Bonkers Page 18

  OK. So, I’m going to be straight with you: writing about puréeing overcooked veggies is actually boring the hell out of me and since I don’t want to peddle you anything other than entertainment because I know your time is short, let’s instead cut to the chase.

  So, for every mum out there currently pulling your hair out at how the hell to start weaning your baby without killing them, here are a few little nuggets of advice (not the chicken variety, though do keep these in mind as your surefire way to get them eating something – just don’t tell Jamie Oliver).

  1. You are not going to kill your tiny human.

  2. You don’t have to be Annabel Karmel or Ella’s Kitchen or even be able to cook to be able to make tiny human-friendly meals.

  3. It doesn’t even matter if they even eat the bloody stuff you make them or not. For the first year, they are still getting their nutrient intake from their milk – SERIOUSLY! (Why did no one tell me this until she was over twelve months?)

  4. How to make a main course: take a vegetable (say a carrot), peel that carrot, boil that bad boy and then blend the crap out of it with a hand blender. (Unlike my good self, you do not need to invest in a Babycook device, no matter how many mum reviews tell you that you NEED one in your life. You don’t.) Pop that purée into a bowl, let it cool and feed it on up to your tiny human. Put the rest of the mix into an ice cube tray, pop it in the freezer and, hey presto, you have a batch of weaning meals for the week.

  5. How to make a dessert. Get a banana, get a fork, peel banana, mush it up and serve.

  6. Cover yourself in a bin liner or take off all your clothes because you are going to get covered in regurgitated carrot. And that stuff is a biach to get out. Fact.

  The End.

  Bon appétit and all that jazz!

  As mums, we all face a plethora of practical anxieties and hurdles to jump over with every new milestone our tiny human reaches. We provoke our exhausted minds with perfect images and tales of perfect mums handling these milestones in the perfect, shiny, perfect image of (you guessed it) perfection. All of which make us feel as though our own reality falls a bit short of the mark. Therefore, I am a BIG believer that we should say to hell with perfection and instead share the realities of getting through these milestones (weaning, crawling, walking, potty training) in all their hilarious, exhausting, and real glory. That way, we are sharing the anxieties of them, easing the burden and taking away the pressure. Reassuring us all instead with some much needed honesty and support and the laughs of solidarity, all of which help to keep every mum sane and mentally fit to deal with motherhood and its milestones.

  CHAPTER 14

  SNAPPING BACK INTO YOU, POST-BABY

  One of the elements of motherhood that we do not prepare ourselves for beforehand is how we will feel about ourselves post-baby and how this new view of ourselves can effect every part of our lives, from our body image and body confidence to our career ambitions, our sense of style and sexuality. I never once paid any thought to how or if becoming a mum would change how I fitted into the world or how I would view myself in it as a mum. However, it has been something I’ve thought about a lot since becoming a mum of two, and still to this day I find myself asking the question: ‘How do I be me after you?’.

  I don’t know about you, but ever since entering the world of motherhood, I feel like I’ve entered this special room that now contains my new life. It’s a really lovely room, filled with some of my most favourite things and I share it with three of my most favourite people. It’s a room that keeps me safe (well, safe-ish thanks to the discarded Mega Bloks) and where I have become to feel at my most comfortable. It is a room where I am in charge and a room where I am the key decision-maker.

  There is a door on my room and though it is one that freely opens, I do also, at times, feel like there is no way out. This room and everything in it is my new existence. I may still be able to see everything from my life before and everything that happens outside of this room, but sometimes I feel as though I am no longer a piece in the bigger picture puzzle of everyday life. I admit that I sometimes feel trapped. Immobilised in time. Caught in the net of motherhood with no idea if I’ll ever swim free and independent once more.

  When we enter the world of motherhood for the first time, we are joining a new club, filled with new members we have never met before, new challenges and skills we have to master, along with a whole new language. We find ourselves living in a new time zone; days and hours no longer look or function the same as before. We are on a totally different schedule to the rest of civilisation. We are aware that civilisation is happening around us, running simultaneously alongside us, but we are so encased in our motherhood bubble and living in our ‘room’ that we feel somehow separate.

