A last word

The man and I fell into step with one another on Macquarie Street.
He was heading east and had just crossed at the traffic lights.
I was walking north and had just hit the T junction.
Neither of us had any other way to go.
So we walked awkwardly alongside each other, each slowing to let the other pull out in front.
But neither of us did.
At least we had a talking point.
In my arms I was carrying a crying, jerking, off-her-face Fairy Floss.
“We’re just out at dinner,” I explained over the wailing. “Thought I’d take her for a walk and try to calm her down.”
“My daughter’s 19 now,” the man said, gazing at the thrashing pink jumpsuit in my arms. “I’d give anything to have her be that little again.”
He gave a small wave and disappeared through a doorway.
The ball of anxiety in my chest began to unwind.
I walked along the lit city street, singing ‘Li-ila, Li-ila’ to the tune of ‘Daisy, Daisy (give me your answer do)’ and felt her warm little body relax against mine.
She gave a little sigh, banged her head one last time into my collar bone, and then suddenly dropped into sleep.
My last baby.
Every woman, every parent, must realise at some stage that they’ve had, or are about to have, their last little bundle of joy.
You don’t think of an end point when you have your first.
You’re too caught up in the wonder, the awe, the exhaustion, the hot heart-exploding surges of love love love.
For me, it was just my little Master Baby every day – a teeny bit longer, a smidgen less vulnerable.
I didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.
But it didn’t matter, because the ‘tunnel’ was so beautifully lit by him.
But every day with Fairy Floss carries with it a little ‘last’.
And suddenly everything that’s tough about babies becomes precious.
Any night could be the last Learner Dad and I sit together in her darkened room, one patting her chubby thighs while the other scrolls aimlessly through Twitter.
Any night could be the last I stare at the perfect little ‘0’ of her mouth, her four white picket teeth, the yodelling pink tongue screaming out that wailing midnight song dedicated just to me.
Any day now we’ll be unable to squeeze her fat arms under the capsule straps.
Any day we’ll have to turn her round to seek out green lights and fire engines, instead of passing out under retreating clouds.
We’ve had our last slippery soak in the baby bath.
Our last non-solid poo.
Our last first smile.
We won’t have a last first rolling over.
She did that when we were out of the room.
And now she’s crawling.
So I’ve pulled the last baby rug up off the floor.
And moved the glassware a final time.
I dread the day I’ll have to put her down in the shower.
The day she refuses to get in with me.
The moment I realise it’s been days since she wanted me to pick her up at all.
This morning I showered without her.
But I wasn’t alone.
Lil Fatty was balancing on a stool, desperately trying to fill the sink before Master Nine got to the plug.
Master Nine was straddling the bath, supposedly cleaning his teeth.
And Fairy Floss was jolly jumping on her fat little legs in the doorway, squealing with delight at us all.
As I stood under the fluctuating hot and cold water, I felt exhausted.
Exhausted yet humbled.
These three little creatures are mine.
And I am their universe.
I know it’s only a matter of time before I’ll shower with only the steam for company.
Life will have pulled my babies in other directions.
We can’t dwell on their growth.
It will happen anyway.
The only thing we can do, should do, is try to enjoy them.
Photograph them, sure, immortalise them in frames, albums, online.
But mostly, watch them.
Smile at them, smile with them, sing to them, listen to them, kiss them, cuddle them.
Even when their warm soft bodies have been replaced with long cold gangly ones.
Treasure them.
For at the end of this ‘tunnel’, this insular world that is parenthood, other roads stretch ahead.
Travelling, re-claiming careers, making new friends, bonding anew with old ones.
Loud music, clean kitchens, spare rooms, long lunches, movie nights, hobbies.
One day, grandchildren.
I’ll pack up my precious kaleidoscope of mummy memories and take it with me wherever I go.
Look back into it often.
And remember that incredibly intensely exquisitely sweet time that I was the sun to three little planets.

Baby. Cot. Back.

