Be where you are

This year i have been enjoying being where i am. Or at least learning to. We moved to our own home in a new suburb about 18 months ago now. We are quite far from where i have lived most of my life. We love it. It feels like a small town.
This year i am aiming to live local. So we go to a local mainly music class, ella starts dance classes this week and we have started going to a local church which is walking distance from home. Each week we walk up to the village shops to go to the library and have a picnic in the park. It is really helping me to feel settled here.
Another way of "being where i am" is surrendering to the season of my life and the circumstances i am in and not fighting them. Life feels very busy and it seems there is no end to laundry and housework. I have been wrestling with this. But this week something clicked.
Suddenly i could feel myself surrendering to it and pressing into it. No Facebook has helped cause i am no longer distracted by what other people are doing. Also, because daycare is more expensive this year, i can't do extra days at work. This is hard to accept cause i love helping out when things are pressured (the extra time was voluntary), and need to fit work into the evenings after kids are in bed and housework done. I have also dropped all the groups i was involved with last year and before George was born. That has been hard and there has been some grieving, but life is more simple and i am enjoying more time at home. Now with two littlies, pottering at home is so lovely and as long as we get out once a day, i avoid cabin fever.
Since becoming a mum i have also struggled with how to do my Christian faith in a way which isn't just desperate prayers when i am losing it. I think i have read my bible a total of less than 10 times in the last 3 and a half years. It is pretty hard to stay in church for the sermon with managing kids who don't like going to Sunday school on their own. Oh that's if we ever get to church. I have felt guilty and lost. All the advice seemed to be "try harder" or set up a conflict between my kids and time for spirituality.  But yesterday i suddenly realised that this is where god has put me right now. This is where i am. He knows my circumstances and it has to be possible to have an authentic and rich relationship with managing Jesus while being in this season and without escaping it. So listening to worship music in the car and at home, praying and praising while i hang out the washing and delighting in ella and George are how it is right now. And i am even managing to give up tv time at nights to spend some time reading the bible.
By being where i am and accepting both the limitations but also the joys i feel so much more at peace and can really get into the moment.
I don't know what the future holds for all the ideas and dreams i have but right now i am being right here and it is good.

Footloose and facebook free?

So it has been about a month with no facebook. My feelings about it and the experience are mixed. The first week was full of the self righteous glee of self denial. Before my decision to give up FB for lent, I had caught myself thinking in status updates and instead of thinking about how I felt about something, wondering how I could post it for my FB audience. This seemed to fall in the not-too-healthy box of ways of thinking. It took a while for that to fade but it seems now that my thoughts are for an audience of me and me alone. Oh and you...

Another aspect I am loving is not having this constant distraction and checking FB every time there is a second of down time. It used to feel like I was always multi-tasking between FB and my actual life. Our computer is in the lounge and I hated the tension I created between attention on FB and attention needed for my kids and my home and for me and the other things of life. Life has felt more peaceful. A phrase I really like is "do one thing". I learned it on a course I did to help when distress and depression are becoming overwhelming. It really makes a difference to my sense of peace and well being to just 'do one thing' at a time. To not have my attention and mind constantly divided and interrupted.

Another benefit is no longer watching other people's lives unfold before me and being impacted by that. Don't get me wrong. I love FB updates from my friends about their lives and photos of what they have been up to. But it is easy to start comparing my life with others and think something is wrong with mine. Sometimes it also hurts to see how other people are living and brings out the worst in me. I am really not missing that.

One of the most wonderful bits of being facebook free is the page updates from some of the pages I have liked in the past. My newsfeed would be a great way to document the changes in my life over the last wee while. I used to have heaps of parenting page updates which all featured things I was really interested in; breastfeeding, birth, attachment parenting, healthy living etc. But since George arrived I actually find most of the posts pretty disturbing or downright upsetting. I have gradually either unliked the pages or blocked them from my newsfeed but there were still a few I liked to read once in a while. But having none of the parenting "shoulds" confronting me each day has been amazing. I feel so much more in touch with myself as a parent and so much more aware of my own parenting boundaries and values. It is not that I disagree with the sentiments of the pages I was reading, but that sometimes they were a confusing distraction. Instead of parenting with my heart and head, I was trying to parent in a way that some FB page would find acceptable. For a perfectionist like me with authority issues, that is a terrible idea.

But its not all roses. I do really miss the contact with my friends and family. I am an extrovert and it provided me with the people contact I crave when life at home with the kids can feel really isolated. And at a time in life when most of the people I know are really busy and we all live further and further away from each other, I love the chance to keep in touch. I also love the little unexpected gifts of someone's words or insights or their comments. Those little suprises are really so precious on days which feel a bit dreary or tough.

So I am FB free till Easter. Not sure what I will do from then on. I think I will be back on but with some more boundaries and hopefully with it in its rightful place in my life. I guess one of the most useful parts of all of this is that I have been able to do it. That I have the self control and commitment to actually give something up and stick with it. And that is not something I have ever been good at in the past. So that in it itself is good for me. It is growing my character I guess.

