To be quite truthful, not much has happened. I've been doing that endless round of cleaning, tidying, bribing, begging and bargaining that is all part and parcel of parenthood. I'm sure you know what I mean. Making breakfasts, lunches and dinners that are regarded with suspicion and discarded, almost completely untouched, for fear that a vegetable may have touched the plate at some point during the cooking process. Wiping the kitchen sides 50 billion times because no matter what you do, some form of stickiness still remains. Convincing your daughter that blackcurrant squash and milk mixed together will not make a tasty treat. Explaining, for the millionth time, that felt tip pens are not really recommended for use on wallpaper.
I make it sound like parenthood is tiring, infuriating and thankless, don't I! Well it's not always that way. Honest! We do have fun, and there is a lot of laughter, I've just had to accept that my house won't look the way I want it to until they've all grown up and moved out, and knowing me, when that happens I'll become one of those bereft women who buys those disturbing life like dolls, or owns 12 cats, because the house is just too quiet!
But anyway, the one thing i have got back to doing just recently is cooking proper dinners! While I was pregnant and waging war with my body, I couldn't do much more than remain lying down lest my blood pressure killed me. Then came the c-section aftermath, where I just wanted to crawl in to a hole and pretend the open infected wound and the pain that came with it belonged to someone else, and all my energy was spent pumping milk and visiting my little squib in the hospital. When said squib came home, it transpired that he was not the kind of child who would sit happily in a bouncy chair while I lovingly prepared healthy hearty meals, no, he was the type of child who felt that the only reason my arms existed was so that he could be in them and attached to a boob. 7 months later, he'll now go down for naps, and sit in his chair watching me, so I can get back to it.
What I've learned from my little foray in to baking, is that cooking and baking are 2 very different things. Baking is a kind of science, everything has to be weighed and measured just so, and mixed in a certain way, or else all you have is a recipe for disaster. Cooking on the other hand, is bakings mystical twin. You can experiment, you can add or subtract certain ingredients without too much of a problem. You can keep checking on and tasting and stirring throughout the whole process, so if you feel that things are not quite going the way you want them to, you can make adjustments, add more salt, or a dash of mustard, or some more water, and so on. So far this past week i've made stew, bolognese, pasta bake, pie, and they have all been lovely. This gives me a sense of achievement! I'll still stick with the baking, because it's fun and exciting and I'm happy to laugh (a little bit) at my disasters, but there is something quite therapeutic and comforting about knowing I can knock up a roast dinner with my eyes closed.
The other thing I've been thinking about an awful lot lately, is writing. I've had a love of reading for as long as I can remember, I literally had to read everything, from books to food labels. This love of reading turned in to a love of writing when I was probably about 7. I would write short stories, mainly about dogs, or groups of school children, as that's what I knew and was familiar with at the time. But just lately, I've been reading books and finding myself thinking "I could have written that" or "If this were my story, it would have ended differently" I have very vivid dreams, one of which has been recurring and evolving for months, and I wake up every morning thinking I should write it down, get it arranged in to chapters, figure out where this story is going. There is just one thing holding me back (if we don't include lack of time) and that is the fear that when I write it down, it'll be rubbish. Or worse, that i'll love it but nobody else will! There is something very intimate about writing a story for others to read. It's like allowing them to see in to your soul. Anything remotely sexual, or dark, or gory, comes from the deepest parts of your mind, and your fears, desires, wants, even needs, are suddenly laid bare for all the world to see. I have a massive alien phobia, to the point where I can't have even the smallest gap in the curtain in case they can see in the window and abduct me for probing, and I just know that my fear would end up playing a role in the type of book I would write. And alien invasion has been thoroughly done already. I still keep thinking I should just start, do a few pages, see where I end up, but then again, maybe i'll leave it til another day.
Last topic for the day... It has been bought to my attention that I am in fact what some people call an "attachment parent" What this means, is that I breastfeed on demand with no intention of stopping til my baby decides he wants to, I sleep with him in bed with me, I carry him in a baby sling during the day, I pick him up when he cries. I've done the same with all my children, with the exception of the breastfeeding, which due to lack of education and support, didn't work out the first 2 times. It's not something I do to feel superior to others, it's not something I do because I think it will make my children be smart (they are, but that's beside the point) I do it because that's what comes naturally to me. I do it because carrying him around in his sling means I can get stuff done without listening to ear piercing, gut wrenching sobs. I sleep with him because I feel happier knowing he's close and I can deal with him with little sleep lost should he wake in the night. I pick him up when he cries, because rather than learning to "self soothe" I'd rather he learned that mummy will respond to his needs, even if all he needs is a cuddle and a singsong. I like to think that this will carry on as he grows, and he, along with the others, will know they can depend on me being there for them when they need me, no matter how small the problem may seem. "Dr" Miriam Stoppard recently branded this style of parenting to be "extreme." Really? Well, if loving my babies, hugging them, welcoming them in to my bed for quiet, night time dreamy snuggles, holding them close in those early years before cuddling becomes something they want to avoid at all costs seems extreme to you, then call me what you want love. All I know is, my floors are mopped, the sides are wiped, and my eardrums are still intact. I'm happy with that :)
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