Junk Drawer

19 July—9 months in 9 months out

Sitting on the large, sloping hill in the Horniman Gardens. I’m always grateful that this is on our doorstep.

The grass has grown long in patches and has been cut short in others. I can’t see the logic of the pattern. The grass is surrounded by trees, and people sit under their shade on this hot July day.

Earlier two dogs found a spot in some long grass near our blanket—a little one, black with white stripes and big one, white with black stripes. They writhed on their backs in pleasure for many minutes. Luna sat up from feeding and watched them with her eyebrows raised, panting in excitement herself. She loves dogs.

Two squirrels chased each other around the trunk of the tree behind us, their claws scrabbling against the bark.

Luna started to rub her eyes, and it had been a couple hours since her morning nap, so I drove her around in circles in the pram. She talked to herself in her high-pitched chirpy baby babble until it turned into a low groan and she fell asleep.

She’s so big now. Her two top teeth make her face look older.

With such repetitive daily tasks, I’ve become particularly attuned to the details that make each day different.

It’s hard to unpack eighteen months where so much life happened, but so little went on at the same time. Time always seems to have flown by in retrospect, but days are long as they happen.

Pregnancy is now a memory. I read back old journal entries to remember the headspace.

Pregnancy was waiting. Waiting for the scan, waiting to tell, waiting for the next scan, waiting for a bump to be visible, waiting for a baby.

There’s life before birth and life after birth.

Then there’s birth, and time doesn’t move in a straight line anymore.

There’s time in pain, which is grotesque and loopy, where one minute long contraction is also happening for eight hours.

The first two weeks after are a mushroom cloud of time, in the explosion and adjusting to the blast zone at the same time. Perhaps an ignorant metaphor to use, while Palestinian people are giving birth and being born into an actual war zone while world powers callously enable the systematic destruction of their lives. That this already vulnerable, upending experience is allowed to happen amidst such violence is unfathomable.

The first two weeks were a daze, each day a whole world in itself. My insides had just been turned out, my vagina was an open wound and we had a small, helpless creature requiring constant care. One day was suddenly another, no consistent sleep to separate those previously dependable units of time.

I dreaded the dark because it meant the endless, unpredictable night. The first few nights, I couldn’t latch her onto my nipple without seeing, so we kept our lamp on all night. Daylight became lamplight until the sun rose again. I fed her from my body, then walked and rocked and sang lullabies until I couldn’t think of any more, then switched to pop songs, then hoped she would stay asleep when I put her down in the bassinet next to our bed. I was so grateful when the sky started changing colours again. We had made it through another night. Then she would lie down next to me and feed as we snoozed through the morning.

The feeding was relentless. I was not prepared for how much feeding, for how painful it was when the milk came in, for how long it would take to get the latch right. I thought I would be trapped sitting in the corner of my couch under my breastfeeding pillow forever.

Sitting was painful, standing up was painful, walking was painful, peeing was painful. I needed to pour water over myself as I peed to make it bearable. I was afraid to poo, so I became constipated, so I was prescribed stool softener, a laxative, and suppositories—small torpedos I needed to put up my bum.

The first time we left the house was five days after she was born, for a midwife appointment. It felt like we were stepping into different air. It felt like we were doing everything for the first time, walking, getting on a bus. The pram felt like a toy, we were playing pretend at being parents. I could only perch on one bum cheek on the bus.

A woman with silver hair and a baby strapped to her asked how old. Five days, we said. Four months, she said gesturing to hers. I don’t remember what we spoke about, just that she was also American and that her baby was a good sleeper. We got off at the same stop and walked in different directions. Hopefully see you around, we said. I haven’t seen her since, but think about her often.

It’s a slow crawl from raw to slightly less raw to finding a new rhythm.

Four months onwards is a blur of phases and incremental change. I went from disposable breast pads because I leaked so much, to reusable breast pads because it was more under control, to no breast pads because my body adjusted to the amount of milk I needed at any given time.

At some point, it didn’t all feel so overwhelming. It felt like routine. Feed, change, nap, repeat. As she got older, feed, change, play, nap, repeat.

At some point, leaving the house didn’t feel like such an event. It was a saving grace.

So many walks. Around Mayow Park, the Horniman Gardens. From Forest Hill to Ladywell, Forest Hill to Sydenham. Bellingham to Catford, Honor Oak to Peckham, Forest Hill to East Dulwich, Forest Hill to Crystal Palace. I could draw a map of South East London from memory.

Walks in the sling, in the bassinet, the facing forward buggy. Anxious walks, just me and Luna. Chatty, social walks. Walks with other new mums, walks with friends without kids, walks with Daniel on the weekend. Rainy, sunny, gray, blue, green walks. Noticing everything and stuck in my head walks.

25 July

I’m sitting in the gray morning light while Luna naps. From our living room window, I can see the leafy green tops of trees, roofs, chimneys, a church spire.

I keep trying to look back on these past 18 months. 9 months in, 9 months out. I’m finding it difficult. I’m avoiding it. I don’t need to force it.

