Mommy’s Groove

I must break my little boy’s heart now and again.

It’s at the same time of day—you know the one. Just after your body has moved into that state of deep relaxation which allows you to do your night work—learning, remembering and problem solving—REM sleep. Then suddenly BHAM!! You’re called upon to mother in the dark.

I have confessed before, and clearly I need more work because my shortcoming remain: I am a better mother in the light. The dark voice is mostly silent when the light shines in. But woken out of that deep, vulnerable state, I suck. It must be a heart breaking experience for Michael. I am clearly not his Mum.

Saturday night, jolted out of my sleep and into the room, I could only think about how I was sick and tired of being disturbed during my sleep (me, me, me) and how Chuck suffers more from interrupted sleep than I (he’s going to be grumpy). I wanted Michael to just stop and go back to bed already!

I did not even attempt to problem solve or listen to his concern; I never even asked. I was too deeply into myself and Chuck’s issues. Even his tears left me unmoved. I heard them as theatrical, not real in my dark sleepy fog.

But then I made it worse. I got angry that he settled into the floor mattress in our bedroom (set-up because being near me seems to resolve any need he presents, with the added benefit that I don’t have to physically get up), and irrationally decided to add to the dynamic that he should stop sleeping with us. Why did I say that? What was the point in the dark of night, with 3 sleeps disrupted, when he would have settled down?

It was fear. I was talking from a fear of having an upset, cranky husband who needed to start the week rested, not exhausted. I take ownership of resolving these night wakings because it is me Michael wants. Ergo, I should be able to prevent these issues, my mind erroneously asserts in the dark.

I had another recent failure, when I reasoned that perhaps the middle-of-the-night accommodations in our room were just too comfortable and perhaps if I made them less ideal he would stay put in his bed. No, he didn’t stay put. We had a couple of nights of his waking up like clock-work, settling in and sleeping restlessly as his blankets came off repeatedly. That was cumulatively painful for Chuck who had been trying to get up to work-out at 6 a.m.. He lost his rhythm and his work-outs and spent the start of every day flogging himself and feeling tired. I felt like it was my fault.

I fear the failure.

Yet somehow, that fear doesn’t propel me to act from my heart which always resolves issues, it inspires knee-jerk, ineffective solutions and heightened adrenaline. All unhelpful for resolving a little boy’s problems and getting everyone back to sleep quickly. And I cannot in good conscience help but wonder where these crazy ideas come from in the middle of the night. They are so clearly not part of my make-up during the light, so where am I getting them?

It’s all completely irrational, and this discussion of it, total naval gazing. I should simply follow the fine example Chuck provided me on Saturday night and just give Michael what he so clearly needs for a fear of the dark which is obviously (obvious in the light of day) real. He (the one I was so worried would be wiped out by the disruption) got up, took Michael back to his bed and lay with him. That is the time honoured remedy for fear of the dark—company in it.

So it’s not naval gazing: it’s nothing less monumental than learning what mothering means. It means tuning out the voice in you which says in essence, leave me alone, when it’s inconvenient to be called upon to mother. It is my job to be his soft spot to land when he’s scared, hurt or unsure. I can’t control when I’ll be called upon to do my duty, I just have to be there to do it. That is what mothering is all about.

[And for the record, we’ve tried night lights and they seem to wake him and keep him awake. I am also afraid that the light will not allow him a full, healthy sleep, having read that we need darkness to produce the right conditions for sound sleep. So I compromise with a night light on in the adjacent bathroom.]

I’m not usually into guilt — by that I mean self-reproach for doing something wrong. It’s a pretty rare occasion when I engage in an act of self-flogging. That’s not to say however, that I don’t feel badly when I let someone down, as I did my daughter last night. But my feelings are more complicated than guilt. (more…)

I dig in my heels and entrench my position further — and its not the kind of well reasoned, deeply felt through position one entrenches for. The voice of reason is cat calling to me, don’t say anything else. This tact isn’t working, shift course now or shut up. But the voice that has the floor is unyielding, stubborn in her intractability and escalating the discussion. She may even be showing distain for her adversary: an independent four and a half year old. I am not proud of myself, but at the same time I can’t seem to help it. (more…)

“Unreachable” in the sense of being non-responsive, is not a quality in which I take pride. But it is a hard fact of my personality. Moving through the motions of organizing breakfast or working through a problem up-loading music, I know I can be unavailable to my family. I hear their requests for milk or queries about dinner plans but I am unable to break myself away from my focus to respond. It’s an ugly quality, but a classic one for an introvert. I want to be different. (more…)

Etched in my memory are the feelings — trepidation, excitement, FEAR and quiet contentment — which jerked my body around in the final weeks before my first child was born.

(more…)

As the angry words flowed from my mouth with volcanic intensity, simultaneously I could feel the lava gushing forth and objectively observe myself, as if from above. I knew that the pissy 3 year old in me had broken loose and was shattering a dream for my little girl. But I could not — I did not arrest myself.

(more…)

My prayer remains unanswered. I am having one of those days where I despair that I will ever have a proper night of sleep again.

After 4 years of fairly regular nocturnal interruptions, I know I am not a good mother when I am sleep deprived. I have no patience, but recently it’s more than that. There is a dark voice, a petty childish voice that if left uncensored, can jab back sarcastically at the real needs of my little kids. I sound like I’m about 3 years old and want the kids to go home from this playdate. But this playdate is my reality and the dark voice in me is getting a bit pissy about it.

(more…)

As my son lies crying at the bottom of the stairs to our bedroom, I lie immobilized with my heart racing. He has gottten up again in the middle of the night calling for milk. There will be no milk — just like last night and the night before that.

(more…)

The downside of all the sharing we do with our pregnant sisters is that it’s really hard to filter our advice and experiences as so not to allow negative emotions — fear, sadness, guilt or regret — in our own experiences to seep into the conversation. I found when I was pregnant, I was so open to everything floating by that it was easy to absorb the emotions behind the stories that were being shared in good faith (hence I donned the emotional flak jacket). How can you stop your cervix from pulling in when you hear about 32 hours of labour, petocin drips and tears which seemed never to end? It kinda burns a hole in your no-yet penned birth plan!

(more…)

I found an enormous sense of excitement in wanting to be part of the collective consciousness of motherhood as the baby inside me began to grow and my body showed signs of change. I could hear the little girl in me saying, “Here I will belong. Here I will be welcomed”. But it was as if old wounds were being brought up to heal because while I yearned to belong, there was that old companion, nervousness in my stomach. Hoping to avoid the let-down of feeling different again, I began approaching “the news” with women cautiously, listening to the personal stories while filtering for gems of knowledge and common values.

(more…)