Deborah Kalin's Blog, page 9
February 14, 2014
she sleeps
It's been about a fortnight. Maybe more? I'm not sure. I've not said anything before because I didn't want to jinx it, and I still don't trust it – but guys, guys, GUYS.
Squawk sleeps. Through the night.
As a data point1, she's just shy of 14 months old. And it was basically an unforeseen step change. She had been getting gradually better, up to the point of sleeping in 3 to 4 hour stretches, and the resettlings were quick and simple, just a matter of letting her know she wasn't alone in the house — and then, one night, she went to sleep and 13 hours later she woke up. Not even a whimper in the meantime. And the next few nights, she did exactly the same thing.
Sickness, teething, it doesn't matter any more, she goes to bed and doesn't get up until the morning. She doesn't always not wake — but when she does, she puts herself back down within 5 minutes.2 Last night, sick and feeling poorly because of it, she even asked for an early bedtime and popped herself to sleep before I'd finished lowering the blinds.
The differences in our household are everywhere. There's the obvious one, in that she gets rest and so we get rest, but it spiders out further, into everything else. I can trust her to put herself to sleep, and she's no longer frightened of her cot, so bedtime has become less stressful for everyone. If she wakes up early in the morning, she's happy to just sit there and burble away to her toys while she waits for us to drag our sluggardly heads off our pillows. She wakes up happy. She wanders off alone through the house, less fearful of solitude or unheralded noises. She likes to sit and read her books by herself.
To celebrate, have a picture of Squawk demonstrating her skill with the Force, care of the pterosaur:
for those desperate parents who've passed through sleep-debt and found themselves wondering whether Guantanamo Bay might prove a restful change, who might thus land on my site because they're looking for the answer to the question of when, when, when will a baby honestly sleep through the night, not the five hours in a row that officially qualifies as through the night but real honest goes down at bedtime and doesn't make a peep until morningShe does sometimes cry during those five minutes. Listening isn't always fun. But it isn't always horrible, either; sometimes it's just muttering to herself sort of cries.
February 13, 2014
be right back, reading
It was serendipity that brought me a copy of Sofia Samatar's A Stranger In Olondria. For Christmas I'd received that most beloved of gifts, a book voucher, from a store that let you spend said voucher online, no less; and I'd just recently spotted on twitter some positive reviews from friends whose tastes I trust (to either align with mine or to broaden my horizons in some way, or both). So I bought it.
YOU GUYS. I am all of one chapter in, and the language, the immediacy of the world, the way everything leaps up, glowing, off the page…
I am going to devour it whole, sooner rather than later. And then I'm going to go back and do it again, and hope I can one day write a world so evocatively.
January 23, 2014
Cool Change Ani
Last weekend, we packed ourselves into the car and trundled off down to Geelong to pick up the newest member of our family:
She's a brown Burmese who hasn't finished darkening to her true colour yet, is home with us early at 10 weeks old because she grew up quicker than expected, and has settled into her new home with remarkable aplomb. I'd say she's ruling the roost, as kittens usually end up doing, but she and Squawk are still vying for that particular honour.
We're calling her Aniseed, or Ani for short. Expect photos!
January 14, 2014
the year of living squawkously
I missed a lot of Christmas Day for worrying about Squawk, who for over a week had been running a temperature that kept spiking up to 39°C; we ended up at hospital later that evening to get her some antibiotics. One week later, I missed New Year's Eve because, thanks to having caught Squawk's cold and being immuno-compromised due to sleep deprivation, I was back at the hospital getting treatment for conjunctivitis — which treatment didn't take, because I'd managed to contract a good dose of one of the few cases which didn't respond to the antibiotic eye drops. Two days later it had spread into sinusitis and tonsillitis for shits and giggles, between Squawk and I there were three different types of antibiotics (and a whole lot of aches and pains) on the go, and to call me miserable would have been an understatement. It felt like the bones of my face were contracting, grinding down into the meat of my brain, and my eyeballs threatened to burst at every movement. I have honestly never felt worse, than being sick and yet still having to care for a (sick) baby.
Safe to say, as far as parting shots go, 2013's was a doozy.
Which pretty much summarizes the whole of the year, honestly. After giving birth in the dying days of 2012, this past year for me was about learning what it really meant to usher a life into this world. To take a squalling ball of infinite need (more colloquially known as a child) and transform and guide it, one feed and nap and cuddle and game at a time, into a person. I've taught her how to smile, laugh, love, and play (including practical jokes), among countless other things.
I have not, to my endless sadness, successfully taught her how to sleep. So believe me when I say to you, I'm tired. In fact, I cannot tell you the number of times I shampooed my face this year. On the whole, I have to say I can't recommend sleep deprivation on a prolonged scale.
Pregnancy is easy: it's just turning food into a human, to borrow a line from Modern Family. Being a mother — being there for someone at all hours; guessing at and tending to their needs; feeding them when you can't hold your head up for tiredness; wiping that meal you carefully cooked off the floor; staying calm and patient (and sometimes not) when all you want to do is scream and throw things yourself; listening to them cry; letting them back on your breast despite the fact that the last three times you did just that they bit you with their brand new teeth, sharp enough to cut through human gums — being a mother is so much harder.
December 15, 2013
I have never before felt so open to every sling and arrow; I have never before felt so brave.
It's like growing another heart.
That's what an obstetrician said to me, when I was pregnant. We were talking about depression, and my fears relating to motherhood, and she meant it as reassurance. Evidence of how rewarding having a child would prove to be, an offering of the greater promise and joy in store for me.
Mostly, however, it terrified me. Because I knew even then she was right — more right than she seemed to realise. Another heart meant more room for joy, yes, but only because it meant more room for every emotion. Fear. Pain. Hurt. Confusion. Defeat.
And the kicker is that second heart lies outside the curve of my ribs, beyond my arms' reach, so vulnerable and fragile and forever lost to me. I cannot protect it.
Becoming a mother is growing another heart — and then casting that heart out into the wild and savage world. Taking the key to your own destruction and giving it into the hands of strangers.
August 28, 2013
duhalar reindeer herders
Duhalar reindeer herders by Hamid Sardar-Afkhami
The Duhalar reindeer people live in Hovsgol — the land of the blue lake — a territory of about 65,000 sq. km in Northwestern Mongolia bordering the tiny Russian Republic of Tuva. The Duhalar are the guardians of this hidden realm, patrolling a maze of evergreen forests and snow-capped mountains on the backs of their stocky reindeer. They gain a meager existence by hunting for furs and antlers, which they sell in a nearby Mongol town.
The Duhalar depend on a healthy domestic reindeer population not just for their milk and as a means of transport but also for their spirituality – to move through a forest haunted by the spirits of their ancestors who counsel the living through the shaman’s songs. If the reindeer vanish, the songlines of the ancestors will also cease to exist. …
August 25, 2013
August 23, 2013
chasing zen
Award Winning Garden Design By Ben Hoyle
I want this garden. Except, without the mosquitoes it would inevitably breed.
August 23, 2013 at 05:20PM
Red Panda is my totem animal (we’re both boofheaded creatures who really like to sleep…), and I’m thinking it might also be Squawk’s, because this is exactly what she does to my breakfast bowl every morning.
August 22, 2013
"But remember, there are two ways to dehumanize someone: by dismissing them, and by idolizing them."
“But remember, there are two ways to dehumanize someone: by dismissing them, and by idolizing them.”
– David Wong (via the-occipital)
via deborahkalin.tumblr.com
