My darling girl,
You are quite the drama queen. They even say at nursery, with a chuckle, that your diminutive size and cherub-like features belie the power of your lungs and the strength of your purpose when crossed. You’ve had your tantrums for a while now, long before the clichéd Terrible Two age. But now they are intensifying in duration, in pitch and in your sheer resolve to have your own will.
Take the other day at the doctor’s. The adventure began so promisingly. It was first time I had taken you there all by myself. You co-operated cheerfully all the way – up the hill, into the carseat, out again, into the surgery, up the lift – all on your own steam and in your own time. I was puffed by the time I sat down in the waiting room but the doctor’s reliable lateness gave me pause for breath. And I was so proud and grateful that you were a clever girl who played nicely with the toys in the waiting area as I watched two stressed out mums trying to stop their boisterous boys from beating each other up.
The doctor said you were very good as she examined your throat, nose and chest and declared your cough was nothing serious. But then she said Goodbye and called in her next patient before you had quite finished playing with the beads on wires in her room. You paid no attention to her cheery “Time to Go, Sofia” and so she left the problem of getting you out of there to your mother. You uttered a piercing shriek at the mildest suggestion that we might now go home so I knew further short-term negotiation was futile and gathered all my strength to haul you out of the room as the next consultation was starting.
Treacherous move.I never normally deploy physical strength to overpower your will simply because I don’t have it. Your full outrage at being untimely ripped from your activity was unleashed on the waiting room. Your legs hyperextended with rage, your lips quivered, voice was soon hoarse from screaming. The more permutations of persuasiveness I scrabbled for in the attempt to lure you out of there, the more your determination steeled itself to go back into the doctor’s room. After 5 minutes I had no choice but to draw on the reserve tank of strength – the one after which recovery is unpleasant and prolonged – to carry you out of the waiting room, and drag you kicking and screaming into the lift to the ground floor. The whole building could still hear you scream from downstairs but less ear-piercingly. And at least they couldn’t stare any more.
But from there I was stuck. You were not going to budge. There was no way I could carry you any further into the car parked up the road. No way. And you were getting more worked up by the minute. As though the impasse we were in was adding to your distress. “Go back to doctor’s, Go Back to Doctor’s”.. You must have bawled that phrase out 500 times in the next 20 mins. I gave up trying to pacify, cajole or dictate to you you with words. I just sat dishrevelled on the stairs as a few patients trickled out past us and looked on in bemusement,
Why didn’t I just get my child out of there???
I waited zen-like for some denouement to occur. But it didn’t. So I surrendered, which is the only thing your daddy and I can do sometimes, and said we would go back into the lift, back upstairs and see if the doctor would let us back in her room. Immediate and miraculous silence. You held my hand. We re-entered the waiting room. All heads turned and the receptionist’s jaw dropped open as we made our quiet, brazen way past the waiting patients, past the desk, right to outside the doctor’s door. I said, “oh dear, the door is closed, the doctor is busy, we can’t go in there, darling”. Disaster. Your screaming redoubled in an instant and you dived to the floor in protest, in the best Italian footballing tradition. The whole surgery witnessed the scene. Criminally incompetent mother stands by and watches as feral child lets rip in GPs surgery.
Why doesn’t she just get her child out of there??
But I really could not pick you up and carry you. I just could not physically do it, not even for all the embarrassment and desperation I felt. Fortunately your energy was nearly spent too. Down there on the floor, your thumb found its way into your mouth and something about the banana in my bag that I had been promising you registered above your cries to soften the blow of defeat. You accepted my peace offering, you sniffed up your tears and we eventually filed out again, battered and shame-faced with banana in tow.
We had a cuddle when we got home and later on we even shared a laugh as we recounted the events. “I had tantrum at doctor’s” you told your daddy gleefully when he got home.
Showing posts with label adventures beyond the sofa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adventures beyond the sofa. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Mums n Toddler Groups
Mums and toddler groups have been the best answer to our isolation.
After Sofia was born I threw all my might into keeping up contact with my antenatal class peers. For the first time since I started Uni in a remission in 1991 I had a ready-made group of friends with whom to undergo this life-changing experience of motherhood. And while they were marooned at home on maternity leave we all had fervid email exchanges about strangely –coloured poo, sore nipples and insomniac babies. Occasionally I would make it to a meeting at someone’s house. For a short span of energy I was in heaven. My lovely girl on my knee was my passport to conviviality and chit-chat and a sense of belonging that I craved for during all those years of non-work.
