Super Mum … it’s a phrase I’ve been on the receiving end of lately and it’s one that leaves me feeling uncomfortable. It implies a mother having it all, doing it all, taking it all in her stride and not letting children hold her back.

It also suggests a mothering hierachy where some mums are deemed ‘super’, ‘superior’ and some are not. I’ve put it with ‘yummy mummy’ at the top of my labels I want banned list.

Aren’t we all super? Isn’t guiding and loving our children enough?

In the middle of these thoughts burst the furore surrounding the lastest Time magazine cover showing a young mother standing while breastfeeding her (rather large looking) three-year-old while he stands on a stool next to her. Next to them both, the bellowing headline ‘Are you Mom enough?’

Cue the outrage.

And rightly so. Not because of a mother feeding her pre-schooler (although many comments I read were quick to call this unnatural and ‘creepy’) but because yet again mothers were publicly pitted against each other with one provocative, pointed question.

The article explored the rise of attachment parenting and its major tenets – extended breastfeeding, babywearing, cosleeping – while providing a glimpse into the lives of families who adhered to this method.

So why not leave it at that? Why isn’t the article sold as a case study on a rising parenting trend? Why the embedded challenge to mothers?

Well, controversy sells. And nothing is more guaranteed to raise hackles than suggesting that mothers aren’t doing enough or being enough based on the parenting approach they use.

But you know what? If we choose to say ENOUGH, those hackles won’t rise so quickly and we may just find that we judge ourselves and each other less harshly. Well that’s my theory.

If we all own our parenting choices as being right for us and give all other parents the freedom to do the same, would we be as quick to judge others or feel judged ourselves? Be that by a media headline, or a new acquaintance in a mothers group.

Maybe I dream of a mothering utopia that just isn’t meant to exist but it’s worth a try, hey?

So repeat after me … I AM ENOUGH and so are you … that’s what’s really super.

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Post tags: are you mom enough, mothering utopia, own it, super mum, Time May Cover 2012

Wine and I, we’ve been what I would call close friends for around 15 years.

It started with a bottle of Queen Adelaide dry red for a cheap buzz, meandering through the bottle of chardy shared with girlfriends stage up to the couple-y connoisseur stage, visiting wineries and name-dropping more unusual varietals such as Sangoviese and Pinot Grigio.

It was in this brief flirt with wine wankerism that I actually moonlighted as a ‘wine writer’ for a short time. Not nearly as glam as it sounds as it was for a wine business mag, I didn’t get even one bottle of free plonk and I ended up writing off the almost $400 I was owed as I was sick of chasing the money and being met with every excuse under the sun.

Went off on a bit of a tangent there … Where was I? Yes, wine and me.

Sometimes our relationship turned stormy, usually following a night of overindulgence, and we’ve had our times of separation. But the good times outweighed the bad and wine even played an important role in our wedding vows.

Unlike the early days of hanging around pubs and clubs together, my relationship with wine matured into catching up at home over a tasty meal or cheese platter.

Becoming a parent drove a bit of a wedge between us … first while pregnant and then only meeting up occasionally while breastfeeding. The thought of a hangover with a young child meant that when we did meet up, I began to favour quality over quantity. A glass of wine was a relaxing indulgence, a hit of ‘me time’ following a day of kid-wrangling.

After our most recent separation during my pregnancy, we had the chance to become reaquainted thanks to a delivery at my door step from Wine Selectors.

The box at the door contained:

• Riposte by Tim Knappstein No 1 Pinot Noir 2010 from the Adelaide Hills
• Briar Ridge Signature Release Karl Stockhausen Shiraz 2010 from the Hunter Valley
• Helm Classic Dry Riesling 2011 from the Canberra District
• Keith Tulloch 2010 Semillon from the Hunter Valley

Arriving while I was approaching the end of my pregnancy, it was a symbol of impending celebration. However, breastfeeding a newborn and the erratic schedule that involves has meant I haven’t had the chance the try out all the above drops.

I did enjoy a small glass of the Helm Dry Riesling with Chicken San Choy Bow last week – the fruity, sweet tang complemented the Asian flavours and crispy lettuce.

As the weather cools I can hear the Adelaide Hills Pinot calling to me from the cupboard and I would love nothing more to be sipping some now as I write but I have a baby on my lap who has been in a feeding frenzy which makes it hard to relax and enjoy.

However, knowing it’s there waiting for the right time for feet up couch-time under a blanket is a nice thought and reason enough to get some wine delivered for when the right time rolls around. I especially like the idea and promise of trying some new wines rather than just sticking to the old favourites.

