Balancing Motherhood, Yoga and Writing

The Pibler and I have settled into a lovely rhythm together, the last few days at home. We have only been going out for very short spells, and not to things occurring at any specific time, so there’s been no rushing. I love not rushing! Also I’ve realised that when I don’t have an activity in the morning, I can take my time over yoga and mantra chanting in the morning (all with the Pibler beside and around me!) and set my day up much more positively.

The advantage of being in this zone is that I’m able to listen to his communications much more, because I’m not at the same time trying to interact with someone else. I noticed when a good friend visited yesterday afternoon, that it’s much harder to have conversations the older that the Pibler gets - because he is much clearer in his own communication, and wants to be involved! At one point he was grousing a bit so we sat down on the floor and played with him - not very ‘Continuum’ but hey, it worked, and in a few minutes he was playing happily on his own again, just with us ‘on his level’. It really helps to think of things from his point of view - he’s on the ground, and we’re up on the sofa - not a very equal power dynamic, and quite excluding. I also think it’s good for him to see us adults engaged in our own social interaction, though - I can see how much he’s learned from that, in his ever-expanding vocabulary and ability to make his needs and thoughts known.

Yesterday just after his dad left for work, he went and picked up my front door keys, walked to the door, and made as if to unlock it from the inside - to try and get to dad! I was amazed at his intelligence.

Last night I was doing some reading in preparation for my yoga workshop, and felt inspired again by the rich and involved concepts of Kundalini Yoga: the concept of the tattvas - the different levels of existence, from most subtle to most dense  - and how they relate to the five elements, which is the theme of my workshop; how those elements play out in our bodies and our lives. I love to read and reconnect with the wisdom of this tradition, and come away with more understanding about how multi-dimensional we all are. It was also interesting to see how I felt yesterday, practicing yoga after not doing so for a few days - my energy instantly felt ’smoother’ and I also felt more grounded.

New Year is going to be fairly low-key: it will be my third year in a row of spending it with just my partner  - and second year with the Pibler as well (not that he’ll be up that late - I wonder if even I will - I’m finding it hard to stay up past 10 lately!). I feel like I haven’t yet come to terms with the year ending - it feels unreal, and I don’t have a sense of what 2008 was about. It seemed to pass in a whirlwind. Mainly, I suppose, I was learning my way as a mother, as the Pibler was still so young when the year began. Building up a new life around that new identity, and gaining confidence as a new parent. I’ve also learned to be a bit more gentle and kind to myself with regard to my writing and other goals, and relax in the knowledge that everything doesn’t have to happen now. As for 2009 intentions..I plan to reflect on that a bit later today, and report tomorrow! Happy New Year everyone.

This week is a bit tricky because all the usual things that structure my time are on ‘holiday mode’ - the breastfeeding drop-in, children’s activities at the library, toddler music groups. In a way it’s great to get some time to just hang out with the Pibler, and be able to have a nap whenever he does!

But it also has the potential to be a bit lonely, because my partner’s back at work as usual while other people’s are generally still off work…so I don’t want to impose on their ‘family time’, but I also think I won’t be in a good head space if I don’t have some social interaction this week.

Today it took me three attempts to simply get the dishes done, then eventually managed to leave the house for a walk after lunchtime. I love walking through the cemetery with the Pibler - it’s so peaceful and hardly anyone else is there. There are plenty of flowers for him to look at, and it was moving seeing the Christmas displays that people had added to their relatives’ graves. And he said ‘tree’ for the first time today! His vocabulary is increasing steadily: he now has about ten words! I’ve been pointing out trees to him since he was very little, and guiding him to touch their bark, so it was exciting to hear him say it finally.

I’ve just finished reading a fantastic book on breastfeeding, “The Food of Love” by Kate Evans, a gift given to all of us who finished the breastfeeding peer support course. The author is a cartoonist and uses cartoons to wonderful, hilarious effect to illustrate, for example, the advantages of co-sleeping over getting up umpteen times per night to attend to a crying baby, and the reasons why babies are adapted to need lots of contact. She puts all the information and points of view across with such a unique, humorous and matter-of-fact style, yet not at all prescriptive. I particularly love the way she openly criticises the childcare ‘routines’ so beloved of Gina Ford and Tracey Hogg,  and calls much parenting advice of the past century ‘a lot of rubbish’. I took part in a lactivism protest on Facebook on Saturday, where participants posted photographs of breastfeeding on their profiles to protest Facebook’s anti-breastfeeding action. It felt good to be part of a larger movement.

I’m busy planning the yoga workshop I’m booked to run this weekend. I am missing my own practice so much but am finding it hard to do it in the evenings now that the Pibler has been going to bed later again and waking up all the time. I have no idea what we’re doing for New Year yet!

