Mummy Dearest

You would think that the sight of a fellow mum whilst out walking or shopping would bring a smile to your face.  Someone who crosses your path with a common interest – a child.   All at once you do the mum-once-over.  

This is sort of like what you used to do when you were childless and shopping in the city.  Look a girl up and down and assess what they are wearing and whether or not you liked it.  For me, it was always jeans and how good a girls butt looked in them.  There is nothing weird about that – jeans will either flatter or muffin a womans behind.  End of story.  But the mum-once-over is rather different.  

You could call it the mums 5 point check:

1.  What type of stroller does this woman use?  

2.  Does this woman still have a belly or not (dependent on the age of the baby this may or may not have any importance)?  

3.  What type of clothing is the baby wearing and it is better or nicer than my baby’s clothes?  

4.  Is this baby having to use a dummy?  

5.  What assortment of diamonds does this woman wear?  

Well maybe point 4 is my own personal check that I do seeing as I am eternally looking to justify why bubs has a dummy in her stroller.  I am just essentially trying to limit public melt downs.  Is there anything wrong with that? Let’s not side-track the issue. ok? 

So – when I see a fellow mum out with her baby in stroller – I do the above look-overs and always ALWAYS give her a genuine friendly smile.  After all, we are all suffering in the throes of little sleep, stretch marks, stitches and public breast-baring.  We are officially a part of the exclusive mother club.  Usually I will get a smile or a rolling of the eyes (a gesture of “yep, still burning off the fat too”) or some kind of recognition.  However, I have been caught out once. 

Perhaps I was asking for it.  I was after all, in Newmarket (trendy Auckland shopping area for those that don’t know).  I was trying hard to look as neat and “cool” as I could.  Well – perhaps I hadn’t managed to put on a full face of makeup with the 20 minutes afforded me by sleeping bub, but I had managed to straighten my hair and put on clothes that didn’t have milk stains either due to my own efforts or a kindly over the shoulder spill from bubs.  I was, in my estimation, looking ok.  Not exactly stunning or jaw droppingly fashionable.  Ok.   

We had to get down to street level from where we were in the mall so I made for the lift and pushed the button.  From the left side I could see another youngish mum walking with her pram.  It was a Mountain Buggy (as was mine) but hers had the pram attachement and mine was just the pushchair.  We both had our identical nappy bags slung over the handles laiden with gear.  I looked at her as the door opened and smiled warmly at her as we walked in.  She met my smile with a cold blank face. 

Choice.  Now I was stuck in the lift for 30 seconds (felt more like 10 minutes) with a person who had shunned me!  

I thought to myself, did she not see me?  But she did.  I even made a slight soft sound as I attempted to say something like “nice buggy”.  She was staring  straight ahead of her at the wall doing her best to feel as if she was the only person in the lift.  I looked down at my bubs through the window over her head and smiled at her as she looked back at me.   

Then the lift doors opened and she made a race for the door throwing me an acid look of indifference and distaste.

How can a person manage such a look? Perhaps it was because my belly still plumped out and my size 8 skinny ($400) jeans remained folded in my drawer and all I could fit was a pair of thai fishermans pants.  Perhaps I needed to slather on that extra inch of makeup.  Maybe it was because I still couldn’t fit my wedding rings (there are diamonds in there)?  Either way, the universal club that I always thought I would be a life time member of had failed me.   

I guess like all things in life there is a tier system.  There is some kind of unspoken gridding of piers just like in school.  There are cool mums, and there are mum mums.  I didn’t think I was a mum mum – but I just might be.  

My diamonds don’t fit, my jeans neither and I am unable to go out shopping for a new outfit due to an empty wallet.  I am a mum mum – a woman at home on a budget. Common interest or not without even being aware of it I am judged, put in a box and left there.  Ok, so perhaps I am judging people by my 5 point check – but regardless of what I see in those 5 points I will always smile at another mum.  

Even if her child doesn’t have a dummy.    

Don’t you hate those mothers who come out of hospital wearing the same jeans they were wearing the day that discovered they were pregnant? New baby in arms all smiles because when they sit down, their guts do not spill over their waistband like some kind of half risen dough.

I am not one of those mothers.

I had a cesarean and I am sure that my doctor (bless) cut out my lower abdominal muscles and forgot to put them back inside! Such is my waistline (well that is actually a lie, so is the area that used to be called my waistline). Ok sure. When I was pregnant I did indulge in more than one muffin a day and perhaps a block of chocolate and possibly fake cheese spread stuff about an inch thick on toast – but do I deserve this post-baby body? Yeah – ok just read that back and maybe I do.

I tell you all this though. I was told in no uncertain terms that everything that I put on in pregnancy would fall off once I started breast feeding. And true – I guess it did initially. Well, that was the illusion. Slowly my stomach (which still looked as though I was 7 months pregnant) began to flatten (I use that term loosely), and sure I was loosing around a centimeter a day (initially). WAS. That soon stopped. I gained 17kg whilst pregnant and I assumed that this was an ok total. Sure I had read that you are recommended to gain somewhere between 10 and 15kgs so really 17 ain’t bad. Huh. Yeah right.