Wine and breastfeeding a newborn may not be a convenient idea – but wine home delivery definitely is!

For more information about Wine Selectors’ Regular Deliveries, click here.

How would you describe your relationship with wine? Would you consider a regular wine delivery?

<Disclaimer: This isn’t a sponsored post, but I did receive the wine delivery from Wine Selectors to sample.>

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Post tags: breastfeeding, relationships, wine, wine extras, wine home delivery

Last Saturday was speech therapy time again. We decided to go back to fortnightly visits, after having a four week break encompassing Easter and Hugo’s arrival.

The lesson two weeks’ ago was excruciating. Our speech therapist had alot of great activities lined up for Jarvis, but it was almost too much excitement for him as he attempted to flit between the toys and games, all the while keeping his mouth firmly shut. I was cradling our one week old boy and began to feel slightly panicky as I started to wonder how we would make any more progress with our strong-willed 2 1/2 year old.

The one activity that kept his attention last week was drawing on the white board, so this past fortnight we’ve concentrated on incorporating Jarvis’s key words into drawing and colouring activities, while leaving his concentrated word time to before nap and sleep time during our usual reading time.

While still focusing on ‘core vocab’ words on the flashcards I’d made (see above), the therapist had given us sounds to work on (M and N were our sounds for the fortnight) with corresponding words on cards. We alternated between the two sounds each day in our before bedtime practice time and by the end of last week I could see an improvement.

J was consistently saying the words back to us, and his pronunciation was improving by the day. He was also using more words spontaneously to communicate with us … there were also a couple of ‘two word’ combos creeping in there, which caused much excitement and hand clapping (that was me!).

We just weren’t sure if this improvement would come across in his therapy session. But come Saturday, Jarvis nailed it! Our therapist incorporated some craft activities into the session, while hiding all the possible distractions, and he was enthralled – concentrating on gluing and constructing while the therapist incorporated flash cards for C/K and G sounds.

She was so impressed by his progress that if he continues to improve by our next session in two weeks, she may not need to see us for awhile! I was am so proud of the progress he’s made and pleased that all our hard work and persistence is paying off.

And best of all, I can finally start feeling the communication lines opening up as my boy becomes a more and more confident speaker.

I’ll let you know how the next session goes in a couple of weeks.

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Post tags: breakthrough, core vocab therapy, flashcards, inconsistent speech disorder, speech therapy

Life with a newborn is a reminder to slow down when life has a tendency to go too fast.

First time around I fought against the slow lane for too long, trying to cram in too much into those small windows of opportunity. Trying to do it all, keep all those balls in the air, while in alot of ways things seemed to crumble around me: my old life, my sense of self, my confidence.

What saved me then was realising that I didn’t have to do it all, that our ‘best days’ were the ones where I didn’t watch the clock and despair at how long I’d be feeding and how long he’d been sleeping. Those days, wading through the day responding to my baby, gave me confidence as a mother and made me happy.

Second time around, I’ve eased into the slow lane much quicker … despite the buzzing energy of my toddler boy requiring me to speed up at times.

I don’t watch the clock. I hold my baby without a nagging sense of guilt. I cuddle him close at night without a worry about creating any rods for my back. Yet, I know if he cries a little and I can’t attend to him straight away that this won’t harm him. He is resilient and so am I.

If he seems hungry, I feed him … even if it seems like I only just fed him. There is a rhythm and a pattern to our days, a pulse that beats through them with places to be and things to do but nothing is a strict routine and this works for us.

It’s such a pleasure just to enjoy him and my little family. Life is good in the slow lane … the fast lane will have to wait awhile.

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Post tags: attachment parenting, life with a newborn, taking it slow

This time last week it was finally beginning, after 10 days of waiting the contractions were starting for real. And in just over 4 hours I was holding my baby boy in my arms – all 4.35kg or 9 pound 9 ounce of him.

It was definitely one of those ‘worth the wait’ moments as the overdue angst of the past almost 2 weeks were washed away, along with the fears I carrried about this labour and my unborn child.

I think birth stories are either a ‘love them or hate them’ type thing, sometimes diminishing into ‘this happened’ and then ‘that happened’ type affair that does nothing to capture the specialness of the process and the moment, so I won’t go into the ins and outs of the whole labour and birth.

But what I will share is that the birth of Hugo was everything I hoped that labour and birth could be. The drawn out process that was Jarvis’s birth (which I touch on here and here) left me with a sneaking suspicion that although I cope well in labour, that my body was somehow not up to the full task. My trust in what it could do was left eroded and as much as I tried to push these feelings away, with every day that I again ticked past my due date, I felt this ever more keenly.

