It’s getting towards the end of Week 9, and things are starting to change for me. Penny is still an absolute joy, but I’ve got to admit, for the first time since she came along I’ve felt… bored. Slap me on the wrist if you will. A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked, doesn’t it ever get boring? At the time I was taken aback. Never! No! I suppose sometimes the tenth nappy change of the day can feel a little tedious, and there is only so long you can commentate everything you’re doing before you start to feel a little bit nuts (“okay Penny, I’m just getting the soup out of the microwave now but we’ve got to be careful because it might be a bit hot, and now I’m just going to give it a stir, and let’s get some bread and butter out to have with the soup, mmm I’m spreading butter on the bread now, butter-butter-butter, so yummy!” etc), but it’s never boring. … Some time has passed. Can I reserve the right to change my mind?
I realised I felt this way today when we were supposed to do ‘something nice’ with Husbandito this morning but we ran out of time before he had to leave for work, and then my brunch plans fell through, and the babe was crying, and I met head on with the resignation that holy crap, if I want even a second to myself it is going to involve lying underneath her for at least half an hour patting her butt. Which in itself isn’t such an unpleasant thing, but still, to have to plan your day in three-hour-long chunks before the next feed can be more strenuous than it sounds. It’s not that you can’t do other stuff, you just have to be prepared. But preparation takes time, no matter how ready your nappy bag is or how well you’ve planned your outfit for maximum warmth with best boob accessibility. You can’t just duck around the corner for a bottle of milk any more. Not if she’s asleep and you want her to stay that way, anyway. And why is it that she can be quietly and happily sitting in her rocker and then start to scream the very moment I need to take a dump? And I still can’t go to the shops to get her a baby gym because I will never be able to carry the damned thing back with me on my own, and it is so fricking cold now that the lady headlights come on and ache like crazy and there is very little I can do about that unless I am making a new hot water bottle every couple of hours. Husbandito will call and I’ll say we’ve been dancing for the last twenty minutes and I’m tired, and he’ll say but that’s a nice thing to do isn’t it? And it’s like, well, yes, but the fun starts to wear off into the third hour. I’m sorry if I sound like an ungrateful, selfish old sod, but there it is.
I am realising many things about the way I am feeling. Ironically, you would think that the boredom should be easy to beat by meeting up with other new mums, but I find myself not wanting to do this so much. Don’t get me wrong. I love the girls from my prenatal classes and they have really been a lifeline in these early weeks. It is also really, really nice knowing that I get to meet up with my new parent’s group once a week, for four weeks. After that I thought it was just, let’s exchange details and we can hang out sometimes, catch up for coffees, meet up at kiddie places when they are big enough to play, sounds awesome. But then I realised it is encouraged that we continue to meet up once a week after the official bit is over. And I’m not sure how I feel about that. You do that once a week, you do yoga once a week, you meet up with those parents again somewhere else like a mums-and-babes movie session (I’m still refusing to use the word ‘bub’)… why does the appeal of this wear thin to me? It’s not that I don’t like the women in the new parent’s group, because I do, a lot, and I think I’ll make some good friends here. But I figured it out: I don’t really want new friends. Another slap on the wrist. What kind of idiot doesn’t want to make new friends? I mean, I value these women and their babies and their stories and experiences; their sympathetic ears and their awesome tips; their wins and their failures. But it feels somehow stressful to think I should want to be tied to them on a regular basis. Perhaps I have commitment issues.
Before you write me off completely, here’s the rub. The thing is, I miss my regular friends. Even before the babe came along, it was hard enough to find time to meet up and spend time with them all. Making new friends feels like less time that I am putting into those relationships, and besides, some of them have babies too, can’t I just talk to them? Of course I know it is possible to have my cake and eat it too (and don’t worry, there is a lot of cake-eating in my busy schedule), but I think I am feeling the first of my identity crises now that the immediacy of motherhood’s early weeks are passing and the wonder of Life 2.0 becomes the norm. What are you going to do? people ask, find work, or stay home with her, or what? and I shrug, and furrow my brow, and rack my brain for options that don’t involve us taking money out of savings every week just to pay the rent. And I meet up with those old friends, and I try to think of something to say that doesn’t involve Penny’s sleep patterns, or what a great burp she did this morning. And I can’t. I secretly dread becoming this person. I am proud of my girl, and there lies the value of the other new mums – a guilt-free open forum to discuss such things. Even when Husbandito gets home, all I want to do is tell him about her huge poop, or how long she fed for. As her father he is obviously more than happy to listen, but I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder if my brain is turning to moosh. I feel a little stupider. It is totally worth it to spend time exchanging smiles with the girl and reading books to her that she doesn’t appear to be terribly interested in, and I wouldn’t trade her for the world, but is it so bad to also miss the person I used to be? Who am I, again? A mother, now, certainly. The best thing ever. But what else? I have forgotten.
whatvioladidnext 