Counting down to the big O-N-E!!

So my baby boy is one in T minus four days!! I can't quite believe how fast yet slow this past year has gone. I find it absolutely incredible how much Redford has developed in such a short time. He's gone from a mewing, wide-eyed newborn to a grape guzzling, trolley pushing wee character and I love him more and more every day.


We're having his birthday party on Sunday which started off low key but has grown somewhat.... 


My favourite part has been concocting a scrummy menu for all the peeps to eat! We have cheerios and T sauce for the littlies (and for the oldies - who doesn't love a sneaky cheerio?), iced animal biscuits, cheese biscuits, lamingtons, brie and pepperdew bites, avocado, cucumber, ginger and coriander rice paper rolls, pikelets and finger sammies. All homemade (minus the cheerios)!


And of course, who can forget the main munch - the cake! I'm attempting a vanilla number 1 cake with butter cream icing and edible decorations. Oh, and there's take home bags - mint truffles and lime and white chocolate rocky road. Mmmm....


I promise pictures aplenty come Monday for onscreen drooling!


Now to work on a gift that Little Red will enjoy just as much as the paper it's wrapped in....

FYI: It's OCD

So I have this "thing". Well, quite a lot of "things", really. I'm a tad on the OCD side. OK, quite a bit on the OCD side. It drives Nick (the most laid back of all the laid backs) close to insane. We're a good mix (most of the time) and we balance each other out. Where I'm highly strung, he's calm. Where I'm prone to worry, he's a glass-is-half-full all the time kinda guy. I'm a run around at a million miles an hour and get ten thousand things done in the space of an ad break person and he's a why don't you just sit down, put your feet up and have a beer type of dude.

I think I'm slowly getting better at relaxing and not being so anal retentive. Slowly. However, it still bugs me when the coffee table or the foosball table don't sit flush with the sofa (former) or the wall (latter). I can't handle the volume on the TV or the radio to be at an uneven number unless it's in multiples of five or ends in a three. And any even number that ends in four needs to be upped one so that it ends in five.

What else? I loathe going to bed without a shower. I just imagine yucky little daytime germs crawling all over me and through the bed. I can't handle dust. I don't like things being left on the floor (Red's things, I'm slowly learning to accept - not that I have a choice - but when Nick gets home and dumps all his crap on the floor, well, that's another story). The shower curtain needs to be pulled along to the right spot when not in use. There can't be gaps in the drapes when they're closed and when open, they have to be all the way open. Things must be in straight, neat piles. I don't like my bedside table to be cluttered. The spare bedroom door must be closed. Towels must be folded in a particular way. Things in the pantry must be correspondingly grouped neatly. God, I could go on.

I'm crazy. I know. But none of this particularly bothers me. What does bother me though is this: yes, I've learnt to chill out a bit since becoming a Mum BUT when it comes to having time out I feel like it's such a precious time that it needs to be perfect. Like right now. My Mum has taken Red away for the afternoon and there's things I want to do. I want to have a nap, I want to read my book, I want to start making some necklaces and also string the paper cranes I made for Redford's room. In order to make this all feel perfect however, there needs to be no clutter. The house must be tidy. At this very moment I can't rest while knowing that there's Duplo scattered all over the nursery (plus it needs a hoover), there's washing in the dryer to be folded and mine and Nick's room has an unmade bed and clothes on the floor. I can't see this (I'm in the lounge) but I know it's there and I keep thinking about it and I can't "relax" til it's done. 


QUESTION: How the heck can I get over this?! I want to be able to sit down and have time out as soon as I'm given the chance no matter what state the house is in. I have so little time to enjoy my own company and I can't even enjoy it!


What to do? What to do? If you've got an answer, please, let me know! I don't think I could ever be one to live in a constant state of disarray but I want to, at least, be able to sit down and have a cuppa while a basket of washing to be folded and Redford's toys remain untouched on the floor.

