Who am I? The rebooted identity
A vast number of new parents – especially mums, who go through so much more before the child is even born – struggle with a major and permanent change in their entire lifestyle and identity. In a peculiar way, I am very lucky: I’d already had my self-identity and life utterly destroyed by seven years of mental illness, so having a baby actually made me much better off (because I have a meaningful purpose once again, and it so happens that minding a baby is something I handle about as well as the average. Being average feels like superman to me, so I win).
One of my minor obsessions is disabusing new writers of the notion that they’re about to become rich and famous, and the latest expression of that obsession was somewhat tactless and made several people on a writing forum quite angry. It always freaks me out to have anyone mad at me, and it made me think about what kind of person I am, and what kind of person I want to be. After much thought, I reckon that (s)mothering/teaching has always been a huge part of who I am, and for better or worse my often-patronising urge to help others is never going to go away. Luckily I finally have an appropriate target for my maternal instincts.
The last couple of Wednesday blogs have probably given some indication of my stress levels – Louisette is sleeping about seven hours at night, which is great for her age but not actually enough for me to be physically or mentally okay.
CJ and I are deciding whether or not to buy a house this year – which is absolutely awesome, but the uncertainty and the financial burden-to-be are hugely stressful, particularly since we have financial surprises falling like bombs around us (in other news, having our ceiling replaced last week wasn’t fun; our landlady is selling our flat).
I recently had a frankly miraculous weight gain: three kilos in under a week. I can account for one kilo (time of the month) and perhaps another (chocolate – but I really wasn’t that bad, and I did plenty of exercise). Three at once was a huge shock. That’s it for me until Spring: I’ve had too many weight loss failures this year, and it’s clear my body just isn’t up to it (I get headaches every time I cut down my chocolate intake). I’m devastated that I still look four months pregnant, but the only logical choice is to treat this time as yet another non-returnable gift from Mother Nature and just live with it rather than wasting myself in a fight I can’t win. Things may change in Spring, when losing weight doesn’t make me wake up shivering at 3am. But as far as my physical self goes, I probably don’t have much choice about the end result. I will always look pretty sh– pregnant. That is not a helpful thing to deal with, and certainly alters my self-image as a whole.
Right now my body is giving me a bunch of weird aches and pains (I find myself walking with a limp, etc) which I figure is a stress thing. Louisette remains a very easy baby and in some ways the least stressful part of my life – but this is probably the most stressful time CJ and I have been through, and it’s all coming to a head. I really don’t handle uncertainty well at all – I guess that’s another part of me that isn’t changing anytime soon. Will we move to a new house, with a yard for Louisette to faceplant in happily? Or will we be thrown out of our current flat and end up somewhere that’s smaller and costlier? We have a rental contract until January, but we may have a different landlord by then. Until now, our landlady has given us nothing but peace and security. It was hugely beneficial for my mental health, and I was improving (just ask CJ) – but home is not a safe place any more.
I know I’m a lot happier and saner since having Louisette, but right now my mental state is like a frozen lake with cracks in it: it might hold, and it might not. Louisette’s existence does mean the stakes are higher than ever before – but if the ice shatters I know exactly what to do: 1. Put the baby in the cot and walk away. 2. Tell CJ.
Our biggest stress may actually be resolved this week – or it may get worse. Nobody knows.
I look forward to finding how much sanity I end up with when I have a settled home and eight hours’ sleep a night. I may actually be able to get a real job one day (probably when kid #2 starts school – and kid #2 doesn’t exist yet). Either way, I have choices about who I am and who I want to be. It’s like a reboot of the teenage years, except this time I feel in control (with the exception of my body, which hates me as much as I hate it – but it functions all right, so I guess that’s the main thing).
Making a stand
Okay, so I have several awesomenesses waiting to be written (one has lasers*), but I’m tired now – so here’s an awesome thing from exactly today:
*not true. There’s only one laser.
“Red Dirt Diary” by Katrina Nannestad
“We have an extra special coffee and dessert evening planned for you !” said the woman at the front of church. “With a guest author!”
“Oh dear,” I thought.
A name was mentioned – Katrina Nannestad. I hadn’t heard it before.
“Oh dear,” I thought.
Someone beside me whispered that the author was somebody’s wife’s something.
“Oh dear,” I thought. “I bet it’s someone who’s busily congratulating themselves on the decision to self-publish their utterly awful drivel, and who is now desperately self-promoting while putting off the realisation that no-one would willingly buy their book except through sheer face-to-face embarrassment.”
And everyone at church knows I’m a writer, too. I bet they think I’m SO pleased.
Oh dear.
I went home and googled Katrina Nannestad. The word “diary” in the title rang loud alarm bells – but she WAS published by Harper Collins, so she had to be pretty all right. I emailed the woman from church saying I’d come, and ordered “Red Dirt Diary” from the library. If it was awful, I could just keep quiet at the ladies’ evening and no-one would get hurt.
The rest of the review is at Comfy Chair, where I get paid for it.
On The Move
As of literally this morning, Louisette can do this:
Probably many of you are able to get on hands and knees quite easily. But this is where she was earlier this year – barely able to open her eyes, because the dimmest light was too much.
