Growing Up On The Job

So I'm actually just about getting over the shock of our relatively easy bedtime- you know those days where you just nail it? Nap times on schedule, lovely snoozes in the pram and then our bath, book and bedtime routine executed to perfection. Smashed it; one hundred Mummy points.

Back to the topic in hand.

About a week ago now, I realised something absolutely frightening: I have become a grown up. Until recently, I have been a thirty year old, Never-Never-Land living teenager trapped in a bloated, stretch marked and slightly wrinkled older woman's body. Farts still make me laugh, I giggle internally every time I'm teaching a lesson and am in the process of writing 'analysis' on the board; 'a-n-a-l... chortle.'  But during a recent visit to see an old school friend following the birth of her second very gorgeous son, a dawning realisation that I'd entered adulthood hit me in the face like the smell from one of Freya's particularly shitty nappies. I am a Mum. I am a kid raising a kid.

Jenny's oldest son, Alfie, playing with Freya on our visit.

Our visit to see Jenny was so lovely; we had bumped into each other a few times since leaving school fifteen years ago, but this was the first time we had spent quality time together and once again, it was the arrival of our children that brought us together. This isn't the first time a reunion like this has happened either. I have reconnected with so many old friends and connected with the most unlikely of new friends since Freya arrived- there's something about that shared experience of pregnancy, giving birth and parenting that creates a really special bond. We are like some sort of double-hard mega gang (not to mention we all pushed a watermelon sized object out of definitely not a watermelon sized hole. That's a pretty serious shared experience.)

As we sat there, holding each other's babies and sharing labour stories, I faded out to another one of my internal montages of all the times we had spent together at school. The evenings meeting up to practice singing for the school variety shows- which sounds cool until I point out that this was pre-Nirvana and Offspring discovery and we were singing Celine Dion duets. Two twelve year old girls, fighting over which lines we should sing: "BABY THINK TWICE..." *that so should have been my bit*

Then there was those years later on, getting drunk off White Lightning and Mad Dog 20/20, talking about unrequited love and how we were at a clear disadvantage in the love stakes from both being 5"11 and our crushes barely scraping 5" at 15. Now here we are, talking about if our babies sleep through the night, which nurseries we will send them to and breast feeding vs. bottles. It was amazing and crazy and a little sad all at the same time. Those teenage years I spent desperate to grow up and wishing my days away had flown by and all of a sudden two decades have passed. Two-actual-decades.

The arrival of Freya has taught me so much about myself and about life, what with my new adult perspective. One such realisation is that my body is amazing. For all those teenage years of hating my body, I now look back and realise I wasn't fat, I wasn't ugly and my ginger hair wasn't that awful. It's strange because now I do have a fat wobbly belly, I do have cellulite and my face is past it's best before date, yet I'm more comfortable with it all than I've ever been in my life. I may not totally like what I see, but I'm so in awe of my body for growing Freya.

Reading Festival 2010.

But probably the most important thing I've come to realise is that time goes so quickly- I mean, I swear two minutes ago I was a care-free teenager. Now, I've become acutely aware of my own mortality and unlike a few years ago where I made debauched decisions with little regard for the consequences, I now know that I won't last forever. Time is absolutely vanishing before my eyes. It seems like yesterday that I was a twenty year old girl, just broken up with my first long term boyfriend and going on a holiday with my best friend to Malia to recover; all the fishbowls, the bar crawls and the dancing on bars. It feels like yesterday that I was in London trying to make it in the world of PR and A&R; the mornings going to work after being out all night and realising that an hour journey home to Greenwich would leave me approximately 6.5 minutes to sleep before having to make my way back into Holborn so thinking: "Ah- screw it... one for the road!" And it virtually WAS yesterday that I was absolutely rotten drunk, crowd surfing my way to the medical tent at Reading Festival. All the beers. All the Sailor Jerry's.  All the hangovers.

