Even Mummy Cries

This is an S3 post - I received these books for review purposes

For full details please see my disclosure policy

I saw a meme once that said "My only goal as a mother is to raise children that don't have to recover from their childhood" and it really resonated with me as I am in the continual process of recovering from mine.

I wish trauma wasn't part of my background, but knowing its far reaching effects first hand has guided my parenting choices for the better, in a "do almost every thing the opposite" kinda way. I don't think I'm at the point of being thankful for being fucked up, but I might get there one day. 

When I had my breakdown earlier this year I was conscious of not scaring (and scarring) the kids, but also letting them know what was happening. They're not stupid. Kids can tell something is up no matter how hard you try to hide it and it just makes everything uncomfortable; an elephant in the room that everyone is deathly afraid to mention. 

I let them see me cry a few times because what message am I sending them if I say its OK for them to cry but not me? We sheltered them from the big, ugly stuff, but I let them know that yeah, mum's sad right now.

I needed them to hear that it was nothing they did that made me sad, and that I was taking some medicine to help my brain the same way that Tricks takes medicine to help his lungs. They were allowed to ask me anything and I would answer as honestly (and age-appropriately) as possible. Tricky had some questions, but Bobbin is too young right now and was just happy with cuddles and tickles.

One of the resources I've used recently is the book Even Mummy Cries by Naomi Hunter (available through Empowering Resources). 

It is a great starting point for an important conversation. It alludes to mental illness, but never uses the specific words, so it could be helpful with a range of mental diagnoses (although Dr Glow is suspecting the mum in the book is bipolar). When it showed the Mum sleeping a lot, Tricks was all "that's what you did!". He was able to recognise the behaviours of the Mother and see himself in the children and I think it helped him to know that it wasn't just his mum acting all strange.

The book, with its beautiful illustrations by Karen Erasmus, will let you ease in to talking about big feelings and how they influence our lives, whether you experience mental illness or not. They'll be learning acceptance without even knowing it. It's the literary version of smuggling veggies in to spag bol. 

With these frequent, small discussions about mental illness I hope my kids grow up knowing it's nothing to be ashamed of, scared of, or hidden away. That they understand their Mum's mental illness, and that of others, is just as real as diabetes or broken bones. Basically I don't want them to grow up to be assholes who carry on the stigma. 

I believe that being open and honest with kids is important, so we have read the other books from Empowering Resources too, A Secret Safe To Tell a gentle story that covers body safety, and You're Different, Jemima that encourages kids to celebrate their differences. But Even Mummy Cries is the one that seems like it was written for us, so I have a soft spot for it. 

How do you approach the big conversations with your kids?

The Itchy and Scratchy Show starring Tricky and Bobbin

I was sitting in the car outside Tricky's school when I first saw it. I'd been using the time to draft a blog post in my head about how I'm so tired that as soon as the kids are in bed I'm either at the gym, tidying up, or in bed. It was all tiny violins, neglected blog, WOE IS ME bullshit. But these tiny red dots blew all that away.

We were half an hour early because the rigmarole involved in going home, struggling to get a toddler out of and then back in to the car after fifteen minutes just wasn't worth it. In those fifteen minutes Bobbin would be guaranteed to strip off or fall asleep or hurt herself, or all bloody three. Because shit happens at pick up time, it's Murphy's Law.

I had her in the front seat with me and she was playing with all the buttons (I still don't have my wipers back on the setting I like) when I noticed a few red dots on her hands that hadn't been there when we'd been having a late lunch an hour earlier.

Oh, shit.

She continued to play while I consulted Dr Google on the symptoms of Hand, Foot and Mouth. All the photos I could find were well established cases, I wanted to know what it looked like just when it was popping up.

A pregnant friend pulled up behind me and I freaked out, grabbed my phone and texted her.

"Don't come near us. Bobbin has some spots and I don't know what they are."

I kept Bobbin as distant from others as I could at pick up and we didn't stick around. At home I examined Tricks and the only blemish on his skin was a bite on his leg that had been there a few days. Checking Bobbin again, there were more spots. Shit.

I consulted Dr Google some more and got afternoon snacks ready. As I handed Tricky his plate, I saw dots...

SHIT.

Within the next hour they'd clustered on his hands, elbows, and knees. It was insane how fast they popped up. I made a doctor's appointment for the next morning and wondered what the protocol was for taking highly infectious children to the local shopping centre that houses the GP's surgery.

Tricky was up six times before midnight, which is a new record for him. The Trickster wakes between three and six times a night usually (and yes, we've tried almost everything, and we're waiting on some help right now), but he was so itchy he couldn't sleep. I'd bathed him in stinky pinetarsol and dotted calamine all over him, but he was still wanting to rip his skin off his ankles. I ended up holding my warm cup of tea on the itchy areas, and the heat seemed to work.

By morning Tricky had more spots, but still mainly clustered in the same areas, and Bobbin only had the ones on her hands still. Despite neither having spots on their feet or in their mouths (that I could see), I was still thinking HFM.

