Normalize

by Mothership on September 30, 2008

Although Four doesn’t believe me, I am actually a professional musician (she thinks that my only purpose in life is to cater to her every whim and most days it’s just easier to acquiesce). I write my songs and compositions on a complex computer program that has, among its other capabilities, a very useful function called NORMALIZE. You use this button when you’ve recorded some audio at a different level to everything else and need to make it sound in sync with the rest of the piece.

One of the things that I thought, before I actually had any children was that as soon as I gave birth, I would somehow develop an extra facet to my personality. The sanctity of Motherhood itself would bestow upon me the ability to fit in effortlessly with other people, endow me with endless patience, and the milk of human kindness would flow from my heart to all living things without discrimination. I would have a sort of glow around me, not exactly a halo, but probably not far off. It would be especially bright when I was sitting on the rocking chair with my clean, quiet, happy baby on my breast.

I did actually get that for a little while, mostly until the Percocet wore off after my C –section. Then I got very tired and grumpy, discovered the glow was actually a migraine aura and my baby was noisy, could spit up and poo at the same time (talent!) and my nipples felt like they’d been ripped off and stapled back on, haphazardly.

I think almost everyone is shocked by the early days with an infant, but I still held out some hope for later on when the mothers’ groups would meet and we’d be there with our little darlings, chattering and pushing them on the swings, and my child would make life-long friends with the other babies. We’d just moved to this country, this town, and I did not have a single pal for myself, let alone the child, so I went against all my natural resistance to any organized group social event and took Four, (then just months old) along. It turned out, though, that I am not very good at groups. I never really was. I’d almost always rather curl up with a book or potter around on my own than spend time thinking up things to chat about and trying to assimilate. Don’t get me wrong, most of these women were bright, friendly and nice. It was clearly me that was the problem. I’m sure I could have found a kindred spirit there, (except my kindred spirit would be busily avoiding group social encounters) but I just could never relax and be myself because being myself would have involved:

a) Refusing to participate in anything that might be construed as ‘Pot Luck’ 

b) Telling people “Bored shitless, actually” when they asked how I am 

c) Explaining that I missed my old life and that this tiny person who I loved more than anything I had ever known was also the thief of my former identity and she had pulled the rug out from under the sole of my being.

In order not to alarm the other mothers in the group I developed a sort of internal NORMALIZE button so that I could respond to questions appropriately with the right sort of timbre, and even smile when I did it. 
“Yes, I’m from England, Yes, I do like it here, the weather is lovely. Yes, it’s lots of fun having a baby. Oh, yes it is hard getting up at night but Husband is very helpful… Yes, certainly I’ll bake something to bring next time.”

Then I’d go home and stare at the wall and think about how I’d got it wrong.
Motherhood hadn’t added an extra facet to my personality, it had taken several away.

I no longer go to mothers’ groups, although I see them meeting at playgrounds all the time. Today, in fact, a very merry gang of mommies and their children were at the park where I was with One and Four. While pushing our little ones, I got chatting with a pretty lady, expecting her 3rd ,who asked me where I was from, did I like it here etc.

I told her where I was from, that I liked the weather and the ocean but I was very ready to live in a big city again. That I missed being surrounded by other working creatives in my field. I missed the culture of dissent that seems to have disappeared in the name of patriotism since 9/11 and I’d love a good debate and to hear some real news, not op-ed for a change. Then I said that I thought most people were charming and friendly but it would be nice to hear what they really thought and felt for a change because Paradise was so damn saccharine that I was losing my sense of taste. 
She continued to smile and although she was gracious and polite I sensed her discomfort and desire to flee. Fortunately for both of us, One decided he wanted to get off the swings and we drifted apart. 

