Moving.

After moving 30 times in 40 years, I can truly say - there is nothing worse than moving with a toddler and a 7 week old babe. Add to this potent mixture, the kind of dark 'bad luck' cloud that follows me around (think: Pigpen's dirt cloud, but make my cloud the kind of miasmic force that sucks all the smiles out of people around you and drives you to the vodka bottle at 10am), and a hub who just doesn't get it - and you have the latest life experience of the Stressmagnet.

Vignettes from possibly the worst day in my life...

Scene #1:

Fucketty.

So hub decides two weeks before the move that it is all too hard, and coping with packing up his beloved 20 year old Michael Jackson jacket coupled with the youngest Magnet's screaming colic from 5pm - 10pm is not something he wants to experience. But he cleverly hides this under the guise of 'working late' - so I attempt to pack up the entire 3 bedroom house on my own, while juggling wet and pooey nappies and muttering 'that's beautiful' to my toddler's latest attempt to draw a cow. I take revenge by donating said jacket and all other remnants of his 'chick magnet' days to the Salvation Army. Hopefully some other poor sod will have better luck than he had - cos he ain't magnetising any poontang in our house lately.

Scene #2

The financial arrangements are tricky. We must receive the cheque for our house at the exact same time that we relay said cheque to the person whose house we've bought. We are assured by Hatchetface, Snidemouth and Foghorn (our attornies) that this sort of thing goes on all the time - not to worry. I worry. I worry HEAPS, but am patted fondly on the head by soon-to-be-castrated husband and told to 'be optimistic'. I resist urge to chew his hand off and make him wear it as a hat.

Scene #3

The movers arrive. I haven't cleaned out the fridge, there are bits and pieces of crap all over the place and the garbage remains festering in the corner of the kitchen. I am throwing out jars of moldy pesto and 3 year old frozen puff pastry and trying to remember how you pack a carton of eggs. (Answer: You don't. You cram them into the garbage and hope someone else picks up the dripping bundle.)

Scene #4

The movers move us, quickly, efficiently - so efficiently that I am reduced to frantically chucking stuff in boxes as they are being carted out the door. (The baby's bottles? They are in the box marked 'Tools and Chainsaws'). Boxes are being taped up completely unlabelled, and I am writing things like 'Fishing Shit' on them in crayon.

Scene #5

A phone call from Hatchetface. A one in a million catastrophe has occurred. The taxation office, (to whom we must pay a whopping $16k for the privilege of selling our home) has been flooded and will be accepting no monies. There will be no houses settled in the entire state. Ergo, there will be no cheques exchanged. Further ergo, we have NO FUCKING PLACE TO LIVE. The christian fundamentalist person who owns the home we are about to move into, refuses to let us move in, without a cheque in his hand. Because we might steal his house. Or something. He won't even let us store anything in his garage. I guess he won't know where we live. Or something. The people who are moving into our old place, are on the way. And besides, we've just loaded the beds and the fridge onto the  truck, so unless camping on hardwood floors and eating dust and lint sounds like good parenting practice - we are screwed. The movers have just about got us all ready to go.

Scene #6

Hub springs into action, busily dialling phone numbers and making lots of air. This gives him an excuse NOT to continue packing. The movers stand around, and spark up a Bob Marley joint. Courtesy of PhoneBoy, who waves merrily at me while his phone is attached to his ear. Uh. Oh.

They stand around for 4 hours, toking and smiling, nodding and patting me on the back when I contemplate where I am going to put my babies to sleep that night. My children are hungry, we are now 4 hours behind schedule and the cooler is full of food that requires some sort of cooking. I go out to the corner store and spend my last 5 bucks on a cheese sandwich for the toddler and some juice.

Scene #7

Mr. Person-Who-Shall-Have-a-Biblical-Plague-of-Boils-Visited-Upon-His-Penis, in christian-like fashion, allows us to  stay in 'our' house if we pay him $100 bucks a night. Up front.

Um - did I mention thatwe have no money until  the cheque clears?

So I write a rubber cheque. Crossing my fingers that the same God who looks after Mr. BoilPrick will not be looking my way as I use an old invalid cheque book. Hey - screw him. What kind of born-again christian takes advantage of a woman recovering from a nasty c-section with a 3 year old and a 7 week old? Not my God, that's for sure.

Scene#8

The movers finish unloading at 10pm that night. I have not fed my toddler anything more than crackers and juice in 6 hours. The youngest is sitting in nappies so sodden with whizz that she leaves her own personal patch of swamp everywhere she sits.

