OK so nowhere near baby making. Not even in the ballpark. Becoming more turned off the idea as the days are getting long & talking about long, my mother-in-law has just left after a 19 day stay at ours including one week cameo visits from my young sister-in-law & father-in-law. That’s right people, 19 days in our lounge room sharing our one bathroom. Welcome to Sydney. No East Wing for the guests to retreat here. Just a blow up bed & a clothes rack in a lounge room. But hey, that’s family love for you. And the more time I spend with either my highly dysfunctional family or hub’s family, the one question that comes to mind is –Why? Why go there? Can I not live entirely happily with a succession of incredible dogs? Not that any canine or human baby for that matter could ever come close to Mishka & Coco, the two most amazing, beautiful dogs on the planet (why they have not yet been discovered to be the face of a gourmet dog food, I’ll never know). So why go though all the frigging grief to get to this point? The point where you suffer the years of marriage and child rearing to just watch your own child go through the exact horror. Am I missing something here?
Several weeks ago I spent what I thought was going to be three restful days at Kiama in a cabin on the beach that Dad had booked for my sister, nephew & I to share. The weather was incredible & the beach was a stone’s throw away from our door but what I learnt very quickly was that there is no relaxing with a 2 and half year old. Relaxing: over. All those carefree moments you enjoyed blissfully flicking through a Madison mag as the sun warmed your naked back is way in the distance once the arrival of baby. And another thing I noticed about my adorable little nephew is that not only is he a full time job but he also had this incredible knack of giving us the false pretence of enjoying a moment sans baby drama. Like when we took him in the ocean and despite being dunked by a wave & eating a sand sandwich he recovered & was appearing to be very workable, happy even, allowing Bex & I a bit of ocean time. But as soon as we returned to our towels & were just about to settle in & open a magazine, a pungent odour punctuated the air. Zeke had done a pooh. Not just a pooh but a monumental faecal disaster was now waiting in his wet nappy. Bex at best was absolutely exhausted 100 percent of the time. Her hair & face dishevelled and drained of colour, she dragged one foot in front of the other, repeatedly chastising Zeke in an exhausted monotone: “Zeke…put that down! No Zeke! What did I tell you…?” It was relentless and with another bun in the oven I was left wondering how was she to cope. It looked so unglamorous. So bloody hard. So not me.
Sarah my sister-in-law gave birth to Violet last month. She is completely over the moon. But God help me if I hear this one more time -“How does it make you feel??” asked my mother-in-law, smiling, proudly displaying the very young & perfectly formed Violet. “How does what make me feel?” bored with having to articulate for the millionth time; I don’t do clucky. I have no personal recollection of what it actually is
“Feeling clucky?”
“Is clucky that feeling you get when you see a baby and think ‘thank God it’s them & not me?’ If so, then yes I am clucky.”
