Hello routine my old friend...

I can't think before I had Emily that I ever had that many routines or any routine of any sort for that matter. Maybe only small rituals, such as the Saturday morning lie-in after a long week at work or the full-fat latte and almond croissant from Waterloo station on my way to the office each day.  


Routine became something that I embraced as a part of motherhood. And now I have embraced it, we have become as one and we have routines for every aspect of our lives it seems. 


We have the Monday morning routine, when Emily and I are both up and dressed and out the house by 8am, her off to nursery and me to College. We have the Thursday afternoon routine (which I am still getting a handle on as my friend Theresa will testify), where we must be organised and out the house by 11.40am (lunch already eaten - which in the last three weeks has consisted of a tuna mayonnaise sandwich eaten on route - which may in itself become a routine) to get to my friend's house, to collect my friend, her son (Emily's age) and her baby daughter to go onto pre-school which lies at the top of a very steep hill by 12.15am. Dragging ourselves and the children (quite literally most of the time), negotiating the ever increasing piles of dog poo, errant sticks and muddy puddles. All enticing to a two year old, although not necessarily through actually choice, more by accident where the poo is concerned. 


We have the Wednesday routine, where we go to the grandparents, the Friday afternoon routine where Emily goes to her grandparents and I go to College, the Saturday morning routine where Emily goes to her grandparents and the Sunday morning routine where we goes to Emily's other grandparents, namely nanny Joan and Uncle Paul. And yes I appreciate that this may lead to complicated question once Emily is older, as to why nanny Joan and Uncle Paul are together but yet it's Aunty Jo and Uncle Tim. Still it's easier than trying to explain to a two year old why Nanny Joan and Grandad Kelvin are no longer together, ahhh the complexities of life. 


We have the night-time routine, the morning routine, the mid afternoon routine...well you get the idea! 


So with all this routine, what then happens when you take the child out of the routine? Well you know the old saying 'You can take the girl out of the......(fill in the blank) but you can't take the ....... (fill in the blank) out of the girl', this, I'm afraid, does not apply where children are concerned. Take the child out of the routine and all chaos will ensue as I was witness to last night. At 10pm I had to call Gavin to come pick me up from my mother's house (where we were meant to be spending the night) because at 10.30pm when the rest of the house were about ready to drop from a frantic day of foggy, stress inducing, car journeys across country to Sheffield and back, Emily was bouncing up and down on the spare bed of my mothers rather small two bedroom cottage, with walls as thin as tissue paper, refusing to go to sleep!  And having endured a night of hellish similarity the previous night, sharing a bed with a wriggly toddler, adamant that she would not sleep, raising her head off the pillow at the merest hint of a noise, the very idea that someone might be moving around and therefore she might be missing out on something. Restless sleep, interrupted with episodes of little arms flung in my face or little feet kicking in my back.  I was determined that I could not bare another night of this routine-less existence.  


So in conclusion not only do I embrace routine, I fear I may be lost without it. In fact I would go so far as to say that I may well not consider any overnighter with Emily until she is at least six? Ten? Twenty-one? Fill in the blank as necessary... 

Warning: The follow blog entry may not be for the faint hearted (i.e. men)

Today I have an appointment with the nurse to try and resolve a matter close to the heart of most parents (I should imagine), birth control. 

I am not a massive fan of the condom, male or otherwise. The male condom I find slightly repulsive, so not really the response aimed for when engaging in an intimate moment. It's the smell, the texture and the fact that they are slimy that make me feel uncomfortable. Not having ever tried the female condom, as the idea of placing what appears to be a small carrier bag (sandwich bag maybe) inside my person was not that appealing and physically, although not an impossibility, extremely difficult I should imagine, not to mention time-consuming and well I would imagine a big mood killer!

So I have, mostly, always used the combined pill, with the exception of a six month period after Emily was born when I had to use the mini pill because I was breast feeding. However it would seem that myself and Cilest no longer shared a love for each other as we had before. Now I have heard the many horror stories from friends and relations about the numerous pills they have had to consume in hope of finding one that suited them. I was lucky enough to find 'that' pill the first time around but not anymore. Somewhere between my early twenties and post- Emily, Cilest and I have become incompatible. Oh the horror and the utter intolerance of it all!