Scene #9

We have no phone. The phone company, despite being booked 4 weeks in advance, has not connected our phone. That's the kind of service that makes telcos here in Oz a bad word. I say a lot of bad words as I contemplate the following:

We have no food, no money, no beds in any state of slumber readiness, no way to phone for food and oh yes- no fucking money.

Scene #10

Here we are in Numptyville, where there has been entirely too much cousin marrying going on, and no one seems to understand that the fence that we paid for, is required in order to let a toddler and Houdini-the-dog out for fresh air. 'Jethro' the fence guy seems more prone to smoking doobies behind the gumtree and scratching his nuts, than putting up a fence. Someone call his wife Lurleen and tell her to come and take him away before I smash him over the head with a banjo and make him squeal like a piggy.

Scene #11

A week later. The phone has been connected only minutes ago. The cheques all got exchanged, and we are now fully in possession of our own home. It looks like a refugee camp, however - with boxes and mattresses all over the place. It took me six days to find my children's shoes. I still have not found the coffee maker, I suspect it is in a box labelled 'Chainsaws'. I am wearing a University of Toronto sweatshirt in 90 degree heat, with a pair of my hub's soccer shorts. My child is wearing a caftan picked up 20 years ago as a souvenir of Goa. The baby has a case of nappy-rash that should be reported to the World Health Organisation, a direct result of the day she sat in her own pee for 6 hours.

Next time, my children will be sedated. Next time I will be sedated. Next time, I will take a vacation in Bali and let someone else do all the worrying and handle all the catastrophes.

Wait, maybe there won't be a 'next time'. I can always learn to play the banjo.

Battles.

(conversation)

Me: "So Mousey, what would you like for your birthday?"(March 20th)
Mouse: "I would like a Barbie."
Me: "Mummy doesn't like Barbie."
Her: (thinking hard) "I like Barbie."
Me: "But Mummy doesn't like Barbie. Would you like a tent to play in and sleep in and pretend in?"
Her: "Can it be a Barbie tent? With Barbie on it? And pink like Barbie with sparkles??? And flowers????"
Me: "Mummy doesn't like Barbie. What cake would  you like?"
Her: "Can I have a Barbie cake? And she would be on it and say Happy Birthday to Me and be so pretty.
Me: "What about a Fairy Cake? Mummy doesn't like Barbie."
Her: But WHY?????"
Me: (thinking) do I tell her that I don't like Barbie because she has impossible body proportions, only cares about marrying Ken and because there are no Barbie Brain Surgeons or Barbie Astrophysicists just Barbie Hair Stylists and Barbie Flight Attendants? "Because she's yucky. That's why."
Her: (thinking hard) "But I like Barbie. I would like a Barbie cake, and Barbie sweeties and a Barbie with real hair and I could brush it and take her to the movies and I would love her very much."

So endeth Feminism 101.

 

And I've been thinking I really don't 'do' children very well. My hub has been great - he takes the kidlets out for a jaunt on the weekends and takes an (admittedly minor) interest in spelling me on the night feeds twice a week.

But really, it's all seeming like years and years of endless drudgery. My days are filled with laundry, cleaning, cooking, picking up, kissing booboos, cleaning up poop, wiping up spills, wiping asses, feeding baby, feeding toddler, dressing and changing various warm bodies, coping with a 5 hour screaming jag at the end of the day, getting up to feed, getting up to soothe toddlers who are having nightmares... and frankly, I think I suck at it.

I know I don't like it very much. I know, when I was younger and imagined my life, I wasn't dealing with being puked on, or shat on or cooking some godawful boring dinner one-handed while cradling baby and having the world's most boring conversation about whether Elmo is a boy or a girl. And if he IS a girl, why doesn't he wear dresses and what do you mean all  girls don't have to wear dresses....

I had the revolutionary thought yesterday, (at 8pm when the baby had been crying on and off for 3 hours with her regular attack of colic), that I wanted to run away. But what about leaving Hub with the kids? What about the damage it would do to the kids psyches?

I didn't care. For the first time since I became a mother, I didn't give a rats. I just want to be somewhere where someone isn't plucking at my sleeve every 10 minutes, where I am not on edge waiting for the next scream fest, where I am not the only person in the house who knows where he left his wallet, and where my 'time off' doesn't consist of sleeping or housework.

I used to be fun. I used to be interesting. I could debate anyone on anything. I used to be able to talk intelligently about 19th century literature and I loved it. I could quote Shakespeare and Milton and John Donne.