But I want to capture this time. I’m fixated on capturing time. Maybe this is a new guise for my controlling nature. I can’t control a baby, but I can control which memories I have. Can I?

There’s just so much. So much has happened. 18 months is not long relative to a lifetime, but this 18 months has been so densely packed with life, discovery, pain, fear, love. So much love.

Each stage feels so rich and all consuming, but looking back, they already collapse into each other.

She was floppy, fragile. She would spend her days eating and sleeping, glued to my body. I would spend my days staring at her unable to make sense of it all.

Then she could roll over, then she could sit, then she could eat solid foods. Each of these stages were such momentous, world-stop-spinning transitions and now I can’t really remember when they happened.

28 August

It’s the last week of August and the final week Luna and I have to ourselves before she starts nursery. I did a keeping in touch day at work and now work thoughts creep in.

All summer, it’s been bright when she wakes up at 5am and goes to sleep at 8pm, but now it’s purple and shadowy. A cooler breeze blows through the windows in the evening. The seasons are changing and so is our routine.

Everyone says it goes so fast, and it does. But it also feels like we’ve lived ten months of life. The journey from birth to now has been eventful, even if most days look the same.

The monotony of feed, sleep, change can make a day drag on, a week never end, but then a month has evaporated.

28 August—Last swim class

Today was my last swim class with Luna. We had a rogue substitute teacher, a propah Souf London geezah, who contrasted with our usual softly spoken, painfully awkward auntie type. She holds the model baby tenderly in her arms like a real child and he slapped it around, making jokes about how he kept drowning it.

We usually sing “if you’re happy and you know it splash your hands,” and he begins “if you’re happy and you know it splash your hands… in the water” It’s four beats too many for the rhythm of the song and he doesn’t offer a second verse. I suspect that his briefing for this class was brief.

At one point, he seemed to run down the clock by throwing several colourful balls to the other side of the pool and yelling “go get ‘em!” to the babies. I’m not sure he understood that babies can’t actually swim.

He was a wildcard and a total sweetheart who always waved and cooed back at Luna as she waved and babbled nonstop at him. I couldn’t have asked for a better session to close out our swim class experience.

Swimming on Wednesday at 3 has been our weekly ritual since Luna was 4 months old. Apart from a few weeks when my sutures from gallbladder surgery got infected, or when we were away. She went through three different swimsuits, from no teeth to five, from looking indifferent at best in the water, to chatting loudly and shrieking in delight at her favourite bits of the class.

Leave the buggy at reception, shoes outside the changing room. Step into the tropical, chlorinated air, pad barefoot along the green mat to a locker. Get Luna changed, wait for the school lesson to finishwith the other adults holding their babies. Make small talk.

Wade slowly into the water, someone says “is it colder than usual?” Start in a circle and sing, if you’re happy and you know it splash your hands, kick your feet, etc. Throw rubber ducks and encourage the babies to reach for them, the earliest form of an arm stroke. Humpy Dumpty sat on a wall (the edge of the pool), Humpty Dumpty had a great fall! (is picked up and splashed into the water), all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again (Humpty Dumpty is carried horizontally, encouraged to splash and kick kick kick across to the other side of the pool where Humpty is developing the skill of holding onto the edge)

Hand out the noodles. Swim behind the baby as they face forward, noodle under their arms. Switch to your back supported by the noodle, baby lying on their back on your chest.

Luna would always tense her neck and look distressed during any activity that involved lying on her back in the water. It seemed like she didn’t feel secure, so I always found a variation. One lesson she settled into this position and her tiny, warm body relaxed into my chest. We floated around the pool like two otters in love, and I forgot anyone else was there.

End with songs in a circle and watering can showers. Five little ducks went swimming one day, it’s raining it’s pouring, both lead to their sinister conclusions. (All the ducks go missing! The old man is dead!) Twinkle twinkle little star while we cradle our babies in the water.

There have always been public baths on the site that is now Forest Hill Pools. When these were first built as the Lewisham Public Baths in 1885, the two pools were for “First Class” and “Second Class” men. Women had to use a separate side entrance, and as there was no mixed swimming, could only use the pools at designated times. Now there are still two pools, and the biggest rebuke to Victorian classist, sexist and not-explicitly-but probably-somehow racist segregation is the mix of people that use both pools at all times of the day. The pools are run by a social enterprise that aims to make fitness and leisure more accessible, and the range of gender expression, ages, skin colours, accents and bodies is evidence that they’re doing a pretty good job.

Swim class was where I made my first proper Mum friend in the wild. At our first class, we introduced ourselves and the babies. Her baby was four months older and offered a glimpse into our future.

Before the next class, we chatted some more. After another class, all the individual family change stalls were in use, so we both used the group change. I built up the courage to ask her for coffee.

We had a drink while the babies fed and napped, comparing notes on birth, feeding, sleeping, and other stuff you can really only analyse in excruciating detail with other new parents.

