All I am is just a...

I was asked last week, "so are you just a mum these days"? Somewhat dumbstruck I fumbled to give a response. I don't remember what i said except that it was far too long and far too nice. I have since spent hours trying to conjure up a response that was neither insulted nor defensive.

What I wished i could have done is grabbed a microphone, nodded to a pianist and sang the following. I would have sang loud and proud and hoped that every word sprang saliva into her pity ridden eyes.

Role Over

Dear God, please forgive me for directly quoting from People magazine. Amen.


"Every single day I second guess myself as a mother...it's frustrating because I feel like i'm failing on both ends". Naomi Watts - on juggling a movie career and motherhood.


Not exactly Gandhi - however, as I was perusing the pages of People magazine in the grocery store last week, i read this quote and my nose began to run as i struggled not to cry. I know, how embarrassing - i'll be quoting Kate Gosselin next. However, somewhere in me it hit a nerve. She had articulated in two lines what i had been feeling for months.

Later that week my meltdown escalated into a full on dissolution of mind, body and soul. No nose sniffing could stop these mammoth tears of literally monsooning my face.

I came home late from work. I had a warm dinner waiting, my house was clean and my laundry folded. Olive was bathed and in bed. I should have been kicking my heels off and singing (quietly) some Lionel Richie. Instead i found myself literally destroyed.

I tried to reason with myself to understand why I was lying on the bathroom floor bawling my eyes out and gasping for air. I was one phonecall away from being sectioned when i picked myself up and looked in the mirror knowing the shock of seeing a blotchy, freckled panda would scare me into silence. The tears stopped and were quickly replaced with rage. At the world. At everything. But mostly at myself. I was furious with myself and i couldn't figure out why. I just sat on my bed for what seemed like an eternity revisiting the past 30 years - random memories flooded my brain, of running to catch my school bus, a dance teacher straightening my arms, of showering in flipflops, of olive, of tom, of new york. Of new york. I knew I had no reason to be sad and every reason to be thankful but in that moment - that one moment - I wanted to scream to the world - my life is a compromise. There, I said it.

I'm sweating as i type.

In my tiny mind all I could see was that I'm not around to look after my daughter during the day, I hadn't cooked my family dinner, I had left my house a mess and I had left my laundry in the drier. I can't even call my day job a success because it used to be my career that defined me and now it hurts to even think of that. I felt utterly redundant as a mother and a wife. I had never cared about this before. At least I never thought that I cared. But in that moment I did. I do. It wasn't about wanting to slave behind an oven, nor sing to the sound of my vaccuum or even play with tea sets and teddies all day. Now, these duties are not expected of me - i was met with no disappointment. In fact, nobody could understand what was up with me. It's just that those roles have become a part of me and much of being a mother and a wife seems to come out of being needed. Subsequently, in that moment, I felt unnecessary. And guess what? It's downright painful to fail at something you became by default.

Of course we all give up things when we become parents. Sleep, impromptu showers, dreams. Rarely begrudgingly. It's all worth it when you see the love you have shining back at you. It's tough when you miss that. If only for a day.
The reality is that something has to give. If you are on the fast track in your career then maybe the payoff is affording your family a better life. If you are a stay at home mum then you do perhaps lust for your career but rest easy in knowing that you can give 100% to your child. For me, I fall somewhere inbetween and so I have become precious over what is under my jurisdiction and the desire to do it well.

And yes, I know, I do, that I am a lucky lady if my biggest problem is coming home to a clean house, a warm dinner, folded towels and a loving family. However, this is a confessional (I know, - get a journal) but I have to believe that there are other people that feel this way. And so I go back to quoting a movie star (was she the one in King Kong?) and agree that sometimes I feel like I am failing on both ends.

The tears stopped. The day ended. My headache passed and after letting it all out I felt a bit daft but I refuse to dismiss that meltdown as anything less than real. That night I found myself consumed with the thought that I'm not the mother that I thought I would be. Over and over I ran this through my head. From vowing never to use pacifiers, to insisting that my child will cry it out, and of course the cardinal sin - never having a child sleep in bed with me. There I was, lying in bed, wide awake at 3am with Olive uncomfortably nestled in my armpit and I couldn't understand where I had gone wrong.