I went to art galleries for fun. I went to museums for fun. I went to the Opera, I went to rock concerts (not pop, rock - like say... Live or Metallica), and I went to jazz clubs and looked mysteriously smoky and beautiful to men in expensive suits.

I used to dance on tables at parties. I cold bust a move better than most white chicks born. People wanted to hang out with me, I made them laugh till they cried.

And yeah, I know that most of this is superfical shit, and a better and more balanced person would be eternally grateful for the chance to affect new lives and raise wonderful human beings, but all of that superfical shit was ME. And I miss it.

So what am I going to do?

I am going to be a responsible mother, be the dull grey person I have become, and go see my doctor and tell him I think I am beginning to suffer post-natal depression. And he'll medicate me so all the loss and the loneliness will be stifled and I can go on living my boring grey colourless life, endlessly wiping up and cleaning. And be a good mother to my children.

I won't be running away. FUCK.

Babies.

Lookit, I am not going to write about anything important except my own meandering thoughts on just how it is that babies manage to survive the first 6 months on life here on earth. So if you want witty political commentary, or heartfelt angst - keep browsing. Someone out there is less tunnel visioned than I, today.

Babies.

I figure the only damn reason they are cute in the first 6 weeks is so they don't end up abandoned on the steps of the orphanage in a blizzard on Day 3. I am lucky I grow very cute babies. They are very lucky also.

I have babies that do not sleep. I am not talking about the regular run of the mill babies, who sleep for 3 or 4 hours at a time, but babies who sleep for 20 minutes at a time. Just enough time to feel yourself drifting off ... and then the grizzling and grumbling starts. Can someone tell me, how a life that's only been on the planet for 3 weeks can exist in 20 minute sleep blocks? Even goldfish sleep longer. Hell I bet I can find paramecium who sleep longer. Higher life form, my ass.

So for those of you who've blessedly missed (or chose to miss, smart things) the bliss of new parentdom and sleep deprivation - when your child sleeps 20 minutes out of an hour - this is how your day breaks down:

8am - 9am - feed and cajole child to stay awake so you don't take 2 hours to feed.

9am - 9:20am - little nap. Nothing wakes or prevents child from sleeping. It's like trying to deal with a big warm blob of playdo.

9:21am - 11:45am - screaming, fussing, crying and grizzling begins. All attempts to settle babe back into that bliss state known as sleep fails. Resort to carrying bub on shoulder, while doing jigsaw puzzles in my puke stained nightgown with toddler, avoiding sight of sad sorry self in mirror. Muse that this is the last sight your husband saw before he went off to work with young taut terrific office hotties.

11:45 - 12:45pm - feed. See as before.

12:45pm - 4:00pm. Go out for a walk with toddler and baby, who is surprisingly content looking at the world for about 2.5 hours more than every fucking parenting book tells me is healthy. Baby resists all attempts to shut off the outside world and allow her to wind down. Mama gives up and thinks longingly of the gin bottle in the freezer. Toddler naps from 1 - 3pm, while mama does the dishes and picks up the house one handed, with leaking boobs.

4:01pm - 5:01pm - feed. See as before. Add in Toddler dancing around screaming for her dinner and shaking loud annoying rattle in baby's face.

5:02pm - 8:02pm - Prepare dinner. Leave baby on the floor since babies and ovens should not be juxtaposed in my current frame of mind. Tell Toddler not to step on baby, not to shake annoying rattle in her face, not to scrub her face with a bath towel, not to shriek 'LOOOK AT ME BABEEE', not to perform somersaults over the baby, not to feed baby bright green playdo, not to feed the baby CocoaPops, and quite frankly not to do any damn thing. Feed Toddler some sort of yucky meal that she hates and won't eat without serious threats of child abandonment. Read story to Toddler, avoid poking still awake baby in the eye with Cat in the Hat. Put Toddler to bed one handed. Get sippy cup, get extra blanket, take Toddler to the toilet 'just one more time', threaten Toddler with dismemberment if she doesn't go to sleep right now.

8:05pm - 8:30pm Make 'big people's dinner'. It looks like shit, prolly cos it's been done one handed. Hub walks in. Don't ask him how his day was, you don't give a fuck. He dealt with grownups all day. Shove wide awake baby in his arms, burst into tears and tell him to feed her before you run away to the Himalayas.

8:35pm - 9:45pm - Attempt to settle baby. Attempt to talk to husband about his shitty day. Dinner is cold, scrape into garbage. Attempt not to ask husband if it was any good - you don't care all that much anyway. Attempt not to snarl, attempt not to cry, attempt not to pour oneself one big motherfucking Gin martini with no ice, no olives and no twist. Attempt not to gulp it down over the kitchen sink in front of husband.