Oh – and at this point I have a great story to tell. I was in the hospital visiting my very good friend who also had a baby a week after mine and her friends dumb ass husband commented to me (without a word of a lie) – “hey I thought you had already had the baby! What’s with the fat belly?”. Words escape me.

Anyway. So the reason why I am harping on about the weight issue is this: I have not received a pay packet for 3 months now. I have NO MONEY to go and splurge on a new wardrobe to encompass my new size 12 ass and 10F breasts. No. So I am limited to all the things I bought whilst pregnant. Things that I no longer wish to wear seeing as I am now POST pregnant. All the while all my size 8 pre-pregnancy garments taunt me taking up all the space in my drawers so that when I reach in for the one pair of jeans that I DO fit I accidentally pull out my lovely skinny stretch size 8 jeans. Sob.

Exercise you say? Yes. I am no stranger to exercise. Before I fell pregnant I was a regular at the gym with a personal trainer and had previously competed in a body sculpting competition. I am familiar with exercise. But I am paranoid (that word again) of doing too much and having my milk dry up!

Yes – the biggest drawback to exercising – a starving baby.

And really – who can be bothered with exercise after the baby is born? At this age you have just got them past the crying-every-time-you-put-them-down phase and are comfortably sitting in the making-cute-noises-most-of-the-time phase. Who wants to miss out on that? That and also at this stage you discover you can put baby to bed for naps when your favorite daytime soap is on – and who could miss out on that?

I guess I have developed a domestic laziness. Grunt. Well. As I do every week I decide that tomorrow, tomorrow I am going to go for a one hour walk while bubs is sleeping peacefully in the Mountain Buggy. I am going to get a sweat on and I am going to do this every day at the same time. That way I can form a habit and it won’t be a chore. But of course I have to take bubs to the doctor tomorrow and I won’t get time. Amazing how a 30 minute appointment can ruin a whole day? Perhaps I should have abstained from those tempting chocolate treats and said NO to the muffins at the cafe… Perhaps I should hold true to my promise and get out of the house with the buggy and WALK my way to a waist.

Or perhaps I can just sit here and remain bitter with all those mums and their flat stomachs. Yes. I think that is far more healthy (and let’s face it, far easier). Cows!

I have always said that when I do have kids “I am going to be the no stress calm mother” – I mean after all I had a relaxed upbringing, why wouldn’t I? I have always wanted to be the sort of mother that allows everyone to have a cuddle and pick up bubs. The kind of mother that lets the dummy (oh yes, dummy) fall on the ground and only give it a little suck with my own mouth before popping it back into bubs mouth. The kind of mother that looks on calmly as bubs crawls around in the sandpit, climbs the slide at the park and sucks on toys at the doctors surgery.

But that was a week ago.

Now my hands are dry and raw from constant washing. Why? Diarrhea. Yes, I said it. I am talking about runny poos. Not me – no – but my poor wee 11 week old girl. We have been to the doctors twice this week (once a mercy dash to an emergency room over half an hours’ drive away due to the exorbitantly long queue at the closest rooms). Does anyone out there know how terrifying babies can be?? Have you ever seen a nappy full of green poo?

Ew. I know too much information. But please. And as we all know, babies cannot talk – they cry on occasion – but it’s the small grunt before the explosion in the pants that is absolutely heart breaking.

Of course, as any modern mother does these days, I immediately began typing various words into Google. Words like “green”, “poo” and “dehydration”. Amazing how the whole self diagnosis thing can work you into a paranoid lather of worry so much so that you imagine symptoms (can you say hypochondriac?). And back to the fact that babies can’t talk, the only way you can tell how they are feeling is via visual cues! Ok, so I jumped the gun and we were off to the emergency room, but you know what? I needed to do that for my own peace of mind.

By the way, she is actually sick. And I hold to the fact that she needed to go to the doctor due to possible dehydration.

So now I am thinking back over the past week and trying to imagine when it was that my wee girl picked up this gross virus. According to the doctor we saw on Friday, it can come from people not washing their hands, it can be airborne, it can be sitting on toys or anything that can be touched. IT IS EVERYWHERE!!

I find myself standing in the line at the supermarket contemplating purchasing the bottle of hand sanitiser that I have always despised. I have always been proud of the fact that I don’t do things like washing hands after touching my cats or holding the supermarket trolley handle. Now I am counting to 30 in my head as I wash up with very soapy hands in water that is almost scalding.

What ever happened to the days when I was so buy with my life that I could only wash my hands for 10 seconds as I had to rush out the door? Ah, but I digress.

Right – all paranoia aside (for the moment only), I know I KNOW that all babies get sick – and that they need to in order to get immunity from some of the nasties out there in the world but I never expected her to get sick so soon. Nor did I believe it would take over a week to get well (she is still not well yet). But it is the pressure – on me – to help bubs get well. Things like I have to now express all my fore milk and only feed her hind milk (the fore milk acts as a laxative). So as I write this, my nipples feel as if I have had pegs on them all day. Ouch.

So here I am now, with the calm exterior of the mother I always wanted to be but meanwhile beneath seethes the soul of a woman desperate to hide her bubba away from prying hands and sneezing illnesses. I guess I have now officially become a mother. I am the duplicitous reality of how a mum needs to be to survive this modern world; quietly paranoid.