Tuesday, 6th of May, 2008
- coming home from work to a smiling, happy boy who giggles when he sees you
- spending nearly 2 hours with your son before he totally conks out during the post-bath, post-feed story time
- ordering Thai food from a good restaurant and having it delivered to your home
- catching up on your blogs and your Scrabulous games in the evening while your husband does the washing up and finishes cooking A’s food for tomorrow
- looking forward to an evening in with your husband and another great day at work tomorrow
Monday, 5th of May, 2008
You know those tv shows in which the hero(es) have 2 minutes to disable a bomb, but that 2 minutes is stretched into at least 10 minutes of the actual show? So you’re sitting there, at the edge of the sofa for far longer than the timer on the bomb.
This past week has been sort of like that, but opposite. Instead of the time stretching it has shrunk and I find myself staring at the end of my maternity/child-rearing leave a bit amazed that it’s come up so quickly. Back in September, April seemed like a lifetime away and there was so much time left to do all the things I wanted to do. But then Mother Nature said “Hahahaha! You’ve got a child now and he’ll fill up your days” and she was right.
So, after a long weekend, the briefest visit from Anne and A catching a horrible coldy-fluey-thing, I head back to work tomorrow with a bit of a cold myself.
I’m excited and nervous at the same time. I hope A’s fine all day tomorrow. I hope Pani J can handle everything well. I hope they remember me…
Friday, 2nd of May, 2008
You can’t tell a 102 year-old woman that life’s short. For her, life is long, too long and when you call her on her 102nd Birthday, she is annoyed. It’s not life, she says, anymore. I can’t do anything anymore. I think God may have forgotten me.
So, you quickly change subjects because how can you say anything sensible after that? Instead, you shift to the great great grandson of this lovely lady with a strong personality and a generous heart. The great great grandson to whom you recently gave birth gets out of talking about quality of life with a 102 year-old.
If you could describe my great grandmother in one word, you probably would have said: spirited. You could have also said energetic, outgoing, sociable, communicative and amazing. She was an amazing lady. She went to Canada in her 60s, worked there to get a state pension and she slowly started pulling her close family overseas to live near her. Her daughters, her granddaughters and her great grandchildren. Living in her building, full of elderly people, she helped people who were younger than her. She was always helping somebody.
She was generous with her time and generous with her experience and she always knew her mind. Even in her last year, she still tried to run the care home in which she found herself, after living on her own for a long time. Even in her last decade, she insisted on going mushroom picking with my parents. She worked hard all her life and survived a lot of hardship. She was stronger than most and her strength of character kept her with us for so long.
But, as you age and enter the golden years of 80s, 90s and 100s, you see your family and friends pass away. What’s the fun in living when you can’t call your best friend on the phone anymore because she’s no longer there? What’s to laugh about when you can’t really read anymore and nobody will take you to the forest because you need a walker to move around? Watching my great grandmother through the last 20 years, I realised that such a long life can be a blessing, but it can also be a curse.
Her ability to adapt amazed us all. Born in 1906, she didn’t see a refrigerator or a television until well into her life. But, she adapted to life in Canada with fridges, cars, televisions, microwaves and photos of A streaming in through the magic of the Internet. She didn’t necessarily understand the technology (who does?), but she went with the flow.
I can’t quite accept that she’s no longer there, in her room, at the care home, sitting on the edge of the bed. I can’t accept the fact that I won’t see her again. Because I’ve lived abroad for nearly 11 years, I’ve only seen her sporadically. The truth hasn’t quite hit home yet even though I’ve cried and bumped around the flat for the past few days, lost, dazed and confused.
I am glad that we went to Canada at Christmas and I am glad that she got to see and hold A (5 generations all in one room). And we knew back then that it was probably the last time I would see her. When Mum and I talked about her passing, we both agreed that she’s no longer in pain, that she’s in a better place now. It would be selfish of us to want her to live a little longer, to be with us for a little more time. She was tired of life in March when we spoke, and she didn’t want to live forever. I think I understand that…
Friday, 25th of April, 2008
My father just called me to let me know that my great-grandmother, who turned 102 in March, is very unwell. She was taken into the hospital last week and her health has been declining steadily since then. She is not expected to last much longer. It’s not a complete surprise, but it’s one thing to know it’ll happen some day and another when it’s just about to happen.
