Saturday 14 September 2013

Farewell My Confinement - My moment with you now is ending

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone? One minute you're cursing the never ending pregnancy and the outstretched days being overdue, and then the three day labour and then the exhausting early weeks and then the difficult 'stay at home mum' months and the next minute it's ... over. Where did that go?

My University course start date has slyly sneaked up on me and, if the nursery fees are anything to go by, I may have to work along side it. Before I knew it, I suddenly realised I have one week of 'Confinement', 'maternity leave' left. And so it seems a good time to close the door on this blog.

Ironically,  it has only been over the last couple of weeks that I have really started to enjoy my maternity leave. It took me a very long time to feel confident in taking my son out and about - and I had just got the hang of public transport with him and restaurants with him and wheeling him out and about.

Yesterday I went for a long walk and passed a small park. Strangely there was no one in the play area except one man and his son struggling with the slide (laughter, laughter, tears, laughter, laughter, tears). I saw that there was a small swing, swaying on its own in the autumn breeze. Would he sit in that? Is he old enough? I wondered.

I crept into the park, took him out of his buggy and placed him in the small swing. He fit. He sat upright. He looked confused... and intrigued. Ever so carefully I steadily rocked him to and fro, to and fro. Slowly a gummy smile spread across his small face and he let out a few giggles.

I was going to miss this, miss him so much. I have wasted so much of this precious time together. I am going to miss this peace, this togetherness, this absolute gift of time with my baby boy. Soon I will be neck high in text books and lesson plans and working stress and I will close my eyes and remember my perfect boy, swaying happily away on his swing, just the two of us in the quiet park giggling at each other.

Even a squirrel came and watched us for a bit about a metre away. I shit you not! It was like a Disney film.

They say treasure every moment because you never get this time back and you say 'Shut the Feck up it's bloody hard work'. But something tells me I should have spent less time moaning - and more time cuddling and taking long walks in the park, and playing on the swings.

I intend on making this last week count.

As for you all - I have loved keeping this diary of my confinement and I hope you have enjoyed reading my misadventures.

My confinement may be over .... but I am sure I will be back soon in some other guise - watch this space.

Back to the beginning




Friday 13 September 2013

Day Release & Waiting for the cheese


When our son was four months old my partner and I decided, to keep the flame alive, and to keep ourselves alive - we would spend one day a month away from our little cherub. One day and one night to be precise. I felt confident in leaving him with his Grandparents for one day and so we took our chance and booked a hotel near by. We would spend this one day and night doing everything we couldn't do in the 29 or 30 other days of the month. My partner mostly slept... whilst I took several long lava hot baths with a bottle of wine. I also stopped calling him a Bastard for the day.

"Here he is Mum, Dad: Now I'd rather you didn't take him out in the pram because you might forget to hold the safety strap. I'd rather you didn't go out at all. I don't want you to give him a bath because he's just too heavy and too slippery and I can barely hold him in the bath and I'm in my thirties - so he can go one day without a bath. Always check his nappy before you put him in his jumperoo or the result of poo plus aggressive jumping is pretty catastrophic. Don't take your eyes off him for a nanosecond. PUT ON YOUR GLASSES for Gods sake! Here is his food, here are his bottles, here are his spare clothes... text me every hour to let me know all three of you are alive... ok... GO!" 

My partner and I would then leap into a taxi waiting outside like two criminals in a get away car.

Last weekend was our third day out on day release for good behaviour and to add excitement to our day off I booked us onto a wine tasting!

We arrived at the stylish bar and met the other wine tasters. It felt like our first 'date' in well... forever. It all felt exciting and new and I felt in love again - or at least I did by the third sample. The portion sizes were ridiculously big considering how little we had paid. We had a GLASS of wine with each 'taster'.

First came the Chenin Blanc.
Then the Sauvignon Blanc.
Then a white Rioja (beautiful).

"Any Questions?" the wine expert said
"Yez" I said, my hand shooting up like the Teacher's pet "I waz told there woulds be cheese?"
"Err... yes, the cheese is coming"

Then it was a large glass of Prosecco.
Then we started on the reds.
First it was a Beaujolais,
then a Chianti...
glug glug glug.
I had lost most of my taste bud usage by this point.

"Doose we gets ze cheeses now?"
"Yes ... soon"

Then it was some other red - don't ask me which one...

I was now waiting for the cheese like I once waited for my little boy to arrive. And it felt as long as those two extra weeks of pregnancy. How desperate I was for my little guy to arrive. Now desperate for cheese!

Gosh I love wine. Wine is sooo nice. Why didn't I start a blog all those months ago about wine? Not pregnancy! Not babies! I should have written about wine - then people might have sent me free wine to taste and write about - imagine that! I could have been the next Jilly Goolden! I could have been a Master Sommelier! Yes - I should have written about Vino! Yummy scrummy wine - not babies! Babies? Bleeurgh.

There were two married couples to my right. One of the women asked me if it was a special occasion? Birthday? Anniversary?

"Noes..." I said "we has a baby nearly six months agoes an we ave ONE days off a month"

"Oh my Goodness!" the lady exclaimed before announcing to the table
"They had a baby five months ago! A toasts to the baby!!" as my partner whipped out an impossibly cute picture of our son. The table raised their glasses to our child.

The corners of my eyes welled up. God I missed him. I couldn't wait to get back to him. Our little angel. We should be at home with him. Yes I know I am with him 24 hours a day and this is our only break but I miss him - look at his perfect little face. We should go back right now......

"ooooh yeasys! The cheeses are heres babes! Babes.. babes.. don'ts falls asleep.. BABES?
mmm... I loves cheeses".

bbbbrrriiinnng 
"Hello Darling! Just to let you know, we have had to give him a bath - we had a bit of a jumperoo incident ..... and the poo was up to his neck. Nothing to worry about dear, see you in the morning!"

It would seem we have come full circle.