Getting Noah Dressed

Sometimes I still can’t quite believe that my life involves the things it does. Mommyhood is not the cuddles and the playing nicely with toys that I was expecting. Not yet anyway. There's less sunshine and roses and more tears and blowouts. Sometimes it’s just plain farcical. One unexpected result is that our lives have now become a Disney movie. My husband and I regularly burst out into song, which somehow we both instinctively know the lyrics to, imploring Noah to see sense through the magic of song. There’s a song for everything; eating, nail clipping, teeth cleaning, going for a walk, changing, bath time, etc. One of my frequent ones is, ‘Mess-maker, mess-maker, make me a mess,’ to the tune of Fiddler on the Roof’s ‘Matchmaker’.

This morning the struggle of getting Noah dressed for the day inspired a new song. When we’re at home I tend to leave him in his pajamas because …. well I’d rather climb Kilimanjaro than change him more times per day than I absolutely have to. As soon as I get one leg in his pants he somehow manages to use the other to whip it back off. This happens three, maybe four times. He’s somehow flailing his limbs perfectly to cause the most pain, destruction and inconvenience. I’ve given birth to a ninja. Often I just sit there and let him buck and kick until he gets tired. Except he never gets tired. He just slows down, eyeing me as if to say, “You wanna dance, lady? ’Cuz I can do this allllll day.”

This is after the fight to get the diaper on. I’ve already won a medal for that. Whenever he does a gigantic poop and I’m changing him, he now reaches down into his diaper and, voila, poop hands. Another thing to clean. When I finally have got him cleaned up, I manage to pin him down long enough to get the new diaper under him and, yup, I’ve put it on backwards. Face palm. Rookie move. And now he’s seized his opportunity and is making a break for it, but I somehow manage to put his diaper on WHILE he crawls away. Mom 1—Noah 0.

The stress of all this culminates in a new song (because that’s the mommy/Disney thing to do), Frozen style, ‘Do you want to be a nudist?’ And it makes me realize, that’s probably why these Disney characters are forever singing — it’s their coping mechanism. It might seem like a jolly whistle while they work and a high-ho, but inside they’re freaking over their massive to-do list or are terrified about the prospect of a giant diamond crushing them. I totally understand now.

So I continue singing. ’Do you wanna be a nudiiiist? And never put on any clooooothes?’ Sigh. It really is all about sitting back and giggling with him, because if I don’t I’ll turn into Crazy-Mom, or Mean-Mom, or clench my jaw at night and have to take fourteen million trips to the dentist. (True story.)

Oh well. Semi-naked babies are cute anyway, right?

The Gratitude Experiment

A few days ago I started a gratitude experiment. Just the simple, daily practice of writing down 3-5 things I'm grateful for between each sunrise and sunset.

We were on vacation the other week when I was hit by allergies. My nose was running 24/7 like a stuck tap and my head felt like a bowling ball. Ugh! There really comes a point where the only solution is to stuff two pieces of tissue up each nostril. So there I was, on the couch after a long day of sneezing with said tissue stuffed into my glowing nose. Then the hubby looked up from his iPad to say something. I gave him a stony gaze, daring him to make fun of me. And instead of laughing, he broke into a cute smile and said, ‘You’re so pretty.’

Ha! I’m forever grateful for him. I wouldn’t have minded much if he had made fun, but saying that instead with 100% 90% authenticity made me laugh and love bubbles pop up from my head.

Gratitude is more than remembering to write that thank-you card, or thanking someone for emptying the dishwasher. It's a total reframing of our perceived realities. Even though I’ve not been doing it long, my mood has already lifted and I notice the little joys as they surface.

Yesterday was like a gratitude gift day. OK, so I've been trying to pin down a lawn company to do our lawn for three weeks. Three weeks. I’ve left multiple voice messages and emails with multiple companies, had responses once and never heard from them again. What ridiculousness is this? Then yesterday, while I was on the phone to a neighbor about approved paint colors, she mentioned she’d just had a baby and her teenage son cuts lawns. For real? A new friend and an easy, cheap lawn service! Heaven high-five. And that was just the tip of the blessing iceberg that day.