See to say I was slightly testy in the lead up to my monthly visitor would, probably, if I'm honest, be an understatement. I was MONSTROUS! I adopted a vile, demonic, totally rageful alter-ego. I was so bad that even I didn't want to spend time with me during these periods (haaaa no pun intended), however being unfortunately unable to remove myself from my own skin, I was stuck with me. It was like the Jekyll and Hyde of Junction Road. So having removed myself 'post haste' from this pill, I am now stuck in the land of no birth control!

Having visited the nurse last week I was given another type, Microgynon, which I am informed by everyone I know and nearly all birth control forums, is the devil incarnate in the form of a contraceptive pill! My friend told me it turned her into a raving lunatic!

"OHHH great" was Gavin's reponse upon hearing this news. "So they take you off one pill that is making you insane and decide to give you one that will make you worse, that's just great isn't it?! And a typical example of what our National Health Service has come to"

'Well okay honey I didn't think it was that bad?'
"Hmmm" was his response. So....Clearly it was THAT bad then!


And well it must have been that bad as he begged me not to take the new pill until after Christmas. 
"Let's just have a nice Christmas" he pleaded with a look of intense fear and desperation in his eyes! 
"Well okay then" I conceded, not wanting to be the Grinch that stole Christmas. 


So anyway I am going back to the nurse this afternoon to plead my case. I quite like being relatively normally all month, not just for 21 days of it! And if you ever needed any proof that the pill was causing the insanity and it wasn't just 'me', bless my soul neither of us even knew I was due on last month. It was only when I went to the toilet and discovered the truth did I actually laugh to myself. And upon hearing this news Gavin said, 
"Well who would have known, you been quite nice recently" Cheers, thanks darling...

Impatient me?! I don't know what you mean...

Okay, honestly now, I have to admit that I may not be the world's most patient person. 

No really...you would never have guessed...how kind of you to say.

Unfortunately at times (well actually quite frequently) I am very impatient, which doesn't bode well as a parent. And to make it worse I really dislike those parents that never complain about their children. The ones that wax lyrical about how wonderful their children are and how every single moment is a joy to behold. Some of them even write blogs about it all (AHEM!). Okay, okay so you have me on that one but I think, in fairness, not all I write is about the joys of parenting. I like to think I give quite a balanced view on being a mother, some of the good, some of the bad and everything inbetween. However what I do not do is live under the illusion that Emily is perfect and never does anything remotely naughty, annoying or just damn right infuriating at times. So yes I do raise my voice and sometimes I even lose my temper. 

It's just that I only have a certain amount of energy and enthusiasm and it is spread extremely thinly at times, particularly the enthusiasm. So I do love my daughter with a love so fierce it scares me BUT If I'm honest I could really do without the following:

• Having to repeat myself four+ times before Emily will do as I ask (I think it doesn't help that I also have to adopt this same method with her dad too).
• Having to listen to my daughter repeat herself four+ times, even though I answered her question or request the first time she asked.
• Over-use of the word 'NO', by both of us actually.
• Being rudely awaken, every morning, by the sound of my daughter whining and moaning at me to come get here but once in my bed immediately ignoring me in favour of daddy cuddles.
• Over-use of the word 'CAREFUL'.
• Over-use of the phrase 'Just a minute Emily'.
• Over use of the phrases, 'Put that down/back', 'Don't touch that', 'Stop that', 'Please stop that', "Emily I am telling you right now to stop that!'.
• Constantly falling over my daughter because she is stood just behind me.
• Constantly walking around with something in my hand, which need binning, cleaning, fixing, tidying away because I am following the trail of destruction that my daughter has left in her wake.
• That she cannot just eat her food without also having to decorate the room with it.
• That everything in my life is always about what Emily wants, needs, would prefer, mostly to the exclusion of what I might desperately need sometimes (I think this last one is just called 'being a parent' though)
•  Ohhh and because she has just engaged in one now as I write...TANTRUMS!

I think if I'm honest I am not just impatient but a little bit of a control freak too which doesn't help. However at least I am honest enough to admit that neither myself or my daughter are perfect but that we still love each other very dearly dispite out imperfections.

Would the real 'Anna' please stand up?

So I was asked on a recent, rather rare, 'night out' with a dear friend of mine, 

"But what happened to Anna?" 


And at the time I didn't really understand the question. Being already considerable inebriated at that point, I think my response may have been something along the lines of, 


"Erm well last time I checked...right here" just pinching myself to make sure of course.

