The Mama Mix

Four generations of Bumparella women

So, let me tell you a modern day fairy tale.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who dreamed of one day meeting a handsome prince. (No, not that little girl; that one had to move to Denmark, live in a palace, wear designer clothes and learn to speak the notoriously difficult Danish language - how very dull for her . . .?)

Anyhoo, the little girl in our story met, instead, a lovely commoner and fell head over heels in love with him, even though he already had three children. So she married the man and became, not a princess, but a stepmother. (Oh, okay, she was a little bit of a princess too, but we all know you don't need a crown to be a princess huh?)

So by now, clever reader, you've figured out the princess-ish stepmother is me.

On my wedding day, I stood at the altar and looked at my new husband and my three new step-children and thought “Wow, I'm actually marrying four people. Hmmmm . . . how hard can Danish really be?!"

No, no, no . . . I jest! What I really thought was, “Oh God, let me be a good stepmother and create a happy home for them.” I thought it was the parents who do the teaching, not the other way round.

Well, those kids taught me a lot of things. I learned how to:

• Put on a band aid, and take it off with only minimal screaming
• Iron hair
• Listen to a girl with a broken heart
• Get out of a top bunk bed at 2am with a hot arm strangling me and a slingshot digging into my chin without waking a child
• Have three-way conversations with a teddy bear named Paddington 
• Bake birthday cakes in the shape of a football
• Read every Harry Potter book out loud and do a pretty good Voldemort voice that’s not too scary
• Cheer along at every sports event every weekend (on only one occasion to the point of embarrassment)

But probably the most important thing they taught me is that ‘mothers’ and their children can come in many different forms. You don’t necessarily have to be related by blood in order to be a mum or to love someone else’s children. They also taught me to be real. To be myself. Such a hard lesson to learn, when you're doing everything in your power just to be liked. I felt I somehow needed to make it up to them for being someone they didn't choose to have in their life. It took awhile for us all to realise that we were an "and" in each other's lives, not an "or".

Lessons about how to be a mum also came from my grandmothers.

My maternal grandma had eight children. Eight! Can you imagine? Clearly a good Catholic family. (Also, it was the 1940s. No television. Say no more).

Without going into too much detail, my unwed mother found herself in the family way at the tender age of 18. Now, in the 1960s, this often led parents to come up with solutions for their unwed daughters that these days we would find unacceptable. Banishment. Adoption. Sent to live with nasty maiden aunts. But my very Catholic, extremely devout grandparents never considered anything but supporting their daughter and welcoming their new grand-daughter (me!) with much love and understanding.

So from my maternal grandmother I learned what is probably the most important lesson in how to be a mum - how to give unconditional love.

My paternal grandmother taught me about the importance of a bosomy hug as a fix-all solution to any woe. She also taught me the art of Tim Tam appreciation and how to play poker. In this age of sugar reduction and political correctness, this may seem irresponsible but I'm telling you, Tim Tams still have their place in a mother's arsenal of bribery tools. Likewise, you shouldn't underestimate the ability to pull a good poker face.

My own mother has, of course, taught me a lot about being a mother. By 21 years old, she had 3 children under 4. I think she has selectively blocked most of the early years from her memory, but I haven’t. From her I learned these things:

• When making a cake, let your children lick the bowl
• Let your daughter wear a crocheted bikini when she is five but NOT when she is fifteen
• Do not let a four year old watch the Wizard of Oz because the wicked witch of the west is really quite scary
• Indulge your children in their fantasies when they’re young, even if they fall out of a tree pretending they were Queen of the Fairies and sprain their arm.
• Read to your children every day
• Let your daughter buy that old orange Mini that stops dead whenever it runs through a puddle because she WILL learn that buying a crappy cheap car is NEVER a good idea
• If you barack for a team that is NOT the Sydney Swans, you will be disowned
• Sometimes mummies need to lock themselves in their bedroom with a packet of scorched peanuts and a trashy magazine. And that’s okay.

Mum in 1969 - a natural mama, despite only being 19. Don't you love the 60s glamour?

But most importantly, my mum has taught me the importance of support. Of always being there, even if it’s just at the other end of a phone, to get excited about a work promotion, or a new pregnancy, and to tell you you’re beautiful and amazing even when you’re feeling old, ugly and washed up. A mum who will get drunk with you in a margarita bar in Hong Kong is also a gal you want to keep by your side as long as possible.

There have been so many other women in my life who have taught me how to be a mother. My darling mother-in-law, who passed away last year, taught me the importance of listening with interest to everything your children say, of engaging with them and asking questions. She also taught me how to sew a neat French seam when she helped me with the ridiculously ambitious task of sewing my three bridesmaid’s dresses.

