Motherhood the Musical

Last night I saw Motherhood the Musical with a dear friend. Girls' nights out (or girls' nights off being more accurate as a mother) are always fun and this one was particular good.

The musical is full of moments mothers will identify with - both hilarious and touching. The central premise is around four neighbourhood friends, the youngest of which is expecting her first child. She is full of glowing naivety which the others set about to redress during her surprise baby shower. The three women are already mothers falling into the stereo types of: recently divorced mum, stay at home mum and career mum. Through a number of songs and sly comments the musical demonstrates the wonderful, the mundane, the exhaustion and the elation of motherhood and realionshops.

My only critisicm of the musical - the mums were highly stereo-typed. The career mum formula fed, the stay at home mum feels underappreciated and belittled at times, the divorced mum comfort eats.

Despite the career mum being the one I should have identified with, my favourite character was the wise cracking stay at home mum, who got all the best lines and songs. The very funny "mummy, mummy,mummy" - an observation about the fact you wait excitedly for your baby to say "mummy" and after that point sometimes wish they hadn't as they consistently whine for you all day. And the beautiful "Daniel's Mum" which highlights the sacrfices one makes as a mum but the absolute joy that comes with being the "star" in your child's life and experiencing things from thier point if view. She also has a genius line in a song about lack of bladder control - "I leak like Julian Assange".

I identified closley with the expectant mum and her mile long list of (as one song put it) s&@$ she doesn't need. I remember clearly the lists of ridiculous items outlined in magazines (who are clearly paid to sell said items). Yet as a first time mum with time and money on your side you fall for this hook, line and sinker.

Motherhood the musical is a great night out for mums and mums to be.

Playing at the 12th Night Theater, Bowen Hills, 24th May - 14th June.

Comparisons

Mothers groups are wonderful. It's such a pleasure to catch up with other mums who know exactly what you are going through. However there is always the temptation to compare bubs. Isaac is at least a month younger than most of the babies we know, so he is and always will be a little behind in achieving milestones. Adding to that the fact that he was born a month early, I know I have to give him time to get there. However, when everyone pops their baby on their tummy and the other babies raise their heads high on strong arms, Isaac gently lays his cheek against the floor and decides it's as good a time as any for a nap. I start to feel that twinge of mother guilt - what I am doing wrong? Until another mother looks wistfully at Isaac and says "I wish my baby could put himself to sleep like that." At the same time I am thinking "I need to give him more tummy time - he is so behind the other babies". Yet, just shy of 6 months, he decided the other day to roll over. I watched him roll, very precisely, from his back onto his tummy. He played there for a while and then rolled from his tummy to his back. I had been worrying for weeks that he hadn't rolled yet and was very behind on basic milestones.

Isaac has excelled at two things since birth - eating and sleeping (ah he is his father's son). We have had 10 hour stretches of sleep at night since he was around 9 weeks old, for which I am incredibly grateful. I am sure that this was no magic on my part and just an incredible stroke of luck. We have recently started solids and we can't shovel the carrot in fast enough for our little man. One mothers group I was feeding Isaac his favourite carrot when another mother asked "how is doing that? I must be doing something wrong." Mother's groups are wonderful but we need to make sure that we don't assume we are doing something wrong when the babies around us appear to be doing things differently. As I keep reminding myself - by the time they are 3 years old, they will have all caught up to one another. In the meantime I am enjoying my little baby whilst I can.

Exercise & Body Stuff

I always hoped to be one of those women who slip back into their pre-baby jeans a few weeks after birth.  Unfortunately, this is not to be - I am stuck somewhere between a size 12 & 14 and nothing fits quite right.  My size 10 jeans are currently sitting in the closet mocking me.  The baby belly belt still comes out occasionally to make pants fit.  I can forget about any of my tighter fitting pre-baby tops as my previously modest breasts have taken on Pammy proportions.   However, as much as I want to lose those kgs, exercise and eating well seem a bit like hard work.  Particularly as breast feeding has turned me back into a teenager, appetite-wise.  As some one who has always been fairly slim for my height without having to do too much about it, I range from total apathy about the situation to feeling a little depressed.  But not really depressed enough to do much about it.  During pregnancy I religiously did a pilates DVD each and every morning.  Now, Isaac's feeding time pretty much coincides with when I used to do that exercise.   I know that I shouldn't whinge about it and I should just do something about it, but it's so much easier said than done.   I really prefer team sports and to do that we need to organise a baby sitter.

