Bad Habits

When you have a baby, everyone warns you against getting into bad habits. "Don't pick them up every time they cry!" they say, "they'll expect it every time!". Never use a sling, or they'll be clingy. Don't feed them to sleep, they'll never sleep through. Definitely don't ever let them sleep in your bed unless you want them there at 12. Bad habits, they tut ominously.

I never found these bad habits at the time and I find them even less so now. I got into bad habits, I'm still trying to get out of them. Bad habits are not loving your child too much, being too available to them or undertaking any kind of solution which keeps them happy, quite the opposite. I did every one of the "bad habits" for babies and toddlers. Fed to sleep, co-slept, picked up when he cried, even gave into pleading on occasion. I regret none of it, and treasure the memories of him falling contentedly to sleep next to me, peacefully, with no fear or dread of bedtime.

I do regret getting into the bad habit of not saying "I love you" enough. It doesn't come easily to me, and although my own mother regularly said it to me I found it hard to say it back, it was often mumbled and muffled or just plain avoided. I don't know why this is and it's always bothered me. When I was 14 I wrote her a letter trying to explain this, and I think she still has it.

I have made an effort to try and say "I love you" - at bedtime, at kindergarten drop off time, when I leave the house. It's helped. And the look of happiness and pride on his face reminds me how important it is. It took about two weeks until he started saying it back, I think that's how long it took him to really hear it and believe it, that reminded me as well how important it really is.

I got into the bad habit of saying no. This is another thing that they tell you is a bad habit, not saying no enough, which isn't true. It's easy to say no too much. No we can't go to the park. No I don't want to play. No, later. No, not right now. No, I don't want to hear you. No, you are not important to me. No, just leave me alone. I didn't say the last three of course but I am sure he has heard them, implicitly, with all of the other "No"s. I am not very good at changing this but I would like to. We played Uno today, which I didn't want to do, but enjoyed.

I have a bad habit of hiding myself away and not engaging with anything real or human, unless I can do it through a screen. Of course, he copies this. It is a struggle to drag him away from minecraft. But when it does happen, it is beautiful and he has a wonderful time. I need to remember this and do it more often too.

I read something recently which I thought was brilliant, I could not find the original source, but the author described a "Nice, nice, nice...furious!" cycle that she found herself in with her children. I have to say that I smiled as I read this as I can totally see myself in the same thing. That is one I am happily breaking. It still happens but less so. And we are happier.

What are your bad parenting habits?

Making Friends

(This entry was started back in August, when we first moved)

I forgot how draining and repetitive and, in short, how much work it is to rebuild a network of friends. Even reading/thinking that sounds so callous when you think about what friendship is and how important friends actually become to your life. It feels surreal now to think that in a few years some of the people I am meeting now may go on to be close friends.

I have done it before, and I can do it again, and this time I have the support of my existing friendship network, even if they are 600 miles away. And I have Creepy, of course. The last time I was consciously building a support network I had lost almost all of my old friends due to the isolation inflicted on me by my ex, and I was still rediscovering who I was after being in such a restrictive cocoon of a relationship, AND suffering from depression to boot. I have my wings, now, and that does help a lot. But. It's still painful to travel for almost an hour on a swelteringly hot tram and feel that the whole exercise was a failure because Mini-D barely made eye contact with any of the other children and instead just quietly attempted to eat all of the host's lovingly prepared snacks. It wasn't a failure, of course. I met some more people and I learned some more things about the local area and I used my general shell-shockedness about the move to try to cover up my ignorance of social cues (I seriously need to work on this. So awkward.) And I made progress. It's just that the process of building a friendship is so slow that when you are really relying on it, it's noticeable.

But it will all be worth it in the end.

(Today)

We have been here for around 6 months and the process of friend making is still slow. However, I now have three or four people who I could call on for help in my local neighbourhood. I am figuring out who I have similarities with and who I don't and who is kind. I have a job which makes me meet people and soon I will be learning to drive - learning with people is a great friend-maker, I find.

Things are less awkward, and more easy, already.

Resolutions

I am making resolutions (yeah, a bit late). I decided to go out running again today as it's warmed up enough to do so and although it took a momentous EFFORT to push myself out of the door it was so, so worth it. I felt excited when starting out, decided to explore a new route, found a nice one which takes me over 2 railway bridges and the S-Bahn track, a bridge over a motorway with a stunning view of the hills and scenery (that actually made me stop for a second and think, fuck, this is where I live.) and past a farm right up to some fields. There's also a little pub and a paintball arena that I had no idea existed.

I need to be more present in the world, because I feel like it's passing me by once again. My resolution or current goal is to be out and interact with the world at least twice a day. Anything that gets me out of the house and not just for the minimum time ie picking up Mini D. So work counts, going for a run counts, seeing a friend counts, looking around the shops, taking the camera for a walk, anything really.

I did have a couple of others which were "Do at least one bit of housework every day" and "Spend at least 20 minutes with Mini D every day" but Creepy said that rather than try to do stuff with him, it was better to do stuff for myself and he will follow. So I've been trying this and weirdly he is right!

