Sunday, 31 May 2020

A Good Night of Sleep



Children’s sleep is a much discussed topic, in parenting communities, in the media, on social networks and in families. Often, when a new baby is expected, well-meaning souls warn of the sleep deprivation to come and the challenges of getting enough rest. Before I was a mother I too thought of the difficulties of being awake tending to a baby when I’d like to be asleep. Being a naturally owlish being, I wasn’t too worried, yet the horror stories came my way as friends ventured into parenthood and I heard tell of those who used all manner of devices and strategies to persuade their little ones into the land of nod, from dummies to driving, music to white noise, it seemed an unsolvable conundrum.

When I became pregnant, my family and I took great joy in turning a room, which at the time was my office space, into a ‘nursery’. Walls were stripped, books moved to other place, the desk heaved out; my workspace was transforming to create the space for a new being to be. It soon became the best room in the house, with Farrow and Ball paint, an expensive carpet and a suite of ‘baby’ furniture purchased with the love and funds of the grandparents in waiting.  A friend did suggest that in the early days it may be best to sleep with the baby in our room, and, at the time, I thought we’d do this for around 6 months,  and then move he’d move gradually into his own room, probably with us employing a range of strategies to ensure he stayed there. 

I was wrong. When our son arrived, I hadn’t anticipated our fierce and animalistic need to be together. He slept by my side and in a moses basket and moved between the two as suited us best. Waking in the night took some getting used to, but I hadn’t factored in the wonderful sleep-inducing hormone hit that breastfeeding provides to induce sleepiness in both mother and baby.  The nursery beckoned with it’s freshly gleaming walls and specially chosen textiles, yet it remained empty.
Six months came and went in the blink of an eye and suddenly the moses basket was a snugger fit than desirable. What to do? 

We live in a small terraced house, we have a standard double bed; family began making noises about it being time to move our little one into his own space, so we could get our space back, and surely, as he’d outgrown the basket, now was the right time. We were horrified ~ our space had become our space, for all three of us. We loved sleeping with our child, so the hunt for a solution was on. I scoured Ebay looking for a specific model of cot, an extra narrow one, no longer in production, to allow us to continue to be together.  Luck was on my side, and I collected and drove my prize home, happy to rearrange the furniture that than be separated from my little one.  These actions were met with a certain amount of suspicion and concern from others, who pointed out that we  had a bigger bed in the ‘nursery,’ and wondered why we didn’t use it. 

A year came and went. We continued to share our space, more often than not bedsharing with our son, who began the night in his new cot, then joined us when he needed to feed and to snuggle in what had become the ‘family bed’. This felt so instinctive and right to us, even in the face of warnings and scare stories, that we made sure we knew how do to it safely, then got on with what suited our family best.  I found out later that there are books available which explain the reasons why some families might want to sleep in this way; I still haven’t read any of them! 

After a year, despite some expressions of disappointment from family, people generally stopped asking about our sleeping arrangements.  Breastfeeding whilst lying down and not having to get out of bed at all to tend to our son’s needs seemed such a no-brainer, I couldn’t see why I’d want to make my life more difficult. When eighteen months had passed, I became pregnant again and we continued to bedshare. 

When our son was two, and I was massively pregnant, again, questions were asked about sleeping. Again, the thought of having to get up in the night was such an anathema to me that I didn’t even consider making a change. Also, our child was happy, healthy and very capable of making his needs and choices known. The ‘big bed’ was where he needed to be and we savoured our nights together, even though his activities meant we often woke in a kind of H shaped constellation. My partner made occasional hints about changing things, but became very emotional in response to any proposed actions pertaining to this. Working full-time and very long hours, he cherished his connection with his little boy in the dreamtime hours between darkness and daylight. We also came to realise that our arrangements facilitated easy travel; we had no need to lug the ‘lightweight’ monster of a travelcot around with us, and our son, even in strange surroundings slept well, settling away from home into the home that is our togetherness. 

