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A mother knows her kind

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Mother Nature is always speaking. She speaks in a language understood within the peaceful mind of the sincere observer.

Radhanath Swami

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/mother_nature.html#hEodRQVQVkWXrrDw.99

We had an unexpectedly beautiful day yesterday. Little Birdie (LB) woke very early, so it was a three-nap day. My husband and I wanted to enjoy our Saturday and decided the only way we could do something was to drive far enough away that LB could have a nap on the way there and another on the way back in the car. Therefore, the beach seemed a logical conclusion. We set off, looking forward to a nice lunch in a scenic location.

Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones with such ideas. It was the first day of a long weekend and it seemed every man and his dog also wanted to take a nice little drive to the beach. The traffic jam started fairly early into our journey and neither of us relished being stuck in a car with a crying baby for hours. My husband swung into action and we decided to head out West into the countryside instead. We made a snap decision to visit a winery and lavender farm a bit over an hour from our house. It was an ideal length of time to give LB a short nap and get us to our destination in time for lunch.

As soon as I hopped out of the car at the winery, I felt waves of relaxation wash over me. My eyes soaked up visions of grape vines, rose bushes, rows of lavender, cattle grazing and the surrounding mountains. We were some of the first diners to arrive for lunch and were rewarded with a table in front of a large window with a spectacular view. It was hard to imagine the day getting much better.

Unfortunately, the restaurant did not have high chairs, so my husband had to pop back out to the car to get our pram. Since we were virtually on our own in the restaurant, I decided to take LB a little closer to the window to have a look outside. It was then that I saw her. A mother kangaroo was in amongst the rows of lavender gazing up at us, with a little joey in her pouch.

It was an amazing moment. Two mothers holding their babies gazing back at each other. She had soft brown eyes with long lashes and it amazed me that she didn’t seem uncomfortable that I had noticed her and try to hop away. It was as though we empathized with each other. I imagined her telling her joey to look at the mummy and the bubby in the window, just as I was telling LB to look at the kangaroo and her joey.

This little kangaroo and her joey were just outside the window as we ate lunch.

This little kangaroo and her joey were just outside the window as we ate lunch.

Soon, my husband returned with the pram and I motioned to him to come and have a look at the kangaroo. He came over, phone camera in hand. Then, as suddenly as the moment had come upon us, it was gone. My husband’s presence seemed to break the spell. The kangaroo looked more wary and I knew it was time to go back to the table and order lunch. However, the thoughts stayed with me, that feeling of a mother knowing another mother’s heart, an understanding of the love and commitment it takes to raise a little one, the curiosity about another mother’s experience and a feeling of mutual respect. It seems motherhood is a force of nature and it’s in more natural surroundings that you can appreciate why it is so.

So what is it then?

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It seems we have a mystery on our hands. Recently, we took Little Birdie (LB) on her first holiday to the beach. We were having a lovely time, but it was a little bit cold for the first couple of days, even though it is Spring here. So, we hadn’t had a chance to take LB for her first swim in the pool yet. On our second last day, however, an opportunity presented itself.

I was very excited. As always, I was conscious of preserving LB’s routine so that she could have her naps but the week had been going unexpectedly well in that respect. I made a plan to take her for a swim straight after breakfast, so that she wasn’t exposed to too much sun. I was also a little concerned about LB getting enough protein, so decided to give her some scrambled egg for breakfast. Her daddy made a lovely egg, while I put some sunscreen on LB. Her Daddy then fed LB the egg, but she wasn’t too impressed. She had eaten scrambled egg once before and had consumed most of it but this time she wasn’t having a bar of it. I made her a second breakfast of cereal, yoghurt and banana instead and she was much happier. I then put her on the play mat while I got dressed nearby.

It was then that things took a turn for the worst. I was distracted by my joy at having dropped a dress size, allowing me to don a swimsuit I hadn’t worn since my mid twenties. I pranced out to show my husband when I noticed LB was making a quiet little mewing noise on her play mat. I thought she must be over-tired and felt disappointed that our swim plans were about to go awry. However, it was worse than that. I picked her up to comfort her and noticed her face was swollen and blotchy. I carried her into the main bedroom, calling for my husband. I pulled off LB’s little suit to find she was bright red and covered in rash and hives from the shoulders up. By this time, the swelling on her face was getting worse. My husband came in, took one look at LB and told me to call the ambulance.

