Infants vs Teens

When my children were infants, one thing I used to hate was when parents of teenagers said things like "Make the most of these baby years... This is the easy bit... Just you wait till they're teenagers... At least when they're this little, you don't have to worry about where they are". I vowed I would never say that to anyone. And I haven't. But I'm allowed to blog about it, right?

Infants vs Teens

• Sleepless nights:  Yes. When they're babies you lose out on sleep through the night. But you have EVENINGS. When they're teens, kiss goodbye to the sofa, the tv, space to yourself, time to yourself in the evenings. This is all-day parenting. 
• Size:  That baby that dominates your life, it fits into the crook of your elbow. Your teenagers don't. They take up whole sofas (is that the second time I've mentioned sofas already?), you wake up in the night because they bash the bedroom wall the other side of yours when they turn over, you will bump into them in doorways, they can hardly fit into the back seat of your car, they sprawl on the floor so that there is no floor left.
• Food:  Baby-led weaning? Mushed up veggies? Organic or non-organic? Home-made or shop-bought? These, my baby-parenting friends, are little tiny questions (though, yes, I know they don't feel so at the time). Feeding teens is LARGE. VERY LARGE.  You buy a packet of cereal, and it's gone the next day. That advert that implied that no-one, not even Ian Botham, could eat THREE Shredded Wheat was for wimps. Your teens will get through packets of Shredded Wheat like there's no tomorrow in the wheat world.
• Laundry:  Gorgeous, teeny-weeny sleepsuits to hang out on the washing line. Breaks your heart each time. These have become huge trackie bottoms that take a week-end to dry, and socks that smell of last year's camembert and which you have to peel off the sitting room floor or hunt down in rancid corners.
• Expectations:  Yes, your baby cries, and poos, and spends hours breast-feeding, and needs you. But you knew all that. Your teenager will be hopeless at washing up, be grumpy, make you feel small, and still needs you. But somehow, you expected it would be different by now.
• Support:  You've joined the NCT, the "New Mums' Group", you've found friends at Baby Massage Class, and a couple of years later at "Mums and Toddlers". You have appointments, at which your baby's weight and height and milestones are written in a little red book. You have Health Visitors, who are more strictly speaking, Health Visiteds (don't you usually have to go to them, rather than host them at your house?). With teens, there is no support group. You can have a whinge with a friend with similar aged off-spring over a coffee, but that's about as good as it gets.
• Your body:  Your pregnancy tummy will shrink, and though there may be some stretch marks, you think of the awesome strength of that body of yours that grew a baby and pushed it out. When you have teens, your stretch marks will seem like the least of your bodily failings. Most of it is heading south, and, unlike migrating birds, will never head north again.
• Expense:   Yes, that cot was an outlay, and the stroller, and the Moses basket, and all that other stuff. But you had bagfulls of pass-on clothes, didn't you? And the local "Swim Babes" or "Monkey Music" cost a couple of pounds a week. With a teenager you have no pass-ons because they're in adult sizes, and the equipment they want is sports gear, and Sky TV, and an Xbox game. You'll also need to fork out for visits to the cinema, a Duke of Edinburgh expedition, or a trip to a far-flung university for an open day. When you eat out as a family, there's no more "kidz meal only £3.95!". Oh no. You're paying full adult whack for everyone.
• TV:  Bob the Builder, Postman Pat, Tweenies. Yes, they were limited in scope, and you had to watch the same episode over and over. But do you really prefer Liverpool vs Man City? And having to look interested for 90 minutes? And being tested on it afterwards? Come back, Bob, all is forgiven, (and did you ever get together with Wendy, by the way?)
• Public support:  You're bleary-eyed, you're fed up, you're grumpy, but when you go shopping, someone always stops you in the supermarket, engages with your gorgeous baby, and tells you how lovely she/he is. When they're teenagers, you're bleary-eyed, you're fed up, you're grumpy, but when was the last time someone stopped you in public, reminisced about their own experience, and said "Make sure you enjoy every moment of these teenage years; they fly by so quickly"?
• Internet:  You can blog about your baby to your heart's content. She/he can't read, or use a mouse. But if you blog about your teenager...  Let's just say that this post isn't going to be up here for long.

