The Cerebral Mum

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Cas obeys many things.  He puts stuff in the bin, he sits down, he turns the telly off.  He dances, jumps, spins around, and “goes upside down.”

But he doesn’t “come here”.

While it is very amusing to watch him do the silly things I tell him to, I’m pretty sure that for his safety and well-being “Come here” is important.  And to teach him? I’ve found myself saying, One… Two… Three…

This must be one of those subconscious motherese type things because, really, it makes no sense.  He just looks at me, his head cocked to one side, and when I hit 3, I go and get him. Surely the only thing that teaches him is that if he doesn’t come to me, I will come to him when I’ve finished counting?  Why do I do that?

Then again, why do I now speak in the 3rd person?  Why do I speak in a higher pitch?  Why do I lapse into Yoda-like grammar?  Yup.  Motherhood changes you.

Anyway, as I’ve come to understand that 123 is a ridiculous instinct, and possibly counterproductive, I’ve been trying to figure out how to teach him to come when I call.   My solution isn’t highbrow, but if it’s okay for domestic pets it should be okay for kids, right?

My solution is treats.  More specifically, chocolate freckles.

Like I said, its kind of low.  But it seems to be working.

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I had a girlfriend over for the weekend, which rocked, and we went out to Direct Factory Outlets shopping, as girls do. I got a lovely dress as a very early birthday present.

Yup. That’s the end of this post. I’ve got to get everything sorted for enrolment tomorrow. It will probably be about a 5 hour round trip and enrolment will take around 3. I’m taking Cas, so it will require some organising to be up and out of here when we need to be.

But it’s Monday, anyway. You’re only here so you can look upon the most amazing person in the history of the universe, right? Oh, that’s my friend with him. She’s pretty cool too.

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This isn’t the most uplifting blog and even without my current state of mind, It will probably never be. I’m a serious person and, when I’m at my best, I have serious things to say. Intense, exhausting and emotional are probably the three most common criticisms of my character. The first two I accept but as criticisms go, I often consider the things I care about more important than them. The third one I reject as entirely mistaken. Having a passion for ideas is not the same as being emotional.

Having made that grandiose - and serious, and not uplifting - statement, that doesn’t mean that I don’t smile, or laugh, or feel happy. Sometimes I am am full of glee, like a child. So tonight, before I start playing in my theming sandbox (it is my night off after all), I’m going to take a leaf out of Lightening’s book, and have a Smiley Saturday.

I love rolling down hills.

In fact, anything that children take pleasure in, from climbing trees to fairy floss, gives me unadulterated joy.

I like how that word begins with “un-adult”. It should tell us something.

The word adulterate actually comes from the latin ad., “to”, and alterare, “alter”. The resultant latin verb, adulterare, means “to corrupt” and the word adult does not have the same etymology. It’s from adultus, the past particle of the Latin adolescere, “to mature”. Why am I telling you this, when this post is supposed to be smiley? Because that’s the kind of thing that makes me laugh.

I like my sense of humour.

The jokes I tell that I enjoy the most are silly plays on words and often nobody understands why I’m giggling. Someone will say some commonplace phrase and I’ll complete their sentence by finishing the quote from so long-forgotten poet they didn’t realise they were quoting. And I laugh because of the games that language plays. It’s weird contradictions, it’s accidental conflations. I laugh because they are looking at me blankly and I realise the odd, quixotic nature of my mind. I laugh at myself.

Un-adult isn’t really a particularly funny one but it does bring me to something that really does make me smile. A person. He’s not an adult and he makes me smile all the time, no matter how I feel.

He makes me smile when I ask him, What does a fish say?, and he pop-pops with his mouth, almost making the sound.

He makes me smile when he throws himself face down into the froth of my doona, with complete trust that there will be a soft landing, in spite of the bruise he got mis-aiming not so long ago.

He makes me smile when he sees the cat and leans down to rest his head on the its belly, giving it a cuddle.

He makes me smile every time he awakens and wants me to lift him to “touch the moons”, the mobile above his bed, still wondrously tracing their outlines when he catches one although he sleeps beneath them every night.

Those words make me smile: I like my son touching the moon.

He makes me smile because whenever he hears music he dances.

He makes me smile because he cannot get enough of pointing at things for me to name for him.

He makes me smile because he knows far more words than I am even aware of.

He makes me smile because he is purely himself. He is unadulterated.

And I plan on doing everything I can to keep him that way.

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I knew it was coming. There were some valiant attempts earlier in the week. A white knuckled grip, a face mashed into the the upholstery, one knee high up against his side and one foot almost lifting off the ground. And two days ago he made it.

Yes, Caspar can now climb up onto the sofa. I’m impressed. I’m proud. I’m thrilled. But I’m also horrified. The logistics of the descent still seem a long way off. He thinks a head-first dive-bomb is the way to go and I can no longer leave the living room, even momentarily, while he is in it. Who will be there to catch him?

After a morning spent at the house I am selling, dragging old furniture and a pond and a pool table out to the nature strip for the annual hard rubbish collection, I actually spent some of my afternoon on the couch watching TV. Caspar is very good at entertaining himself. He likes patrolling the house, inspecting the floorboards, opening and closing doors and poking at whatever he discovers along the way. But he also likes his Mummy & Me time. And that means books.

So there I was, watching episode 3 of Grey’s Anatomy’s 4th season in a fairly half-assed way, perking up a little when Really Old Guy… No, better not mention that. It hasn’t aired here yet. Anyway, there I was on the sofa when Caspar came over and handed me one of his favourite books before clawing his way up and snuggling in to just the right spot for me to read to him. Needless to say, I turned the television off.

