Mothers’ Day Pics
I was kind of busy yesterday, as usual on Mothers’ Day, but Louisette was all cute on her play thingy, and I thought it was a great opportunity for a face-to-face Mothers’ Day photo. Here are the results – I call them:
1. Look Mum! A wall!
2. Spitting up.
3. Faceplant.
Mothers’ Day
For those of you wondering why your female parent is no longer speaking to you, it’s Mothers’ Day today: a scheduled annual day for spontaneous expressions of gratitude. Your mum gave you the gift of life X years ago (and has probably helped to keep you alive*since then). For my first Mothers’ Day CJ bought me a book and Louisette was generous – surprisingly generous – on the chocolate and lolly front. What a good girl.
As a person with a social anxiety disorder, Mothers’ Day was always the second-most stressful day of the year (the worst being Christmas). I felt that I needed to satisfy both my family and CJ’s family with two separate but equally important occasions in which it was vital to be happy, and to come prepped with thoughtful and beautiful presents, and with some kind of reasonably respectable food. At the same time, I’d be aware that one or both families would be in not-so-secret pain due to missing at least one adult child, and that everyone would hate one or more parts of the many iron-clad traditions that they still felt the need to take part in (or, often, to take full responsibility for). So I had at least two large events with people I often didn’t know well, with a lot of expectations that most of us don’t like – and it was ESSENTIAL to be happy about all of it. All day. (Sidebar: I actually like a good tradition, whether it’s pleasant at the time or not. There’s a kind of satisfaction in, “We must get the family together on THIS day every year” that you don’t get any other way.)
Like most things in life, this is a problem that is almost completely solved by money – an expensive gift is a thoughtful gift nine times out of ten, and if you’ve got the money it’s super easy to buy a spectacular dessert and/or take everyone out to a restaurant to eat**. This week CJ and I paid for our annual car registration, so fixing things with money is even less of an option than usual. Also, as you may have heard, we recently had eight months of illness and then acquired a human being.
So instead of breakfast in bed***I got up before Louisette and launched headlong into a recipe I’ve never tried before. The path to dessert never did run smooth, and I’ve destroyed one pie base already at the time of writing.
Stupid freaking Mothers’ Day.
This year it fell to CJ and I to provide a dessert at each gathering. I was smart enough to arrange things so that one family met on Saturday instead of Sunday, and to buy/make desserts that I like. It so happened that the desserts I chose were terrible choices for both my mum (who was allergic to it) and CJ’s Mum (who doesn’t have the raging sweet tooth I do). So I feel guilty about both. How strangely appropriate for a first-time mum (guilt is kind of what we do).
Mothers’ Day is much more painful for most of the world than it is for me. I know at least one woman who has always wanted to have children – lots of children – and is staring down the barrel of her first IVF cycle. She may never conceive a child. I know many other women who want to have children but don’t even have the expensive-and-not-at-all-guaranteed benefit of IVF – they are single, and suddenly every birthday they “celebrate” is cutting away at their dreams. They have a huge pile of love stored inside them and life has not given them the option of bringing it out into the light. Mother Nature is a bi– . . . a mean person.
I know other people who have mums that hurt and belittle them constantly. Those people have a choice to meekly accede to (or attempt to psychically figure out) their mother’s wishes on Mothers’ Day – or to literally or metaphorically hide under their bed in the fetal position and hope the storm passes. I am very lucky to have a mum and mum-in-law who are fundamentally good, but they have enough. . . let’s call it “humanity” rather than “evil”. . . in them that I have seen a tiny glimpse of the burning darkness that some live with every day – a darkness that turns nova on the second Sunday in May. You know who you are, and you have my sympathy.
There are other mums that feel trapped by their children, or resentful that their children have never once said a genuine thank you, or who never wanted children, or who always secretly wanted a girl/boy, or who are just. . . . . . . . so. . . . . . . . .tired. . . . . . My heart goes out to you, too. And if you’ve ever silently wished you’d never had children at all, you’re certainly not alone.
