Water Play

This week I have found really hard, what with colds, an unwanted trip to hospital, mention again of fundoplication surgery which I am really not keen on, an increase in physio as Wriggles' muscle tone is playing up and her legs are getting more exaggerated which is not a good thing for inducing mobility and lashings of torrential rain. This afternoon, our friends came round which was a very welcome bit of socialisation with no medical strings attached and really helped to clear the metaphorical clouds looming above my head! Trying to keep on the good track this afternoon, I decided it was high time we tried out Wriggles' birthday present: a water table.

I found choosing presents quite hard for her second birthday; things that would fit in my small flat, things she would enjoy, things that would push her, things that wouldn't drive me off a cliff...things I could afford! She loves messy play and is a complete water baby, and in the absence of swimming while her stoma site heals, playing at the sink is the next best thing. Or better, a table on the floor with less scope to slip over. Also it challenged her legs as it was a perfect incentive to stay standing and bearing (some) weight.

We chucked in all the bath toys, some stacking cups with holes in, a stray ball from a ball pit, a nice pouring cup and filled up the sides. I tried to have one side with strongly scented bubbles and the other plain water with a bit of glitter ("DAAAAARRRRS!") which of course got mixed up in about five seconds flat.

 And then let her loose!

It was really therapeutic playing with the water, but mostly seeing how much fun she was having. My floor got an impromptu thorough wash, which to be honest is probably no bad thing. We poured, splashed, shouted, sang and had a whale of a time. Just what the doctor ordered.

Muuuum, I am NOT doing your washing up for you!

Two Tomorrow

Two. She's going to be TWO tomorrow. TOMORROW. TWO.

I can't believe it.

I feel intermittently delirious with excitement on her behalf, and sick with fear as the memories race through my head.

Two years ago, I was pretty much without a care in the world.

Today, I have a bundle of giggles who also requires a higher standard of care than other two year olds.

Why hasn't there been a fanfare, why didn't a bell toll two years ago? How can it happen so quietly, so unassuming? One day a singleton, the next a mother. One day at home, the next in hospital. And conversely, one day in hospital, the next at home. 

Two years ago I knew little of heart ache and far less about love than I would have liked to think.

Two years later I know the dizzying heights of sheer joy and pure adoration and that love is not soft, it is fierce like a tiger. I know the line of despair, terror and consuming guilt.

A little under two years ago, I bought a book roughly around the time my daughter was in NICU or possibly just came out. The Heart and the Bottle, by Oliver Jeffers. I loved his illustration style, but the book made me cry instantly. It was far more grown up that his previous works, and dealt with love and loss. 

"Once there was a girl who was much like any other

Her head was filled with the curiosity of the world

With thoughts of the stars

With wonder of the sea

She took delight in finding new things

Until one day she found an empty chair

Feeling unsure, the girl thought the best thing was to put her heart in a safe place

Just for the time being..." 

And so, the book examines how when your heart is in a safe place, say a bottle, it seems to fix things at first. Maybe at first it is necessary. But as time goes on, it dulls the world around you. You start to think less of the stars, see less wonder in the sea, and new things are left undiscovered, the world slowly drifting further and further from your island. 

After the shock, and I hate to say it, but trauma, of having Wriggles, I was very afraid to feel. I was afraid to grip any emotion head-on for the fear it would consume me whole for breakfast. All through NICU, I was so desperate to feel something, anything. I felt protective, I felt fiercely protective, but I also felt numb. I felt like I was in a bottle, looking out clearly on the world but with a sheet of glass between us. I could shout but no one could hear me. They could see me, and waved cheerfully. But I could only stand, pressed up, and wish to be free yet afraid of what was out there. I wish I could say that when I brought Wriggles home, the spell was broken. I think very slowly it began to break, but I still felt so fogged. I knew I was in love, but who knew love was so painful, so fragile, so vulnerable and so closely entwined with a deep seated guilt that threatened to destroy things? 

