No lemon aid & thanks for all the fish
After nightweaning Small Z for the final time in January, the month of my utter fatigue, I thought that moving house and the associated weirdness of all that would account for the first chunk of February or so. I didn’t want to make any other big changes to Small Z’s soundtrack over that time.
However. For the past few weeks I have been trying to wean her from the boobaramas. Full stop. Of course, I have done some research, spoken to an ABA counsellor (they are G-O-L-D) and tried to do it as gently as possible. Small Z, as anyone who has read this blog for a while, was the ultimate booby-fixated baby. She is now two, and remains exactly the same. I had naive hope that she would wean herself. Nope. Nada. Never. Not. Going. To. Happen.
So it was fairly easy to cut out the feeds that were not sleep related. There weren’t many of them. But, for the past week or so I have been refusing to feed her for the midday nap, saying that the boobies needed to rest for her feed at nighttime. Ohhh. The yelling. The begging. The hours that my patience has elastically stretched over. Extraordinary.
M read somewhere that people have had success spiking their boobs with lemon juice. Mmmm. That worked the first time. After that, she got a taste for it. And then there was the day when I had washed the girls in bicarb as a preventative measure (click if you must), later added the lemon juice and in doing so created some kind of energetically fizzing chemical reaction that scared me so much that I did much plunging of my top half into a basin full of water, wishing that I had paid more attention in chemistry. I had to speak to my only chemically qualified contact in order to establish nothing was going to explode.
So then I tried garlic. Why would I bother trying garlic on someone whose favourite food is hardcore pesto? Call it blind hope. She lapped it up. Yesterday? I went for the most disgusting thing I could think of. I don’t mean just what I happened to have on hand. I mean the most disgusting liquid that I. Could. Think. Of. If you do any thai cooking, you’ll know right away. Fish sauce. How revolting is that? I applied it liberally to the girls while holding my breath. Ugh.
I think Small Z lives in a state of olfactory denial. She did not react ONE iota to the stench of fish sauce on the girls. She had one, then the other. No reaction. Nothing. How is this possible? She is very good with smells – she can pick lavender, rose, orange. If you walk into a fish shop that is stinky (something a good fish shop should never be) she shrieks and demands to be removed immediately.
L suggested that stuff that you put on for nailbiting, as did M. However, I have decided today that it is all at an end. After tonight, I will SHUT IT DOWN (I can hear my mother – who weaned us three at nine months – breathing her relief from miles away). I cannot go further than fish sauce. Before I had Small Z, I never imagined breastfeeding past six months. I made declarations like “I will never feed anything with teeth” and sneeringly said “I am never going to feed something that walks”. Is there anything more humbling than parenthood? In my case, it has taught me not to be such a judgemental fucker about something of which I have zero experience.
So yeah. Start spreading the news…they’re leaving today…they’ll no longer be a part of it…the boobs, the boobs…
And a big welcome to a whole new round of sleep deprivation and yelling. It WILL be worth it.
Silvery Moon
Am nearing the other end of a week that began in kind of a meltdown zone. I could post about it, and I will. Later.
Meanwhile, for as long as I can remember, Small Z has been obsessed with the moon. When she sees it in the sky – particularly unexpectedly in the daytime she says stuff like:
“Our friend is here, Mama! I’m glad he came. Look he’s a shiny one! Give him some drinks?”
“What does he say to you?”
“Shine, shine! Hello! Glad our friend is back! Ahhhh.”
One of the songs she has been singing the longest is By The Light of the Silvery Moon, and she was thrilled when I found her a few versions on YouTube. (The Doris Day one is pure cheese….) I have been afraid that I wouldn’t get a recording of Small Z singing it – she knows the lot, but it doesn’t feature so often in her repertoire of late, so I had to take what I could get…. By The Light of the Silvery Moon. Notice how she comes over all teenager at the end… “Mama sing a good moon song?”
Finally, this morning, M solved a small mystery. Small Z had been requesting him to draw a moon playing the recorder for the last few days whenever the coloured pencils were out. “Moon playing a recorder? Moon playing a recorder, dadda?” Recently the moon has been halfway between half and full. Three quarter. She had thought that M kept pointing at the moon saying, “Look! The moon is playing recorder!”
SLAM Protest Rally & Sleepers
I haven’t left this side of town for what seems like an a-g-e. Yesterday, this changed. M, Small Z and I drove into Northcote in the morning, and were gratified to discover that it took exactly an hour. An HOUR! An hour to civilisation, trams, coffee, chai made with leaves and hot milk, and…our actual destination. The first Sleepers Publishing CryBaby Salon.