2.38am
Her little blue eyes had turned black.
In the dark, I could see them wide open and staring at me.
Her legs had finally stopped jerking, her tiny fists rested loosely up next to her ears, and her breathing had slowed.
Even the hiccup hangover from crying had stopped.
I stared back at her, sending imploring messages to her eyelids.
‘Close, close, close,’ I thought.
Behind me, Learner Dad was face down on a mattress he’d desperately dragged into the nursery.
I heard snoring.
It seemed my message had gone to the wrong eyelids.
She watched me as I stood up, my creaking knees excruciatingly loud in the silence.
I backed out of the room, breaking the rules by maintaining eye contact.
She moved her hand slightly.
But she had nothing left.
I slipped out the door and back in to bed.

1.14am
“It’s not working, what’s your plan B?” Learner Dad asked, turning his head but keeping his hands firmly pressed on his wriggling daughter.
“I don’t have one, this is it,” I spat back.
“She’s not going to sleep. What if she’s up all night?”
“I’m not pulling the pin now!” I said. “What a waste this all will have been.”
“Why is she still bloody awake? I don’t get it.”
“She’s waiting to be picked up, that’s why!” I was as exasperated as him.
Fairy Floss watched with amusement as her father and I exchanged heated words above her.
“You go to bed,” I hissed, knowing every angry word we uttered was undoing all our good work.
He left the room.
I couldn’t believe it.
Now I’d have to see this through all by myse…
Oh wait, he was back.
With a mattress.
He sighed loudly as he tried to clear space for it, bumping furniture, knocking things over, before it landed with a huge ‘thwack’ on the floor.
We both looked at Floss.
She threw back her head and began to cry.

12.22am
“It says on Google it could take an hour and a half,” I sang to Learner Dad, to the tune of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’.
“That could take us to 1am,” was his ‘how I wonder what you are’.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have decided-to-do-this so late at night,” I sang back. “I’m just over it, she’s a li-ttle shi-it.”
We both smiled.
It’d be ok, she couldn’t stay awake much longer.

11.46pm
“Right, change of tactic, don’t pick her up,” I instructed Learner Dad as I entered the nursery.
At eight months old, Fairy Floss was sending me grey.
She’d spent her whole little life either feeding to sleep, or being rocked.
She was our last baby.
We wanted to enjoy her, to do what came instinctively, what felt right.
I loved watching her little eyes roll back in her head as she suckled to sleep.
And Learner Dad took pride in the fact that all he had to do was pick her up and she’d nod off.
But evenings had become a nightmare of hourly wakes.
Which meant hourly cuddles, or feeds, or both.
It wasn’t improving.
“Just let her cry it out,” my mum had said.
“Mum, we’re told not to do it that way these days,” I’d answered.
“Didn’t do you kids any harm.”
Another reason we’d rushed to her every time she cried was because her big brother, Lil Fatty, was slumbering next door.
And he was a light sleeper.
We had actually hatched a plan prior to this – to let her cry it out, but with one of us sitting beside her, so she’d not be alone or scared.
We’d made a couple of half-hearted attempts but tiredness – and TV shows – had been our excuse to jump ship.
We’d never seen it through.
After the usual three or four wakes on this particular night, I’d finally gone to bed at 11pm.
I was drifting beautifully down into deep sleep when her little cry drifted down after me, circling me round the neck and hoisting me back up.
I’d had enough.
And so, at a quarter to midnight, I told Learner Dad to start patting her padded bum while I pulled out my phone for advice – and assurance.

9.13pm
“You’re such a little ratbag, yes you are,” I said, tickling Fairy Floss’ ribs. “Why won’t you stay in bed?”
Her four tiny teeth grinned back at me, before she turned to munch down on my boob.
“Up again?” Learner Dad groaned, coming in to the lounge room.
“Yep. Why are you surprised?”
She’d dramatically turned her head at the sound of her father’s voice, dragging her teeth along my nipple as she did.
“Here, you take her, she likes being rocked by daddy,” I said, passing her over.
Within seconds, our dear little baby was lightly snoring.
“Something feels different about her,” Learner Dad said, gazing down at his little girl. “I’ve got a really good feeling about tonight.”

Two’s company, three’s insane

It’s 2006.
After a busy morning picking Weetbix out of the carpet, holding the shaky feet of a toddler trying to climb a small fort and rock-a-byeing a bear on repeat, Master One is finally down for his afternoon nap.
I sit down with a toasted sandwich and a cup of tea and start the fifth season of the West Wing. He’ll be down at least two hours and nobody deserves the break more than me.
I give myself a pat on the back.

