Nette – Page 7 – Nette Hargreaves

Germanic Genes

I recently posted this Rowan Atkinson video on my Facebook page:

I am not sure what the whole angle about the New Europe is all about. I’m not really up to speed on politics. I don’t care to be either; so don’t bother filling me in.

Anyway, it got me cackling like a hen when it came to the ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ bit. Bad timing. I was supposed to be putting Lilly to sleep, not watch YouTube clips. Unexpected mummy cackling caused big tired tears. Bad mummy.

It also got me thinking about all sorts of German stereotypes. And how mostly I don’t really meet them; which frequently begs the question whether I really am German, or just making that up. Personally, I gratefully blame twenty years of cross-pollination with other cultures.

I guess I might be guilty of pulling off the look, although the blonde is chemically enhanced. We’ve been through that.

Then there ’s things like punctuality and efficiency. I think I was born with an Italian gene when it comes to timekeeping. In my world, it seems that the closer you are to leaving the house, the faster time passes. All of a sudden, 15 minutes have flashed by when all you’ve really done is put on your shoes and grabbed your handbag. It’s baffling, really. If time flies, mine’s on the bloody Concorde.

I also have an acute dislike for rules, and being expected to follow them. I like to think of rules as guidelines. Optional guidelines. And I’ll never be accused of putting my towel on a beach chair at the crack of dawn. Never ever. That would require both advance planning and getting up early, not my most prominent character traits.

I am, however, proud to say that I can pronounce a ‘th’ and I’m convinced I have a sense of humour. Rob begs to differ. I polled him about what he feels is my most Germanic trait. He nominated socks and Birkenstocks. But only at home. Never in public. Besides, I hear that’s now become a catwalk trend so maybe I’m just ahead of the fashion game here.

And I will support the German football/soccer/whatever you wanna call it team. Passionately.

So forget the Olympics. Bring on Euro 2012!

* * * * *

PS: This is the post for Jan 30. Honest. It was all written up before midnight. I just didn’t get to hit publish before the short one wanted attention. Something about food. I tried to fob her off on Daddy but she noticed.

But it still counts as yesterday’s post. We’re only 9½ hours into the next day so mathematically I still get to round down. Rob says it doesn’t work that way. I’m choosing to ignore that. Rules are guidelines. And they’re optional, remember?

So turn a blind eye and pretend it was there last night, would ‘ya? I had to make it up to Lilly about the cackling hen thing.

Good mummy.

Sleeping Beauty

I watched Lilly sleep this morning.

Possibly as a New Year’s resolution, she developed this habit of falling asleep on me while feeding. Especially in the morning, after her breakfast. Before my shower.

Now I take all the sleep I can get from the short one. But I got a short attention span. So whilst Lilly has her snooze, I try to do what I can being quietly confined to one spot. A lot of times, checking my emails and having a cruise on Facebook are sad but safe options. Doesn’t require a lot movement, doesn’t make a lot of noise. Can be done with either hand. Sometimes I read other people’s blogs, or peruse an online magazine. Mostly I have thoughts on what I might want to write about, or any other ‘stuff’ currently on my mind. Some days, I manage a cat nap of my own whilst sitting up and holding her.

And ever so often (probably not often enough), I look up from whatever I’m doing and watch her sleep. Notice how peaceful she looks. How soft her skin is. Feel her warm little body all nestled up against mine. All those lovely mummy things that you think are so boring and trivial…. until it’s your own child that you’re watching. I also get to wonder whether the white stuff in her nostrils is snot or dried up porridge, but I resist the urge to investigate. Getting poked up your nose is not conducive to infant sleep. Just throwing that one in, in case you’re tempted to get all mushy.

I also love watching her wake up and go from the deepest yawns and sleepy stretches to a happy giggle in about 20 seconds. I get to stop and appreciate how short and precious this time really is. Pretty soon, cuddles and sleeping on mummy will be uncool and uninteresting. Surpassed by playing and skipping about. So I enjoy it while I can.

