Frustrations of motherhood

I am wondering how you deal with a baby when they don't sleep much... I find myself getting so frustrated when L is tired but only naps for 20-30 minutes in the day before waking himself up. I try to get him back to sleep and succeed, only for him to wake himself up again minutes later, even though he is tired. We have to still swaddle him as otherwise he flails his arms around and wakes himself up - but he is starting to roll and I am worried he will roll onto his stomach and not be able to turn himself over with his arms swaddled. However, half the time he'll manage to get his arms out of the swaddle, which is partly what wakes him up I think.

He can and will nap for 1-2 hours in the morning, and is much better rested when he does, but seeing as I cannot get him to fall back into a nap for a long period of time once he's woken himself up and just get more and more frustrated that I can't, and that he won't, it becomes a futile, horrible activity where I end up getting all cross and then feeling absolutely horrible.

I hate being this irritated person and don't know what to do about it. I hardly have time to shower or eat and I get mad at J who is very helpful but I see him as this 'hero Dad' who only gets all the good bits of parenthood and few of the bad. He gets to be the calm person who puts L to bed after I've been trying for ages, or after I've had to deal with him not sleeping all day. He is the rational voice that says to go outside even though he is not the one who has barely eaten anything all day or had time to have a drink or a shower and he doesn't have to take the pushchair then L down 3 flights of stairs and have to cope with a crying, tired child wherever he goes. That is unfair, L doesn't cry all the time and he is not always tired, just it feels that way to me (maybe because I am tired)?

Also, J is incredible - and I know it is my brain that has the problem of seeing myself (and thus thinking others, including him see me this way) as a useless mother who doesn't know what to do for her child and, even worse, raises her voice with her 3 month old baby sometimes. Furthermore, I feel like this boring shell of a person who looks like shit and has nothing to say about anything other than whether L has slept, eaten, been happy or not, because that is all my days are occupied with. That and feeling either crap about myself (when day has gone badly), or ridiculously pleased with myself as though I have accomplished an astounding feat when the day has gone almost as planned/well.

I wish I was a more positive person, and I am sure I used to be. I just don't know what has happened - I have reverted to needing things to be as perfect as possible to be able to cope with them. Which I also dislike, which ends up in a spiral of dislike of myself. The smallest things that deviate from this perfection I crave piss me off, and I end up going round a circle of annoyance at everything but most of all myself.

I know that I have to do things that make me feel better and that the only way out of feeling like this is to take action. But what action? I decide on something then the next day feel better so don't bother - because everything seems so much more complicated to get to or to do when I know I will have to bring a baby with me, plus all the paraphernalia that entails - pushchair, car seat that fits in the pushchair, changing bag, a drink for me, a snack so I don't fall over or have to try to get into a shop with the pushchair when so few shops or cafes have easy access, not to mention that everything here is in French so if I want to take a class I have to think doubly hard. I am sick of living somewhere where I cannot get access to things in my mother tongue, where I have a job I don't really want because the job I do want is virtually impossible. However, I know the alternative is to move to a place I would probably like less that is far less tolerant of alternative lifestyles, is far more violent, far more chavsterish...

I think I needed to moan and to try to feel less bad about not being perfect, about getting frustrated because I don't know what to do about having a tired baby and not knowing how to cope the way I would like. I don't want to get mad and raise my voice at him, I don't want him to have to experience me like that on a near-daily basis. Every day I tell myself that I won't get frustrated and every day I fail, and every day I dislike myself more for it.

From an October meeting

We all looked up
when the stars fell down
but now all eyes are on the ground
picking up diamond shards

Accidents have already occured
Fingers slashed, hands torn
Stars used as weapons
for further misdoings
Clean stab wounds, even blindings
So bright and beautiful yet
so dangerous

Bereavement

When you cannot stop thinking of someone or something that was there, and now isn't. We experience it every day, to different extents. The thought of such missing scares me, as I can barely handle this one, and it is just a few short days (in the grand scheme of things).

Missing something that may have been there? That is more the feeling of a possibility, an avenue that is lost. But just because it is closed now, doesn't mean it's closed forever. Because, to paraphrase Nina Simone, forever is a long, long time.

Am I, Aren't I?

Place your bets. Results will be in next week.

I want to know...

When a dog is doing a pooh, is it more or less likely to be attacked by another dog? Is there some sort of moral pooh code whereby dogs will never attack another when relieving themselves of that number 2, or is it seen as a sure-fire win as the attacked dog will be off-guard?

Not that dogs ever really attack their kind that often, but as they say about gifts, it's the thought that counts.

Election day

My home country is on the verge of a political change, but will that change anything? I always think it is funny how foreigners applaud the UK for its social policies and programs, such as the NHS, Income Support, etc., and yet how the British living with the realities of it see the system as either dysfunctional or giving to the 'wrong' people (read non-Brits). I wonder if this comes about from a difference in how international vs. national/local papers portray events. Leading up to an election, of course, certain stories are sure to abound, and this election was no different.