There are as many kinds of Mothers’ Day pain as there are mothers, daughters, and sons. There is the same range of joys too – the joy of making an actual real LIFE****; the fascinating horror show of pregnancy; the uncertainty of that first smile/fart; the reluctant pleasure in toothless and drooly kiss; the thrill of the first words; the endless inane chatter of a child; the sudden independence of the teenage years; the bittersweet joy of seeing a child grow up and move away to make their own life; the cherry on top that is grandchildren (and a new round of nappies). . .
Here’s to my Mum for surviving me and for assisting in my survival (to this day in a surprisingly literal sense*****). And here’s to me for jumping into the motherhood maelstrom and laughing at the thunder, lightning, and hail as it beats down on me.
I EARNED that chocolate.
*do the undead celebrate Mothers’ Day? Hard to say unless Louisette gets bitten in the next twelve months.
**not if you don’t like crowds – because I guarantee everyone who can go out to lunch is going out to lunch on Mothers’ Day. The same doesn’t apply to Fathers’ Day, because on that day the women coordinate and cook and clean and it’s considered okay. It’s only on Mothers’ Day that we suddenly realise the complex arrangement of: 1. thinking of a food contribution, 2. buying the ingredients, 3. cooking it under very specific time pressures, and 4. cleaning up – is too much for a large number of men (due to lack of practice, not innate stupidity) – so it falls on the daughter-in-law. CJ is a great cook and can negotiate a supermarket better than I can but he’s not good at time pressure or multitasking. So here we are.
***How stressful would that have been?? As if I don’t have enough trouble keeping up with Louisette’s vomit on my clothes, I’d have had to try and deal with a bowl of milk on an unsteady surface. I don’t think so.
****Here’s hoping it ends better than it did for Dr Frankenstein.
*****Yes, I’m talking about money.
Tiny clockpunk
What can I say? This is just beautiful. They’re all made from broken watches.
When you feel like a broken watch, remember that you may secretly be a tiny and intricate motorbike.
Happy Mothers’ Day.
You’re Not Special
You ARE special, actually, but those long-held dreams of becoming a *gasp* published author? That is not not not unique. In fact it’s common as dirt. I can say this clearer than most, because I’m not actually in the editing/agenting/publishing biz myself, and I therefore have the leeway to be more honest. I am, in short, one of you – one of the shuffling, slavering hordes.
Here is an article by Editorial Anonymous (a carefully anonymous editor, which is why this is the most honest article on this I’ve ever seen that wasn’t written by a purely novel-writing type). You really really should read the whole thing, but here’s some of the beginning (the “slush” or “slushpile” is the pile of books wannabe writers have sent to a publisher):
The fundamental lack of understanding about how much slush there is feeds many, many of the most commonly made mistakes writers make–mistakes that hurt their chances of getting published, and often hurt their morale. Some of those mistakes are below; but first, a visualization excercise:
Read the rest if ye seek wisdom. Also, it’s very funny.
And here’s a cat. Because if you understand – really understand – what that article means for YOUR novel, you’ll need a quiet sit down with something soothing.
A Confusion of Princes
I’m a huge fan of Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom trilogy. It may well be the best young adult fantasy trilogy ever written. So, as I pondered what to graciously accept as a mothers’ day gift (another book per year is totally worth the effort of giving birth), his latest book quickly won over the competition. The rest of this review is at Comfy Chair, where I get paid for it.
Swimmers
I wrote some months ago about the search for a swim top (a search which began in December, during which the best swim top I found was a shoulderless hot pink bikini number that made me look uncannily like a footballer in drag). I recently found a swim top in Vinnies that appeared to fit me – but the instant I got in the water the straps fell from their hooks and the material increased in size by a factor of three. That was. . . not really the look I was going for.
Finally, aware that most of the big bargain shops are no longer stocking swimmers at all, I visited a shop attached to the Belconnen pool. Not only do I finally have a swimsuit that can fit all of me inside, but the high waist and decorative outer skirt actually look nice. So nice that, despite still being five kilos over my greatest pre-pregnancy weight, I am here posting a pic of myself in swimmers on the interwebs.
