Mummy Minute

When you become a Mummy you have Mummy Magic bestowed upon you. Being pregnant in itself is pretty magical as you grow a little human. Then during the birth and recovery you begin to outwardly demonstrate your super powers, the first being strength. This is coupled with your new ability to love more than you ever imagined possible as you care for your new baby.

As your baby grows you discover more of your super powers. You realise you can survive on little to no sleep, you might not function at high cognitive speed as you fumble through those early hazy days, but you stay awake…mostly. When your baby begins to explore and starts to crawl and climb you discover your super power of detecting any and all possible hazards and act accordingly to remedy these. You even like the new look of your home, with its rubber edging, its extra mini gates which prove near impossible to open (ah yes another super power, the ability to unlock child proof gates and locks…unless its at someone else’s house) as well as the various child safety devices adorning draws and cupboards.

When your child begins to walk you realise another superpower, the ability to detect and prevent falls as you move at lightning speed grabbing your toddlers hand and stopping them from falling. Failing this super power as it sometimes gets away from you, and is less intense the more children you have, you pull out more Mummy Magic; the kiss that heals all. I find this one very handy, particularly with our accident prone Miss 2, but even Miss 3 is a fan. Example: Child falls over, Mummy kisses ouchy, all better! (Disclaimer: This is not to be used in place of medical treatment where medical attention is necessary, although used alongside medical intervention when necessary it still has a magical effect).

As your child begins to talk you find you have even more Mummy Magic, although you really had this super power from the first loving eye contact and baby cooing. The ability to speak in multiple baby and child metalanguages is powerful. You understand what your toddler is saying when others don’t, your family begins to talk in code on many topics (eg. our first child coined the word “Co-ie-ite” in reference to a ‘crocodile’ so it is forever the term we use when referring to crocodiles, just as “Ice-kiss” is used for’ ice cream’ and “dat bun” is used to say ‘that one’). Not only do you have a new metalanguage you intersperse whilst speaking your mother tongue, you also are able to have entire dialogues in baby babble and in toddler gibberish.

More Mummy Magic includes but is not limited to becoming aware of any possible germs laying on any possible surface and being able to clean rapidly as you go about your day chasing little ones. As you have more kids and as they grow you use this power less but harness another power as you find new uses for everyday items. For example you now see the potential to use baby wipes for basically anything and realise it could replace all cleaning products. You can fashion boats out of plastic containers and buses out of cereal boxes. You are able to make stories come to life for you children as you read them books with various expressive character voices you didn’t realise you could impersonate and you create identities from wooden blocks and pegs as you play make-believe games with your preschooler. You are now also a great singer, until your child is nearing 4 and whilst they will still request songs, they may also tell you “Don’t sing Mummy”.

Magic Mummy is the queen of adapting as often your plans change last minute as your little bosses decide they no longer want to wear pants but rather pyjamas to the park, or they no longer eat toast unless you cut it a certain way and will only eat fruit presented as a face on the green plate, not the pink plate, it must be the green plate! You have nailed the fine art of thinking ahead, and exude magic in your ability to foresee a tantrum and stop it occurring in most instances as you predict your child’s triggers and divert away from them. For instance you know your preschooler will only eat toast cut into triangles presented on the blue plate with milk needing to be given in the rabbit mug with two handles as one handle simply isn’t enough.

Other super powers include scaring away monsters from under the bed, drinking invisible tea made by your toddler and identifying everything as your toddler asks “What’s this?” whilst holding a speck of something out for you to see (usually some fluff found on the carpet). And you can convince your young child of nearly anything. For instance you might hold out some lose cotton and announce its a spider, but be careful as your preschooler might scream loudly as she is actually terrified of spiders and you were unaware of this until this very instance. Your upper body strength increases as you use the power of balance to hold you kids attached to you at various places such as the hip, your leg, your back and also held in your front in a carrier. That brings us to another super power; the ability to figure out all kinds of useful and essential harnesses and child restraints such as baby car seats, pram buckles, baby carriers.

You also have the privileged and important power to be your child’s first and best teacher; a teacher of love, respect, patience, empathy and kindness. All of these super powers are wonderful and very useful. But the most powerful super power is the ability you have to make your child smile and laugh as you love them and give them the most magical magic of all; quality time shared with your children. Be sure to use this super power daily as it is simply the best!