This is part of the gratitude experiment I’ve been wondering about – when you’re living a more grateful life, do more good things come to you? In her Simple Abundance – Daybook of Comfort and Joy, Sarah Ban Breathnach appeals us to conduct our own gratitude experiment. “Why? Because you simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given to you.”

With so many things to worry about, my overarching ones at the moment being about the birth and beyond – will I be a good mother? Can I really do this? – it seems like a good time to plug harder into this gratitude stuff.

I have 41 days until my due date, and I’ve committed myself to the gratitude experiment every day leading up to it. Who knows what difference it might make, and how it might set me up for the long road of sleepless nights and other discomforts?

It's definitely worth experimenting with.


- 7 scientifically proven benefits of gratitude

The Humdrum of Everyday Life

In this season of my life, I have a lot of time to think. It's both a blessing and a curse. I'm alone to marinate in my thoughts as I go about the day, until I think I’m gonna go C.R.A.Z.Y. I need a second opinion, people!! This is way too much Susie Ambrose for me. She just won't shut up.

(Side note: I'm amazed at how pregnancy affects my brain - it's so much harder to think! I drove 20 min to the store the other day only to drive 20 min straight back because I'd forgotten to close the door ... only to find it closed. Facepalm.)

Even though I'm still in the process of finding new friends, I’m constantly working through a list of things to do. Errands re the house, grocery shopping, dealing with fixers and providers, hitting the gym and making time for yoga, cooking, cleaning, Skyping, laundry, doing my coursework, etc. The more peaceful to-dos like Bible study can fall by the wayside, as my true priority list deviates to my ‘hey, this makes me feel productive!’ list. Hubby sometimes laments that I can’t sit still through an entire movie with him.

Today I found myself crashed out on the semi-dressed spare bed, my fingers hooking onto my sneakers in one hand and a bill in the other. The sun was warming the white linen and making the golden-painted walls shine. Moments like that are my bliss. When I finally stop and lie down. That’s when the little boy starts moving. There’s a small nudge in one side of my belly, next thing there’s a soft kick to the other. I smile, because it almost feels like he’s saying, ‘Good job, Mommy! You’re resting!’

After spending ample time in an 80% unfurnished house and feeling pretty lonely at times, I realized recently that I was focusing on lack instead of abundance. We all have things we wish were different in our lives and it will be that way until we die.

It’s great to have goals in life, but it can create the equation of: ‘effort à acquiring à happiness’. This way of thinking puts happiness out of our reach, because the goal posts always move! Something new and different soon grabs our attention, ensuring that we can never be content with what we have. I’m sick of living by that equation, aren't you? I want happiness and contentment right now.

Positive thoughts reframe our whole lives. They are the difference between frustration at the stain marks over the table and delight that we have a table in the first place. They move us from an anxious, poor, dissatisfied and tired experience of life into a peaceful, rich, satiated and energized experience of life. And nothing has to change apart from our thoughts and attitude!

There’s this commercial for Direct TV that shows a painfully awkward guy being awkward. Then, the same guy dressed all slick and cool walks into the frame and says, ‘Don’t be like this me, get rid of cable and upgrade to Direct TV.’ I prodded the hubby and said, ‘This is the problem! This is how we’re made to think!’ Hubby nodded in agreement, in all likelihood rolling his eyes internally and thinking: great, here she goes again.

Whatever our issues are, perhaps it would help to ruminate less about the problem and evasive solution, and more about how to be grateful for what we have? Enjoying the good moments, the good people and the good things, however small they may feature.

I'm trying it out anyway, and I have a sneaky feeling that the rest will begin to fall into place ...

Adapting to Americanisms

Reading and writing the date is now something that takes more mental effort than it should. I always feel slightly nervous when someone hands me a document to sign and date. First, I pause at my last name (I still have to fight the instinct to write my maiden name) and then I gaze in apprehension at the space for the date. Thirteen, zero one … No wait … there’s only twelve months, I need to switch it … the first month, day thirteen, 2015.