The following day I blurted this out to a friend over a toilet stall. "I'm not the mother I thought I'd be."
As if to add insult to injury i had to repeat myself because of an unexpected flush from another stall. - Yet over the rustle of toilet paper my fears were allayed. "None of us are. You're the mother you need to be."


That works. I'll take that. Right now that's enough.

Lost In Translation

Something that I always agonize over or at least occasionaly think about is moving back to England. Why? Not for the Victorian gardens, the tea, surely not the Tories...no, it is so I can once again shine on the rounders pitch.
Allow me to share with you a tale of a woman shoved into a foreign culture with only her memories to keep her safe.
Last night i debuted on the company softball team. They were short of people and I was essentially doing them a favor. I adopted a Hugh Grant dithering demeanor when asked and feigned fear of sports. "I am just making up the numbers", i kept saying and then chuckling nervously. Inside, i was giddy. I would return to my former glory running from base to base with my hair blowing in the wind. Ok, so I come from a land of small bats and small balls. Softball was a little different, but, I was raised on rounders. How hard could it be? Plus, I work with a bunch of shirts and ties...I was a maverick, a former sports star, I would show them I was more than a skirt in an office.
I arrived 10 minutes early. My hair was up in a ponytail and I had that song from A league of Their Own in my head. Not "This Used To Be My Playground" - don't be ridiculous - the other one. Anyway, I arrived after a minor directional disaster ( in hindsight this was the gods trying to avert embarrassment) I checked myself in my rear view mirror and aside from the crows feet and blonde facial hair glistening in the sun light, I was 12 again. I could smell the changing rooms and sense the verrucas.
I walked over to where my team mates were throwing a ball. They were wearing mitts. Ha! I guffawed. Just like that american football stuff with the shoulder pads. Wait till you see my hands of steel catch those suckers. I approach and am ignored. Not quite the thank you for saving the day welcome I had imagined. "Hi", I shout to the guy that recruited me. He catches the ball and responds, "sorry i can't hear you". Dear lord. I mean, if you see someone for the first time wouldnt you at least say, "hi, sorry I can't hear you"?
I wave my hand across my chest giving the old international sign for don't worry about it.
Everyone seems to have a partner that they are throwing to and I don't seeem to know any of these people. Eventually a young man throws me a ball and gasps when I catch it bare handed. My insides burn with excitement. My hand burns with pain. Good pain. Feel the burn. I fire it back at him and nearly knock him off his feet. The Burt is back. After the 16th throw my hand is hurting and so I decide to bumble over and 'up' the Brit thing. Little less Grant, little more Firth. "So...may I see the size of your bat?" Thought that might raise a giggle, to which i could pretend to have not noticed my double entendre. I could blush and before long they would be asking me where in London I am from? It would be like Beatlemania.
Nothing.
Crickets chirping.
Am handed a bat - something the size of an AK-47. The ball is the size of a large hand grenade (should they come in sizes). No wonder they can hit it. Keep cool. Hustle.
I decide to lean over and talk to one girl and tell her it is my first time playing this game. She says that it is hers too- i smile and put my hand on her arm and say, oh it's all a bit of fun. She tells me she was joking and this was her sixth year playing in this league to which I remove my comforting hand and tell her that it really was my first time. We laughed. It was a clumsy exchange. Ahh, softball humor.
Anyway, I bided my time. I was the eighth hitter/batter and the seven before me had managed contact. I was ready to knock this ball low and hard.
I approached the dusty square and waited for a nice underarm ball to come my way. I swung with all my might. It was beautiful. I missed. Cue embarrassed giggle. "It's my first time", I told the backstop (catcher) to which she laughed and told me to just keep swinging. How nice, I thought. She spoke to me.
Next ball, it was like slow motion - a perfect rise and fall. I swing and....i'm out. Apparently, we all start with one strike against us. What. A. Load. Of. Rubbish.
I walk off the field and nobody said anything to me. I am left to sit on the bench on my own. Maybe it was because I clapped when the other team caught us out or because I whooped when they hit a good ball...but I was just being supportive of everyone.
Anyway, to make a horrid story short - it happened again...and again. I was officially playing for the other team. I eventually offer my batting position toward the end of the game to the girl beside me. I expected her to reassure me that it was just a game. Sadly she couldn't have been any quicker to snatch my bat.
Sigh.
You see...to be honest, I just wanted to immerse myself and learn the sport. I have the fondest memories of my mother practising rounders and netball with me and sadly those sports never caught on over here (because they are wholesome and non contact, no doubt). I was a bit of a wizz at rounders. Here, i'm the foreigner with no friends. As I sat on the bench, kicking my feet in the dirt, I wondered if this is how extremists start. A bit bullied and made to feel like an outsider -and before you know it you leave a carbomb in Times Square. Poor chap probably had a rough time on the softball field.
I digress...
To be fair, these were no doubt lovely people taking their game seriously and probably found me to be a bit ofa bumbling irritant. My point is...yes, there is one...i'm discovering that it is rather strange for me to raise a child in a country that i didn't grow up in. The other day Nellie the Elephant fell on deaf ears. The wheels on the bus don't go all day long, they go all around town and don't get me started on the hokey pokey. Even family fortunes is called family feud. It's the simple things. Marmite costs $9 a jar. I miss fruit machines and drinking Top Deck. I miss citing Timothy Claypole as a comedic figure. I especially miss referencing a Neighbours episode when a friend needs advice. No complaints just observations - it's not as if I am in a country where I am forced to eat dog because there has been a run on chicken.