The last few days, over this festive season, have been a glimpse of what parenting in a ‘tribe’ would be like - as in the saying, it takes a village to raise a child.

Although I didn’t have any designated ‘time off’ from mothering my little one, it was so relaxing being surrounded by my partner’s family, including his two older cousins who played with him and entertained him with ‘Diablo’ tricks (sort of a modern version of a yo-yo), gymnastics (about the only yoga I did was showing the Pibler’s 8-year-old cousin how some of her gymnastics poses are similar to yoga), dancing and endless peek-a-boo.

Witnessing the Pibler’s enjoyment of his extended family, seeing their joy in him, and not having the sole responsibility of monitoring the Pibler’s well-being was great.  I could sit and read a book on the couch, go and have a shower, all while still being there for him. I’ve come home feeling refreshed and newly motivated in my role as mother. Which is a good thing, because he has come down with a racking cough and cold and is rather unwell (again!). We spent most of today cuddling on the couch, which was actually very relaxing.

While ‘on holiday’ I re-read an old favourite, Ali Smith’s ‘The Whole Story and Other Stories’, a book of ..surprisingly enough..short stories. I fell in love with her writing all over again - I read ‘Hotel World’ a few years ago and loved it too. Her stories make you want to live life on a different plane, where you notice the kind of things she does - the everyday occurrences and moments that tell so much about our human experience. It also made me want to write short stories.

I’ve tried my hand at that over the years but never finished one I liked. I’m now considering doing a formal short course on writing so that I can get some skills - dialogue and setting, for instance, which I need a lot of work on - and use them in short stories. My novel is still on hold, and I’m beginning to think I might try a different avenue in my writing. Short stories and poems seem a lot more compatible with the short bursts of attention I can give my work as a mother - and they are also easier to get ‘out there’ because they can fit into other publications, e.g. magazines.

I’ve made some notes inspired by a walk on the beach during our time in Devon, which sparked off thoughts about the way as adults we become so removed from spontaneous impulses, that I could see the Pibler’s cousins were still so in touch with. I hope this will grow into a story!

It’s strange how relaxing it is to just come away from home for a while and be in a different place. We are at my partner’s family in Devon now, having arrived yesterday afternoon after a 5 hour journey. The Pibler has already happily discovered the contents of the kitchen cupboards and is currently playing with pots and pans on the lounge floor, so I thought I’d grab this moment to write.

I managed to fulfil my Suite 101 writing commitments before leaving, writing a book review on Alfie Kohn’s wonderful, thought-provoking book Unconditional Parenting. It was fun to write, and reminded me of the core concepts by which I hope to parent: trying to see my child’s perspective, being open to solutions rather than trying to control, and giving him as much choice as possible.

The train journey up was quite stressful, as both trains were packed full of holiday-makers and the Pibler got fed up with not being able to exercise his new ‘legs’. He is now walking so ‘fluently’ and even ran a little yesterday when we finally arrived, and he was released from the constraints of public transport!

Next time I think we’ll have to get him his own seat, as it was quite challenging keeping him occupied on our laps and on the table (luckily we’d reserved table seats). I don’t wish to contemplate what the 12 hour flight to South Africa will be like next May!

My ‘in-laws’ house is beautifully decorated in a subtle way - to me Christmas decorations need to strike that balance to avoid being kitsch or overkill. For now, it’s fairly quiet, until the rest of the family arrive this evening. The Pibler will then have his older cousins to entertain him and I’m sure the noise level will go up considerably!

My yoga practice was non-existent yesterday but today I managed a few exercises this morning, and even a sort of ‘meditation’ where I did a few lovely affirmations to myself, and just generally tried to set up a good energy for the day. I’m getting back into affirmations again, because they really do have the power to shift you out of a mood and into something more positive.Well, that’s all for now! Happy Christmas!

At last night’s Burning of the Clocks Winter Solstice Ceremony I finally started to ‘catch’ some seasonal ’spirit’. Up till now I’ve felt rather removed from all the crazed buying and spending and general panic.

I’m like that every year, actually. Since moving away (very, very far away) from my family in South Africa, I’ve lost some of the Christmas ‘magic’ and now am in a process of, with my own family, trying to find ways to rekindle that. I think the excitement on the Pibler’s face when he sees the Christmas lights around the city, and baubles on trees, is proof that the magic still exists!

