Last Wednesday saw my little man turn six months old! He chose to celebrate by being quite a bit fussier than usual. What a blast! But in amongst the random tears and excess need for mommy hugs, I did manage to get a few pics of a smiley little bee.
Friday saw the beginning of a non-stop weekend and found us back at the paed's office for Ricky's six month check-up. Little man is now 8.8kg and 71cm tall. Doc's thrilled with his health, and so I'm thrilled! My little monkey monkey has started trying to feed himself - the cutest thing to watch! He can't yet scoop up his own food, but if I load up a spoon for him he insists on putting it in his own mouth, and fusses like crazy if I don't let him! Most of the time he's surprisingly competent, but there has been the odd mishap. Yesterday morning he jabbed the spoon directly into his left eye (he only takes the spoon with his left hand) and then complained about it for the next hour. I had to stifle a chuckle as I wiped baby cereal from his lashes. All I can say is thank God for Tommee Tippee flexi-tip spoons, the damage could have been worse than a few mils of misplaced porridge!
Ricky is also trying desperately to make his way around on his own steam. He hasn't figured out the crawling thing yet, and the jury's out on whether he will. I skipped crawling and went straight to cruising at five months - and despite what people may tell you, this will not handicap your child. I have an above average IQ, excellent hand-eye co-ordination and fantastic gross and fine motor skills. So let your child be your guide, and ignore the small-town, childless, twenty-something at the office who admonishes you for "doing it wrong" because that's what her granny told her. What Ricky has mastered is rolling and shuffling and squirming his way across the floor, at record speed. More than once I have returned to the lounge from prepping lunch to find him off of his playmat and under the coffee table. I have more than a little respect and admiration for his independent and curious nature - it makes me smile with pride.
After our jaunt at the clinic we headed out to City Deep to the flower market - a bit of a change of scenery. I had decided to come out of retirement for a day, as a favour to a schoolmate, to help with the flowers for her wedding on Saturday. Ricky's eyes were wide with wonder at the different colours and smells, and it was beautiful and inspiring watching him take it all in. Alas, that is where the inspiration ended... When I was finally able to sit down to work at 20h00 I found that not only did the muse not descend, but that it would continue to evade me for the remainder of the evening. Anyone who works in the creative industry will tell you that when you're off, you're off. And I was off. When I finally collapsed into bed at 03h30 the following morning I was utterly spent - emotionally, mentally, physically spent.
At 07h30 I was up and on the go again. My mom was due to arrive at 11h00 to watch Ricky for us so we could make the long drive to Kempton Park to set up. I was so exhausted and so keen to get back home to my little man, I forgot to snap a few pics of my handy work, so I can't even share the end result... Bad mommy, no biscuit. My aunt, that is the sister of my male parent, and her boyfriend were up from Durban for a holiday and were coming for a visit to meet Ricky later that day. I hadn't seen her since our wedding two years ago and was looking forward to seeing her again. My father may have chosen to eject me from his life in spectacular fashion a few days before Ricky's birth, but I've always had a good relationship with Anne. The eleventh commandment states, or would have if they hadn't run out of space on the stone tablets, that one shall not hold another responsible for the screw ups of their kin, and I have chosen to embrace this rule wholeheartedly. And it's worked out for me thus far.
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| Meeting his great aunty Anne |
But let's get serious for a moment here. A few things about the past weekend have struck a chord for me. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep that triggered it, perhaps it's been a long time coming, who it to say? But I came to a stark realization. The first is that sometimes you should do something good for someone, even if you don't really have the resources, because it's the right thing to do. The Universe presents us with opportunities throughout life to make amends for our ill deeds, even if not to the people we have done wrong. A way of balancing the books, paying it forward, whatever you will call it. If we want to end up in the good place when we die, it is our responsibility to take those opportunities when they are presented to us, to put a tick in the plus column. If we do not, we have only ourselves to blame for our enduring unhappiness.
The second, and most important, is that, while I love to create, I love my little man more. Now before you go throwing your hands up in the air in defensive protest, hear me out. I am the kind of person that throws my entire being into everything I do. The couple weeks leading up to this weekend have been a lot for me. Not because I'm the type of person who stresses unnecessarily, but because it's been months since I quit working and, to be honest, I wasn't sure I'd pull it off. I'm a little rusty. It also changes the game when you have a little one along for the ride. It was next to impossible for me to throw myself into work without feeling that I was neglecting little man, and the reverse can be said with as much certainty. I would try to push work out of my mind to spend time with Ricky, only to find my thoughts had drifted to the wedding and I wasn't appreciating the little things I normally would. And that agitated me. I found myself torn in two parts that I could not reconcile - career woman by day and mommy always, like some sort of perverse superhero movie that absolutely no one would watch. I have always believed that being a mom who works from home is more of a challenge than a mom who leaves home to go to work. Especially if you have no help during the day. When a woman leaves home to go to work she can, for a few hours, shed the mommy persona and get down to business without having to worry about her little one. Working from home means that you are physically there, but emotionally unavailable during business hours. Not only is this confusing for your child, but it can become taxing for a mother too, who never gets to take off the mommy apron. This is something I've discussed with my therapist, who works from home and has a little boy of three and a half, and she agrees. It's an entirely different animal, one that is perhaps harder to tame than most. For the last couple months I've been wondering whether my decision to be a full-time mom was the absolute best decision I could have made, and a part of me felt that my six years at varsity shouldn't be so lightly tossed aside. My selfish vanity demanded I leave my mark on the world, no matter how small a mark it would be, some sort of legacy for my children to be proud of. But what this weekend showed me is that my decision was spot on. I am now 100% certain that I have done the right thing. I don't want to be so busy worrying about this job or the next that I miss out on the miracle that is my little boy. There is not a thing I could do that fulfills me more than my angel pie.
If he is the greatest thing I ever do with my life, then that is more than enough.
So here's to legacies and epiphanies.
Smiles,
Mommy
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