Here comes the sun

To the big man,

We must have had glasses of wine in the sunshine on hundreds of occasions. It must have happened. We holidayed; we travelled; we honeymooned. I have photographs of bottles and sunshine and us.

But I feel such a longing when the sun comes out. And such a lot of regret. I can't help but think of all the times we didn't have that drink. The times we went for a run. Did housework or paperwork. Worried about the weekday hangover. Worried about something.

And now a bundle of joy has stolen our freedom. And every time it gets warm, I long for the days when we could have just dropped everything and sat, a cold glass in hand and a sun-kissed view. I can't remember it happening. Maybe I just can't remember it feeling as incredible as it would now. Maybe it was boring and commonplace. Maybe we drank too much; the first drink would turn into the second bottle. Would turn into the same old fight in the same small flat. Maybe the places were always too crowded. The views blocked. The wine cold. The weight of the world, light as it was, somehow too heavy. 

I long to just stop, and have that drink in the sun. With you. Grin at you, and congratulate ourselves on the life we have built. I long. I long and yearn and long. 

All my love,

Your little lady 

Dear Son: Great Expectations

When we first found out I was pregnant, my sister and I agreed what you would be like. You would be a girl, obviously; none of the noise and dirt of my four nephews for me. You were going to be precocious and quiet, and oh so serious. You would follow me round in your perfectly neat clothes, impressing everybody with your walking, your words, how closely you watched the world. You would somehow have big, dark eyes and hair, despite the blonde and light brown hair and blue eyes of your parents. Self sufficient, self contained. 

When I was a teenager, my best friend and I decided what sort of husband I would have. He would be tall, dark, chisel jawed and oh, so mysterious. Quiet, but when he spoke it would always be important. Intense, devoted to me, even if he wasn't always so nice to me. Unpredictable, a little bit tortured and exciting, I would mould my life around his. 

Your father had other ideas of what would make me happy. Not so tall, not so dark. Not even a little bit quiet. Not always important; but always energetic, and always involved. Devoted to me, but straightforward and not even a little bit complicated. Happy. Happy all the time, to the point where reality sometimes cannot defend itself against that relentless optimism. Easy to love. Easy to want to spend every minute of every day with. 

With such a father, how could I have thought you would turn out as planned? I thought the scans were wrong; that you would still be a girl. But you were ripped out of me as a very definite, very red headed, boy. You have never been quiet. After a miserable first 2 months, where something in that round stomach of yours stopped you settling for more than a few minutes at a time, your personality erupted. 

I would ask your father every night "did you see what he did today? Did I tell you about the smile? Did you see his face light up?" 

I was wrong about the child I wanted. You have always smiled at strangers. By 6 months old you would bury your face in my shoulder, and look up at them coyly through your long lashes. Your father and I cannot flirt like that. You didn't learn it from us. 

You are round and flame haired and funny. You stare people on trains down until they can't stop grinning at you. You stop people in the street to tell them your latest adventures. You never crawled, you walked late, you don't climb. You haven't needed to do any of those things; why bother when everybody jumps to fulfil your every need, simply for one of those smiles? You sing to yourself in your cot. When you learnt to say car you would repeat it to yourself in the night with utter glee and reverence. Your father melted when I woke him to hear it. 

You won't be reserved or shy or self contained. You sit delighted in the middle of noisy groups of children. You delight me every day. I cannot believe we created something so perfect and so full of joy. 

So long, and thanks for all the fish

There's a voice in my head that I've been living with since that first pee on a stick. She used to sob during the night feeds. She giggles at Pretty Little Liars. She makes me feel guilty about that extra slice of cake; she won't let me throw out the jeans that make my c-section scar ache. She whispers to me that I'll find her again one day. 

I think it's time to say goodbye.

But first, thank you. Thank you for having so much fun. Thank you for saying yes to the big man. Thank you for building such amazing friendships. Thank you for the drinking and the dancing and the foolishness. Thank you for the hangovers; their memory makes me miss the dancing less. Thank you for working so hard, for pushing so hard. Thank you for the mistakes you made when I was young enough that they didn't matter. 

I miss you. I will always miss you when I hear Faithless; or Zombie Nation; or Beth Orton. When I see cropped tops, and remember my stomach in the 90s. When I come home tipsy, and alone, because babysitters are too expensive for us both to go out on a school night any more. 

But there is no place for you here. 

