I am officially a parent

I carried him in my womb for 10 and a half months, watched him squiggle around on the 3D ultrasound video. I carried him on the outside, in one baby carrier or another, for over 12 months, close to 18 I would estimate, though the carrying weaning day isn't a significant one in my head or my journals.

I kept him warm and fed, mama milk for the first year and a half, slowly introducing all the yummies that we produce and create starting at 6 months.

We cuddled, we laughed, we cried, we yelled, we loved without words.

His brother spent 10 glorious months inside my womb. He was born and admired, or ignored, by his brother. His sole food consumption is through me and my mama milk.

I changed their stinky diapers, trained one to go in the toilet, which the other will be following suit in a few years. I kissed ouchies, I wiped their bloody wounds and poopy bums.

All of these events are symbolic of motherhood, or parenthood. Yet it was only a couple of days ago that I truly felt my role as mother envelope me. With two short sentences under two separate situations I finally truly felt like the name Mama, which has been echoing in my head for years now, has finally taken on a true and comfortable ring to it.

These two sentences were spoken ever so clearly and lightly by my amazing first born son. First sentence 'I love you Mama'. I don't know if you heard that, it was the sound of my heart expanding and than bursting into a million little gooey pieces. The feeling that embraced me at that moment.................whew, amazing.

The second sentence 'I'm mad at you Mama'. Fantastic! Hilarious!! I never did get to the bottom of that anger, but man was it amusing to hear that little innocent voice state those words! It wasn't quite the pinnacle 'I hate you Mama' but it was definitely a defining moment.

And so here I am, officially a Mama!

Toothy

I have been examining the inside of this little ones mouth for at least a week now. He has been exuding all the tell tale signs, drool, random acts of general unhappiness to outright outrage, and knawing obsessively and agressively at most things that enter into his mouth. Excepting my boobs (thank the sweet lord for that one!)

It seems impossible to me, a cruel joke for the poor wee man, and for his poor breast feeding mama. Though come to think of it, I nursed Rohan until he was one and a half and escaped unscathed.

I have shown the little white, almost protruding, markings on his gums to several professional moms (in my eyes all moms are pro's!) and so far 9 out of 10 dentists agree, my baby is already spouting his first tooth, or at the very least showing definite signs that the tooth is available to pop out at anytime.

I remember from my first teething experience, that although you may see the very top of the tooth threatening to pop through the gums, it can trick you by popping through and sneaking back in over and over again. This can last months. The pain and agony of attempting to push a tooth through a fresh unscathed gum can last for MONTHS. Poor little bambino, poor little mama!

BAM

Babies are truly incredible. It is like watching a sudden awakening. They go from an adorable little lump of flesh that cries and and poops and eats, and when it is not doing any of those three it sleeps and sleeps some more with very little, if any, awake time. No awareness lights their eyes, they are blank and fuzzy (not to say there isn't a whole lot going on in there, but there ain't much happening outta there) and overall sleepy and uninterested.

Than BAM they start gaining more vision and an actual personality. You are constantly looking lovingly into their big indistinctly coloured eyes exhuding massive quantities of love and awe their way with very little in the way of response (unless you count projectile vomit as communication). Then one day, while offering your daily dose of goo goo gaa gaaing to your little tiny fleshy poop machine the little guy offers you the biggest toothless grin you can imagine. And than BAM he bcomes a person all of the sudden.

It feels as if you have been waiting for this moment for YEARS, and yet it seems incredible that it is happening so soon.

The time leading up to this all I could think about *warning, honest moment here* was how desperately I wanted sleep and why on earth I decided that I wanted to put myself throught this torture again? My brain kept repeating 'never again, never again'. Keeping in mind that there was no reward for the hours I put in to keep this kid fed and clothed, Nothing but a million diapers so overflowing with poop and pee that they would almost always leak into the sleeper. Laundry coming out of my yahoo, blah so tired, no sleep.

Then, out he emerges from his hazy existence, and all of the sudden I would do this again in a heartbeat. I am blinded to the sleeplessness, I regard the massive loads of mustard seeping out of the diapers as adorable and often worry if I hadn't seen some in while. I wait in earger anticipation, not for him to fall asleep, but to wake up so I can make him smile and gurgle at me. I have developed an empathy toward his occasional (har har) difficulty falling alseep 'poor baby must be gasey, let mama help you little one' wiping away my bitterness and resentment and pure anger at keeping me up (hey man, I am a bundle of hormones here, I am almost filled with unhealthy emotions twenty four hours a day....................stupid hormones.)

I feel as if this person comes out just in the nic of time. That my dears may very well be part of the nature of survival........................quick kid, look cute or you may not make it through another night!

Cafemadness

What a ridiculous day! I had the grandest of intentions today. It started off pretty good, I dropped the big man and the big boy off at his is friends house and me and the wee man took a walk through town to buy some odds and ends. So far so good, everyone is happy, it is freezing out mind you, but wee man is toasy woasty in my Kangamama pouch under my sweater and jacket.