The Burning of the Clocks is a ceremony unique to Brighton, organised by community arts group Same Sky. It was devised as an antidote to the commercial excesses of Christmas, and for the past fifteen years has attracted thousands of people. It involves people parading through the streets to the seafront, with paper and willow lanterns which are made in workshops leading up to the event. The lanterns are then burned on a ceremonial bonfire, while participants make wishes for the new year.

I went last year for the first time, with the Pibler as a newborn all nestled in his Close sling, and enjoyed the feeling of being part of something bigger than myself - and able to celebrate a turning point of the year with other people. I generally honour the Solstices and Equinoxes, Samhain (Halloween) , and so on, alone, and so this brings me back to a tribal sense of belonging, similar to that I experienced at the wonderful Out of the Ordinary Festival in September this year - the Pibler’s third festival!

We spent most of Sunday feasting and talking and playing at a friend’s house and it was so lovely to see the children all together - the Pibler gave a warm hug to his little friend (two months older than him) when he arrived, which we wished we could have captured on camera! We then all walked down together to the Laines shopping precinct of Brighton, joined the actual parades and walked alongside it as far as we could. We left before the fireworks as my friend’s little girl was frightened at the prospect. We saw it over our shoulders on the way home though. The Pibler had fallen asleep by then, hypnotised by the rhythmic drumming of one of the bands!

Tomorrow we are off to the West Country for our Christmas shenanigans, a long journey by train which is always interesting trying to keep the Pibler entertained - especially now that he’s walking! (he wasn’t walking last time we made the journey). But I’m looking forward to a few days of relaxing (hopefully) with my partner’s family and eating a lot of chocolate! I’ll try tokeep this blog up as much as I can.

Computers, computers. I just spent an hour typing a new article into my Suite 101, trying to meet my deadline of 30 articles by the end of this month (only one more to go now), only to have it all disappear! When will I ever learn to save my work!

I then re-typed most of it, saved it, and went back in: but this time the computer gremlins had more fun in store for me, and it had all been encrypted in some weird type, and most of it was in italics! I had to laugh. It’s now 10:15 p.m. and I still have to RELAX, read a book, meditate, etc. And I didn’t do any yoga today. Nor did I make it to the internet writing seminar I was planning to go to. It feels a little..erm…unbalanced!

Usually I do my yoga in the morning when I get up, but this particular morning I woke up far too ravenous and ate breakfast instead. I find if I don’t get things like that done in the morning, I seldom find time in the evening. Also, tonight the Pibler only went to bed at close to 9 pm after a failed attempt to get him off to sleep at his usual time, 7. Sometimes it just doesn’t work, and I ‘ve got more relaxed about that. I bring him downstairs again and he just potters around (this time playing with my store cards again!) until he’s really tired and ‘asks’ to go to sleep.

I’m amazed at the Pibler’s developing language ability: he’s now repeating back specific animal noises, from ‘baa’ to ‘neigh’ to ‘moo’ when I sing to him (during nappy changes - which have got a little less challenging lately, if lengthy!), and saying the ends of long words like ‘potato’ (’toe’ when he points to a potato - I know what he means )

The two articles I’ve published over the last couple of days on Suite 101 are both about breastfeeding, which I’m as fired up about as ever after reading a brilliant book, Successful  Breastfeeding by the Royal College of Midwives. It went into detail about all the nutritional constituents of this amazing life-force substance, and how infant formula cannot replicate it, despite the companies’ claims. One of my new articles is about Breastfeeding Problems, which I was fortunate to not experience but have learned more about on my peer support course, and one on the Risks and Disadvantages of Formula Feeding.

I think this last one may get me some heated comments on the site - it’s such a sensitive topic, and people are often up in arms because they were formula fed or they formula fed their own children - but I think it needs to be said. I found a new American ad campaign on You Tube which was focussed on the risks of formula feeding rather than the benefits of breastfeeding, as the campaigning has been saying up till now. I think this is far better - this ad showed heavily pregnant women doing dangerous things and said ‘You wouldn’t take risks before your baby’s born, why would you start after?’

Oh and I found out that my breastfeeding counselling training is only 2 1/2 hours long, so with the travel time it’ll only be about 4 1/2 hours. That makes me feel better about leaving the Pibler with my friend. We are going to spend most of today with her and her family too, having a braai (barbecue) and later going to the Winter Solstice celebration of Burning of the Clocks on the seafront. I’m looking forward to celebrating this ceremony with my family.

Well, that’s all I have time for tonight..

Last night I went to an inspiring meeting at Manna Cafe. It was the first of many master-minding meetings all about joining with like-minded people to create ripples of change, rather than remaining in an apathy bred by television news and consumerism.

It’s always a bit nerve-wracking getting together with a new group for the first time, and having no idea where things will go. But the evening unfolded with some wonderful insights, as well as lively debate. We talked about projects we are involved in or envision doing, and the seeds were sown for future collaborations.

