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October 29, 2012

112 Comments

Ok quick…shh…she’s asleep!  Maybe I can tap out a few paragraphs before she wakes up….  I love my darling baby, sweetie, darling, two-year-old but oh my goodness, what the?!

I’m waking up at hours that a few years ago would have been my bedtime!  Gone are the days of the night-owl life and all day sleeps, these are the days of late night laundry, early morning children’s tv and hardly any sleep at all.  Ugh.  I thought working 14-hour days at festivals was a long haul….I can hear your peels of mocking laughter, yes I can…and rockstar tantrums about the wrong vodka look positively beige in comparison to the screaming red-faced scene at the supermarket this afternoon.  This parenting caper is a really tough gig.

I have unreservedly apologised to my friends who became mothers before me, for not understanding why they wanted to meet for breakfast. (“Meet at 8am! Are you kidding me?”) Now I understand, now that I’m a mother. By 8am I’ve already been up for hours trying to contain my mood in a fragile, glass jar.  I’ve been repeating the same sentence since 5am.  I’m starting to twitch. I want to leave this chaotic abode far behind and wish it wasn’t such a mission just to get out the door.

Coffeeeeeee.  “Mission control, I need contact.  I can see the planet but I don’t seem to be on it. I’m stuck in some kind of iggly-piggly vortex, vacuuming.”

I’m not going to call this post-natal depression, because I had that, and this is not the same.  This is most probably aftershock or delirium. I see the beauty in my child, I love her more every day, but I lament the good ol’ times. I miss my guitar, I miss my friends, I miss my spunky size 10 wardrobe, I miss all the things that made me, me.  All my juggling balls were thrown into the air and blasted into pieces.  Who I was, scattered like ash all over the place and I can’t see anything clearly for the dust.  My eyes are sore.

I know I’m not the only one standing here squinting into the past and wishing that this beautiful child were my niece.

I would have been an awesome aunty. She and I and Peter Pan would have had a fantastic time together because back then I didn’t get upset by people drumming at 5am, I didn’t lose my wig over a few squashed sultanas and I quite liked sand. Back then, back then, back then….stop!

Today, I have a child who, in reality, saved me and spared me the indignity of becoming the weird, old lady at parties.  I have the opportunity to grow and learn about myself in ways I never could have otherwise.

Today, I can gaze at clouds, dance like a rabbit and laugh at farts.

I am obliged to enjoy the small things. I am able to create a reality that is better, brighter and more beautiful than ever.

Today, I know that somebody loves me.

If I can salvage only one thing from my world before children it will be this philosophy:

Live for today. Make good memories. Be as free as possible.

Must remember…must remember…must remember

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  • This made me giggle, I’ve only just started this journey and already look back at those 10am sleep ins with envy. And the wardrobe! Those outfits! I’m hoping once breastfeeding is over these Tig ol bitties can fit back into my dresses. He’s so worth 12, 3 and 5am wake ups but you can’t help but look back when you has less responsibility.

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  • yeah i don’t remember what life was like before…lol you don’t have that frame of reference until afterwards

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  • I loved sleeping in on weekends

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  • I remember those days, I could read a whole book in one afternoon.

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  • I enjoyed your writing, do keep it up when darling is asleep. Congratulations! Your writing style highlights a great sense of humour which shines through your description of the realisation that things will never be the same : )
    I look forward to more of your writing.

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  • My body clock has my up early, even when I can sleep in.

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  • Ah yes, I remember sleep

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  • How life changes. Dinner at 7 is now a late one.

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  • Good read thanks for the information

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  • It is amazing how your priorities, days and enjoyment of things changes, wouldn’t swap it for the world though.

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  • It was a couple years before my daughter slept through the night

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  • Just wait til they’re teenagers. You don’t sleep then either, waiting to pick them up or come home haha. Good article though, I love honest parents.


    • you literally took words out of my mouth…so true!

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  • Thanks for sharing. Great article. I enjoyed reading it.

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  • Enjoyed reading – thanks for sharing.

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  • What I want to know is why we were not warned!! How come no mother friends or even my own mother failed to pass on these gems of wisdom?? Make the most if the good times girls!!

    Reply

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