Partying every weekend.

I'd been totally putting off growing up when along came my little bundle of life-changing joy. Gone are the days of random conversations with total strangers in the girl's toilets on a night out- telling each other our life stories, giving love advice, drunkenly shaking them and slurring "you are gorgeous do you hear me? Don't you ever say you're not 'coz you are. You're the best human I've ever met" and declaring love for one another. Now these random conversations with total strangers are usually with other women my age who are also pushing a pram, also covered in milk spew and make up half way down their faces as we clock each other in a cafe with that desperate look of: "This is well 'ard...be my friend!"

I didn't know when to stop!

I genuinely have had to grow up 'on the job'- this is like the scariest, most challenging work-based training you could imagine. I have to make decisions not only for myself now, but for a whole other person and they're life or death survival decisions too. I can no longer spend money like it's going out of fashion. Unlike the old me circa. 2008 who was up to her eyes in debt and overdraft, I now have complete control over our family finances (which includes the use of spreadsheets *shudder*) and Kris even gets pocket money if he wants to go out. I can't roll in at 4am after my husband desperately tries to drag home from the pub only to be told: "Look I'm a young woman Kristian- don't hold me back! I'm still in my twenties unlike you [harsh] and I'm going to stay out and have fun OK!" I'd put money on the fact he is not going to miss those nights.

Me and my girl: my world.

The truth is, twenty-something year old me dreaded this moment- the moment where I would be house bound by 6.30 every evening on account of a baby's bedtime. The moment I had to say 'no' to those spontaneous nights out or road trip suggestions. The moment I couldn't go out for dinner and get drunk with friends on a weekly basis. But guess what went and happened- I turned into a real grown up. My priorities changed and now I want nothing more than to be 'stuck' in the house with my new little family. Yes, there are times when I'm sat looking at the photos of amazing drunken nights out on Facebook and think about how much fun it would be to have been there. But I have been there and done that and will do it all again at some point. For now, I am constantly aware that Freya is probably going to be my only child and every first I experience with her is also the last-first I will ever experience as a mother. When I'm near the point of tears from the frustration of spending an hour trying to get her to sleep, I remember that one day very soon she wont need or want me to hold her to sleep. She may even refuse to cuddle and kiss me at all.

In the transition from twenty-something party girl to mother of one beautiful daughter, I learned a huge lesson in selflessness and that's, like, a well grown up thing to learn init. Give me a few years and I'll be making special appearances as 'Party Holly', but for now: enjoy your hangovers. I'll be the smug one, fresh as a daisy on a family day out somewhere and loving my new life with my girl.

New Beginnings: A Why and Wherefore

I've wanted to start a blog for years, but despite my annoyingly overactive brain, my continuous internal monologues, my love for the written word and my ability to find myself in the midst of the most unusual and extraordinary situations, I've never really known where to start. I have done a fair amount of travelling, but my spare time was spent boozing and dancing my nights away with my twenty - something counterparts. I have plenty to say about music, film and the arts, but could never decipher my audience or purpose. Then, twelve months ago, life as I knew it changed forever.

I met my husband in 2007- I had returned home to Shropshire, disillusioned after my second attempt at London living, and decided that after being pursued by him for years, I was going to let this attractive father of one take me out. Fast forward five years and we married in the beautiful Spanish town of Nerja.  In that time I qualified as an English teacher and secured a position at a lovely local school, we brought two furry babies into our family and moved house three times. By 2014, we decided that perhaps it was time to bring another tiny little ginger human into the world. What we didn't expect was to hit a bump in the road before we had even got the chance to pick up speed.  

My husband found out that he would find it very difficult to conceive a child naturally and though he could, getting fertility help wasn't off the cards. Seven months of ovulation tests, fertility apps and reminder alarms later and we finally managed to do it ourselves (I'll skim over the part where I sent Kris a text to tell him to 'hurry home sexy; I'm ovulating and in bed waiting' only to find I'd sent it to my Dad. One panicked phone call to my mother later and the phone was retrieved and messaged deleted.)