Each time I have been pregnant I have been extremely careful about what went into my body and what I put on my body. That means I was overly cautious about what I consumed as well as what I applied to my skin. I’ll admit I was even a a bit “Pregnancy Paranoid” as those around me would say, “One glass of wine won’t hurt” and “I ate whatever I wanted when I was pregnant, there were none of these rules!”. My own mother and mother-in-law admitted they had indeed had some wine whilst pregnant and look at how we all turned out okay! But I always thought, but what if it wasn’t okay, what if I ate something or did something that hurt my precious baby? What then? I would only have myself to blame and I would never be able to forgive myself. My job as Mummy was clear to me, it was and still is to protect my beautiful bundles from the moment of conception…at least from the moment I saw two blue lines appear and their existence was confirmed.

This “Pregnancy Paranoia” meant I went without for the entire length of the pregnancies. I went without eye lash tints, without waxes (don’t worry, I did shave), without perfumes, without hair colours, without make up (for the most part) and the list goes on. I forced myself to say no to unbaked cheesecakes, to soft cheeses, to deli meats and fast food. Not one morsel of delicious food listed on the ‘Foods to Avoid During Pregnancy’ check-list passed through my lips. By week 36 I was writing my husband an extensive list of foods I wanted him to bring to hospital once the baby was born. I was also scheduling in beauty treatments that had been forbidden during pregnancy, just in case any dyes or parabens were absorbed and passed onto my unborn child.

After the first weeks (months really) tending to my newborns every need, feeding and sleeping the days and nights away, I suddenly realised I no longer really knew who I was anymore. Yes I was still Rachel, yes I still looked the same (well kind of, underneath the tiredness, wounds of childbirth and stretching of pregnancy) but in the flux of pregnancy and Mummy hormones and with my new job as full time mother, I had lost myself. It wasn’t upsetting to me to feel lost, as I knew I was lost to a greater love for my child, yet I still felt I needed to find myself again, even if only briefly. Pondering how to do this I remembered a wise nurse telling me that I needed to look after myself in order to look after others. Yes, thats’ it, I needed to actually do something for myself. But what?

By the time I had feeding and sleeping sorted with my new baby months had passed. Finally able to separate myself from my child for long enough to achieve more than a shower I was able to have some time to find myself. I felt terribly worn down, yet also slightly exhilarated when I was able to just be by myself, even if only whilst doing the previously mundane task of grocery shopping. Knowing that once my baby had fed I now had potentially a few hours where I wasn’t “needed” as husband could look after our baby in every other way besides breastfeeding, I booked in to the hairdresser.

As I sat in the chair looking at my exhausted reflection, hair springing about this way and that, I had this crazy thought; ‘What if I cut my hair…shorter…much shorter?’. I hardly had any time to prepare myself for human interactions anymore anyway. Conversations were hard enough without scraggly hair making me look a mess. Surely shorter hair would be easier, and it would be a fresh look for me too. Convinced I would “find myself” with a little TLC I instructed the hairdresser to please cut my hair, not boy short, just shorter than shoulder length. Any last minute concerns were quashed by my inner voice telling me I was a Mummy now, meaning I must be more mature and that means shorter hair, right?

Turns out there’s a phrase for what I did; ‘The Mum Cut’. “Wow, nice do, like your Mum cut, ” well meaning friends would bemuse. Then as I looked around me I saw them everywhere, Mum Cuts. I saw them at the shopping centre pushing their prams with their neat bobs bouncing as they walked. At the park I noticed more Mum Cuts as they chased their boisterous children about, infringed by longer locks no more. And I saw the Mum Cut in the mirror as my own reflection looked back at me shrugging her shoulders, chiding, “I guess this is it, you really are a Mum now”. It appeared to me that the Mum Cut was almost a rite of passage. An epidemic among new Mums as they came to grips with their new roles.

