Category: Life

Amy upon waking gets out of bed and promptly gets her knee stuck in her gate. Instead of being able to ignore her for a few more minutes, I’m forced to bound out of bed and save her. Isaac is awake too and happy to see me. I smile at him and drag myself back out into the lounge room. It’s only been 6 hours plus baby feeds since I was able to sleep and I’m not ready to be awake yet.

I pop the TV on and snuggle Amy on the couch. Isaac gets placed on the floor to play and I stumble back to bed. I kick Nathan with icy feet to get him out of bed. He had an early night, it’s his turn this morning. Grumbling he gets up and I hear a happy little girl shout ‘Daddy!’ before I fall back into sleep.

***

Amy is dumped on the bed.

Here, watch her and have a look at her mouth while I get a face washer.

Hmmph? What happened?

Don’t know. She was outside playing.

I blink sleep out of my eyes to see that Amy is covered in blood. She doesn’t seem upset or hurt. She sucks her bottom lip and I see where the blood is coming from; her lip is already swelling.

What happened kiddo?

I was outside playing. I go find Daddy.

Happily she jumps down off the bed, not a care in the world. I hear Nathan chasing her around the house, trying to watch her face. She isn’t hurt, just bleeding. I snuggle back down and sleep. Again.

***

Isaac is crying. I hear the pump running telling me Nathan is in the shower. I climb out of bed, my shoulder throbbing. Picking Isaac up, I sit down and feed him. He gulps at me hungrily, his eyes already starting to close in sleep. It’s only been 90 minutes since I kicked Nathan out of bed to do the morning shift.

Slowly Isaac finishes his feed. I wrap him and settle him in the pram. He falls asleep while I climb back into bed, loathe to be awake yet.

Sleepily I watch Nathan get dressed and start folding washing. I curl up and pull the blankets higher. Amy plays in the lounge room alone and I can hear her getting frustrated with the dog.

Seven! Come! Here! Now!

Nathan leaves and I remain, not sleepy anymore, just exhausted. Getting dressed seems like much too much effort and I try to count how many spoons it would take me to get dressed.

I climb out of bed anyway and dress slowly. Nathan has the pleasure of putting my socks on for me and brushing my hair.

***

I curl up in the chair and sip at my cup of tea. I’ve just finished the few emails I had left to do and my reader is empty for the first time in days. The sun shines, beckoning me.

***

Weeding the garden feels never ending. For each weed I pull, there appears to be two more just a little further on. Amy jumps on the trampoline as Isaac gurgles in his pram next to me. The sun shines for the first time in days. It’s warmth is very welcome.

I give up on the weeds and instead check for peas of a size to be eaten. Underneath, in the part I can’t easily get to, I find some. They’re sweet and I share them with Isaac. My lettuce is coming up and is almost large enough to be picked. My salad greens are starting to bolt to seed, so I sit in front of them picking the flowers out of their centres and eating them raw. I’m not ready to give up the greenery just yet. They can seed in a few weeks for me.

I pick my way through the garden and poke at the area that should have beans coming up. All the rain recently has done it good, even though it nearly sucked my soul out of my chest.

***

Coming inside, I sit down to write a blog post. Amy is outside playing when I hear the gate swing closed. The gate that should have been latched.

Looking out of the window I see her racing away across our paddock. I ditch the laptop and grab my shoes. Racing outside and through the gate she sees me and races away faster. The grass is thigh high on her and she’s not very fast.

I catch up to her as she tries to escape through the fruit trees.

Mummy! You come chase butterflies with me?

Laughing, we run through the grass chasing butterflies together.

So for the last few days, it’s been raining.

And raining and raining and raining.

Did I mention the raining?

The river, that runs about 1km away from our house broke it’s banks and we spent just a leeeetle bit of time peering at it concernedly. Eventually it turned out we were looking in ENTIRELY the wrong direction, as it broke it’s banks closer to the house and flooded a paddock or two.

Not my paddock though, I didn’t need a river to flood it. A badly drained highway will work for that.

I haven’t been out into my paddock since the rain ended, but I have stood and looked at it. I looked at it hard. Unfortunately, simply looking at it didn’t drain the water, nor did it dry up the ankle deep mud that is everywhere. Or the puddles Amy keeps escaping to splash through.

Anyway, the water that ran in off the road made it’s way in a steady stream through my yard. Where it ran under the house. I’m too scared to look under the dining room, although I can guarantee that there is a pond under there.