10pm - 11pm. go to bed with baby. Baby sleeps for 40 minutes, during which, you get 20 minutes sleep. AAAAAH, that feels good. Settle baby by putting her on your chest and saying 'sshhh, sshh, sshh' every 10 seconds. Baby falls asleep and so do you.

12am - 1am Baby awake for her feed. Lie there, feeling this is all a horrible nightmare, try the 'sshh, sshh' approach - baby ain't having none of it. Feed baby, use her 20 minutes of nap time to scarf down some chocolate and sneak a smoke - hey, that's dinner.

1am - 4am. Settle baby, drift into sleep, resettle baby, drift into sleep. Discover you are dreaming about George Clooney who you don't even find attractive. That's how fucked in the head you are.

4am - 5am - Give up. Feed baby.

5am - 6am - Drift, George, sleep, more George, settle baby, George again.

6am - Toddler wakes up. So does hub. and the real 'working day' begins.

So you see? If my children weren't cute, they would have little if no chance of survival. And it's no coincidence that babies start to respond to you about the 6 week mark. Cos I figure, that's about the time you are seriously whacked out and in need of either some mood altering drugs or a jacket without sleeves. So that's when they smile, or look very cute. It's a survival mechanism. Cos let's face it, all they do before that is wobble around on necks too small for their big old bald heads, burp, fart, shit, puke, and wobble some more. They are made cute, as blackmail. To guilt you into continuing to go through such torture until they understand the meaning of a hissed snarl to 'go to sleep' at 3am.

One last thing - and the biggest trick of survival is that you, the parents, manage to blank out all this hell, so you have more. That's the real reason to be sleep deprived. So 9 months down the track, when the babe is seriously cute and getting lots of 'oohs' and 'aahs' from old crusties at the bus stop - you cannot remember just how bad it was. And so you decide to have another.

And that's my theory of babies.

Now someone tell me why I am dreaming about George Clooney.

Spinning.

Don't know whether I am coming or going. I spent such a lot of time feeling guilty about bringing another child into Mouse's world, worried she'd feel neglected, worried she'd feel unloved.

Well BAH.

All I want is for my oldest child to leave my youngest child the HELL alone. Stop patting her, stop shrieking with glee when bub burps and startling her onto the ceiling, stop sneaking sucks of her pacifier, stop jumping up and down to entertain her - just. stop.

Before my head swells into an ectoplasmic bubble and I wish you into the netherworld.

My first daughter has never looked so huge, so unwieldy, so dangerous. She doesn't mean to, but every movement she makes is one that fills me with panic that my youngest child will end up splattered all over the carpet.

Somehow, I need to let go of this. Or I will have a little first girl who's feeling seriously unloved and unwanted. It's hard to find the time to spend with her - when the newborn sucks every ounce of energy out of your body like a remora. And it's hard not to resent my bouncing big girl when  she hurtles through the house at top speed, yelling some sort of nonsense that only 3 weeks ago - I'd have found charming, but now I find just plain annoying. After all, it usually wakes the baby.

And I find myself, perversely resenting that inevitably, the minute I sit down to cuddle with my big girl, to read her some stories, to smell her and get some of that motherlovin' feeling back - No#2 child starts caterwauling and I have to stop and tend to her. Not fair.

*sigh*

And as for No#2 child. I have realised with a cold dark knowledge, that for the next 9 months or so - what I see is what I get. No feedback, little interaction - just a lovely warm blob who wants to suck suck suck all day and rip explosions in her nappies. After experiencing the delights of an articulate cuddly toddler, holding out for that first smile or that first garbled word from No.#2 child  is going to feel like strip mining.

This motherhood gig. Just when you think you have it ALL worked out, it throws you a curve.

Stay tuned, I am  sure there will be all sorts of interesting dramas in the weeks to come.

TADA!!!!

At 12:11 pm (Sydney time)on Feb 12th 2003, Buddhagirl came into the world at a whopping 10 pounds,3oz. Mama doing fine and hoping to cram some writing  in, now that she has more to talk about than her 'rhoids, her gigantic ankles and how much she hates being pregnant in 100 degree heat.

Rumour has it, there's more out there to write about. But hey, take a peek at what interfered with my writing over the last couple of months. I think I'll keep her.

Resolved.

• To be more patient, with myself, with my partner and with my child.


• To be more forgiving of mistakes. Everyone makes them, even me.


