March 28, 2002

• Mine.

  
  

  My child has the entire house to play in, and she persists in playing under my feet, hanging off the back of my chair, asking for cuddles-mama, and cheerfully yanking anything not nailed down off the desk.

  
  

  I guess this is what it's like when you try and work from home.

  
  

  Mine" she says as she grabs the keyboard, or pulls at the telephone cord.
  "Mine" she says as she lovingly pats my cheek when I pick her up out of desperation and try to type one handed.

  
  

  She rarely naps for longer than 30 minutes. There's too much to do and see.

  
  

  I love her. But I am realising I have no space in this house that is MINE.

  
  

  My bed has become hers most nights. And besides, I share that with my hub. Well I used to. It's hard to share with a toddler in the middle. He usually gives up. Who can blame him? When we do go to bed together - it's not for private time, its for that thing which parents of toddlers snatch at, because it's a long time between innings.

  
  

  And on a rare night when I start off asleep without hub or baby, it's not long before one or the other ends up draped over me, snoring into my hair. Taking an chance, I guess.

  
  

  I walk to the kitchen with a child at my heels, or hanging on my leg. I cook, jumping over toddler stuff. I can weave a ballet of magnificence through trucks and dolls and shoes and toddler debris. I can cook conversing with a 2 year old. I can cook talking to my hub when he comes home. I rarely cook alone.

  
  

  The bathroom isn't mine; because the minute the door is closed, 2-year-old fists bang on it, demanding to learn more about toilet training.  Wanting to see the practical exercise. Or there are shouted questions regarding plans for the weekend or requests for instructions on child care coming from the only other adult in the house. It has taken me 3 weeks to read the Sunday Paper Magazine.

  
  

  The back deck isn't mine, because if I go out there, my child immediately stops whatever she is doing and presses her face against the glass door, flailing at it with her fists, weeping because I have abandoned her.

  
  

  I have this little piece of the rumpus room with a desk and an old chair and a computer - and that's it. And even then, when I am online or working on something - it's not MINE.

  
  

  My child takes the fact that I am sitting down, as an opportunity for a lap and crawls into it, stands on my thighs, musses my hair, and yanks up her shirt to display her belly button for me to blow raspberries onto. I type around her, blowing raspberries with one eye on the monitor.

  
  

  My hub, seeing the back of my head, takes that as an invitation to talk, or ask me a question that requires more than yes, no, uh-uh, for an answer. Or assumes I am pissed off at him when I go monosyllabic cos I am reading or creating. I am not; I just have no physical place to go to be alone with myself, so I need to create one in my head. He ends up hurt. I end up pissed off. And tired of explaining. He is not a man who needs a great deal of personal space.

  
  

  My child is ramming my chair as I write this with her ride-on truck. "Please don't", I say. "Please, don't. Play over there, please." I am begging a 2 year old. I can feel tears in my throat.

  
  

  She rams that damn truck again into my chair and gets it stuck underneath. In her attempt to free it - she smashes my foot. It hurts. I pick up the truck and heave it down the hall in a fit of rage and irritation. It goes a long way. Then I cuddle her, feeling lousy.

  
  

  Maybe I'll get up early tomorrow.

  • 1:31 am
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