Changes

I just came across a post on a forum asking "What would you change about your character?" or something thereabouts.

My first response was "thank fuck it's not just me who has those thoughts!"

Then I started to think about what it is I would actually like to change.

I would like to be less lazy, and perhaps part of this is being less tired. I would like to feel healthier and look after my body better, perhaps trying to work out if my occasional bloating and/or nausea is related to a particular food group. Currently I struggle to eat regularly, and cutting out or even down on food groups is really detrimental to that, ie, I end up eating nothing.

I would like to be able to think and plan ahead more coherently. Often I make plans but they are so vague that they never actually happen or the timescale isn't set so it's too late by the time I get around to doing something. I think my current most commonly said or thought words are "Oh, I was going to..." which is a crock of shit, really. Like I say to my son, no, you weren't "going to". If you were really going to, you'd have done it by now. I want to get in that mindset - have an idea now, do it yesterday. Or at least, immediately plan when it's going to happen, and then stick to that.

I would like to enjoy my son's company more. Often he gets the shitty end of me, when I don't really enjoy the activity, or it's OK but I'm a little more irritated by his totally normal five year old behaviour than I should be. I have a book about this, "When Your Kids Push Your Buttons", which is great, but I frequently don't notice that I've got into a slanging match with him until somebody points this out. I swear NORMAL parents don't do this with their 5 year olds. I find I enjoy his company when we're around other kids, or other adults. I find it really sad for him that our alone time isn't as good. I just can't get that connection right now.

I suppose that all of these are probably related and I do find that I can fake it to a certain extent but if I am honest I feel pretty hopeless about changing them and I can't imagine myself in those roles.

So, I decided to think back to, say, 10 years ago, when I was 15. Fuck, there were a LOT of things I wanted to change back then, that I probably wouldn't recognise myself now. Unfortunately (or fortunately, ha, it's probably a GOOD thing) I no longer have any of my teenage diaries so I can't check exactly what I was angsting about back then, but I'm sure I can have a good guess.

Teenage angst #1: I wish I had bigger boobs. Or existant boobs.
Well, done that one :D While I can still comfortably get away with not wearing a bra, I have a decent boobage now that I'm perfectly happy with.

Teenage angst #2: I will never get a boyfriend or be popular, I wish people liked me.
Hmm. While I wish I could go back in time and tell my 15 year old self that this really didn't matter as much as I thought, I do now have a fantastic boyfriend (who I happened to know at 15!) and soon to be husband. And I also know now that it's absolutely nothing to do with any man-attracting "skill" as it were but more about finding a person who matches YOU and that is possible for absolutely any person in the world.

Teenage angst #3: I wanted to be less awkward and more confident in general.
OK, THIS is what I meant. This is a personality thing that I've actually changed and I think my confidence and the amount that I hide or brazen out my awkwardness is AWESOME and I don't think my 15 year old self would recognise me. This is inspiring, this is me growing and changing as a person, and proving that I can.

Teenage angst #4: I want a baaaaaaaaaaby!
NO YOU REALLY FUCKING DON'T.

Teenage angst #5: I'm late all the time for everything.
Actually I'm better at this now. It's called building in time for stuff. It works but I have to remember to do it every time, which in practice means I'm on time for work but late to meet friends and, you know, blog and stuff and do other non-routine things. Sorry guys.

OK, but seriously. I have actually changed a lot in the last 10 years, probably in the last 5 years. I am braver. I am more confident. I am FAR more assertive. I take a little bit better care of my body. I am a tiny bit more organised (hey, these things take time). I am more likely to speak my mind, I have stronger opinions, I am less afraid to share those opinions. I have made changes, some which would have seemed impossible. Who am I to say that the changes I want to make now are so insurmountable?

I can't be that person

I am not the mother that I want to be.

I am patient but only when I am not tired, which is most of the time. I am too easily irritated. I blow up in a rage too easily (I am getting better at avoiding this). I don't always enjoy the company of my son - THAT is the worst one, for me, the bringer of the biggest load of guilt. God, how I used to "feel sad" for kids whose parents didn't want to spend every waking moment with them. Hi guise. I am sorry. Please can I join your club?

When he was tiny I had all of these expectations and plans and everything was going to be perfect. Well, I failed my first hurdle when I tried EC (elimination communication). That's where you hold them over a pot every time you think they need a wee, and somehow your superior connection with them allows them to do this. Skips potty training. Yeah, failed that one. Once he could crawl he didn't want to be held over a potty, he wanted to be out there, crawling and doing stuff. Didn't potty train until he was over 3. Still won't poo anywhere other than home two years later.

I was going to get him used to all of these lovely home cooked foods and instead when we were first on our own we had no oven and no microwave, he lived off veggieburgers and frozen veg for months and then stopped eating and since then has been the fussiest eater ever. I see people whose children eat couscous and chickpeas and soup - fucking soup!! - and feel shit. Baby-Led weaning, you lied.

