Hortus Deliciarum

As tagged by TeacherMommy over at Diapers and Dragons and originally posted here.

The project: Here’s how it’s going to work: this post that you’re reading? Is the departure lounge. I’m going to link to a couple of other mom bloggers here in Canada, and to a couple of mom bloggers from other countries around the world, and they’ll write their posts, sharing 5 things that they love (or maybe what they don’t so much love – this playground doesn’t force conformity) about being a mom, and then they’ll tag a few more bloggers from their own country and from other countries, and so on. And you’re more than welcome to join: just write a post of your own (5 things that you love about being a mom) and find someone to link to and tag – someone from your own country, if you like, but definitely someone from another country (Google is a good resource if you don’t know any; google any country name and ‘mom’ in their blog search function) (be sure to let them know that you’ve tagged them!) – and link back here and leave a comment and we’ll add you to the ‘itinerary,’ which David will compile and post and update as the tour proceeds.

***

I’ve put off responding to TM’s tag. Five things I love about being a mom isn’t an easy question for me, because while every parent has a different journey through parenthood and everyone has different challenges, I dwell on mine a lot more than many parents. That’s not necessarily a good thing, or a bad one…just the reality of who I am and what I do.

When I look back at my almost-three-years of mothering, I still struggle to find the bright spots. I easily remember the dark ones; the first moment where I knew I was overwhelmed, although I wouldn’t know that this was actually postnatal depression (post-partum depression for those of you NOT parenting in the UK) for several weeks to come, came up today in the car when I was telling my mom about Ciaran’s heel-stick PKU/thyroid test as a newborn just home from the hospital. I remember that as he screamed about having his heel squeezed, poor thing, I was crying enough that our lovely community midwife (whom, I might add, must have worked with many, many new mothers), asked me if I was okay. A few days later, after I’d had only a few hours sleep in nearly the first whole week that my son had been alive and wondered if people who saw me walking to the grocery store thought I was drunk, because I was so tired I felt drunk, she suggested we stay with the in-laws for a few days so that I could sleep.

PPD, colic, and having a high-needs baby were a hard combination. My relationship with my son, nearly three years later, is only now starting to recover, so what I love about being a mother probably isn’t the same as what everyone else loves. I struggle with depression even now, occasionally with vague suicidal ideations, so this challenge is hard for me.

But here we go. I have been brutally honest in a way that I haven’t seen many mummy bloggers be about their experiences with PPD throughout my son’s life and I don’t intend to stop now! Caveat lector.

1. I love that my son is not a newborn: A college friend of mine who lives nearby has a 5-week-old infant. I haven’t yet managed to see her (time issues, not avoidance) and she’s told me that her daughter, S., is struggling with sleep/colic issues. I remember those days so vividly, so painfully, that it is hard not to insulate myself from them and simply not discuss options with her. In church another couple has a baby of roughly the same age; when they brought her to church for the first time at three weeks, she slept through the service…and it was then that I realized that at that age, my son had never slept that long in one burst. Nearly two hours of slumber? Never. Having a toddler who is vocal, funny, and above all frequently sleeps through the night is a heavenly place. I love him now…I just wish we could have fast-forwarded about eighteen months of his life!

2. I love that my son forces me to face up to my flaws as a person: Well, I use “love” in that phrase entirely wrongly, to paraphrase Stephen Fry! I know it is good for me to be forced to confront my impatience, my need to deal with those demons inside that I have successfully ignored for so long, my desire for perfectionism and overachievement. I do love that loving him means accepting him for who he is rather than who I’d necessarily hope for him to be.

3. I love rediscovering books through a toddler’s eyes: I’m a voracious reader and always have been but there is nothing more fun than seeing my son recognize a whole word, or listen to Where the Wild Things Are and roar his terrible roars and gnash his terrible teeth and roll his terrible eyes and show his terrible claws for the first time.  Knowing that any book I read him will be exciting, fresh, and new (or fun even if I’ve read it a million times before) brings a smile to my face whenever I think about it.

4.  I love that if you hype something up enough, he’ll love it, no matter what: If I get excited enough about anything, I can sell him on it being exciting.  In a year he’ll be too smart…right now he totally buys that if Mummy thinks something’s great, it absolutely must be!

5.  I love being proud of my son for every new discovery, every burgeoning concept: He learns so quickly that I sometimes wonder when he’ll just pass me up entirely and I’ll have nothing left to teach him!  Even if I secretly feel that he’s a gifted Ueberkind (well, not so secretly?), in all seriousness, even if he were not precocious, and curious, and eminently bright, I would love learning things again with him.  After repeating the names of the birds that come to our feeder day after day, I glow with pride when he tells me, “The juncos stay on the ground.  They don’t go up to the feeder, they stay on the ground!” and he’s as right about it as an almost three-year-old needs to be!  The things he notices, the things he learns, and the things he says every day fill me so full of love and pride that there, for an instant, I don’t have room for the depression that pulls me down.  He’s all I need to be happy.

So, on to the tagging.

Because I think she is one of the strongest and most courageous moms-with-blogs-I-read, Susie over at Be Strong and Courageous in New Zealand.

Because she is fabulously creative in a way I deeply envy (and our kids are going to end up together one day), Heidi over at Daisybones in West Virginia.

Because she’s got a lot more strength and courage than she thinks she does, Jessamyn, in Ireland.

Because I want to live On The Continent and be niftily bilingual too, Winnie; lately of Paris, France, currently of Dresden, Germany.

Because I know we’d be good friends if she lived closer, although in that grand Internet way I realize I don’t know her real first name (yikes!)Therbee, in Galicia, Spain.

ETA – Therbee is HEATHER, of course. I should have remembered! Another H-name-kindred-spirit (we H-names have to stick together).