• To be less pessimistic. The world is not about to end everytime something goes wrong. Perhaps it is merely being sidetracked for a while.


• To be more accepting. Of situations, of people and of myself. I am not perfect, despite my attempts, and I imagine that other people have the same demons as I do. Just be, instead of control.


• To tackle one thing this year that scares me.


• To set aside time every day for me that isn't sucked into websurfing or television. To read, to learn, to write.


• To learn to tango.


• To plot my novel.


• To overcome my revulsion at sewing and learn to do it. I will not be beaten by darts and overlocking.


• To be nicer to my mother-in-law and stop fantasing about perfect ways to murder her.


• To allow more intimacy. To let people in, instead of keeping them at arms length. Life is too short to go through it crippled.


• To be a better friend.

(sorry, I've been on modified bedrest for the past week and a bit. I say 'modified' because who can lie in bed all day with a toddler and a hub to look after?. Which brings me to today's topic...)

Rage.

I'd like to just say this before I begin. I love my child more than I love myself. I would gladly breathe for her, and die for her. I cannot imagine how grey my world would be if she wasn't in it. So you know this, okay?

This pregancy has been really hard on me. I've been incredibly tired, I've been aching and in pain almost every day and my patience - never my strong suit - has been sorely tested this past week. I find myself almost incoherent with rage.

So this morning, when I yanked my child's nightgown over her head and told her I was going to throw Elmo in the garbage, I think I really meant it. Last night, I lay awake wondering if I really did threaten to give all her toys to poor children and tell Santa not to come. I think I really just wanted her to stop arguing with me about picking the damn things up.  But I know I meant it at the time.

I have slammed the door to her room so hard that her nameplate fell off the door and shouted with such rage and anger when she talked back that you would have thought that she had threatened to kill me.

Where is this coming from?

She is a good kid. Even compared to the toddler horror stories, her little lapses are minor compared to other children's. She is kind, she is gentle and she is so cuddly. She loves me. Any manifestation lately of her own independence has me inchoate with rage. It's like she is fucking with me deliberately.

All I want is a simple ordered life right now. When my pelvis feels as if it's going to split in two, I do not want to have to get down on my hands and knees and debate the ethics of sitting on the potty until something happens. Just do it, okay?

There have been times lately, where I honestly thought I was capable of smacking her silly. Not that I've done it, but I could visualise it. It would have felt good. (Note: I have managed to step firmly back from the impulse, but if you can't - please go and see someone.  Get some help, or email me, cos I do understand how you must have felt the second before you did it.)

So. How does this happen? How does someone who would murder anyone who even called their kids names - get to the point where she could cheerfully get a whacking stick?

this is what I think.

I think that mothers get angry with their kids because they can. Because most mothers get bored and restless watching their kids and doing housework all day, and no matter how wonderful motherhood is, the 50th conversation about the big blue truck can have you wanting to throw yourself down the stairs. But you can't. Because it's not about YOU, it's about THEM.

Imagine hissing angrily to one of your adult friends "Get in here right now. I mean it! This second, I'll give you till three or it will be so ugly." Or talking to a salesperson in a shop who turns away mid-sentence to ignore you, and you grabbing their arm and saying 'Don't you DARE turn away from me when I am speaking to you."

You can't. If your adult interactions were based on your secret angry self, they'd make the anti-dracula sign when they saw you coming. They would see you for what you are - human, flawed, with ugliness, with strife and they wouldn't want anything to do with you. But these people only hang around for bits of your life - they don't see the whole you.

But kids. Kids are 24 hours, 7 days a week. Their list of needs is so overwhelming and immediate that when you blow up at them, it might be as simple as just letting off some steam that you can't let off anywhere else. And they give you plenty to let off steam about. The torture of waking every night at 4am to soothe a nightmarish kid who then proceeds to kick you awake for 2 hours until it's time to get up and face the day - makes you chronically tired, resentful and... angry. Having to listen to a precis of Franklin the Turtle that takes 25 minutes is like being bashed in the head with a rubber hammer. 'So then... then... the turtle, I mean the BEAR got LOST... listen to me Mummy, you aren't listening... and the kite went up in the sky - I am not finished yet... and the the the Franklin went on his bike and You aren't listening to me... his mummy was making a cake and then the bear said it was his cake... and he asked but then it wasn't... Mummy LISTEN TO ME..." Ack ack ack.

Listen, I don't discriminate against kids. If Plato himself wanted to describe The Republic to me like this I would get seriously shitty with him too.