It took twenty minutes for the ambulance to arrive but luckily for us, LB kept breathing the whole time. By the time the ambulance arrived, LB’s reaction had started to calm, although she still looked dreadful. She was very good-natured about the whole thing, sitting up on my lap looking so tiny and vulnerable in just her nappy and singlet. We made a game of having her vital signs checked, and she seemed very amused by the whole thing. The ambulance officers suggested that we put a cool compress on her and the reaction begin to abate. We didn’t need to give her any medication in the end and we decided not to take her to hospital. Instead, I rang our local doctor back home after the ambulance left and they advised us to get some antihistamine.

My husband and I felt very fragile for the rest of the day. We didn’t want to let LB out of our sight! It was terrifying to put her down for a nap, because I couldn’t keep an eye on her while she was in her bed without waking her. I’ve since been told that we probably should have taken her to hospital for observation, but the medical staff we worked with at the time didn’t suggest that we do so. Apparently, there is a risk of a delayed reaction a few hours later. Luckily, it all work out for the best and we finished our holiday and headed home the next day.

It is now almost three weeks later and we have been to see an allergist. This is where the mystery kicks in. LB had a patch test for all the common allergens that affect babies her age and didn’t react to any of them! The allergist said we may have gotten a false negative or she may already have grown out of the allergy. It is also possible that she reacted to something else in the holiday unit. However, for now, we have been advised to live as though she has an egg allergy and we’ll try her on egg again when she’s older under more controlled conditions.

We’ve had so much grief lately, with the death of a dear friend’s husband and my uncle being diagnosed with terminal cancer, that this incident made us very aware of the fleeting nature of life and how vulnerable LB is. All parents have to deal with medical emergencies from time to time but that doesn’t make it any easier. The whole incident was a stark reminder that life is precious and we should treasure every day we have together as a family. It also goes to show how, in such a short time, you realize that you can’t imagine life with this little person who has become the centre of your world.

I will include a link to some information on egg allergy from the Sydney Children’s Hospital for anyone who is interested: http://www.sch.edu.au/health/factsheets/joint/?egg_allergy.htm

Loving the Library

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 The medicine chest of the soul.

—   Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes.

Nutrimentum spiritus.

(Food for the soul.)

—   Inscription on the Berlin Royal Library.

A wonderful thing happened today. Little Birdie (LB) woke up really, really early. That doesn’t seem like a good thing when your baby is a poor sleeper. However, today it was a happy coincidence, because today is a day when some of the mummies from my mother’s group meet at a local library for “Rhyme Time”, a nursery rhyme session for babies.

LB and I used to attend this session every week, before we went to sleep school, but since then, I favour her morning nap over a morning at the library. LB still struggles with day naps and by the time I get her to sleep in the morning, “Rhyme Time” has started. Thus, there is often no library visit for us. In the past, LB has been somewhat ambivalent towards “Rhyme Time”, so I suspect missing it doesn’t bother her. She loves nursery rhymes, but as she has had a tendency to be so chronically overtired, the stress of the event meant she was a little surly or difficult to deal with during the sessions. I got hold of a copy of the run sheet for “Rhyme Time” and the two of us have our private session at home, which she loves, but that doesn’t help her learn about social situations.

I, on the other hand, love “Rhyme Time”. Not just because I am a bit of a performer (not really, OK … just a little) but because some of the other Mums from mother’s group go there and they are lovely. Just being around them lifts my spirit. Even when I existed on the thought of sleep alone, I would try my best to get to “Rhyme Time”, because I would always come home feeling so positive. The secret is that we go for coffee afterwards. We take over one of the local coffee shops, feed our babies, discuss our week and relax. The library is located in an excellent spot too, with easy parking, a good department store and some grocery stores nearby. One of the biggest attractions for me is the organic grocer. I swing in just before I go home and stock up on food for LB and my hair dye.

