In search of solitude

This is posted 3 years later made up from my notes hurriedly scribbled in the dark, as these thoughts came crashing into my quiet midnight mind. I was supposed to be recording facts about feeding, times, settling and sleep. Instead it records a mother's intimate love affair with her baby.

I write as our tiny one, and my special joy, feeds perhaps for one of the last times from me in the quiet of the evening when all else are asleep. She is playing with my hair, her free and roaming arm sways in the imagined breeze as she suckles. She has started eating solid food, and with gusto, so I fear she won't need me for much longer. It will be a relief but also a sadness... my last baby.

She has bright blue eyes so in contrast to mine, that drink in the room and my face but is distracted by my pen wobbling around on the table, her nightlight twinkles and throws its luminescence around our embrace.

It is my favourite time of day, alone and quiet, yet warm and together, the perfect human symbiosis, mother and child, intimate, beautiful, precious... Good night my darling, sleep tight I say to her, safe in the knowledge that my warm milk fills her tummy with comfort and contentment. I linger, not wanting to break the spell, and cuddle her for longer than she needs. As she sleeps I ponder...

I think it's odd that I crave solitude, especially after lifetime in search of place and time to call hearth and home, chasing an imagined fairytale of romance, love and family warmth.

I do now have that and it's magical and warm and safe, but also frightening, overwhelming and exhausting... who knew that creating the fairytale required work, and lots of it... there was no mention in my childhood cinderella stories.

It's not just the daily routine, the emotional strain placed on me by small children, I struggle personally with excessive noise and movement and a lack of control, a lack of stillness. I need to find my solitude, its what I know how to do, it's how I grew up. Not sad and lonely, but often alone, quiet and contemplative, as an only child I was able to be in control of my environment. I socialised well for the most part after working hard to cast off the paralysing shyness of my early years. But I was always able to retreat, re-group and digest. But as familiar as I am with solitude, as an adult I searched for the family fairytale particularly as my childhood family seperated and broke apart. My friends replaced family and knew my innermost fears and hopes.

This little baby in my arms, the very special second baby, the sibling for my first baby that I never had in my own childhood, will never know how uniquely special she is to me and how she has changed our little family forever, the sibling relationship so longed for by me, is now playing out... the snatching, the not-so gentle cuddles have started, soon to be replaced by poking, pushing, hitting and "she said... she did... she took...". So familiar to my husband, the baby of 3 boys, our little girls are quiet and all adored, his fears are for the future, the teen years! For me, it is all new and I relish their developing kinship fraught with love and irritation. But through this growing family storm I need to find my quiet, to recentre and remain centred when so much is demanded of me physically, mentally and emotionally...

And so, my special little one has provided me an opportunity to be quiet and contemplative, to hug and to hold her while I reflect on today's victories and tomorrow's challenges... She stirs and looks at me and grins milkily... "Goodnight my angel" I whisper, "see you in the morning before the rest of them get up".

Little girl in a big world and a lost bear

Lisa my sweetheart, my angel, the littlest girl from day one, has broken our hearts and made us burst with pride all at the same time by successfully starting big school this week. Big is the theme, the uniform is big, the bag is big and the learning curve is big... for her and for mum.

Yesterday she made me super-proud coming home with a merit award for a "happy attitude to learning" and later I found scrunched in her pocket a little bit of paper saying she was a learning star... long may it continue! Now I'm a pragmatist and I'm sure all the little newlings will come home with a merit award for this and stamps and stickers on their hands for that... such is the positive reinforcement vibe of modern education.

Our littlest girl, her sister Paige seems to be an old hand already after Lisa's previous 2 years at the local pre-school, but nonetheless I think she miss her more this year... even if it only takes 5 minutes for the squabbling to start once she gets home!

Paige has a worn out old bear that she took to within days of her birth that tags along everywhere and has nearly been lost a thousand times... I cannot recall the amount of times I have had shop assistants and kindly elderly folk and other mums run after me with a plaintive... "excuse me, but I think you left... " and they tail off unable to give a name or definition to this lumpen, mis-shapen, tatty and mostly dirty knitted creature that was unceremoniously dumped in favour of a more attractive offering..

But I digress, such was mum and dads fixation on our eldest daughter's big day, with big grins plastered on our unashamedly proud faces, that we forgot to bid Paige to leave beloved "Bear Bear" in the car, and yet again he bore witness to one of our family occasions... or so we thought... In the middle of finding our buddy, depositing new school bag in new school locker, saying hello to familiar faces from pre-school, Paige disappeared... we exchanged hurried "I thought she was with yous" and hubby was dispatched to search the grounds. It was a momentary worry as she was retrieved soon after but without Bear! However unaware of his missing in action status we carried on our day... I had a sneaking feeling that he was not in the home and realising not in the car I vowed to check at the school office on day two.

I feel very lucky to live in a small community where through the children I have been able to get to know other families quite quickly and thoroughly cherish new friendships through neighbours, playgroup, pre-school and now school... and such is the closeness of the friendships two mums hurried up to me with news of "Bear bear's" discovery. He was handed in from being found in the playground and spent the first night of the school year in the school office!! Not only was he collected and looked after safely his notoriety is such that he was identified and picked up by a friend who held him at their house till he was collected and taken home. Thank you Liss. Thankfully he was not missed, thanks in part to my mum's provision of "Blue Bear" a substitute for such occasions that was made during our visit home to the UK in 2009.

Both girls have formed attachments to objects in their early lives... Lisa's was to "Blankie" a much loved and now tatty yellow polar fleece thing. Now that she is a "Big Girl going to school" she has nearly weened herself off "him" (for they are attributed genders) but he must attend for bedtime. I am happy to provide this link to her babyhood, as she ventures out into the big world of big school, she still needs cuddles and her mummy and she is still and will be forever my special first baby, who taught me how to be mum and still teaches me everyday... I love you sweetheart.