Goal Posts: Here. No, Here. NO, HERE.

The title says it all right now when it comes to my son. He is being terribly maniacal when it comes to sleep patterns. One night, he'll wake up every three hours, the next, sleep for seven then wake up every hour, the next, he'll wake up after four hours, then two, then six... and on and on.

This is leaving me terribly tired and unrested. My body used to anticipate his waking times - pretty consistent for the first 3 months of his life, and now, it's all over the shop, and I wake up with a start, and I can't go back to sleep.

Having said all of this, it doesn't not seem to bother him one bit. It actually seems to make him a happier baby during the day. So I take the good with the bad. I know one day I will be able to sleep again, because teenagers sleep all the time. Good. Only 12 years and 8 months to go.

Other mothers baulk at me when I tell them I don't have a routine. I let him feed when he wants, sleep when he wants, I let him lead me, which I find works pretty well given I travel a bit and sleep in different places fairly regularly. I could only envision myself struggling with taking him to my parents for a weekend if he was in a strict routine of sleep/eat/play.

Does this make sense to you? Are you strict with routine? Does it hinder you when you do things like travel, or do you lock yourself at home for the first year or so? I'd be so interested to hear your thoughts on this one...

A Shot in the Arm from Oscar Wilde

Has it really been 2 weeks since my last post? Where does the time go? And, how is it I am still on the same book?

A friend who had a baby 3 weeks ago posted on Facebook that she was thrilled to have finally finsished watching the one hour program she'd been watching in increments for the past three days. It's like that. Most people, including those with older children, seem to have no idea or forget how absorbing it is to care for an infant, the indescribable feeling of being adrift from the world, and the dread attached to just going out for coffee. At the moment I am really only seeing other mums with newborns for this reason. Yes I feel guilty for basically ignoring everyone else...

Ah, guilt. It is the biggest factor retarding my personal growth at the moment. I have a lot on the go right now. I am planning a (albeit tiny, backyard) wedding, anticipating a visit from my partner's parents who are visiting for the first time from France (this is a big deal, my partner has been here for 10 years), and organising to go to night school next year with deadline of new year's day to move house. I'm not talking about to the next town. We're going interstate. We're moving from a compact but spacious ski shack to a crammed shoebox in the city - all for my professional progress. I'm not sure I can handle the pressure, but I have to try.

Can I do it? Can I juggle night school, part time work, daycare, parenting, relationship? I have no idea how hard it will be. Right now, here in the countryside my life is so easy. I would have to go to work, but only part time. We have tiny debt. We worry about money but have no trouble paying bills. I am going to turn all that on its head for my own selfish cause. Will I be overcome with guilt for putting my son into daycare, robbing him (at least temporarily) of an idyllic country lifestyle?

I don't want to end up a broken person, settling for less that what I know my potential is. I am going to put this quote into bold print so I don't ignore it:

"To live is the rarest thing in the world.

 Most people exist, that is all" 

Oscar Wilde.

It's true, most people take the easy road. Things may not go to plan. If I don't put myself first, I can't take care of anyone else. And this doesn't mean I don't love my family any less. The struggle we may have in the near future won't be nearly as bad as the struggle of my own disappointment for never having tried. Hold your breath and jump...

(I love this picture of Wilde. People aren't eccentric enough anymore. I reckon one should have a statement piece of clothing that makes them instantly recognisable, a la Matt Preston).

"Enough"

I've been quiet lately, because I've been reading. I find that I only have time to do one pursuit in the midst of mothering an infant and managing a household (and truth be told, sleep is far to high on my priority list given all the things I want to do).

I've also been away in Melbourne for the weekend, arriving back yesterday and I have to catch up. Not only with all the news and happenings but cleaning up after my partner who stayed home and only added to the list of things I had to do today. He doesn't care what the house looks like, but I do yet that doesn't factor into his thinking, the bastard!

But I digress.

I think I've mentioned before to some effect about feeling very much behind the eight-ball in life: I consider myself to be a very intelligent and capable person and yet have never reached what I consider to be my potential, and I'm trying to navigate my way through to accomplish many things that I have wanted to do but have either allowed myself to be talked out of it or put other people ahead of my own desires. I have managed to complicate this further by having a baby.

I am not sure where this sense of inadequacy came from. I have reached the point where my own self doubt has crushed many an inspiration, I have become the ideas person who never follows through. I worry if I try something, ultimately I'm going to fail at it and this fear essentially prohibits any progress.

I am a believer that unless you are constantly self improving, you are dying.

When I was at university I worked at a small cafe with a bunch of great girls and a boss who was both a tyrant and a mentor. She once told us not to consider that we were not "enough", because we are.

Smart enough.
Thin enough.
Healthy enough.
Strong enough.
Vigilant enough.
Capable enough.
Loving enough.

