I remember her.

Confused. Lonely. Dazzled.

Walking through the world skeleton first.

Dark and moody.

I don't want to forget her.
I don't want to be her either.

When you trawl through your history you remember your youth like a jewel. Like anything it's tumbled and polished over time and it looks cleaner and more precious than it really was.

I don't want to do that. I want to remember what it was.
Gritty, messy and dark.

It was the foundation for where I am now.

Once I was milk crates and planks of wood. Musicians and writers.

Now I'm Ikea and shiny cars. Children and scribble on the walls.

Nothing's changed. I'm the same - only the world around me has evolved.

I'm still here. Kind of.

The past couple of years have been fuller than I thought I would ever cope with. There you go. I'm a mum.

My days are completely swallowed by the work I have to do. The challenges and the frustrations of trying to be me in the middle of being someone everyone else needed me to be.

And the years pass like a long sigh. You don't even notice they're disapearing.

One day, you wake up again and it's almost as if you'd been asleep the whole time. You've missed nothing, you've had a full life.

Just.... you weren't consciously part of it.

Life's easier when you don't try too hard to live it.

DISGUST

The boy is teething and his sharp screams of pain are the epitome of frustration.

There’s so much he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand why his mouth hurts. He doesn’t understand why I’m not fixing it. He doesn’t understand why his mother slapped his legs for just playing.

Neither does his mother.

He was pinching and pulling at the light tuffs of hair around my neck. The pain was excruciating but he didn’t understand. Still, I snapped. I always swore I wouldn’t be this kind of parent and now I’m disgusted with myself. It was just one short, sharp slap but he went from laughing joyously at my repetition of “no” to the most horrified face I’ve ever seen.

That’s a look I don’t ever want to forget.

Perhaps it will remind my why I was so against hitting as a form of punishment. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be the kind of adult that lashes out at a child because they’re frustrated.

I always saw hitting as a sign of incompetence.

Parent’s are only human, I accept that. But we are supposed to be adults. We are supposed to be restrained and controlled. I can’t say I won’t do it again – be it from exhaustion, frustration, fear or plain and simple anger. I am, after all, only human. Like any animal I am prone to momentary lapses in control.

But the self-loathing and disgust I feel will well up each and every time.

ABSORBED

Each day with little boy just gets better.

No longer is he a tiny lump of babiness but he's turned into his own little character and I am totally wrapped in him.

For he past 12 months that's where my dedication has been. I have done nothing but watch him change. At times I've been upset and angry at all I had lost - my creativity sapped, my Independence obliterated, my privacy non-existent, my strength tested.

But be damned if it doesn't take just one belly-laugh from the boy and it's all forgotten. One hug and I'm completely his.

Today his chubbiness played in an empty wading pool with a 4-litre ice-cream container of water and some little plastic animals. We'd set the mini-water world up in the loungeroom because it was too hot to go outside.

He splashed, the water spraying finely across my face each time and I didn't wipe it away. I didn't want to move but instead just laid there watching him.

He was so amazed and fascinated by the way the water felt and how it flowed across the crumpled plastic pool's floor. His eyes lit up with surprise each time the water splashed into his face and then he would laugh joyously as if it were the greatest experience of his life.

Laying on the carpet I was wrapped into his little world. Each splash a discovery of something I'd long forgotten. And I couldn't have had a happier moment then to be there with him while he discovered this.

The funny thing is, all of my life I've been so afraid of losing myself to someone else. Why? What's so frightening about giving yourself over to the people you love?

In many respects, nothing has changed. I am still who I am. But for right now the lives of those around me have me hypnotized; absorbed.

And it's not frightening at all. In fact, it's exhilarating.

Well, except for the eye-watering nappies.

OH BROTHER

Even since I was little, I have imitated my big brother.

I wanted to play the sports he had outstanding skills at - soccer; martial arts; archery. I listened to the music he listened to and we fought over who liked them first. I wanted to go where he went. I wanted to do what he did. I wanted the friend he had.

He was my idol.

He still is.