My head is filled with static and I feel numb. A check on flights to Winnipeg shows extortionate prices (of course, I’d like to fly asap) and brings many question marks. Do I go alone? A won’t like that at all and it’ll be lots stress for N and who will we find to look after him on the days when Pani J is not here? Do I take A? It’ll be difficult on my own, but manageable (lots of people do it). Do I stay at home? My heart says no.
In the absence of the answers I’ve got static and numbness.
Update: On Saturday morning (CST) my great-grandmother passed away. That is all I’m able to write at this moment.
Friday, 25th of April, 2008
I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about this post and I’ve been getting a bit annoyed by it all. Is there a woman in the western Hemisphere who has not been told by numerous people, tv shows, magazines, websites and pamphlets that nursing your child up to 6 months of age is the best you can do for their health? Because if there is such a woman, she must be really good at ignoring bullhorns.
When we topped up A (so I could sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time), many people were cool. Some people were judgmental as hell, though, and it seriously used to irk me. I knew that “breast was best” but sanity was also pretty good and I’m not a terribly sane person on 3 hours of sleep in 20 minute increments.
Women, educated and incredibly literate women who want the best for their child, will make decisions that help them in the early (difficult) stages of parenting. N’s cousin is pregnant with her second and she’s already announced that she’ll go straight to formula. She tried breastfeeding with the first, it was an absolute and total disaster and she’s been put off the experience. Formula it is for Baby 2. It’s her right to do that without being made to feel like she’s abusing or neglecting her child.
A nursed until he was about 4.5 months old when he decided that that was enough. For whatever reason, 4.5 months was good enough for him and good enough for me. It saved us both the stress of trying to wean him off later on (as a colleague, who’s still breastfeeding her child almost exclusively at 10 months old said: I don’t know how to get her to stop. She just gets really upset if I don’t breastfeed her. I don’t know what to do!)
He’d been topped up pretty much since birth during the night feeds, so N and I could sleep for 2-4 hours at a time. During the day, he’d get breast milk, but it was still a frustrating process because he kept on falling asleep. Eat 10 minutes, sleep for 20, eat for 10, sleep for 20. Lather, rinse, repeat. If I expressed and he could down 60-90 mls of the “good stuff” would he sleep for longer or stay awake for longer without sucking his fists in hunger.
Do I feel guilty about topping him up? Nah. Did I at the time? You bet! Ironically(?), one of the most vocal opponents to my topping up with formula is now topping up herself. Apparently, being up between 1 and 4 every night to nurse her newborn isn’t quite as much fun as she remembers it being, so the formula has now been introduced for that night feed. I want to say “Ha!” but that would be much too immature.
Wednesday, 23rd of April, 2008
A new study suggests that women who had more calorific diets prior to conception gave birth to more boys than girls.
The study suggests a high calorie diet at this time - and regular breakfasts - might increase the odds of a boy.
The researchers say the modern trend to opt for low calorie diets might explain why the proportion of boys is falling in developed countries.
I find this article and the outcome of the study absolutely fascinating and hard-to-believe. There have been theories of how to influence your baby’s gender but I haven’t been convinced by all of them .
The link to other animals does make the theory more believable but I’m still amazed that a diet could have such a high influence on which sperm fertilises the egg first. Or maybe it’s the gestation that’s most affected (i.e. if the fertilised egg has the XY chromosomes but the diet is poor the zygote doesn’t implant and the pregnancy fails?). I’m not sure, but I find the study fascinating!
Tuesday, 22nd of April, 2008
I finally took the time and imported my old blog posts that disappeared when this blog got hacked, died, whimpered out. You can find the older blog posts (going back all the way to June 2003) here. As it was importing, I read through some of it and it was an interesting experience. Some of it was bad, cringe-worthy and slightly melodramatic. But some of it was pretty good (in that it didn’t make my eyes roll out of my head).
One day, I’ll combine the two blogs into one. One day.