Let’s just dwell on that image for a minute, before I go on with my story. I can’t remember exactly when he started snuggling in by himself for story time, coming over with book in hand and sitting himself down on my knee whenever I was cross-legged on the floor but it still moves me each time. It is probably the clearest communication I have from him.

(When he shakes his head, no, he won’t hit me any more, does he really know what he is agreeing to? When he nods, yes, he’s finished his dinner, does he really understand what it means? Actually, I’m, pretty sure he has that one figured out. When I asked yesterday he had hardly eaten a thing but I let him down anyway so that he would learn. He promptly picked up his dinner so that he could continue eating while toddling off to say hello to Big Sis. Finished obviously means Get free. I think I got played.)

But I don’t think it’s the clear communication that puts butterflies in my stomach and a lump in my throat when he comes and claims his space, even though that is something to be proud of. It’s not even that he loves reading so much. I think it is the trust expressed - his trust in me, in my attention, in his place in my world - which is so very beautiful that it almost moves me to tears. I think it is in moments like these that you know you are doing a good job of being a mother.

But, being a mother, Caspar’s choice of a more elevated book time (elevated to sofa level) today seemed like a good opportunity to provide some instruction. Like any addict bookworm, one is never enough for him and his usual method of obtaining another fix more books when we are on the couch is to lunge over the edge to reach the bookshelf which doubles as a side table while I grab at his ankles like a bungee cord, trying to avert possible brain damage. Today, with a lot of patience on my part and very little on his, we did a some manoeuvring between stories to show him how to go down backwards. I’m not sure the message sank in though.

He’s right, after all: Head first is quicker.

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Yesterday, in spite of my self-loathing, was a good day. Cas and I have been going to the park each afternoon since the sun appeared unseasonably. As with most things, Cas was slow to smile at first. He likes to take his time working things out.

He’s not scared or shy of anything, but he’s a thinker. And he hasn’t seen much of the world yet so he’s got higher priorities than giggling for every lady that coos at him on the street. But yesterday he had the park all worked out. So I got smiles.

(Well, I get smiles all the time, and hysterical giggles, and quirky little performances just cos he thinks he’s funny, but I’m his Mum. )

Yesterday the park got smiles: The swing got smiles, the see-saw and the slide got smiles, the wobbly bridge got lots of smiles. And as far as climbing goes, is he supposed to be able to do that at his age? But the most wonderful thing was that I didn’t carry him between playthings. He led me by the hand wherever he wanted to go. Or, more precisely, by the index finger.

He took his first few solo steps while Mum was here in July (8½ mths) but pretty soon after that it was straight into hospital for surgery and he’d been hesitant about it ever since so I dropped the “encouragement” and let him take his own time. Why rush? It’s not like he was behind schedule. It’s not like there’s any schedule for these things anyway.

So if he’s wanted to walk, I’ve just been letting him explore the house holding my two hands and stopping where he pleases to inspect the lint on the floor or the contents of the cupboards. But nothing was so interesting at the park as the bark beneath his feet. He kept leaning to pick up a piece but there were too many pieces to choose from.

It was that iconic image, that lump in your throat type stuff that I am failing miserably to describe. I’ll just have to let the pictures I took today speak for themselves speak for themselves. I’m so glad I didn’t lose my camera.

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It was 9:30pm and I was starting a post about our days at the park. I had pictures. I went over to the pram to grab my camera from the nappy bag hanging off the handles.

It wasn’t there.

And I’d been busy. There were so many photos I hadn’t yet had time to upload on that aptly-named memory card; photos from Mum’s visit, from Caspar’s surgery. Photos from today. Photos which marked an amazing change in Caspar as a little human being. Which I was going to write about.

I remembered putting the camera down beside the red slide when Caspar walked over to me. I remembered going to play on the see-saw, and going to have one last turn on the swings before Big Sis called to see if I would take her to the supermarket. So home we went.

Once my brain had taken that split second to process those movements, I was frozen. I had a sleeping baby in my bedroom but I had to go to the park. I’m lucky. I could. Big Sis, whose house I am living in, was only a step away, watching the football and waiting for pizza with her boyfriend in the house behind us on this dual occupancy lot. They came over to stay with Cas while I sped out onto the road and took a right. Parking half over the curb, I left the lights on and barefoot, wearing only a singlet, I ran outside into the winter, over the grass and over the bark to the red slide.

It wasn’t there.

I drove home still frozen. Big Sis and B came out to meet me and I burst into tears. Not just tears but those deep, sorrowful, heartbroken tears; the kind only a woman can cry, the kind you cry when you know your loss is irrevocable.

I walked into the house. I couldn’t speak. Big Sis, in her dressing gown, came toward me to envelop me in her Big Sis arms but she stepped away from me abruptly when she saw, plain as day, my camera sitting on top of Caspar’s bookshelf.

This is a really funny story. It should be funny. A blind panic from a mother whose brain is still not functioning at full capacity. A mind is a terrible thing to lose. That’s my punchline, right? But I’m not ready to laugh yet.

These digital remnants I get to keep are a drop in the ocean for a mother who, so many times a day, sees something new in her son, sees him grow, sees him change, sees him approach the world from different angles, sees him constantly becoming that little human being she already knew he was before she gave birth to him.

But they’re what I get to keep. They’re what I can look at now, while he’s sleeping, so I don’t go and pick him up and disturb his rest just so I can hold him. They’re what I will be able to look at when he’s grown and gone and I can no longer glance up from the dishes or my computer or the chopping board and be overcome by the transcendent perfection of this person I created and yet can take no credit for.

So thank you, Big Sis, for not laughing. Or, at least, for not laughing at me.

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