Having recently become a mum for the third time now I have again experienced the Mum Cut, but this time of a slightly different nature. I have been trying to grow my hair longer since my first encounter with the Mum Cut, realising I didn’t need to lose hair to find myself again. So as my Mr 3 months old is slowly forming some semblance of routine, and I have recovered from the throws of birth and now have some handle on mothering three young children, I decided again it was time to do something for myself. But instead of cut my hair, this time I chose to colour it. I hadn’t coloured my hair in years and being a brunette I had never done anything as daring as put blonde through my hair (except for a failed experiment as a teenager when I applied a little bleach found in my mother’s bathroom to a small patch of hair that turned a horrible orangey colour…lesson learnt).

So this afternoon our hairdresser visited our home and as my two curious daughters watched on I had my hair coloured. I’m not sure my kids noticed the change, although Miss 3 now refers to me as “beautiful pretty hair” as she strokes my newly coloured tresses.  And my Miss 2  announced “Painting Mummy’s hair!” Perhaps I should avoid paints for a little while. My thoughtful hairdresser has assured me it will be a low maintenance look, something a mum of young kids needs. But I will need a touch up in how many weeks…? As I jot my next hair appointment in my diary I now know I made the better choice this time, to colour rather than cut, as I already have some “me time” booked in for a few weeks from now. And as for finding me again after being lost to the third love of my life (well fourth if you count my enduring husband), I’m not sure if I ever really will find myself again. I know I would be lost without my beautiful babies, and so I enjoy being lost with them in this blur of nappies, cuddles, songs, mess, play, laughter and love.

Being a Mummy you may find yourself wondering about various things. For example you might question how many chocolate biscuits is it really okay to eat in one day, or how long do you wait for your toddler to respond to your request before you accept they really aren’t listening and intervention is needed. I found myself wondering about bath poo the other day. Bath time is going well when all of a sudden your toddler announces,  “I did a poo!”. She stands up in the bath, your terrified preschooler screaming in horror as she madly tries to escape the floating boogie emerging on the waters surface. So I begin to wonder, if the poo is in the bath, and the bath has soap in the water, is the poo now clean? Do I need to run another bath? Obviously I need to remove the poo, or rather husband dearest does, but do the kids require a second bath becasue they were exposed to bath poo?

I find every day I have more Mummy Wonders where I question things I’m sure I never thought about before becoming a mum. For example, vomit sheets. Now I love co-sleeping with our Mr 3 month old, he’s just so snuggly (and if I admit it, I’m a bit lazy, he settles easier in my arms so we all get more sleep). As a breastfeeding mum he feeds during the night in our bed and sometimes (most nights) he vomits up some milk onto our sheets. With our first two darlings I was quicker to change the sheets, I mean its vomit, eww. But now I find myself wondering, if I just place a towel over it and let it dry I can change the sheets on my usual bed making day and no one will know? Don’t get me wrong, if my children did a chunky spew or any other kind of vomit in their beds I’d change the sheets instantly, even whilst in zombie sleep mode with one eye open as I load up the washing machine. But I’m talking about little baby spews, its just milk so vomit sheets can stay.

The other day I was at the park with my brood. We have all had colds for weeks, we keep passing it on like a game of hot potato or pass the parcel but there are no prizes, just lots of coughing, heaps of snot and loads of tissues. It had been one of those days where getting out of the house was a struggle so when we finally made it to the park I hadn’t packed well. I watched as my Miss 2 attempted to lick away the secretions dripping from her little nose. I padded myself down; crap, no tissues and there’s another mum here with her kid. What do I do? I try to lure my child away from the other kid playing in the playground whilst I think of a snot strategy. And I begin to wonder, is it okay to wipe away the snot with my sleeve? I look around, quick noone is looking, I pull my sleeve over my hand and wipe her nose. Phew, that was close, I may have been discovered to be in fact human and not the perfect mummy we pressure ourselves to be. I was relieved when I saw the other mum in the park wipe her kids nose with her sleeve. We gave each other a comrade nod, we understood, we both had snot struggles at that point in time.