Though I never forgot the miracle of pregnancy or the blessing we were given, it had its highs and lows. Lows: 12 weeks of first trimester morning sickness, becoming stressed with work and being signed off when my blood pressure sky - rocketed and moving house at 41 weeks pregnant. Highs: feeling my little human growing and moving inside me, feeling closer than ever to Kris and adoring my pregnancy body.  

Getting ready for the arrival of baby was fun: attending hypnobirthing classes; baby shopping; ALL of the baby name books and half hourly name suggestion texts to my (then policeman) husband; building cots; baby showers and decorating the nursery. But despite reading every book going about labour (which was a futile exercise as everything I read and planned went out the window. My serene, candle lit, atmospheric ocean sounds, no pain hypnobirth turned into a week in hospital, four inductions, water broken via massively unnatural sharp stabby object, intense contractions, 28 hour labour, short lived birthing pool stint, failed epidural, forceps delivery followed by 900ml blood loss and roughly ONE MILLION stitches to my third degree tears) nothing prepared me for the real challenge. Motherhood.

The moment I held Freya Ivy Rose in my arms, my body was overwhelmed with love. I looked into her beautiful eyes and the dawning realisation that she solely relied on me washed over me in a cocktail of sheer joy and utter fear. Here I am, a thirty year old woman who still has to call her Mummy to get her advice on what to wear that day, now totally in charge of keeping this perfectly fragile and utterly reliant little being alive. That first night alone together in a dark hospital ward, two drips in my arm, a catheter installed, totally bed bound, wound dressings being changed every two hours (by a nurse that was my ex- boyfriends current fiancee- a whole different blog) was scary. Just me and her. Nobody else on the ward, the nurses a panic button away, husband at home in our bed, visitors gone- what do I actually do with you, little one? Tears of joy flowed, panic raised from my chest to my throat, my heart felt like it beat only for her yet the fear of responsibility was overwhelming me to the point of regression and calling MY Mum to come and look after ME. I panicked that I wasn't ready for this. 

After our first wobbly night together, waking to see her face in the perspex box beside me was probably on par with the combined feeling of joy of every Christmas and birthday rolled into one.  I don't think I will ever experience that particular feeling again. Pure and overwhelming happiness. There began the tears that would flow continually for about six weeks. Tears of love, agonising pain as I tried to function with my internal and external stitches, from the flashbacks of my horrific birthing experience- I was a total basket case.

Baby blues hit me pretty hard. My dignity went out the window as I peed in the shower to stop the stinging from my stitches. I didn't leave the house for fear of something happening with baby that I couldn't handle and strangers looking on at the terrible new mother that couldn't make her baby stop crying. Breast feeding was painful and left me with bleeding nipples and mastitis. I felt utterly helpless as she screamed in agony at what was dubbed colic for 14 weeks but would later be diagnosed as dairy and lactose intolerance (a lesson learned in ALWAYS trusting my motherly instincts and again another blog!). I wondered why other mummies made it look so easy yet I felt so utterly crap and incapable. Those were dark days. 

Four months later and though my life is ruled by nap times and I'm still woken up at least every two hours throughout the night (I write with baby using my boob as a pacifier as I feed her on my third wake of the night- it's 11.45pm!), I'm starting to feel like the old me. Well, the new old me. 

So here starts new beginnings. This blog is going to be some in retrospect of the last four months and mostly the experiences we share as a family as we start our journey through life. Expect some rants, some reviews, a little about music, film, food, health, relationships but above all some very frank accounts of life as 'La Rouge: The 30 Year Old Mummy Version'

Holly 

**La Rouge is a nickname I was given many years ago by two beautiful friends on account of my red hair. Maybe also my sexy and mysterious worldliness. But almost certainly just because of my red hair.