Our daughter’s arrival was imminent, and so the moses basket dutifully reappeared along with a brand new mattress. A wise friend questioned ‘are you really going to use that?’ I thought we would need to, with our small bed and well snuggled in boy, we’d need somewhere for the baby to at least start the night, wouldn’t we? I purchased a bed guard too then, just to be sure we had all bases covered.  Family mentioned the ‘room’ again; yet we knew we needed to keep our closeness, feeling alienation from the family space would be a sure-fire way of exacerbating what might already be a difficult transition into siblinghood for our son.

Then the tessellation and musical beds began.  I wanted our daughter at my side and I wanted our son too. Our son clung to me and soon we were attempting to squeeze four people into a small standard double bed. Our daughter luxuriated in the cocoon I curled around her, my son limpet-like attached himself to my back and his feet, at a ninety degree angle to my partner, were extended to push his father across the space into a precarious and drafty dangling position, in which he’d have to brace himself to stay on the bed at all! 

It wasn’t working; something needed to give and my back was one of the things that protested as I frequented the chiropractor’s clinic complaining of twinges and twists. We were initially at a loss and all suffering, until we hit on the idea that we really weren’t using our space effectively. We have a spare room with a double bed, and in the night, my partner, when he’d reached his limit for clinging would often retreat there, even though he found that bed uncomfortable and too soft. I on the other hand like that bed, so, after some thought and discussion, we ended up with the girls in one double bed and the boys in another.  I would put our son to bed in the space he’d always in, then his father would join him later. If he needed me in the night, I’d come in, or he’d join me, either way he got his comfort from his Dad first, and this has done enormously beneficial things for the bond in their relationship. Family again thought this was a little unconventional, but it was working for us, so we carried on. 

To our great surprise, at the age of two and a half, suddenly one evening, when our son was struggling to find sleep in the family bed, he asked to go into his own room. We hadn’t mentioned this to him at all, and had thought he might spend a great deal longer sleeping with a parent. Hastily, his bed was made up and he’s slept in his own room each night ever since. I had thought that we’d need to go down a route of lengthy preparations, of talking about choices and explaining this room, his ‘space’ to him. I’d considered our shopping trip to choose bedding and wall stickers, of the need to encourage him back many times in the night ~ the broken sleep; none of this has happened so far. 

Our children to me are our greatest teachers and what I’ve learnt from this is that when a need is truly met, it is outgrown. Closeness in the early years is paramount and as great as the need for food,  and our son has shown us that he feels secure enough to take a tiny step in independence; sleeping on his own. As I sit in the rocking chair we lovingly painted before he arrived, I nurse him , sometimes to sleep, and softly tell him of the dreams I had of small boy who would inhabit the space that used to be my office;  if only I’d known then that there was no hurry to make a ‘nursery’ for him. I tell him of how I showed him the moon and stars from this window when he was given a grand tour of the house on his first night at home, how this room has held clothes, books and toys, all the hopes of becoming as he journeys through babyhood and infancy. I lift him, sometimes sleeping, sometimes wakeful into the bed his grandparents bought him, and wish him a good night of sleep.

Home

At weekends, we usually, as a family, find ourselves facing a daunting and ridiculous to-do list. Because of the long hours we work, we find things slip a little out of control and our home swirls with a cacophonous chaos of stuff. Correspondence competes with filing, half written notes with half completed projects, all in piles, vying for space on the never sacrosanct kitchen table. 

At the weekend, we need to rest and recuperate from the trials of our week, to touch in and be with each other, to play and have fun, so I wonder why we try cram so much in, from swimming lessons, to family visits, sponsored bike rides and local events. We have a varied and active social life, yet somehow it can be stressful, and that seems wrong to me.

Our garden languishes untended, because we are too busy for it, our allotment, whilst productive in parts is in places prairie-like, shoulder high grasses swaying their rhythm of neglect in the summer sun. What is going on with us? I wonder why we seem to have forgotten how to stop and be with the earth, to lay our hands in clay and shaping it remember who we are, where we are, and why we are, as well as what our lives really mean to us. We seem to be out of synch with our values, beliefs and actions saying different things about us.

