Words On A Wednesday.


It’s just as well I managed to get a photo of all that blue sky and sun Sydney was blessed with yesterday.
Because the weather today isn’t much to write home about but at least it’s still possible to make out the trees in the distance and not have the sound on your television or radio drowned out by the rain outside.  Yes, we’ve gotten to that point in the week when the weather seems to be the most newsworthy happening in my world.  I’ve told you about all the books I’ve read, the reality television I’m loving and the minutiae of life as a stay at home mother to a newborn……  It’s a new way of life for me and while the bare facts of it sound rather unremarkable, it is (in Masterchef speak) the journey that holds all the emotion and excitement.  
To be honest, I think reflections on the journey don’t mean much to anyone except the person whose taking that specific journey.  Like other major life events, we enter motherhood at different points in life and with different experiences to one another.  For some the path is ‘easy’ and others less so.  There’s also one’s preconceived notions of how one thinks they will parent.  Feeding (breast, bottle or heaven forbid… both), the pursuit of sleep for your newborn (so much harder to attain than for you) and juggling the opinions of those around you with your own instincts are just some of the issues to consider.  Like birth plans, sometimes it’s best to just go with the flow rather than have anything too tightly scripted.
One thing I do feel that most mothers have in common is the fact that a day is both a very long and very short time.  There are minutes (of crying) that seem to drag on for hours and hours of sleep that feel like minutes.  And then you lose all concept of time when those unscripted little things happen each day that make everything that preceded them worthwhile and that also give you courage, patience and joy for all the moments that follow.
There are times in the day when you feel that you’ve gotten into the groove and feel that mother and child bond as tightly as the waist band of your pre pregnancy jeans and others when you are at a complete loss as to what to do next and what anything means at all.  If I continue with the jeans analogy, perhaps that second point would be like where the current distance between the button and button hole of those jeans are on you now.

I’m not sure where else to take the pair of jeans from this analogy.  When all’s said and done, that pair of jeans really is just a pair of jeans.  If they ever fit again, great.  If they don’t then just go out and get a new pair.  Which is a round about way of saying that the ups and downs which feel so huge and all encompassing now will level out with the perspective of time and hindsight.

I can see myself looking back at these first few bumbling weeks of motherhood and not remembering the things I worry and fret about now.  Instead, I’ll be wistful that this time went by so quickly and understand that not only is change and uncertainty necessary, they’re also probably the only constants in parenthood.


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