I can't pinpoint when the moment was that things changed, and I found the key to unlocking things. In the book, the girl finds a little friend on the beach who easily unplucks her heart for her. In my life it was not so simple. I was slowly emerging back into the world and allowing myself to sink completely into a devout love with my child, free of any terror or hauntings of the past months of NICU or birth, when she abruptly ended up slap bang in PICU. I knew then what I had to loose, once she was there and it set a terror deeper than anything when I realised that the most precious thing to me might be ripped away again. It was so clear how much she meant to me then and that maybe I hadn't been being true to us both, when I had felt too afraid to love her without abandon. Those days until she was out of the critical period were the worst I have ever felt. Going to sleep with no snuffler by my side felt so bleak, as if the world had stopped turning and lost all it's colour, smells and sounds. I felt bereft, even walking to her cubicle, without her by my side. That moment, weeks later when she came out of her induced coma and I could hold her again was in glorious technicolour. Oh she was floppy, she was pale, she was weak. But she was mine. Mine, mine, mine. I will never ever ever let you go, baby girl. 

Of course, it wasn't as simple as that was that. Having my baby back with me, being back with her all the time was the most wonderful feeling ever and affirmed how much I had given over to her, but when we got home I struggled to deal with how things had gone and fell deep into a state of mental unrest coupled with cripplingly guilt that I wasn't making the most of things. I would walk along and cry for no reason, convinced that however much I loved her it would never be enough to make up for her little life so far.

I don't know when that stopped, but it did or at least got to the point of being manageable and I was able to tell my inner jimminy cricket to sod off from time to time. I began to go to baby groups again, to venture to exotic lands like The Park, The Seaside, Coffee Shops. And suddenly things improved. I began to have conversations with fellow mums and not feel a fraud or a headcase.  I saw my baby for being my baby, not a fragile being with too many miniature scars. I began to see that there was a chance, no a fact, that she loved me back. Last birthday was still a struggle. I was doing better but nearer the date became flustered with too many memories and kept nearly blacking out. This birthday, I think I am better. I am excited. I have done present shopping. I have blown up balloons with a faulty balloon pump: now that is love. I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve now most days. It's frightening because there it is, right there, free for the taking. It's not protected, it could easily be broken or damaged. But it's better than locking it away, isn't it? Better than locking me, us, away. I think. I'm not sure every single day or in every single situation. But right now I am.

Happy birthday in a few hours, baby girl.

Two

I am very nearly 2. 

In corrected terms, I am 21 months old although they have stopped correcting my height and weight. I have finally passed the 10kg mark and am 78.4cm tall! I have just started to wear 9-12 month clothes and my new shoes are a size 3 (19).

Developmentally, I am (apparently) somewhere around 14 months with an extra heap of inquistiveness thrown in. I can crawl, pull myself up and cruise, especially well sideways, and am very good at climbing-mainly on very wibbly wobbly chairs when no one is looking for a split second. I can crawl up stairs and sort of down stairs but I do not like anyone helping, even if I am about to rolepoly down them and bang my head. I am beginning to learn to throw as well as drop and I can make babbling noises. I can eat some things but am not very good at swallowing and think food is generally overrated and rubbish apart from Quavers.

I can sign about 25 signs in Baby Sign Language and Makaton. I am beginning to be very noisy when doing some signs ("mama" and "star") which I think my mama is hoping is about to herald some real words! Most of my signs are animal based, which makes me look very well-educated when we go to a farm. I am beginning to be VERY INSISTENT making a noise when pointing and signing "star" and am very good at finding them, even the teeny tiny ones. Mama said I sounded a bit drunk: she is so rude sometimes.

I know at least what a nose is and also, knees, toes and fingers. Sometimes I can remember a head but don't hold your breath. When we read my favourite book "A Squash and a Squeeze" there is a line that says 'my nose has a tickle' and I always grab my mama's nose at that point which makes her read in a really silly voice. I am extra good at beeping noses when I hear something else beep, like the lift.

I love books and have favourites which I am never tired of hearing again and again and again and again! My favourites are Ten Fingers and Ten Toes, A Squash and A Squeeze, Not Me and We're Going On A Bear Hunt. I have met the Gruffalo but wasn't really that bothered.

