Category Archives: Children & Mothering

Female in full flood

by . Posted on
06 Jun

I have had a horrible week with my three year old.  On Monday I locked myself in the pantry to sit on a tub of dried beans and sob.  I am not proud of my behaviour, my lack of control or restraint and I do world class guilt about scarring him for life.  Today I took some much needed time out to go for a run on the beach.  Feeling the wind beat against me as I battled through it, watching and running barefoot in the waves as they sashayed on the shore I reflected on the difference in the high rollers and green foam of today’s sea and the crystal blue perfection and calm of last week’s beach.  I asked myself (with thanks and apology to Richard Bach’s Illusions) – ‘Is it a perfect sea today?’  and I answered ‘It’s always a perfect sea’.  And I realised that we women are like the sea.  Ruled by the pull of moon, who shapes our forces and flows.  Changeable, mercurial, captivating, luring.  sometimes peaceful and quiet and still, warm and inviting, other times cold and cruel and hard, lashing in fury, pounding on the sands, hurling spit and spray as we rant and rage.  And in between the two, a thousand different moods and emotions, a hundred different faces, all of them beautiful.

Just as we accept the sea in all her changing guises, so we women must accept ourselves as equally alluring whether in temper or tranquillity.  There’s no point railing at the weather, little point therefore in forcing ourselves to fit some mythical mould of machine like lack of emotion.  We are women, we are meant to emote.  We are free to feel the full spectrum of emotional weather and to vent it as it flows.  Just like a toddler but with a tad more decorum.

Men are like the rocks upon the shore – stubborn, steadfast, strong.  Immovable, unchangeable, immutable.  We women lap around them, hurl ourselves at them and rage against them. But they do not move.  Maybe in aeons we will wear away an iota.

Mutable mermaid that’s me and my kind.  Siren singing from the depths of our emotional worlds.  Changing, transforming, shifting shapes and sand dunes in our tempestuous, tumultuous tempers.  Intriguing, inviting, inciting.  Fully alive, fully present, grounded, both Madonna and whore, mistress and wife, healer and warrior, mother and child.  Every dichotomy, every nuance in between.

Wonderful, amazing, beautiful women.   As we are.  Captivating, challenging, charismatic.  Maybe I’m doing my son a great service in exposing him to the vagaries of the sex from an early age.  Maybe one day he will thank me.  In the interim, I am going to accept myself as a passionate, perfect specimen of the species and enjoy her, storm or calm.

Earth, Our Mother

by . Posted on
30 Jul

Like every woman, she is complex, changeable, volatile  . . .  and beautiful, oh so beautiful. Different in every changing season, every face of her more beautiful than the last.  Wild, unpredictable, untameable she is glorious in her power and wonder.  Groomed, tamed and tamped down in manicured precision she is muted but beautiful still.

She nurtures us, feeds us, embraces us when we need to breathe and think.  She clothes us, cares for us, picks up after us and deals with our detritus of daily life.  She loves us despite our taking her for granted, littering her pristine playgrounds and murdering our sisters and brothers in furry, feathered, finned flesh.

She has put up with us as we have emptied her reserves of fuel like a child sucking on its mother’s breast, furiously, feverishly long after it should have been weaned.  She has birthed us and given us her all as every good Mother does until she is depleted, exhausted and tired of our endless demands and selfishness.

She has put up with our growing pains and we have tried her patience through toddlerdom, school and adolescence.  Now she just wants us gone – why don’t we grow up, wise up and ship out?  And leave her to rest, decline and die in peace?

We have tired her out but with her last reserves of energy she is raging at us – why won’t we listen?

Why do we think we can take, take, take and give nothing back?  Did she teach us nothing?  Have we learned nothing in all our years of evolution and living with her?  Or is it still that this patriarchical society we have created where technology is the craven image we worship has to learn to love and wonder at woman in all her power and glory before we can honour the Mother who gives us our daily bread and so much more?

If it is not our generation who stop the mining, raping, pillaging madness then who?  If it is not us who demand clean, renewable energy and power and an end to poisonous chemicals and GM, then who?   Who will protect this beautiful Earth we are so honoured to call home for our children, who will?  If we don’t stand up and fight these greedy, blood sucking corporate parasites, who will?

She is so fragile this beautiful Mother of ours, right now, sucked dry.  And we have all the power and technology and the intelligence and the heart to stop the hunger, feed the world, and live in harmony with this beautiful Mother who has given us life.  It’s not too late to honour and learn from our indigenous communities and harness the forces of this tempestuous Mother of ours to give us all that we need and more.

Yes, it is a big fight.  Yes, it seems impossible.  Yes, the forces we are battling against are huge and powerful with deep, deep pockets lined with our hard earned wealth.  But David slew Goliath and us little, little people with our big hearts and our wisdom and passion can swell this groundswell into a roaring tsunami for change.  We have to.  Tired as we are, bowed as we are, so is our Mother and she needs us to speak for her, to help her, to work with her, to love and understand her.