PTSD in motherhood - the KMB article

Last year I wrote an article for the Go Ask Your Mother panel over at KMB on post traumatic stress disorder in early motherhood. I had no idea it even existed until very recently and I found it an interesting and very sobering topic. Here's the article below:

Knock, knock. Who's there? PTSD. Oh, you're not welcome here.

Picture this: you're pregnant, your belly's ripe, the baby's baked, the bags are packed and the birth plan is written up and thrice checked. You know each step word for word, you've mapped out the quickest way to the maternity ward and the last four weeks have been spent envisioning your baby's magical birth. But now it's D-day and things aren't going to plan. Not at all. Not even close. Your natural water birth has morphed into a drug embellished emergency C-section and all your childbirth ideals have left the operating table for the brighter lights of Daydream Land. Everything went fine, though - you're still in one piece, baby's healthy, your partner has regained the colour in his face and the steadiness in his hands but what now? Surely there's got to be some emotional or psychological backlash for things going so horribly askew? For some women, we climb back on our horses and proceed as normal. For others however, it's not that simple.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is something I'd never really thought much about, for all I knew it was an ailment that afflicted war vets and car crash survivors and rightly so. That is until I myself was diagnosed with it three years ago after it crept up on me unannounced, arising from a harrowing ordeal in my teenage years. This was totally unrelated to childbirth of course, but that's not the point - it got me thinking. How many other people in this world suffer from PTSD and what exactly sets it off? I mean, we're talking about an often debilitating disorder that can strike at any time - right while the trauma iron is still burning hot or years down the track when you least expect it. PTSD can stem from a life threatening even such as a natural disaster or severe physical or psychological pain or abuse to name a couple. Put simply, any event that inflicts such psychological trauma on an individual that they cannot comprehend nor cope with the experience, PTSD may become and uninvited acquaintance.

When a friend sent me an article on PTSD in post childbirth/early motherhood situations (which cites that mothers who either fear their birthing experience or thing it will be amazing are at a higher risk of developing PTSD) I began to wonder just how common it was. The birth of my son didn't go according to my "ideals" at all (even when I thought I didn't have any) and I carried a slight emotional chip on my shoulder for a while because of that. I certainly didn't suffer the nightmares, vivid flashbacks or hyper vigilance that are common amongst PTSD sufferers but I definitely did get a little hot, flustered and nauseous every time I drove past the hospital. I wondered if PTSD was a lot more common in new mothers than was recognised and as it turns out, it is. Why then, are we only beginning to hear about it now? Well, according to many sources PTSD is still regularly diagnosed as postnatal depression (PND). Why? Because the symptoms are often so similar to PND it can sometimes be impossible to tell the difference.

Let's look at just a few of the warning signs of PND: sadness, a feeling of being overwhelmed, panic attacks, a lack of bonding between you and your baby and sleep and/or eating disorders. These can pop up soon after the birth or months later and can sometimes, without treatment, slowly heal themselves within time. Now this is where it gets tricky. PTSD can also rear it's ugly head soon after birth, months or even years later. The first onset of symptoms (such as nightmares, vivid flashbacks and panic attacks) can hang around for a while and if left to fester can morph into what's called cover up symptoms which range from depression and eating disorders to severe panic attacks and dissociation from your baby, partner and life. Sound familiar? Just like PND, right? Well, yes and no. The scary thing is, if PTSD is left untreated it doesn't go away like postnatal depression can. It can hang around. And around. Aaaand around until you have no choice but to deal with it. And nobody wants to spend their child's wee years feeling like the sky's about to fall and their sanity has well and truly done a fat Elvis and left the building.