Another pond that is.

Two sides of my bedroom got a little soggy. Just a little bit though. I mean, it wasn’t like there was water seeping up through the carpet.

Oh wait. There was.

But today! It’s sunny! And I weeded the garden and picked all my leafy greens for lunch and reduced half a dozen dislocations, all at once. I’m making the most of the sunshine, because the rain is meant to reappear later this week.

And honestly, I’m not sure if my yard will cope with anymore rain. We might just drown in a pit of mud.

Which would be less than pleasant.

My front yard.

The river, after the levels started to drop.

I place him down in his cot, firmly swaddled, awake and alone. Flicking the light off, I try to leave. For a moment, silence reigns before he unwraps himself and starts to babble. I walk out anyway, hoping that he doesn’t notice my exit.

He doesn’t. At least, not yet.

I sit down, revelling in the silence.

It doesn’t last. It never does. Amy clings to my leg and Isaac starts to squeal. There is no sleep here; not yet anyway.

Isaac starts to cry as Amy dances around in circles. Nathan’s computer game starts up, much louder than it needs to be. Sometimes I wonder if he needs his ears checking, that’s how often I find myself turning things down.

For a moment though, it was quiet.

It’s almost bedtime and then, I can wrap myself in the quiet.

The noise of heavy breathing as everyone sleeps. Snuffles and sleep talking.

I can’t wait.

I like bedtime.

Amy is crying. I flick on the hallway light and open the gate into her room. Birthday balloons litter the floor, I try not to trip. Reaching the bed unscathed I lay down next to her. She burrows into my arms.

Hungry.

No you’re not. It’s bed time.

I need an apple.

You need to go to sleep.

Apple.

Sleep.

Hmmph.

She can hmmmph with the best of them. Visions of teenagers flow through my head. God help me.

Cuddle me?

Of course. Come here.

She burrows deeper.

In the lounge room I can hear Isaac and Nathan talking.

What did we do today?

Daddy buyed me a flower.

He did. What else?

He buyed me chippies. And he buyed Mummy a drink!

She didn’t notice the chocolates. That’s always a good thing. Sometimes a girl needs chocolates hidden in her underwear drawer, all for her.

What else did we do?

We play outside!

I know. We dug a new garden?

Yes. And Amy did play with Seven! YAY!

And then you ran through the mud. And had to have a shower.

And Daddy did growl.

Because you ran inside with muddy feet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What else did we do?

We went to MyNanny’s house!

That was yesterday.

Yeah. MyNanny’s house is empty.

I know. We cleaned it out.

MyNanny died.

I know. I miss MyNanny.

Me too. Say me too Mummy?

Me too.

We used to visit MyNanny.

Yes, we did. What did we do there?

We ate cake!

[giggling] We did indeed.

And read books?

Yes.

MyNanny is in St Johns.

No sweetheart. MyNanny died. We’re very sad.

My eyes start to prickle.

We play in MyNanny’s bed!

You did, didn’t you.

And we cleaned out the drawers.

Yes.

Which, was harder than it sounds.

MyNanny has gone away.

Yes sweetheart. She has.

Kisses?

I kiss her and she snuggles into her blankets. In the lounge room I can hear Isaac start to cry.

I need to go now sweetheart, Isaac needs putting to sleep.

No!

Yes. He needs boobies.

No! You stay here with me.

Sweetheart, Isaac needs me too.

No, he needs Daddy. You stay here.

Nope. I’ve got to go. Here, come and kiss me.

She kisses me, albeit reluctantly.

Goodnight Amy.

Goodnight Mummy.

I love you.

I luff you too.

I climb out of bed and leave, flicking off the hallway light as I go. Behind me, Amy starts to sob quietly. She managed to sneak a mouthful of pie earlier and the gluten in the pastry has sent her spinning. I know she’ll be okay in a few minutes, although I worry about how she’ll be overnight.

It’s been almost 12 weeks since Nan died. The grieving hits me harder now, even though it feels less socially acceptable. I keep myself tightly contained in order to keep my shit together. But don’t doubt it, this sucks still.

Suddenly things are moving very fast. A real estate listing, an open home and whoosh, things are out of my grasp. I save the photos the real estate took, not knowing why. I just can’t bear to delete them.

Things keep moving forwards. I don’t get a say in that.

I’ll keep dealing with it as best I can. With silent tears and chocolates eaten in an empty bedroom.