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Seven years on; two years back; five years out

Well, life trots on, doesn't it? This blog started off, in May 2007, seven years ago for heaven's sake, as the witterings of a lonely expat Brit mother, deep in the heart of the Midwest, trying desperately to make sense of her new environment, and heartily grateful for every other expat blog, and every other parent blog, which made her feel not alone. We called writers of parent blogs "Mummy Bloggers" in those days, and I seem to remember I used to put a hyphen in "expat". Things change...

What I'd never really thought, until I read this post, was that I was one of a small number of women, who got the whole Mummy Blogging thing going in the UK. It was pretty well established in the US, but I guess I was part of the small wave that traversed the Atlantic. I feel a bit proud of that.

I haven't really kept up with the great surge that that small wave became. Blogging for me was always about writing, and the social media side of things didn't really appeal. I'm now having to get to grips with social media, as I'm in charge of "Commmunications" in my job. I've been saying for this first year that fundraising has got to be my priority, and that's right. There'll be nothing to communicate about, unless the money comes in and the salaries are paid. However, I'm thinking that in time, I can get myself off on a few training courses, and maybe develop a new interest and expertise. The organisation's website is hosted on Wordpress, and though I've never used Wordpress myself, my experience in blogging has given me a definite headstart there. If nothing else, it means I can talk to our lovely volunteer who is revamping it, without sounding too totally ignorant.

Life, as I said, trots on. I'm now two years back from my expat adventure. I always think it takes two years to settle in a place - especially if you have children and are bound into the school year. The first year, everything is new and you feel like an outsider, and it's all a huge effort. Life is exhausting, just trying to be in the right place at the right time, with the right child, and armed with the right equipment. Because you're trying to make friends, you're having to be super-friendly all the time. Yes, it's tiring. Then the second year is much easier. You're no longer the newbie. The new newbies don't know if you've been there one year or ten. To them, you're just part of the fabric, and so you begin to feel so. There's still that sense of newness though - this year it's become a sense of relief, that you know what to expect at each event you go to, each thing in the school calendar. You won't be the person in jeans, when everyone else has dressed up. But that sense of relief is in itself a signal that you're still a bit new. It's a detachment, as if you're looking on yourself from outside the action, reflecting "this is better than last year, because last year I was new, and now I'm not so new". I always think that it's the third year when you feel properly settled, because you stop stepping back and analysing. You're just getting on with your life.

But here I am, in blogging indulgence as ever, by which I mean that blogging always allows you that stepping back and analysing. Two years back... Yes, we're settled here, and I don't miss my life in the US any more. Just occasionally, like when we were driving through Normandy on holiday, and it was so flat, and the way the light looked and felt as evening drew on, at the edge of the flatness, made me think of the Midwest, and our long road trips there. But it feels like a memory now, not a loss.

The other milestone that I've passed this summer is that I'm five years out from my cancer diagnosis. That really feels odd. When you're going through the treatment, the idea of being five years out seems like a long-distant mirage in the desert. Life will be all well, if only you can reach it. Well, it's not quite like that. For me, approaching the five years made me rather agitated and churned up. I found a thickening around my mastectomy scar, which I went and got checked out, and which was nothing. It's probably been there for most of the five years! But of course that was quite an anxious process to go through. The doctor was so nice and kind, though. I asked him whether other people get panicky in the run-up to the five years anniversary, and he said, yes, it was very common. He gave me the impression that his diary is littered with women finding unnerving lumps and bumps, just as they approach that five year point. It's always so reassuring to know one is normal!

I've got an appointment later in the autumn, to assess what medication is best for me, and I'm not relishing that prospect. It's so long since I've had to make decisions about cancer, and it's often a trade-off: side effects of medication versus percentage risks of not taking it - those kinds of things. It always used to give me that feeling of "But I didn't want cancer in the first place!", and though I'm not in the same place emotionally now, I'm guessing those feelings can come flooding back.

However, I'm making it sound all a bit negative, and it really isn't. I do think that coming through cancer has given me a bigger zest for life, and an ability to tap into a well of joy that sits deep within me. Is this what people call "faith"? It was always there, but I can access it much more quickly now. And because life is full of joy and hope and is to be celebrated, I'm having a big party in the autumn, when I turn 50. It'll be a birthday party, and a thanksgiving. It's going to be a ceilidh, so there'll be dancing. Also curry, puddings, and wine. The guest numbers are a little out of control, but I'm in exuberant mode. I'm celebrating!

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