Fast-forward to 2013.
It goes pretty much the same, except this time it’s Lil Fatty.
And Breaking Bad.
The now-Master Seven is at school so I have to cap Lil Fatty’s sleep at two hours to go and pick him up.
I get back home with my two boys and take a coffee break.
Nobody deserves it more than me.
I give myself a pat on the back.

Fast-forward to 2015.
My morning is spent being dragged around by one child, while trying not to drop another.
That’s after I’ve taken the third to school.
I pick Weetbix out of the carpet, wipe pureed fruit off the lino and scrub poo off the couch.
I hold the shaky feet of a toddler trying to get on to the trampoline while a baby tries desperately to sleep in my arms.
Baby sucks furiously on my boob while I hold the potty under the bum of toddler.
I bath baby and make my bed, only to have toddler wee on baby – on my bed.
Toddler rolls out of towel while I try to put a nappy on baby.
Baby rolls out of nappy while I try to re wrap blue-lipped toddler.
I do the Hot Potato, mashing potato.
Mashed Banana, peeling bananas.
And desperately eat what’s left of their Cold Spaghetti for lunch.
Before a visitor arrives, I clean the toilet.
Then find a half-filled potty under the coffee table after they’ve left.
I put one child down for a nap only to hear the other wake up.
Right on cue.
Every day.
I was standing at the back door talking to my 70-year-old neighbour recently.
With Fairy Floss dribbling down my arm and Lil Fatty holding my free hand (and, with his free hand, his doodle), I moaned as I described the giant leap from two to three children.
But she already knew.
She had three herself.
“And I had to have the house clean, dinner cooked, and the kids bathed and ready for bed by the time my husband came home.”
That’s how it was done in her day.
I get one out of three.
Learner Dad invariably comes home to a hot dinner.
He also comes home to wet towels on the floor.
To kids that smell like poo, or wee, or spew, or all three.
To a bench strewn with carrot peel, blobs of ice-cream, stripped corn cobs.
His wife may or may not have washed her hair that day.
Whichever the case, it’s in a ‘mun’ (mum-bun).
And she’s most certainly wearing the same track pants her baby vomited on three days ago.
It’s not that mums of today are less capable than our predecessors.
It’s that the emphasis has been tipped from ‘good wife’ to ‘good mother’.
Instead of ironing hubby’s shirts, we watch our kids play on the trampoline.
We fuss over cupcakes rather than rump steaks.
And we make Lego cities that render vacuuming simply impossible.
If our husbands dare complain, they are quickly put in their place.
Which, in Learner Dad’s case, is eating his rapidly cooling dinner while balancing one child on his lap and reading a story between mouthfuls to another.
While mummy sits down to anything not on ABC4Kids.
And gives herself a well-deserved pat on the back.

Womb to move

Obviously, I wasn’t convinced I was going to die.
I just wasn’t convinced I wasn’t going to.
It all began around week 18…