But each week the time and venue of our meetings changed. The mums got restless of breastfeeding with cappuccino and cake. The babies got harder to contain on our laps in homes or cafes. Their get-togethers would turn into power-pramming sessions and increasingly ambitious excursions to far-flung farms and the like in search of the ultimate in mum n baby gratification. The logistics were too much for me. Each week I agonised about whether I could make it or not. I beat my head against the wall as each enthusiastic promise to join in turned into ever-lamer sounding apologies for my sudden relapses, bad days and total unreliability. My and Sofia’s no-show stretched from weeks to months and I ached as our tenuous social world was dissolving.
Then I found out about a nice toddler group nearby and now I’m at peace. Not just any old toddler group, mind you. I had tried some that were overpopular, overcrowded and anonymous, some that were sad and forlorn and some which didn’t even meet my basic requirement of a chair to sit on. This one was just starting up and gaining momentum through word of mouth. (They are the hardest to come across if you’re excluded from the word of mouth.) Unlike the antenatal group meetings, it’s at the same time, the same place, with all the facilities to entertain toddlers and supply you with tea and biscuits and shelter for a pittance. But the real beauty of it is I don’t have to promise to show-up, explain or apologise when I can’t. It’s just there – a loose group of mums that I can dip in and out of when I can.
It’s taken some adjusting to. The only way I can get there with Sofia, stay for an hour or two and get us home again in one piece is with my mum’s help. On a good day she just chauffeurs backwards and forwards and comes at the end to scoop up a strung-out Sofia just as I’m keeling over with exhaustion. Other times I need her to stay and look after Sofia, steering her out of territorial conflicts with other toddlers and helping her up the slides, while I make the most of the chance for a cup of tea and a chat. I feel haunted by that teenager angst of not being able to break free from my mum. She cramps my style, she shows me up, she gets in my hair, as the best of mums do. I wince at the thought of what people think of our unusual duo. I also feel ashamed at asking her to play this chaperoning role in which I try my hardest to assume control and make her into a spare part. But we’ve reached an understanding and it’s worth it. Sometimes when I’m too ill she takes Sofia on her own and I’m happy that Sofia has that continuity and my mum gets to be proper full-on granny from time to time.
I’ve had to learn to pace myself. To know for how long I can try and juggle playing with Sofia and chatting with other mums before the competing demands overwhelm me along with the general noise and chaos of the setting.
I’ve had to learn to accept that for all the joy of sharing day to day experiences of motherhood with other mums there will always be the gaping chasm of ME that separates me from them. I can make small talk about potty training and joke about my toddler’s quirks with the best of them but there will always come a point in the conversation when I have to reveal that yes, Sofia goes to nursery but no I don’t work part time, or no, my mum is not on a temporary visit but is my permanent companion. Because I have ME and I can’t look after Sofia independently. Then they try and place me within a previous job or occupation and learn that no, actually, I’ve never worked because I’ve been ill since I was 18. And however sympathetic and au fait they are with the notion of ME (and most of them are) that last revelation always elicits a strained silence and a brisk change of subject on my part as their brains struggle to absorb all the implications of that statement and still treat me like one of them at the same time.
After Sofia was born I threw all my might into keeping up contact with my antenatal class peers. For the first time since I started Uni in a remission in 1991 I had a ready-made group of friends with whom to undergo this life-changing experience of motherhood. And while they were marooned at home on maternity leave we all had fervid email exchanges about strangely –coloured poo, sore nipples and insomniac babies. Occasionally I would make it to a meeting at someone’s house. For a short span of energy I was in heaven. My lovely girl on my knee was my passport to conviviality and chit-chat and a sense of belonging that I craved for during all those years of non-work.
But each week the time and venue of our meetings changed. The mums got restless of breastfeeding with cappuccino and cake. The babies got harder to contain on our laps in homes or cafes. Their get-togethers would turn into power-pramming sessions and increasingly ambitious excursions to far-flung farms and the like in search of the ultimate in mum n baby gratification. The logistics were too much for me. Each week I agonised about whether I could make it or not. I beat my head against the wall as each enthusiastic promise to join in turned into ever-lamer sounding apologies for my sudden relapses, bad days and total unreliability. My and Sofia’s no-show stretched from weeks to months and I ached as our tenuous social world was dissolving.
