The Gallery: Nature

From our recent trip to Durlston National Park in Swanage, Dorset. 

For more nature shots, head over here.

The Gallery: A Novel Idea

I was a bit stumped for this week's The Gallery, until I took this photo today.  As soon as I uploaded it, I thought of three books:

1) Tove Jansson's The Summer Book which isn't strictly a novel, but I have read it and loved it.  

2) Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky, which is a novel I haven't read, though I have seen the film.

3) Julie Myerson's Out of Breath, which is a novel I read last August when Jake was in hospital and was about a group of troubled children on the run.  It took place in the summer and there were loads of scenes of them running through fields.  Even though the scene that inspired this photo was peaceful, there were moments when I imagined I could suddenly discover a body or something sinister.  All I did see were a few crows and a pair of knickers.

The Gallery: Can you tell what it is yet?

For more photographic wonders and mysteries, head over to The Gallery.

The Gallery / Sleep is For The Weak: Emotions

This week, The Gallery & Sleep is For The Weak have teamed up for the theme of emotions.

I've known for a long time that I need to write about Jake's illness and hospital stay. What I've written is just the tip of the iceberg and I'm not terribly happy with it, but it's all I can manage right now. And that's ok, because I have to start somewhere.

~

The first night in hospital,
before we knew.

In the pediatric ICU

A few hours before we took you home.

~

The worst I’ve ever felt

The night you were admitted to hospital on a drip for dehydration - that was the start of it. Following months of pain and illness that doctors could not identify or take seriously, you suddenly started vomiting. You refused food, were lethargic all day and hadn’t weeed in your nappy all day. We took you to A & E again, and this time had the fortune to meet a Doctor who was duly concerned. More blood tests were ordered and you were force fed dioralyte, which you vomited. So they put you on a drip and we were admitted overnight.

You’d been constipated for months and even that night, all the Doctor on duty, the third one we saw, could say after looking at your x-ray, the x-ray that only happened because your Daddy insisted on it, was, “It’s just really bad constipation. We’ll give him a glycerine suppository to get things moving.” The nurses on the ward were wonderful. They brought in a bed rather than a cot so that I could sleep next to you. Your Dad and I took turns watching for signs of poo, and adjusting your IV line when you thrashed about or turned over in your fitful sleep. Some time near dawn, there was dark blood and what looked like coffee grounds in your nappy. I knew it was blood straight away, even in the dark. The nurses weren’t sure, but I knew.

In the morning, a new Doctor came on duty, a consultant. Someone more careful and thoughtful. He looked at your x-ray again and asked us questions and he listened. He didn’t take notes while he spoke to us, his eyes didn’t stray to his shoes or wander off to something more pressing in his mind. He looked at us and he listened. It struck me that it was the first time we were really being listened to.

After listening to us and going away to consult his colleagues at the Royal London, he came back. He sat down and told us that they didn’t know exactly why, but that you were seriously ill, very seriously ill. I was holding you at that time, your head was slumped on my shoulder, still lethargic. I was suddenly hit by tears. Up until that point, I hadn’t really been afraid. Not really. Up until that point, I had no idea what fear really was. I held you closer to me, trying not to shake. When he left, I allowed myself a little cry. The tiniest of cries. And then that was it. I had to be strong. I had to hold it together for you. And I did.

I didn’t cry again for the rest of your time in hospital. Not when we were taken to the Royal London in an ambulance, not when we were told you had to have surgery, not when we were told, after your surgery was a success, how close we’d come to losing you. Not when you were in the ICU, connected to all those machines. Not when I realised I wasn’t going to be able to breastfeed you anymore. And not even through all the ups and downs we went through in the month that followed before we could finally take you home.

I don’t know how I did it. I don’t know where my tears went. I’d never been so afraid, so worried, never so aware of everything I had to lose. But I couldn’t cry.  The day of your surgery, when we were waiting to hear how it went, your Daddy cried. The next day, when he went home to pick up some clothes for all of us, he cried. But I didn’t.

Since we brought you home and started putting it behind us, I’ve been expecting those tears to appear, to pour through me like a flash flood. But they haven’t. I love you more than anything in the world and my loving you brings up the fiercest of emotions in me. I’ve cried from exhaustion and cried with joy, but for the worst feelings in the world, for the worst I’ve ever felt, there are no tears. Is it because it’s inconceivable? Losing you is inconceivable, so mourning that loss is unthinkable. Sometimes I fear it means a part of my heart has hardened, that something in me has been lost, even though nobody seems to notice it. But then you smile or look at me or call me Mummy or ask for cuggles and all of me becomes love for you. Even when you’re screaming. Even when you’re so cross with me you do the opposite of what I ask. Even when you’re glaring at me, defying me, daring me, you’re the most wonderful person in the world.

The Gallery: Creatures

This week's theme for The Gallery is Creatures. 

Jake loves watching, playing and conversing with all kinds of creatures...

 

but our friendly neighbourhood cat is his favourite.

The Gallery: Motherhood

This week's theme for The Gallery is Motherhood.  Not only is it impossible to pick ONE photo that's supposed to sum up what motherhood means to me, all the entries are being printed off for an exhibition! 

It's been fantastic looking back at all the photos we've taken of Jake.  As it's about motherhood, the photos of Jake and I together have mostly been taken by Paul.  I couldn't pick just one, but the one above is my favourite.  To me the most important thing about being a mother is the relationship I build and have with Jake, and the heart of it is pure joy.  The joy of being alive, of being together, of being able to know one another, and most of all, the joy of loving and being loved. 