The other night my best friend minded Zac and I played touch football after about a year being away from it.  I play with my husband's work team.  Apart from clearly demonstrating how unfit I have become (and to be honest I wasn't that fit to start with!), I had a great time.  I love and adore being a mother but there are moments when you wish you could capture parts of your life pre-baby.  Being back out on the touch field felt a bit like that.  So perhaps exercise is not only an option to bring back the pre-baby girlish body, but also an opportunity to touch base with that pre-baby girl.

What I thought being a mother would be like

A few of my friends indicated that I would feel the following upon becoming a mother:

• You will change forever and the way that you look at your partner will change forever
• Becoming a parent is like really joining the human family
• Once you become a parent that is when you truly grow up
• You will struggle with having a little person that is entirely, utterly reliant on you
• You will be bored at home
• You won’t have time to be bored at home
• It will be the best thing you have ever done

Now some of those assumptions are quite condescending towards those that have made the valid choice not to have children. I don’t feel that having a child completes me, makes me into an adult or ties me in a stronger way to the human race. What I have felt is an overwhelming sense of love for my child accompanied by a fierce desire to protect Isaac. I feel like there is another dimension to my life, rather than a loss of self. I feel that I will learn so much from being a mother and that, as all life experiences do, it will make me a better rounded person. I know that it will teach me patience (a much needed lesson!)

I haven’t yet been bored at home, but I can see how that might happen. Time is a luxury that we aren’t often afforded, so I want to use it to learn new things and rediscover old hobbies. As for feeling tied down or resentful of the demands of a newborn – I haven’t felt that. I think that the overwhelming desire to keep him safe and happy overrides any feelings of resentment. I literally would do anything for him. I know its early days and perhaps my outlook is rosier that it should be but one thing is for sure though – it’s the best thing we have ever done.

Managing Sleeping (yours!)

There are a million books (so it seems!) on getting baby to sleep but what about mummy?

My tips are:

1. Go to bed early – you don’t win any prizes for staying up late. I go to bed between 8:45pm and 9:30pm. Yes, you might feel like a 12 year old but it’s worth it. Even if you think you could not possibly be tired at that hour, try it out.


2. Get yourself into a bedtime routine – a standard time for bed and some kind of ritual, such as a shower or reading a book prior to sleep.


3. If you cannot get to sleep, try using some lavender oil on your pillow. I also find going through a relaxation routine is very helpful. Concentrate on your breathing and then move through each muscle group in your body (starting from your feet) tensing and then relaxing. Imagine a golden light coming through your body from your feet and your whole body becoming very heavy.


4. Let go of the feeling “what’s the point of sleeping when I will be up in an hour to feed?” Instead think, “I have an hour – I choose to use that hour to rest”


5. Have a nanna nap in the afternoon between feeds.


6. Babies make all sorts of snuffly sounds as they sleep – don’t strain to hear those sounds (particularly after a feed). Instead train yourself to sleep through these – if your baby genuinely needs you their cry will wake you.


7. Aim to have at least one hour to yourself each day where you concentrate on you. Try not to be thinking about the baby, the house work or the list of things to do. During that hour or so, be selfish, live in that moment and think only of yourself. This might mean a bath, reading a book or watching a DVD - whatever you find relaxing. A refreshed mother makes for a happier baby so don’t feel guilty about thinking of yourself for a little while.

Mummy Guilt and Childcare

Motherhood guilt and judgement happens as soon as your pregnant bump reveals itself. The sidelong disapproving glance when you have a cappuccino. The wine glass whisked away at lunch as “you obviously won’t be drinking” when you rather had your heart set on a cheeky red.