Some of the most precious lessons have been gifts from other mothers. The girls in my mother's groups, school mums, neighbours - I have soaked little bits of you all up! How else do we learn about the best sleeping bags, the benefits of screen-free time, how to sneak vegies into dinners and the tooth fairy's going rate?

My dear friend Elizabeth, another beautiful, inspiring mother, whose heartfelt words made me realise just how strong the desire to be a mother can be, urged me to try everything in order to have another baby. That conversation led me to an IVF clinic. Without that single conversation, little Francesca Barraclough would never have been born. Francesca's middle name is Elizabeth, after the woman who inspired her into life.

From my friends who are adoptive mothers I have learned how the power of motherly love can transcend blood ties, as they welcome a child into their homes and hearts with a love that is immediately and wholly unconditional. Where does that instinct come from? The power of mother-love blows me away.

And from friends who had to grow up without their mothers, I’ve learned about courage and strength. These women are among the most warm, nurturing mothers I know. They're doing something that comes naturally – being a mother is more than just what they've learned. It's been passed down to them in their genes by mothers who loved them so fiercely they fought their illnesses like crazy to stay on this earth and watch their daughters become mothers themselves. To lose the right to watch your children grow must have been scarier than death itself. Witnessing my friends turn their grief to love and pour it into their own children brings me undone.

Of course, I have learned the most about being a mother, not just from being a stepmum to three young people who were half grown, but from the two I had the privilege to know from birth - Jack and Francesca. From these five children, I have learned how the joy of motherhood is mostly in the little moments.

• Watching the intent focus on the perfect, soft, unlined face of a young boy building a Millennium Falcon out of forty thousand small pieces of Lego, using a brain whose synapses are firing faster and more intelligently every day
• Singing along to the Sound of Music or having suddenly-strong limbs leap upon you as boy becomes Spiderman
• Lying on our backs on the trampoline in the afternoon watching the clouds change shape and discussing the finer points of goal kicking or whether teddy should wear a purple or green elastic on his ears
• Getting man-sized hugs from boy-cubs grown into strong bears and stubbly kisses from once smooth faces
• Out-of-the-blue text messages of love and appreciation from a gushy, gorgeous teenager grown into a warm, wonderful young woman.

The five people who have taught me most about being a mum

I’ve also learned, from being a mother, that the garbage truck will always, without fail, come around and empty the bins exactly ten minutes after you’ve just gotten the baby down for a sleep.

And where would a mother be without the father who contributed a special little something that helped produce the children and made being a mother possible. My husband John makes me a better mother by being my wing-man in this parenting business. I know for sure that I would be a more tired, grumpy, possibly hysterical mother if I didn’t have him to take the kids off for a hot chocolate on a Saturday morning so I can have a sleep in, or to consult with about that funny rash that appeared on a child’s arm and decide it’s nothing to worry about, or to pile us all in the car for a cheap and cheerful dinner down at the Dee Why sushi joint when he knows I can’t face another night of cooking three separate meals.

If it’s true that you never stop being a mother, it’s also true that you never stop learning HOW to be a mother.

So if you see me staring at you in the playground or on the beach or at the cafe, don’t worry I’m not stalking you. I’m probably just taking notes.

To Wee Or Not To Wee

The only problem with all this undie-wearing business is the wedgies . . .

And so we come to the most interesting of toddler milestones (if your definition of 'interesting' includes potential disaster, frequent embarrassment and involves poo in places other than a loo) . . . . toilet training.

Once again, because of the seven year age gap between my children, I have blocked out forgotten what we did when it came to toilet training Jack. I seem to remember there was The Day Of The Ten Wet Underpants which led to the The Month Of Pretending It Will Go Away. But inevitably, he got toilet trained and, at nearly ten years of age, seems to be managing quite well (apart from the apparently hilarious pastime of farting in confined spaces).

Francesca was very keen to start sitting on the toilet last year before her second birthday because she wanted to copy her little friend Piper who is six months older. There was plenty of enthusiastic toilet-sitting but zero actual wee action. Nevertheless, we set up a potty in the corner and, because it was summer and her preferred outfit was a pair of gumboots only, she would take herself off to the potty periodically without the complication of, y'know, clothing to unbutton, unclasp, unzip, pull down.

Her first actual wee on the potty was met by thunderous applause from the whole family and of course, standing ovations were compulsory for every wee on the potty for quite some time thereafter.

However, in the manner of many busy working women who barely have the energy for rotating the cap off a wine bottle (how on earth did we cope with the whole corkscrew business!?), taking a toddler out with only a thin layer of cotton between her unpredictable bottom and the many flooring surfaces of the outside world was all too hard. I decided we would go commando at home and wear nappies whilst out and about.