An apology

This post has been perculating for a while. It has been a painful and confusing time where i have reconsidered a lot and have had to look myself in the eye. I suspect that many around me may heave a high of relief when you finish reading this. And that is hard to face. I also suspect i have hurt and been insensitive to people i care deeply about and that is so awful to accept and take responsibility for.

So anyway, a few weeks ago i thoughtlessly pressed share on my phone after liking a cartoon on Facebook. (I am deliberately not linking to it). Suffice to say it expressed the opinion that children shouldn't be left to cry. A friend didn't like the conclusions the cartoon drew and let me know. My friend and i had a good talk about it and all was fine but it got me thinking about some tough truths for me as a mum and the impact depression has had on me and my parenting choices and opinions.

Before Ella was born and even before we lost our first child, i had been keen to read and learn all i could about parenting. I was, and still am, really sensitive. As a child I was very sensitive to those around me and wanted to be the best parent i could be and do everything right. By the time Ella born i had a mini library of parenting books and thought i knew how it was going to be. My friends from our antenatal class and coffee group will remember well how embarassingly well informed i was. Now there is nothing wrong with being well read and informed about having kids, but i do think you need to know what is behind your need to know. And my reason was fear of hurting my child and of not doing it "right". It really had not dawned on me that there is no right way. That would have scared me even more!

Anyway, after Ella's birth i was hit with severe depression. Picture me lying on the couch, unable to sleep or eat, panic attacks whenever i breastfed and seriously contemplating suicide. I felt completely overwhelmed by this tiny new baby who was so dependent on me. I felt unable to cope and truly believed she would be better off without me as her mum. It still shocks me to think back to that time and how awful it was.

I was very lucky, in a way, to become so ill so soon after Ella's birth as i was prescribed antidepressants and felt better relatively quickly. But the foundation was already laid for how i would mother. I think the worst fear of any mother with mental illness is that your illness will badly impact on your child. And the research shows that children of mothers with depression are vulnerable to the impact of the often disrupted attachment with their mum and are at much greater risk of mental illness themselves, not just due to genetic factors. I was so afraid of Ella suffering because of me that i did everything i could to promote attachment. I wore her in a carrier, breastfed on demand, bed shared and refused to follow the advice of leaving her to cry, even when she was waking 5 or more times a night for months on end.

Ella was and still is a delightful, outgoing and intense person. I like to say her off button is missing. She struggled to get to sleep and if left would just become hysterical. She had the disturbing habit of coming out in a rash whenever she cried and then crying in her sleep for the entire time she was asleep if she got upset while settling. She was also impressive in her spilling to the point that it felt like i was carrying an over-full mug around which would tip copious amounts of milk on me and everywhere else at any time. Our floor resembled a Jackson Pollock painting and the amount of laundry was insane. Excuse the pun. So add in my perfectionist tendencies and then a good dose of depression and being highly sensitive and it is pretty clear why we chose to parent Ella the way we did.

Now i don't regret how we have done things. It has suited Ella and certainly hasn't hurt her. But there were times where the effort to meet her needs left me completely exhausted and vulnerable to the depression I was working so hard to protect her from. George's birth and him being so settled, the choice to formula feed, the shared parenting hubby and i are doing and being well this time around are all meaning i am recognising how unhealthy some of my choices and thinking have been and in turn i have needed to believe i was right and things were black and white. And i surrounded myself with books, people and Facebook pages which would support my choices. (i am getting to my point). Hence why i was getting cartoons such as the one i posted, on my news feed. So back to posting opinionated parenting links.

For a long time i have needed parenting to be a black and white affair while there was so much grey around. My apparent confidence and certainty was as much about my own fears and insecurities as the research i had done. I do wish i hadn't been so quick to give advice or opinions, even just in my head. Nothing is certain or simple and in the end, what i think is pretty irrelevant. The mother i am now is shifting.

I am still committed to being a responsive parent but now good enough will have to do. In the past i have not been good at recognising my own needs and limits. But another tough pregnancy, this time with a preschooler, trying to avoid depression and not being able to breastfeed have all led me to climb down from my high horse and face my reality rather than a fantasy i thought i had to live up to. I don't regret my choices but i regret my attitude and assumptions. My life, my family and myself are a hodge podge of so many beliefs, experiences and circumstances and are unique. So now i see myself as a mum who is working it out as i go along and hopefully someone who is quick to empathise with other parents as we all make the best choices we can for or families.

So if you have ever felt judged by me or that I seemed to have it all together and know what I was doing...I apologise. And I hope you realised at the time and now, that I really don't know much and am just dealing with life as best I can at the time. I feel so blessed to be surrounded by so many mothers and families of all types and persuasions, who inspire me and share life with me. thank you