I am so grateful to my local library and their program for babies. It’s nothing grand, just a librarian singing some nursery rhymes out of tune while holding a teddy bear. However, it means the world to LB and I. It allowed me to get out of the house and connect with others when I was really struggling and I think LB has come to appreciate it too. For the first time, she was really smiling when I was picking her up and swinging her around today. As she grows older, I am sure we will spend lots more time in the library and I hope she will really come to love reading the books she borrows, just as I did growing up. It’s just another reason why you should love your local library. It seems libraries aren’t just places to house books, they are community hubs and mine is certainly helping me feel connected. Maybe you should see what your local library could offer you.

Silence is Golden

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I have never appreciated silence more than since the birth of Little Birdie (LB). Background noise has never really bothered me, I’m always listening to music and my jobs have always been in noisy places. In fact, when I was reading the news on commercial radio, I got very used to listening to two different things at once, with one earphone on and the other off. In more recent times, I’ve gotten used to the constant rumble of voices in the background while I’m teaching (not from my class of course!?..).

So, I didn’t think twice about noise when we bought our house. Our home is quite close to the city and perches on a long thin block, flanked by houses on either side. You look straight out of our windows into our neighbours’ windows. In fact, we are so close you can reach out the window and touch each other. However, that didn’t seem to matter when we bought, because our house is almost eighty years old and has beautiful waffle glass windows and gorgeous high ceilings. You can’t see the neighbours at all when you are inside … but you can hear them. In recent times, I’m finding you can hear them more and more, because their families are growing. We now have families with three children on either side. There’s a certain level of noise that co-exists with a big family. I know it all too well, as there were three children in my family growing up. Normally, I would find all the noise nostalgic and charming, but that’s all changed since the arrival of LB. Now I’m consumed with concern that she will be woken from her nap by the ruckus.

Meanwhile, it is not just the noise of the neighbourhood children that concerns me. Our house is a unique-fixer-upper. Actually, so is nearly every other house in the street. It’s a beautiful area and as the older residents move on, young families are buying the houses and renovating them. It’s one of the big attractions of the area. The suburb is filled with beautiful old houses brimming with character, good-sized backyards and excellent proximity to services, while being only a few kilometres from the city. It’s a great place to live, but all those renovations make a lot of noise and noise is the enemy of the sleeping baby.

My concern about noise is exacerbated by the fact that our house is noisy. There are breezeways above the bedroom doors which are beautiful, but let in all the noise. We have lovely polished wooden floors, but they echo and the floorboards creak as you move around. To make matters worse, the door handle of LB’s bedroom has broken and the door is slightly warped, so I can’t close it completely. It has led to the ridiculous situation of me hiding downstairs trying to keep quiet while she is sleeping. In the meantime, the housework is piling up around me. I’ve tried playing the radio so that is blocks out the background noise for LB, but that doesn’t seem to be working. I’ve now resorted to replacing the door handles and temporarily covering the breezeways in an attempt to give LB a chance to sleep and me a chance to move around while she’s doing so. However, it’s breaking my heart to cover the breezeways, as the ornate features are one of the principal reasons we bought the house.

Which brings me to the reason I’m writing this entry. I hadn’t realized how much I had come to crave silence until yesterday. Yesterday was a lovely day. For once, LB was sleeping well, she was in a good mood when she was awake and she was eating well. I used my time during her nap to sort the washing and I was really enjoying the morning. Then it happened. I heard a loud, thundering, enthusiastic knock to the front door. I was downstairs but I could practically feel the reverberations. My heart sunk, my stomach did a flip-flop. I was terrified that it was the end of my perfect morning and bubby was about to wake. I scampered up the stairs, trying to make as little sound as possible and practically floating to the door, ready the shush whomever was on the other side. I peeked through the stained glass and … no one was there. Puzzled, I concluded that it must have been the kids next door playing and the noise had travelled through. However, the mystery was solved later that afternoon when a very loud and overly enthusiastic girl knocked on our door asking for a charitable donation. It turns out she had knocked on the neighbour’s door earlier in the day and it had been so loud, it sounded like she had knocked on my door. She mentioned how the neighbour had told her to be quiet because there were babies sleeping. However, the information didn’t seem to sink in, because she was very loud while she was at my door. Luckily, LB was awake. I did give her a donation in the end but she’ll never know the panic she had caused me!

The moral to this story is that all other considerations go by the wayside when you have a baby. Their needs just have to come first. Since the birth of LB, I have learned to love the quiet. Overall, this is probably a good thing, as it’s important to take some time out from the rat race that is modern living. So many good things happen in the silence, like meditation, relaxation, contemplation and restful sleep. In LB’s world, silence is golden and now it is is golden in my world too.

