Catching Up

I'm back! I haven't posted since Valentines day and a LOT has gone down since then friends. A lot. Good and bad but all pretty huge. I am not sure I am ready to go into depth about all of it but let me at least try and summarise so that when I do elaborate you know what I am on about.

Well the biggest thing, as I'm sure you know if you follow me on Twitter or FB or indeed in real life is that we had the baby! A girl! Harriet was born on March 7th at 23:23 and came out a whopping 10lbs! It's no wonder I could hardly walk by the end!

Here she is in all her pink glory.

Cute no? Well I think so!

The birth was amazing. I don't think I ever got round to telling you guys Will's birth story but it was a long, rough ride. This time, however, I was all kinds of in control and had my dream drug free natural birth. Not even gas and air. Can I get a whoooooooooooop whoooooooooop???!

So, as you can imagine, I was left on a pretty large high afterwards. I was (and still am) very, very proud of myself.

And then came the crash. Harriet has failed her newborn hearing screening. This doesn't necessarily mean that she is deaf, it could be fluid etc but I heard all those excuses with Will and believed them for months making the crushing truth even harder to hear. So this time I am trying to accept what looks like the inevitable from the start. To add to this we got some results of genetic testing confirming that Will's hearing loss is indeed a result of a genetic syndrome. Enter a whole HEAP of messed up emotions and guilt on top of my fluctuating i just gave birth hormones. Yeah, the crash was big, the birth long forgotten.

For now, things seem to have levelled out and I have stopped randomly bursting into tears (this is not true, but now the tears are about how unbelievable tired I am or knocking over a cup of tea, not about how I have ruined my children's lives). This week was the first week I looked after both kids on my own and truth be told it was much easier that when Daddy was at home or when my Mum was staying. I don't know why but it has been. Of course now Will has a bug and is poorly making it especially hard to divide my attention but why would our lives be simple or God forbid easy? It's just not so.

Am I the only person to have a second child?

Okay, rant time.

Am I the only mother to ever have had a second child? I am honestly starting to feel that way!

It is a little over 7 weeks until baby 2 is due to make an arrival and we are starting to panic. We don't have cot, a double buggy, enough storage for clothes, a change bag...essentially nothing that really matters and we wouldn't be able to cope without. But none the less it feels like it's coming round a little bit too quick.
But we are excited. Really, really excited.

Other people, it seems, are less excited and also starting to panic. Or perhaps scaremonger is a better word for it.

I am SO fed up of people telling me how badly behaved William is going to be once the baby arrives. He has just reached that age where he is, more and more often, testing his boundaries. And so I am spending more and more time having to reinforce those boundaries and at times if I'm honest, I am finding it hard. But do you know what is not helpful? What is not helpful is if I am telling you that I am finding it hard if you say things like 'It's just going to get harder when the baby comes' or 'He will only get worse when the baby comes', especially if you laugh while you are saying it. Not. Helpful.

Another thing that is not helpful is if you tell me why you are going to buy Will a million gifts when the baby comes to help him cope with the emotional trauma that is a younger sibling. I am certain that material gifts are not going to go far to repairing any emotional uncertainty he may feel and would even go so far as to say that they may even make the situation worse. Guilt gifting anyone? No?

So please stop it. Stop telling me how awful it is going to be. Stop going on about how tired I am going to be. Stop telling me how bad William's behaviour is going to get. Stop telling me about your friends son who turned into the devil as soon as his younger sibling arrived and has never gone back to the angel he once was. Stop making me feel guilty for giving William the GIFT that is a younger sibling.

Because I have a sister and I know my life is better for her. And Shaun has a sister and I know his life is better for her. And I know plenty of people that have had plenty of children and none of their eldest seem to have any long lasting damage. And I KNOW that William is going to make the best big brother ever because he already dresses, feeds and reads books to his teddy bears.

OK, I'm done.

The television. And other hypocrisies.

Before becoming a Mum, I had a lot of experience with children and babies. I have seven cousins much younger than me, have worked in schools, volunteered in orphanages. Alongside this experience I also had a lot of opinions. I could see what parents, carers and teachers were doing right and what they were doing wrong. I pretty much had parenting sorted.

And then I had a baby. HO-LY SHIZZLE.

People say that you don't know what it is like to have a child until you actually have one. And it's true. And it's true that you will never appreciate how true that sentence is until you have actually had one. No matter how many times I say it to you. No matter how many times it was said to me. Since having my own baby I have learnt a whole heap of lessons and consequently have a whole heap more understanding and a whole heap less opinions!

Since William has started wearing his hearing aids regularly, we have been watching a lot more TV. It is amazing to see how much more he gets out of it now he can hear it. It may sound obvious but when he was younger it was hard to tell what, if any, difference the aids actually made. But here I have clear cut scientific evidence. Without the aids he would have watched for 10 minutes before getting bored and wandering off to amuse himself. Now he will sit for an hour, probably more if I let him.

Watching TV is just one of the many things I had certainty about when it comes to parenting...so here's what changed...