Eventually, Madame wakes up and I get to contemplate getting myself dressed. Cleaning up after breakfast. Pondering the things that kinda need to get done. There’s plenty of time for that during the rest of the day. Except when there isn’t, but that’s another story.

And whatever I may or may not be doing, there are of course plenty of times during the day when I am distracted. When my attention isn’t fully on Lilly. And that’s ok. I can’t be focused on her all the time. Imagine the pressure of being on mummy CCTV 24 hours a day…

But I love honouring these special moments. Something to cherish and remember. More memorable than a clean kitchen table or getting out of your bathrobe.

And trust me, getting dressed before lunchtime is really overrated anyway. You gotta give the postman something to talk about.

Make It Count

It’s 22:30 and I am starting to write. I’ve had a good day, but nothing really remarkable happened.

Some days are just like that. Not totally fab, but not totally drab either. Somewhere in the category of normal, with a few good bits thrown in.

It got me thinking about a movie a saw I few months ago. It’s called Life in a Day. I’ve been looking forward to its release since the day it was made – July 24, 2010. The whole film is made up entirely of amateur video footage from all over the world. All shot on that one day.

The reason I know this is because Rob and I submitted footage for the film. It was great fun and we had a fully packed day – a friend’s biker-style wedding celebration and another friend’s birthday. And it’s really quite remarkable how much I remember about that day. Even though it’s one and a half years ago. Even though our footage didn’t make the final cut. I guess that day I really paid attention.

In the film itself, there’s everything from remarkable events like births, weddings and people dealing with illness to unremarkable events such as children laughing or pets playing. And I guess that’s what life is kinda like… a lot of moments that we might consider unremarkable in between memorable moments, people or events.

At the end of the film, there’s a girl in her car. It’s dark. She looks into the camera and talks about how she waited all day for something remarkable that she could film. And nothing happened. Now it’s close to midnight. And she doesn’t want to miss her chance of making this day count.

So in the end, this is what she says:

“I want people to know that I’m here. I don’t want to cease to exist.

I’m not gonna sit here and tell you I‘m this great person because I don’t think I am. At all. I think I’m a normal girl, normal life, not interesting enough to know anything about. But I want to be.

And today, even though nothing great really happened, tonight I feel as if something great happened.”

She’s real, honest and emotional. And out of all the thousands of titbits that make up this feature-length film, that’s the one I remember the most.

I think she made her day count. In a big way. Even though for the better part of 23 hours, nothing really remarkable happened.

D-Day

As I was dashing off last night’s post, I decided that today the dragons’ den finally needed addressing. The title ‘D-Day’ popped into my head and I hallucinated that I might write a quick post about making my dragon’s den of a living room dragon-free – temporarily, at least.

I love the universe. I really do. It heard D-Day and made other plans.

First of all, I had some big realizations about money. Good, juicy stuff. I might write about that another day.

Then the mail came. With a letter from my university. I have been expelled for non-payment of fees. Despite the fact that I withdrew for the year. It’s no good trying to write clever academic work whilst suffering from sleep deprivation and baby brain. But apparently my paperwork got lost.

The thing is, I have been wanting to study and to write for a very long time. So I got one part of the dream by getting accepted into a fabulous university and doing really well. But now the writing bit is coming to the forefront. Which coincidentally is more aligned with being a new mum. And I’ve been getting the feeling for quite some time that in order to pursue one, I need to let the other go.

Now I know not all decisions in life have to be one or the other, but this one seems to be. For now, anyway. In any case, I am not sure how I would be a great mum, and write, and finish my degree all at the same time. But I feel like a failure walking away from my degree without finishing.

It’s become part of my identity. I’m a student in the way other people are account directors, or investment bankers. So now I have to say I’m a writer. And mean it. And it kinda scares me. It doesn’t have the same certainty… yet.

But I know I gotta let something go in order for the writing thing to take off. I gotta make a bold statement. And the universe hit me over the head with one today (although I will set the record straight about it all).