A Real Bundle of Joy

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Little Birdie (LB) is only seven months old and already she’s been to two funerals but I’m so glad she was there.  That might seem a strange statement to make, but in amongst all the struggles we’ve had with bubby’s reflux, her unsettled nature and her sleep problems, some of her brightest moments have been at our saddest.

When my grandmother fell and broke her hip at 90 years old, LB was only a week old. Grandma’s last weeks were filled with pain, but a trip to visit her in the retirement home was one of the few trips out I could manage with a newborn. As a former nurse, Grandma didn’t mind at all if I sat in the corner and fed the baby while I was talking to her. Meanwhile, the incongruous sound of a crying newborn in the halls of the home brought curious stares and smiles from the other elderly residents. Grandma was in so much pain, yet she enjoyed seeing LB so much. It made me feel so good to be able to bring her a small joy in her last days.

Likewise, the death of my dear friend’s husband brought us all to our knees a month ago. My heart was breaking so much for her and after the funeral it was a struggle to know what to say. However, I knew I just wanted to give her the biggest possible hug and not let go. I waited for the moment and as I hugged my friend, I honestly didn’t know if I could let go, but I didn’t need to worry. As I wrapped my arms around her, my friend looked over my shoulder and saw LB and a smile spread across her face. Even in that terrible moment, LB was able to bring a few seconds of joy in the darkest of spaces.

We had another sad day today as we went to visit my uncle, who has terminal cancer. As we drove out to the country town where he lives, I told my husband I wasn’t going to dwell on what we were about to encounter but, again, I need not have worried. It was shocking to see my uncle’s gaunt figure as we arrived. However, it was a pleasant morning as we sat in the lounge room drinking tea and watching LB play on the mat in the middle. We even managed to get a few happy snaps before we left. I’m sure we will treasure those couple of photos in years to come. However, LB really came into her own as we were leaving. She really seemed to take to my aunt during the visit and my aunt picked her up for a little cuddle just as we were leaving. Uncharacteristically, LB was quite relaxed and decided to start kissing my aunty on the nose. For a woman who is having a really tough time at the moment caring for her ailing husband, it was a delightful moment and it was certainly a precious moment for me to watch.

As I’ve struggled through a difficult seven months as a new mother, there have been times when I’ve wondered (as much as I adore my daughter) whether things would ever improve. I’ve truly been pushed to the edge this year but days like today remind me that I’ve been blessed with a real bundle of joy.

Ferocious fireworks on date night

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My husband and I reserve some little treats for Saturday night. We have some nice take out and an ice-cream. Since we’ve had LB (Little Birdie), our social life is not what it used to be, so we look forward to our “date night” all week.

Tonight, our date night coincided with a fireworks display run by the City Council, which also featured a flyover by some fighter jets. Although it was all in the centre of the city, we are only about 6 kilometres away. In years gone by, this has been an excuse for drinks on the back deck with friends. If you lean over the railing, you can see the fireworks from our house. However, it was a different story this year.

The jets flew over just before sunset. The noise was horrendous and poor LB was terrified, which in turn upset her father, who felt unsure how best to comfort her. I was in the shower and came bounding out with a blue towel wrapped around my head, ready to save the day. As it turns out, my Marj Simpson hair-do only terrified LB more and she ended up in tears. We calmed her down, I gave her a feed and she went off to bed as normal. We went downstairs and tucked into our curry, just as the fireworks started. The display lasted half an hour. I spent the whole time terrified LB was going to wake up. Luckily, she didn’t.

You know, date night is not what it used to be!

Small Mercies

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Simple things seem impossible when you have a baby who struggles to sleep. However, I was pleasantly surprised when LB (Little Birdie) and I went on our first road trip together without Daddy, on Thursday.

One of my dearest friends recently lost her husband and I desperately wanted to go up and see her, but she lives an hour-and-a-half away, in my old hometown. When we drove up three weeks ago for the funeral, Hubby took the afternoon off work and we were relieved to find it wasn’t such a bad trip for LB. As it turns out, the trip is a good length for her to have a nap. So, I set off on Thursday, during LB’s morning nap time, not sure what the day would bring without Daddy there to help me troubleshoot. I had the port-a-cot and her sleeping bag, just in case a chance for a nap presented itself, but my back-up plan was to simply hop back in the car and drive home if I couldn’t get her to sleep. However, I really wanted to see my friends and I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case.

