Who Am I?

Who am I?  I ask myself that most days.  In between insanity and Motherhood (the space really is short some days), I ponder the thought.  Insanity is when I wake up from a trance and find that in my attempt to be perfect Mrs housewife, cleaning random household items, I wake to find I am now eagerly ironing the frilly part of my knickers that barely see the light of day, or is that night? anyway, Motherhood on the other hand is those tiny moments of pure bliss spent with Pickles.  The first of the brood (according to my hubby who wants to fill a zoo with offspring).  Those Motherhood moments disappear so quickly that the thought of having it blogged gave me a chance at remembering them.  So…

I’ve done it! I have joined the millions of bloggers out there and (nervously) created my first blog. Oh the pressure to get the first one over and done with was haunting me with every cup of tea over the last two days.  ’Just do it’ I kept telling myself, ‘it’s gotta be better than coming back to consciousness each time you decide to iron your only pair of frilly knickers’.

With that statement lingering over my birds nest hair and the circles around my eyes, here I am and here I type.

Me, well, I’m 37 and still in that euphoric stage of wanting to squish and kiss my little girl every time she comes within meters of me. She is 23 months old and is giving me a run for my money already. Oh, and is fed up with squishes and kisses.

My mummy story started back in, errr ummmm, think think, oh yes, 2005, when hubby and I finally decided “This is it. Let’s do it, let’s play house”. It feels like centuries ago now, not just 4 years ago. For us it was continuous peeing on sticks (well, luckily for hubby he never had to aim at any) more than 8 times in 18 months. Fed up with crying we finally fell pregnant.  Now, 16 months on, my misinterpretations of being a first time mum are all yours.  So do laugh, cry, appear bemused and overall nod your head with a “oh yes, been there done that” kind of attitude as you divulge in my adventure as a mum.

So what lead me to starting a blog?

Why boredom of course! No, honestly, my short trip down parent lane has been such an adventure with twists and turns at every corner. Starting a blog seemed to be the thing to do. I am deeply passionate about my daughter and her journey in life that I read, read, read all the time. Magically, the idea appeared to me one night while lying in bed awake for the 12th night in a row.  Not knowing a thing about Blogs or ever having read one, I, as I normally do, got an idea in my head, and am now running with it, as fast as my hairy legs can take me. So here I share my experiences (so called mishaps and other flavored attempts at becoming a mummy).

As a first time Mum and living 10000 miles away from my family and friends I was desperate for guidance.  Guidance, advice, lies, anything to head me in the right direction in my new journey.  Not finding it, I plugged away at my new career following what advice I could from midwives, healthvisitors, friends, NCT groupies, and many more.  The notorious and most funny pieces of information came from those strangers, you know the ones, the ladies in Marks & Spencer or in the waiting room at the doctors.  Those unsolicited comments that came from ten thousand years ago: My favourite being: “Dear, we never had washing machines in our day so all the nappies were handwashed every day (pause… she looks up disappointingly), we didn’t have the money to buy disposables either”.  Trying to make me feel bad while I change a horrendous poo, pampers in hand, is not a good idea I thought, smiling back at her. However, I managed to wing my way through my first year and am now embarking on a totally new path with a toddler.

I have to admit, I am one of those Mothers who had an expectation that my ‘motherly instinct’ would guide me in the right direction to becoming a great Mummy, especially in the first few weeks. However, I, yes me, was afraid of Pampers. Those pesky little velcro strapps seemed to grin their cranky sharp teeth at me every time I had to change Pickles nappy. I couldn’t do it. I was terrified of failing her.

The truth is, being a mummy didn’t just ‘intuitively fall down from parental heaven’ for me. (Read more here). By the time Pickles was 8 weeks old I was heading for PND – Me, the one who always has a smile on her face and can cope with anything – was given a warning. I had to delve into parts of me, parts of my husband (lets not go there, uh hmm) and parts of my life that I never expected to find.  Who would have known that Pampers could cause such a terrifying reaction when I had just had a baby. The fear of doing things wrong when that expected ‘motherly instinct’ hadn’t yet kicked in was hard to cope with.

Now 16 months on I am far from the person who began such a shaky journey, fighting with nappies. However, I never fully developed PND and continue to fall in love again and again with her, day after day after day.

So now I scribble via my shiny new macbook in the hope that I may re read these posts and one day make sense of some of it.

All my life motherhood was a very distant idea.  I never wanted children up until 5 years ago.  Now, I feel like I was destined to be a Mummy, it feels so natural, so right. I love it.  Even if I now iron frilly knickers!  It is probably the most challenging and rewarding role a woman gets to face as not only do you connect with a new you, and new hormones (which have a nack of showing up at the wrong time) but we are forced to remold ourselves in each role that we play in life.  And if your like me, without the help of nannies.  This blog goes from here, to maternity and beyond.