In completely unrelated news, I read a vividly angry response on someone’s blog to the question, “My wife keeps calling me at work and interrupting me to tell me really boring things about her day at home with the baby. What should I do?”
I added my two cents in the comments, and thought I’d repeat it here:
For the record, I’m married to a guy that is actually interested in his own child. How shocking. And you know what? He deserves exactly zero points for that.
Right now he’s putting her to bed and she’s crying. He just gave her a bath, cut her fingernails, and read her a book – all after a full day at a stressful job. Still zero points. Just base-level fatherhood: joy and fear and pain and love. There’s everything and nothing special about that. And he loves getting SMSes from me along the lines of: “She ALMOST turned over!” “She just wet the very hem of my ankle-length skirt with a single head-height burst of vomit. Bring chocolate.” and “She just laughed at the cat.” Because she’s ours, and everything she does is interesting – in sharp contrast to the entirely pedestrian antics of all other babies.
This is what NORMAL fatherhood looks like.
What could possibly go wrong?
I have a vivid imagination, so thinking about safety issues literally terrifies me. Luckily, Louisette’s enormous enthusiasm for standing up is something I find very exciting, and safety and Louisette growing up are now intertwined in my mind. So I’ve absolutely thrived on thinking about some of the bizarre and inventive ways my little girl is going to attempt to destroy herself, and how to foil her plans.
She recently got the idea of crawling, and just lacks the coordination and arm strength to pull it off:
My parenting class had a Kidsafe representative speak for us, and a couple of the things they recommended were very clever – treating bath and sink plugs as a hazard, and putting them on a high shelf or locked cupboard (most home fatalities are from drowning), and being very careful with anything containing beans (the inedible filling kind – they don’t show up on scans but do kill young children).
We’ve installed a safety gate (which is a trip hazard, unfortunately – I’ll keep an eye out for one that doesn’t have a bottom rail mummy has to step over), moved the cat food onto high shelves (yet another reason keeping cats is easier than keeping dogs), and taken some of our heaviest, pointiest, most top-heavy objects off the top of our tallest and ricketiest bookshelves. Including these gentlemen:
Yep, that’s a sword. A metal one.
In other news, I may yet end up with three different playgroups (one big one that meets in my church building; one medium one that evolves from the early parenting classes; one small invitation- and baby-only one that meets at my house), which is just fine by me.
Here are some photos that explain one reason playgroups are the biz:
Make your own pizza
Making your own pizza – especially with a group of friends who all bring ingredients – is so much fun. Every so often I come across an awesomeness that is so easy, so cheap, and so good. Don’t forget to play along at home. One had mars bars on top:
Day Off
Today (at the time of writing) I’m having a day off: a writing day. CJ is taking Louisette to visit some interstate relatives she hasn’t met yet.
In the morning I fed and minded the baby for an hour and a half before having breakfast. I folded and put away one load of washing, and washed and hung out three others (shifting most of one load inside when it began to rain). I washed and sterilised bottles, did the dishes, and put the dishes away. I organised and cooked a healthy dinner for that night, and began social and organisational preparations for the following night’s dinner. I made a fuss over the cats. I cleaned the toilet and bath. I took out the recycling. I made baby food in two consistencies. I took out the potent contents of the nappy bin (three times) and the kitty litter (once), and wheeled the outside bin out to the curb to be collected the following day. And I was sick, too.
I think there’s some kind of moral to this story.
I also sent the steampunk book to an agent (after researching her recent sales and her likes and dislikes) and this contest; finished constructing the fourth version of my picture book and prepped it for its first publisher; and edited and sent the first book of my young adult fantasy trilogy (the one with pirates) to a UK publisher. And I wrote this blog entry. . .
In other news, Louisette is extremely enthusiastic about standing up – not bad for someone who’s just three and a half months old, and can’t roll over yet!
I want
This album is simply beautiful, packed with intricate and fascinating creations (and one slightly disturbing one involving body piercing).
This was the one that caught my eye:
I want this, too. It’s a USB drive made of brass, copper, glass and a quartz crystal that lights up in the window.