Other things I have wondered about include ways to quicken the getting ready process in the mornings. After getting 3 kiddies ready I barley have any time left for myself. If we are staying home I usually wonder if its okay to just stay in my pyjamas, and the answer is astoundingly yes! My clothes are barraged with snot, vomit, wee, food and sweat every day, so formal attire is rarley needed in my job. Looking in the mirror I wonder, is it okay to use some moisturiser as hair gel? I can moisturise and do my hair in one go? Oh no! The moisturiser is visible, better rub it in fast. Now I have less time, can I use a baby wipe to freshen up? Why not, I utilise baby wipes for almost everything now I’m a mum. Then I wonder why aren’t baby wipes marketed to all people of all ages, they really are very useful. Now I’m not advocating the use of disposable wipes when we can use face washers and so forth as we have the environment to consider. But I know we will now likely always have baby wipes on hand well beyond the baby years.

Speaking of baby wipes, they make me wonder even more; can I really use a baby wipe to do a quick wet dust around the home? Tick. Can I use a baby wipe as a tissue. Yes! (Why didn’t I think of that at the park…wait I mustn’t have had any on hand). Can I use a baby wipe to “cleanse” my face. Of course! Now whilst in the bathroom getting ready I hear my toddler call out “Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, MUMMY! MUM! MUMMY! …RACHEL” and I wonder two things. First, if I am really really quiet, will she stop yelling and go and play so I can have another minute to myself? “MUMMY! RACHEL!” Door opens, “What doing? Come ‘ere”. Answer, no, wherever you go, they will find you, then demand your attention. Next I wonder, how does my then Miss 18 month old know my first name? Never mind, I’ll wonder more about this later as I’m now being  led away by tiny hands.

When it comes to nutrition I am very careful about ensuring I provide well rounded healthy meals for our children. But as our family has expanded I don’t have as much time to make fruit faces (although I find time to make them to avoid tantrums let me tell you!), or salad sandwiches at lunch time. So I wonder, is it okay to have cereal for lunch? It has dairy which is calcium and cereal tastes great any time of day, so the answer is yes! I am however relieved when I visit a mummy friend later and she offers our kids toast for afternoon tea, so breakfast food is really all day food. And when running a laundromat, playtime, cleaning company and cafe all day every day, sometimes a quick fix is needed.

After a long day of wondering, and a night with broken sleep as I tend to my little bosses’ feeding and sleeping demands, I wonder if I lay here quietly with my eyes closed, will my preschooler think I’m actually still asleep when she races into our room in the morning? And better yet, will she let me sleep? Answer, no. I wonder then if I pretend to be asleep during the day will my bosses give me mini break. Answer, no! Our toddler takes great pride in yelling “Wake utt!” (translation “Wake up!). So the next morning I wonder, if I hide under the blankets, will my preschooler let me have a mini sleep in? Hmmmm, I hear her walk into our room, how can I resist a morning cuddle from my Miss 3, especially as wondering has already told me that my Miss 3 loves to cuddle and even lets me stay in bed a bit longer as we snuggle in the mornings. Which only leaves me to wonder how I never knew I could love this much before I had children. And then I wonder how I got so lucky to be their mummy. And then I smile.

 

 

 

When you have your first baby you want everything to be absolutely perfect. Often there is a baby shower perfectly planned with cupcakes presented immaculately, ornate decorations that all match and a list of games prepared carefully to entertain guests. The nursery is set up meticulously; each toy has its place, wipes and nappies sit neatly on a change table shelf and all linen is folded and kept methodically. The house is clean and your precisely packed hospital bag waits near the door as you nest away, eagerly anticipating your new baby’s arrival.

Finally the day of baby’s arrival comes, and its far less pretty than you ever imagined. There’s blood, fluids of all sorts, sweat, spit from your frothing mouth as you swear at your partner whilst gripping their hand in a vice like manner, and eww, is that poo? For a Caesar mother it is no less messy with tubes going in and out here and there, blood, and did I just fart or have I shit myself? Whichever way baby comes out, it gets messy and your dignity is checked at the door. By the second day you have composed yourself somewhat, even if only during visiting hours. The sponge bath or first shower cleanses you as you shudder away the traumatic birth memories and soak in your newborn’s loveliness.

Taking baby home is a big step and you try your best to make sure everything remains prefect for the sake of your precious baby, and sometimes for your sanity. As you work away at feeding your baby and helping your baby sleep, feeding and sleeping, feeding and sleeping, you begin to notice strange things. You notice the laundry pile starts to climb higher and higher each week. You see dust where there previously was no dust. You observe bins overflowing with nappies and wipes, much like the sink is now overflowing with dirty dishes. You breathe, as long as baby doesn’t touch ‘yuck’ everything is okay.

