I know that being a Mum isn't just about feeding your child. And yet, I can't seem to decide what to write about apart from the food I've been cooking. It's because the extent of the cooking I am doing now is still new, it's a novelty. But I'm enjoying it and I'd rather cook than feed Jake processed rubbish. But there is more to it, lots more. Which aspects of it do I write about and what can I say? Sometimes it feels too overwhelming, too complicated, too much to say. Other times it feels as if there is nothing to say, as if it is all too mundane and who'd be interested?
Last night I spent an hour and a half making meatballs. I missed the beginning of Dr Who and got really grumpy about it. Adding that on to the irritability I was already feeling cos I was tired and had to get up just as I was falling asleep (during Jake's afternoon nap), because he woke up after only sleeping for an hour. I also spent much of the day thinking of things I could write on this blog and not being able to sit down and do it. Now those ideas are mostly gone.
Sometimes it feels like the more you want and need something, chances are, you're not going to get it. Is it fair to say that motherhood is a lot like that? Maybe life is like that. But because most of my life now is being a mother, they're the same thing to me.
I have to fight hard not to sink into and dwell in negativity. When you're at home so much, it gets all too easy to become too introspective and lose perspective. It can be easy to fall into negativity and follow those slime trails into a downward spiral. One thing motherhood does, especially for a me as a currently full-time mother, is magnify all your faults and demons 1000%. On the plus side, it's also brought previously unimagined depths of joy into my life. Watching Jake grow and being with him is magical. In many ways, it has broadened my horizons and I didn't expect that. Maybe not in an external, physical way, but in subtler, deeper ways. It's taught me the beauty of slowing down and paying attention. And it's shown me what really matters. Part of me wants to keep a foot in the "real world" - go back to work part-time, have regular social contact with people that doesn't involve hurried, unfinished conversations at playgroups, have a lunch hour and the freedom to be an adult for three days a week and of course earn my own money. I've never been an ambitious career woman though, preferring to work at a job that engages me, but won't stress me out. In that sense, I have the ideal job (from which I am currently on a 6 month sabbatical, tagged on to the end of an extended maternity leave).
But that part of me also suspects that the novelty of that could wear off rather quickly. More quickly than the "novelty" of making meatballs for a gorgeous, growing 15 month old who may or may not eat them.