And that builds up. Kids give you lots to yell about too. Say for instance, that your almost 3 big girl is going thru a stage where she only wants to wear her ballerina tutu. With a grownup friend, you could calmly explain that the tutu is in the wash since it was dirty, and since you were up cleaning the house for an inspection that it didn't get done and you really aren't feeling that well, but you promise to do it as soon as you can. And besides, they've worn it 3 days in a row. That would get accepted, right?

Not with a child. They don't understand and most importantly, they don't wish to. They have a red button in their heads that they push and they go nuclear. They may throw a tantrum, weep copiously, slam doors or not talk to you - but in all cases, they are so completely and utterly unreasonable and capable of such mean spirited behaviour towards you that you are stricken with hurt and grief that it's all come to this. Cos you didn't wash the tutu.

And this is so much harder than you imagined. The gap between where you are, and where they are is a large echoing chasm that is filled with the complete lack of anything you can give them to make it right.

They don't give you credit for standing in line, hugely pregnant to get The Wiggles tickets, or for washing the damn tutu at 3am, or for generously sharing your bed 6 nights out of 7, or for organising playdates with kids whose mothers truly do suck... You have let them down. You miserable person. And you get resentful. You want to shake them and say... "Do I get any credit for any of this at all?" And so it goes. You go KABOOOOOOOOM.

What has helped me is realising that when I think I am starting at 1 on a scale of anger and hitting 100 in record speed over an unwashed tutu - is that I am actually staring at about 70. All the times I got no feedback or thanks or any kind of pat on the back builds up.  And if all day I've been nurturing some anger at my best friend, or my husband or the guy who bags the groceries - I stuff it down, because I can't go KABOOM in public, can I?  So when it's 8pm and you've already read 6 MaisyBanalMouse stories and tucked in and gotten sippy cups and found Elmo and finally you are flaked in front of the tv ready to END your day... it starts. "Mummy, it's too windy...Mummmy, the fan.. it's too blowy....MUUUUMMMY" So you reach down and find a reserve of patience and go in and turn the fan down and then listen to another mini-synopsis of Franklin the turtle and go back out. And no sooner do you sit down then up it starts again. "Mummy, need a cuddle, Mummy come talk to me..." And you can feel the rage at not even getting 10 fucking minutes peace to yourself boiling under the surface. But you stamp it down and wander in, and smooth hair back from foreheads and kiss and give 'just one more' cuddle and go back out. But she's little and wrapped up in her own self absorption and cannot fathom that you've done enough and you don't have much more in you... and so it starts again. "Mummmmy...." and you screech from the living room... "SHUT THE FUCK UP! GO TO FUCKING SLEEP BEFORE I COME IN THERE AND GIVE YOU WHAT FOR" Um, yeah. She feels much more secure and safe now, doesn't she?

And you feel like shit. I think admitting we do this, helps. I think talking about it helps, and most importantly I think being heard, helps.  Not being judged or judging, but just knowing that we are like all the other parents in the world trying to do our best and find our way and fucking up.

So last night that scenario played out. There was a deafening silence after my outburst. I sat still, waiting for the tears. It was quiet. So I got up to look, and found her in my bed, face pressed against my nightie, cuddling my pillow. Smelling me, wrapped around something that was me. Somehow, I think she needed to find me, even if I didn't want to be found. It was humbling.

Death.

When I think of heaven
Deliver me in a black-winged bird
I think of flying
down into a sea of pens and feathers
and all other instruments of faith and sex and God
In the belly of a black-winged bird
Don't try to feed me
cuz' I've been here before and I deserve a little more
- Counting Crows - Rain King.

I've been thinking quite a lot about dying lately. Dying as in 'happening to me' not as in some far-off existential loop of my brain.

It's been a real shock.

Let me explain. I am 7 months pregnant with what will be my second and last child. My first child was delivered via emergency c-section 2 weeks early, since my liver was about to rupture. This is due to an odd anomalous condition which seems to have no discernible cause, called HELLP syndrome. HELLP syndrome is a by-product of pregnancy for a rare group of women, unfortunately, if you got it with your first, you've a 25% chance of getting it again.

HELLP syndrome can result in liver rupture, blindness, kidney damage, brain damage, fetal retardation and er... death.

Death for me, death for the baby.

And the scary thing is that it really comes on very suddenly, and in early stages, masquerades as a host of benign things - none of which would send you to a doctor. Most notably fluid retention.

So now you know.

My hands resemble sausages and my face is a moonpie and my feet no longer fit into the Birkenstocks my parents gave me the last time I was pregnant. I have mild heartburn, dots in front of my eyes when I bend over and generally feel like crap.