So I was so happy that the contractions hit fairly hard and fast and we were soon ringing my midwife and heading into the hospital. It was painful and I was irrational and being a public holiday evening, our run into hospital was as quick as it could possibly be.

We were ushered into the birth centre around 9pm where the lovely midwife on duty burnt Clary Sage and rubbed some into my back and my midwife Nicole arrived shortly after. She started filling the bath, while I laboured on all fours leaning over a bean bag (I am beginning to feel like this is sounding like the birth story I wasn’t going to write).

Adam was massaging my lower back during contractions and I finally felt in control. The lights were dim, Adam put some Florence & The Machine on the stereo and I was soon in the bath, instantly soothed by the warm water.

I stayed in the water until I was starting to feel the urge to push and I started to eye off the bean bag on the floor again. I was scared to leave the safe confines of the water but my body was telling me to leave the water to birth my baby.

It had clicked past midnight by this point, and the three of us were chatting about how this baby must have been waiting for Easter Sunday to be born.

When I moved to the floor, things happened pretty quickly. Adam had changed the stereo to Nick Cave’s slower numbers from his ‘Best of …’ album and I felt really relaxed, singing between contractions and pushing. I never thought I would sing in labour, but there you go. That oxytoxin will make you do some weird shit!

I felt a release at that point, the songs I was singing were special to me and Jarvis. I would sing ‘Into my Arms’ to him when I was pregnant and then when he was born and nothing else would stop him screaming in the car, I would crank up that song and he would stop. It was like our common language.

And so as I sang, I thought of him and all that we’d been through and as the tears fell I felt surrounded by love. It was like at that moment I was finally ready to welcome this new little man into our lives. The fear was finally gone.

And at 12.55am he was here. Adam helped deliver him and was sprayed with a gush of the waters for his trouble (this is his favourite part of the story to tell).

It turns out that our Hugo was the first baby to be born at the Royal Women’s this Easter so we were asked if we would agree to being interviewed by the media and were presented with a GIANT hamper of Easter eggs. So we were on Seven News fleetingly that night and appeared in the paper the next day (article appears here). It was all wonderfully surreal and I can’t help but believe that our little man had somehow planned it that way – like he wanted to enter the world with maximum impact!

So there it is … the story of our little Easter bunny Hugo Raymond. A week on he’s doing really well and it feels like he’s been here with us forever. I look forward to sharing more of his story as we get to know him!

© savemumsanity for Save Mum's Sanity, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: birth story, birthing, Easter baby, labour

Despite my pinings to the universe (via this blog and twitter, predominantly!), I’ve been sitting around here in post-date pregnancy land for the past eight days.

There was some action this time last week and I thought that I’d be spared the lengthy ‘lady in waiting’ stint I endured last pregnancy, but I just ended up vomitting with a few sporadic contractions and ended up pretty badly dehydrated, unable to keep food or liquid down.

At my midwife appointment last Friday, this baby of mine had an elevated heart beat and so did I due to the dehydration. I felt if I went into labour that I wouldn’t be in any state to get through it. I was strapped to the heart rate monitor for over an hour, but as I managed to keep down more water his heart rate improved and the machine registered a few low grade contractions as well, so I felt I could go ‘any time’.

But alas it wasn’t to be. Which in hindsight was a good thing. It’s given my body time to recover and I’m now feeling much more energetic and despite feeling this baby pretty low in my pelvis I’ve been having great nights of slumber with nary a wee stop in sight, which I am so grateful for.

So today I had another midwife appointment, where I’d decided to get a ‘stretch and sweep’. I had one last pregnancy at around the same time and it was not a pleasant experience. I expected slight discomfort, but it was PAINFUL.

The procedure is basically an internal examination taken a little further with the midwife ‘sweeping and stretching’ the cervix with her fingers – which can only be done if the cervix is opened enough to allow it.

This time around it was more on the ‘slight discomfort’ scale rather than painful, which was a big relief. My midwife and I were referring to the process as ‘the swizzle’ and discussed swizzling cocktails while the procedure was underway. I’ve never thought of my cervix as an alcoholic beverage before, but it was a good diversionary tactic.

The good news is that I am already 3cm dilated and the midwife said she could stretch it to 4-5cm, so everything is primed and ready. Last time I was 1-2cm and ended up getting regular contractions a few hours later. So fingers crossed that the swizzle has some effect and this baby boy of mine will be with us very soon.