Now, I know you don't want to live through your children but it is lovely opportunity to relive some fun moments through their eyes.

I leave you now complete with bruised ego and bruised hand. I put my rose tinted specs back on and remember myself as a good player - one who would race round the stick bases to the chant of "raandur, raandur". (That's rounder with a Bedfordshire accent).

On the plus side, i didn't pee myself. Silver linings, people...silver linings...

Happy Mother's day

Personalize a free photo slideshow

5 minutes

I'm sitting on a sandy beach. It's not quite warm but it feels nice when the sun hits. In the distance I can see Tom walking with Olive taking her to the ocean to dip her feet. I resist every urge to run over and tell him that it is too cold. Instead I sit, I watch and I remember.
I am 10, standing on a balcony overlooking the sea. I see myself, I had a thick and uneven fringe. My mum comes out to join me. She pulls me into her. She has the sides of her held back with tortoiseshell comb grips and she is beautiful.
I see myself in Spain. It is dark and I can hear the sound of the sea inbetween the jukebox switching records. I turn and see a table littered with empty bottles and shot glasses and three people laughing at something that none of us will remember but all of us will never forget.
I am wrapped up, holding hands, mind full, mouth shut, just married.

He has her feet in the water and she is fearless, laughing as he dips her in and out. My heart is so full it hurts my throat.

I think I get it.

This too shall pass...

When was the last time you peed yourself?

As you stretch your mind back to a time when you would perhaps find yourself standing on a towel, while the school nurse rummages through the lost property for a pair of navy blue PE knickers, let me share with you a more recent memory...say yesterday.

Yesterday I realized that I was a woman. Now, I know the breasts, childbirth, vagina thing should have been a giveaway but what I mean is that yesterday I moved from being a normal woman to a bit of a weirdo woman/grown up.

I went to the gym and in a bout of unexplained bravery opted to take a class...because somehow after you have a baby you care a whole lot less what people think about you. You care what they think about your child and what they think about you as a parent, but in terms of your general appearance (did I shower this week?) and trying out new things - it's as though you download the independence app on the iPhone of life. It's simply a case of - I've had a baby and I don't care if people laugh at me. Yep - that's it - after flapping your legs open at anyone that even walked past your hospital room it now takes a lot to cause a mother honest embarrassment. Or so I told myself...