So, I pull the plug. One Saturday, I cancel everything and we simply go outside and spend the weekend, our two supposed days of rest in our own back garden. No work is done, we play, we ride scooters and tricyles, we mess around in the paddling pool and make a crazyily dangerous, but good fun water slide. After counting the clouds, our children capture and release pet snails who slide gratefully away, and we find a frog and delight in watching him flex and leap into the cool security of the shade underneath our garden shed.

We eat outside, resurrecting out rusty barbeque and cooking together with the elements, our son busily involved in fetch and carry from kitchen to garden, we are a human chain of preparation. Our neighbours play noisy basketball, shooting hoops with whoops and laughs; a red kite hangs over our garden, expectantly hovering above us, eager to share our feast.


This weekend has cost us nothing, and I am wondering why we don’t do this more often. We feel connected and happy in each other’s company, rather than feeling denied or that we have missed out on something important. Maybe the important things are closer to home than we thing and I am now off to clear out our diary of weekend commitments for the summer. 

Snails

Our family likes to get outside, and we on some days go quite a long way from home. Sometimes though, all we need is our own back garden, our patch of the earth we call home, an environment teeming with life and hidden treasures waiting to reveal themselves to us, just here and now.

So, we open the back door and go out into the blue morning air. My son races ahead to rediscover what he sees each day and I take a moment, to pause, to breathe and contemplate that which I could never have guessed before I was a  mother,  that this sense of being home in my own space was the kind of feeling I was longing for.  On his way, my son’s senses discover sage, rosemary and mint, the texture of the leaves, the feeling of chlorophyll in action ~ the sequence isn’t important; he just likes touching the herbs and smelling his fingers. 

Down the garden path we go, with the fire of the sun above us. This is a lucky day and our washing dances in the breeze too. We have been known to walk out into the blue heart of a rain shower, but luckily not today.  

Glancing across the garden fences I see my neighbour’s washing flying too and I am reminded that there are many of us walking out under the sun’s ancient flame, to hang our clothes to dry and to discover what our children can show us in the vicinity of our immediate landscape
With my daughter riding on my back, I follow my son’s trail, down to the garden shed, where we need to discover some of tools to help us today. We need to cut our grass as it resembles a meadow, although I am not always sure why this is a problem as the insects seem to like it. We take out the lawnmower and my child, desperate to have a go but unable to do so races back into the house and returns with a wheeled toy horse who will be his lawn mower. 

Back and forth, back and forth we go, moving the bird table, rediscovering some toys we thought we lost long ago that have be lying in wait, lurking in our long grass. Muffin the horse makes light work of the job and soon our noses are filled with the wonderfully green smell of summertime; freshly cut grass. 

We pause before doing the edges and my son is attracted by something. He has found a snail. Marvelling in the wonder of seeing a being who carries his home around with him, the snail, small on a small hand is brought for inspection. We consider snails, where they might live if they can move their house wherever they go, and, where we think this one is going. It seems purposeful, so we decide to release it back to the ground and to monitor progress.  

Our snail is on a mission, it slides with surprising speed up past the irises and the primroses I was given from a family garden, on to where the geraniums have gone wild in a way that has made bees fall in love with the space this year. Watching and following we find our place in the garden, our balance and sense of relationship to all the living beings; we are no longer visitors, we are a part of the landscape. At a snail’s pace we find that our snail’s wish is to leave our garden and climb the wooden mountains that are our neighbour’s fence; the boundaries that keep us separate in our own private parts of suburbia. 

My son talks with excitement about what the snail might be doing and then, on his own trajectory wanders on to other things too.

My daughter and I have retraced our path to the back door, where our journey for the day takes us back inside the house. The wind is in her house of clouds and white banners above move with our clothes on the line below; there’s no hint of rain, somewhere in the garden my son plays and the snail moves on ~ all is well.

A Candle for a Year




As the year turns all too quickly, the days in your life are growing, the light lengthens then fades, shadow takes over for a while and this miracle of twelve months is gone almost without us noticing. 