I’m well behind many of my friends in the parenthood game. Lots of their children are already in primary school and I’m sure they look at me and shake their heads as I struggle with parenthood for the first time! However, the up side was that I arrived in my hometown to find they had planned a family friendly day. We were to go on a picnic lunch in a nearby park, which just happens to play host to an annual flower festival that is on at the moment.

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Whilst LB was shy at first, she warmed up by the time we made it to the park, where we were lucky to get a picnic table under a beautiful big old pine tree. She heartily tucked into her lunch and even let one of my friends feed her.

I was then blessed to see one of those gorgeous moments that only parenthood can afford you. LB is quite shy but very interested in the world. She finds it a bit much when everyone is paying her attention but she does enjoy social occasions quite a lot. My friend’s son was trying to get her attention in all the obnoxious ways that a seven-year-old boy can; making faces, doing silly dances etc. I told him that LB likes watching people’s hands, particularly when they perform the actions for “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. He obligingly proceeded to sing her the lullaby. Very soon, two of the other children joined in. A semi-circle of three children singing nursery rhymes surrounded LB. She was delighted. It was a lovely sight to behold.

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Soon, LB was showing tired signs, so I decided to lay her back in the pram and rock her in the hopes of getting her to sleep. It was a bit difficult, as there were lots of distractions in the park. However, by the time we were walking home, she was getting drowsy. With a little shooshing, she seemed to go to sleep and I could feel waves of relief washing over me! We lifted the pram into the house when we got home, but unfortunately LB woke up. I thought it was all over but with some more shooshing, LB had a little sleep in the pram for about half an hour. It was enough to buy me a little more time and a couple of cups of tea with my friends. It was a small mercy indeed and a big coup in the sleep stakes.

LB was too distracted and hot to feed properly when she woke up, so I thought it was going to be a hairy ride home but in another small mercy, we had a quiet trip. LB slept the whole way. We celebrated with a family dinner with Daddy when we got home, followed by a bath and off to bed. She was only a little late to bed and slept well the whole night.

The day went so well, I felt confident to promise we’d be back for a visit in a couple of weeks. I wonder what that journey will bring?

Hush-a-bye baby … please.

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I’m not very original. The thing I miss most since becoming a mother is a good night’s sleep. In fact, for three months of this year, LB (Little Birdie) woke every hour and so did I. It was excruciating. As my doctor pointed out, they use sleep depravation as a form of torture and I know why. I was just about at my wit’s end when I was successful in gaining admission to a public hospital sleep school just over a month ago. LB was a star performer, but I was very nervous about returning home and particularly worried about making sure she kept having day sleeps.

So, you can imagine how fiercely I try to maintain our new sleeping regime. We’ve successfully negotiated our way through a family holiday and two new teeth, but in the last week or so, I’ve been increasingly struggling to get LB to sleep for longer than a sleep cycle.

The issue I have found is that I can only seem to get help with LB’s sleeping through the public health system and, while there are some baby sleep experts out there amongst the child health nurses, I can’t get access to them. Our four days in sleep school were such a relief, but I still feel lost and isolated now that I have returned home.

I decided to drop into the child health clinic last week to see if I could get some help. I was successful in getting an appointment last Monday, but what a waste of time! The health nurse fed me some platitudes and told me she thought I was a good mother and sent me off, none the wiser. She also told me I should ring the sleep school and I did. That was no help either. Once you are discharged, they don’t want to know you. I put the phone down and cried. They gave me a number to call, which led me to another child health clinic across town, which doesn’t service my area. By this stage, it was Wednesday and I was starting to feel dispirited. LB was still lying in her cot crying and not sleeping for three quarters of an hour and then sleeping for only half an hour or so.

However, there was some light on the horizon. I might have been given the wrong number but when I was finally able to speak an operator, they transferred me internally to a triage nurse who could help me. I left my number and was told to expect a call sometime in the next 48 hours. Today she called. And she had some ideas. Thank goodness!