• My child was NEVER going to watch TV.
• It's not like he watches it all day every day but we do enjoy an hour or so of CBeebies and since he has started dancing to the music, laughing at the laughter, hearing the shows it's harder to turn it off
• My child will NEVER sleep in our bed.
• I can blame it on the tongue tie but despite feeding all day he actually slept alright at night and he was still in our bed for the first 4 months of his life.
• My child will NEVER eat crisps or cake or biscuits of chocolate.
• Come on, if you're eating it, they're eating it. It's moderated but still, he gets his fair share of sugar.
• My child will NEVER have a dummy.
• Again I can make excuses about his tongue tie but at the end of the day it was my decision to give it to him because it makes MY life easier. Sometimes that's key.

There are still some things that I am trying to hold on to like

• My child will not have any advanced technology like a mobile phone, iPod, iPad, laptop of his OWN until he is at least 10 (he can play on ours if the time is right).
• My child will never have a TV in his room
• My child will go to school every day, come rain or shine or cough or cold

But I have come to realise that you never know what parenting will throw at you and sometimes you do what you can just to get through another day. Or you compromise your principles because there are larger ones at stake. And, most importantly, that you never know what is 'right' until you are there, in that situation with your children and your partner and your level of exhaustion.

What, if any, of your principles have you compromised?

How to be a WOMAN

If you haven't read 'How to be a woman' by Caitlin Moran, then you should. She manages to perfectly articulate my feelings on motherhood as well as a number of other feminist issues. I have spent my whole time reading it going 'Ha ha, sooooo funny. But seriously. Nail. On. Head'.

Anyway, it has got me thinking a little deeper about the parts of being a woman I am uncomfortable with and I wanted to share them with you.

• This housewife business.

We recently got a cleaner. O M G the guilt I feel. We didn't have a cleaner when I was growing up. My Mum worked full time, raised two kids, did EVERYTHING for my Dad (we are talking 1920s style breakfast on table, packed lunch made, dinner ready upon homecoming) and still managed to keep our house immaculate. And NEVER complained. So when Shaun and I both worked full time and he wanted a cleaner I said 'No, my Mum never had a cleaner'. And when we had Will I said 'No, my Mum worked and never had a cleaner'. And then I fell pregnant again and was pretty sure no-one had ever, ever been as tired as I felt. So we got a cleaner. Once a week she comes and makes my house immaculate for me. Cleaner than it ever was when it was my job! And it has changed my world. I am on top of the laundry for the first time since Will came along. I have more time to play with him and I enjoy that time because I am not thinking about what I could be doing instead. I nap when he naps and so the fetus is feeling the benefit too.

But jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzz I hate myself for it. My sister said 'do you really need a cleaner if you don't work?'. Now she doesn't have children so she doesn't understand how much work not working is. But I can't help but feel she has a point. I mean, I am at home all day. How can I possibly not have the time to clean?

• This marriage business

Now as you probably know from my smug post, Shaun and I are engaged. Betrothed. To be married. Why are you not married already? I hear you cry. Well, we wanted children. Marriage was just a box that people ticked; we didn't really see the point and we were keen to start trying for our family just in case it took a while. We were very lucky and it didn't so here we are with a 15 month old and a baby on the way.
Now, I always loved the idea of a wedding. Being the centre of attention. Wearing the beautiful dress. Having the stunning cake. Dancing the night away, high on pure love. But the marriage part of it I didn't get. A piece of paper (an expensive one at that). A religious ceremony (we don't believe in God). A commitment (we have A CHILD, if he isn't committed to me already then we are in trouble). Proving to other people or our children that we are committed (In the nicest possible way, I have NOTHING to prove to any of you).

But then I had Will. And I wanted the marriage part of it. And then we found out he was partially deaf. And I needed that extra something from Shaun. As any parent will tell you, the first few months of your first new born baby's life puts your relationship through the biggest challenges. I don't know if having a disabled child is any harder than a normal one but I can tell you that those first few months both brought Shaun and I together and pushed us apart in ways I didn't think possible. Then we lost our second pregnancy in a miscarriage. In the midst of the physical pain and the emotional anguish, all I could think was 'I want to get married, I need to know Shaun will love me through this'.

Now this annoys me. Because my rational head is screaming 'but there is NO POINT. You KNOW he loves you. You KNOW he wants to be together forever. You KNOW getting married won't change that' but my stupid emotional head is crying back 'But I waaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnt toooooooooooo'.

Also, a big old piece of beef I have with the marriage thing, is

• This proposal business

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my diamond ring. And I LOVE regaling the story of how Shaun proposed on the beach, sun shining, down on one knee, ra ra ra. What gets me is that it was HIS choice. Before we had children I asked him to marry me. I'm still not sure if I was serious or not, I just wanted to see what he would say. He said no, I want to propose. It was really important for him to propose and to do it right which I get but I don't get why? Why has he been made to feel (by society, culture, tradition...) that it is his role to ask me. He knows I wanted to get married, he knows I know he wants to get married. So why couldn't we just decide to get married? Why does he have the POWER? Why, as a woman, did I just have to wait? 

I have no answers, just more questions.

What do you think about it all? Are you comfortable with your role as a woman, whatever that may be?