Musings on mothering

Well, here I am again, but still with a baby on my knee. She fell into a deep sleep about 15 mins ago, and I put her down on a chair .... within 5 mins she was awake again - grrr!

In a way it links in a bit with what I wanted to blog about last night, mostly connected with feelings about motherhood. But I don't really feel I have the words for it now - the moment seems to have passed. In a nutshell, I am somewhat sad to not be able to hang on to the feelings of being aware of the miracle and wonder of having a child ... Obviously when Benjamin was born and his hold on life was so fragile, every moment with him was precious and to be treasured. Then we lost him, and it was another 2 years before Tamsin arrived, and she too was a complete blessing and I adored every moment with her for a long long time. Now she's a challenging 3.5 year old, and Isabelle has arrived, and everything is just 'normal'. In many ways that's great - no-one wants to live on a knife-edge of wondering if your child is going to live, and it's great to just have a very normal family life, but I feel a bit sad that I am not so aware of the miracle of every moment that I have with Tamsin and Isabelle. I wish I was less irritable, grumpy and wanting-to-be-somewhere-else and more immersing myself in the wonder of their presence. The grief after Benjamin died was horrendously awful, obviously, but I was aware even at the time of the gifts that it brought as well, one of which was the awareness that, truly, every breath a person takes is a gift, and the presence of your own child as a happy, living, breathing person is about the greatest high it's possible to have in this life. But I just can't recapture that feeling.

Hmmm, maybe I did have the words after all.

Anyway, I still haven't done anything about the learning stuff I blogged about a week ago, and I am also failing miserably in my New Year's aims.

Still, life isn't all bad - ER is back!