Then I found out about a nice toddler group nearby and now I’m at peace. Not just any old toddler group, mind you. I had tried some that were overpopular, overcrowded and anonymous, some that were sad and forlorn and some which didn’t even meet my basic requirement of a chair to sit on. This one was just starting up and gaining momentum through word of mouth. (They are the hardest to come across if you’re excluded from the word of mouth.) Unlike the antenatal group meetings, it’s at the same time, the same place, with all the facilities to entertain toddlers and supply you with tea and biscuits and shelter for a pittance. But the real beauty of it is I don’t have to promise to show-up, explain or apologise when I can’t. It’s just there – a loose group of mums that I can dip in and out of when I can.
It’s taken some adjusting to. The only way I can get there with Sofia, stay for an hour or two and get us home again in one piece is with my mum’s help. On a good day she just chauffeurs backwards and forwards and comes at the end to scoop up a strung-out Sofia just as I’m keeling over with exhaustion. Other times I need her to stay and look after Sofia, steering her out of territorial conflicts with other toddlers and helping her up the slides, while I make the most of the chance for a cup of tea and a chat. I feel haunted by that teenager angst of not being able to break free from my mum. She cramps my style, she shows me up, she gets in my hair, as the best of mums do. I wince at the thought of what people think of our unusual duo. I also feel ashamed at asking her to play this chaperoning role in which I try my hardest to assume control and make her into a spare part. But we’ve reached an understanding and it’s worth it. Sometimes when I’m too ill she takes Sofia on her own and I’m happy that Sofia has that continuity and my mum gets to be proper full-on granny from time to time.
I’ve had to learn to pace myself. To know for how long I can try and juggle playing with Sofia and chatting with other mums before the competing demands overwhelm me along with the general noise and chaos of the setting.
I’ve had to learn to accept that for all the joy of sharing day to day experiences of motherhood with other mums there will always be the gaping chasm of ME that separates me from them. I can make small talk about potty training and joke about my toddler’s quirks with the best of them but there will always come a point in the conversation when I have to reveal that yes, Sofia goes to nursery but no I don’t work part time, or no, my mum is not on a temporary visit but is my permanent companion. Because I have ME and I can’t look after Sofia independently. Then they try and place me within a previous job or occupation and learn that no, actually, I’ve never worked because I’ve been ill since I was 18. And however sympathetic and au fait they are with the notion of ME (and most of them are) that last revelation always elicits a strained silence and a brisk change of subject on my part as their brains struggle to absorb all the implications of that statement and still treat me like one of them at the same time.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
The Seaside
My darling girl,
We went away for a week to your grandparents’ house by the sea. You threw stones in the water and ate moules and chips by the bowlful. You put your piggies in the cold sea. I was so proud because while your daddy had to work on the computer I managed to drive you to the beach a couple of times. Just me and you, sweetheart! Mummy and Sofia.
I’ve finally entered the happy, buzzy phase of pregnancy and was on my peak form for most of the week. We’re a great team now. You can – and indeed insist upon – climbing in and out of your car seat by yourself now. I just have to let you take your time, coax you along a bit when you get distracted from the job, and then strap you in and we’re off. The days of having to heave you into the back seat of our three-door hatchback are over. The world feels almost oyster-like.
The first time we venture out to new pastures together are always precarious. I can never predict what the hurdles might be. For example, you needed much convincing that the sand on the beach was even bigger and better than the sand you encountered in the car park. Another mum would have just parked you on her hip and brought you to the sea’s edge as proof. But I had to find the words to entice you across those metres of undulating sand over which the sparkling sea could finally be glimpsed. You’re so good at walking now that you're two, but you do need a good, well-argued reason for putting one foot consistently in front of the other, in a linear fashion, towards an often nebulous goal.
And I have to learn that’s it’s all very well in theory bringing a camping chair to the beach to support my back while seated. But if I can’t carry it along with the blanket, beach bag and buckets and spades and still be able to hold your hand, it’s worse than useless.
