mr wrigglebot

After weeks like I have had I think that if there was a way to resign from motherhood I would do it. Squirm is teething, Wrigglebot is tantrumming (just made up that word meaning in the act of continually having a tantrum) and I am just trying to survive. There is no way that anybody would volunteer for the job that I have with the work conditions I have; no designated lunch break, a full 12 hour day followed by 12 hours of being on call, no weekends, public holidays or annual leave, and if that’s not enough you have to commit to the job for at least 18 years before going part-time and lets not even talk about the pay.

But, you say, what about job satisfaction? Well at the moment I’m still waiting, don’t get me wrong I like hugs and going to story time and having tea-parties but most of the time tantrums and demands are what my day consist of. Let’s take the other day for example; Squirm was asleep, it was cold so we couldn’t go outside so I thought Wrigglebot and I would have a treat and make pancakes together for lunch. That all went fine except afterwards he wanted to eat all of them all at once. I explained that he couldn’t and tantrums ensued. And I thought why do I bother? And then I thought if only I knew that he was appreciating everything I was doing then I could continue on in a better mind-frame, but I get no thankyous. I change Squirm’s nappies ten times a day and she never say, ‘I’m really glad you are doing that for me Mum.’ Nope, in fact she just tries to escape.

And so I would belatedly like to say to my Mum, ‘Thankyou.’ Thankyou for changing my nappies and taking me for walks, for pushing me on the swings and letting me watch ‘Pete the Dragon’, thankyou for dressing me and feeding me and reading to me, thankyou for tucking me into bed and for letting me snuggle into your bed when I wet mine. If I could go back in time and force my six month old lips to say thankyou I would but I can’t and so somewhat vicariously I say thankyou to you hoping that one day Wrigglebot and Squirm will say thankyou to me.

Okay, I admit it, I am not an artistic person. The extent of my drawing ability is pretty much stick figures with clothes, and sometimes the odd truck now as they are Wrigglebot’s love. Now that I have covered that I have no artistic ability I still thought, perhaps wrongly, that I would be able to impress Wrigglebot for a while longer.

Over the past few days we have been playing with playdough and he loves asking me to make a car, ‘Mama, Mama car pease’ he says, and how can I resist that? And so I fashion a car of sorts, a block with round wheels and he plays with it for about ten minutes, which I think is quite good. Well that was all fine until Daddy was asked to make a car and he ended up making a car that was so good he called me over to admire it and I said, ‘Husband, I am very proud of you, what a clever boy you are.’ So the next time I was playing with Wrigglebot and he asked me for a car, I did my best, I tried really hard and gave it to him and he just squished in his fist and then repeated ‘car pease’.  I felt like a failure, I felt like I had been exposed as a fraud but then I had a stroke of inspiration and added a siren, it made everything good and I was once again his hero.

I am getting worried though, I just don’t know how long my artistic ability can hold up for, the gap between his and mine is rapidly narrowing and I fear it wont be long before he realises that people are more than just sticks and then I will be drawing hero no longer.

I am continuing on my journey to become a domestic goddess, unfortunately that now requires me to extend my culinary abilities. With that in mind I headed to the shops to buy my ingredients (I still drift toward the ready made sauces etc. as can be seen in the picture.) I found myself perplexed by what confronted me (see photo). I thought surely Mexico isn’t in Asia or has globalisation gone further than I thought? It made me worried about the state of education in Australia so I went home sat Wrigglebot down, pulled out the flash cards and off we went, next the globe came out and we found home, Asia and Mexico and then I actually cooked and I think Wrigglebot was most interested in that.

I’m a little competitive, okay that may be an understatement but when coupled with my vanity it makes for a volatile combination. I don’t appear to be overly concerned about my appearance and try not to be, but I am, which may surprise a lot of you. I have found myself recently going for walks, I enjoy it and so do Wrigglebot and Squirm. It seems these days that every km I walk I see at least three other mothers with prams, and what do I do? I have to beat them, to pass them, even though they don’t know they are in a race. The only people I don’t attempt to pass when I am on a walk are runners, casual runners I might try, but definitely not the ones with the running shorts or lycra, they intimidate me just by their attire.

So anyway back to the mothers with prams who I pass, and I do always pass them, I have found myself going through a little process each time. As I approach I look at the mother, does she look fit, back to her pre-birth weight, is she labouring from the walk? Then as I pass I glance in the pram at the child and make a quick estimate on the age of the child. If the child is older than my youngest and the mother doesn’t look quite as fit as me then I feel good as I power walk away from them,it makes me smile, and if by chance I don’t come out so flatteringly in my assessments then it just makes me walk faster.

Now I know this all sounds incredibly vain and conceited but I honestly think most people do these basic comparisons they just don’t own up to them. Don’t they?

People find comfort in many different things.  At the moment I find comfort in a good cup of tea, a familiar favourite book and strangely enough in silence (I have grown to love and even crave silence). As a child I found comfort in a cloth nappy, it went with me everywhere but especially to bed, there would be no sleep without blankie.