And so doggedly, we must plod on and hope that in our lifetime things will change.  That not only Earth, our Mother, but all women, young and old, will get the respect, love, compassion and gratitude they so richly deserve.  Vive la revolution!

Where are all the Elves when you need them?

by . Posted on
24 Dec

I could do with a little tribe just to pick up after his lordship . . . .as quickly as I go around decorating the christmas tree, picking up toys, cleaning the floor, putting back the drawers and cupboards there’s a little mischievous elf behind me creating chaos . . . . and we have one incisor down and one still cutting through – which means a little clingy, non-sleeping man and a very frustrated Mama!  It’s christmas morning here already and the house is clean (finally!) the lawn is mowed, I have spent all day doing a christmas pudding (my first!) with dried fruit that has been stewing in brandy for 18 months – it’s pretty potent!  Thank God for Google – wouldn’t have had a clue without the master at my elbow!  We are off to bed and still got to make the salads and the mayonnaise and the brandy butter and white sauce in the morning as well as enjoying Ben enjoying his presents.  It’s been a crazy week with trying to finish work, do the shopping, spring clean the house etc . . . and Ben is almost walking on his own!

Mummy's little helper

Walking Boy

Messy, me??

Blue eyed boy

Boys will be Boys!

by . Posted on
20 Nov

Last Thursday not long after Sandra had arrived to look after the not sleeping (again!) Pickle for the afternoon, I was finally doing a wee when I heard a scream and sobbing and I raced out and grabbed my baby from her. His mouth was full of blood and he was hysterical so I just held him to me and reikied him and murmured ‘it’s all right, it’s all right’ in his ear while he cried  . . . and cried . . . and cried.  All I could see was the top of his golden head and the blood all over my white t-shirt and the stain kept growing and growing.

I had no idea what he had done and I wasn’t going to be able to look until he calmed down so I just kept holding him and loving him.  At one point I pulled off my tee shirt because I thought the blood must be upsetting him more so I was bare breasted Mama, fiercely protecting her cub.  Finally I took him outside because nature always calms him as it does me, and we stood by the flying fox and watched the river as he cried.

After a while he wriggled to go down and I let him and crouched down with him, but as soon as his feet hit the ground, the sobbing started again.  So I sat legs akimbo and pulled him to my chest again and waiting til he stopped.  He stopped and I pulled away and it all started again, crying like his heart would break.  I could even hear the emotions as they tore through him – ‘the world isn’t a safe place any more’, ‘I hurt’, ‘it isn’t fair’, ‘life isn’t supposed to be like this’, ‘I hurt’ and there was nothing I could do about any of it just be there – I couldn’t turn back time, I couldn’t make it go away and I couldn’t heal it – what sort of Mother was I?

Eventually he stopped and I took him back to the house and poor Sandra who had the guilt of being the one in charge eating her up.  More Emergency Essence and we stripped him and put him in a nice warm bath to get clean both physically and energetically – wash away the trauma, rinse away the pain.  Sandra played with him while I made a bottle dosed with Arnica, chamomile and more Emergency Essence and at last we could see what he had done.  Top teeth through bottom lip, one tooth right through to the outside by the looks of things.  Hard to say but looked like the teeth were all still where they had been.

OMG my poor child.  No blame, just sorrow – it could have happened with any of us, and once they start standing upright some big fall is inevitable.  But if I could turn back time  . . . I would in an instant.  If only we could erase all the pain and hardship from our loved ones lives, if only we could rewrite history and change the bad decisions we have made, the unnecessary pain we have put them through, the terrible things we say, the thoughtless things we do, the hurt we inflict whether knowingly or unknowingly.  If we could edit our own lives as easily as we edit words on a page, how different we, and the world would be.

Sad & sorry but still beautiful, two days later

Duck & Tooth Fairy MIA

by . Posted on
02 Feb

We have a duck MIA – presumed dead.  I heard a terrific squawking one afternoon from the region of the awning but just thought one of the chooks was laying an egg with much ado.  The next day I found a python snoozing in my feed shed and presumed he was the culprit (even though he didn’t have the distended belly you would expect if he was mid-duck digestion) so Ged grabbed him and put him in a sack (after peeling him off his wrist coil by ever tightening coil) and I drove him over to Angle Creek where I let him go, on the way to my daily constitutional.