Then there’s the timing issue. After coaxing you across the sand dunes, setting up camp, dutifully smothering you in suncream, ensuring your correct attire against the perils of sun and wind and getting out of my own shoes and socks I was ready for a lie down. But you were just then bowled over by the grandeur of the ocean before us. So I couldn’t not take you there and then down to the breaking waves. And stand there with the lifeforce draining out of me, holding both your hands so the tide’s force wouldn’t topple you over. And share with you your first seaside thrill.
So by the time your daddy joined us I was prone and breathless on the sand like a beached whale. And I watched him teach you how to run away from the scary waves and jump into them as they approached. Not just stand there like me. And your confidence grew with your delight. And you soon forgot that first thrill of cold and enormity with mummy.
But the next time we went to a smaller, sheltered bit of beach. And our teamwork was perfected. The waves were tiny and there were lots of little stones and shells scattered about. So I could just spread my blanket near the water’s edge and lie down right beside you as you went about your all-consuming project of throwing stones in the sea. And when I was rested enough we walked a little, hand-in-hand, along the tide’s edge, kicking and splashing. We made a few little sandcastles. And when your daddy arrived we were just one of several little groups of mummies and babies, having a cuddle by the sea on a warm, clear idyllic May afternoon. I couldn’t have asked for anything more from life in that moment.
We went away for a week to your grandparents’ house by the sea. You threw stones in the water and ate moules and chips by the bowlful. You put your piggies in the cold sea. I was so proud because while your daddy had to work on the computer I managed to drive you to the beach a couple of times. Just me and you, sweetheart! Mummy and Sofia.
I’ve finally entered the happy, buzzy phase of pregnancy and was on my peak form for most of the week. We’re a great team now. You can – and indeed insist upon – climbing in and out of your car seat by yourself now. I just have to let you take your time, coax you along a bit when you get distracted from the job, and then strap you in and we’re off. The days of having to heave you into the back seat of our three-door hatchback are over. The world feels almost oyster-like.
The first time we venture out to new pastures together are always precarious. I can never predict what the hurdles might be. For example, you needed much convincing that the sand on the beach was even bigger and better than the sand you encountered in the car park. Another mum would have just parked you on her hip and brought you to the sea’s edge as proof. But I had to find the words to entice you across those metres of undulating sand over which the sparkling sea could finally be glimpsed. You’re so good at walking now that you're two, but you do need a good, well-argued reason for putting one foot consistently in front of the other, in a linear fashion, towards an often nebulous goal.
And I have to learn that’s it’s all very well in theory bringing a camping chair to the beach to support my back while seated. But if I can’t carry it along with the blanket, beach bag and buckets and spades and still be able to hold your hand, it’s worse than useless.
Then there’s the timing issue. After coaxing you across the sand dunes, setting up camp, dutifully smothering you in suncream, ensuring your correct attire against the perils of sun and wind and getting out of my own shoes and socks I was ready for a lie down. But you were just then bowled over by the grandeur of the ocean before us. So I couldn’t not take you there and then down to the breaking waves. And stand there with the lifeforce draining out of me, holding both your hands so the tide’s force wouldn’t topple you over. And share with you your first seaside thrill.
So by the time your daddy joined us I was prone and breathless on the sand like a beached whale. And I watched him teach you how to run away from the scary waves and jump into them as they approached. Not just stand there like me. And your confidence grew with your delight. And you soon forgot that first thrill of cold and enormity with mummy.
But the next time we went to a smaller, sheltered bit of beach. And our teamwork was perfected. The waves were tiny and there were lots of little stones and shells scattered about. So I could just spread my blanket near the water’s edge and lie down right beside you as you went about your all-consuming project of throwing stones in the sea. And when I was rested enough we walked a little, hand-in-hand, along the tide’s edge, kicking and splashing. We made a few little sandcastles. And when your daddy arrived we were just one of several little groups of mummies and babies, having a cuddle by the sea on a warm, clear idyllic May afternoon. I couldn’t have asked for anything more from life in that moment.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Present Shame
The other night we watched The Madness of Modern Parenting (BBC2). For “modern” parents read “urban middle-class with big swanky house” parents. This week’s theme was the extravagant folly of children’s birthday parties: the lengths and expense people go to to keep up with the Jones’ and impress other parents. One key status symbol is the birthday girl or boy’s present. As I remember it, the programme claimed that out of the 2-3 hours per week spent on shopping by the average “modern” family, just 17 mins are devoted to food and groceries with the rest of the time allocated to, among other things, “sourcing” presents for Joshua or Olivia to take to the weekend’s birthday party.