You can't survive in this new world. You used to actually panic if you had less than 6 hours of continuous sleep. You couldn't lift heavy weights. A big part of your identity was tied up in being a young, skinny blonde; and the attention it came with it. You're too self conscious to sing in public; you faint at the sight of blood, and gag at foul smells. 

So goodbye. It's been two years: I will stop waiting for you to return. I have stopped grieving for you. You know why? Because the woman who's replaced you is incredible. And hard as fucking nails. She's in it for the long haul. Above all: I finally like her. 

Back in the day

I wrote this in the very early days of becoming a working parent. I keep coming back to it, hoping more would have changed since those early, confused morning commutes. 

I returned to work 3 weeks ago. Or, as my sanity as a newly part time worker demands it, I have just finished my 8th working day in the office.

 
Being back in the office is bloody brilliant. I stay clean for an entire day. Unless I actively seek out another new mum, I can avoid speaking about naps, sleep patterns or which food my little boy is unexpectedly refusing to eat this week. Nobody stands in the corner of the room shrieking at me because he wants the remote control/laptop/drawer of knives that I'm unfairly withholding. My brain is slowly starting to work again. I exist in my own right: half of my new team do not yet even know the name of my little boy, nevermind how his sleep patterns have developed over his first year.

Being back in the office is bloody hard. My little boy howls when I leave him. It's for less and less time each day, but that cry echoes as a baseline for the music I luxuriously and obsessively play in my headphones on my commute. I cannot seem to get anywhere in a week that's shorter, in a day that has to finish at 4. I am insecure: I feel as though there is a flashing light above my head saying "I am no longer competent. I am not a worker who happens to have a child; I am a mother who deludedly believes she can also be something else." I feel as though everybody is waiting for that flashing sign to collapse on my head. 

Being back in the office is bloody lovely. Even on a slow day, I am better at this job than I was at being a full time mother. My husband disagrees with me. My parents tell me I'm doing fine. But I hear my not-yet-speaking son tell me that I'm just not good enough at this. My energy level does not stay high enough. I can't sing lullabies in tune. I will not lovingly cook an organic meal if there is a 50:50 chance it will be thrown at a wall. I am inconsistent in my discipline. If I get my job wrong, nobody cries. I am not solely responsible for the continuing existence of anybody in the building. 

Being back at work is f-ing tough. I flick continuously through photos of my little boy and ache to pick him up. Nobody smells as good as him. I cannot squeeze anybody's chubby thighs in just the right spot so they giggle in delight. I am not the centre of anybody's world. I feel guilt, all encompassing guilt at leaving him. It weighs heavier than the "did you know she's useless?" sign. I have no idea whether it is ok to leave a one year old in nursery. I can never know what the long term impacts will be on my son: he will turn out how he turns out. I do know that it isn't ok for me to be a mum who doesn't work. Staying at home made me bloody miserable. I feel guilty for that misery: but the guilt I feel about making myself happier comes from my mum. My sisters. The daily fucking mail and its hatred of women. Every single mother who says they have never been happier than since they chose to leave the workforce and look after their child. I know they aren't judging my decision any more than I'm judging theirs, but I'd like my own internal judgement to leave me be.

Growing up is full of transitions. From child to adolescent, to teen to young adult. From student to worker to student to scrounger to worker again. Transition implies gradual shift and learning, some things changing and others remaining the same. But the day my little man arrived I became, from one second to the next, a completely new person in a completely new life. I spent a year learning that new life, and now I've uprooted again. But I already have glimpses of this being ok. I pick up a smiling chubby boy from his happy key worker. I tell him about my day and he giggles when I'm not fast enough to catch his yoghurt. I say the right thing in a meeting and remember what self esteem is. This new life is the life to learn how to inhabit. 

Inertia creeps

It crept up on me. 

I thought everything was ok. I thought it might finally be getting better than ok. My new job clearly suited me; the hours were sometimes outrageous, but more often than not perfectly manageable. We had some amazing weekends. The little man slept in longer, we had leisurely mornings with him happily pottering around our feet. Lovely days just the three of us, splashing in puddles and watching Netflix during long, easy naps.

It crept up on me. 

A couple of evenings out with friends were cancelled. I didn't mind; I would rather go home and curl up. I was tired. The little man got a bug...and then another bug...suspected chicken pox and a scarlet fever fear. I cancelled meeting a friend who was pregnant, just in case. I didn't rearrange. I realised absentmindedly that the big man and I hadn't slept more than 6 hours a night for about two weeks. I got a cold. I got over it. I got a sinus infection. I didn't get over it. I still had Netflix and cosiness. Then I didn't: the little man stopped settling in the evenings. We alternated sitting by his cot for the majority of the long, long night. We powered through.