I was glad to have had M there acting as my Manny, as I doubt Small Z would have stayed in the toddlers room for the entire session on her own. As it was, I was practically the only person in the room without an incy-wincy baby draped over me or crawling at my feet. Lawrie Steed interviewed Rachel Power, author of The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood – a book I would have bought except for a cash deficit. Am now going to request it for birthday.
There was much discussion over the guilt involved with trying to pursue your artistic endeavours while still feeling like a worthwhile mother. A few times it was suggested that you have to try hard to just down tools, put your partner in charge, shove the expressed breastmilk in the fridge and JUST LEAVE. Something I have whole-heartedly aspired to, but am really really not good at doing. In question time I wanted to ask…but what about those mothers who have babies that don’t sleep without being breastfed and who won’t take a bottle? The sleep deprivation and the sheer brain deadening fatigue?! What do they do?!!
I think the response would have been ‘do whatever you can’. If you can grab 30 minutes a day to write or dance or paint, just do it. It’s good enough. It’s better than nothing. And it’s no crime that if, when those 30 minutes are there for the taking, all you can do is slump with a few chocolate biscuits and a cup of tea. Things will always improve.
I wondered also about the levels of difficulty – if you have come up with a non-fiction topic that you can focus on and research – is that easier or harder than writing fiction? Does the time you lack for contemplation weigh equally heavily on the fiction writer and the painter and the dancer? I suppose it all depends on the person, and what you allow yourself to do. Time to immerse yourself in your chosen artform shouldn’t feel like an indulgence, and shouldn’t feel like you are doing it at the expense of something else…the washing, the dinner… It’s this hardwired, burnt-chop mother thing that I think a lot of people identified with yesterday – the ongoing struggle to separate yourself as artist and mother.
And as Rachel Power said – the triumvirate of art, motherhood and WORK is the real killer. She spoke about the harmony that can come of the motherhood and art combination. When work is thrown into the mix, that’s the thing that sends it all off key. Just thinking about this makes me want to go and buy a Powerball ticket…
After visiting the nasally impaired, but mending Dr of Grass, we took the scenic route to Carlton via Coburg as Small Z slumbered in the back. And then moseyed on down to the front of the State Library for the Save Live Australian Music protest rally, where we met LIBRARYMAN (aka Mr H in work attire) and marched from there, through the city, and up Bourke Street to Parliament House. It was fabuloso!!
At the end, after a rousing rendition of ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top if you want to ROCK & ROLL’, there was a little too much speechifying – a great deal of which was generally indistinct to those further back in the crowd. I think they should have got people up to make a few pithy statements, got ‘em off, and had a few more songs. But, whatever… We took our leave with the hungry small one, and headed home after a stop for lemon lime and bitters, some spuds and some pesto bread.
Note Small Z on M’s shoulders to left of banner…
Sunny day, everything’s A-OK…
A day that began with me going on a solo bike ride. Down the street. To get some milk and go to the chemist. Most of you won’t find this at all intriguing. But for me, being able to take off, on my own, and ride to SOMETHING that is not the park, the pier or the one shop, left me almost breathless with possibility. Or at least with a feeling of freedom – it felt like I hadn’t had that sort of feeling for a long while.
This is how people must feel when they move from a small, slightly isolated locality? The thing about all the places M and I have lived over the past five years (- or is it SEVEN? Now I come to ponder it…) we have never lived anywhere we have intended to stay for long. In Hervey Bay, it was always…’when the house is finished’…and now it is… ‘and when the catamaran is finished’. There is always a longer goal.
Of course, the longer goal is actually somewhere where we would really like to live for a good long while. Get a black faced sheep. Some chooks. You know, after we, um, win lotto or something. But anyway, for the meantime, Hastings is ringing my bells. The house moving has receded and my fatigue is improving. (Have I mentioned that that other January 2010 venture included nightweaning Small Z for the FINAL time? It was hard, but is now a total blessing.)
Today was our best day so far. My morning bike ride was followed by some noodling around the house, some cleaning, M and Small Z in the garden putting up Oomoo’s sail, and then being visited by Mr and Master H for lunch. We then headed back to Somers beach, all in my car. Master H commented, while settling himself into the back next to Small Z and I;
“This car is very 1980s!”
So sage for an eight year old. I was delighted to inform him it was a 1981 model. Mr H’s head fitted fetchingly out of the sunroof. It was all good. Somers beach was a hit, the water was warm and our beach tent solid. M brought down the canoe/kayak thingy and took Small Z out on it (this is her most favourite thing to do since she has been two. Then we got to watch Mr and Master H cavort with the kayak thing in the waves, while rubbing life back into Small Z’s cold little body…
We headed home to passionfruit gelati and cups of tea. If I could press repeat on the whole day, I would.
Somers
This was our first foray to the closest swimming beach. Next time I’ll pack more snacks…
It didn’t go too badly.