  This separation works for a while – and hell, is needed in those first months of establishing our new role as mum, beginning to learn about this new world we’re in and the new tiny human we are in it with. Negotiating our way around the new challenges, we become masters of the new required skill set and proficient in the new language. However, once all this is done, once you are secure (ish) that you have bedded into your new role, how do you then make it back out into civilisation and bridge the gap between your old life, your new role and the current world at large?

  It’s bloody scary, I tell you.

  I can remember pre-baby thinking that my life post-baby would be exactly the same, just with a new addition seamlessly slotted into it. However, after having a few months in my new role as mum, I found I was questioning everything. Should I return to my career? If so, when? What should I be wearing now I’m a mum? How should I now be acting? And how on earth will I slot back into the world at large that has continued to change and progress forward whilst I was sitting in my PJs, trying to get my head around feed schedules, bedtime routines and sleepless nights?

  The world I knew had moved on and instead I had been frozen in time, cocooned in my little new mum bubble. My corner of the world had changed irreversibly, I had been through the most monumental moments and changes of my life, but the world at large hadn’t stopped with me to take it in and had instead carried on regardless. How was I ever going to catch up with it or fit into it again?

  Carving out a new piece in the universe for your new mum-shaped self is exhilarating, intimidating and downright scary as shit! Figuring out how you now fit into the world at large as a mum, and if that means figuring how to continue with your career? Wondering what your style is now, as it’s been so long since you’ve been shopping for anything other than nappies and baby-gros. Asking how to behave as a mum – are we still allowed to go out, have one too many vinos, slur one too many words and still arrive home with our mummy crown intact and without social services or the mummy guilt police knocking on our door?

  It’s unavoidable the fact that motherhood changes you. It adds an extra ingredient to your true self and an additional strand to your makeup, changing your emotional DNA forever. I found that as well as making me feel confident in my abilities to keep my tiny humans alive, motherhood, filled me with a hell of a lot of insecurities, leaving me unsure of my footing in areas of my life through which I strode confidently pre-motherhood.

  It may sound silly to some, but pre-motherhood High Street stores such as Zara, H&M and Topshop used to be my natural habitat, a place where I felt at home. They were my carefree nirvana. I loved spending hours (literally) browsing for nothing in particular that I needed; it was my favourite type of shopping. Throwing together sassy and ‘on-the-money’ outfits, I prided myself for having a bit of an eye for putting together pieces you wouldn’t look twice at hanging on the rails but that, once in the changing rooms, would just work. I loved it. It was one of my guilty pleasures, one of the fun parts that made me me. The only thing to top my love of fashion and clothing was my love of swimming and being in the water. I could and would spend hours swimming, losing myself in the strokes, cutting through the water and clocking up length after length after length, feeling en
ergised, full of life and totally me.

  We all have this inside us. Our thing or things that we love doing, that we enjoy above all others and about which we are confident. The things that make us tick. That give us our own personal buzz and make us who we are. However, after becoming a mum to my first tiny human, the things that I enjoyed, that made me me, were obviously put on the back burner – and came to be viewed as indulgent treats rather than normal pastimes. By the time I had our second tiny human eighteen months later, I found myself feeling completely lost and questioning who I was anymore.

  Matters came to a head when I found myself on a once-in-forever solo shopping trip, with the only objective being to pick out some nice new clothes for myself. Total bliss, right? No. It was total hell. I wondered around the stores like I was in a foreign universe, not even knowing where to begin when it came to the style of clothes I should be wearing or the styles of clothes that I actually liked. I found myself in the changing room on my own, arms full of clothes and eyes full of tears as I sat wondering what the hell I was supposed to be looking good in or even liking.