No wonder I fell on the first hurdle. With an average stamina window of 15 mins I very rarely set foot in a physical shop, let alone wander from shop to shop, perusing, comparing, deliberating, then purchasing which I imagine constitutes the activity of "sourcing". Even less so since Sofia was born because it involves co-opting my mum in the lifting and hauling of Sofia and pushchair in and out of car and I depend on her enough as it is.
So our first, (and so far only), experience of the aspirational birthday party came as a shock. I’m still smarting from the dreadful blunder over the present. My shame progressed in three stages:
1) Failing to arrive at the party with a present at all. My best laid plans were hijacked as the catalogue I had used to order a pretty stripey top from phoned the day before to say they were out of stock.
2) Watching the present-opening proceedings and realising, based on my careful research into the Early Learning Centre catalogue, that the other mums had all spent around £20 - £30 each. My present, had it arrived, would have cost a hard-saved £5. I know being relatively poor and being disabled with ME don’t necessarily go hand in hand but when they do, as in my case, what hope have I got?
3) I resolved nonetheless to salvage our dignity and come up with some kind of present fast. I could have ordered something else from a catalogue but that would have meant a £4 P&P charge and another wait. So the next time Dad took Sofia to the park I got him to drop me off at the shops nearby. Not the concrete megaplex of brand names but a villagey cluster of chi-chi shops. This was my only chance for the week to get into a shop. I estimated 10-15mins standing/walking power before I would collapse. Though I kind of knew there weren’t any dedicated children’s or toy shops around, compulsion drove me forward and selected a shop mostly selling expensive bags with a sideline in other accessories and bits and bobs including childrens’. The likeliest thing was a hand-made little figurine of a fairy to hang on a tree (it was nearly Christmas). Not educational, not developmental, not anywhere in the range of desirable toys in the Modern Parent sense. But exclusive/designer looking. I knew searching any further would lead to muscular collapse and the risk of coming away with no present at all. So I stretched to the £8 luxury version of the fairy figurine.
I wrapped it and went with Sofia the few doors up the road to deliver it. The birthday girl’s older brother unwrapped it for her and promptly exclaimed that it was broken. Indeed, at some stage between wrapping and unwrapping, the head of this stupidly fragile, stupid, stupid fairy had broken off. Her Dad asked me if it had just broken or if it was already broken in the shop.
At least Sofia is not yet two and is mercifully unscathed by my fatal blunder. But what shame will she have to undergo when she hits 4 or 5 and becomes aware of my dreadful failures? I hate to think about it..
No wonder I fell on the first hurdle. With an average stamina window of 15 mins I very rarely set foot in a physical shop, let alone wander from shop to shop, perusing, comparing, deliberating, then purchasing which I imagine constitutes the activity of "sourcing". Even less so since Sofia was born because it involves co-opting my mum in the lifting and hauling of Sofia and pushchair in and out of car and I depend on her enough as it is.
So our first, (and so far only), experience of the aspirational birthday party came as a shock. I’m still smarting from the dreadful blunder over the present. My shame progressed in three stages:
1) Failing to arrive at the party with a present at all. My best laid plans were hijacked as the catalogue I had used to order a pretty stripey top from phoned the day before to say they were out of stock.
2) Watching the present-opening proceedings and realising, based on my careful research into the Early Learning Centre catalogue, that the other mums had all spent around £20 - £30 each. My present, had it arrived, would have cost a hard-saved £5. I know being relatively poor and being disabled with ME don’t necessarily go hand in hand but when they do, as in my case, what hope have I got?
3) I resolved nonetheless to salvage our dignity and come up with some kind of present fast. I could have ordered something else from a catalogue but that would have meant a £4 P&P charge and another wait. So the next time Dad took Sofia to the park I got him to drop me off at the shops nearby. Not the concrete megaplex of brand names but a villagey cluster of chi-chi shops. This was my only chance for the week to get into a shop. I estimated 10-15mins standing/walking power before I would collapse. Though I kind of knew there weren’t any dedicated children’s or toy shops around, compulsion drove me forward and selected a shop mostly selling expensive bags with a sideline in other accessories and bits and bobs including childrens’. The likeliest thing was a hand-made little figurine of a fairy to hang on a tree (it was nearly Christmas). Not educational, not developmental, not anywhere in the range of desirable toys in the Modern Parent sense. But exclusive/designer looking. I knew searching any further would lead to muscular collapse and the risk of coming away with no present at all. So I stretched to the £8 luxury version of the fairy figurine.