The doctor looked all over Tricks.

"Is he fully immunised?"

"Yep, they both are."

"I think it's Chicken Pox."

Part of me was all "OH FUCK" and then the other part of me was "HOORAY IT'S NOT HFM!". You can re-catch HFM from yourself over and over again if you're not careful (the virus sheds in fecal matter for up to 11 weeks after you've had it), and let's face it, kids are pretty feral sometimes, at least with Varicella you build an immunity.

She called in another doctor for a second opinion because of the unusual presentation. I wanted to tell them that it's always my bloody family that has atypical presentations (13 days in hospital for atypical pnuemonia anyone?), and to keep their minds open. Doctor two disagreed. He said it was something else. They had a fabulous debate with big medical words in it, and all the while gently looking over Tricks.

He stood there, silently, for fifteen minutes while the doctors tried to figure out exactly what was going on.

"You're doing so well, mate, you're being super brave" I said.

His little face crumpled and his lip quivered as he said "I don't want to be here any more."

My heart broke and I scooped him up in to a cuddle, while Bobbin stripped off her own clothes and played with the curtain, grabbed the stethoscope and declared "I a doctor, now!" to anyone who would listen.

We left with a diagnosis of "most likely Chicken Pox" with an unusual presentation because of the vaccine keeping it milder.

I think this is just the universe having a joke on me for complaining about being tired. It's telling me to shut up, stop whining, and get on with it. So that's what I'll do... mostly. I'll still complain a bit, yeah?

The Perfect Mother: The Perfect Fraud

I went to my friend's funeral yesterday. She was 29. But I can't say it without thinking twenty-fucking-nine. I'm 29. A beautiful, bright light has gone out and  my head is all over the place so forgive my emo rambles.

You know, I've never been a fan of posts that are scarily similar to what someone else has written. It's happened to me too often to believe it's just some cosmic coincidence that words I've written or images I have created just pop up elsewhere ever so slightly tweaked. Not actually plagiarism but just a half a baby step away.

And then I read part of a post that looks so much like something I have written. Contains almost an identical sentence... but I have not yet published it... and I freak out a bit. Can I now not say what I was going to say? Will they think I've copied them? If the shoe was on the other foot I would think that. So I scrapped it and I'm just going to start again, referencing Her Edenness because she said it first. Bitch.

I read New Eyes at Edenland the other day and it smacked me hard in the face. So hard I felt that tingle before the pain registers. Is it strange that I can physically feel words? I wonder if anyone else can? I've never asked.

There were, of course, major differences between what Eden wrote in her first few lines and what I had sitting here, unpublished, lurking behind the scenes. For starters she can actually write whereas I just blog. But self depreciation aside, that reconnecting she spoke about, without even knowing she was missing. Yeah that.

I knew I wasn't being a great mother to Tricky. I knew I was distant and just not fully present the way I should have been. You wouldn't have seen it, though. I still did everything I was meant to do... and I did it so bloody well that it didn't just fool you, it fooled me too. Now that I'm coming back though, I can see that I was so much farther away than I thought.

I was the perfect mother; babywearing, breastfeeding, homecooking, reading, singing, teaching. I was the perfect fraud.

When he would cry I would pick him up, cuddle him and say it would all be OK but on the inside, more often than not, I was screaming "FUCKING SHUT UP! I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE!" And no one would have ever guessed. Not Map Guy (who knew, but didn't know just how deep it went). Not even Tricky who would still smile at me with bright, loving eyes.

When you keep everything on the inside, with Oscar-worthy acting, no one knows. No one knows you don't want to be there. That you don't want to spend time with your child. That you immerse yourself in social media in an effort to distract yourself from how much you truly despise yourself and your inability to connect with your son.

I was so far from being a 'good' mother that I didn't even quite make mediocre... and I can only see that now as the veil of anxiety lifts thanks to going back on medication.

I feel terrible for not having really been there for him. I tried many times in the proceeding months to go back on medication but the crippling anxiety stopped me from picking up the phone and making the appointment. Even now, I've not been back for my follow up... I cannot make the call. Not yet. Ahh irony, you are a bitch.

It rips my heart apart that I really don't know how long I've subjected him to such pathetic parenting... in a haze of sleep deprivation (we had a few months of sleeping through but not any more) this is all I remember. But it couldn't have been long... could it? How many months? Was I ever there? I just don't know. I am so used to pretending that the lines of reality have blurred.

We're connecting now, though. He seems the same but my smiles are genuine now. My patience is real and without sighs. My cuddles, once obligatory are now fierce and protective and I try to hold them longer until he squirms to go and do more important things like play blocks. I'm no longer just going through the motions. I want to be with him so much that I've been sneaking in to watch him sleep. I'm not feeling fantastic, but I'm feeling. And that has to be a good thing.

Comments are off for this emo post. Sorry.