Peace appears as rays of light, candles kindled stand in for the sun rays and your smile captures the moment, of this a birthday, a solar return where the sun is once more as it was at the time you came here to us. The sun swung that night around to the frost hardened brightness of your first morning and you came skinside, crossing the threshold to be with us. I felt at that time as if I would burst with love, a full cup of it drunk and my voice brightened to a new timbre ~ I was now a mother. 

A year was filled with bells and voices, rattles and songs, footfalls and heartbeats. Carrying you close we gloried in the bright tree blessings of your first midwinter, and the snow that fell from a bright cloudless sky to make your first snowman of a day-star winter. As the year swung around and the twelve days gathered us into the waiting dark of new-year misrule; and with a solstice ember, we remembered the path that had brought us here, to the cusp of a new beginning as family, a couple no longer. We stood at the starless crossroads with new friends to receive the blessings of bread of the hearth, the waters of life, the spark of the dawn and the salt of the earth. 

It struck me the time of your birth that no place was liminal any more, there were no transitions, and no in-betweens, I was and am your mother and I was a stage you knew well, so you trod the boards and wondered where we were going together. There is  just us, no ending and no beginning; what we do in each moment is enough, amidst the rush of ever changing lights and the whistling wind of a new year, your second one on the earth, breathing its way into our minds. We three are conspirators, bouncing off the winter stars and raising our expectations at this moment.

Earlier today you have wondered what I am up to in the heat-steaming kitchen. Here I am with cake, and peace appears as candles, standing in the centre of the sun-ray world, your smile forming as friends and grandparents arrive, faces and voices lighting up your world. I am holding a candle to your year; a miracle, almost gone without our noticing.

Taking the Shawl ~ Some thoughts on Closing the Bones



Today, I took on the shawl, marking for me, the start of a journey to reassemble and remember, to travel backwards to my old self and forwards to my new self. I need to find my heart and spirit, the home within me after a five year period of transition. I am to find a new way of being, as a mother.
Being wrapped, held and prayed over, I felt myself reaching a decision to accept and embrace the teachings of my elders, the circle of mothers, the circle of grandmothers, great-grandmothers and those who have gone before. I felt myself coming home into the arms of the earth, in sisterhood with all mothers.

Perhaps closing the bones and taking the shawl is an invitation to live in harmony and honour the sacred spaces of all life. The fibres pull us into alignment, showing us the beauty and might of our own creation. As the shawl draped my shoulders, I felt home. 

As a mother, it is easy to forget yourself. This was an important process of remembering, in terms of both essence and potential for being. I am now coming back to the magic of home that I so strongly believe in and try to create, to a sense of wellbeing, and temporarily forgotten vitality.

In mothering, I have found the simplicity of happiness, and the simple truths to live by that support the inner joy that is the home within me. Wearing the shawl has allowed me to be on the receiving end of love, as a new being, a vessel, and a mother, who is ever loving to others. 

Children who are too little to walk need to be carried and held. Shawls and fabric wrap around and help me to fulfil this, my duty of responsibility to them as they gently descend, first to birth, then walk under the sky, earthside. In the wheel of life, perhaps the shawl also carries parts of ourselves? Every person walking on the earth has a responsibility to the children of tomorrow, thus, we all carry the shawl in our hearts, whether we are parents, or not; we all carry the warp and weft of the future. To influence this, participation is necessary, and I feel my warrior side rising up to answer this call. Like a personal medicine, the fibres has called me back to myself.

Within the holding, there is inner peace, through balancing the self with truth and understanding my role in creation; to honour my blessings. Being held in sacred space, by sacred women, has allowed a quickening to take place, a healing of one reality into another, an exchange that allows my heart to sing, again.

Being Under the Sky

I have come to believe that the seasons, the magic of light and the greening of the earth are interwoven with and part of our human existence;  yet it is hard to write how I feel about sunlight, or the depths of blue in the sky, the wind’s voice or the river’s song.