“You have a low-lying placenta,” my obstetrician said, wiping the gel off my belly. “Probably nothing. We’ll get a better look at your big scan.”
That was two weeks away.
It turned out to be the last two weeks of pregnancy I’d ever get to enjoy.
I settled on to the bed at Women’s Imaging for what would turn out to be the most unsettling ultrasound I’d had.
And I wasn’t a stranger to pregnancy drama.
Early bleeds, gestational diabetes, super huge heads.
I’d worried over everything.
I’d worried over nothing.
And my boys were both fine.
“You have complete placenta previa,” the sonographer said. “C-section for you I’m afraid my dear.”
Ugh.
Master Nine’s birth had been less than perfect.
Induction, gas, epidural, ventouse, retained placenta, surgery.
Undeterred, I took pregnancy yoga ahead of Lil Fatty’s big entrance, even convincing myself I could actually ‘laugh’ my way through it.
But he very quickly became an emergency caesarean.
I’d barely begun to experience the disappointment of another c-section when another word popped into the discussion – ‘accreta’.
“I’m not going to Google it,” I declared to Learner Dad on the way home.
But alarm bells had been ringing in my head from the moment I’d heard it.
Accreta.
I knew that word.
And I knew it wasn’t good.
That night, I Googled it.
‘High risk’, ‘heavy bleeding’, ‘haemmhorage’, ‘hysterectomy’, ‘life-threatening’, ‘transfusion’, ‘rupture’, ‘catastrophic’, ‘maternal morbidity’, ‘maternal mortality…’
Maternal mortality maternalmortality maternalmortalitymaternalmortality…
‘Accreta’ is diagnosed when the placenta is too attached to the wall of the uterus.
There were two more serious varieties – ‘Increta’, where it actually penetrates the uterine wall, and ‘Percreta’, where the placenta eats right through the uterus, often invading other organs, such as the bladder and bowel.
Rates of all three have been increasing in conjunction with the rise in c-sections.
My scan had been on the Thursday.
I wasn’t seeing my obstetrician until the following Wednesday.
On Friday I rang his rooms in a panic.
“Ok, let’s see,” the midwife said in a calm, almost patronising tone. “Don’t get all worked up now. I’ll just scan through your report. Here we go. Placenta previa, suspected percreta…”
Her voice faded away.
She knew she’d told me more than she should have.
“Don’t panic. And don’t get on the internet. The doctor can talk you through the results. In the meantime, you must come straight in if you have any bleeding whatsoever…”
But I wasn’t really listening.
‘I’ve got the worst one, I’ve got the worst one,’ was all I could think.
The percreta was, at this stage, only a possibility.
One thing that was still certain was I had placenta previa.
Previa means the placenta is covering the cervix, giving baby no access to the main door.
This condition also put me at risk – of sudden and heavy bleeding.
I researched both conditions exhaustedly.
I joined Facebook support groups dedicated to them.
Overwhelmingly the women with percreta had had hysterectomies.
Women with previa had occasionally lost babies to premature delivery.
Some talked of months on hospital bed rest and then months in neonatal intensive care units.
They wrote about bleeds so big they’d left the bathroom a crime scene, of late night panicked emergency calls, of being flown from rural towns to big city hospitals by helicopter.
But, despite all the near-death drama, I was a little encouraged.
These were all stories of survival.
Although I had a lot of support around me, only these women knew exactly what I was going through.
Like me, they’d pulled down their pants fearfully every time they went to the toilet.
Or dashed in panic to a toilet every time they thought they felt wet.
They’d had insomnia. And steroids.
They’d faced countless ultrasounds and MRI’s and many a grave face.
They’d sat up late in bed writing goodbye letters to their children (yes I really did this) – just in case.
And they’d tried to contemplate their kids’ lives without them in it.
Everyone’s biggest fear – and I was no exception – was of being put to sleep and not waking up.
The mortality rate (which most of us had frantically searched for at some point) seemed to range from 2 to 5 to 7 to 10 per cent.
A lot of the data was dated.
My obstetrician said much of it emanated from the 1970s, when accreta was largely undiagnosed.
When women did often die.
The fact I was diagnosed and being closely monitored put me in great stead.
But I still felt bleak.
I counted the weeks away with relief.
24 weeks – we called it V Day (for viability).
28 weeks, 30 weeks, 32 weeks, 34.
Sometimes, late at night, I wished I’d just have a bleed and be done with it.
It would force my doctor’s hand and the whole damn thing would be over with.
But I made it to my scheduled delivery date of 35 weeks and four days.
Not one bleed.
My baby girl was born at a healthy six-and-a-half pounds.
Along with her, they extracted my poor spent uterus.
The placenta had eaten its way through, coming to rest alongside my bladder.
I’d be making no more babies.
At age 37 and with two boys and a girl that didn’t seem a huge sacrifice.
Regardless, it was no longer my choice.
These days I look back on my pregnancy and Floss’ birth and wonder if I was being dramatic.
Then I read the posts of my poor diagnosed friends on Facebook and I remember.
When you’re the extremely hormonal home to a human life and the walls are starting to crack, nothing is unreasonable or irrational.

Three months ago, Suzanne Mazzola gave birth to her fourth child.
Like me, she had placenta percreta.
Like me, she made it to her scheduled delivery date of 35 weeks.
Like me, she had a healthy baby.
Unlike me, she never woke up.