I thought Wrigglebot would chose out of his many stuffed toys one to be his special comfort go-everywhere toy, we even put a teddy into his bed to try and manufacture a relationship, however, this was not to be. Every night Wrigglebot insists on going to bed with a fistful of cars. Now these aren’t soft, furry cars these are hard and metallic matchbox cars and he can fit up to four in his little fists. There is no snuggling with them, no hugs for them, no burying his face in them. I don’t understand, it wouldn’t comfort me but often when I check on him before I go to bed I see him snuggled underneath the covers, one fist sticking out with a car still in his grasp.

Ok so I’m back, no excuses but I am here now. So here is what has been happening. Squirm rolled over and back last month, ‘terribly advanced’ I know. Wrigglebot has discovered the movie ‘Cars’ and therefore so have I. You know I quite enjoy movies yet after the 30th time I do get a little over watching the same movie, not Wrigglebot. When he was a little younger and other mothers would talk about their children watching a lot of TV and movies I was quite proud that Wrigglebot didn’t want to watch anything, all he wanted was to be outside. I had an active child, there would be no obesity in our family. Little did I know, a couple of months later he discovered movies and TV. I guess Wrigglebot is just normal though he does still love to run around outside, I guess it is just about finding some balance.

We are planning for our trip to the snow, trying to get my head around the complexities of packing a small car with two kids in car seats, two porta-cots, a set of skis and boots and a snowboard and boots. Once again I think I am going to forgo all clothes except ski wear.  Husband right now has been inspired by Bill Cosby in ‘The Cosby Show’ to be funnier, sometimes it works, sometimes not. And me, well at the moment the nicest thing is to hear about other friends being pregnant and knowing that it’s not me and hopefully never will be again, it just gladdens the heart. (These better not be famous last words)

So I had my day all planned, and they do have to be planned, I had a brief window of opportunity to duck out (with two little ones it never is exactly ducking out but anyhow…) and buy the lasagna for dinner. It was fortunate that I had the window of 30 minutes between Squirm waking and Wrigglebot having his afternoon nap and Squirm her afternoon feed, it seems that often I have one awake all day all the time while the other is sleeping. One wakes the other sleeps, it is a never-ending see saw. This sounds nice until you consider when is the best time to do some grocery shopping or go for a walk, which one can afford to lose sleep the most? Which ones’ fits of tiredness are easier to deal with and which one can go out in public while they are still tired? These are the questions that I have to consider on a daily basis.

Okay… back to the lasagna, Squirm woke and I quickly piled them into the car only to find that it wouldn’t start. I did my mental check, did I leave the lights on or a door open or… then I remembered that that morning Wrigglebot had been playing in the car discovering all sorts of funny levers and switches. My battery was flat. I was in a pickle so I did what every girl does and call not Husband but Dad who came and jump-started the car. I went and bought the lasagna, came home put Wrigglebot in bed, fed and changed Squirm and that night we had the lasagna and it was good.

Wrigglebot is starting to form words so my new career as master translator has begun. It continually surprises me how many words b.. can be. We have bir (bird) bo..n (bonnie- the dog) brew (broom) by (bike) and that’s just the b words. It takes a delicate ear to deduce meaning from the limited syllables offered but we are getting there slowly.

On the other hand Squirm is beginning to express herself both through her body language and grunting. So far I have figured out that a fist to the forehead means she is sleepy and incessant grunting means she needs to be put on her stomach so some wind can escape.

As a family we are getting there, I feel like we are just beginning to speak the same language (kind of). With each change though there is always danger and at the moment the danger is that Wrigglebot has learnt the word ‘more’ and of course it only ever refers to food.

I like routine, I am very much a creature of habit; for example when I went to uni I parked in the exact same car park for three years even if that meant getting there an hour earlier in order to secure the park. Having said that it still surprises me that Wrigglebot is showing some of the same tendencies. Anything which is new, even if it looks like it is a lot of fun, needs to sit around for a while until it is commonplace and then he will play with it.  For those who visit my house this currently explains the tricycle in the middle of the dining room.

If we go to a new place he will observe for a long time before venturing forth to play. Sometimes it gets a little ridiculous, Wrigglebot has a green hat which he loves and will wear all the time, one time I forgot to pack it when he went his grandmother’s so she had a different hat for him to wear.  Each time she tried to put it on him he would cry and hide in fear of the hat. This isn’t a big deal except that little boys grow, clothes wear out and heads become bigger.

My days have been filled lately with little hands reaching for mine. Wrigglebot knows our house, there is no reason for me to be with him all the time and yet his little hands are constantly reaching for mine to show me his latest discovery or desire. I think it is just a stage he is going through and it is kind of cute… except at six in the morning when he searches for my hands underneath the covers in an attempt to pull me out of bed, that is when the hiding comes in. I will hide my hands and then for a while he is confused until he tries to pick me up, as an adult would a baby, he isn’t successful.

Now, Wrigglebot is getting even more clever, if I am holding Squirm, he will either try and take her out of my hands or point to her play mat on the ground until I put her down and he can grap my hand.  I always thought that I, the parent, would be the one dragging the child around the shopping centre but right now the child is the one dragging the parent around the house.