Feel free to share your ‘swizzle’ experience! Did it work for you?

© savemumsanity for Save Mum's Sanity, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 41 weeks, natural induction techniques, stretch and sweep

Here we are at 40 weeks and hopefully this is the last ever bump photo. I’ve hit the magical ‘due date’ mark and yes, there are still a few hours left for me to birth this child before the clock strikes midnight and we both turn into pumpkins, but we all know that just aint going to happen. Not in this fairy tale.

It’s worth reminding myself at this juncture that I’m not alone in watching the 4o week mark sail past me (for the second time). I turn to google, and yes only 4% of babies are born on their due date.

It seems from my lazy research, around 54% of people with my due date would be holding their baby by now, but that means there would still be around 46% of mums sitting around baby-less looking down at their large bumps and fielding facebook enquiries about the whereabouts of their yet unborn child (some interesting stats, based on an internet survey, can be found here).

Despite crankiness, tiredness and a horrible last burst of constipation which has thankfully been farewelled thanks to prunes and pear juice (you really wanted to know that, didn’t you?), I’m still feeling fine and have an appointment with one of my midwives on Friday if nothing happens between now and then.

In the meantime, I’m happy to take bets on the weight and day of arrival of this baby boy. Maybe I will have an April Fool on my hands? As long as he’s here before Easter, I really don’t care!

Hope to have some news for you all soon! x

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Post tags: 40 weeks pregnant, c'mon baby, due date, post date pregnancy

I thought it was time to add a bit of an update on how J is going with his speech therapy. I’ve just realised this blog of mine has been dominated by bump shots for the last few posts (better late than never, hey?), but really life has been busier than my navel gazing posts suggest.

Jarvis has now been back to the speech therapist twice since his initial consultation. We’re going every three to four weeks at this stage, which means that the bulk of the work is done here at home with the tools we’re given in our sessions.

Our speechie has armed us with a number of print outs with game ideas, exercises and information to draw out J’s words, which have been helpful as well as completely daunting.

I think it’s taken me the last few weeks to get in our stride with the exercises. The studious side of me (which is a fairly large part, I admit) at first found these take home exercises daunting as I felt I had to be doing them all. And in trying to tackle them all, to a pretty apathetic response, I felt I was failing and not doing enough.

But in the last week or so, I’ve realised how much progress we are making by changing the way we weave J’s core vocab words into our everyday play and routine. These things are now becoming second nature, which means it’s easy to feel we’re not really doing anything or not doing enough.

By working with the exercises we’re finding out the way that J prefers to learn and what methods work best to draw his words out.

He’s always been a big fan of books, so we’re working during story time to leave pauses in some of his favourite books for him to jump in with a sound or a word.

He has also been responding really well to some counting and alphabet flash cards we bought, so I’m currently in the process of making up flash cards of his key words and names with corresponding pictures or photos. It’s going to be a craft project this week for J to help glue the pictures on and then I’ll laminate them. I think this will help both him and us weave a bit of focused word time into his play everyday.

The other techniques is to just get out and about and experience things and talk about them during and afterwards. This has always been something I’ve done, but have been taking the talking up a notch hoping it’s sinking in somehow!

He has been repeating quite alot of words back to us now which is heartening and he’s starting to make progress in using them when asking for things ‘pwease’ is now a regular and welcome addition to his repetoire.

Our speechie has also suggested quite a few apps that I’ve downloaded on the iPad and iPhone which have garnered mixed results. I think I’ll dedicate my next ‘speech therapy’ post to this as there really are some great learning apps out there and techniques using this technology.

Many times in my parenting journey with J,  I’ve marvelled at other children that just seemed to reach their milestones with ease and I wanted that for my boy and for my self as well. I struggled with feeling inferior, despite knowing we were doing all the right things.

But I’m happy to say I’m finally finding myself at peace with that old adage that the biggest rewards in life comes from its biggest challenges. And hearing my boy start to utter more and more words is a pretty sweet reward at the moment.

How do you rise to your parenting challenges? Any other parents out there taking their children to a speech therapist? Are you getting results?

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Post tags: core vocab therapy, flashcards, homework, progress, speech therapy

Today marks week 39 of this pregnancy and it’s the point where I’m hoping for a bit of action to start taking place.

You see, with Jarvis my pregnancy stretched to 41 weeks and 3 days. I was well aware that a normal full-term pregnancy stretches from 37 to 42 weeks, but once that magic ‘due date’ passes it’s hard not to feel under pressure.

