Myths of Motherhood

In relation to my New Year's resolution of trusting myself and my instincts more, I've decided to explore this idea of what I am coining 'Myths of Motherhood'. When I had Ruben, I had so many ideas of what it would be like and what kind of mother I would be, but -- as everybody warns you -- you can never be prepared. These are some ideas that were continuously reinforced during my life pre-Ruben, that I have found to be entirely false. In saying this, perhaps they are wholly true for other mums, but certainly not for me.

Baby out, placenta still in...

Myth #1: You will see your baby for the first time and instantly forget every moment of pain that led you to that point. 
Oh how untrue this is. Firstly, you still have an enormous placenta to give birth to, so you can't just drift away into your little new-born love bubble (in my case, this was another hour-long battle that required a bunch of midwives and their different techniques and tips. The thing that eventually worked for me was blowing up a balloon... weird!), and then there might be a few other medical procedures (stitches, for instance). I won't ever forget my labor, and the prospect of perhaps doing it again someday scares the pants off me. Of course I love Ruben more than I could have ever imagined, but I certainly won't forget what I had to go through for him to get here! I'll try not to remind him of this at every birthday though...

Is something wrong, little boy?

 #2: You will learn to differentiate your baby's cries and respond to them accordingly. 
I think it was probably about six months before it really became clear that Ruben was crying because he was tired / bored / hungry / uncomfortable / in pain / wanting cuddles. Before that, I just had to work my way down the list until something worked. Even now, at seven and a half months, it's not always clear. This doesn't mean I'm a bad mum and haven't bonded enough with my baby in order to effectively read his cues (as some books led me to believe)! I believe that even he had no idea what the problem was, just that there was something not right. And now, I know that cry - the one where he's at a bit of a loss. You aren't a bad mum for not knowing this. This was a very hard lesson for me to learn.

IQ test: Is this baby hungry or tired?

Myth #3: You instinctively know what is best for your baby and what your baby needs. 
Those 'instincts' that people rant on about have a lot to answer for. I remember when he was about six weeks old, I actually put him in the pram (!) and took him out for a walk. I had just fed him (breastfeeding), and he was probably going to go to sleep. He just screamed and screamed the entire time, and I had three older women separately approach me while I was holding back tears, telling me that I needed to feed my baby, that he was hungry. I was so defensive, saying that I had just fed him, and he was just tired. Eventually I took him home, and he ate the biggest bottle he had had to that date. I had no freaking clue. I think these 'instincts' that people talk about aren't instincts at all, but are just experience. Now I know my boy, what he needs, what he wants, and how he responds (most of the time). That's all there is to it.

A previously private photo that I think
really shows me struggling.
This was my 'smile'.  

Myth #4: If you really want to breastfeed, you can. 
This was my belief. This is what was broadcast everywhere. Although I strive so hard to be a non-judgemental person, I was judgemental of those who said they had 'tried', and of this I am so very sorry. But all the DVDs I watched about breastfeeding, all the experts I spoke to, all the websites dedicated to the subject, all the books I read... they all said that if you stick with it, it will happen. So obviously those who gave up just gave up too early and didn't want it bad enough. I wanted to breastfeed like my life depended on it, and I believed, in my own way, that Ruben's life depended on it. It turns out that sometimes the thing you want the most in life just doesn't happen. My beautiful friend Cadi said to me once that when it comes to babies, you can't be totally non-negotiable about anything; that if there is one thing that you really won't budge on, that's the thing that will f*** up. What a wise woman she is (and oh how I miss her). (Edit: I eventually, around a year later, managed to write about our failed breastfeeding journey, if you want to have a read.)


Myth #5: Newborns are the best.

I pick this one! This smiley, fun, learning, loving baby!

I believed that the innocence and extreme vulnerability of newborns (along with the cute froggy-legs and floppiness) would make that phase of babyhood the best. Beep - wrong. This phase is the best! A baby that laughs at you when you wiggle your tongue, a baby that smiles so broadly when you come back from the toilet, as if you have been away a month, a baby that obviously loves your company and just wants to play and cuddle all day long - as I do, a baby that giggles at all other children he sees, a baby that makes the cutest noises during bath-time with his daddy, a baby that learns before your very eyes... this is the best. Though, I did think that when he was six months old too, but now it is better. Maybe it will just get better and better and better!

* * *

I imagine there are many more myths that will spring to mind as soon as I post this... have you come across any? Or do you have any expectations of parenthood that you fear might be thwarted in the future?

2012 in photos

Time for my yearly wrap-up... as it is for countless others. It has been the biggest year of my life, and I am assuming that I will remember it that way until the day I die. It has been a steep learning curve, as it is with any new mother, and a lot of the year has been spent in survival mode. There have been many many tears, both good and bad, mostly hormonal, and much laughter. 2013 is going to be all about enjoying life: not being so hard on myself (this is quite a tough goal...); not doing so much research about what we should be doing, and learning to trust myself more; enjoying remaining in my comfort zone, instead of thinking I need to always push my boundaries. All of these things will lead to a happier me. Well, that is the plan.