However I think I now get what she was trying to ask or possibly say. So what happened to Anna?

See I write this blog all about being a mum and being me, but it's a strange thing becoming a mother (or parent), you do have a tendency to sort of lose yourself just a little. Not that I am sure I knew who I was before but something definitely shifted. I became Emily's mum and somedays I do look in the mirror and wonder what happened to Anna. In our house Gavin and I refer to each other as mummy and daddy, something we have done since Emily was born and whereas Emily is aware that Daddy's name is Gavin when asked what mummy's name is she just looks sort of blank and then after a moment of thought, smiles and says,

"Mummy". 

So who is Anna? Well she was a younger, slightly fresher faced version of me. She didn't have to wear a fringe to hide the lines on her forehead or workout every day just to keep a slim stomach and toned bottom. In fact that bitch didn't really work out at all...damn her! My friends and family often comment on how well I got my shape back after Emily was born, like it just miraculously re-appeared. 'Ah ha, there you are, I was wondering where you had gone to' but in reality I worked and have since then worked really hard to keep myself healthy. And don't get me wrong I enjoy it but it's still another thing I have to do, another things to add to the long list.

And emotionally or psychologically? Well I still feel like the same person just with a lot more responsibilities and a lot more riding on my decisions. Before I only had to worry about how my choices would affect me but now I have a child to think of, a partner, my family, his family and the list goes on and on.

Gavin relayed to me, whilst in conversation, that he can't help but see me through Emily but he did reasoned that maybe that was because we were only together for such a short time before she came along. So for the majority of our relationship I have been a mother or mother in training so to speak. Which I guess makes sense... 


And I have to say that it has changed the relationships around me, the way I relate to people. Take me and my own mother, before Emily came along we were always very tactile but now well sometimes we have to remember to hug each other before she leave. All that tactility that she used to show to me has been transferred onto my daughter, which is fine. I just hadn't realised how much it had change our relationship until I really thought about it. The moment I had a child of my own I suddenly understood everything my mother had been through and finally grew up and stopped being her little girl. We are more like equals now, which in itself isn't a bad thing.

So does becoming a mother mean I can't be me anymore? Well no I don't think so, I guess it just means I have to actually schedule 'me' time now, you know in between the housework and Emily and Gavin and College and my family and Gavin's family...ha, ha, ha! But hey next time my friend asks I can say,


"Anna... oh she's still here, you just need to look a little closer these days or maybe a little deeper"

The road to success is littered with little puddles!

So I finally did it! Emily is potty trained! Sound the trumpets and let the celebrations commence. I want an award for getting through the last four weeks...greatest mum or maybe just most improved one anyway.

There are certain milestones that you look forward to, when your baby rolls over, learns to crawl, learns to walk, learns to talk and then there are events that you just push on through and hope to get to the end of such as teething and getting rid of a dummy. Potty training, for me, definitely falls into the latter category. And I am not alone it would seem. I recently shared my potty training woes with another mum in the nappy aisle of Morrisons. Our eyes met over the pull up pants and she gave me that understanding and sympathetic look. 
"It's hard work isn't it?" I asked her.
"Oh yes absoultely, if I have to ask my little boy one more time if he wants a wee." she laughed.
"Wow, I'm so glad it isn't just me."
"No, it's definitely not just you." 

We then discussed the options of a sanitary esk towel over a dry nights bed sheet for safe, accident free travel. She went with the bed sheet in the end as we both agreed that the sanitary towel thingy just didn't seem quite right somehow. To date, probably the weirdest conversation I have ever had in Morrisons, although there was the one about the different brands of diarrhoea tablets a few months back. Ahem...anyway!

So what have I learnt from my experiences? Well, in Emily's case that you have to approach each of the potty training requirements individually, i.e. don't just assume that because your child is weeing on the potty that she understand that she is also required to poo on it! We had a few accidents in knickers before we got that one right!

That gentle persistence is the key. Praise for success and no fuss for accidents, just clean it up and remind your child that next time they need to do it in the...?

"POTTY MUMMY." 
"That's right baby, good girl."

And finally that they will only do it when 'they' are good and ready and not because you want them to, because other people are putting pressure on you or because you are under some misguided illusion that society will frown on you for having your child still in nappies at the age of two and a half. I mean, come on, cut us parents some slack, we are doing the best we can and as I have said many times before, that's all you can do! 