My favourite colour is yellow. At least, that is the felt tip I always make a bee-line for. Felt tips are quite good on paper but equally good on carpets, xylophones and in grown ups diaries. They are best when scribbled up your legs, hands and feet. Mama is very distrustful of ones that claim to be 'washable'. Talking of washable, last week I discovered turning buttons and dials round so I can now operate the washing machine!

I have very recently discovered pointing, pinching, hugging and throwing a wobbly when told "no". The latter is really funny in public. If I could stand up I would definitely stamp my foot. As it is, my legs get confused and I end up jumping. I have recently found out about the wonders of climbing. Back at the beginning of July, my mama and her friend helped show me how to climb up stairs. Mama really regrets this now because I am OBSESSED (she says) with stairs and can scale up a chair, cardboard box, my buggy or a drum pretty quick.

I really, really like going to hospital and seeing all my friends the doctors and nurses. They have really good badges and keyrings and funny things that hang around their necks to listen to your chest. Sometimes they let me play with them. I can put a stethoscope on if no one is looking at me. I can also draw up and empty a syringe and know how the buttons on my feeding pump work.

One of my favourite games is throwing everything out of my cot of pushchair. Mama is not quite so keen on this game, except for first thing in the morning as it means she can wake up very slowly just blearily lobbing Rabbit across the room.

My favourite thing ever is water play. Baths are good and so is painting but water play is the BEST. Taps are lots of fun and so is splashing grown-ups. So is sitting in rock pools and crawling into the sea. If I can't do any of those things, then the next best thing is a swing. Slides are brilliant sometimes but sometimes are a bit scary.

Happy nearly being two to me!

Happy Memories

Breakthrough with extra ice cream

This weekend something amazing happened.

We were invited to a birthday party.

Now, this might be an everyday occurrence for many mums. But I have been spectacularly rubbish at making and keeping mum friends, my depression and anxiety cutting all ties with rationality and sending my confidence and voice deep down into a pit of despair, cutting off the sunlight. I would shrink from other mums, like a vampire from the dawn. Not at all because I didn't want to be their friend, quite the opposite, but because I would just panic. Why would they want to be my friend? I kept trying to go to baby groups, I would make myself because if nothing else my darling Wriggles has always been quite partial to "borrowing" other babies rattles and charming stranger's grannies. I don't know quite what has happened but somehow things turned a corner and bit by bit I began to talk properly to the other mums and remember their names and stop my jaw dropping the floor if they remembered mine (or at least Wriggles'-it's practically the same thing once you give birth). Then I plucked up the courage to accept invites to coffee and this week, exchanged phone numbers with not one, not two but three, yes THREE mums. And received a party invitation for my troubles.

After this feat of brilliance, I seized the day yesterday and went small-person-affordable-gift-shopping. I wrote (on behalf of Wriggles) a card and sealed the envelope in the hope that if I wanted to chicken out I might reason that that would mean a wasted card. This morning I wrapped up a copy of What The Ladybird Who Heard whilst fending off an energetic Wriggles who wanted to eat the sellotape, and tried to find a pair of leggings that didn't have any food down: a near impossible task. For someone that barely eats, all her clothes are covered in bizarre stains and trodden in crumbs.

As the time drew near I ummed and ahhhed. I felt nervous and began to look for excuses. I could see the opportunity slipping away and in a rare fit of decisiveness, grabbed the A-Z and tried to locate the party location. It was less than 10 minutes walk away. The sun had come out. I was running out of excuses. Wriggles had found a shiny box and was pacified. As long as she was still allowed to hold the box, she was happy to put her coat on. Now I had no excuse. Before the moment was gone, we left. As I walked along the road, thoughts niggled at my brain. Was I going to be the only unmarried one? Were their husbands going to be terrifying? I don't even know why these felt important things. I think the one of the hard things about mental health wobbles are the feelings of inadequacy it cloaks you in. I often have felt conscious of being babyfaced and a single parent and worry that it isolates me. In reality, it doesn't or at least hasn't so far. I have been pleasantly surprised that no ones gives two hoots if your house is magazine-perfect (mine isn't for the record, it is a scruffy flat) or Mr Darcy brings you breakfast in bed. Probably as so many mothers are battling through sleepless nights and chasing around after mad toddlers to rub together enough brain cells to care. It is so easy to forget the two things that unite most parents are their children and the helpless desperation to Get It Right whilst doubt and guilt gnaw at you every time CBeebies is switched on. 