I was useless at wrap slings. I forgave myself for this one (like I forgave myself for the EC thing, once I realised MOST PEOPLE DON'T DO THIS and IT IS A MAD IDEA.)

I think I took from my mum, and my grandma, that to be a good mother you just had to be kind. And so I sort of sat back and relaxed, because I am pretty kind, I am a nice person, job done. I read all of these theories and they fitted in with my "be kind" mantra, and I think I felt like I was done. This is the old "clever but lazy" thing coming out in me again from school. Oh yes. I have the theories, I know how to do this right, I have great ideas about how to carry it out, too. This will be awesome. Do you know what I did this year? I planned little activities to do every day of Advent to celebrate Christmas and get the Christmas excitement flowing. Well, it's the 11th of December, 2 weeks to go and we have done not one thing on that list.

This is just, basically, a perfect illustration of every fucking thing I do. I have a good idea. I get really psyched about the idea. It's going to be fun. It's really going to work this time - look, I made a pretty colour coded chart and everything! Then, whatever it is happens, I'm motivated for maybe the first one or two, if that, and then I fall back on my usual which is to do nothing and stay up on the internet for hours.

It's some kind of torture. I know exactly what I want to do, I watch myself not do it, and then I have the exact details of what I should have done (and failed to do, again) differently to beat myself up with. Maybe my standards are too high and I'm setting myself up to fail, I don't know. But, to be honest, even when I make myself a totally piss-easy target I fall short from that after a short while, and I get down because it's not even that I don't do something well enough, it's that I quite often don't do it at all.

It gets me down. I can't seem to be the person I so desperately want to be. Hell, I can't even seem to be a normal person who functions adequately.

Five year old

Mini-D is five years old in the morning. Somehow I have managed to raise another human to half a decade without even noticing. What happened?!

And he is fabulous. Okay, the last year has mostly been a write-off from my perspective, but he has been at a totally new kindergarten in a whole new language and culture and despite a few expected hiccups, he bounds in every morning with only a "Tschuss!" (only 3 weeks in, remember) and out every afternoon full of cheer and excitement. Almost every day he comes home with a new word to tell me, he is excited about me getting a job in a "Kindergarten for grown-ups" and today, we watched the episode of Doctor Who where Rose leaves and at the end he looked at me, quivered, said "Mummy, the Doctor is sad. And it's making me sad too!" and burst into tears. Oh, my baby.

He asked me questions about animal testing the other day, and I had to balance giving him truthful information and not terrifying the crap out of him.

He loves to "do art" and is scathing about what he considers "not real art". He wants to figure out phonics faster than I can figure out what order to teach him the sounds. (Both his drawings, and his written sentences, are adorably hilarious.) He can add single figures and tries to work out subtraction using his fingers. When he feels nervous, he is comforted by having some spare kisses to keep in his pockets. He is still suspicious of new foods. He is far more fond of Coca Cola than I would like. He is constantly trying to figure out his identity, sometimes about gender, occasionally about nationality, often about our family.

He still wants to cuddle, a lot, and he loves to have help with things, especially things that he doesn't really need help with. He will happily hold hands and kiss and hug in public. He is still so wonderfully carefree.

I think I'm doing okay.

Depression can fuck off.

I've been trying to avoid being on the computer all the time since Creepy D asked me if I actually wanted to be here, as I seemed to be avoiding everyone and pushing them away.

Had to tell him this was just my coping mechanism for the last year or so. Bury self in computer, let life go on around self, easy. And so addictive.

Have started doing exercise, in order to try and boost my energy levels and also make me feel more motivated in general. But it seems that cutting off the computer time has led to my depression coming out again. If you'd asked me a week ago, or even yesterday, I'd have said that I felt depressed a year or two ago but I feel okay now. But no, here it comes again. We ended up having a stupid argument about childbirth, of all things, and it's reawakened my "Shouldn't have had children with (ex) utter knob end" thing, and then that has triggered my "Shit, you're so terrible at LIFE that you bought vegetables and didn't use them and now they are mouldy. Well done you!" (tears). Decided to go for a walk to calm down a bit and forgot to take the recycling down with me. Cue another rant at self. "Can't even remember one thing that you decided on a few seconds ago. Oh my god, you can't do anything." Leads to terrible fear that will forget something important for my new job which I'm supposed to be starting next week.

I mean, it's exhausting. And stupid. But when I fail at stuff, even really simple stupid stuff, that just seems to reinforce my self-belief that I fail at EVERYTHING, and it all feeds into itself and is awful.

Actually people are saying nice things about me on facebook (and I am not fishing with moany comments, either) and I suspect I am coming down with a cold and feeling a bit sorry for myself because of that, and I always feel a bit thrown by arguments even though we ended up on the same page. I am sure that in a month when I've settled into the new job and maybe even done my next mad venture (learning to drive, in the land of the Autobahn!) I will be feeling better. And exercise is supposed to help. And I need to take my iron. And stop beginning sentences with And.

Breathe. Sleep. Make plans. Eat. Live.