This is what I like to call the Magical Toilet Training Breakthrough Formula (as opposed to the Lazy Parent Hit & Miss Approach). When the number of times the toddler successfully does a wee on the toilet, exceeds the number of accidents, they are ready to face the outside world.

And so it came to pass. Toilet training - tick. And thank God for that.

Francesca has been in Big Girl Undies for two months. I feel it's now safe to block out the memory of another milestone and continue coping with day to day life, including the unscrewing of wine caps which will now be deserving of my full focus.

Next stop? Big Girl Bed. But that bus won't be coming along for quite some time. I'm not ready to allow a 2 year old full access to the entire house at all hours. That would require more wine than I am currently capable of unscrewing.

I'd love to hear your 'wee' stories. Are you in the middle of toilet training? Been there done that? Or just in the process of screwing up the courage? Share!

Postscript 29 April:
Now I need some advice too. Number ones on the toilet? No problems. But doing number twos is apparently very very scary and the one time we did it, we cried the whole way through. One could be forgiven for thinking that releasing that poo into the toilet was the equivalent of handing over one's first born son to King Herod! I've heard this is common but I've also heard of four year olds who 'hang on' till they get a nappy on and, oh Lord, save me from a constipated child who can build an entire virtual city in Minecraft but can't take a crap on a toilet. Tips and tricks required please.

The Wedgie - it's all about wearing it with attitude. There's a lesson in that for all of us I think . . .

These are the days my friend

Thank you daylight savings for your lovely six month stay. We were sorry to see you go with your balmy evenings and late sunsets and toddlers that slept till 7am.

How absolutely bonkers is it that putting the clocks back ONE MEASLY HOUR can turn your whole world upside down? For the first week, I feel like I had a daylight savings hangover. Morning wake-ups at 6am instead of 7am and afternoons that dragged on like a Logies telecast.

"Can it really only be 6.30pm?" I moaned every day last week when my body was expecting to have already eaten dinner and would have been anticipating the joy relief tender moment when I lay Francesca in her cot to sleep. At 6.30, she was still demanding to eat 'gwapes in the barf'!

My body clock caught up with itself this week. John and I decided we would take advantage of the early starts and Indian summer weather by taking the kids to the beach this morning at 6.30am, followed by brekkie at our local cafe.

I'm so glad we did.

The water was warm and calm. While the kids played on the beach, John and I struck out with long strokes across the bay - him shearing through the water with strong freestyle, me setting a more languid pace on my back. We duck-dived to the ripply sand on the bottom and shot like arrows through hazy green and blue back to the surface. Such a beautiful start to the morning.

These are the days my friends. You know . . . the days. The ones we'll look back on and think "Life was bloody good."

Grand Dames & End Games

A year ago today, the Barraclough clan gathered at the home of my splendid mother-in-law Dorothy. We sat around her antique mahogany dining room table, spread out the place mats and coasters like she always showed us, and ate Shepherd's Pie. We talked and told stories and even laughed a little while down the hall, Dorothy lay in her bed (her own bed, mind you) dying.

And it was beautiful. Sad, of course, but also beautiful. Being together as a family, surrounding her with love, going as far as we could on the next part of her journey with her. It felt like the highest honour.

While we ate dinner, a carer sat with the sleeping Dorothy. Her jobs done, her patient comfortable, she sat there holding Dorothy's hand, stroking her hair, talking to her softly, crying occasionally. Why was she so devoted to this dying elderly woman, lavishing so much love and care on her? She had barely known her patient and the Dorothy she had known was not healthy, vibrant, golf-playing Dorothy, champion roast dinner cooker and witty raconteur. She was at the end of her life, fearful of leaving, tired of staying - a combination that will make anyone a tad cranky.

But something always shone through. Even when things were at their most grim, Dorothy had a light inside her that still burned brightly and an elegance about her that never left. She was a Grand Dame in the full trouser-wearing, razor-witted, glamourous Katherine Hepburn-esque meaning of the word.

The formidable Ms Hepburn once said "If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun" and that was so true of my spririted MIL. Her grandchildren adored her because she had such an enormous sense of fun, setting up games of indoor bowls and encouraging them to raid the biscuit jar when parents weren't looking. She told me only a few years ago that she still felt like her 21 year old self in her mind. I'll remember that when my own body starts to fail me.