The worries were all unfounded. We had a truly lovely afternoon, the babies all played (relatively) nicely and everyone was so friendly. I hope these are the beginnings of real friendships; even if they are not, I can't think of many ways better to spend a weekend that in the company of some Good Eggs especially when you get two types of cake and ice cream at the end.

Walking back home at 7pm (if you're going to party, you need to do it properly. I'm installing this in Wriggles from an early age) in the golden fading sun, I felt euphoric. It is such a small thing, but for me, such a big step. It felt like I had broke through a fog holding me back and hiding me from the world I crave to be part of, that I should belong to. It made me so happy to feel like I was grabbing life with both hands and loving it, rather than living in bad memories. 

Birthday

I had one yesterday.

It just crept up on me slightly unannounced. In fact, had it not been for the few cards that plopped through my letter box, it is entirely likely I would have forgotten the whole affair until probably the weekend when I would have been in a huff for forgetting it. Anyway, I didn't. I was going to ignore the whole thing but in the end had really quite a lovely little day with no fuss.

I live fairly near the coast, so we went to the seaside. It was really quite nippy and windy so we didn't sit on the beach, but did go to the playground opposite the seafront and I showed Wriggles the big blue sea and she got to try out the swings. We also went in and out of several charity shops (I love charity shopping and bargain hunting) and for £1.98 bought four books and also a stuffed camel to post to my crackpot parents who collect them. As my treat, we went to a ceramic cafe and had a go at doing some Art together. Wriggles was not too keen. Under sufferance though, we did paint a plate full of our multi-coloured handprints which I will be able to pick up from the kiln next week and see what a mess we made of it! Two friends came round in the afternoon and eager to show off, Wriggles made my day by taking two supported sideways steps-her first attempt at cruising.

Birthdays are a bit flat though once you are older and especially if you are on your own. I have to say, Wriggles has very few faults but one major one is ignorance of birthdays and special events. I had to make my own tea and breakfast and everything! Birthdays are quite exciting when they are for other people; there is something quite lovely about focusing on someone and thinking something to make them smile, be it a gift, an outing, some kind words or a small token that they mean something to you. Children's birthdays are definitely the best, although so far this applies mostly to other people's offspring. 
Wriggles has only had one birthday and it was a very mixed day. Obviously I wanted to celebrate her and rejoice that a year on she was here and healthy with me and had pulled through all of the bad patches. But it was also an intense day of bad memories. Her birth was not a happy occasion and the immediate period after was very fraught and traumatic, for both of us in very different ways. It isn't that I didn't want to celebrate the day she came into the world, it's just that that particular day is still very raw and there have been many happier days since. Once you get older, birthdays are far less about the birth day and far more about the person as a whole, especially for other people celebrating with you. I certainly have never thought on the way to a friend's party that this is the anniversary of their birth in anything less than the abstract sense. Birth is something which can be very idealised which in actual fact is quite primitive in that it is a sweaty, slightly gory and very physical and also emotive event that often surprises people. I find it hard to associate myself once being born years ago on my birthday, especially now having gone through birth myself. 
 
I still feel quite separate from birth; I know I have given birth but when I hear people speak about labour or I watch One Born Every Minute there is no flicker of recognition at all and it is as if it never happened to me. It is as if it happened to another part of me that I have lost or become separated from. I'm still in the early days of parenthood but I think for me, it always will be tied in with birth. Is this just memory tidying things away or is it the subconscious burying traumatic events to dull the pain to enable you to carry on with life? Is it more common after 'birth trauma' or a difficult aftermath-I frequently wonder if I would really differently if I had had a more typical birth of get baby out-get baby placed on you for skin to skin-hold baby whenever you want. My baby was whipped away non breathing. I didn't see her for hours. I didn't know what sex she was for hours. I didn't know she was still alive for hours. I didn't hold her for days. And that all still really hurts. I don't think it won't, but I do expect it to fade over the years as her birthday becomes more about her: who she is now and what good things have happened and are yet to come. I hope I am correct!

First Birthday