It was either him or the Goanna . . . but then there were two . . .
Benjamin’s getting pretty good at his routine now and it’s only really the teething days which throw us for a loop.  He has been drooling for ages and gnawing on his fingers, our fingers, Giraffey and anything else he can find, but then some days he is obviously in pain and I am on my knees by the end of the day begging the tooth fairy to get a bloody wriggle on!
My theory is that she can’t find us and Santa (who knows our address) is on holiday during the whole of January and February (resting after his round the world marathon) so we will have to wait until March when she can get in touch with him again and get the map co-ordinates!  That’s what I tell Benjamin anyway . . . .
There are a few things that always make him smile – blowing raspberries on his belly, singing to him (anything – he’s not fussy!) but ‘Benjamin Love has a Farm Ee I ee I o’ is a favourite, Daddy tickling him in the bath, bathtime, Mama’s boobies (he’s such a BOY!), The Gruffalo (thank you Sally, what a BRILLIANT book) and The Very Hungry Caterpillar (inspired by Shirley’s foray into FAO Schwarz for him) and the Boy in the Mirror who he loves . . .

Baby Boot Camp

by . Posted on
19 Jan

Start as we mean to go on!  We are all back at work this week and since that means Ged leaves at the crack of dawn and is gone til 5 or 6pm, I am resolved that Benjamin and I have to get into a routine so we can  survive the days.  So we normally have a 5ish am feed and then go back to sleep.  Ged gets up at 6 and leaves us in bed snoring.  We both have a squirm when he leaves but I shush Ben back to sleep and hope for a good snooze then we get up at about 8am.  Singing, playing, bath and boobie and then Benjamin goes to bed in his bed, in his room for (hopefully) two hours so I can sit at the computer and get some work done.  Then he wakes up and we have some more singing and hugging and then I have a shower while he watches from his bouncer (lucky boy!) and then tummy time, lunch time and back to bed for the boy (sometimes happily, sometimes not!) and I go back to the computer and the phone for an hour and then normally he is up again so we let him have a good kick on the sofa while I race around trying to clean the house and then we are both clock watching until Ged gets home and I get to catch up on the backlog of work or chores and go for a walk . . . me and phee time

So far, so good.  It’s like baby boot camp here – we live and breathe by the clock.  Until Saturday when Ged took over . . . I did explain the principles of the new regime but obviously wasn’t clear enough on the details – Ben and Ged had a lovely day together – no routine, no rests, no rhythm at all!  So Mamma Minute had a battle on her hands on Sunday.  I bought Ged a gorgeous Seiko watch for Christmas so he could keep track of all the different times in our lives (bed time, booby time, bath time, nap time etc) – well actually Kevin Rudd did – the government gave each child in Australia $1,000.00 as part of the economic stimulus package.  (We were supposed to spend it so I did!!)  and I have my trusty surfy lilac watch on all the time, along with my ‘Milk Band’ – the perfect Mummy’s Little Helper for those of us suffering from complete brainlessness (unfortunately not fully automatic – needs input!) – it tells me which boob first at what time – amazing, invaluable, essential!!
So the days are more organised although we have some battles royal over bed time and then by the time Ged gets home we can both be overtired, over emotional, and over wrought.  But we will both be better at it with practice (please God!)

Your Baby, Your Guru

by . Posted on
01 Dec

Macca has lent us some amazing books over the course of the pregnancy and first few weeks of Motherhood.  I have been immersing myself in ‘Buddhism for mothers’ while on the loo and in the sitz bath at night and there is a wonderful article in there, written by an American first time mother and long-time Buddhist as she is challenged and tested to every limit by her newborn babe and her spiritual practice goes out of the window (bye bye spiritual discipline, routine and regimen!).  She writes that she finally realised that the baby was the teacher, the buddha, the master and this was the new path for her learnings, meditation and practice.  That singing the same soothing song over, and over (and over!) again is as much meditation as sitting in silence for hours, that setting self aside in order to fully focus on, and cater to, another soul, is the greatest spiritual self discipline.  It is presumably no coincidence then that Gandhi shaved his head and wore nappies!!

Even God rested on the 7th day . . .

by . Posted on
03 Nov

Eureka!

I have been going round and round my little house and the outer edges of insanity as well as riding a rollercoaster of emotions (none of them pleasant!) and poor Ged has borne the brunt of the hormonal hell so I sat us down the other night and allocated strict allocation of chores and suggested I have one day off my new life as Mum a week.  Ged agreed to have Saturday as his day off his life as a slave to the wage or the farm and spend it solely with his son and I get to do whatever I want as long as I come back and bare my breasts every three hours (for Ben, not Ged, obviously!!)
So I had Saturday mucking out my horses and mowing the lawn and pruning the lavendar bushes etc – bliss.  I finally realised just how trapped I had felt in my little cottage with my only excursions to the washing line and back once I had the right to roam again and the body that would finally allow me to lift and bend etc.  I hadn’t realised how restricted I had been physically in the last month or so of pregnancy and then the post partum pain and posterior pronouncements!  So all of a sudden I felt free to be me again and to do once more, instead of giving directions from my armchair where I was chained to my son and Little House on the Prairie!
And by the end of the day I understood that I really needed that day off – no wonder I was going mad!  And I have felt so much better ever since – it was like a door opening in my head and light shining through it.  I had even begun to wonder if I was going to be a post natal depression statistic.  But that beautiful day and 12 hours sleep have changed me into a much nicer, calmer person and we are all the better for me having Time Out.  And Ged loves his day of doing very little with his blue eyed boy so it’s a win-win for everyone.
The gradual healing of my body also makes me feel a lot happier – Macca says us older ladies do take longer to heal, but it is a slow process, and you know me, I am not a patient soul!!  Although I am taking Bush Flower Remedies to try and change that habit and I do seem to be slowing down, expecting less of myself and others and just doing what I can do and not stressing about the rest . . . after all, the dust and dirt will still be there tomorrow and as Scarlett O’Hara always said ‘tomorrow is another day . . . ‘