I arrived a haggard mess - rushing from work, sipping an iced coffee...because that's what I used to do in New York and somehow I thought I looked cool sipping a drink as I walked in, clutching my gym kit. After rummaging around in my bag for my ID huffing and sighing, the receptionist offered to look me up in the system. She smacked of pity...but it's okay because I've had a baby and it doesn't matter if people laugh at me. I try to redeem myself by striking up conversation with the young girl. I ask about the class "Turbo Kick" that I plan on taking. "Is it suitable for beginners?", and then I sort of pulled my lower lip down in a mock nervous pose. She smiles and tells me that she doesn't know, she has never taken the class. Fifty percent of my brain gets the hint that she doesn't want to talk - the remaining 50% has a stroke and I find myself winking at the girl before adding, "I'm sure I'll be fine". Erm, am I Magnum PI? Am I an Internet web cam pervert? I shake my head and hurry to get changed. Good lord - who am I? I hate strangers and small talk yet just found myself being a complete weirdo.

I have birthed a child...it doesn't matter if people laugh at me.

I pull on my sports bra from 2003 and some old capri pants and a tank top that I usually sleep in/slept in last night and just threw in my bag. My bra has lost all elasticity so my fish head breasts are set to swing in the wind. However, I'm excited.

Knowing that my bladder is unstable I rush to the loo to squeeze out anything that might be there before the ice coffee trickles through. Trying to do two things at once I hover over the loo, (but give up mid stream - weak thighs), then drop my hairtie on the pee encrusted floor as I try to tie up my hair. I lean down and as I reach for my elastic band my head rests on the side of the cubicle. Then I realise that my head/hair is actually resting on that vile swing bin where people discard their tampons. Deep breath. Onwards.
I wipe, wipe again. Pull up my scrag pants and then reach down and give an extra wipe for security.

I pushed for 32 hours...it doesn't matter if people laugh at me.

I rush upstairs and (deep breath) enter the room. I know I'm in trouble because all the people that look like me, in old gym clothes, are flanking the walls. I am forced to take a somewhat central position surrounded by women that have been poured into their workout gear. POURED. They are wearing Tour De France pants and I am not even in a spinning class. Their calf muscles are pronounced and they are not even on their toes. There are towels and water bottles everywhere. I put my half empty grande cup of ice coffee to the back of the room and wished I was wearing something that said New York or Brooklyn on it so I could feel a little cool. God, even typing that sentence is a travesty.

The woman walked in. I think she was a woman. She looked around the room and asked if this was anyone's first time. I hate this sort of thing. I hate it in church. I hate it anywhere. Why does anyone need to know? I just give a lips together smile and look around the room. I have done a TaeBo DVD with Billy Blank - I can do this.

And so it began...

Now, try to imagine a really embarrassing moment. Perhaps when your OBGYN checked you for hemorrhoids in front of your partner? Perhaps pooping your pants whilst making a daisy chain at lower school? Then mix it with say the memory of kissing someone whose lips were so dry they were flaking off into your mouth. That was the first 30 minutes of that class. I felt like I was in Cocoon but I was the geriatric that hadn't yet swum in the pool. These people were serious punch, skip, ski, kickers. I just knew how to do that speed bag move and that was covered in the warm up.

To be fair, there was a guy in the front row that was clearly insane and was just jumping around doing his own routine. People were no doubt switching their disbelief between the two of us. I kept checking the clock. This too will pass.

Forty minutes of sheer cringing pass and then I just let go. I became a crazy, grown up weirdo. I started whooping. Yes, I started whooping. And then, in one of the bits the instructor started slapping her bum (punch, punch, ski, ski, slap bum). It was just her - nobody else was doing it but I was delirious. I had no water, no towel, I had drained my ice coffee, and was just sucking the ice dregs. I was reminded of a homeless lady on new years eve 1999, kicking a receipt down Exeter High Street. I started slapping my butt too. And then I started laughing. Not like the clown in poltergeist, more like the drunk person on the subway that is laughing at their own joke. I was officially giddy and the more I looked at my Ribena face the more I found myself hilarious.

And that is when I peed myself.

She said "jumping jack" and between a giggle and an arm flap I just dribbled. What's worse is that made me giggle/dribble more. I stopped the jump out part, squeezed my kegels for dear life and conspicuously tried to rub my legs together. Thank God my legs were hairy - that was bound to slow the flow. The class ended at some point after that. To be fair I was so sweaty that one could be forgiven for thinking that the wet between my legs was just some deep thigh perspiration. Right?