These photos might not be the best ones I have, but they are the ones that I feel best demonstrates my life during that month.

January - The first moments of 2012, our biggest year yet, with some of our best friends here. 

February - Enjoying the peace and quiet (and surprising sunshine) while we can, with our traditional big weekend breaky.

March - Our last holiday with just the two of us, to Samnaun, for  some romancing, some skiing (him) and some bathing (me).

April - No need to explain what was encompassing my brain in the lead-up to Ruben's due date!

May - The big one. Ruben is born and I become a mother.

June - Venturing into the big outside world. I even left Ruben for a five minute swim! Big big news for me!

July - Trying to get used to having a baby and still being able to have some aspects of my former life... like meeting a friend for coffee at my favourite cafe.

August - I finally decide that, after three months of hard struggles,  it's time to give up breastfeeding. And attempt our first little family holiday into France for a long weekend. 

September - Mum and Dad come to visit! Mum stayed for a month, and really rescued me when my elbow was broken.  It was the beginning of a great love story between Ruben and his grandparents.

October - Making my way back into netball and winning our  big Swiss tournament! Go girls!

November - Ruben is six months old, and such a happy, giggly boy. This motherhood business is really starting to be fun!

December - Finally learning to ski with my gorgeous sister in what has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world.

On Being Clueless

The world of academia has tended to brand me as a smart girl. Though... I have also been told that there is quite the distinction between being 'smart' and being 'clever'. Having a baby sure makes you feel like you are not very clever. Let me rephrase that. Having a baby sure makes you feel so completely and utterly clueless.

When I was twelve years old, I took part in a problem-solving competition called 'Tournament of Minds', where small groups of high achieving students from particular districts had to work together for a term to solve one problem. I don't quite remember the problem that was posed to my group... something about aliens, no gravity, magnets and food... And there was a disastrous papier mache' attempt involved somehow. How is this relevant? Well, anytime there is a problem that needs to be solved in my day-to-day life, I say to myself, 'Tournament of Minds, Johanna'. There was a time when some authority figures must have deemed me capable of taking part in such a thing, you see, and so therefore I surely can't be quite as clueless as I feel almost all of the time. One thing I really didn't expect with this whole child-rearing business is the intensity of problem-solving that is required for such a large proportion of the day -- problem solving in such a high-stress, adrenalin-ridden situation, often where the person you love more than you thought humanly possible is suffering in some way or another. This is bloody hard.

At the moment, and I presume this is the same for many many many new parents out there, sleep is the holy grail. The seemingly infinite hours that you spend attempting to get your baby to go to sleep are unimaginable. And then, when your little terror is finally sleeping soundly, you simply lay there in bed, a total insomniac, trying to think of the ways that you could get your baby to sleep better in the future. Ridiculous. Without being too melodramatic, I... alrighty, so I will be melodramatic. But it's how I'm feeling. Being melodramatic, I feel like a total and utter failure when it comes to training Ruben to sleep. There are so many different approaches to teaching babies to sleep, and after another week of him waking between eight and twenty times a night, I am at the end of my tether. There is no way, though, that I will attempt the 'cry it out' sleep-training programme, but I feel at a loss. The baby book I have for Ruben has a section for me to fill in 'Eliminated night feeding at ___ weeks". Umm... excuse me? Weeks? I'm expecting a three-digit response to that one.

Co-sleeping? Great for some! There's a reason why I'm the one taking this photo...

Despite the research I do (the many people I speak to, the books I read, the websites I visit, the experts I consult), I still don't know what to do with my boy. Despite trying so many different approaches, I feel as though our problem is consistency. It's just that... after three weeks of not sleeping, if you know that your bean will fall asleep on the bottle and do it in the blink of an eye, it's hard to put yourself through another night's torture and stay strong, without a bottle. It's just that... after three weeks of not getting any time to yourself whatsoever, it's hard not to pick your baby up when they wake from a nap so that they will fall asleep again and you get another half an hour. To do laundry. Or make his food. Or actually eat some lunch. Or organise Christmas presents for the family in Australia. Or do more research on baby sleep habits. Or whine in a blog post. I know that the only thing I'm doing consistently is shooting myself in the foot, but survival is always just one day at a time.

Falling asleep on me, in the nuddy = wrong!

Sleeping on the couch in the nuddy = wrong!

Surely there are so many things wrong with this...

Breaking all the rules - A big teddy to stop him rolling onto his tummy and waking up, a make-shift bumper to stop his dummy from dropping onto the ground and waking him up... = Wrong! Though... he is asleep in his bed...

