Letting Someone Else Take Over

Feeling: Totally drained it's not even funny anymore.

The good news is, that it's not because of the baby! Woohoo!

The baby actually got a fair amount of mummy time over the weekend after his last day of the school week on Thursday and for all the time he made up latching and spending time with us over the weekend, he's not as cranky at night and he's not waking up quite nearly as much as when he first started teething.

What I DO have though, is food poisoning (I think).

Charcoal pills and isotonic drinks are my life right now. Almost every other thing that is going in, isn't staying in. AT ALL.

That said. I've spent more than enough time in the bathroom last weekend to last me a lifetime and I really just want to go lie down and rest.

Except there are people pruning treed right outside my back windows and the saw is just...

Yeah. They sound like they're having a party out there.

In the meantime, I thought I'd drop in and write a short post about how it's important to be able to let someone else take over when you're otherwise incapacitated, like I am.

I mean, it's obvious that it takes a village to raise a family. Going at raising a child alone is NOT EASY AT ALL. And for all the single parents out there that are struggling to do this, they deserve a medal.

There should almost always be a support system. Your family, your friends. Husband and parents most importantly. And I count myself truly, TRULY blessed that I have such an accommodating and willing-to-learn husband and a mum who has self-sacrificed more that I could ask for to be a part of bringing up my child and perhaps the future children too.

And there's no better time to have help like this that you can trust without reservation then when you're too week from spewing to get up from the couch or the bed.

Thing is that the bub seems to have his own ideas about who should be looking after him most of the time.

Sweetly enough, it's me.

It's almost always mummy whom he reaches for.

I love it. I don't deny it. I can't think of anything else that makes my heart strings tug more and I wouldn't trade anything in the world for that feeling I get when he shouts for "MAh-MEEeeEeE!" and come running arms open for me.

I revel in the fact that he has chosen me as his go-to person in a family of people that all love him so much and vie for his attention.

I know that eventually his attentions will wane and that he will start to find Papa or Grandma more exciting in the days to come, so I will treasure every day that he still chooses me over anyone and everyone else.

But at times like this, I need to be hard. I need to be cold. I need to turn away and let someone peel the pleading and crying kid away from my torso so that I can get the rest I need.

I read an article a long way back and it has shaped the way that I approached our situation.

(For the life of me I can't find the article :/ so bear with me while I try to recount my version of how I remember it going...)

It was about a lady who had the misfortune to be diagnosed with a inoperable tumour, or some other incurable disease and sadly, she was terminal.

She and her husband found themselves expecting a child and with joy, they carried the baby to full term and shared a lot of love and happiness in the days while they were still together.

BUT. The painful twist in the story comes when because of the nature of the illness, the mum knew she didn't have many days with her child. She didn't want her child to mourn her passing and she tried to distance herself as much as possible in the relationship.

We're not talking about JUST taking a backseat. She chose to sit so far back from the relationship with her child that her baby just stopped looking for mummy altogether.

Just take a moment to let that sink in for a minute.

You're faced with a time limit for how much longer you have left in this world, wouldn't you want to spend all the time that you can with your family and the people you love?

Take every moment to hug them and never let go, kiss them and tell them that you love them... But for the sake of the adjustment of your baby, you choose to suffer in the backseat so that when you're gone, nobody has to suffer anymore.

I couldn't.

But I know that there is something in that sacrifice that is important for the development of your child - a need to be dependent on other things and not just on one pillar. For my child to know that he has robust support in others besides me.

Not to mention how Papa and Grandma must feel sometimes when the bub chooses me over him...

I'm barely about to take a total backseat like that woman, I most certainly am not a terminally ill patient for one. But I know that there will come a time when I'll be needed for something else - perhaps a phone call, a client, or even cooking and housework or another baby calling for my attention...

I'm going to need my big boy to know that mummy isn't abandoning him to do something else.

He needs to know that while he's one of the most important things in my life, that there are other avenues for him to go to when it comes to seeking attention and companionship in this household.

I just hope that I'll be able to discern when to give in to his spread arms and when to turn him to his dad or grandma instead. Heaven forbid that we create a complex that mummy doesn't want him....

So here's praying that we'll be able to juggle that fine balance of attention and growing independence in the days to come!

Helping baby Grow,
Jess

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