And I am so scared.

I am scared because THIS time, I know the risks to myself and my baby. The last time was a horrible unforeseen event and I was blissfully ignorant. This time, I am not so lucky.

I look at my daughter as she busily whacks her dollies and sends them to the corner for time-out and hope that isn't what she has internalised of my mothering. I hope she'll remember more than just a vague blurry outline of a woman stroking her damp head after a nightmare, or kissing her tummy - but I doubt it, she's so young.

What kind of a mother leaves her daughter behind before she's three? I am so angry at myself. Angry that I didn't do more research, listen to the doctors, that I was so selfish in my desire to have another a child that I blinded myself to the fact that with Lupus, a history of this and being over 35 - I was a prime candidate to get this again.

What is the point of having another child if you aren't around to mother it? Or leaving the child you've already got, motherless? I'd like to kick myself.

I am selfish. I want to be around to argue with my kids over their choice of clothing, or their stupid haircuts. I want to drag my underage daughters out of bars at 3am, and get narky with school principals who give them a hard time.

I want healthy girls. I don't want my baby to suffer because I was stupid. I'd rather she wasn't here at all if she has to live her life impaired because her mother didn't think past her own selfish heart. How am I going to explain this?

Of course, it may all turn out alright. And I hope fervently that it will. Because my life is certainly NOT in order, I am certainly not the person I wish to be, and certainly, I haven't done everything I want to do. But I may not get a choice in this. And the choice I made got me to this point - which is one of the most pointless and painful realisations I've made in the past couple of days. My choice, my fault.

And all I can bring myself to do is... nothing. I go on as if life is normal, as if I feel fine, as if I am over reacting to it all so as not to alarm anyone. Nodding and smiling and surreptiously sitting down whenever possible. Hoping no one notices that I am not at all well. Because if THEY notice, you see - then it isn't all in my head. Then it's happening. And I then have to confront all the nightmares and dark thoughts that I hide in the back of my head.

So I see the doctor tomorrow, and will get the verdict. Courage.

So many things I haven't done. So many things I regret. And I still hide and smile, because the thought that I might die is so terrible and so awful that I can't get my head around it.

Deal.
I've been sitting here, ruthlessly going through my books, deciding which to keep and which to sell.
We are in a precarious position, with the sale of our house having fallen through, and so we are left with a Cratchit Christmas unless the money fairy appears. Which she won't.
So - I am, as I said, hunched cross-legged on the floor, in front of two floor to ceiling bookcases that are crammed with books of every description, pulling out books at random, deciding what stays and what goes.
It's difficult.
Let me tell you about my relationship with books. I covet books the same way other women might covet jewellery, or the way some people covet cars or pieces of art.
Doesn't matter if the book is a trashy best seller or a first edition, in good shape or in bad - if I haven't read it, then I want it.
I regard bookshops in the same way people view porn shops - something full of temptation, a place where all my lustful thoughts come to bicker and haggle over the latest release.
And there is nothing so self-satisfying to me as lugging home a sack or two bulging with new books. Because therein, begins the ritual of reading.
I spread them out on the bed, and look at them.
I organise them into size and then into cover art.
Then I turn them all over and read the back or the flyleaf.
I group them into genre - poetry, fiction, and non-fiction.
I group them into sub genres - women writers, mysteries, and slice of life stories.
Then I organise them into initial reading order, from 'must read now' to 'when I get time'.
And then, perverse creature that I am, I reorder the books so that I read some that I'd like to keep till later with the ones I am salivating over.
So as not to ruin the anticipation.
Given this addiction, it is no small wonder that every room in our house used to be crammed with books from floor to ceiling. But recent circumstances have necessitated the gradual reduction in sheer volume, until all that is left, are the treasured ones and the old friends, sitting in two bookcases in our family room. The ones that have made it through 4 turns of the scythe, but I can save them no more.
I begin to choose.
I pull out John Cheever, and touch the bright red cover of 'The Stories.'  I am on my 3rd copy of this book, and it has survived six moves and a travel across the world simply on the strength of the story called 'The Swimmer':
"…He dove in, and swam the pool, but when he tried to haul himself up onto the curb he found that the strength in his arms and shoulders had gone, and he paddled to the ladder and climbed out.  Looking over his shoulder, he saw in the light from the bathhouse, a young man. Going out onto the dark lawn, he smelled chrysanthemums or marigolds - some stubborn autumnal fragrance - on the night as strong as gas. Looking overhead he saw that the stars had come out, but why should he seem to see Andromeda and Cepheus and Cassiopeia? What had become of the constellations of midsummer? He began to cry."
Or this, from Norman McLean's 'A River Runs Through It':
"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters."
I lean towards a book sticking out where I shoved hastily the night before when I'd been reading at 4am. Funny choice for a woman in crisis, this book - Anita Shreve's 'The Pilots' Wife':
"She took her wedding ring from her finger and dropped it into the ocean. She knew that the divers would never find Jack, t hat he no longer existed.
'You all right then?'
The young fisherman leaned out of the wheelhouse, one hand on the wheel. His forehead was creased and he looked worried.
She smiled briefly at him and nodded.
To be relieved of love, she thought, was to give up a terrible burden."
And lastly, I run my fingers over my poetry collection. There he is, Raymond Carver. The man who made me realise you could write importantly about unimportant things:
All Her Life -
I lay down for a nap. Bt every time I closed my eyes.
Mare's tails passed slowly over the Strait.
Toward Canada. And the waves. They rolled up on the beach
And then back again. You know I don't dream.
But last night I dreamt we were watching
a burial at sea. At first I was astonished.
And then filled with regret. But you
Touched my arm and said, "No, its all right.
She was very old, and he'd loved her all her life."