There’s a saying that if you leap, something will appear. The first thing that came to me was a rope. But leaping and a rope are not a good combination. So scratch that.

It’s actually leap and the net will appear. It’s the net, Nette… the net, not the rope!

Now I know some of you might think that none of this is a big deal. But it is a big deal to me. And I can’t judge myself by somebody else’s standards. So what I’m hanging on to is the image of the leap. And I’m writing about it so I can’t chicken out and take it all back. I’ve already done that about 100 times.

And if nothing else, I gotta do it for Lilly. To teach her that to go after your big dream, you gotta be brave enough to leave your comfort zone. And take that leap.

Despite what the gremlins say.

On The Road Again

I’ve got cabin fever. Had it for quite a while. I am itching to travel.

I got to thinking on New Year’s Eve that I actually hadn’t used my passport once in all of 2011. Not one tiny stinking time. That doesn’t mean I didn’t go anywhere for twelve months but it does mean that I never left this island.

Just as a frame of reference, I used to use my passport once or twice a week. Granted that was a high-paying, high-flying corporate job but still… to go another year without international travel just won’t do.

So I’ve been plotting my moves and I will be LON-BRU-NYC in February and March. With Lilly. She’s had a passport since she’s been eight weeks old and it’s high time she gets to use it.

Now generally in life I am quite laid-back and last-minute about most things. Advance planning is not my thing. So it is with great amazement that I am actually observing myself thinking about said travel plans an entire month ahead of time. Writing to friends with questions like

Which floor is the flat on where we will be staying, and is there an elevator?
Do I need a child seat in a taxi, or are there local exemptions?
What are the logistics of a pushchair on public transport?

And behind the scenes at home, I am making lists of all the things I need to either sort out (like Lilly’s US visa waiver application) or remember to take with me (like Lilly, and her passport). I am thinking travel high chairs and packing logistics.

Except for when I’m not thinking (aka baby brain). A friend today suggested taking a backpack for luggage in order to avoid the potentially stressful child-buggy-suitcase scenario. I dismissed the idea, having visualized a day hiking pack that might at best get me through 24 hours with the short one.

It only occurred to me later that she might have had something larger in mind. I am now researching gap-year-sized backpacks. For a long weekend. And this from the woman who used to travel for an entire week with hand luggage. And pack somewhere between the evening before and the morning of departure.

Oh, how the mighty (smart, minimalist, last-minute packers) have fallen… hard.

Kaplonk. Thump.

Ouch.

Sweet Dreams

I’ve been thinking about sleep. Wishful thinking, that is. I haven’t had much of it lately. And then I thought about all the tricks we pull out of our parenting hat in order to get some shut-eye from our offspring.

Like lullabies. Lovely soothing songs designed to send our little ones off to the land of nod. With nighttime imagery like the moon and the stars. Sheep are also popular. At least in the German versions.

I guess lullabies are a bit like bribery. As in “Look, I’ll sing you a little soothing song and you’ll fall asleep. Deal?” Little do you know that you have to enter into serious negotiations before this deal is closed. Like singing the lullaby again. And again. And again. Apparently at a later stage, infant negotiation skills evolve to include asking for a drink of water or wanting to go to the bathroom. Thankfully, we are not there yet.

The notion of bribery is particularly obvious in the English lullaby Hush, Little Baby offering all sorts of rewards for entering into peaceful slumber. Heck, I’d fall asleep for the promise of a diamond ring! I just hope for Rob’s sake Lilly never calls in hers. Or the dog named Rover. She’ll have to do with the dog named Jack.

Speaking of animals, I am wondering how the mothers of the animal kingdom deal with the matter of sleep. Do animals have an inbuilt instinct to rest? And if so, when in human evolution did that get genetically weeded out? I’m sure the average lion or tiger mummy doesn’t have to whip out the songbook to get her offspring to snooze. I’ve never sung a lullaby to Jack.