Final Delivery

I wasn’t ready to part with the pants.
I’d taken off my top, my bra, shoes and socks, even my jewellery.
But pulling off my black trackies seemed too final.
Like taking off the last part of me.
I had the hospital gown on over them.
To stand naked under it would be to feel like a patient.
Or worse, a corpse.
So I stayed in those trackies as long as I could.
I stayed in them when they came and asked Learner Dad to go upstairs ‘just for a minute’ (were they secretly asking him if I was an organ donor?)
I stayed in them when he came back and silently, wordlessly, enveloped me in a big hug.
It was the wordless part that made it different.
He always had words.
I stayed in them – well sort of – when I went and sat on the toilet and tried to process the enormity of what I was about to do.
But eventually I was told to take them off.
So I did.
I was all theirs now.
It was time.
After months of anxiety and weeks of fear, I felt surprisingly calm.
I slowly got up on the bed.
Was that the last time my feet would touch the floor?
I’d tried to appreciate those precious hours between getting out of bed at home early that morning and on to this one.
Not just appreciate life, but pregnancy.
This was my last one.
I’d soaped my exhausted stretched belly in the shower one final time.
Then stared at it in the mirror as the steam lifted.
There was no final cup of tea.
I was fasting.
I watched our tidy white weatherboard home zoom out as we reversed up the driveway.
And I took a long hard look at the outdoors before entering the hospital.
(But Argyle Street at 6am on a Monday really wasn’t very inspiring.)
Now they were shaving me.
Having been told I was having a vertical incision, I hadn’t bothered.
But apparently it was still necessary.
One of those big burly trolley guys came to wheel me to surgery.
The kind who might have a second job as a nightclub bouncer.
I felt silly being pushed along.
I was perfectly capable of walking.
As we turned a corner I saw the humidicrib being wheeled along behind me.
It was like a punch in my bulging guts.
That’s where my little amigo would go.
Straight from my hot squishy belly into that clinical sauna.
From the dark into the oh-so-bright.
Would he or she need all that stuff, I wondered, staring fearfully at the tiny oxygen masks and tubes.
The image of that tiny trolley being wheeled along behind me is the only thing that still brings tears to my eyes today.
I met my midwife and her student at the lift and we made small talk on the way up.
“Two boys huh? So you’d be hoping for a girl then?”
‘Just to wake up actually,’ was my only hope.
My anaesthetist was first to greet me.
“He’ll be there two hours early,” my obstetrician had joked about him. “He’s always on time.”
I’d met him a few days earlier – an awkward appointment where he either sat staring silently at me or spoke of the potential for things to ‘get hairy’.
‘I’ll give you hairy,’ I thought, staring at his giant moustache.
But he was cheery this morning.
Then I met the urologist.
Also chipper for a Monday morning.
He’d be in an operating theatre next door, he said, and would only be called in if I had a damaged bladder.
I was wheeled into the operating room.
And suddenly people were everywhere.
My obstetrician, who’d spent the latter part of my pregnancy also looking quite frayed, breezed in with a quick hello.
He’d surgically removed a wayward IUD for me a year or two before and had actually spent more time patting my arm on that day than this.
He asked the nurses if the second obstetrician had arrived yet.
I never got to meet that guy, but I’m told he did turn up.
I was introduced to the paediatrician, a pleasant man who was apparently quite the heartbreaker in his day.
While all of this was going on, Learner Dad sat in the corner, his eyes bright with tears.
My rock was liquefying.
He’d been stoic throughout my pregnancy, calming me with cuddles, shouldering and then shrugging away my fears.
But today he actually looked worried and, for the first time, I comforted him.
“It’ll be ok,” I mouthed.
He nodded.
The anaesthetist put a canula in my hand, the nurses hot blankets over my body.
“Ok, come and give your wife a kiss and tell her you love her,” a nurse instructed Learner Dad, like he was about to say goodbye to his mummy at kindy.
(And yes, I was wrong, the moment that followed brings tears to my eyes too.)
“We’re going to put you to sleep now,” a voice behind me said.
The last thing I saw was the worried look on the paediatrician’s face.
And then I was gone.

