The Year of the Monkey

As I sit to write, I find that I'm at a loss for words. This very long gap since the last post has been deliberate; I just haven't been able to put words to the experience of the past year, but now that I have a one-year-old in my life, I feel I must speak something about it! As a good friend of mine observed, all of the words to describe the experience of motherhood have already been used. While this feels true, I have come to find it quite comforting, and I will endeavour to add mine to the mix.

I don't know where to begin. I was pregnant, and now I have a real person in my life - one with opinions, tastes, expressions, devilish giggles and blond curls and the most wonderful pot belly you've ever seen. She laughs and howls and wriggles and dances. We call her our little monkey. In between her birth and now, everything feels a blur. There have been hundreds and hundreds of breastfeeds, bottle feeds, snacks, nappies, tears, naps (well, not so many of those), endless hours pushing prams and wearing slings...somehow all of these little actions have added up to make this whole little human who has so worked her way into every little crevice of my heart and home.

The thing I have found most surprising in motherhood so far is that all of the cliches are true. ALL of them. Every humorous anecdote or homily transpires to be absolutely true and I imagine that the ones that don't resonate yet, will. It's amazing how each parent is on their very own journey with their very own unique being to care for in the very particular way they choose to, and yet we are all somehow also sharing the same path, both in our emotions and in how many sticky fluids we are covered in at the end of the day. Before Esmae was born, a friend told us, 'welcome to the club'. At the time I thought that was was such an obnoxious thing to say, but it really rings true now - the past year has taught me the value of solidarity with and compassion for your fellow parent as well as the uniqueness of the experience.

One cliche that I found particular true for me is that having a baby is really all the things. All of them. The past year has been unutterably awful, totally exhausting, hilarious, joyful, life-giving, frightening, empowering, bone-breaking...you get the idea. My emotional range has been stretched open wide and this year has brought some of the absolute lowest moments I can recall, as well as the most incredible joyful highs that would see me walking down the street weeping in gratitude and awe. The good feelings certainly didn't come quickly or easily (and there's a lot of unhelpful things written about the presumed expectation of this). For the first 6 months we battled a displaced hip (mine),tongue-tie (hers), terrible reflux (hers), hardcore sleeplessness (all of us!), as well as all the usual baby things and quite frankly I was just in survival mode for most of it. Some days I didn't really survive and on those days I cried, like, a LOT, I slept in hotels to get more than 40 minutes of uninterrupted sleep, and I was saved time and time again by incredible friends and family to whom I am forever grateful. Once the dust settled, the gushy feelings started seeping and they seem to keep growing as she does. I don't think I'm cut out for the little-baby stage and I didn't enjoy it, but oh my - this little monkey in our lives now has truly captured my heart. We're buddies, she and I. We laugh and we fight and we clash and we giggle and I can scarcely remember life before her.

The other cliche that is true is that it's all totally worth it, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat because reproduction/amnesia is crazy like that. Looking back on this past year, I feel pretty sanguine about it and it's mostly the joyful or humorous little things that rise to the surface of recall (see previous comment about amnesia). Like how for the first few months, your phone autocorrects muslin to Muslim. Aaaawkward. Or how you can now perform all kinds of ninja moves to get out of the baby's room without waking her. Or how your baby's ears will be filled with cake crumbs from so much cake-eating-while-breastfeeding. Or how you've had to perfect the 'squeeze before you sneeze' manoeuvre (can I get an amen, ladies?!). Or how you sometimes find yourself at your friend's door in tears in your pyjamas, covered in baby sick, with a naked baby in your arms because you forgot to put clothes on it, and your friend answers the door and she's in her underwear crying because her baby just rolled off the sofa and you both just cry it out. Oh wait, that one wasn't funny at all.

Anyway, the point is, what a year it has been. The year of the monkey. The year has left me broken and whole all at once, with a new shape to my body and a new shape to my heart.