You now carry wipes with you everywhere and as baby grows you do your best to spot clean wherever baby tries to crawl or touch. Your cleaning and nervousness about germs becomes a little obsessive compulsive making you tense when you spot a potential  hazard. “Don’t touch that!” you yelp out as your baby grabs some item from the floor, for you haven’t sanitised it yet, phew that was close! Your mission is to ensure baby doesn’t come into contact with any germs, you don’t want her getting sick after all. Playground outings become germ patrol as you avoid any children with a runny nose or cough for at least a 5 metre radius. Often you pick your now nearly year old out of a playground looking on in horror as another child sneezes in your direction as you quickly move away trying to escape the germs.

By your first child’s first birthday you are exhausted but happy you survived the first year. You celebrate your achievements with a huge party, fully themed and all ‘matchy matchy’ of course, and with some over the top cake. You have to impress your, well your guests as your kid is so overwhelmed by the whole event they hardly notice the cake and decorations. And once they do have some cake they smash it so fast they surely can’t have noticed the ornate fondant icing decorations you spent hours making (or hundreds buying). This is your baby’s first taste of sugary sweetness, you have managed to avoid all junk food up until this first bite of birthday cake. You are very proud of this fact. You had to swat away Grandma as she attempted to hand your baby treats several times, but you made it, a year with no junk food (at least your baby didn’t have any, you on the other hand…).

As you help your baby unwrap presents your little one beams and squeals in delight as they proudly hold up a large blue owl with two huge yet friendly eyes. The owl sings a song, and suddenly everyone around you is singing the same tune. How do they know this tune? You have never heard it before. Then a guest, your friend with a slightly older child, points out it is the theme song for “Giggle and Hoot”. Who? Giggle and who? Never mind, your child is besotted by the owl. Perhaps you should let her watch television once in a while? You have escaped its use for a year now, you give yourself a pat on the back. You have thousands of photos from your child’s first year, dozens of hand prints, and a precious lock of hair from the first trim as you aim to capture every momentous moment in your baby’s life, and every other moment in between. And this party is no exception as you take thousands of photos of this joyous celebration.

A few months (or years) later and two little blue lines change your life as you prepare for your family to expand. You are more relaxed this time yet still set an incredibly high standard for your Mummying skills. This time you nest as much as you can, but with a toddler taking everything apart, packing a hospital bag and stacking a nappy caddy neatly in anticipation of a new baby are hardly at the top of your to do list. Not with crayon to clean off the walls and the remnants of lunch to sweep from the floors.

When your new baby arrives you are better prepared for the messiness of childbirth and aren’t as fussed about having a tidy house when you return home with your second bundle of joy. You do your best to keep your toddler away from the baby with their grubby hands poking and prodding but eventually give up and enjoy the sibling bond, at least when there is no face poking going on. Your laundry pile remains high and never really seems to go away, except for maybe that half hour after you have just placed your five loads of clean laundry away in draws and on shelves. Your floor is visible through a scattering of toys, books and belongings. Your toddler likes to leave a trail from their room, just like Hansel and Gretel left a trail of breadcrumbs, so they could find their way back home again.

With your second, you still have wipes on hand but have given up the disinfectant carrying as your nappy bag is fuller than ever now. You are determined to take as many photos of your second child as you have done so with your first and have your camera still on hand to snap all the special moments, and most moments in between too. You don’t want any sibling rivalry so you aim to do everything just as perfectly this time round. But as your second child grows and gets bigger you realise its a lot harder to protect them from germs. This is especially difficult now as your toddler is often the germ carrying culprit sneezing in your baby’s direction.

By your second child’s first birthday you have for the most part given up on the incessant hand wiping, and don’t yell so much for your children to “Drop that!” or “Don’t touch that!” but rather to “Stop that!” as they “play” together. You plan another huge celebration of your surviving your second child’s first year. Again you don’t want sibling rivalry, they must have everything the same! Then if you are crazy enough to go again, you wake up one day with a huge pregnant belly and realise that oh my, am I already 37 weeks pregnant, perhaps I should pack my hospital bag, until your preschooler and toddler distract you with their yelling “Mummy, come here!” as they too have awoken. Your midwife reminds you to pack your bag but you insist there’s plenty of time, you’ve done it all before, no need to panic.