To be continued…

Lil Fatter

Okay, so she’s not really.
Fatter than her brother that is.
But for a premature baby girl, she’s sure giving him a run for his money.
“She’s got bread legs,” Master Nine proudly told his grandparents last week.
What I’d actually said was she had ‘more rolls than a bakery’.
Fairy Floss is my final baby.
‘Fairy Floss’ because she’s soft, sweet and mostly comes in pink.
The pink is a must.
Having had only boys before, I didn’t realise how hard it is for people to pick a girl.
“Oh he’s so cute, I love his little white pants,” a shop assistant gushed recently.
‘Really?’ I thought. ‘You’re seeing the pants but not the floral smock?’
I smiled widely, glanced about casually and wandered out.
Without buying anything.
I never thought I’d be a girly mum.
I didn’t expect to have a girl and I didn’t expect to enjoy one so much.
I prefer footy to fairies, playgrounds to princesses.
But now my life is pink.
The clothes line is littered in all shades of it, as is one entire room in our house.
Pink clothes, pink blankets, pink teddy bears, pink lotions, even pink nappies.
Yes, she even craps in pink (although, according to Learner Dad, the princess doth only ‘poo’).
After nine years of polo shirts and overalls, I believe it was time for a change.
I folded them up and gave them away faster than I could say ‘the top drawer is for tiaras, the bottom for tutus’.
Fairy Floss arrived after a troubling yet ultimately trouble-free pregnancy (more on that later).
We actually thought we were having a Dagwood Dog.
That’s because our obstetrician had referred to a ‘he’ twice during ultrasounds.
Learner Dad called him on it at our last appointment.
“My wife says you keep saying ‘he’,” he challenged him. “Have you given it away?”
I felt my face redden.
This was awkward.
The poor doctor had probably hoped we hadn’t noticed.
“To be honest,” he replied. “I don’t remember what you’re having. I just call them all ‘he’.”
‘Yeah good one,’ I thought.
We already had two boys. He’d surely sought out a vagina on our behalf.
Turns out he hadn’t.
And when he came to visit me the day after Fairy Floss was born, he still referred to her as a ‘he’.
Learner Dad thinks I’m a bit of a know-it-all when it comes to pregnancy and he loves the fact I got it so wrong.
But he’s wasting his time teasing me because, the thing is, I love it too.
I was wrong.
Horribly, beautifully, wonderfully wrong.
I had a little girl.
After I brought her home, after I’d folded all those blue bundles away and found the two little pink T-shirts I’d kept since my first pregnancy, I sat there gazing at her.
“Daughter,” I whispered.
And once I’d said the word, I couldn’t stop.
I texted my friends. “How are you? All good here. Loving my daughter.”
“Just thought I’d give you a buzz while my daughter’s in bed,” I explained when I rang my mum.
But, amid the celebrations, there was a strange undertone.
Some women were smiling too brightly at me.
And I could swear they were humming.
Was it the tune from Jaws?
I soon worked out what they had in common.
They all had daughters.
Now I’m not completely clueless.
I have Facebook.
I’ve heard, seen and read all about little girls.
Tantrums over tutus, hysterics over handbags.
The day after my daughter was born, a friend texted me a picture of a bright pink monstrosity, with: ‘Despite all your coaxing and adorable overalls buying, you will end up at Kmart buying this.’
My boys couldn’t give a toss about clothes – I could put each of them in a tutu and fairy wings and they’d head out the door without even noticing.
And I know daughter dilemmas extend beyond fashion.
There will be Facebook fights.
And selfie ‘situations’.
I am a girl. I know what we’re like.
We bitch, we cry, we gossip, we keep secrets.
Throw in whoever and whatever has replaced Miley Cyrus and Snapchat in 15 years time and oh mama are Learner Dad and I in trouble.
But that’s ok.
For now I’m going to just put it all out of my head.
For now I’m going to just enjoy my Fairy Floss.

First the Weetbix, Second the Breast

I hoisted Li’l Fatty out of his cot and popped him on the ground.
“Here we go,” I thought, waiting for the ‘I want titty’ tantrum.
But he just turned and plodded out of the nursery.
I followed him in to the kitchen, where he yanked open a cupboard door, pulled out a plastic bowl and threw it at my feet.
“Geh,” he said, looking at me questioningly.
“You want Weetbix? You want Weetbix now?” I asked.
“Geh,” he said, picking the bowl up and throwing it at my feet again.
“Too bad,” I muttered and heaved him over to the couch, popping him on the boob for his morning feed.