Kate Hepburn also said "Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, only with what you are expecting to give, which is everything". Truer words were never spoken. Dorothy gave and gave, with never any expectation of return, a quality that I admire and strive to emulate. It's hard to do (try it!), but she made it a way of life. Giving - love, money, food, golf tips, an ear to listen - was her modus operandi. Even at her sickest in hospital, she would learn all about her favourite nurses lives, asking them questions and taking an interest in them. I suspect this may also have been one of her wily ways of detracting attention from herself. The nurses and carers were all devoted to her.

She could also be tough, especially in a debate. But so damn classy with it. A velvet sledgehammer sipping Irish whiskey.

Tonight, I'll be thinking of that final dinner in her home, the night she breathed in and out for the last time and drifted off to meet her badly missed husband on the other side of this life.

She's with us though. We like to keep her around, not just in our hearts and minds, but in the photograph that sits on top of the piano where, in her wedding dress made of pure white parachute silk, she keeps an eye on Jack's fingers skipping across the keys. In the quilt that rests on the back of a chair in Francesca's room. In her favourite crystal tumbler from which John drinks his nightly whiskey. And she is brilliant about finding me car parking spots when I most need them.

I wrote this poem (actually that seems too posh a term for what is just a few rhyming sentences) and read it at her funeral. For it is the minutiae that can sometimes offer an insight into a person.

Dorothy’s Pearls Of Wisdom

Bridge is wonderful, you must learn how to play

Don’t ever call in during Home and Away

The best bananas are Lady Finger

After one’s putt, one mustn’t linger

In arguments or debates, you must be a ninja

Every dish is improved by the addition of ginger

Skim milk is awful, you must drink full cream

When sewing one must do a neat French seam

Religion is suspect, have you considered Buddha?

Some of those priests and ministers shoulda

Embrace golf and bridge but give bowls the flick

And Richard may be Rich, but not Rick or Dick

Those new fangled tech investments are far too risky

Whatever you do, don’t drown the whiskey

The only dog worth having is a golden retriever

Behave like a lady, never a diva

When on the tee, just breathe and swing

On the car? It’s a scratch, never a ding

A book must have a decent plot

And the name is Dorothy, NEVER Dot!

Vale dear Dorothy. We miss you every day xxx

Genea wins Masterchef with new soup

As if it wasn't enough that Genea has a 30% higher success rate than the average of all other IVF clinics in Australia, the good doctors and scientists there have had another amazing breakthrough, increasing your chance of getting pregnant by a further 26% per embryo transferred.

Talk about a bunch of show-offs! But seriously, if you're thinking of trying IVF, you want this bunch of clever show-offs in your corner. In fact, I would go so far to say in the manner of loud television infomercial host "why go anywhere else?!"

A few weeks ago, Genea received TGA approval to use their new and improved 'culture medium' (the solution that the egg, sperm and embryo grow in) for all IVF patients going forward.

If it were Masterchef, Matt Preston would be declaring that the cook's clever inclusion of lemongrass and chilli have made the soup literally POP with flavour to create an absolute winner!

I think my favourite IVF doctor Prof Mark Bowman summed it up beautifully (you can read the full article here):

"We are very happy with this. I am a big believer in minimising the randomness of IVF. We can give patients a better chance to have a successful pregnancy in a shorter time. It saves money and heartache."

Saving money and heartache. Isn't that what it's all about? Ask any couple embarking on IVF what their two biggest fears are and they will be (a) fear of failure and (b) how much it's all going to cost. This new development in the land of IVF minimises both of those things and in my opinion, that's not just a scientific coup but another warm blanket for IVF couples to wrap around themselves on a journey that can sometimes feel long and lonely.

Letting Go

Letting go . . . 

I've been thinking a lot lately about the concept of 'letting go' and conversely, why we become so attached to things and people in the first place. Buddha is good on this. Do you know Buddha? He's that laid back guy sitting under the tree in the park with a smile on his face.

Of course there's the cruel attachment one forms with one's favourite TV shows and the agonising wrench of having to let go of Don Draper or the good folk at Downton Abbey at the end of every season. It's difficult but achievable, especially as there are always reruns of Modern Family to fill the gaping hole with lovable humour.

Harder to let go of are people. And not just the horrible-nasty-no-good-very-bad-just-plain-mean people who pop up in everyone's life at one stage or another. They should be let go, and rightly so.
But sometimes it's important to let the people you love go too.

Let me explain . . .

We've just moved to a house high on a hill overlooking the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Every morning at dawn I stand in the still, cool air on the deck of our house, high above the world. From this vantage, the sky also seems bigger - I can see banks of clouds running towards us through the blue overhead and big bashing storms forming out to sea. And perhaps because I feel so small in the universe amongst all of that, I suddenly feel more 'me' than I do at any other time of the day.

Not a mother.

Not a wife.

Not a daughter.

