The dark side

Do you have it?  When in the middle of the night you have tried to cradle, sing, cradle, bring into bed, stroke and after what seems like hours of being kicked and nothing working you break.  In my case you pick them up and put them firmly back into their cot saying in a quiet but desperate voice "shut the fuck up."

In these moments I feel possessed, or like something has burst and I am lost.. These breaking points happen more than when I had just one. (There is now the added terror of one or two or three waking and everything unravelling.)

But Then I lie down and try to still my fury, confusion, guilt..  "How do I regain myself and look after my little baby like a proper mother?"  I breath slowly and dig dig for a grain more patience.  Then I sit up and try to think of another strategy...are they in pain? need more food? What haven't I tried?And I just give in and sit on the edge of the bed and rock them again and again whispering "am so sorry to speak like that.  I am just so tired".

After thoughts....

But it's more than tiredness I have NO resource left, no well of 'self' my batteries are drained flat....totally flat. But as a mother you can't wallow in self pity you have to operate with flat batteries powered on something else, motherhood.

No one said it was easy but When the day comes i try to see the rewards, pause, save and bank them. That hand in mine, the total vulnerability, a gurgle and so many little milestones.

But just to repeat myself people lie if they don't mention the dark side....

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for your message

Popular posts from this blog

Shared humour

last night bedtime became a riot of laughter. Rossy discovered she could post her dummy down her sleeping sac and then hunt for it. This made her rock with laughter and Willow screamed with delight on observing this trick and then decided to do the same. At one point as Willow was lifting the roof with her shrieks Rossy lent over and looked at her very closely and with such deep love. Despite the fact that this was about phase three of a what became a super prolonged bedtime, I just revelled in their shared humour and love. Twins can be the most extraordinary magical thing to behold.
Read more

How to dodge the tidal wave of debris?

 Why is it that some days I can calmly tiptoe through the never ending tidal wave of crumbs, piles of strewn clothes, pen lids, shards or this, that and the other, then like today every blasted misplaced object screams at me in high volume and makes me want to hide in bed with covers over my head? I literally don’t know where to begin. And it feels that unless I control this seeping chaos it will soon prevent anyone from moving without tripping over and I will find myself gagged and bound by mismatching socks and never again free to have a higher thought.  The final straw is finding one of the many potties that we have cradling an old wee. Does nobody (ie the father) see the need to remove such things?? Oh god before long we will have rampant pestilence ... in fact a plague of rats maybe the cleaning agent I need? Do they eat plastic and odd socks? 
Read more

Can it be true, I’m in my 50th year

turned 49 at the weekend, a great shock as it’s nudging that whopper of a birthday and I just don’t know where the years have gone. And the life milestones seem very slim in fact my life has done a reverse wedge. I had career successes in my 30s infact some I am very proud of, such as the Darwin Centre. Then I spent my 40s doing creative strange things that were out of any spotlight eg getting married, working in Mozambique, and the breadth of my succeses slowly diminished but I had children and more than expected. So the achievements greatly changed shape and name. But standing on the edge of being 50 I don’t feel very grown up or shiny in fact dry and frayed at the edges! I have just picked up my nerve to tell D am writing this blog... to which he said “why don’t you write something useful!” That about sums up my current sense of achievement! Anyway I have a year to work on improving that as I want to approach 50 head on like a rutting stag. In the meantime the one thing I do k...
Read more