The Scandinavians have their babies sleep outside in the 'fresh' air. This was working a treat until my snowy accident...

Tournament of minds, Johanna. Tournament of minds.

 Right! Though we only managed this one time. Ever.

My Day in Song

If, before the birth of the little bean, someone had asked me which songs I would be singing to him and when, I would have said that I'd be singing him Brahms' Lullaby to go to sleep, and perhaps Rubber Ducky during bath-time.

Revelations? It turns out I don't know the words to Brahms' Lullaby (if there actually are any?), and that it varies way too much in pitch to be able to sing in a volume just over a whisper. It also turns out that you need to sing all the time. I cannot emphasise this enough. All. The. Time. Now I have songs for particular events that occur during the day, and I discovered recently that I had been subcionsciously singing everything that I do to Ruben. He sits in his high chair, for instance, waiting for his breakfast, and I sing "Mamma's in the kitchen, making you some breakfast, oh how I love you my little beautiful boy" to some random tune that is perhaps something I've heard before, perhaps not.

It has been interesting to me how this has changed over the last six months, though. In the very early days, singing used to keep Ruben awake, so I tended to avoid it in favour of shushing. But now, it calms him and makes him oh so smiley. And so I sing. My all-purpose song used to be Feist's 1, 2, 3, 4, and for Duncan it was always The Girl from Ipanema, but now we have variation.

My day in song:

Morning hello: John Lennon's 'Beautiful Boy'.
Nappy changes: Old MacDonald had a Farm, or that old 20s song 'Five foot two, eyes of blue' (though I change the lyrics where appropriate, making him six foot two and a boy)
Distressed nappy changes: Old MacDonald that morphs into the Australian National Anthem, but buzzed like the bee on the wall.
Clothing changes: Hokey Pokey (yes really)
Nap Time: Options include Twinkle Twinkle (Boring), Silent Night or, my personal favourite, Edelweiss from The Sound of Music.
Dancing: I'd Rather Dance With You, by Kings of Convenience, or Feist's 1, 2, 3, 4.
Public transport of any kind: The Wheels on the Bus
Bath time: Daddy always sings Rubber Ducky
Teeth Brushing time: A silly teeth-brushing song from Play School
After dinner playing on the rug: Always the same songs - Six Little Ducks, Give Me a Home Among the Gum Trees, I'm a Dingly Dangly Scare-crow, Mr Frog.
Bed time: The Long Time Sun, from my yoga class. We used to sing this in pre-natal yoga and I would always secretly shed a tear because it was just so so beautiful. I sang it every day while pregnant, and he definitely responded to it when he was born too.

Plus, as I said, random singing of my actions. I was reading recently that singing is apparently a lot better for language acquisition than just speaking... things like this fascinate me, as I have been doing this for months without knowing any reason. It seems these instincts are driven much deeper than we realise.

Do you sing throughout your day too? Or am I crazy?

Ich liebe den coiffeur!

So I'm sitting here at the hairdresser, having some me time (thanks, hubby!), and reflecting on why it is that I love the hairdresser so. I never loved it so much in Australia... indeed, it was quite the instigator of anxiety - will it be a good one? Will I walk out proudly displaying my locks, or run into the nearest changerooms / bathrooms and pull out my bobby pins and lacky? Will my hair begin to all stick together and then disintegrate (yes, really happened)? Will I forever avoid walking down this street?

For some reason, going to the hairdresser here is a different experience. I can't exactly pinpoint why... so I've been analysing it. Perhaps because, if it goes wrong, I won't have to spend the next week standing in front of judgemental teenagers who are all commenting on your appearance constantly. If it does go wrong, I just don't seem to care as much. It'll grow back. 

Wait. Am I growing up?

NOT my new hair... but my most drastic haircut ever - I braved it in Sweden in the middle of our big bike trip, where helmet hair had a lot to answer for!

One particularly obvious reason why I love the hairdressing experience here is that it is a chance to practice my German in the most non-threatening way possible. Here is how it goes (with me speaking German. I will translate):

    "Achschönagchächgogch?" (incomprehensible Swiss German)

    "Excuse me? I'm sorry... do you speak high German?"

    "Oh sure. So what are you here for today? What are your wishes?"

    "Well I'd like..." and then I realise my hair vocab is a little failing. "Sorry... do you speak English?"

    "Just a little bit..." My favourite response to this question! That means I can keep bumbling away in my German but they realise I am new and not very confident.

    "Okay, well I speak a only little German too, but I will keep trying."

Conversation ensues. And we all know what the hairdresser chit-chat involves: Pretty much chapters one through eight of my German book - where you are from, how long you have been here, what brought you here, your family, funny facts and information about Australia, your work, your hobbies, etc. Love it! This lady was particularly great for this, because if she ever asked something I didn't understand, she first said it again slower (which happened perhaps three times) before switching to English (which happened only once).