Maybe I’m not speaking for every parent here. I know a few babes who just drift off peacefully without a lot of song and dance. But judging by the fact that there’s a book entitled Go the Fuck to Sleep, I think most of us are affected at some time or another. Oh, and with lines like the following

The cats nestle close to their kittens now

The lambs have laid down with the sheep

You’re cozy and warm in your bed, my dear

Please go the fuck to sleep

I might mention that this book is aimed at the frustrated adult and not meant to be read to the child. Just in case you’re desperate for them to get the message.

Of course impatience and desperation, directly related to one’s own level of tiredness, are entirely unfavourable to achieving bedtime slumber. Basically, the more irritated you are, the less likely your little one will close his or her eyes. It’s a vicious circle.

So what is it with this resistance to sleep? When does sleep go from something that is to be resisted to something that is desirable? And please nobody say the teenage years because those seem to be awfully far away.

On that note, I’m off to the couch.

Sweet Dreamzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……….!

Lifeline

In knitting circles, there’s an iconic lace scarf known as the ‘Ishbel’.

Me and Ishbel are having some trouble getting friendly with each other. And just in case you are not a knitter, just read on and substitute Ishbel for any other task or project that ails you.

I first picked up Ishbel some about 18 months ago. It all went well doing the plain bit in the middle. It all went to pieces doing the fancy lacy bit. Sadly, with lace knitting, there’s no cheating… you gotta get every stitch right or the pattern just won’t work. I learned that trying to cheat. I also learned that there’s a lovely concept in knitting called a ‘lifeline’.

Basically, you insert a thread of yarn through all your live stitches on the needle. If you are doing a complicated pattern that you need to unpick, you can then quickly rip it back exactly to your starting point and begin again.

So restarting the lace bit of my scarf for the umpteenth time, I used a lifeline. I knit four rows and was chuffed that the pattern and my knitting seemed to match up. I got to row five only to discover that I no longer had a match made in heaven. Reluctantly, I ripped back four rows of lace knitting back to said lifeline. Recounted the stitches. Reread the pattern. Started over (again).

Same story. Five is not my lucky number. In desperation, I consulted a well-known knitting site looking for errata. Errata are pattern corrections. There were none. Instead I discovered that Ishbel is so popular that 10,850 other knitters have made this project. And that’s just the ones who have bothered to post online. Over 10,000 people and I can’t master the damn thing. Great.

Problem with starting over yet again is that full of foolish optimism, I had already moved my lifeline up by four rows. So this time, no quick ripping back to the beginning but knitting painstakingly backwards. Stitch by stitch. Several hundred of them. Aaaargh…!

But I won’t give up. I have now printed a fresh copy of the pattern. Energy-cleansed the whole project over burning sage. Without setting fire to it (although it smells smoky). I’ll be using multiple lifelines. And stitch markers. And everything else other knitters have told me will work. And pray. A lot.

I will conquer Ishbel. And wear her proudly.

One day.

Quality Problems II

So after yesterday’s realization that I’m really quite lucky, I was feeling inspired and refreshed. Foolishly optimistic. I decided to cook the hard-working hubby his favourite dinner. Clean my dragons’ den of a living room. None of this was on my ‘get to do’ list but I hallucinated myself into thinking that I could manage to squeeze it into the wee hours between Lilly’s afternoon nap and bedtime.

Yeah, right. Who was I kidding? There’s only so much you can do with a six month old in tow, especially towards the end of the day when they get a bit fractious.

And really, I’m hardly a domestic goddess to start with. I’m ok with the fact that the laundry only gets put away when there’s new laundry to be hung up. That the aftermath of the papaya explosion that was Lilly’s breakfast is still in the sink to be cleaned up at 4pm. Things like that.