A lot that I was attracted to were about parents who decided not to work - in fact, it seemed to be that they would have more money if they didn't. Think about it: if you have a fair number of kids (say 4 or more), and the government pays you money every week for each one, and they pay for your house (meaning no rent or mortgage), and they pay you Income Support or some such thing because you don't work, and if you have some sort of disability (apparently personality disorders and skin conditions count here - the latter would have to be bloody severe imo), then really you are quids in and have all that extra time to spend with the kids or watch TV or whatever it is you do to stop yourself from going insane from having a lack of goals, a lack of achievements (other than perhaps watching every single episode of Coronation Street), and showing your children that not working pays.

What really gets to me about these stories is that yes, they may be better off financially than if they were working (which is of course fucking ludicrous), but doesn't it matter that they are just festering away, doing nothing much all day? Even if they studied or did craft classes or something, at the end of the day some sort of action is needed to feel satisfied with your lot. At least, that's how I thought most people function, but I guess I'm wrong.

My hopes for the next government that gets in to power:

- That they will radically change the social welfare system. It is a great idea to have a net in place should some tragedy or hard times fall upon you, but being on the dole should not be a possible career choice.

- That they shake up the NHS. A wonderful institution, it has become clogged down by inefficient management, over-inflated hospital administrator salaries, etc. Pay nurses more, have more in-home care, and get tests done sooner so reduce the risk of costlier medications and surgeries.

- On a similar note, why not have some incentives for people who try to be healthy? Like offer gardening classes at the local village centre or whatever for cheap prices, fund urban gardening collectives, make unhealthy food more expensive.

- Get rid of most of the quangos. Massively stupid waste of money.

- Give people who have kids and earn under a certain salary (not as ridiculously low as it currently is) a break... Just because a family's joint income is £40K doesn't mean they can afford to send both of their children to university.

- Get rid of student loans, instead have fees based in a true means-tested fashion, not the farce of a one that is currently in place. There are scales of grey, you know.

- Be more efficient, and lose less secrets and important documents. If you MPs actually gave a shit and may have some comeuppances for blatant stupid behaviour and wrong-doing, then the public may have more faith in you and actually trust you with running their country.

- Stop your smarming ad campaigns. We really don't give a shit if you never do the washing up, like to cuddle, think you are the next best thing since tetra-packs. Just give realistic election promises and carry them through as much as possible, or at least show that you are fighting for them.

Seems pretty simple to me.

Wearing heels

Never having really been one for foot discomfort, I have always viewed high-heeled footwear as something of a torture - necessary at times, but so long as I can keep those times minimal, I'm happy.

How then, on a Wednesday afternoon, am I walking down the street in a pair of heels?Although I could say with certainty that my outfit just didn't look right with much else, somewhere in a corner of my mind is this sneaking thought that keeps tapping on my consciousness; the idea of a fully-grown woman. In some ways I miss my more girlish ways (not that they're all gone), just I know that the person who returned to Montreal last July is different from the one who was living there before. And she wears heels.

I never thought that footwear would have such an impact on how others view you. But wearing heels on a more every day basis (as in not just for an occasion) has given me a whole new perspective. Colleagues comment on either how chic/sexy I look (which I find hilarious, as I have worn the exact same outfits before minus the heels and no-one says a thing, so it MUST be the heels), whereas one co-worker seems to think that the heeled me is a different person from the usual flat-shod Ellen. Reminiscent of the days when I would point to the mirror and say 'Baby', not recognizing, even after I was 5, that that person on the other side of the glass was me, this colleague's comment got me to thinking - do I feel different when I wear heels?

The decision to wear them is usually based on , what clothes I decide to wear on a given day, and the lack of any flat shoes that would match. I have an abundance of great trainers, but they just don't cut it with a smart outfit, especially not with business-type skirts. You can hide nearly anything under trousers :)
Although I don't pick the outfit for the shoes, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I feel more womanly and in control when wearing these new heels of mine. It could be the attainment of height - could it be that my diminutive stature causes me to have something of a complex? At the same time, heels are noisy. It might be fun to hear them click and clack occasionally, but once those heels are on there is no much choice but to be heard by everyone. No sneaking up on anyone now! Also, heels keep your foot in a rather unnatural position and you have to use very different muscles to walk. I know I'm a novice, but walking down stairs is a huge challenge for me when I push my weight down on two thin spikes, and forget about running.

Reading an interview with Christian Louboutin the other day, it struck me yet again how high heels are like shackles, shackles that interestingly make me feel more powerful, sexier, in control of my life. Though I didn't pay over $700 for my pair, and regardless of the fact that I know that this is more of a social construct informing my thoughts than any magic therapeutic benefit of wearing them (other than the Napoleon complex!), I can't help but feel different when I put them on. After a whole day my feet feel different too - painful!

Strangely enough, after years of eschewing them and the discomfort they produce, I walk through it with an odd sense of pride, in overcoming the various barriers that made me scared of heels and also in awe (not to mention a tad jealous) of their power. A power that, however rooted in bullshit and sexism and preconceptions as it can seem to be, is nevertheless a power that I can have come control over if I wield the mighty heel to my needs and use it to my advantage.

Now to just get that same feeling as quickly and sure-firedly as wearing an unstable construction to bear my weight seems to!