I wrapped it and went with Sofia the few doors up the road to deliver it. The birthday girl’s older brother unwrapped it for her and promptly exclaimed that it was broken. Indeed, at some stage between wrapping and unwrapping, the head of this stupidly fragile, stupid, stupid fairy had broken off. Her Dad asked me if it had just broken or if it was already broken in the shop.
At least Sofia is not yet two and is mercifully unscathed by my fatal blunder. But what shame will she have to undergo when she hits 4 or 5 and becomes aware of my dreadful failures? I hate to think about it..
Thursday, November 30, 2006
A Toe in the Well World
I’m pulled in two opposite directions.
One is towards my fellow PWME: women, especially, of my kind of age. Sometimes who’ve been ill as long as I have, some a little better, some a little worse than me. How fortunate I might seem to them: I have a partner, a baby and parents nearby who make caring for her possible. At weekends, on my good days, M., Sofia and I go out altogether to the park and Sofia plays on the swings and slides. And we must look, more or less, normal. Maybe even healthy people look on at us with envy. No-one would really notice that M does all the lifting and carrying and pushing, that we drive to the park instead of walking 10mins to get there, and that I spend a lot of time sitting on a bench, or in the sandpit where I can rest my back a little against the wall, which helps with the orthostatic intolerance. I probably just look slightly eccentric, getting down and sandy with the toddlers. I feel so lucky. By all accounts I should be single and childless after half a lifetime of reclusivity. Having Sofia and M is nothing short of a miracle.
But then, at that same playground, I might bump into a fellow mum from antenatal class with her neighbour. And I’m pulled towards self-pity. Both have toddlers of Sofia’s age. They’re my neighbours really; they live just around the corner. Except it doesn’t feel like that. Because they never call or text me to say “Hey, it’s stopped raining, shall we take the little ones to the park” on their days off work. Or “Could I leave Jeremy with you for an hour while I get my hair cut”. Why? Because the answer would be “Well, I’m not up to it today. But, hey, maybe next week, if it’s a good day ME-wise, when my mum comes, she can drive me and Sofia to the park and we could meet. Oh, and don’t mind me if I spend the whole time in the sandpit and would you mind lifting sofia in and out of the swings if I get too tired?”.
I even know which is their day off. I know I could call ahead of it and suggest meeting up with our babies. It’s not that anyone is purposefully excluding me. But I would have to negotiate an activity and a venue that I can manage. So we’re talking a sofa to stretch out on, ideally. Which means my place (tiny by their standards) or theirs (ie inviting myself and my toddler over). Then, once I’ve tied them down to the venue there’s a 50% chance, often higher, that I’ll end up cancelling at the last minute anyway because I’m having a crappier-than-average ME day. And they might even go along with it once. They’ll be flexible and understanding and reschedule and come over to my place if I’m housebound and even bring the biscuits because I can’t get to the shops. But unless they’re nuts or suckers for punishment, the following week they’ll hook up with the other mums, the ones who are more reliable and less demanding.
So I end up not phoning. Or trying it out once then retreating in defeat after numerous botched or rescheduled arrangements. There is a community of mums all around me, and potential playmates for Sofia. They seem really friendly and neighbourly. Every now and then we surface up to street level and rub shoulders with them. But most of the time they go about their mumsy business of shopping, swings and meeting up for coffee in blissful ignorance of me and Sofia in our lower ground floor flat.
One is towards my fellow PWME: women, especially, of my kind of age. Sometimes who’ve been ill as long as I have, some a little better, some a little worse than me. How fortunate I might seem to them: I have a partner, a baby and parents nearby who make caring for her possible. At weekends, on my good days, M., Sofia and I go out altogether to the park and Sofia plays on the swings and slides. And we must look, more or less, normal. Maybe even healthy people look on at us with envy. No-one would really notice that M does all the lifting and carrying and pushing, that we drive to the park instead of walking 10mins to get there, and that I spend a lot of time sitting on a bench, or in the sandpit where I can rest my back a little against the wall, which helps with the orthostatic intolerance. I probably just look slightly eccentric, getting down and sandy with the toddlers. I feel so lucky. By all accounts I should be single and childless after half a lifetime of reclusivity. Having Sofia and M is nothing short of a miracle.