My partner thinks I am enough. My child thinks I am enough (for now!), so do my parents. But here I am, deep down feeling that I am not, and the thought of spending my whole life trying to be "enough" is going to consume me.

But how to you know if your potential is being met? When does striving become achieving?

Everybody judges themselves to different standards. I am yet to meet someone who has low standards to the point where they are happy just being themselves, foibles and all. Some of us learn to live with it and make the most of their life, their opportunities and accept their lot.

What I do know is that the only way that I see to really succeed is to remove the safety net underneath and walk the proverbial tightrope. That includes my parents who always have the helpful intention of giving me money to 'help us out'. To paraphrase Dr Phil (and yes, I can't believe I am paraphrasing Dr. Phil either), money that hasn't been earned has no value. You don't appreciate it. Like my mother fattening up her dogs because they look at her with sad eyes, my parents are killing me with kindness.

But they're not to blame. By accepting help that is not needed I am essentially being lazy. I am a grown up with a family of my own and it is my responsibility to provide for it (and of course my partner's).

So, pep talk complete, I know what needs to be done. Rather than being "enough" and pleasing everybody, I am going to.... go pick up my son because he's pouting at me. Ah. What was I lamenting about?

The Tyranny of Oppression (aka Having an Infant)

Babies are the worst kind of dictators. They rule with an iron fist, wreak havoc when they don't get their way and reduce their subjects to downtrodden, helpless beings. The killer, though, is that when you get so frustrated you're ready to drop them off at the back step of the local church, they break out in a smile and begin to coo at you that you become completely smitten and you worship your leader, and cannot imagine life without them.

I had a hell of a day yesterday. I was trying to post 7 items I'd sold on ebay, that included purchasing satchels, addressing them, bagging items and making sure they were delivered to the right person (I'm still not sure I got that right). Goo was being horrible, having one of those unsettled days and everything I did was wrong. He was asleep in the car. I did the right thing and picked him up to take him inside as opposed to leave him whilst I whizzed through the Post Office. He went into the Baby Bjorn without a fuss, and as soon as I walked into the Post Office, he began bellowing maniacally in an attempt to embarrass the hell out of me so I would leave this insidious place where he wasn't getting the desired amount of attention.  I went back to the car in an attempt to finish the parcelling, placed him in his car seat and tried to ignore his screams until it became so piercing it was like a worm that wriggled through my ear drum and lodged itself into the part of my brain that releases stress hormones.

My partner can't handle it when he comes home and I'm stressed to the max. He took Goo from me to give me a break but when he wouldn't stop crying he strapped him into bed and closed the door. Geez, I could've done that - he doesn't understand that because I've listened to him scream all day, the last thing I want is to continue hearing it. Between the screaming, the useless partner and my surly mood, our maison was not a pleasant place to be. You wonder how a 3 month old being can cause such chaos and misery.

The good news is, every day is a clean slate with a baby. You just hope the next one will be merciful. And more often than not, it is.

The Boy With Two Identities

As you may have gathered by now, my son is the product of a French father and Anglo-Australian mother.

When you first meet someone from a different country, it is always very exciting and exotic, and when you start dating someone, your mother brags to her Mahjong friends that her daughter's boyfriend is from Provence. It's all very fun. After a few years you get to know the person behind the accent. You stop noticing that your friends only nod when they talk to him because they can't understand him. It's no longer funny when he uses the excuse "I'm French they expect me to be arrogant" and you learn to accept their cultural differences.

Then you decide to have a baby together. Again you get excited: The baby will have dual citizenship, he can go and live and work in Europe when he grow up - what a great gift to give. He will have his own story of his family backgrounds. He will understand - deeply - two very different and distinct cultures and appreciate both. We decided, of course, that our son will be bilingual, and my partner would only speak to him in French. His grandparents don't speak English, so it makes sense to do this. 

We gave him a name that is understood in both languages. Things aren't going as smoothly as we expected, because, obviously, life doesn't work that way! His name is Lucas but in French it's pronounced "Luca". This is confusing a lot of people. Even my parents forget to put the "s" at the end. My partner is speaking French to him only when he remembers to. I had a friend, (funnily enough my partner's ex but that's another story altogether) who grew up in Australia with a Dutch father and French mother, spoke French at home but bombed her French at school. I always though that was strange...

Is it possible to have two identities? To comfortably slip into either nationality, and to be completely fluent in both languages? Or does one outweigh the other? I've no doubt that Lucas will call himself "Australian", but I wonder what this means for his relationship with his French relatives. Perhaps I should just stop worrying about it and let him figure it out for himself. That is the brilliant thing about Australia, we live in a nation of individuals, and perhaps that is what he will be, rather than French/Australian, and I should stop worrying.

The important question: The Wallabies or Les Bleus??