Most of all, I went away with a feeling of empowerment. Listening to the news and walking through the streets seeing people’s credit-crunch depressed faces can have a hugely sagging effect on one’s positive visions. It can start to seem like nothing you do will make a difference.

In fact, there was a recent discussion on Radio 4 about the idea that growing one’s own vegetables at home is, in fact, a futile endeavour often destined for failure, and certainly doesn’t save you any money. I could feel my as-yet-ungrown lettuces wilting alread - this was one of the main reasons we held out for a place with a garden: to grow our own veg.

This is typical of the media’s tendency to burst the bubble of any conscious efforts to empower ourselves, and break out of ‘the grid’.  Today, enlivened by last night’s meeting, while walking through the Christmas shoppers to do some non-Christmas-related shopping, I was able to keep my internal smile and avoid getting stressed by the rush of it all. I felt strengthened by joining with others who are on a spiritual path of awareness and who do not buy into the hype we are sold about what we need to be happy. The idea is that we can have paradise right here, right now - this is it. There is nothing to wait for - and as Yogi Bhajan said, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

On a more prosaic note, but just as exciting, the Pibler’s walking explorations went further than ever before today when he walked all the way from the Pavilion Park almost to the road on North Street! Obviously I was right behind and beside him, but it got quite worrying! I couldn’t convince him to turn around and head back, he was determined to carry right on, so I had to pick him up and carry him back to the park a couple of times - much screaming! Not very consensual, but in my mind safety issues override. Prior to that he had a huge grin on his face, at the joy of walking through so much open space - it was hard to have to stop his fun.

A few days ago I wrote about a ‘no flow’ day…well, today was the opposite. I have simply enjoyed the company of my little one and allowed the day to unfold… a welcome antidote to the overly ‘busy-busy’-ness of the past few weeks.

I was planning to go to the 10:15 a.m. ’story time’ for young children at the library, and get some new books for the Pibler - I love ‘My Hippie Grandmother’ but there’s only so many times I can read the same story - and possibly also meet a friend or two. But he fell asleep just before we were about to leave, so instead I lay down and semi-dozed with him for an hour - so refreshing! I actually felt relieved to be able to rest instead of dashing off to town once again.

I need to do that more often. I was better about naps when he was younger, but have got out of the habit lately. Also, as he lay curled up in my arms I experienced a real moment of appreciation of this lovely little creature I get to cuddle and love every day - one of the better moments of motherhood, when I remember how much I longed to experience just that, and now I have it!

Since then we’ve just been pottering around, me catching up on some housework (which I’ve got very slack at lately) and the Pibler waving the feather duster around in my wake. We did get out for a bit, as it was such a lovely ‘blue-sky’ day, rare in these winter times. A walk in the beautiful cemetery across the road - lots of ‘Flawa! Flawa!’ cries from the pibler (Flower! Flower!) and many trees to point out - a (mercifully) short trip to Sainsbury’s to get a couple of bits, and the park across the road where the Pibler enjoyed the swings and the slide - and of course didn’t want either to end. He has showered me with smiles all day and seems happy to be at home - right now he is walking around the lounge with half a strawberry in a plastic tub - very busy boy!

Oh dear - this is turning into a bit of a ‘mommy blog’ after all…’then we did this, then we did that’…apologies if you are all dying of boredom. Some days I just need to give myself a break from all the philosophizing and simply enjoy the perks of this job

Today was busy and satisfying, although it lacked one-on-one ‘me and the little one’ time, which no doubt I’ll make up for tonight In the morning, I volunteered at the breastfeeding drop-in, and found it rewarding to welcome two new mothers of newborns. I cannot believe how little they are, and how their cries sound like a pterodactyl dinosaur’s!

A lot of other my mothering ‘peers’ seem to be getting broody again… not me. Sure, I get the odd moment of thinking it would be nice, but only a fleeting moment. Maybe that’s just because I have a ‘high needs’ baby - but I also find the idea of being pregnant in the near future quite scary and improbable. When I was pregnant, it somehow felt like I wasn’t ‘me’…I remember that almost as soon as the Pibler was born, although I felt exhausted and on another planet, I also felt a huge sense of relief: I was back to being me, and I felt so normal in comparison!

After the drop-in I unsuccessfully tried to get the Pibler off for a nap - usually works just to ride him down the hill in his buggy, but not this time. Did some shopping and headed back home to teach my mom-and-toddler yoga class, only I was running so late my student was there before me! Luckily it’s all pretty relaxed, and actually very cute because her son (16 months old) has recently learned to say my son’s name, and gives him bear hugs all the time! It’s lovely.