But then, at that same playground, I might bump into a fellow mum from antenatal class with her neighbour. And I’m pulled towards self-pity. Both have toddlers of Sofia’s age. They’re my neighbours really; they live just around the corner. Except it doesn’t feel like that. Because they never call or text me to say “Hey, it’s stopped raining, shall we take the little ones to the park” on their days off work. Or “Could I leave Jeremy with you for an hour while I get my hair cut”. Why? Because the answer would be “Well, I’m not up to it today. But, hey, maybe next week, if it’s a good day ME-wise, when my mum comes, she can drive me and Sofia to the park and we could meet. Oh, and don’t mind me if I spend the whole time in the sandpit and would you mind lifting sofia in and out of the swings if I get too tired?”.
I even know which is their day off. I know I could call ahead of it and suggest meeting up with our babies. It’s not that anyone is purposefully excluding me. But I would have to negotiate an activity and a venue that I can manage. So we’re talking a sofa to stretch out on, ideally. Which means my place (tiny by their standards) or theirs (ie inviting myself and my toddler over). Then, once I’ve tied them down to the venue there’s a 50% chance, often higher, that I’ll end up cancelling at the last minute anyway because I’m having a crappier-than-average ME day. And they might even go along with it once. They’ll be flexible and understanding and reschedule and come over to my place if I’m housebound and even bring the biscuits because I can’t get to the shops. But unless they’re nuts or suckers for punishment, the following week they’ll hook up with the other mums, the ones who are more reliable and less demanding.
So I end up not phoning. Or trying it out once then retreating in defeat after numerous botched or rescheduled arrangements. There is a community of mums all around me, and potential playmates for Sofia. They seem really friendly and neighbourly. Every now and then we surface up to street level and rub shoulders with them. But most of the time they go about their mumsy business of shopping, swings and meeting up for coffee in blissful ignorance of me and Sofia in our lower ground floor flat.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Relapse Duly Arrived
A lovely mum played with Sofia at the toddler group today.. She kept hauling her up to the top of the slide, and swooping her down, again and again. Sofia was obliging if bemused as she’s just proudly learned to climb to the top of the slide by herself. All I could do was smile from my chair across the other side of the room, Try to convey a hundred unspeakable things in one big beam:
"I’m not a wierdo, really. There’s a reason why I’m not playing with my daughter, and not reciprocating your friendliness. I’d kill to be all hands on with your little girl too. Honestly, I’m not depressed and disconnected; I’m not too posh to play. You wouldn’t understand, but every megabyte of my energy has gone in the few steps from the car to this seat. And now I need to stay in standby mode: glued to this chair, preferably with my head resting on the wall behind, to avoid crashing before I get home."
It was a toss up whether to come with Mum and Sofia today or not. A familiar dilemna. Drag myself in all my wobbly breathlessness to a scenario where I’m on the verge on non-functioning for an hour or so, just to pre-empt the creeping claustrophobia of relapse?. Just to get a dose of being in the world to last me the week.? Or surrender to the sofa. The four walls. Avoid the hurt of fast-paced normality; the frustration of my tongue-tied conversation; and my ugly shame at being chaperoned by my mother when I’m the one supposed to be doing the mummying.?
I could so easily have relinquished my 12 year struggle to get out more today. That exiled feeling is nothing new. But I’m glad I went. I watched Sofia in action amongst other cute children. That other mum smiled back, apparently unfazed by my inertia. And anyway, there’ll be days over the next few weeks and months when I won’t able to do even this. So it makes sense to keep up the struggle while I can.
"I’m not a wierdo, really. There’s a reason why I’m not playing with my daughter, and not reciprocating your friendliness. I’d kill to be all hands on with your little girl too. Honestly, I’m not depressed and disconnected; I’m not too posh to play. You wouldn’t understand, but every megabyte of my energy has gone in the few steps from the car to this seat. And now I need to stay in standby mode: glued to this chair, preferably with my head resting on the wall behind, to avoid crashing before I get home."