His birthday plans fell apart when we dragged a feverish little man to the local pub, and were then consumed with guilt when we realised what we'd done. My plans of a night out fell apart with exhaustion. 

In the three months since christmas, I've met up with a friend independently of the little or big man once. Once. My freedom, my me-time is the office. That isn't freedom; my little team is getting hungrier as I get better, my days are filled with calls and decisions. 

It crept up on me. 

I couldn't (can't?) leave the house when both little men are there. I don't want to. The guilt consumes me. Isn't it enough that I pursue something so frivolous as a career? We should move somewhere cheaper, where we can afford it if I don't work. I should stay home and disappear into full time worship of my beautiful little man.

It crept up on me. I was overly optimistic. I do not know what the right thing to do is. I do not know what balance is. 

She's in fashion

An unexpected bonus of following all these mum fashion blogs is that I've suspected for a while that this spring and summer, fashion loves me. Since skinny jeans took over, I've had a nagging suspicion that designers hate women. They came in just after the glorious summer of boho: floaty skirts, necklaces, flowers. I thought this happened just a few years ago...turns out that the year Sienna Miller dictated the high street was actually 2005. It's been 11 years since I felt this happy by the shops. 11 years. Fuck, I'm old. I think everybody stops ageing at some point in their head. For me, it was that summer. I'd just moved to London. I was working in Covent Garden at a start-up before start ups became a thing. I had a new, lovely boyfriend, and a fabulous sister staying with me. The sun shone and shone, as we drank and danced and fought and grew up; I don't think I've ever been as happy, or lived as hard. Thank you Sienna.

But this year, there are some good signs. It turns out that we're all going to be dressing like it's the 90s. I bought dungarees on Saturday! Dungarees!!! And I have two pinafore dresses! And I'm eyeing up some off-the-shoulder tops. Most flattering thing ever for small-busted girls worried about the mumtum - you cannot have flab on your shoulders. Sexy without worrying about toning or support wear. White trainers and denim shirts. Mum jeans - I'm a mum! I can totally wear these! I'm going to re-watch Friends, and dress like Rachael. 

Best summer ever. I cleared out my wardrobe (the Life-Changing Magic of tidying up has kind of been changing our house this year) so I have space. 

So thank you, gods of fashion. I know in the winter we will be punished with something even worse than bodycon dresses. But for a few months, I'm going to lunge in my dungarees and feel a bit more like I belong. 

Follow the leader

I have never been one of those people who "got it" when it comes to fashion. Or anything else about trends really. When conversation turns to music, or clothes, or celebrities, I'm the one in the corner laughing a second too late, blindly echoing what somebody else has said, praying nobody asks me for an opinion. I'm sure I'm not alone in this; I think it's probably an element of "imposter syndrome". I also know it isn't important in the big scheme of things (I understand global poverty and the trends in climate change research instead - officially more important), but it makes feeling like I fit in anywhere that bit more difficult.

 I may not be naturally cool, but what I can do is follow instructions. And research. I really am the fucking queen of research - we have amazing holidays, all down to me and Mr Google. There's a lot of criticism of the Internet; but for the socially just slightly awkward, it beats desperately stealing your friends Smash Hits, reading it from cover to cover, and hoping for a conversation about Kriss Kross's view on backward clothes.

So now I read magazines, and I follow fashion blogs. Not scary ones; almost all mum ones. And I just buy anything reasonably priced and not ridiculous that they recommend. It takes out the stress of decision making. And the best ones are enthusiastic, and make me feel like clothes could be fun again, after the frumpiness of pregnancy and breastfeeding and maternity leave financial restrictions. The Spike, the follow on from the life-saving Recipe Rifle. Dresslikeamum (makes me want to lunge in all photos! Why is that so entertaining?!) The Frugality, which despite being all fashion-week focused is surprisingly accessible.

This is all at odds with the recent articles about micro-decisions. The most successful people are starting to talk about wearing the same thing every day. They will have to make so many decisions during the day, that removing that first choice actually does make a difference. Some days I think I'd love to embrace this; days when nothing matches, when the little man is crying and the train won't wait. But I'm not that important yet. And my workwear at least still feels a bit like war-paint. Heels and a blazer: my head is just a little higher in that big scary meeting. It does separate the women out from the men; for the time being, I'm ok with that. If I become important enough to change my mind, then I'm sure I can do enough research to pick the perfect outfit. But not quite yet.