it's been a lazy, relaxed, 'we don't have anywhere to go' kind of day. I like days like this but I often worry that I should be 'doing' more - especially with Cole. Perhaps it's the burden of the part time parent - we think that every moment should be 'quality' time, usually involving trips to exciting places (erm, like the cinema - not THAT exciting then!)
But I honestly don't think Cole is that bothered. In fact, I know he had a lovely day today just hanging out with John and I, decorating eggs (I did my first attempt at blowing - the trick is to get the holes a decent size - otherwise it feels like you're about to have a nosebleed!), and backing cupcakes (well, the insides of those blown eggs needed using!)
He also played on his videogames with John, did some making with me, did his homework, read a bit and watched some TV. Then we ended the day with a roast dinner where I managed to convince him that mashed sweet potato was actually normal mashed potato with some food coloring in it! Hey, he ate it so those extra vitamins and beta carotene absolve me from any parental guilt such a whopping lie - ok?
As for me I enjoyed doing a bit of yoga this morning and making the dinner - many of my friends think I'm nuts but I actually enjoy making a full roast dinner on a Sunday - there's something very nurturing about it. I like to do loads of veg and keep experimenting with gravy - I'm yet to perfect it!
And I made a bag for my oldest friend's birthday.
I don't get to see her too often because she lives in another city but we're getting together on Tuesday and i can't wait. She's the kind of friend who always seems to know the right thing to say and who I can laugh with about the most ridiculous thing. She's also gone through many years of fertility problems and now has the beautiful baby Alice. She knows just what I mean when I confess that I've gone through 4 pregnancy tests in a month, am stalking Mothercare and avoiding pregnant women because it's too painful. She also knows how to make me laugh about the fact that none of this is logical, rational or understandable to anyone who hasn't been there. And I love her for all of it and more.
But this weekend has been interesting. I am due my period on Tuesday and am 99% sure Ive not caught this month. How sure? OK, I'll fess up, I've done 2 early pregnancy tests and both were negative. The internal debate about this went thus:
3 days before period is due:
Wise me: Don't do a test, just wait a couple of days and you'll find out if you get your period, and if you do one before you're due it won't be that accurate anyway and you'll only want to do another one a day later.
Not so wise me: Yes, I know you're right...but I'm just going to do this one test and if it's negative then I'll know.
next day - 2 days before period is due:
Wise me: No really, don't do another test. The last one was negative, you're hugely premenstrual, you know you're period is on it's way, just leave it for another couple of days. Even if you get a negative result you won't believe it until you get your period.
Not so wise me: I'll just do this one. Honestly, it'll be the last.
Wise me: Yeah, right.
So I've had 2 negative tests and a whole host of premenstrual symptoms but there's still a bit of me that is holding out hope that I'll have caught this month. I was going to post a long, meandering essay last Sunday (Mother's day here in the UK) about how the day was bittersweet and how I'm overwhelmed with desire for a child that is so powerful it's almost blinding. It makes me think and act pretty irrationally - want an example? I measure everything by my cycle - as John says, 'we don't seem to use the Gregorian calendar, anymore, just the lunar one!' I work out when it's best to take a vacation, meet the girls for a glass of wine after work, visit friends for the weekend, have sex even, by where I'll be in my cycle. I find myself looking at baby and maternity clothes in stores, even lying to the sales staff: "is it for you?", "Oh, no, for a friend of mine." When I really want to scream - "There is no friend, yes it's for me, but it isn't really because I'm not pregnant, I'm a mad, obsessive woman who's an inch away from holding a sit-in in Mothercare!'
So I've be incrementally been losing the plot over the past 8 or 9 months (Oh, and did I tell you that my doctor wants to start running some tests because, as he puts it 'Time is not on your side.' Yes, I know it's good that he's being proactive but really, did I need to hear that?)
OK, I know I'm ranting. But I really think I made a bit of a breakthrough this weekend. I was reading O magazine when I took Cole swimming and i always love Martha Beck's column. In this edition she was talking about wish lists and why they come true for some people and not others. She said that those who's desires came true are coming from a place of surrender - they have let go of the need for it to happen. I've been reading lots about the law of attraction lately and they all mention the letting go of the 'need' for things to happen. I'd read this so many times and thought I'd got it but didn't really. Only intellectually, not on a gut level. But reading this article by Martha Beck did resonate on that gut level. I wanted this baby sooooooo much that it was blinding me, holding me back, limiting my life and not letting me enjoy life. The Chinese doctor I'm seeing for acupuncture said more or less the same thing - I'm not getting pregnant because I'm worrying too much about doing just that.
So I lay in bed last night and faced the question - 'what would I do if I didn't get pregnant?' 'What would happen?' I rolled the question over and over, again and again. And eventually I came up with the answer - 'I'd be ok.' I have a wonderful son, a great partner, a fantastic life - things are great and I've so much to be grateful for. Another child, a child that is John and mine, would be wonderful but if it didn't happen, we'd still have a great life.
I don't know if what I'm describing sounds simplistic or obvious but something really shifted in me. Today, I've been so much calmer, less tense and more relaxed. I've enjoyed being with my family, my family that will be complete at 3, 4 or 5 - whatever happens.
Tonight i feel calm and centered. I hoping for good things. Any way they come to me.
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