Being in nature with children is both an ordinary experience and a great gift. Today, my two small children and I went into a meadow, beside the river that dances her way through our city. We went to be with the place, to see the horse chestnut trees,  to experience the energies of the ducks and geese, ever hopeful of food, to dance and drink in the gift of time ~ the here and now. We were lucky enough to share our experiences with friends, as our journeys brought us to the riverbank. 


Walking out under the sky is soul-food to many, and being out of doors with children allows for the sharing of a totally innocent experience. My son is in many ways standing face to face with the earth when we venture out. He does not have a great wall of written traditions to overcome, he has no expectations of how he should be in any particular experience, and has no built up system of cultural baggage to dictate this for him. He is simply there, in the moment.


As an adult, I’ve done a great deal of work to bring myself back to the same place, to think about how the world works and why this might be, and to decide whether I want to choose to participate or step away from what are presented to us as normal things to do.  I watch with humility as my small son, in deep communion with nature says “hello” to each insect he passes, collects sticks and feathers as worthy treasures and is heartbroken when a leaf leaves his grasping fingers to ride the wind, rather than be a crumpled passenger in his pocket.  


Walking by the river with my child I feel nature in a different way. Each leaf unfurling, each blade of grass turning its face skywards is as an inscription of dreams and alchemy, outward signs of earth transformed into life; and my son’s dreams stretch as far and high as the horizon, because he is a child, and as yet is not held by limitations. 


Standing in a meadow in the heart of our city, my eye wanders to love the beauty of the bright green chestnut leaves, my mind flies to the depths of the sky, to the river’s curve, ponders the attraction of greens and blues in the natural world that somehow doesn’t work so well when it is replicated artificially. My son is busy at making a pile of sticks for a fire and soon I think may offer to cook some pretend food for the adults; usually this comprises of daisies and other foraged flowers. I am wrong though, he announces that he is a snail; a red one; and sets off at high speed to race against himself, here in this green space where there are stones and grass, lichens and moss, unknown and new things at every step - something always to find; no barren spot anywhere, or sameness.  For a child each day the grass is painted anew, and its green seen for the first time; not the old green, but a novel hue and spectacle, like the first view of the sea.


I cannot write the light, although the forms and colours are magical, they would need a whole language of their own to convey them to one who wasn’t there. I cannot rhyme the river, or paint the sky.  There is so much yet to come, so much to be gathered, and enjoyed. I feel this for my family and especially for my children, who I hope will ultimately use this magical secret for their happiness. The earth holds secrets enough to give us the life of our ancestors, to teach us of our tribe and place; the small part of the surface of the earth we inhabit, with all its history and culture; yet for me taking strength from the green leaves and the beauty of meadows is an ideal and our birth right and it is this that allows me to be happy.

Bath Time







The mention of filling the tub in our house, leads to great anticipation and excitement. Every other day, because every day just doesn’t happen, we open the taps, and let the water flow. We pour in bubble bath, being not too mean and not too generous, and wait for the magic to happen. Sometimes we add colour to our water too, or fizz, or glitter; the possibilities for transformations with simple H2O are endless!

Water is the stuff of life, it makes up over 70% of the surface of the earth, and over 50% of the human body. Water holds memories, as seen the wonders of homeopathic medicines, which many find hard to rationalise and explain, yet seem to provide solutions often where more conventional treatments have failed. As a living being, water responds to emotions too, particles dancing in response to our feelings, as beautiful as snowflakes, photographed in the amazing work of Dr Masaru Emoto.

As humans, we are drawn to the simple pleasure of water, of being on it, messing about in boats and canoes on rivers and canals, flocking to the coastlines in the summer months, to drop down into play and relax in the energies of childhood.

We all come from water, spending nine months cocooned and swimming in the mother-dark wombs that hold us, until we are ready to swim earthside and ride the tide home, out into the light. 

Today, the bubbles in our bath are the snows of the Antarctic and icebreaker boats and explorers search for seals and penguins, on a voyage of discovery. 

Maybe newborn babies dream watery dreams, and perhaps water is something we all yearn for; being held in the warm depths of the mother, safe in the dreaming darkness once more.