Li’l Fatty is about to hit 15-months-old.
I’d always planned to breastfeed him for 12 months.
When that time came, it just seemed easier to keep going.
He’d have food and a bottle during the day, but first thing in the morning and last thing at night was a breastfeed.
Cheap, nutritious and bonding, plus it kept baby plump and mummy not so plump.
But I’d felt weaning time approaching.
I wasn’t planning on taking Li’l Fatty on our honeymoon and a breast pump wasn’t exactly a sexy item to pack.
Breastfeeding had also become mildly inconvenient and a bit embarrassing.
“I’m only doing it morning and night, I’m going to stop soon,” I’d mutter apologetically to anyone in earshot as I hoisted my toddler on to my lap, wondering why we feel guilty if we feed for anything less than six months and anything more than 12.
A week after he demanded Weetbix for brekky, Li’l Fatty, his father, brother and I came home from a birthday dinner, full and exhausted.
I lay him out on my lap.
He smiled lazily, nestled his nose into my nipple, and fell asleep.
There it was.
I’d been made redundant again.
With a full weekend of work coming up, I decided it was a good time to stop permanently.
I’d start a few days earlier by cutting his night feed completely.
I put him to bed that first one, came back into the loungeroom, sat down and began to cry.
“What’s up?” Learner Dad asked, moving over to hug me.
I’d told him I was weaning Li’l Fatty but, as is a man’s way, he hadn’t really noticed.
I’d denied him so much bottle-bonding time with his son, yet he’d never uttered a word, either for or against it.
That night he assured me Li’l Fatty was happy and healthy either way, that we could afford plenty of milk, and that I’d still squeeze into my wedding dress despite losing my little calorie vacuum.
But, as I lay in bed that night, none of that mattered.
All I could think of was Li’l Fatty’s smiley blue eyes looking up at me, his chubby little fingers running through my hair, or exploring my mouth, as he fed.
The little ‘gorr’ (‘gone’) he’d eventually murmur in his husky, tired voice, milk running down his cheek, as he drunkenly passed out.
Now my milk is almost gone.
I don’t think being upset meant weaning was the wrong decision.
Apparently the hormonal shift largely accounts for a mummy’s sadness in letting go.
It’s just the end of another stage.
Like wraps and rolling.
Next it’ll be bye-bye to spoon feeds and sippy cups.
Prams and dummies.
Then dirty nappies.
I’m not sure I’ll lay in bed at night fondly remembering that end of him though.

Am I a bad mother if…

• I stick my finger up at a smartarse Master Eight when he’s not looking?
• I let him sleep on a towel when he’s had an accident at 3am?
• I steal money from his piggy bank to ‘loan’ to the Tooth Fairy?
• I dress Master Eight as the same book character every single year (even though his size 4 Superman outfit is now ridiculously tight [and Superman isn’t really a book character])?
• I occasionally make him wear shorts in winter because I haven’t learned to patch trousers?
• I eat most of the lollies from his party bag after he’s gone to bed?
• I offer to read every second page of his book so I can get back to doing nothing on the couch?
• I hide Li’l Fatty’s favourite book because I’ve simply had enough of ‘green sheep’?
• I often give him finger food, forgetting he had his fingers in his own poo earlier that day?
• I once pretended not to notice when he weed on the floor and rubbed his hand in it?
• I give my children fruit buns, convincing myself the word ‘fruit’ means it’s healthy?
• I am almost out the driveway before Master Eight has his seatbelt on?
• He occasionally goes to school with a sandwich that has nothing in it?
• I tell him Santa’s elves are watching even though it’s only April?
• I ‘accidentally’ vacuum up the teeny tiny Lego pieces that plague his bedroom floor?
• Wine o’clock sometimes starts well before their bedtime?
• I had the occasional wine during pregnancy?
• I tell Master Eight I’ll tape the rest of Big Brother – but don’t?
• I let him watch Big Brother in the first place?
• I time him to run and fetch the newspaper of a morning?
• I tell him he can barrack for whichever team he likes but keep buying him Collingwood pyjamas?
• I give Li’l Fatty Baby Panadol after convincing myself his bad mood is definitely ‘teething’?
• I let him play with the DVD player when his dad’s not home?
• I sometimes serve Master Eight two minute noodles for lunch AND dinner on a Saturday?
• I sometimes serve Li’l Fatty a tub of yoghurt for lunch AND dinner on any day?
• I consistently throw their ‘lost tooth’ and ‘new tooth’ photos up on Facebook? And still have Master Eight’s bloody first tooth hidden in my cupboard?
• I stalk them at night, sitting in the dark by their beds, listening to them breathe?
• I’d kill, steal or starve for them if absolutely necessary?

