars of the radiator, fragile objects, plant pots and Tom's camera equipment, and felt panic. PUT THOSE ARMS BACK UNDERNEATH YOU! I screamed. I WANT TO BONSAI MY BABY FOREVER!! No, I didn't say that, but the panic was real. It's time to go on hazard patrol.

proselytising

I can't even remember what I used to talk about before I talked only about my baby. 

These days, people start almost all conversations along the lines of, "Are you getting any sleep?" or simply, "How's Conrad?". But I'm not irritated about that little pigeonhole I occupy now, no, I'm overjoyed, because those questions are an opening to talk about my baby! Even if it's a generic, "How are you feeling?", then I give a baby-focused answer. 

My world is tiny now. News, current affairs, politics, even books and the arts, all are just an annoyance, forcing the cogs to chug over in the left side of my brain when all I want to do is float around in the right hemisphere, mainlining oxytocin and baby smell. I do attempt to, at some point in any conversation, talk about other topics, but I have to consciously search around for the old words to use, and I'm perfectly content to bang on about baby minutiae if the other person seems interested.

Before Conrad was born I was determined not to be that sorry, downtrodden person whose infant takes over her whole existence, that I would keep space for me. The thing is, this IS now the real me, but I'm not an effaced drudge; I feel stimulated and renewed. The baby is far, far, far and away the biggest thing in my life, not only right now, but ever. My dad dying, relationship breakups, new jobs, movements within friendships, overseas travel: their impact was like a leaf falling onto a puddle in comparison with the great splashing gumboot of new motherhood. 

It's hard to remember that others might not find the topic quite so fascinating. Worse, I find myself gushing at people that they just HAVE to get one of these babies in their lives too: Don't have a partner? Not ready? Too broke? Don't really want kids? Pah! Just do it anyway, don't let those teeny details get in the way! I'm so immersed, and so blinkered, that I struggle to not proselytise about parenthood.

no dummy

My baby not only knows how to pull out his dummy, but he now is learning how to get it in again. So far, only the hard edged part, unfortunately for him! But this morning in bed I watched him put in the soft nippley bit, pull it out again, put it in, pull it out, for minutes, with great triumphant sucking sounds.

Watching Conrad trying to do things, messing them up, and getting frustrated, is a learning experience for me. I'm the kind of person who tries to fix other people's problems and is always offering advice, probably a really annoying character trait. With Conrad I mentally have to sit on my hands so I don't jump in and help him. It's a tough call to make: when is he expressing frustration (a good healthy emotion that I hope will spur him to keep trying and make his eventual success all the more satisfying), and when is he crying out for me (and I should help him so he doesn't feel powerless and scared)?

weeks of pain, weeks of ponies

When you're pregnant and preparing for this thing called motherhood, one of the bits of advice you're given about childrearing is to 'take each day as it comes'. THIS IS A REALLY GOOD PIECE OF ADVICE. The week before last, this mantra saved my sanity, as did my doula's words: "whenever you're having a bad time think to yourself: today is one of those hard days, so I'll just focus on getting through it and tomorrow will be different."

The week before last was a neat seven days of hell. Conrad started screaming on the Monday night, stopped grizzling exactly on the next Monday night, and followed none of his usual feeding or sleeping patterns in between. It was also the week when I had minor surgery (two moles removed from my forehead), when I had several stressful driving lessons, when I got embroiled in governmental maternity payment bureaucracy, and when my wrist injury flared up savagely again. Meanwhile, it rained, and rained, and rained, and I went berko from cabin fever. 

Each day I told myself, "A developmental spurt - tomorrow he'll be back to normal." Well, thank fuck I WAS taking each day as it came, because if I'd known I had a whole week of crying to look forward to, I might have blown my savings on a nanny (for Conrad) and an impromptu trip to Bali (for me). 

And then that week ended, and along came last week, and oh what a blissful, sparkling ray of sunshine was my baby boy. He went to bed at 6pm, he fed at regular intervals, he smiled, he chortled, he made cooing noises, he sat quietly and contemplated the world, and he charmed the socks off all he met. 

Outside, the sun emerged to make a mockery of what we call 'winter' in Sydney, and every day I took Conrad for sunny strolls in 19 degree weather. On the Wednesday night I went out BY MYSELF (joy!) for dinner with a group of friends then on to the Pulp concert, and yesterday Conrad and I lolled with friends on the grass at Addison Road markets, eating cake in the blazing sun while children took pony rides past us. 

Today is Monday so we shall see which way this week's pendulum will swing; but, whatever happens, I will be taking each day as it comes.