So. I won't end this article with a string of advice because as new mothers we all get enough to last us a lifetime, nor do I want to end it on a bad note because there's always loads of light at the end of the tunnel. But I will say this (I know, I know, I haven't suffered PTSD first hand from childbirth but I have suffered extensively from it) if you feel off, if you feel strange, if things aren't going the way you thought, listen to what your body, mind and emotions are telling you and talk to someone, anyone! Your partner, your best friend, fellow mums, your bank teller for all it matters, just talk and talk and talk because at some point you'll be pointed in the right direction and bang, help will be standing there on your doorstep, looking as good as Ryan Reynolds with chocolates and flowers (and no shirt). Try not to pack it all into a little box and store it in the basement of your brain to let it gather dust and get shoved around to fit more boxes in that will hide it until three years down the track when you decide it's time to do a clean out and, oh dear, there's that box and now I have to unpack it and see what's inside and decide what on earth I'm going to do with it all. Catch my drift? Good.

My motto? If you're feeling crap, talk to the quack (or pretty much anyone else that you want to, but "anyone else that you want to" doesn't rhyme with crap and doesn't really have the same ring to it....)

Does the 6 month miracle really exist?

I'm not sure it does in our household. For those of you scratching your noggins wondering what the devil I'm on about, I'm talking about that "magical" moment when your wee one turns 6 months and all of a sudden things fall into place. He's sleeping through the night, feeding like clockwork, hoeing down on his solids and has two naps a day at exactly the same time for exactly 2 hours. Know what I'm getting at? Perhaps I've been reading the wrong baby books or perhaps I just expect too much but for the past few weeks, I feel as if I've been living with a newborn again.

Now our little guy is like any other 6 month old. He loves the simple things in life, like his jolly jumper....

 

and his spoon....

the sand between his toes....

and drinking out of cups that aren't his.

But just because he likes simple things doesn't mean he's a simple baby. Not in the slightest. He's never been a great day sleeper but for a while there he was easy and adaptable - he slept in his cot (in his own room, even!) for a good 7 hours a night, he chowed down on his solids and he was just, well, easy. But now, yeesh! This kid is giving me a run for my money. Or should I say a flat out sprint and here I am panting away, barely keeping up a jog. 

Now I'm not saying my Little Red is the devil's spawn - he's pretty freaking awesome most of the time - but give a Mum a break. For the past four weeks I'm pretty sure I've averaged 5 hours of sleep a night (and that's not consecutive) except for two nights last week when he tricked me into thinking he was back to his superb slumbering ways and I got five in a row - magic! So the night sleeping has shot out the door and following hot in it's footsteps is the daytime sleeping. I'm getting three twenty-thirty minute naps out of him a day. A day. There's a couple of Mums in my coffee group that have bubs that sleep four-ish hours during the day and then eleven straight hours at night! Oh how do I envy thee? Let me count the ways....

I've heard about the whole sleep promotes sleep idea and I definitely agree with it (a fellow Mum sent me a sleep quiz which I plan to thoroughly devour) - those two nights he slept straight through, he'd hunkered down with me and had a big two hour nap in the afternoon. And I know an early bedtime helps the cause too but really, these two things are a lot easier said than done. How do I get Little Red to nap longer than half an hour at a time? And how do I get him down to bed earlier to settle himself (he used to but now we have to rock him in our arms to sleep) without World War IV breaking out? I've tried almost every trick in the book, but obviously there's something I'm missing. Perhaps it's the non-solids eating (he was doing it and doing it good but now nothing, nadda, none.) The solids make a full belly which makes a sleepy baby which makes more sleep which means I get a happy, well rested baby instead of a needy, cranky baby, right? I just don't know.

So I'm sitting here wondering where the 6 month miracle is that I've heard so much about. Maybe I got my hopes up, maybe my expectations are too high, or maybe it's a false miracle. A mirage, a myth, a daydream that we Mums grasp onto when things are a bit crap. I know things will get better eventually, that this is probably just a phase, and I know I'm definitely not alone (I know other mamas going through exactly the same thing right now) and heavens that makes me feel better. But at 3am in the morning when it's dark and cold and I'm half asleep and the world feels like it's going to cave in, I wish on the nearest star for a little more sleepy feedy baby and a little less wakey cranky baby.

A most surreal afternoon walk with Little Red

What a beautiful spring Wellington morning it was today.... until mother nature packed a sad and sent the rain in. But then it was sunny again. Kind of. Looks like good ol' Welly is taking a leaf out of the Auckland weather book, eh? 

