Tag: children

Adventures in the night

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The twins woke me up at midnight for a feed. It was an uncomfortably warm night and I was parched. I shook James and whispered, “Can you get me a glass of water please?”

“Yes”, he said in a very sober voice. I waited a second. He was asleep again. I kicked his shin and said, “Bring me water!”

He stumbled out of bed and as he headed towards the bedroom door I hissed “Water!” again.

I heard him open the tap in the kitchen, filling a glass of water then drinking it. Then there was silence. The twins were feeding contently while I was straining my ears.

Where was my husband? He could be in the back bathroom. He could be in our older daughter’s room where he slept while I was pregnant. Or he could be on the Moon, I thought darkly.

Time passed. The twins finished eating and went back to sleep. I seethed.

Finally, my dear husband appeared at the base of the bed, empty handed.

“Where is the glass of water I asked for half an hour ago?!” – I hissed. He looked startled and injured in the semi-darkness of our bedroom. A minute later he finally brought me a glass of water which I gulped greedily while glaring at him.

He climbed into the bed and curled on his pillow.

“I am very upset,” he said and immediately fell asleep again.

15 minutes later Riley, our older daughter, woke up sobbing “Mummmmmy!”

After some persuasion James went to see what was wrong. Nothing was wrong except Riley didn’t want Daddy, she wanted Mummy (again).

“I don’t want to sleep by myself!” – she wailed.

It’s hard for me to understand her struggle with being by herself because I would like nothing better right now than sleeping a whole night by myself. It seems like a dream that will never come true. An uninterrupted night in a big clean bed with no other hot bodies in it… any time by myself is precious but at night especially.

After some whispering and cuddles Riley went back to sleep. I realised I needed the bathroom.

As I tried to get to the bathroom door opposite our bedroom I felt the unmistakeable horror of a spider web on my face. It was a terrible déjà vu I realised as the exact same thing had happened to me the night before but I somehow blanked it out of my memory. At that moment I was far more awake and I saw the culprit, a big spider, on the wall.

Once again I woke James up and hid in the other bathroom. The offending spider wasn’t even a huntsman (which are quite common inside houses in Australia), it was an orb spider which are all over our garden. A harmless thing really, except when it’s on you at 1 am in the morning.

Last time James decided to get rid of a spider in a humane way it didn’t end well. He caught a big huntsman in a takeaway container, walked out of the gate and let it go. It scurried toward the road only to be hit by a passing car.

“It would rather be dead than captured,” I said.

“Must have been one of those Japanese spiders from World War II”, – said James.

This time James didn’t try to do the right thing, killed the orb spider with a thong and disposed of it in the rubbish bin after wrapping it in a paper towel. No spider can escape a paper towel, right?

Miraculously, all three kids slept through the commotion and I spent some time after listening to everyone’s breathing and trying not to think of spiders. Then I slept too.

Tan Lines

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A few years ago when I was sailing a lot, sometimes up to 4 harbour races a week and offshore ones when possible, I used to get very specific tan lines on my hands. My hands looked white apart from the tips of my thumbs, perfectly matching my sailing gloves. We called it the Mickey Mouse tan.

The other day I looked at my hands and I realised there was a tan pattern on them now, too, a totally different one: fingers white up to the second phalanges then tanned evenly. It took me a moment to realise that the tan lines are caused by my pushing a pram every day, sometimes more than once a day. What a great metaphor of how my life changed, I thought. I used to be a very involved sailor and now I am a mother.

Some people, including my own mother, expressed astonishment at the fact that I am now a mother of three (granted, I was as surprised as anyone when we discovered that instead of leaping from one to two we skipped a step and jumped straight to three; nobody plans for twins). Some thought I was too interested in other, non maternal things like my career (or sailing), others no doubt remembered how much I struggled adjusting to having just one child. Yet the astonishment stings a bit too, as I probably invested more in being a great mother to my first than in anything else in my life and I never had any doubt I’d do my best with more than one, too.

Having three has been chaos. The twins are two months old and have already copped a few daycare colds brought home by Riley. A congested newborn is not a happy baby. I’ve listened to my oldest child cry for me in the middle of the night as I was pinned down by a feeding pillow with two newborns on it; my child who was never left to cry, used to reliably being comforted by me, was scared in the middle of the night in her own bed alone in her room and I wasn’t able to help. Sometimes all three cry at the same time. Sometimes I join in the crying, too.

I feel like I need to write about the upside of having multiple kids at this point of my blog post. How blessed we are to have three healthy kids (despite the copious amounts of snot in every single nose in this house right now), how sweet the babies are and how cute and funny Riley is. How James turned into a great father who is confidently taking all three kids out by himself while I try to catch up on at least some sleep. Mostly though we are surviving. We keep reminding ourselves not to wish time away and maybe one day I will miss this season when I am so desperately needed by all my children but right now I just keep saying to myself that the hardest days will pass and we’ll have the reward of children who learn how to play and share with others (I am sure I will regret these words in the future), who will always have each other even when they are adults. I’m reminding myself that our Christmas will be far more magical for having multiple kids, that I will be able to watch each of them grow into their own person which is my favourite part of parenting. And then I catch myself awash with the same astonishment I find so hurtful in others: how could it be that I am a mother of three?

Some people climb mountains, going all the way to the top where they are oxygen starved, freezing and in constant danger of dying where nobody will be able to retrieve their bodies. Some do long offshore races, soaked to the bone, fighting off nausea and tethered to the sides of the boat trying not to fall out. By far more people have multiple children and while some seem to breeze through that experience, a lot of us struggle with round the clock care duties, sleep deprivation and the constant terror of doing something wrong and scarring a person fully dependent on us for life. It’s not considered special by society because it’s so common yet as a way to find meaning bringing up kids can be more relentless than an offshore sailing race, more intimidating than climbing a mountain peak. We can’t turn back and so we continue on our way, clutching on to every tiny pleasure along the way. With time the relentlessness of it somewhat eases, our kids need us a bit less until they seemingly don’t need us at all – and then we’ll have to reinvent ourselves again. Who knows what my tan line is going to be then.

I can’t say I ever fully planned my life and so far what worked for me was doing my best with what I’ve got and letting things happen. And as I look into two brand new little faces all I can do is hope everything will turn out great for them, too.