Pressure from well-meaning friends and relatives and most of all pressure from yourself. Luckily the birth centre where I had Jarvis and where I am going to birth this little man didn’t exert any pressure as they believe in things happening naturally, but the pressure starts to build of its own accord as you approach 42 weeks and know that you can no longer birth in the birth centre and will be facing an induction in the normal birth suites.

So last time I was trying every natural induction trick in the book – the curries, the long walks, the sex, the acupuncture, the evening primrose oil, aromatherapy oils that are supposed to get the uterus moving (clary sage, jasmine and the like) and still he hung in there.

At 41 weeks, following my second acupuncture session, my midwife performed a ‘stretch and sweep’ which is an internal ‘sweeping’ of the membranes that is supposed to get things moving. It’s not a pleasant procedure, despite it’s innocent sounding name. In fact, at one stage in the middle of labour I professed that this was no where near as bad as the stretch and sweep. But as unpleasant as it was, I was in labour by that same evening.

Result, you might say. I say as well. But it’s here that the waters muddy a bit. Sure, I went into labour that Monday night but I didn’t deliver him until Wednesday morning. There’s been fairly thinly-guised questioning from others whether I think that my attempts at eviction (particularly the stretch and sweep) lead to a long labour of a baby that just wasn’t ready to be out yet. Others have questioned why I just didn’t book in an induction. You see, the minute the labour process involves decisions everyone has an opinion.

All you can really do is be educated on the benefits and risks of each decision you make and choose the road you feel the most comfortable with. Which we did. So even though I have questioned my own decisions, especially in light of Jarvis’s facial palsy, I feel I made the best ones for me and if it comes to it, I’ll probably make the same ones again.

But the fact is, I just don’t want to have to make these decisions. I just want to go into labour without the fuss and the seemingly endless waiting.

No matter how zen you think you’ll feel with the whole ‘baby will arrive when he’s ready’ idea, if you’ve been pregnant for that long all zen thoughts and feelings quickly disappear and you feel like clobbering the next person who asks you ‘when are you due’?

So baby bro, if you’re reading this … we’re ready for you to arrive anytime now! Our arms are waiting and your big bro is ready with his best slobbery kiss.

Have you ever endured a ‘post-date’ pregnancy? How did you cope with the pressure? I’d love to hear from anyone who managed to stay relaxed and sane!

*Photo: ‘Get out of mah belllyyy’ – the night labour began with J-boy… 41 weeks pregnant.

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Post tags: 39 weeks preganct, c'mon baby, natural induction techniques, post date pregnancy, stretch and sweep

It’s almost 10am on Monday morning and I’m enjoying my first week of maternity leave. Yee-ha!

It feels weird to be sitting at my laptop at home, without the boy here, morning television droning in the background and a lovely autumn-tinged breeze coming in the back door. Nice-weird though.

I was planning on dashing down to Ikea to grab nick-nack items for the boys rooms – some fabric, another set of curtains, some frames – but I am knackered and I really don’t feel like the 45 minute drive and the wandering around. Perhaps after a nana nap? We’ll see. I’ve decided this time is for taking it easy. I am heeding the advice of that voice in my head that is telling me to ‘just slow down’.

I feel pretty sorted now. The hospital bag is packed, the room is ready and I feel in a state of happy readiness. I’ve been taking nice long baths in the dark with candles and essential oils and lying down and resting when I need to instead of running around like a mad person.

Last weekend we had a family shoot with the lovely Hue from Egg Photography out at Shorncliff Pier. I had decided not to get ‘bump’ photos done this time around, a decision made when I was in the middle of my late-pregnancy funk a few weeks ago.

Hue and I went to uni together way back in the deep, dark late 90s and I’d been seeing all the lovely images she’d been taking via her facebook page so when she gently reminded me of her services after a recent brunch where I went on a rant how I think I’m ‘too far gone’ to get any photos taken,  I reconsidered.

And looking at a few of these preview images she posted on facebook shortly after the shoot, I am so glad I did it. It not only helped me out of my funk, but I’ll now have these beautiful images of our family of three-soon-to-be-four to cherish.

Will keep you posted on progress over the next week or so … I now have the feeling this boy may be a little late (hopefully not as late as his tardy big brother!) but we’ll see how we go as the due date of next Wednesday gets ever closer.

Did you get bump photos taken? Nudey, ala Demi and the more recent Jessica Simpson shoot? Or more natural clothed ones?

© savemumsanity for Save Mum's Sanity, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bump photos, Egg Photography by Hue, late stages of pregnancy, natural pregnancy photos, state of readiness