  Yes, it suddenly dawned on me that since creating life I was no longer able to create awesome-looking outfits, though the feeling ran so much deeper than this. I’d actually lost my enjoyment of something I used to love doing and I’d lost the ability just to enjoy me being me, with no pressure or responsibility for anyone else – for the afternoon, at least. It dawned on me that I no longer knew what made me me. That scared the hell out of me and made me feel the most vulnerable and unconfident I had felt in years.

  This lack of confidence about who I actually was ran through all areas of my life as a new mum. From socialising but being worried sick that I had nothing other than sleep schedules, sore nipples and poo for conversation, to going back to work, where I felt like the new kid starting at a new school, as faces had changed, people had moved on and up to different roles. I remember not being able even to remember where my desk was – and it took me a good few months until I started to feel anywhere near confident that I was getting back into the workflow and actually knew what the hell I was doing.

  It all made me realise that it takes time and patience, coupled with a little bit of soul-searching, to figure out what we now want our life to look like and who we want to be in it. It also takes the acknowledgement and acceptance that we cannot rewind and get back the old life we had before our tiny humans arrived – and most importantly, that this is OK. But how do we mould this new life and what on earth does it look like?

  I know for me that this new life as a mum and figuring out how I now fit into the world at large is still a work in progress, five years into motherhood. Over the last year I have started to make a conscious effort to look after myself more and to start awarding importance to my own wants and needs. I’ve started to regain my sense of style and love of fashion, and have come to realise that my core identity is not too different to how it was pre-motherhood, that I am still me. I’ve created a new career thanks to my writing and even though I still have moments (sometimes daily) where I doubt my ability and feel that I’m going to be found out and slammed as a terrible writer, I am ploughing on regardless and excited about where all of this may lead. And regardless of whether this book is a massive success or not, I am so grateful for the process it has taken me through because it’s played a huge part in leading me back to what makes me me.

  So, if you are currently questioning how to be you again, there is one important thought to hold onto. Yes, the world has moved on; yes, you have been unsure of your footing in it; and yes, your life can sometimes look so different to where you started off that you don’t even recognise how you ended up here. But here you are, turning up to it every day and doing a damn fine job at creating this technicolour, beautiful chaos in which you are now living and loving. The old you is looking at you with awe and pride at what you have achieved so far.

  The old you thinks this new you is pretty fantastic!

  It’s time you started too as well.

  WHICH MUM WORKS THE HARDEST?

  I have been a stay-at-home mum, a back-to-work mum and a work-from-home mum. I’ve dreaded going back to work to the point of feeling sick to the stomach and waking in a sweaty panic at the thought of it in the middle of the night. I’ve longed to go back to work, counting down the days to have a break from the monotony of being a mum. And I have run myself ragged trying to balance the work-from-home mum solution that sees you trying to work and get stuff done whilst ignoring the mountains of housework, dirty washing and toys surrounding me.

  It’s fair to say that I’ve tried most work scenarios since becoming a mum-of-two and all of them are as rewarding, as guilt-inducing, as challenging and as exhausting as each other – just for different reasons. Therefore, I have the utmost respect for all mums whatever they conclude is the best decision for them, their family and their situation. Let’s face it, the decision of whether or not we go back to work isn’t purely down to what we simply fancy doing with the rest of our lives. There are financial, logistical and emotional factors all at play and each has implications that are more far-reaching than the wage packet.

  THE BACK-TO-WORK MUM

  Ooh, going back to work after growing a tiny human raises a plethora of challenging emotions and guilty thoughts, as you lurch from joy at the thought of drinking HOT coffee with actual real-life adults to screaming at your partner/boss/anyone who will listen: ‘I’M NOT GOING BACK: I DON’T CARE IF WE ARE FACING FINANCIAL RUIN: I DON’T CARE IF WE HAVE TO MOVE IN WITH YOUR PARENTS. I’M NOT GOING BACK AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME.’ (Plus, whilst you were out working I’ve handcuffed myself to the tiny human on the sofa, and the next-door neighbour’s dog has swallowed the key.)