As someone who is exceptionally fond on logic, I miss the sense of writing the date in increasing units. Driving on the other side of the road was WAY easier than re-learning how to write the date. Thankfully, I've only found myself on the ‘wrong side’ once, and that was in a parking lot so it didn't really matter. Everyone’s confused in a parking lot. ‘Crap, I’m going the wrong way!’, ‘How do I get out of here!?’ In my brain, things start from the left to right, like reading and writing. It doesn't help that I’m a lefty.

I have to admit, I also wasn't expecting people to find my accent difficult to understand. I guess there’s less British TV here than there is American TV in the UK. When I’m in the grocery store and the sales assistant asks me what I’m looking for, I’m usually met with a blank stare. It took me a while to realize that sometimes people are listening more to my accent than what I’m actually saying. I've even taken to putting on an American accent when I’m on the phone, or when I’m ordering ‘warder’ to drink, just to save time. Which is seriously embarrassing because my American accent sounds like I have an unhinged jaw. 

My biggest surprise has been that no one really uses electric kettles here. They still heat up cold water on the stove, or zap it in the microwave. One of the most surreal experiences of my life has been showing people how when you flick the switch on the kettle, it makes the water boil quickly. ‘Ooooooo!!’

Other things that have taken some getting used to are: mailboxes (having your mail sitting outside your house instead of being delivered into your house), price labels not including the tax, gaps between restroom cubicle doors (awkward), home air conditioning, not being able to walk to any destinations (apart from when we lived in the city), using airplanes like trains, and 24/7 sports. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the last one. I might have to secretly unsubscribe us from ESPN and pretend it’s broken. Although the hubby would just watch it on his ‘cell phone’ … during dinner … in a restaurant. Okay, that’s only happened once. Twice.

On my list of American favorite things are: filtered water and ice directly from the fridge, s’mores, automatic cars, super friendly people (I’m now BFFs with the security system installer), American TV shows, the growing number of health food stores and the national anthem. I’m not sure why, but I’m frequently humming the American national anthem. So I think I’ll put that as a side note on my citizenship test. I even know it has four verses not just one! (Smiles self-importantly)

Yep. I think I'm pretty well adjusted. 

Setting Up Shop

Happy 2015! So it’s been just over a month since we ‘moved in’ to our new home and we've spent all of 6 nights here. We're back in Georgia after the Christmas vacation and it's time for everyday life to begin again. Unsurprisingly, being first-time home owners in a new state is complicated! ‘Wow, look at all the space!’ soon turns into the realization that the bigger the house is, the more can go wrong. I’m still trying to figure our bad luck in having 0/4 toilets that work properly.

As a perfectionist (I have a feeling either this or motherhood is going to cure me of it) – I can see every scratch and cracked light, let alone the broken and off-gassing new dresser, the already malfunctioning TV system and the things that fall off the wall when you use them.

As a five-month pregnant woman still battling with nausea and exhaustion, I also don’t appreciate being kept up by a security system that starts bleeping at 2am, or a dying smoke alarm the following night that starts bleeping at 3am. Thank goodness I have a super hubby who is good at taking charge.

I really shouldn’t complain …. but the hormones are making me do it. And that pesky perfectionism. Honestly, why am I focusing on the echoing rooms and bare-nailed walls instead of the big kitchen, lovely double deck and backyard overlooking a lake? We are so fortunate. I am so fortunate.

We all go through this, don’t we? Nothing is ever as easy as we think it should be. Often a quick fix becomes a four-attempt experience before it’s sorted out. And all money-conscious people gasp over the frequent revelations of how much being an adult costs. ‘How much? Geeeeze! Hold on while I Google how much we can get for my kidney on the Black Market.’

Even my generous, money-easy hubby is starting to twitch. Remember when we decided to buy a big empty house, live in a place where two cars are needed, and get pregnant? Yeeeah …. we’re pretty smart.

But as I sit here with bump and some lemon tea, the sky is blue and the sun is shining on our leaf-strewn backyard. (I haven’t actually been in the backyard yet, but it looks very nice.) I’m eyeing my pen and notepad beside me. It’s waiting for me plan the week of plumbers, security system men, washer/drier deliveries, furniture fixers and healthcare appointments – and despite my pregnant brain fog, I suddenly feel ready to conquer this.