Then I caught up on the phone with my lifelong friend who is all the way in Bristol and I sadly only see a couple of times a year, while cooking dinner with the Pibler on my back in the Ergo . He was too fractious, though, so i gave up and put him to bed at 5:30 p.m. One good side-effect of no naps is zonking out early, and easily, when it comes to bedtime! Unfortunately though, he’s already woken up twice since then!

My friend and yoga ’student’, who is also doing the breastfeeding peer support course and also volunteers at the drop-in, said something that interested me, on her way out today: that she thinks it may be a sort of ‘constitutional’ (that’s my word, I can’t remember what word she used) thing that determines whether mothers are able to abandon, for example, ideas of ’scheduled feeds’ a la Gina-Ford, and feed their babies as much as they need to, in order to get a good supply going. That is, women who have an inherently very strong need for ‘order’ and predictability in their lives, and tolerate mess and chaos less well, will struggle to embrace the inherent chaos of motherhood.

This is close to the topic I dealt with in my article ‘Ten Years On: Surrendering to the Shifting Tides of Motherhood’ in the latest issue of ‘natural parenting’ magazine Juno. I wrote about how I chose the path of least resistance, and abandoned my ideas of how things ’should’ be; and my journey as a mother has been so much richer and more of a learning experience, because of it. For me the key difference is whether you see your child as having something to teach you (and I think the Pibler is my greatest spiritual teacher at the moment!), or if you see them as needing to learn all the lessons from you.

Yesterday I had a bit of a wobbly about just how dependent the Pibler is on me.

I somehow thought that by six months, I’d be able to…I don’t know, maybe go to the toilet on my own? Then by a year or thereabouts, it seemed likely that he wouldn’t need me to be beside him to sleep more than a 45 minute stretch at a time. And perhaps I could leave him with a babysitter while I went out of an evening.

The reality has been so different from that. It’s only very recently, at 14 months, that I’ve been able to leave him with his dad for a couple of hours in the evening, and that he’s able to be put to bed by him: this was a huge milestone. I started worrying last night because I realised my breastfeeding counselling diploma course, starting next month, isn’t happening ‘at some point in the future’ when the Pibler will magically be less in need of me, but is happening NEXT MONTH. And that nothing drastic is likely to change by then.

I’ve been planning to leave him with a friend of mine, also a mother, who he is fond of and sees regularly, but who I’ve never left him alone with before - certainly not for half a day, twice a month, which is what this will involve.

I found myself beating myself up for being so foolish as to think this was realistic…worrying that it’s going to involve tears, and I won’t be close enough to get back to him, the course being in a town a train ride away…and then wondering if I’ve somehow ‘made’ the Pibler just …well, TOO attached.

I’ve heard people say they wouldn’t wear their babies in a sling around the house because it would make them too clingy - and of course, with my attachment parenting philosophy and knowledge that  babywearing has fantastic benefits, I scoffed at this.

But I have to admit that every now and then, like last night, I do wonder, and I have to have a bit of a sob down the phone to my long-suffering partner, who has to hear the machinations of my self-doubt and merry-go-round reasoning about parenting, on a daily basis. His truth in a nutshell: I should be able to close the door and go to the toilet without the little one in tow. He finds it hard to see me feel so trapped at times.

The truth is, there are more important things to me than privacy right now. Things like being able to detach the Pibler from the breast when he’s fallen asleep for a nap instead of remaining fixed to me, so that I can truly have a break. If I wasn’t a big reader I don’t know what I would have done.

What helped me in the end, though, was realising that it’s not helpful to compare  the Pibler to other babies. I always find myself thinking: “Oh, but Johnny can be left with another carer all day” or “Mary stopped breastfeeding more than once a day, months ago”…and it just doesn’t help.

It’s the Pibler’s individual needs and personality that I have to work with, not that of any other baby, and I believe a lot of that is inborn temperament. I think a revisit to Dr Sears’ ‘Fussy Baby Book’ , which I read when he was still very little, might be in order - I need to remind myself that a high need baby is NOT my fault…and find some tips on how to deal with it as he gets older.

My decision about the course is not final: I’m going to try taking the Pibler to my friends more regularly in the lead-up, which can be tricky  because of Christmas and all that entails, and try leaving her with him for an hour or two, see how that goes…my hopes aren’t high though. But I felt reassured after talking to one of the tutors on my breastfeeding peer support course today, who said that I can always try it and if it’s not working, I can pull out- they will understand.Sometimes I think I have to have all the answers, and right now too, but thankfully it doesn’t work like that.