Again you lay in a hospital bed with a beautiful newborn in your arms. You don’t worry about all the mess around you, you are just thankful you survived that ordeal…again. When you return home you carefully step between toys and books, clothes and other items strewn across the floor and settle in to the task of feeding and assisting your newborn to sleep. Your laundry pile is now three laundry piles, never empty, never clean all at once. Your linen cupboard is all messed up, not even towel sets remain together as you just grab what ever is on top. And your children eat popcorn as they watch kiddies programs on television, both now singing the theme songs by heart. As you watch them absorbed by the television, holding handfuls of popcorn, you look at your third baby and whisper “You have no chance baby, your siblings will be handing you junk food as soon as you are sitting up and able to eat!”. Your new baby stares at the lights coming from the television, you only made it a week before they watched television this time.

You realise you need to embrace the mess as it isn’t going away, not with three kiddies making it now. And as for germ protection, your dog has already licked your new baby’s face in the first week of being home and your toddler has poked baby in the eyes when you weren’t looking and your preschooler has coughed in their face. You pack a lighter nappy bag now, realising you only need to pack the essentials (nappies, wipes, dummy, drink bottle, snack etc), rather than packing for every possible scenario and weather change that might occur in the brief time you are out of the house…if you ever get out of the house again. Whilst driving with three kiddies all tucked up in their car seats alongside each other you realise its suddenly eerily quiet. You turn to inspect what the issue is as silence is never golden when there’s kids involved. You discover your toddler is stuffing a snotty tissue in your three week olds’ mouth and as you swat her away from the baby you realise your family will from now on be sharing any and all germs. There’s no point sanctioning off drink bottles as you try to avoid the spread of colds and illness between kids, and you realise your third baby will probably not have their hands wiped incessantly upon contact with any germy looking object as you did with your first and attempted with your second.

Life becomes a blur of nappy changes, preparing meals, preparing snacks, loads of laundry, wiping noses, wiping little hands, picking up toys, loads of laundry and more laundry. Its after your third load of laundry in the same morning that you decide its okay to continue to sleep in a bed with baby sick up on the sheets, it will dry and you can’t keep changing the sheets daily right? Your new fragrance is ‘Eau De Baby Vomit’ and you wear it as a mark of solidarity on your shirt, proudly bowing your head as you come across other mothers during your school run. With the five minutes you have to get ready in the morning you have to decide between brushing your teeth and putting on deodorant. Don’t take too long deciding, you are running out of time! You moisturise your face and use a little extra to tame some stray hairs. Looking in the mirror you realise you don’t look your best but race off to get your kids ready anyway. You spend more time plaiting your preschoolers hair than you do getting dressed! After all, if your kids are happy, you are happy.

You still take photos of your third child, but not nearly as many, there just isn’t time. And as for hand prints, if you have done one set by the time this kid is 1 you have achieved success! You often carry your third baby in one arm as you chase around after your toddler who finds emptying cupboards great fun. You never would have dreamed of holding your first baby with only one arm, but now you do it like a pro. You think ahead to their first birthday and realise that whilst there will be a celebration of your survival of the first year again, its possibly less work to combine the Baptism/Naming Ceremony with the first birthday, and its only one cake then! And as for a party theme, ‘theme sheme’, who needs a theme!

As a mum of three little ones I realise that whilst I aim for perfection with my Mummying as I love my kids more than anything and would do anything for them, I have lowered my standards with each consecutive bundle of joy. I have included a chart to express how this Perfect Mummying Syndrome (otherwise known as PMS) works. You will notice the decline in the Perfection Scale as more children are added to your brood. However, its not for lack of quality, its simply a flow on from reality. The reality that even with three or more kids we aim to be perfect mums yet become more real about what’s achievable, and once we get to that point our Mummying balances out and we become more content and confident in our skills. We realise if our kids are happy and loved and we survive each day, we are doing a great job. So don’t stress the PMS, relax and enjoy your kids and the mess that comes with being a mum.