Anywho, completely muffing up my schedule (i.e. canceling a Plunket course and forfeiting coffee group for a journey up the way that turned out not to be today after all - that's baby brain for you, I guess), the wee pickle and I were at a loss for activities. About to set out on a delicious, sun filled meander down to Island Bay, we quickly halted our plans when the rain set in. What better to do than snuggle in bed on a rainy day? So we did just that. However, both of us suffer from incredibly short attention spans so as soon as the pitter patter of raindrops ceased, Little Red was in his buggy and we were out the door before you could say "walkies!"

Thankfully, the weather held out for most of our journey down to the beach. I was very much enjoying using the Mountain Buggy carrycot that a friend so kindly lent to us - for once it was lovely to watch Redford rocking around and drifting off to sleep. 

On the way back home the sun began to get unbearably hot, yet I could see storm clouds chasing us from the south and all of a sudden it began raining from the warm, sunny skies. It was so surreal, I haven't seen a sun shower in yonks and TV on the Radio was blaring away on my iPod which is always going to crazy things up a bit. The feeling was incredible - the ice cold raindrops pattering onto my hot cheeks and the smell was heavenly - you know that smell when rain hits warm asphalt and freshly cut grass? Yum! The only problem was, while I was thoroughly enjoying myself, I had no rain cover for Little Red.... oops. 

I pulled the hood up but the raindrops were still sneaking in and kissing bubs lightly on his cheeks, forehead, mouth and eyelids. The look on his face was one of pure shock, quite similar to the first time we put him in the bath and he looked at us like we'd just committed some unspeakable crime. Just as I was thinking oh heck, I'm about to have a screeching baby on my hands and scrabbling for my cardigan to put over the gap to fend of the incoming drops, he licked the rainwater off his lips, smacked them around a bit and then began to laugh! And this wasn't some sissy boy baby giggle, this was a full blown, over excited, guffawing laugh. I stopped and stared at him, thinking perhaps it was just a fluke but no, as I pushed the hood of the carrycot back and gave the rain more room to work with Little Red began to laugh more and more with every drop. It was incredible. In fact, by the time we got home I hurried him quickly inside for fear he would start hyperventilating from all the chuckling!

So, it turns out my little man loves the rain. What a surreal experience. Never in his life so far have I seen him so happy, it was the most glorious thing.

The beauty of the baby

It's the year of the bubba! Well, in my neighbourhood anyway. A friend of mine has just had her first little one and my sister is close to popping out her first also. With these two arrivals plus some later in the year it's made me rather reminiscent (and a little teary) of the birth of my wee peanut....

Something changed the day we found out I was pregnant. I'd been suffering cramp-like pains for a couple of weeks and was bracing myself for a trip to the doctor and a diagnosis along the lines of something being wrong with my unsuspecting uterus. But nope, that Saturday morning pregnancy test proved otherwise. I wandered dewy-eyed out of the bathroom and straight into Nick's arms (once he'd stopped jumping up and down with joy) and all of a sudden life seemed rose coloured, beautiful, abundant and worthwhile. 

Pregnancy was reasonably faultless for me (minus the crippling sciatica and Little Red's rather uncomfortable obsession with using my bladder as a punching bag) and I love, love, loved my baby belly - well, up until those last few weeks when it felt like I was hauling around a boxing bag on my front and a pumpkin between my legs. I spent most of the summer in my bikini with my belly hanging out for all and sundry to see (and pat) as well unabashedly chatting away and playing Wilco, The National and Sigur Ros to my ever expanding bump through my studio headphones. Despite some minor control freak meltdowns (I can be rather highly strung), I felt pretty relaxed and at-ease most of the way through.

