Small stone

With my ear pressed to my husband's chest I can hear the flesh machine's percussions and washings.

Small Stone

The wake-up ammonia smell of the nappy bucket is no longer unpleasant -- just normal.

Small Stone

The tiny pick-pick-pick of drizzle on the bag of rubbish in my hand.

Small Stone

Pencil grey slate roof tiles have sucked most of the water out of the wool grey sky.

Small Stone

This is my first post in Satyavani Robin's 2013 Mindful Writing Challenge. She calls them small stones, I would call them beautiful things, but they don't actually have to be beautiful in any way at all.

When I stop, right in the way, to stare at the sky there are white clouds sailing overhead. When I turn back at the end of the street, the sky is clear and clean blue again.

In which I stop biting my tongue.

I got some criticism a few months back, delivered so that I had no way to defend myself without looking like an arse. A blogger who I admire very much suggested (in a manner that was just beyond passive aggressive) that Three Beautiful Things had gone downhill since Alec's birth because I wrote too much about him.

It really bothered me, and I wanted to respond -- but Nick said to leave it. So I stopped talking about it. I stopped reading the blog in question. I stopped defending myself in my head.

I think that for preventing drama (because no-one who does good has time for drama) this was the right advice.

But I didn't feel better. From time to time I pulled the criticism out and look at it, this way and that, like a badly fitting piece of clothing that I can't bring myself to pass on.

I know this passive aggressive blogger was only saying what others have been thinking. My subject matter has changed radically. The quality of my writing has gone right off -- some days, I just don't have the headspace, or the time to craft and edit. I know that there are people who loathe children. Worse still, I must be hurting people who are mourning children they have lost, or children they will never have. I am sure there are people who loved and needed 3BT who have now been completely turned off it.

 Last week, though, I talked it over with my cousin, and she came up with a one-word answer: "Authenticity."

The blog is about the three best things that happened in the day, and much of the time Alec is my day. I can't edit him out, because I would not be delivering what I promise to deliver. There will be people who don't like what I serve up -- and that's a pity of course, but I can't cater for all tastes without producing a bland mess. There are blogs of all flavours: check the Roll of Honour and find one you do like, instead of mourning what 3BT used to be. Read some back posts before you leave, though, there are six years of pre-Alec entries.

And and and, I know that a lot of you do enjoy reading about Alec and motherhood because I get comments and messages every week that give me so much pleasure. From today, I will work harder at delighting you people who I can please by just doing what I do.

Filling the long hours

“One of the things about a new baby,” said Pete as he drove us home from our last games night before our due date, “is what do you do with them? We got our son home from hospital, and he was there in his car seat and we were like: ‘what do we do now? Do we offer him a cup of tea? What do we do?’”

Alec is like a very needy guest, one who won’t sit quietly with a magazine while I do things that need to be done, and who leaves massive, awkward gaps in the conversation, who never offers to help. There are days when I wonder how I’m going to fill the hours until Nick gets home. 

And I’m going to admit right now: I performed the internet search “things to do with a baby.”

I made a list of things to do – partly to prove to myself that I really am doing stuff during the day. We change activities as soon as Alec gets bored, or when he starts to “a-heh, a-heh” with frustration. I try to do one household task, and one Alec entertainment, so things get done. And I’m ever ready to take some me-time the moment someone else offers to hold him, or if he falls asleep.

If all else fails, we leave the house. A walk up to the park, or just round the block is enough to cheer him up, and a chocolate bar from the shop is always a winner for me. I point out Items of Interest to him – in a whisper, you know, so no-one can accuse me of loud parenting – “There’s a squirrel going wavey wavey along the top of the fence; and that’s a turkey oak tree. Oh, a magpie! That man is carrying an orange Sainsbury’s bag – see how the sun behind makes it glow? Listen, that’s a train going under the bridge. Do you remember how we…” etc etc. 

It’s lovely to run into people we know because they always say how gorgeous he is, and how much he’s grown. And I like the way strangers will chat to you, and tell you about their children and grandchildren.