Later, as my little family left the playground we walked past the table where the mommys’ group sat. They watched us with baleful eyes and fell silent as we went by. 
I didn’t feel bad. Not even when the low murmurs started after we passed. I felt good because I didn’t NORMALIZE, and also because I most likely won’t be put in the embarrassing position of having to turn down an invitation to their potluck.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Box of Evil

by Mothership on September 29, 2008

Some weeks ago we got rid of the television.
I literally unplugged it and wheeled it out of the house while children wept and rolled on the floor in fits of deprivation and withdrawal. Husband looked on, grim faced, wondering what he would do with those idle hours between 10pm and midnight that he had hitherto spent purposefully switching between our 8 non-cable channels at 40 second intervals while eating stale crackers and elderly trail mix. I tried to explain in a tight voice that when Daddy and I were children we didn’t even have a TV, let alone DVD’s or Dora the Explorer and we were just FINE, look at us now. This caused a brief pause in the wailing to allow for looks of astonishment and disbelief, swiftly followed by withering contempt before the howling resumed at former volume. However, I stuck to my resolve and endured the intermittent tantrums from Four that lasted, surprisingly, for only two days.

Now Four is, and has always been, a person who likes a lot of human interaction. She wants you to play with her and talk to her and follow her extremely complicated rules when playing Dinosaurs-go-to-the-library-for-cupcakes all of the time and she gets very, very annoyed if you even go to the bathroom alone – she considers this to be both the height of rudeness and borderline neglectful parenting. I must confess I had guiltily used the television (only PBS! Only educational DVD’s !) so that I could just have a shower or make dinner or even have 30 minutes to myself occasionally without her needing/wanting something or doing something dubious to her baby brother, One. It was only an hour a day, maximum, so it couldn’t be that bad, right?

Well, it turns out that the television, far from alleviating my problem, was actually adding to it, even in that tiny dose, and it was also starting to turn One into a diminutive zombie, and he had always been a gratifyingly self sufficient little boy, happy to play with a cardboard box and an empty toilet roll for hours at a time.

Once the evil box was gone and the tears had dried, I started to notice that Four was opening her books and looking at the pictures all by herself without asking me to read them to her. She wants to play board games and dig in the garden for worms. Her attention span has grown hugely, to the point where we are reading chapter books as a family in the evening, and she is currently campaigning for us to dig a well in our garden like the Ingalls family in the Little House on the Prairie book (not sure how that will work with our septic system). She instigates games with One that don’t involve picking him up and dropping him (much). She wants to cook dinner WITH me, instead of complaining that eating it is interrupting her viewing schedule, and as a result of the newfound kitchen interest, she has started to eat food that she would never have considered trying previously because she has had a hand in making it. We have experienced a quantum good behaviour leap and an equal diminishment in whining.
I do not miss it at all. Not one bit. It’s never coming back.

Best of all, Husband has now found something more interesting to do in those late evening hours when the children are asleep. ?

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Welcome to the House of Fun!

by Mothership on September 29, 2008

It is probably unwise to start writing something late at night when one has been awake since 5am attending to the bodily needs of two charming yet utterly ruthless small personages under 5 years old, but frankly my window of opportunity (not to mention willpower) is rather limited so I’m going to go for it now and say “Hello and Welcome!” as enthusiastically as I can before I collapse in a senseless heap on the floor with drool creeping unattractively down my chin.

I have been meaning, in some small way, to document my passage through motherhood since my first child was born some 4 years ago but I never quite got around to it due to pressing engagements such as sleep, washing up, laundry, discussions about how Husband and I should have a date night and maybe even consider (shock, horror) staying awake long enough to have sex. Then one day despite those obstacles we did have sex which was bloody brilliant, totally worth staying up for! Oh except that I got pregnant again and had the second one and the whole sleep deficit, washing up/laundry mountain thing happened all over. 
This time, however, we remembered that we knew about contraception, (having come of age prior to the advocacy of abstinence-as-sex-ed or growing up in Uganda) so we won’t have to wait another couple of years for our nuptial nookie, and we have also basically given up the idea of any kind of civilised existence – it’s hard to be sophisticated and European when meals are served on a prison timetable and food is pelted at me to signal distaste or even just the natural end of our baby’s breakfast. 
As a result, I now have that time that I was looking for to write down my thoughts, those that remain after the onslaught of the last few years, and it is here that I shall record and share them with you. 

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Next Entries →