Here are some other photos I couldn't resist throwing in too...

The joy of co-sleeping.
Here, Jake is a week old.  When we fell asleep, he'd
been more in the middle of the bed.  Paul tells me
that within 20 minutes, he was firmly wedged in my armpit.
He still does that now except with a headbutt thrown in.

Do you see that cheeky grin on his face?
This is just after he chucked some blackberries at me.
What you don't see is the big chunk that went down my cleavage.

This photo I did take myself. 
It was August 2009 and shortly before Jake's illness and hospitalisation.
It was one of the last times I was able to breastfeed him.

The whole time that I breastfed Jake,
I had no qualms about letting him fall asleep on the breast.
Really, my first year of motherhood consisted of breastfeeding
and then holding him while he slept.
Then I had to stop and he had to sleep on his own.
This was how he often fell asleep in hospital, holding on to my top.

Everything changed when Jake became ill.  It was a nightmare we are still coming to terms with.  But normal took on a new meaning for us.  Now, even through the hardest days when he's driving me up the wall, I'm still grateful.  Because he's here. 
Before Jake arrived, I had vague notions about what being a mother would entail.  Most of them were from scary stories other parents had told me which I tried not to think about because I wanted to live the truth of my own experience. 
It turns out that many of the scary stories are true, but so is this:  it's a cliche, but motherhood really is the best thing that's ever happened to me. 
Thank you Jake, for making me a Mummy.

The Gallery: Still Life

This week's Gallery prompt is still life.  It strikes me as an odd term.  Because life isn't still at all.  Especially when you live with a toddler!  And even when you sit and just breathe.  An object may be still, but is it life?  Or is it because for the moments you are drawing / painting / photographing it, it comes to life, because you notice it, and the light falling on it and around it.  Oof!  Enough with the pretentious postulating. 

Here's my contribution...

And here's a contribution from Jake. 
The stillness left after the whirlwind of his creativity.  (And yes, it is on the wall).

The Gallery: Friendship

This week's gallery theme is friendship.

Friendship is something I regularly agonise about.  Even at my age (39!), I still feel sad about certain aspects of the way I grew up - moving to a new country or school every few years meant saying goodbye to friends - good friends, great friends and could've-been-the-greatest-of-friends, far too often.  I know people who had a similar childhood to mine but instead of finding it hard to make friends are just the opposite.  They can talk to anybody easily.  My brother's one of these people.  But not me. 

As I grow older I notice with painful awareness that I am a lot less open than even I used to be.  In addition to leaving friends every few years, perpetually being the new kid breaking into existing circles of friends, I've moved to a country where most of the people I met and meet now already have lifelong best friends, or who are busy with lives too full to make new ones, or much time to turn new acquaintances into new friends.  Plus, over the years, many of the few close friends I've made in the 10 plus years of living in London have moved away or drifted away.  We're still in touch, but we see each other rarely.  Once a year, if that.  It does make me more grateful for the one or two I still have in my life, but I fear the whole issue of friendship has made me feel bitter and disillusioned. 

I'm much more hopeful about Jake making friends.  He's not quite at that age yet though.  In the playground, he is wary and cautious of other children, who tend to be bigger than him and more boisterous.  He goes to nursery two mornings a week and his keyworkers call the other children his friends, but I don't know how he feels about them. 

The one child he does seem to have made friends with is E.  She is 2.5 years old and lives across the road from us.  I kept seeing E's mum coming and going with her when we first moved here, and she just seemed nice. So one day, I crossed the road and said hello.  And she is nice.  Lovely, kind, generous and cheerful.  After many months of seeing each other, standing at each other's windows and pointing at each other, playing in the playground and in each other's houses, E is the only person whose name Jake knows and uses.  When he sees her, he points and calls her by name.  I'm told by E's mum that she does the same.  And that when she's lonely, she suddenly say's Jake's name, over and over again.  "She's very serious about her friendships", E's mum told me.  "Just like me."

"Me too," I replied.  I'd like to think that E's Mum and I have become friends too.  We've known each other for over a year now, but it still feels like early days.  Some weeks we bump into each other or go to the playground or playgroups together and talk often.  Then weeks go by without much contact.  I'm still hoping that they won't move away.  But these things don't concern Jake & E.  They aren't even aware of them yet.

That's why I've posted these photos of them together.  Friendship - simple, serious, joyful.  Just like friendships should be.

The Gallery: Self-Portrait

I've just discovered The Gallery via this blog.  There's a new theme every Wednesday and this week's theme is self-portrait. 

Like many people, I don't like looking at photos of myself or having my picture taken and I especially shy away from posting photos of myself on my blog.  As if I'm afraid that people will know who I really am or see my face and immediately identify me as some sort of imposter.  If you're a regular reader you'll know that I rarely feature in any of the photos posted here.  But, I was inspired by the idea of taking self-portraits so our children can look back and see who we were.  When I look at photos from my childhood, I'm always sad that there are so few of my parents in comparison to the ones of my brother and I, and especially of my father, who was always behind the camera.

So, this is for you Jake.  Here's the face you know so well, just as I am, today.  No pretty-fying and not even with my hair brushed.  Is this how you'll remember me when you're older?