No doubt he saw me as nothing more than a pesky little sister who got on his nerves but the truth was I would intentionally goad him just for a little attention. I used to untune his guitars just so he'd spend and extra 30-minutes in the loungeroom tuning them. I would "borrow" his music just so he would have to come looking for it.

Little changed when we go older. Only the methods of trying to get his attention became more sophisticated (at least I thought so).

I worked hard in a job I loathed, bought a unit I didn't need, travelled the world to extricate myself from a family dispute and . In doing all of this all I've ever wanted was for him to see that I was a success just like him.

Over the years I've speculated as to why he wants little to nothing to do with me. I've told myself lies that I know aren't true. I've fomulated theories about his situation. But I can't hold onto them anymore.

I'm a dissapointment to him.

And it doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter who you are. There will always be a link between siblings that goes unsaid.

Little sisters will always look up to older brothers, in the hope one day they'll look down and see them.

RAMBLING 26

According to my doctors it wasn't anything too dramatic. A little, just a little, internal bleeding. Over the course of a few weeks I became increasingly anemic until my doctor suggested I make a rapid visit to the local hospital for a transfusion.

But despite all of the exhaustion the one thing that amazes me and that I can't seem to shake my affection for a certain little boy. With all that's going on, his gummy smile is enough to force me to battle against the exhaustion and make it through yet another day.

Currently I am getting better but there is still a way to go. According to the doctors recovering from anemia is more a matter of months than weeks so it'll probably still be some time before I get my act together.

Don't stress though. I will be back. A lot has happened and 99 per cent of it has been good. My little boy has changed so much from the

Enough of the rant. I'm off to bed.

For now, it's

Goodnight.

Hopefully I'll be back soon and I'll be able to put all of my experiences into some sort of order.

I

just pray that all of these memories don't slip away.

Keeping tOOleS up to date is difficult at the best of times and right now it just isn't a priority.

Little boy tops that list.

My Tom comes in a very close second.

Not that it's a competition. Right now I just can't seem to find where one day begins and the other ends. They're all merging together.

Only little boy isn't the reason for that. I'm grappling for some time to myself and it appears that with how busy the day is, the late nights are the only time I have to myself. Unfortunately being exhausted doesn't allow for clarity of thought.

Perhaps I should stop putting so much pressure on myself.

Question all the expectations that others have heaped upon my shoulders.

Resist the temptation to judge myself too harshly.

Some things are easier said than done.

Try silencing the voices of a dozen generations coursing through your veins.

Understand that everyone means well but that when it come down to it, every child is different and every way of reacting to them differs too. Little boy, for example, is

very fond of staying awake all day but lucky for me he chooses to sleep through the night at only eight weeks.

We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

X-rays, stitches, injections. All of these things are in the future. He will break bones and scrape his knee but I can't be burdening myself with those worries now. We have

years in which to experience all these worries. For now, I need to get myself healthy. Otherwise it'll be impossible for me to cope with what's to come. Anyhow, off to bed for some well earned

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

TIME

It’s taken 19 days but I’m finally in the swing of things.

I can tell what cries mean what. The hungry cry. The tired cry. The attention cry.

It’s as though all the pieces fell into place one morning. Suddenly I could understand what he was saying when he wasn’t saying a word.

Little rascal is now so tired that he won’t sleep. This is the most frustrating of cries because you know the solution is a simple as him closing his eyes. But he hasn’t learned that yet – instead he just looks at me all confused and frustrated wondering why I don’t fix what’s wrong.

Time cures this cry.

Time cure all.

As for getting my head around the trauma of the birth – I’m slowly coming to terms with that. I don’t feel as angry as I did in the first week. Perhaps the anguish and the nightmares heal just like the wound. Each day the pain is a little less.

I’m getting more sleep. That always helps. I’m also being treated for anemia which was making my life just that much harder.

For now though, Boy and I are getting on pretty well. I no longer look at him and wonder where he came from. I no longer look at him and think he would have been better of with someone else as a mother.

Snuggled now in his dads arms I know that the tough newborn days will pass but that they’re preparing Boy for something wonderful.