So now, I just laugh at myself. I encourage Depends, Tena lady, full bottom knickers, black pants. I heavily promote kegel muscle exercises whilst pregnant. I now totally understand why celebrities have C-sections. Can you imagine them getting snapped by the pap with wee stains post workout or strutting their stuff on the red carpet and suddenly realizing that their pee is streaking their fake tan legs? And,think of that poor Duggar lady (and her husband) with 19 children - she must permanenetly smell like a park toilet.

Now, don't worry I'm not incontinent. You could hang out with me without wondering if you were wearing damp clothing or sitting near a wet dog. I'm just a little less wink happy and more understanding to the people browsing the fragranced panty liner aisle.

** The writer of this blog would like it to be noted that she had a vaginal delivery of an 8lb 11oz baby.

Long Days, Short Years

I graduated. One year. One amazing, exhilarating, emotionally debilitating, utterly exhausting year that changed my life forever. Now, before I get all crazy, drink one too many glasses of frixy in celebration and convince myself that if we survived one why not have another...I have to take a moment betwixt the giddiness and remember. Just remember. Of course, it's easy to say that the year flew by if you conveniently forget those long days and the longer nights in those first few weeks. The nights where you would just pray for the sun to come up because somehow it was easier in the day. Time wasn't flying as the teething began and the laundry pile grew. Time stood still as the silent debate raged as to whose turn it was to get up for the umpteenth time in the middle of the night. The days when you wouldn't get to shower, might get to brush your teeth. When you would look at the clock and see just how many hours you had left before the cavalry arrived and you could thrust your child into your husband's arms. When you would look at your child and amidst all that love you silently wondered, will my life ever be the same again? The weeks where the George Michael designer stubble became a full grown Barry Gibb beard on your legs. When your eyes would sting. When your breasts would ache. If you were wet you didn't know which body part was leaking. When your hemorrhoids would act as a plectrum on your G-string. No, no, no, time didn't just fly. As the very wise, Dr. Bernie Russell, medicine woman, once said, "parenthood - long days, short years."
Of course, as I look back I am forcing myself to remember it this way. The truth is that the rose tinted glasses are firmly on and things are so rosy I hot flash my way around town. I see babies on the street and I hear my ovaries clicking. I gravitate towards pregnant women and (I know, I know) I have even found myself striking up conversation with perfect strangers pushing pink babies - desperate to share that I too, have a daughter at home. Pre-baby I would finish work and do 1 of 2 things: hit happy hour or nap. Sometimes both. Yesterday, I raced home, stripped off work clothes, strapped Olive on and raced to the park. I cannot describe the sheer joy I experienced in watching her explore the play frame, the slide, the swing. Despite an uncomfortably close proximity to nature, I felt like every ounce of me was being poured into her.
Yet the journey wasn't smooth - I was terrified about becoming a mother, I was devastated to struggle with breastfeeding, I was disappointed that my depression returned after giving birth. I didn't understand a lot of things, I still don't. I'm learning every day. I only know that motherhood is an incredibly levelling experience. I love wholeheartedly and am fiercely protective of my family. (Insert sunburned bald headed Mancunian at Alicante airport "I'd serve time if anyone touched my child" here).
So, upon graduation, I would like to transport myself back to February 2009, about a week before Olive was born, when inbetween gobbling pineapple curry and forcing my husband to mount me, I would pontificate as to what sort of parent I was going to be. As the ghost of parenthood yet to come, I would jangle my chains and offer the following pearl of wisdom...
Dear (you have no idea what tired is) Paula,
You may think you'll never have an epidural. You'll never give your child a pacifier. You will make your own organic baby food. You think you'll never bottle feed. You will absolutely never share a bed. You think a smack bottom will be easy and letting them cry it out a breeze. You will never go away and leave your child with anyone else.
Nobody likes a smug new parent, so never say never....except for never judging another parent.
Kind regards,
Your much more tired and even more wrinkled self.

Of course, as the graduate of parenting 101, I now embark on a new course and am still welcoming any and all crib notes. I am completely in awe of those on the accelerated course with more than one child.
However, as I hear the faint strumming from the inside of the back of my pants I am reminded that it will take another couple of 'short years' before I can forget enough to return to those 'long nights'.