So whose the adult in this relationship?

Having to be the 'adult' all the time is actually really hard! That's what being a parent is about right? You are the adult to their child but sometimes we don't always react like the adult. If anything having children can sometimes bring out the child in you. 

At certain times of the month I find I am less able to cope with it all and yes I imagine those moments probably do coincide with changes in my hormone levels. I am not going to pretend that I am not a slave to my hormones because unfortunately I am. It's not something that I welcome or enjoy but it's as inevitable as the ebb and flow of the tides so I just grin and bear it. However I find at these times that my temper is quicker and my tears flow more freely. Very much like my two year old daughter. 

This morning we were butting heads, as per usual and as per usual she lashed out at me because she was frustrated. She slapped me across the face and for a split second I could have slapped her back. Of course I didn't but instead I just started to cry and she obviously thinking it very funny, laughed at me. So rather than just placing her on the naughty step and explaining to her (for the hundred time) why it is not acceptable to hit mummy, I simply walked out the room. This caused her to burst into floods of tears. And it struck me at that precise moment that I wasn't sure who was the adult anymore? 

We are of course friends again now and I except that I am not the 'perfect mother', not that I ever thought I was. Also I except that there will be times when I don't always feel like being the 'adult', similar to that feeling you get when your are ill and all you want is your mum, even if we are 30 and a mum yourself!  I just try my very best and sometimes that isn't always good enough but it is all I have to offer and I challenge anyone to give more than their best. And besides it is in these moments when daddies have to step up and take control, well providing you can convince them to leave the comfort of their bed before the alarm clock is due to go off (another constant battle in our house). In fact there are moments in the month when I realise that there are no adults left in our house, just two toddlers and a teenager!

Shades of Grey...

When you are a child you see the world in black and white. Emily often refers to things as 'mine' or 'yours' and she wants things to be ordered and to have a place or person to belong to. For example a few weeks ago she points to the hoover and asks,

"Yours mummy?"
"No baby (although I know that I am the only one who ever uses it so you could be forgiven for thinking that it may be mine but) no the hoover does not belong to mummy. It belongs to...well the house I guess."

All humour aside though, it is only once you have left your childhood, adolescence and even your early twenties behind that you start to realise that the world has incredible shades of grey. That our lives are a mass of greying contradictions and that in reality nothing is ever as clear cut as we might have thought or hoped. Practicality takes presidence over perfection and the older you get the more you learn to accept, to reside and adapt. 


Take our families and relationships. Some of us will have grown up with this ideal about the 'perfect family', however the reality of our adults lives could be very different. Lets take a typical scenario, a young girl dreams of meeting 'Mr Right' (that elusive figure), getting married and settling down to have 2.4 children and trust me there are still many girls and even women that dream this dream. But well they have reached 30 and Mr Right has still not materialised, although there have been a fair few 'Mr Right Now', 'Mr Wrong' and 'Mr what the hell was I thinking I must have been insane or extremely drunk' and they start to hear the tick, tock, tick, tock. So they endeavour to find the alternative, the shade of grey, the 'Mr he is nice and makes me smile'. They get married, have children and maybe live the rest of their lives happyish. 


Alternatively some people will meet who they think is 'Mr Right' fall madly in love and give themselves completely over to him. Only to find out a few years and a baby later that actually although at first everything seem very black and white, somewhere along the way they have slipped into greyness and are not quite sure how it happened.

There are of course many other examples that I could give but well I have to return to College in 20 minutes and beside my jacket potato with cheese is getting cold! So...


I am not stating that this is the way it has to be for all of us. I think there must be some extremely happy and contented people out there. People living in a world of black and white where they are safe and secure, the kind of people that never have a grey day. It's just that I have never met any of them but then maybe I don't get out enough. I think what I am trying to say is that we all learn to compromise and accept people for who they are. It's a part of growing up and if you love someone then you learn to live with your differences. You learn to accept the grey. 


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Oh and as a finally thought I would like to strongly voice that this entry is in no way a cry for help. Purely an observation based on conversations that I have been privy to recently. So please dear friends (the ones that read this blog) please don't worry I am simply ruminating on life and relationships and am quite happy with my lot. I except the grey, it is a part of who I am.