Goddamn! Here I am posting something on the same day it happened! I feel that something has slightly shifted. Is this progress?
Mud and puddles
Went up to visit the paternal parent in the country. He is the shape of a crab, or a pretzel, due to ongoing lower back pain and sciatica. Something Has To Be Done. He is hampered by his location and immobility. Argh! It is so frustrating.
However, we took advantage of the hospitality and dined on honey soy free range chicken drumsticks, potato salad, and, best of all, Windfall Pie.
Windfall Pie? A dazzling combination of blackberries and apples – the apples that have been collected from under the apple trees.
Small Z, who has been going through a phase which consists of her saying “Wipe your HANDS?” after she touches food and almost anything else (she means ‘Wipe my hands’ but remains a bit confused about ‘I’ and ‘Your’), rallied from her cleanliness. We were outside and she was investigating a drip…which led to investigating some mud, smearing mud over her tummy, face and tongue, and finishing it off by stepping in what she and I both thought was a shallow puddle…that turned out ankle deep. I hosed her in the shower. Kid fun!
Meanwhile, M filled our shed with all the things we have divested from our lives since moving house. That created a good feeling. So why is it that our shed at home still looks like it’s at bursting point? Declutter fairy, are you out there?
Bringing down the tone
A telephone call from our new real estate agent a few days ago. How it should have gone:
“Hi Beth, this is Peter. I’m just calling to query you on the caravan in the front yard.”
“??!”
“Uh, the owner is a little concerned. It has an extension cord running out of it. We just need to know if there is anyone living in it? Also, it would be good if it could be eventually moved around the back, for cosmetic reasons.”
“Actually Peter, I’m glad you called. I was wanting to talk to you about a similar thing. But just to clear up your query, there is no one living in it. It is 14 feet long? M stays in it if Small Z is having a bad night. My mother stayed in it last week. But do I have a longterm sublet going on from which I am profiting wildly? Unfortunately I do not.
”What I wanted to bring to your attention was that I feel that the house itself is bringing down the tone of my caravan*. My 1962, egg-shaped, vintage, restored, fibreglass caravan. I was hoping that the owner might consider repainting the exterior of his very important investment property that was, until recently, his personal home LaMarque White (Dulux) with a blue metal flake finish around the window frames? This would work much better for me than the dark green house and the cracked aubergine and white front door.”
…Of course, what happened was that I spluttered incoherently, told him where the owner could stick his concern about the cosmetics of his property and forcefully informed him that no one was living in the caravan and it was no business of anyone but myself where on the property the caravan was located. Gah.
M and I immediately felt somewhat violated that someone (friends of the owner – who has relocated to Queensland) had been driving by, perving at our set up. It was this icky, spied on feeling. We felt instantly like we were in someone elses house, not our own. Of course, we have recovered our equaminity, but it wasn’t a great start to things.
————
*Suggested by L, who is good with acerbic responses.
Alan, Alannah, Ally, Hugo and Violet
Drawn back to blogging by bum related hysteria. For almost as long as we’ve been knocking around together, the name of M’s bum has been Alan. Yes. On one occasion while he was away on tour with Augie March in Coolum, he drunkenly confided this to all and sundry and I was telephoned by someone called Declan who was gasping with laughter and desperate for corroboration. I corroborated. I probably would have done more than that if requested, his accent was exceptionally attractive.
Tonight, M stripped off in the kitchen and did a nudie dance prior to getting in the bath with Small Z. She shrieked with delight;
“DADDA has a SWINGING PENIS!!!”
M then had the taste for performing, and showed off;
“Dadda’s SWINGING ELBOWS.”
His swinging eyebrows…and finally…
“DADDA has a SWINGING BUM. His BUM is SWINGING!!”
Yes, I told her. Have I told you that Dadda’s bum’s name is Alan?”
“Al-lan?”
“Alan.”
“Ahhhh,” she made her appreciative noise, “Alan. ALAN. What’s the swinging penis’s name?”
I choked. M, of course, did not miss a beat. “My penis,” he said, wagging it, “Is known as HUMUNGO.”
“Who-mungo?”
“HU-MUNG-GO.”
“Alan and Who-Mungo,” mused Small Z. It seemed to work for her.
Later in the bath, Humungo was shortened to ‘Hugo’. My bum was introduced to her as Alannah. Then she asked the vagina question – “What’s it’s name?”
I heard M flailing in the bath, and tried to think of something inoffensive.
“Violet!” I yelled down the hall. “Your vagina’s name is VIOLET!”
I heard the little voice echoing off the bathroom walls…
“…and what’s Mama’s….”
“VIOLET as well.”
“Zoe’s bum’s name?”
“Ummmm. Let’s call her Ally,” I was running out of inspiration.
“Ah,” she said, her curiosity sated. All parts were named and in their place.