I love walking. I feel denied all this glorious walking when I have to keep my pace slow and often completely halted when walking with the big boy. That added to the fact that it is freezing cold and at home there isn't much walking to be had unless I drive to a place to walk. Needless to say, I don't get out much! I feel icky if I am stuck inside with no exersize, which has very much been the case over the last two months, blah.

So this beautiful novelty of walking with my baby strapped to me was very great. I finished my odds and bobs shopping, grabbed the car seat and the lap top and headed to the local cafe to have some quality facebook time. I ordered a sammy and a coffee and sat in a booth with eager anticipation filling my entire being. Yippy! Man it feels so longs since I have wasted a few hours on the computer!

Well this magical outing sucked. I sat down and tried fruitlessly to get online. Something was going horribly awry and I couldn't fix it. The staff couldn't help. Baby woke up, hungry, of course, and started fussing. A girl came over to help. Bambino started getting very very angry. Girl would not go away so I could nurse, baby is screaming. The whole cafe is looking at me, mostly with sympathy as there was a huge excess of older women. Baby screaming, girl goes, try to nurse, baby is too inconsolable to feed, stays screaming.

At this point I give up on a nice peaceful cafe experience and start packing up my stuff like a mad woman, sweat dripping off my brow as I layer back on our winter gear. A young guy comes to try to help with the computer while a regular cafe goer comes to gush over the baby and be just over all annoying and in the way. Battery on computer dies, I eyeball the exits like a caged animal. We are finally dressed, the laptop is packed in its case and I bee line it to the back door. I try to juggle the car seat, the baby carrier and the lap top while trying to open the door, laptop falls, cursing I pick it back up and finally maneuver my way out to the winter wonderland. Baby carrier falls into the slush, my back starts breaking with the weight of the ridiculously heavy car seat, god those things are freaking heavy.

I made it back to the car and managed to make it through the rest of the day fairly unscathed, but holy crap that was a intensely traumatic outing. Whew, glad I only had one with me at the time!

Outlaws

I am a very very nosey person. I am not ashamed to admit this. This is especially true when I accidentally, and then intentionally, overhear people talking about me. This is especially especially true when I hear people who I am pretty sure barely tolerate my presence talking frank to each other about what they think about me.

I always have this quiet curiosity about how people actually view me. On a good day, I can see the positive intentions for the way that I act/react, on a bad day I would do anything I can to climb out of my brain/body and rid myself of myself. With that in mind I would love to know if people can see through whatever facade that I may have to put up in order to block one of my bad feeling days or if they take me at face value.

In this case, these two individuals were already barely tolerating me, so needless to say the words were stinging. I want to explain here that I am the only one that recognizes that these two (a very generous couple mind you, filled with the best of intentions) are masters at hiding their contempt for me. Okay not me so much as the fact that I am their *insert relationship here*. They have not been very fond of the relationship that I have acquired that brings me to their attention lets just say.

Moving on to the conversation that I (un)intentionally overheard. The first of the two was overheard commenting on my controlling manner in a very contemptuous way. The instant I heard those words leave this persons lips I acknowledged that this was true. I did a quick run through of separate situations that I was a part of over the last week, and yes, it seems that I was indeed incredibly controlling. I don't want to be a controlling person, I didn't start my life out of the womb gradually acquiring the skills to boss people around (though my mother and little brother may very well argue against this admission). Nevertheless I am bossy and controlling. Damn. I also look back to see which situations drew the controllingness out of me. Any situation that regarded the well being, discipline, or the comfort of either of my children immediate inures a very controlling manner on my part. This is how I parent, please don't try to go over me and parent your way. Not cool. Not acceptable. No two parents are the same, no two parents parent the same. Please please please accept that idea and let me do what I need to do for my children with out arguing with me (or us in a few cases) because these are my (our) children and they don't need to hear it from any more adults than us.

I am also controlling in situations that do not have anything to do with the kids. Yup I like to control my environment. I see it. I may not change it. I am a virgo, you just can't change nature right? A good excuse? Good enough for me I say!

So that was fine, kind of cutting, but not untrue. It was the next person who was attempting to justify my behavour by analyzing my childhood. Such as 'her father died, she is just trying to hold onto blah blah blah her mother blah blah blah, she lacked control in blah blah blah she is just trying to regain it by blah blah blah'. My skin crawls and my blood boils just thinking about them discussing my life as if they were an expert on a past they were not a part of, nor do they know much about, just little snippets that I have revealed to them. I think one of my major pet peeves is the blaming of parents for the way their chlidren are. I have to agree that if the parents are any of the following: alcoholic, drug addict, abusive, neglectful, absent or just down right mean, that they are to blame (partially) for creating an anger and or bitterness in their children. However, blaming their parenting skill outright, nope, don't like it at all.

I am also a believer (though not necessarily a follow througher, which is another issue I deal with in my personality) that we are born into our families, to our parents, in order to learn whatever it is we need to learn, to be the best person we can be. This means that you may be born in a shitty situation so that you are able to find the strength and courage to rise above said situation and to pay forward the knowledge that you gained from it. It may be as simple as becoming a damn good councilor or as big as bringing peace to a nation of unrest. On the flip side, people may be born into a pretty good situation which will have it's own lessons, such as learning to be humble etc etc etc.