  I never really thought about the concept of going back to work much whilst pregnant with my first tiny human. I’d always had a job from the age of thirteen, and I had a successful career under my belt. A career that made me incredibly proud, that I loved and enjoyed. So I never considered that I would want to give up my career after having a tiny human and be a stay-at-home mum. However, six months after having her, I was getting ready to go back to work and I was filled with anxiety and dread at the thought of leaving her, and started to throw my very own back-to-work tantrum that went a little something like this:

  MY BACK-TO-WORK TANTRUM

  ‘The thought of going back to work makes me want to flee the country with my tiny human, never to return again!’

  I DON’T want to go back to work. I DON’T want to put my precious tiny human into childcare. I DON’T want to put a brave face on it and I DON’T want to be cool about it. I HATE IT! I HATE IT! I BLOODY WELL HATE IT! And you know what? I don’t care less who knows!

  I admit it, my stomach lurches with dread at the thought of returning to work and my heart drops at the thought of dropping my little girl off at nursery – even in spite of the fact that I know that she loves it there and is flourishing because of it. However, these feelings are there nonetheless and there is many a day where you can find us sitting outside the nursery gates, Thelma and Louise-style, with me asking my tiny human, ‘Hey, how about we sack off this nursery malarkey and do a runner to the park instead?’.

  I’m also not afraid to say that I am dreading the thought of returning to work. Oh yes, work in my mind is now some far off place which I am hoping will miraculously disappear forever – or at least until the idea of going back to it doesn’t leave me in cold sweats in the middle of the night!

  ‘God, get a grip!’ I can hear some of you shouting. But you know what? That is exactly what I am sick of doing. Throughout our journey with motherhood and through some of the most daunting and nigh-on impossible decisions we are faced with making – giving up breast-feeding, going back to work, putting our babies into childcare – we tell ourselves to get a grip or to put a brave face on it. Well, I for one am sick of this and want to have a good old rant instead and say: Why the hell do we need to get a grip and what’s so great about a br
ave face anyway?

  Don’t get me wrong, I know that us getting a grip is one of our many well-honed, coping techniques and that these skills ensure we get through whatever motherhood chooses to throw at us. I also know that going back to work can be a necessity for financial reasons and/or to feel like our old selves again. However, I’ve come to realise that we also sometimes just need to be able to vent to no one in particular about how goddam horrid we feel about it.

  Yes, I had a job I enjoyed before the tiny humans came along. Yes, I like to class myself as a strong and independent woman. Yes, I like earning money. And yes, I can sometimes be found climbing the walls longing for Mr Tumble not to be my only form of adult conversation. Despite all of this, there are moments where all I want to do is shut the doors and windows to my cosy home, snuggle up my tiny humans, put a bun (of the Mary Berry kind) in the oven and decorate a loo roll with tiny painted fingertips.

  I guess what myself and my mummy tantrum are trying to say is that, rather than being strong and brave through it all, wouldn’t it sometimes be a refreshing relief to admit how hard all parenting decisions are and how we dread having to make them? Wouldn’t it be pure mummy bliss to admit our fears in all of their technicolour glory to anyone who will listen, without fear of judgement or ridicule or being told to get a grip? You see, what I’m finding with this journey through motherhood is that it is a world of contradictions and hidden meanings. It is a world to be celebrated and it is a place where sometimes the bravest thing of all is to admit how fearful and un-brave we actually feel. It takes guts to share how we are spending our nights racked with anxiety and sheer panic over a decision we have to make for our children and how during these particular moments we wish we could cocoon ourselves and our tiny humans from the big bad world and the necessity of tough decisions.

  Therefore, all you amazing mums picking your way through the minefield that is deciding to go back to work, deciding to stay at home, deciding to put your child into day care for the first time or deciding on any other of the thousands of tough mummy decisions we have to make daily – let’s all say to hell with the brave face and opt for putting on an honest face instead!