Those last couple of weeks were the toughest, as they are for every expectant mother. I was torn between wanting the wee one to just hurry the fudge up and get things moving and knowing that I should be enjoying the last of my pregnancy and the only time I'd have to myself for a while. Needless to say, I spent those last days waddling around in self pity, praying (much to the horror of everyone else) for rain, cold and that good ol' Wellington wind and whinging about the ten-point turns I needed to do in order to rearrange myself, my five cushions, three pillows and bag of frozen peas every night in bed. It's amazing how two short weeks can seem like an entire lifetime.

The (eventual) arrival of Little Red is something I will never, ever forget. Particularly over the last couple of weeks I've learned how to, for lack of a better word, repress the insanity of the birth and have begun to almost crave being back in the hospital - dazed, overwhelmed and drunk with love for this new, tiny creature. Only now do I realise that never again will I experience that feeling of holding my firstborn child in my arms for the first time and my God do I feel privileged to have had that. Words could never do justice the inundation of emotion that floods through you, envelops you and carries you into this incredible new time in your life. It's true when parents say that you can't remember life before your little bundle - or maybe, you can remember life beforehand but you don't recall it ever being this rewarding, enthralling, complete. Redford has been here for only three and a half months but it feels like he's been here forever and I can't imagine life without him.

With every passing day I swear I fall more and more in love with him. From the way he nuzzles into my chest when he's tired or sad and his cheeky little grins that could break the coldest of hearts to his huge blue eyes that yearn to take everything in all at once and how he chats and giggles away to me, Baby Daddy Nick, himself, anyone! My latest favourite quirk of his is the endless attempt to shove both fists in his mouth at the same time. It never quite works out the way he wants yet he continues to try....

Twenty reasons to enjoy early motherhood

1.  You have a super cute baby that's all yours and only yours
2.  People will do anything you ask, so make the most of it
3.  You probably won't have to cook for the first month
4.  Eat all the chocolate you want because a) you deserve it and b) you're totally skinny now
5.  You can shoot milk out of your boobs
6.  You have every right to adopt that smug "oh-you-have-no-idea" look when childless people tell you they're tired
7.  You now have a little friend that you can talk to (at?) about anything and all they'll do is smile and nod - think of it as therapy without the price tag
8.  You can whinge all you want and be totally irrational and get away with it
9.  Professionals say you should ingest 1L of milk products a day to keep your calcium intake up, that includes milk/milkshakes, yogurt and ice cream so go on, reach for that tub of Cookies & Cream and go for gold
10. People on buses have to move for you and if they don't it's OK to shoot them a smacked-arse evil eye
11. You can park in the baby only parks and enjoy your 2 second walk to the mall while everyone else makes the 5 minute trek
12. You can now eat all the sashimi, blue cheese and salami you want
13. Two months later, you're still receiving gifts
14. You can stay in your pyjama's all day long and not feel like a slob
15. People will understand that your house is a complete tip and will probably even offer to clean it for you
16. For a good night out, all you need is two glasses of wine and you're set
17. You have an excuse to go shopping - you're stuck between maternity and pre-baby and after all, you must have clothes that are breastfeeding friendly
18. For the first week, you can pretend you have breast implants
19. You don't have to pretend to be Supermum, most people will think you already are
20. You have now endured the most pain you will ever experience so things can only get better

The birth of The Baby Bump

Babies. Possibly the most confusing of all the human (and animal) race. Maybe the most amazing. And definitely the most time consuming. Ten weeks on from the birth of my first child and I still wonder where the hours in the day go. I am now a milk making, poop cleaning and sleep inducing machine that only just manages to have a shower (2 stolen minutes only), eat breakfast (cold porridge at 3pm) and get dressed (back into my PJ's) each day.

Let's think back to ante-natal classes, way back in those quiet, sleep filled pre-baby days. What was the one thing they drilled into you (besides the importance of breastfeeding and not leaving your baby alone in the bath)? Find time for yourself. Talk about your feelings and by God, have a good old rant when you need to!

Motherhood is tough at the best of times. It's beautiful, it's mind numbing, it's body and soul consuming and it's totally and utterly exhausting.

I plan to write about all of it.