Things not to do when one’s child is less than a year old
1. Diet
2. Travel
3. Get sick
4. Renovate
5. Move house
On the up side, if we do manage to hit all five (keeping in mind that #3 and #4 are not our fault, despite their marvellous synchronicity), #5 will quite probably be a move into our own house. . . blogging all the way.
Fire Twirling
is always cool.
[I’m still posting early due to tradies. Yes of course I’m taking photos – though sadly only of our house, not the tradies.]
The girl is actually swinging a hula hoop – something I haven’t seen before.
Girl Time
Yesterday, Louisette saw her cousin for the first time in many months.
My sister and her family have just moved back to Canberra from Perth. There isn’t much that is more awesome than that.
The madding crowd
Last Friday a friend and I went to a Silk Road exhibit at the National Museum. The exhibit itself consisted of some kind of museum-y thing (we didn’t go in), market-style stalls, and. . . . well, that was pretty much it. My friend and I walked around with expressions of shock and awe, however, because there were PEOPLE. SO MANY PEOPLE. Having lived in Canberra for a good many years, this freaked us right out and was far more interesting than anything else.
Life lessons from “This Means War”
Last weekend CJ and I went and saw “This Means War” (starring the girl from “Legally Blonde” as the Ordinary Girl, the guy from the latest “Star Trek” as the Rich Over-Confident Man Who Treats Women Badly, and the guy from various stuff as the Single Father Who Until Five Seconds Ago Was Trying To Get Back With His Incredibly Hot And Polite But Dismissive Ex.
It’s billed as “Spy versus spy” – two guys fall for the same girl and each tries to win her (they’re both spies, and best friends). It was stupid (obviously) but it was a reasonably well-written rom-com with a strong bromance and some action. Most importantly, CJ and I laughed plenty of times, and went home happy.
Also, it was educational. Here’s some of the lessons we learned (mild spoilers shall occur, but if you can’t figure out every detail of the ending from the above, then you’ve probably never seen a film before).
1. The best way to find the perfect guy online is to have your best friend write a wildly fictionalised and frankly bizarre profile for you on a dating site. (Also to look like Cameron Reese-Witherspoon. That might help.)
2. The best way to get back with your utterly uninterested ex-wife is to get blown up a bit on national TV. This is nothing to do with the fact that you hid your real job from her for your entire married life. It’s because you are now cool. Girls like that.
3. Also, the best way to make your son look at you like you’re a man is to beat up someone else’s dad in front of both children. This is what being a good father really means.
4. If you are completely full of yourself, it’s best to let it all out. The woman will tell you clearly in twelve different ways that you are bothering her and she wants you to go away – but at the same time she is secretly telling her best friend that she adores you. If you treat her badly enough, you don’t need anything in common or any attributes whatsoever. The best part is, if you’re lucky enough to have had a family tragedy as a child, you never need to show any kindness, intelligence, respect, or anything – ever. The girl is yours. Guaranteed. This also gives you a free pass to break into her home, film her having sex with other men (having planted bugs in her home when you broke in), record her conversations both at home and elsewhere, track all her movements electronically, record her best friend having sex, and to completely fictionalise everything about yourself including your job, education level, hobbies, likes and dislikes, etc. Girls like that. She is guaranteed to pick you over a sane, attractive man who treats her well and lets her sometimes choose where to go or what to do. But you must remember to ignore everything she says, including, “This is bad. I shouldn’t do this” and, “Get lost. I hate you. I’m going to call the police.”
5. If you can’t choose between two men, you will inevitably have to have sex with both of them. If you don’t have time (or you don’t feel like inadvertently becoming the next home sex video sensation), that’s okay: just pick the one with the most obvious psychological issues. They’re always the best choice.
6. If things aren’t going well with a girl you’re trying to impress, you must show her how good you are at lying. This will solve everything (twice).
7. Finally, never let a major terrorist threat (either national or personal) get in the way of your date. If a major arms dealer follows you to the house of your Completely Normal Girlfriend, at least you don’t have to set up a major network of recording devices in yet another location. (She may get kidnapped and/or blown up: don’t worry, girls totally dig that. Remember to send the terrorist a fruit basket later.)
Invent the solution
Louisette is a long way from actually walking (or crawling for that matter) but we installed our top-of-the-stairs safety gate all the same. Unfortunately, like all removable gates, it is a massive trip hazard – because it must be braced against both walls, and the only place to do so is along the bottom of the gate, where one must step over it constantly. As someone who regularly falls both up and down the stairs, and who is now often carrying a baby up and down stairs, this wasn’t great news.
And so it was that I came up with A Cunning Plan.
It’s simple enough in concept: we can secure the two sides of the gate to two bookshelves placed opposite one another. The space at the top of the stairs is narrower, but regular safety gates have that effect too.
Since it was my design, it relied heavily on gaffa tape (if it cain’t be fixed with gaffa tape it cain’t be fixed by me). This is my “proof of concept” gate from the front and back. The main section is made from the loose back of a dodgy bookshelf (two pieces gaffa taped together), the hinge is gaffa tape, and the latch is two rulers. One is fixed in place (really just to make the gate wider so it can’t be pushed in the wrong direction), and the other sits in a double-sided gaffa tape loop so it can slide back (out of the way) or forward (into a hole I cut in the back of the relevant bookshelf).
I still gotta make the real version….but, for now, I got time.
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Felicity Banks 