The issue of working mothers is the one where guilt and judgement come into their own. People say things like “if you are going to continue working, why bother having children?” or “don’t you want to bring up your own child?” These statements assume that being a good mother and a career woman are mutually exclusive roles. For some reason we have come to accept the idea that a woman staying home full time to look after her children is the natural order of things. In fact it’s a fairly modern construct. Prior to the industrial revolution the roles of father (bread winner) and mother (care giver) where not so defined. Children were a part of parent’s working life on the land and care giving for infants was shared amongst a larger family unit. Indeed in agricultural cultures this is still the case. However, in the West our working conditions do not lend themselves to caring for a baby whilst we work and our nuclear families leave little room for shared care. Therefore the choice becomes stay at home mother or working mother with a child in day care. Those that can afford it may have the luxury of a nanny, but that’s a small proportion of us. There has been growing evidence to suggest that extended time in child care for children less than two years of age is detrimental to development. The conclusion drawn from this is that a mother who puts her child into care is a “bad mother”. And once again, the blame is shifted to the mother rather than looking for a proper solution to the issue. Work places need to become more child friendly and more flexible work practices need to be created. I am lucky in that IT is a field where it’s easy to work from home but that freedom needs to be extended. If every mother were to stay at home with her children until aged 3 or 4 the economy would collapse – we simply could not support that kind of exit from the work force. This is broader than a mother or women’s issue – it’s an issue that affects everybody. A mother’s choice and needs should be supported – rather than engaging in “mummy wars” about whether a woman should work or not with children we should be looking for solutions that allow mothers to be with their kids whilst working. Mothers should not be made guilty for wanting to retain their careers, nor should they feel that the only valid choice for continuing their careers is if the money is necessary for the upkeep of the household. I read a book which suggested “if you could afford not to work, but you do go back to work, tell people that you need the extra money to pay the mortgage to avoid judgement.” I think we need to stop the judging and start working towards the solution.

Problem Solving with a baby

As an IT manager you are constantly solving problems. Technical issues are generally quite gratifying to solve – you have a set of circumstances and by either a process of elimination or a thorough knowledge of the system you fix the issue. Everyone around you hails you as a hero and you feel rather chuffed with yourself.

Trying to find out why a baby is crying is proving rather different. The process of elimination still works well – is it a dirty nappy? Is he hungry? Cold? Hot? Windy? In need of a cuddle? The problem arises when you exhaust these options and baby is still crying. The books say that sometimes babies just cry and all that really helps is focusing on the fact that “this too will pass”. That’s all very zen and I am trying to adopt that relaxed attitude. But when the cry of your baby pierces the air, pitiful and pleading, and you can do nothing to comfort him you feel less than relaxed. We are learning the cries – loud, high pitched and getting louder and increasingly high pitched is a “feed me” cry. A lower cry that doesn’t change is a “pick me up” cry. Isaac is a great baby and we have only had a few crying jags that last about half an hour. So I really feel for those that have “colicky” babies that cry often and apparently without reason. Particularly when you are used to being able to fix issues, it’s frustrating to be faced with a seemingly inconsolable little one. What we are trying is:

1. Always offer the breast if you are breast feeding. For Isaac, even if he isn’t hungry this tends to settle him.
2. If you are getting “over it”or feeling like you are going to "lose it" pass the baby over to someone else.
3. Talk to your baby through the screams – for some reason this makes me feel a little more in control.
4. Realise that this isn’t your fault or the baby’s fault. Take a few deep breaths. Any relaxation exercises you may have used during your antenatal classes might help.

