What reading means to me and my boy

My son is obsessed with books - it is fantastic. He is not yet three and loves to dive into his pile of books.

'You read a story' - he is insistent and won't take no.

I often make up my own story and he chips in- usually about the colour of the cars.

He loves to give his own sound effects. 'OINK' he shouts when he sees a pig.

I'm introducing him to the alphabet now. I know there are various schools of thought about this, whether it is a good thing or not. But there is no pressure - he doesn't need to take a test!

For me, the earlier and sooner he can read, the sooner he will be able to dive into the books and read to me - he will be able to access this world of wonder and excitement himself, sharing with me when he wants to and when he wants to do it himself, without me, he can.

Having space

I was at a dinner the other weekend with a bunch of people who are training to be life coaches. I had assisted on their training and they kindly invited me along for a lovely Indian Meal.

I was having a conversation with a woman about time and space - I was explaining that I couldn't fit in the time it would take to move to the next level in my coaching training as it would mean finding about 10 hours a week that I didn't have.

'Why 10 hours is nothing!' she said.

'I have a young child.' I mummered.

'Nonsense - I have two and I could do it' she replied.

I explained that I had a huge value around having time and space in my life and that I needed to make time for stillness and napping!

She looked at me as if I was crazy.

But I thought it was funny. I now can't imingine not having fallow time - I used to feel quilty about it, like I should spend every second either working or looking after my child. But now I realise how much more energy I have if I acknoweldge my need for space.

How being a mother has changed me

I recently had to write a short essay on the above topic for an application I'm doing to become a post-natal leader and thought it would make a good blog entry.

I never anticipated when I was pregnant exactly how much being a mother would change me. I thought I knew. I had a couple friends with kids – I could see how it impacted on their lives, on their abilities to go out or go on holiday. I read Rachel Cusk’s book ‘A Life’s Work’. I thought that I was prepared, that I knew the reality of having kids.

But looking back now, I think that I thought that having a child would be like having an extra arm or a leg grafted on – it would change me, but only in so much as I would now have an extra part added on. I had visions of happily trundling around London, visiting art galleries, sitting in café’s reading the Sunday paper with a happy little bundle of joy cooling alongside me.

After the 1st two weeks when I sailed along on hormones and the high of giving birth, I hit rock bottom. I realised that instead of simply gaining an extra appendage, I had become the appendage! My baby was the body and I was the means to get him food/drink/love/cuddles. I now had to revolve around his world – like a moon tied by gravity to a very demanding planet.

This was very difficult for me. I had been someone who prided herself on being able to multi-task many difficult and complex tasks.

In desperation, I thought like other challenges I could resolve it by reading or researching the issue. I obsessively collected baby books – desperate to find the answer. I spend precious time while the baby was sleeping to trawl the Internet and discussion groups – hoping to find the key to managing my new life.

I rang a friend crying, saying I thought I had made the wrong choice – that I shouldn’t have had a baby, that I missed my old life – the life where I could sail out the door unencumbered, where I had no one dependent on me, where I could be the centre of my universe again. ‘When would it get better?’ I asked. He said wryly ‘When you realise you no longer have a choice – that your old life is gone as you knew it and there is no going back.’

So now, my boy is 2 and a half. I have slowly gotton old bits of my life back – returning to the world of work where I have control, going out with friends in the evening and even sitting in café’s occasionally reading the paper. What has changed is that I have a deep appreciation for those moments where I can be me, when I can walk along the river and think quiet thoughts. What has changed is that, after an initial 6 months of feeling widely off-centre and out of control, I now have a stronger focus and centre to my world – it is my son and I. Neither he nor I are simply appendages to each other – rather I feel like we are circles that intertwine – each with our own boundaries but also we come together sharing the space in the centre.

Michael Clayton - The best film every

I just saw this film and I want to tell everyone to go and see it!!

What is it about? It's about the crushing nature of corporate culture on one man's soul and his redemmption, it's about corrupt businesses, it's about forgiveness, it's about seeing the light!

It is so amazing - I suppose I could call it a political thriller but that doesn't really do it justice.

Now, even though it stars George Clooney, nobody seems to know about it! It had reviews in the highbrow press and media and looks like it might disappear soon.

So go see it - it's a life changing film!!

Mortified Mummy

I picked sprog up from nursery - jolly chat with nursery staff and off home.

For the past week, I've been meaning to have a go at sprog's ears. I never clean them - partly because he hates me cleaning them and partly because I feel like wax leaving the ear canal is a natural process and causes no harm.

Anyway, they had been looking pretty scruffy - even for me so I thought I would have a go at bathtime. I got the cotton pads I use to rub his ears and all of a sudden, sprog goes 'NO, no no - Miss Jones and Nita cleaned my ears!' I looked closer and they were absolutely spotless!!

I had a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach - that they thought his ears were so disgusting that they would clean his ears themselves!

So what do I do now? Ignore it out of shame? That's my first reaction. But then, I do think I need to say something - I mean what if they used cotton buds? My understanding was that you should do as little as possible - that cleaning ears can lead to impacted ears and also to ear infections. I don't know - I feel like a very slack mum today - and feel quite mortified about the conversations those women had about my lack of attention to his ears.