Breast is Best

by . Posted on
27 Oct

Well they may have been small (but perfectly formed) but they are now Big Bertha-ish and obviously filled with the right formula, because the little man has put on 625 grams (well over half a kilo!) and grown – wait for it – FIVE CENTIMETRES since he was born.  Breast is definitely best for Benjamin!

And his Mummy is a lot happier because her Emma Roids (as Millie so subtly calls them) are gone . . . we consulted Dr Google and found numerous references to topical application of Apple Cider Vinegar and since we have gallons of that which we feed to the horses, I decanted a small amount for my bathroom use and began applying with some serious trepidation as to stinging, but no pain, no gain and actually there was no pain at all so I kept going and now they are gone!  Admittedly the fairly intrusive and extensive Bowen manouevre our practitioner did when I had a treatment the other week to hoik my insides back up where they belong has also made a huge difference.
Now just need to keep doing my Kegels to try and rearrange that part of my anatomy too . . . I found this classic website the other day ‘What to Expect’ by the author of ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’ and looked up Post Partum Pain.  Under Cause it said ‘passing a 7, 8, 9 or 10 pound baby through a relatively small opening’.  Oh yeah – that’ll do it every time!!
I’m still loving my Little House on the Prairie sessions and will be lost when I have finished them all.  These will be the only programs Ben is ever allowed to watch – they teach him to be God fearing and loving, say his prayers, walk three miles to school and back every day, love his Mummy and Daddy and, most importantly, DO HIS CHORES!!
We are still being overwhelmed by everyone’s generosity – trips to the Post Office are becoming Santa-ish for Ged.  We have clothes and toys from every far flung corner of the country and world and Master Benjamin is definitely best dressed in the neighbourhood – thank you!
His Mummy will be a lot happier when she can get into her clothes again – in my lifetime do you think?

Dairy Cow

by . Posted on
20 Oct

It was pointed out to me during the week that I am less of a Mad Cow and more of a Dairy Cow now that Benjamin has laid claim to my boobies!

Last week I really did feel like a Dairy Cow – Benjamin was on the boob from 7am til 10, 11 or even 12 pm with only brief breaks for power naps while I rushed around trying to wash nappies, wash up, and wring my hands and in the evening go out into my shed for a good howl and a bit of ‘me’ time while Ged soothed the little man.  As you can imagine, I don’t believe in dummies, but after one particularly harrowing and long day I said ‘right, that’s it, tomorrow we are getting a dummy’.  ‘Do you want a dummy’ asked Ged shyly (or was that slyly?).  ‘I’ve got one in the car!’  It turns out that he, knowing more about parenting and babies than I, has seen all his friends resort to a dummy at some stage and taken it upon himself to buy a couple ‘just in case . . . ‘  Well, bless that man, that dummy is my new best friend!!
I can walk away with raw, depleted breasts and Ged can get Benjamin to sleep with rocking and cuddling and that blessed dummy in his mouth!
By Monday I was a basket case and luckily Macca came visiting.  She reprogrammed that little boy back from the devil incarnate he had become, into the sweet little angel we originally ordered and were delivered!  Thank God!  She has put us both on a three hour feed and sleep schedule which is going great and allows me some sleep, a life and hopefully the chance to get some work done at last!
He’s a lot happier with lots more sleep, and we have some fun play times, so it seems I was torturing him by keep offering him the boob when he got sucky, as much as I was torturing myself (I should start saving for his therapy now, you think?) and I’m a lot happier with some semblance of a life back . . . being chained to a chair in the lounge, with a boy on a boob 24/7, I had taken to watching ‘Little House on the Prairie’ episodes to stave off boredom and the men in the white coats . . .even a dairy cow only gets milked two or three times a day!!
So thanks to everyone who offered support, sustenance and a shoulder to cry on during my week from hell, and here are some happy pictures of us now that the good ship Motherhood is back on a more even keel!