Nursery Decor

I have yet to meet a man whose ambitions for their infant do not include sporting glory. Nathan is no different – though perhaps a little more “hard core” than most. So the theme for our nursery was always going to be sports related. Now if you go down to your local Target / DJs / Myer etc. you will notice that there are linens decorated with pirates, safari animals, farm animals, cars, trains and planes for little boy rooms. There are no sports options. There are few great websites (mostly in the states) that do have sports linen (check out http://www.thecompanystore.com/defaultkids2.asp), however due to shipping costs we decided to DIY.
I made some football wall hangings (above). To make these I cut two halves of a football shape out of contrasting fabric and sewed together. I then threaded red ribbon between the two halves to create the “lace”. I then put the “football” onto a calico backing and stuffed lightly. Stitch onto some cheap canvas and there you go.
I also made some wall hangings from fabric sourced from a craft shop and trimmed the curtains and made cushions in the same fabric.
We will be getting some sports pennants (online from http://www.sportswall.com/) and hanging these on the wall. Ikea has a great range of soft sports balls that we also have put around the room.
There are some fantastic wall decals out there - these ones take the cake for me http://www.allposters.com/-st/Basketball-Giant-Wall-Decals-Posters_c96484_.htm, but a bit on the exxy side!
Once Isaac is a little older, we will purchase a locker to put his clothes in – again Ikea have a great range. We will also affix a small basketball hoop above a waste paper basket just for fun.
I am quite happy with the end result – which is a bright and happy room that can grow with Isaac.

Keeping a clean house with a new born

Without fail every baby book you read will tell you to “forget about the housework – sleep when baby is sleeping”. But if you are one of those people that can’t sleep when the house is a mess that just doesn’t work. Here are a few shortcuts to a clean house with a newborn:

1. Make sure that every thing has its place, and every place has its thing. Ideally it’s best to do a spring clean before bub comes along. The rule I follow – if it isn’t functional, useful or seriously sentimental, it goes. It’s much easier to keep a house clean that isn’t full of clutter.


2. Some clutter is unavoidable – to keep “baby thing sprawl” under control, have a basket in each room that may have baby stuff in it. Chuck everything into the basket for an instant tidy.


3. Have a “clean as you go” rule – helpful for bathroom and kitchen. Whenever a meal is made, a cup used etc. the person that used that cup or made that meal cleans as they go. Have a chux near the bathroom sink so that it can be wiped after use. Obviously this is going to work better with adults than children! It's much easier to keep the kitchen tidy if you have one pot meals.


4. If you can afford it, get a cleaner in. If you have good family and friend support, see if they are willing to come over for a cleaning “bee” – this can be good to get those tough jobs like oven cleaning, fridge defrosting done.


5. If it’s all just too overwhelming – try to leave one room in your house neat and tidy and use that as your “retreat” room when looking at the mess gets too much.

Lesson #1 - Babies don't adhere to Gantt charts (or if you want make God laugh - tell him your plans)

Part of my job is project management – something I love doing! Drawing up PRINCE diagrams and Gantt charts is a source of much fun for me. Yes, I am a project management tragic. I approached pregnancy as though it was another IT project. There were lists and milestones. Each bit of weight gain was diligently recorded and graphed. Each appointment summarised and documented in a spreadsheet. Every item of clothing given to us for Isaac was listed with size, date received and date washed. You probably think I am exaggerating – I am not. I walked into my midwife appointments with my carefully cross referenced folder and was greeted by a wry smile and "first baby then?" The midwives knew that babies have little regard for PRINCE 2. Isaac was born 4 and half weeks early. The evening of the 24th I had mild cramps - much like period pain but I dismissed it as baby starting to descend. There was a small voice that said - what if this is it? But I decided it couldn't be labour because I didn't want my baby to born so near Christmas, we had a holiday planned for early January and I hadn't yet finished up work. By 10:30pm the next evening, I held our new little baby in my arms. Strangely enough, once labour had definitely established a feeling of calm fell over me and I started to be quite zen about the whole thing. At some point I accepted that our little miracle was coming into our lives and that was a wonderful thing, no matter how ill prepared we might be. Isaac arrived after a dream labour, lasting only 7 hours from water breaking. Despite being so early, he was a good weight and the only issue was some jaundice treated by billi lights. Suddenly, plans are out the window and priorities have shifted.