Nevertheless, I charged into the kitchen. Foraged through cupboard and freezer. Super-charged my slow cooker and cleaned up the papaya pandemonium. Yet despite my best efforts of continuously singing the same bits of the same Dolly Parton song that normally keeps Lilly appeased, I way overstepped the limits of her patience. In the end, I did manage to make dinner but only just. A tantrum was very narrowly avoided. Some might say a minor tantrum was had but I prefer not to go there.

And rather than being greeted by a delightful dinner upon returning home, the hard-working hubby was greeted by Hell’s Kitchen. There might have been dinner bubbling away somewhere, but he could be forgiven for not noticing in amidst the dishes and the remnants of the potato and pumpkin fest that was Lilly’s dinner. Wife absent settling babe to sleep. Unintended hint to empty dishwasher so ‘new’ dirty dishes could actually be put in it.

Oh, and the dragons’ den of a living room? Yep, still there. Never even started tackling that one.

But I will. One day. That’s a quality problem too.

Quality Problems I

This morning I made a list of things I want to get on with. I read somewhere that you should frame tasks up as things that you ‘get’ to do rather than things that you ‘have’ to do. I like that. Makes it less daunting. More like a privilege, less like a drag. And many of the things that I get to do are actually pretty exciting. Like looking for an agent and fine tuning upcoming travel plans. Fundraising and getting my blog snazzed up.

It also got me thinking how lucky I am to get to do the things I do every day. I have an amazing daughter that I get to spend time with. I am under no pressure to return to a conventional job and be separate from her. I get to write and go for walks with Jack. I get to hang out in cafés with other mummies. On top of that, I still get to nag Rob about emptying the dishwasher and I get to petition him for a few pockets of Lilly-free time every week.

So really, I’m a lucky girl.

That’s not to say that I don’t feel tired or overwhelmed or exhausted at times. It can kinda zap your energy to be present with a babe pretty much most of the time. Anticipating all of her needs; keeping her changed, fed and entertained. Making sure she gets naps. Tucking her up at night. I’m not complaining but being with a small person all day (and part of the night) would even wear the Duracell bunny out eventually.

So I’m a lucky girl with quality problems. That doesn’t mean that they don’t feel real at the time. It just means that really I have it very good… and so do most of us. Most of the time. We just need reminding ever so often.

Suza Belle

The other day, I mentioned my friend Suza Belle. She’s the one who taught me that you chose your family among your friends. As an extension of that philosophy, she also believes that we all only have as much ‘real’ family as we can handle. I guess in my case I can’t handle very much…

As her name would suggest, she’s a true Southern Belle. Exudes love, class and style in abundance. And in the serendipitous circle of life, she was introduced to me by one of my best friends, Jason; and in turn introduced me to her niece Stacey, who has become a great friend and a very important part of my life. I love how that works.

Suza Belle is seventy, with the biggest heart I know and the spirit of somebody half her age. At least. As a matter of fact, she frequently complains that her body is far too old for her adventurous mind. I can see why. No body can contain that much spirit.

Last time we met, she just started internet dating. She was excited and giggling like a teenager. Her only complaint was that barstools were too difficult to get on. And that the men were ‘all so old’. I bombed at internet dating in my thirties. I wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell in my seventies.

Suza Belle’s a great cook and entertainer. A fabulous raconteur. She tells the love story of Rachel and Andrew Jackson (the 7th US President) like she was there, with plenty of creative licence, of course. She travels any chance she gets, cane and vintage Louis Vuitton handbag in tow. She came to Germany to celebrate Christmas with my brother and grandmother. We had the best Christmas ever. She came to my thirtieth birthday party in London and to my wedding in France.

She’s taught me a great deal about making the best of life. About enjoying it to the full, despite what may ail and bug you. If you listen to her story, you’d think she’d have every reason to be bitter and resentful. But she isn’t. It just wouldn’t do.

For her seventieth birthday, her guests were asked to write down their favourite Suza Belle story. It was difficult just chose just one. I could write book full of Suza Belle stories.

Maybe one day I will. In the meantime, I can’t wait for Lilly to meet her.

Suza Belle, Stacey and me