Anywo, I now feel kind of alienated and out of place in this specific situation that I have put myself into (damn me and my stupid traveling ideas) and I am not too sure how to go about changing that feeling and making myself more welcome. In all honesty my natural instinct is to run run run as fast as I can out of here and not look back. That is not an option so I may finally have to suck it up and face a very much unwanted confrontation. Barf. Not my favourite thing in the world that is for sure!

Privawhat?

Now what is that word again? Pro.....Pra.....Pri..vic....va...ci...cy?? Oh yes, Privacy, that's it! This is something that has not been in my vocabulary in so long that I forget how to pronounce the bloody thing! Only on the earlest of mornings, when both children are sleeping, and I sneak out of bed without a sound, am I able to go to the bathroom by myself.

For the last (nearly) three years I have had to take my darling, loving, affectionate son with me to go to the bathroom. On the (very) odd ocassion I could leave him in one spot and run to take a super quick pee, number 2 however? Nope, he would not tolerate that much time alone not being held by his number one mum. At first I had to haul him over my shoulder in order to somehow manhandle my pants etc with one hand over my legs, hip and arse.

Then he got older. He start to be able to move. I couldn't leave him out there on his own, he might get into mischief or hurt himself. So in he went with me, sitting contentfully on his mama's lap while she sat not contentfully on the can.

And then he could really move and he would see me trying to sneak away to the bathroom and he would hystericcally run after me as if I was intending to leave him for good. And up he would go back onto my lap contentfully.

And then he got a bit older. I would always leave the door open so he knew where I was. And in he would come. Not crying or upset, just curious. And with his newly acquired words he would discuss with me what mama was doing on the toilet. 'Mama poop' he would say with joy lighting up his eyes, 'stinky', good lord.

And then he got even older and so was born his little brother. I had to bring him in the bathroom with me so as not to leave him with his little, fragile, unsuspecting brother who very well may have sufficated from all the love and affection that would have been rained on him.

And now I have the new little one, who is not content to sit and giggle in his bouncy chair in the livingroom while I sneak away for some private bathroom time. Nope, he would prefer to join me on my journey of excretion. And so the cycle continues and mama is still searching for that lost word in her vocabulary...................

sleepy

My mornings have gradually gotten earlier and earlier and my nights later and later. Sleep....................yes, I think I remember what that was like, sort of .

Our dear youngest has started the in the evening crying and general fussiness. This is now lasting anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours. I am absolutely okay with him being awake, but he is awake in such an unrest, so miserable. Damn, this is a very very familiar scenario. oh yes and the near impossibility to put the little guy in his bassinette, slowly slowly ..............ever so carefully...........lowering...........damn, too hard. Oop he is still sleeping good..................now very very gently removing hands from under him.................bam, eyes open as if he had been awake the whole time. crap. Here we go again!

There has even been an occasion that Colin has come home to see me sleeping in the bed in a sitting position with the baby sleeping on my chest. Yup, done that before!

Now that my nights are becoming later than my ever loved 830pm bed time I would have hoped for a nice long sleep in, like 8 or 9am (let's insert here that I am not sleeping the whole time, I am waking several times in the night.........those infants, man!). Yumm sleeping in, remember that feeling? Nope, me either! Actually that is a lie, when we were at home the big man woke up with Ro-Dog and let me and the baby sleep in, ah yes, those were the days!

Here we are at the in laws house back in our home town and now the wee ones schedule is outta whack. Crap. Now he wakes up at 5ish for some early morning playtime/fussy/angy time. And, to tell you the truth, I secretly enjoy that time of morning. Nobody is awake, just me and the baby, I make myself a coffee and do whatever I can on the computer that doesn't require internet connection..............oh how I miss those hours wasted on the internet! 5 in the morning is so quiet and peaceful, I get to get used to being awake before I have to face anyone. The bambino and I get some quiet alone bonding time, a big novelty with the second.

So far, my lack of sleep ain't so bad, aside from my midday insanity, yelling, cursing, crying, throwing things, you know, general overtiredness!! But other than that, I think I can handle it for now.................but sleep training will be in the near future little one, so get ready.....................

many more to come

Suffering from the 'not online' blues. Have many blog posts in the works......................as ole Jian would say 'to be continued'

little penis

I just need to write this in because it may be the funniest conversation I have had with Rohan to date.

Rohan is sitting on the potty at Grandma's in her living room taking a poop. Because it isn't really made for Rohans 'extra' appendage, we always make him tuck so as not to urinate on his pants, thus defeating the pee pee in the potty in the first place.

So there he is tucking his penis, which gave him the idea to talk about his penis.

Rohan: Mama, no penis

Mama: That's right Rohan, mama doesn't have a penis, does Avery have one?

Rohan: Little penis.....awwww

Mama: What about Rohan

Rohan: Woah, big penis, woah!

Mama: And what about daddy?

Rohan: Woah woah woah, BIG PENIS, Woah, LONG

Mama: Laughs hysterically