This time, I wanted something different. My hair tends to behave differently post-pregnancy. It's just not as curly... and hence I have no idea what to do with it. So I decided to try something shorter and a little darker for winter. Nothing drastic, but different. And I got it! And I love it! Even after being caught in sleet, I love it. A good sign for a no-fuss hair-do!

New hair :)

A Snowy Accident

Snow, Sufjan Stevens in my ears and writing on the train. Heaven.

I love snow. I love how it makes the world still and quiet, how everything ugly becomes covered in beautiful. How it collects on the trees, making them droop with white. How it piles high on the surface of rocks and walls, making strange shadowy illusions. How it collects in your hair, on your eyebrows and eyelashes, on your tongue. What is there not to love?

I'm having to learn how to survive a very cold winter with a baby (okay, my Finnish friend, there is no need to laugh at my idea of a 'very cold winter'). I am beginning to feel prepared now, and less fearful that Ruben will suffer frostbite, or that all his food will be frozen when he needs it. I did not, however, foresee the event that occurred today on our balcony. Nap times have become impossible with Ruben, and so I finally relented and followed the advice of all of my Scandinavian friends, and put him in a pram to sleep outside in the cold, all rugged up against the weather. Nap times used to be a disaster - it would take at least an hour to put him to sleep and then he would sleep no longer than forty minutes. Ever. Ever ever ever. Now, rugged up and cosy, I put him on the balcony and walk in circles for anywhere between 1 and 5 minutes, then he sleeps anywhere from forty minutes to three hours. It has been a nap time revolution!

The scene of the crime

And so, this morning, nap time rolled along. I dressed him in fleecey underclothes, a thick beanie, then his very very warm bear suit, and then popped him in his extra warm sleeping-bag thingy. I then lay him down in the little bed in the pram, put on the rain cover and went outside. Walk walk walk, he's just drifting off to sleep and then I slip. Very slowly, just a little *slip. But I pulled down on the handle of the pram, which meant that both the pram and I ended up on the ground. The pram tipped forwards and in slow motion I saw my almost-asleep baby tip upwards and forward out into the snow. If he'd just gone into the snow, no big deal. But instead, his head got caught part way on the rain cover, so that his face was totally wedged up against the plastic and pulled up much higher than his neck should allow it. And I was there slipping and sliding in the snow while I watched him try to breathe, the plastic being sucked around his face, his eyes getting wider and wider. It was horrifying. He was suffocating right there in front of me. I yelled for Duncan, who raced up and tried to pull the pram up, which only pulled his head back further... yikes. Eventually I managed to slide over to him and slide my hands underneath to lift him and release his face. It was probably only ten seconds but it felt like ten minutes of watching him there.

It took me a while to recover, and Ruben took another hour or so to settle with Daddy and finally fall to sleep.

It is not an option to be scared of snow here. So how did we recover? We made sure the bean was okay (he woke up smiling and babbling... phew) and then we headed out to our first real Christmas markets of the season and enjoyed the snow. And glühwein. And our first fondue post-Ruben. It was a good'n.

I'm a big brave dog, I'm a big brave dog...

Happy families in the Fondue hut :)

Oaks and Maples and Pines, oh my!

Is this a maple?

Before I moved to Switzerland, I hadn't realised how much attention I paid to my natural surroundings (like them or not). I knew which Eucalypt was which -- a lemon-scented gum, a red gum, a jarrah, a ghost gum, a mallee -- not only by the leaves but also by the bark and the type of sap they produce. I knew a sheoak, a banksia, a callistemon, a baoab. A lot of this comes from my parents and their love of gardening, that's for sure. But I hadn't realised how much I took it for granted.

Or is this a maple?

Now, here, there are the most beautiful trees everywhere with such distinctive leaves, often acting in some distinctive way in the spring or autumn, and I don't know what they are. It leaves me feeling very much like a foreigner, probably more-so than not being able to speak the language here to the extent that I'd like. I've learnt a few - like chestnut trees, oaks and... well maybe actually that's it.

I thought I knew what a maple was, until I realised there are just so many different trees that have maple-shaped leaves.


Actually, to be honest, even the oak I'm not so sure about. They have rounded edges to their leaves, right? So what is this?

An oak or not an oak?

Don't get me started on these fancy things known as 'pine trees'. Holy cow. What is with all these different conifers around the joint! Droopy ones, sticky-outy ones, grey ones, deep green, ones with little seeds, ones with big cones, and I almost took a photo of what I thought was a conifer until I saw its red berries... so maybe not? My pine tree knowledge stops at 'Rottnest Island Pine'. And chances are these aren't that...

Botanical name: Christmas Tree

Seems I might need to put a tree-watching book on my list to Santa this year...