These and some others, I will keep.  It is too big a loss to me to let them go. They have sustained me, enlightened me and filled me with wonder that words can have such power. They aren't pretty, they aren't bestsellers, they are simply everything that matters to me captured in ink and paper. The pages are yellowed and fall out when I turn them. They have coffee stains on the covers where I read while juggling breakfast for 3, they have dog-eared pages where they were hastily closed in response to a call from my child. They have notes in the margins, they have jam stuck pages, and they are curdled and rippled from being read in the bath.  I'e swatted insects with them on camping trips and the covers are tattered from being jammed in my purse between the sippy cup and the extra diaper. But they are old friends, old lovers and old memories, all bound together by the simply act of someone writing to be read. Of writing to be heard and understood.

The others, with their bright covers, and clever reviews, can get boxed and sent to the bookstore. There, they will be looked over, and valued and haggled over. They are just books. Books to be exchanged for enough cash to buy a fairy wand, a dolly with real blue eyes that open and close, and a pink bicycle with streamers.
It's a fair exchange.

Answers.

From Dwaber's site, natch.

1.  What is the worst advice you've ever gotten?

Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free. (discussing living with my boyfriend) PUHLEESE. This demeans men as mere milkers, and women as just dumb beasts. Sorry Mum.

2.  What's the lamest (or bestest) pick-up line you ever heard? 

Worst: "Has anyone ever told you that you have beautful eyes" Duh. No. I've had these eyes for umpteen years and no one, EVAH has told me they are beautiful.

Best: "If I can make you laugh, will you have dinner with me?" A man who can make me laugh is 90% of the way WAY past dinner, baby.

3.  What gives you peace?

Not much lately.

4.  How would you orchestrate the perfect evening, if money were no object?

A balloon ride over Sydney Harbour, drinking Krug champagne, then a water taxi to Tetsuya's restaurant to sample the finest japanese fusion food in the South Pacific, finished by drinks at Level51 watching the sun set over the Opera House. If you are still game, then we'd head off to Liquid, the hippest happening club and dance our socks off until way too late - and then grab breakfast (eggs florentine) at Ravesi's at Bondi beach while we watched the surfers, ate up the sun and the sea breezes and drank Bloody Marys.

5.  What have you tried--and failed--to understand?

I got lost in Stephen Hawkings 'A Brief History of Time'. I tried mightily to comprehend the twin theory (one twin gets shot into space, the other doesn't and one ....er... is older. I think. My head hurts.) I shouldn't have cheated my way thru High School Physics, obviously.

6.  Who has had the greatest impact on your life, but doesn't know it, and probably never will.  What was the nature of that impact?

My grandfather. He died when I was 12, and I never ever got to tell him how his kindness and humour rounded out my character and smoothed out the spiky adolescent edges.

7.  What have you hidden?

The odd bill, the odd impulse purchase - but not for long. I tend to be upfront about everything, or it doesn't happen.

8.  Can you describe a situation in which you would consider it okay to lie? 

There's not many. Perhaps if the truth would serve only to wound or destroy. Often, people cling to their illusions, and you do no service by ripping them apart.

9.  Who knows you best?

No one. Not a living soul.

10.  What is irresistible?

Expensive chocolate, fast cars, my child's tummy/neck/bottom, a stack of new books, a hot bath on a cold day.