So, I now have a plan. I will remove the mobile from LB’s cot. I will increase the amount of solids she eats in the day and add in some bread. I will turn up the radio a little louder while she’s sleeping. She even suggested putting a tiny little board book in the cot for bubby. Apparently, it will take a couple of weeks to see an improvement. I feel better. Tomorrow, I will act on the plan and hopefully my baby will hush-a-bye … please…

Play, baby, play!

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When life gives you lemons … play dodge ball with the lemons!

It turns out motherhood is a lot harder and more stressful than I could have imagined, so I’ve set myself a little challenge to lighten things up a bit. I recently came across a box set of fifty baby play ideas, so I thought I would try to work through the whole box by LB’s first birthday.

It was a strange feeling after I first brought LB home. I was barely surviving when it occurred to me that she was a little person and maybe I should play with her! Then, I realized, I had no idea how to play with my newborn. I ended up googling and found a video a couple had made which showed them playing with their baby boy. It was a long time since I was a child and I had forgotten everything – even the simplest nursery rhymes. Since then, I’ve made it my mission to learn as much as possible to keep LB amused and I’ve come a long way in seven months. On a recent long car trip, LB was less than impressed when the traffic slowed to a crawl due to road works on a major highway. I managed to continuously sing nursery rhymes for an hour without repeating a single rhyme to keep her amused (why is mummy’s voice acceptable, but a CD of nursery rhymes ineffective?).

There is an unfortunate subtext to my quest for games to play with LB. Poor little LB has trouble sleeping. She is a dreadful cat napper and for the first six months of her life, would only sleep during the day if she were on my shoulder or at the breast. We’ve recently been to sleep school, so things have improved with night sleep, but the flipside to a baby who never sleeps is that you have a lot of time to fill in a day with a very cranky little person. I will do anything to avoid the large tracts of crying that LB is capable of, so the mummy circus is in full swing. We have some pretty involved play sessions at times.

So, I am continuously casting about for ideas for playing with LB. I’ve found some good websites, visited our local library, swapped ideas at mother’s group and watched a few episodes of Playschool. Recently, I came across a little box of flash cards that offers fifty things to do with your baby. It contains ideas for simple games, songs, action rhymes and other fun things to do with your baby. It includes ideas for ball games, sand play and posting things, and using the picture cards as prompts for making animal noises. The suggestions are inexpensive and I hope LB will learn some new skills, find out about the world and, most importantly, have fun.

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Now, my mission is to choose the first card. I have selected “ball games”. The card says I should roll the ball to the baby (I’ve done that before), stand baby up and use her legs to “kick” the ball (we’ve done that too… mummy enjoyed the lounge room soccer match, LB was a bit bemused) but the third suggestion is a new one – it suggests lining up paper cups, cardboard boxes or egg cartons to use as skittles. We will see how we go!

Why write the BrightBirdie blog?

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The inspiration…

I was inspired to start writing this blog because this year I was lucky enough to become a mother for the first time. It’s been a rollercoaster ride, but I have learned so much. It’s actually been a battle to try and parent an initially very unsettled little bubba. It has amazed me to note that as I finally figure things out, it all seems to disappear into the ether. It seems a shame to waste such insight! I’d like a record to share my experiences with others. I’ve fought so hard to find the answers to all my mothering questions and maybe this blog will help someone else or maybe another mother will read it and think, “you’re reading my mind!”

The focus …

So, for the moment, my blog will focus on my experiences as a first time mother to a seven month old, Little Birdie (LB). I’ll write about what I’m doing, what I’m learning, what I realizing and what I’m feeling.

The author …

I used to be a high school teacher and before that I was a journalist. However, as stressful as those jobs can be, nothing prepared me for motherhood! It’s an experience that is nothing like you would ever expect it to be. No matter how much people try to warn you about parenthood, you cannot truly understand it until you experience it. I’ve been thrown into the deep end with a reflux baby who struggles to sleep but it still amazes me how gorgeous she is and the smallest things she does will fascinate me. I’ve gone from wondering about life’s big questions to being spellbound by watching my bubby sucking on pieces of fruit for the first time with delight spreading across her face.

The title…

I chose the title of this blog because it speaks to the future. I want the future to be bright and I love birds. The combination of the two speaks to soaring off into a bright future and I hope that this blog is the first step in doing just that.