Not a business owner.

Not a friend.

Just. Me.

All alone, with my childhood dreams, my sense of wonder, my knowledge of all that I am. A happy introvert. A sentimentalist. A believer in love and forgiveness. Too emotional at times and sometimes not emotional enough. A former fairy-believer. A tryer who is sometimes trying. A girl who wants to be everything all at once and fails to be anything often. A dreamer who would rather write a cool novel than make a cold call. A shower-singer. A total dag.

And it's such a gorgeous, liberating feeling to have those few minutes just being grateful and accepting where I am right now. My place in the universe.

But to get to that place, it's necessary to let everything go. Fear and anxiety are inherently linked to the things and people in our lives. Worrying about something happening to the children, anxiety about jobs, money, the future. It's all too much. Modern life is overwhelming. It wakes us up at 3am and gnaws at us. No wonder we're all so tired all the time. It's fricking exhausting being a human being on this earth, being harrassed at 3am by an internal harridan about the cupcakes for the school fete and the screechy brakes on the car and the mean kid who's telling your child they're not allowed to play.

But up on my deck, my eyrie, for those few minutes, I bring the people I love in close to me and I thank the universe for them, their health, and everything we have in our lives. Then one by one, I let them drift away from me. My husband, my parents, my children. I send them floating off into the sky on their own journeys, knowing that they will back with me momentarily, after I've had my fill of solitude. Of getting back to me.

It's like picking up a beloved book from long ago and rediscovering a gorgeous, warm story. One you can come back to again and again.

Happy Friday xx

Image author's own doodle. Note the excellent big hair and absence of tuckshop arms.

Empathy Trumps Ego . . . (sometimes)

Last Tuesday morning as I was emerging from the crazy, nonsensical land of the 5am dreamscape (you know the kind of dream I mean . . . where you're the curiously ugly ten year old love child of Don & Megan Draper living in a cave in the middle of Manhattan and eating pistachios through a straw), when I heard a muffled expletive. At first I thought I had dreamed it (perhaps Don ran out of whiskey & cigarettes) but then I heard the kitchen door open and realised it must be Ryan.

Ryan is our 22 year old rower and is often up at dawn's crack to scull the waterways of Sydney's harbour, so the fact he was awake at that time wasn't unusual. But something was amiss. I entered the kitchen to find him bleeding from the knee and shoulder. He'd missed a step in the dark on his way to the car, taken a tumble and shoulder-charged the tyre of the car whilst his knee made love to the pebble-crete path.

Later in the day, Francesca became fascinated with Ryan's injuries, with the following exchange occurring at least twenty seven times before bed time:

Francesca: "Ryry?"
Ryan: "Yes Francesca?"
F: "What happened?"
R: "I fell over"
F: "Hurt your knee?"
R: "Yes I hurt my knee"
F: "On tyre?"
R: "Yes on the tyre of the car"
F: "In dark?"
R: "Yes, in the dark"
F: "Oh"
Pause
F: "Okay?" as she pats Ryan on the leg
R: "Yes, I'm okay"

Pause for ten seconds.

F: "Ryry, what happened?"
R: "I fell over"
F: "Hurt knee?"
etc., and so on and so forth.

This exchange continued on for days, in almost exactly the same order. The most fascinating part of the whole affair seemed to be the bit about it happening in the dark. Sometimes we'd turn the tables and ask Francesca "What happened to Ryan?" and she would answer "Fell over", then add melodramatically "In the dark!!"

Oh it seems so boring written down like this but honestly it provided hours of amusement for us last week. What can I say, we are thrill seekers who love to live on the edge. And none of the good TV shows have started yet. We take our entertainment where we can get it. We're also cheap. No fancy Foxtel for us. We'd rather spend our money on booze and pills and pokies.

JOKING! We only spend big on booze.

The thing I really loved about the whole Ryan-falling-in-dark episode, however, was that it showed how much our little girl is growing up. The ego in a two year old is always firmly present - the self-absorbed pop princess diva is still in residence, ordering room service, leaving lipstick stains on the pillows and yelling at housekeeping - but the empathy gene is getting a look in.

Suddenly the plastic newborn doll whose head she was previously using as a step ladder to reach inside the cutlery drawer, is her special baby. She takes Baby to bed, cuddles her, feeds her and washes her. Baby often does a poo and needs her nappy changed with the assistance of MANY wet wipes. Baby also seems to be rather grizzly and in need of cuddles with her mama cooing "It's okay, it's okay" over and over. It's such a joy to watch.

Just don't try to separate the girl from her biscuit or you will discover that the toddler version of Nicky Minaj is alive and well and dishing out death stares in Collaroy.