Nope, I have a feeling I’m pretty much the norm… 

Party pooper

“Ok I’ve got 55 people,” Learner Dad said, thrusting the list in front of me.
“I’m sure a lot of them won’t be able to come,” he added, as I choked on my cereal.
I didn’t realise he’d even begun a guest list.
I certainly hadn’t.
“I’ve found an invitation website where we can get invites done for a dollar each,” he said proudly. “I figure we get 50. Fifty dollars total. Easy.”
Ok so why was I in shock over 55 guests and a fifty dollar invitation cost?
Because, dear readers, we weren’t talking about our wedding.
We were talking about Li’l Fatty’s first birthday.
I thought back to Master Seven’s first birthday party.
There were about a dozen people there.
Same with his second birthday and pretty much every birthday since.
But there were two differences now: 1) Back then none of my friends had children; and 2) since then I’d had a baby with a man who had a big family.
I began my own list.
The family members I’d invite only amounted to a small number of people.
But once I added my friends and their burgeoning broods, my list was nearly as long as Learner Dad’s.
A hundred people for a first birthday?!
Was this unheard of?
We had to cater for them and would probably wind up taking home dozens of presents.
Master Seven had burst into tears when 12 people began singing Happy Birthday to him at his first party.
How would Li’l Fatty go with nearly a hundred?
Would I even be able to get to the front of the pack to find out?
I sighed.
And scheduled an emergency meeting with Learner Dad.
We were barely past ‘attendance’ when we struck a surprisingly quick agreement: we’d rather not have a party after all.
Just a birthday cake at home with a handful of rellies.
It seemed the idea of hosting a barbecue for a hundred people in a park on the first day of winter was all a bit too much for Learner Dad in the end too.
Besides, this year we had another event to organise, another guest list to focus on.
And I had a feeling Li’l Fatty had plenty of partying ahead of him.

Baby and the bathwater

It was the moment I’d been dreading.
Li’l Fatty had found it.
Every morning in the bath, he’d glance about as if trying to remember something, then suddenly look down and grab it.
He’d laugh or frown as he pulled at it, depending on his mood.
Then he’d pop it in his mouth.
Ok, don’t be disturbed, I’m not talking about his doodle (he made that discovery long ago).
I’m talking about the bath plug.
Every morning, sometimes 10 minutes, other times 10 seconds after he’s in, out comes the plug.
It doesn’t matter how many bubbles I create to hide it, or how many toys I try to distract him with.
Forget the pirate bath with the spraying cannons.
The bright red Elmo jug or the colourful array of rubber duckies.
He just wants the plug.
The plain little white round plug.
Sometimes we play ‘See How Many Times I Can Get Mummy To Put It Back In’.
Other times he’s out the moment IT’S out.
Like I can teach an 11-month-old a lesson.
The plug is of course not the only everyday household item he’s obsessed with.
There are electrical sockets.
Wherever you go in our house, you’ll see the two red eyes of switched on power points.
Barely in sight, they don’t emit music, radiate light, or do anything entertaining.
They’re just plain old lethal power points.
Drawers are another one.
You can pull them out with one hand, then push them closed with your other hand still inside.
Fun!
Cupboards are great for whacking yourself repeatedly in the head.
And blinds are a fantastic alternative to clothing.
The attraction of babies to the seemingly mundane is also true of TV.
Li’l Fatty won’t raise an eye to Thomas the Tank Engine but everything stops when Harvey Norman is advertising cheap lounges.
And Fireman Sam has nothing on CLR.
Or Jackson’s Security.
In many ways, babies are simple creatures.
You can have the brightest, loudest, funniest, sweetest, most outrageous toys.
But at the end of the day, Mummy’s drink bottle will dominate.
The lesson here: enjoy your little one while he’s still obsessed with the simple things.
Because one day he WILL want Thomas the Tank Engine.
In his toy box.
And on TV.
All day.
Every day.
The plug will be a distant memory.
For you, that is.
It won’t even be that much for him.