The next week, we didn’t check if the family stalls were available, and went straight to group change. She couldn’t get a coffee, but we walked out together. We exchanged numbers.

Then it became our routine, catch up while waiting for the lesson to start, change afterwards, walk out together, get a coffee if we could.

We went to the aquarium, on walks, on picnics. Her baby’s was the first First Birthday party we attended. We were officially dating.

After one lesson, we went into the group change and a family of four were getting ready for their swim. The mum was helping her five-year-old son get changed while her two daughters, who must have been close in age around twelve, waited and watched something on an iPad. Her older teenage son came in and out of the changing room consulting with her about something.

Their stuff took over the bench next to the baby seat where I strap Luna in and she wails while I get changed. As expected, she erupted and I made weak attempts to soothe her, many weeks of experience telling me there was nothing I could do until I was done and picked her up.

The mum smiled wistfully at the scene, “I remember when they were that age… it goes so fast! Suddenly you have four and one of them is about to be 18…”

Her youngest son started waving his floatie at Luna. She stopped crying for a moment to tentatively observe. He started dancing with the floatie and she stayed watching. He had a visible Eureka moment, fished in his mum’s purse, whipped out her keys and starting jangling them in front of Luna. By this point, her tears were dry, sadness was forgotten and nothing could be more interesting than this performance.

We continue getting changed, us into dry clothes, her into swimwear as we talk about how strangely time passes, life with a baby, then multiple kids. Her older son entered and left again and she realised, “oh I’m sorry about my son, I’ll tell him to stop coming in now that other people are here too”

I hadn’t even thought about it, “don’t worry at all, after birth, any sense of dignity I had is now out the window”

She laughed, “it’s like at a smear test! They say, let me give you some privacy to get changed, but then they come in and look at your bits!”

I laughed and agreed, “they could not be more inside of you!” We wished them a good swim and our hero entertainer waved goodbye to Luna.

Water is a part of me, and not just as the liquid making up most of the material of my body. I was born in Rhode Island, the Ocean State, and feel most at home near the sea. I feel uniquely present in the water, consumed by the sensation of suspension and resistance. If there are thoughts, they are simple, crisp and clear. I can’t think of another situation where our bodies are completely submerged in a substance other than air and must completely adapt our senses, movement and way of being.

My mom swam through college, my sister through high school, it’s in my blood, but I never enjoyed lessons as a kid. To me the idea of competition, form, and discipline clash with the sensation of moving freely through water. I want to move at my own pace, in my own direction, sometimes doing laps, sometimes just treading to feel the levity and shimmer.

1 September

It’s all a bit calmer now

And even that allows for new miracles, perspective

I’m never alone

She is always there,

even when she’s not

7 September

Autumn has suddenly, rudely arrived.

Luna had her four “settling in” days at nursery before she starts going three days per week. We’ve left her with family and friends before, and these are childcare professionals, so I wasn’t too worried.

On her first day, I was showing her all the toys and her key staff member said “Wow Mum, you’re selling her all the toys, doing my job for me!” I took the hint to back off. I’m used to being the one who shows her the world, and now I’m sharing that responsibility. It’s a strange handover.

I stopped breastfeeding during the day to prepare. I still feed her when she first wakes up and just before bedtime, but in the daytime she has solid food and formula.

Breast feeders before me said they just forget about the boob, but I couldn’t imagine that. And then it happened.

After five days of anguish on both of our parts. She was confused and upset that her bottomless tap was suddenly turned off, and I felt guilty for making her confused, for not providing the milk that my body makes for her. She wouldn’t take a bottle from me and the whole exercise felt silly, what she wanted was right there inside of me and instead of making her a bottle she’d refuse I could just give it to her.

My boobs were full and sore. There was also an irrational part of me that wondered if I was any good to her beyond the food my body gave her.

8 September—Nursery

I just dropped Luna off for her first full day of nursery. She’ll go on Monday, Wednesday and Friday now.

I stop for a coffee and sit with the empty pram. If this was a scene in a show, I would say the symbolism was too on the nose.

I had to put on a sweater today, but am wearing Birkenstocks in protest. It’s almost too cold to sit outside but I insist. I sip an oat latte from an artful ceramic mug and rip pieces off a cinnamon bun. I get to the innermost sugary heart too quickly.

I wasn’t particularly dreading this day. I was excited for the window of time between her starting nursery and me going back to work. I would get a few days to myself.

She cried when I dropped her off. I know she’ll be okay, she’ll be over it in five minutes, but I hate seeing her face in anguish, and a little voice somewhere says “take her back and never let her go!” I didn’t expect to hear this little voice.

As I sit here on my own, with the empty pram, I do feel something stir deep in my stomach.

A change in routine, a loss of constant togetherness. Seeing every change so close up I don’t even notice it. Riding out the joy, difficulty and mundanity of every day.

I don’t worry that we’ll lose our connection, intimacy, secret language. We just won’t share as much time together and time is everything.

The wind picks up and seeps through the holes of my knitwear. My toes are chilly. Time for something else.