It was a toss up whether to come with Mum and Sofia today or not. A familiar dilemna. Drag myself in all my wobbly breathlessness to a scenario where I’m on the verge on non-functioning for an hour or so, just to pre-empt the creeping claustrophobia of relapse?. Just to get a dose of being in the world to last me the week.? Or surrender to the sofa. The four walls. Avoid the hurt of fast-paced normality; the frustration of my tongue-tied conversation; and my ugly shame at being chaperoned by my mother when I’m the one supposed to be doing the mummying.?
I could so easily have relinquished my 12 year struggle to get out more today. That exiled feeling is nothing new. But I’m glad I went. I watched Sofia in action amongst other cute children. That other mum smiled back, apparently unfazed by my inertia. And anyway, there’ll be days over the next few weeks and months when I won’t able to do even this. So it makes sense to keep up the struggle while I can.
Monday, October 16, 2006
A Little Toe in Normality
I made it to a toddler group last week! What a bittersweet experience. Firstly, shellshock: the noise level and general pandemonium of 30 odd mums and their offspring in one psychedelically toy-filled room would have sent me straight home again if mum hadn’t already driven off at my bequest. But I found a quiet place to sit with Sofia and soon saw a familiar face who introduced me to some other mums. All very nice. The kind of women I instinctively felt I could be friends with.
From then on it was bliss, for 40 mins or so. My ME being the best it’s been since 1993 meant I managed to ride the noise levels and function normally for that brief window of time. No one knew, or needed to know, that I have ME and have lived a strange hermetic existence since the age of 23 and that I only manage a veneer of social normality through masterful skills of artifice. I looked like a nice new face, the sort of mum they wanted to meet too. With a gorgeous little girl wearing the cutest of shoes. And so I sat there making pleasant conversation under the giddy illusion of having a group of peers with the same experience, the same points of reference, for the first time since about 1991 when I started University. All without having to make any special effort to reach out to anyone.
I say illusion because that’s what it was. Today relapse looks like it’s kicking in, though how bad and for how long is anyone’s guess. And realistically, at no other time this year would I have coped with the noise and chaos of that setting. Today was one of those one-off glimpses into life in a higher gear; the peak before the relapse when the doors abruptly close again. I'll probably never meet these women again. They won’t become the casual day-to-day acquaintances I dream of having. They will be, as ever, out of reach. I will resort once again to desperately snatched phone numbers in my usual superhuman efforts to maintain some kind of contact with the “community” of my imagination.
I’m fed up. Of reaching out for people who have no particular need of me. Not because I’m not as good as others but because, for them, other mums are ten a penny. Because their friendships grow out of the encounters of their daily comings and goings. Not from going out of their way to keep up with someone they met once. And, for the most part, I won’t be coming or going anywhere.
26 May 2006
From then on it was bliss, for 40 mins or so. My ME being the best it’s been since 1993 meant I managed to ride the noise levels and function normally for that brief window of time. No one knew, or needed to know, that I have ME and have lived a strange hermetic existence since the age of 23 and that I only manage a veneer of social normality through masterful skills of artifice. I looked like a nice new face, the sort of mum they wanted to meet too. With a gorgeous little girl wearing the cutest of shoes. And so I sat there making pleasant conversation under the giddy illusion of having a group of peers with the same experience, the same points of reference, for the first time since about 1991 when I started University. All without having to make any special effort to reach out to anyone.
I say illusion because that’s what it was. Today relapse looks like it’s kicking in, though how bad and for how long is anyone’s guess. And realistically, at no other time this year would I have coped with the noise and chaos of that setting. Today was one of those one-off glimpses into life in a higher gear; the peak before the relapse when the doors abruptly close again. I'll probably never meet these women again. They won’t become the casual day-to-day acquaintances I dream of having. They will be, as ever, out of reach. I will resort once again to desperately snatched phone numbers in my usual superhuman efforts to maintain some kind of contact with the “community” of my imagination.
I’m fed up. Of reaching out for people who have no particular need of me. Not because I’m not as good as others but because, for them, other mums are ten a penny. Because their friendships grow out of the encounters of their daily comings and goings. Not from going out of their way to keep up with someone they met once. And, for the most part, I won’t be coming or going anywhere.
26 May 2006
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