My Nana

Yesterday would've been my Nana's 85th birthday. She died 10 years ago.

The last few years of her life were lost to Alzheimer's, a cruel illness that kills you from the inside out, until you are just a shell of the person you once were. I only saw her a handful of times whilst she was ill, but it was like visiting a different person; not necessarily a stranger, but certainly not the Nana I once knew.

But enough about the end of her life. My grandmother was an amazing woman, one I wish I could've known better. I was only 23 when she died, and still at University when she first became ill. I never really knew her as an adult. I feel some amount of guilt about this. My Grandad died in 1994, when my Nana was only 68, and she basically gave up on life. Living in Bootle, just outside Liverpool, the nearest of her 5 offspring was my Mum. My Mum was in A Bad Place when my Grandad died, not least of all because she'd just lost her beloved father, and consequently rarely visited Nana. Her other children lived in Edinburgh, Reading, Norwich and Toronto, all with lives of their own to go about, so Nana mostly spent her life after Grandad died in total solitude. She stopped going to Church, Bingo, the Library; all the mainstays of her life as a wife, rather than a widow, she let go of.

I was only 17 when this happened. Looking After Nana never really struck me as something I should take some responsibility for, and even after I went to University in Manchester, a short hop away from her, I never once visited her. I wrote to her; the letters I sent she kept in a little box of keepsakes under her bed, it was discovered when her house was packed up after she became too ill to live alone, but I never actually jumped on a train and went to keep her company.

I would give anything to be able to do this for her now. To take her to the shops, do her hoovering for her, go to the bingo with her (I would've had to draw the line at Mass though) just BE there for her. I wonder if a bit more company might've helped her keep her faculties that bit longer. But I can't undo what's done. I can but look back and regret, pointless as it is.

Anyway, enough about me. Back to my Nana. To me and my cousins, Nana was very much the Iron Lady of the family. Grandad was the daft, cuddly, let-you-get-away-with-murder one,  Nana was the tutting, eye-rolling, get-your-elbows-off-the-table one. Eeyore to Grandad's Tigger. She always seemed distant to me; unwilling or unable to ever really fully emotionally engage with people. When I learnt more about her past as I got older, that started to make sense, and in fact it makes even more sense now I'm a mother. Nana had her first child at the age of 22, and her last at the age of 34. During those 12 years, she was pregnant at least 9 times. 5 of those pregnancies resulted in my Aunt, Uncles and Mum. 1 resulted in a child who died at 12 hours old (a little girl called Norah) and the rest were late term miscarriages. I think she carried the sadness of those lost children with her to the end; well, almost to the end. In the last year or so before she died, Nana had reverted to an almost child-like persona. She would giggle, refuse to share the chocolates brought to her by visitors, and smile sweetly at anyone who made eye contact with her. Her speech was often quite hard to decipher at this point, but she never seemed... troubled, I guess is the word that best fits. There were moments, I'm told, of clarity for her, when she would cry and beg for help, and there is no doubt that there is little dignity in the horrible illness that consumed her, but the last time I ever saw her, her eyes lit up when her eyes met mine as I was leaving (even though she had no idea who I was) and she smiled a sweet smile, waving enthusiastically. I wish now I'd gone back and hugged her. Told her how much I loved her, but the moment passed, and a few weeks later, so did she.

In her younger years, she had been a singer. Just singing in the pubs around Bootle, but apparently she had an amazing voice, and was the sort of person who would light up any room; witty, vivacious and not to mention very beautiful to boot. I've seen photos of her, drink in one hand, cigarette in the other, laughing hysterically with groups of unknown friends/relatives/god knows who and you can just tell she was the life and soul of the party. She certainly had a wicked sense of humour,  was a master of sarcasm and dry wit, and I would've loved to have known her in her youth. Or even in her dotage. I never really knew her. Not properly. I miss her a lot.

Happy Birthday Nana x

I am a feminist, OK?

Last night, I unfollowed someone on Twitter. She's pretty dull and self-obsessed, but the main reason is because she used the phrase 'I think it's safe to say I'm no feminist'. This royally pissed me off and ruined my Saturday evening (even more so than watching X-Factor had already done)

Why? I'll tell you why. This woman used to be a barrister, and now runs her own tech company (doing what I'm not sure) and has succeeded in two very male dominated areas.Without feminism, those opportunities just would not have been afforded to her. Feminism is, quite simply, the belief that women have the right to equality of opportunity, and not to be held back or looked over simply beause of their gender. Nothing more, nothing less. Any woman who declares themselves not to be a feminist is missing the point entirely. You might as well say, "actually I have no problem with earning less than my male colleagues for doing the same job, because, well, I'm only a girl!"

Feminism isn't about saying 'women can do any given thing as well as a man' as this simply isn't true. Pissing standing up is really messy if you're a girl, for one, and it's an undeniable fact of nature that men, in general terms, are physically stronger than women, so therefore better suited to certain tasks and occupations. The idea that feminism means wanting to work on a building, or getting offended at having the door held open for you is just total arsewipe, yet this is the opinion that a lot of women seem to have. You can be a stay at home mum and a feminist! You can enjoy being bought flowers and be a feminist! You can even wear dresses and look purdy and be a feminist! Hearing women slag off feminism just makes me sad, and far too many people take for granted what feminism has done for every woman and girl in the western world.

End of rant.

Who Am I?

Sounds like a daft question, but it's one I've been asking myself a lot lately.

I think it's something that the majority of mothers go through within the first few months and years of parenthood. All of a sudden, the entire focus of your life changes. You find yourself in a world where you'll leave the house with no make-up on, dried weetabix in your hair, and stained clothing. And that's to go to work. In truth, I'm finding it hard to have an identity other than that of 'Mummy'.'

There's a number of reasons for this, other than the appearance in the world of someone who takes precedence over all else in my life. The first few months of Flo's life were stressful, for reasons still too raw to really dwell on, let alone write about. I felt like a failure as a mother, and wondered if I was actually going insane. Consequently, I ate. A lot. I put on more in the first 6 months of Flo's life than I did in 9 months of pregnancy. Her first xmas, I weighed the same as I did 5 days before giving birth. So I look in the mirror and see a swollen, saggy version of the person I still am in my head. Which doesn't help matters.

Also, I have zero social life. Not even with my darling husband. We live too far away from any potential babysitters, or indeed, anywhere you'd want to go out to. In truth, I'm glad of the excuse not to have to go out and leave Flo in the care of someone else. During the day is no problem, but leaving her at night... I don't know, it just feels like a step I'm not ready for. She's 26 months old! I need to get a grip. I don't want my own 'abandonment issues', to give them their wank-speak moniker, to turn me into an overprotective parent though, so I need to address this sooner rather than later. Hopefully this will change soon, as we are moving back to civilisation. I can't wait.

But rediscovering myself isn't going to be easy. I don't know where to look. I was never particularly self-assured in the first place, and part of me probably likes being able to give myself a narrow definition; a set role to play. I just want to look in the mirror and recognise myself again.

Here ends the pointless waffle. As you were.

Why does proud = smug?

I have a clever child.

There, I've said it. Cue metaphorical tumbleweed rolling across the blogosphere. It feels like an admission. Owning up to some kind of dirty secret; because for some reason, it is just not the done thing to say you have uncommonly bright offspring, let alone be proud of it. This makes me sad. It seems we can only be overtly proud of our kids when it comes to how much they eat or how well they sleep - anything more and you run the risk of being labelled 'smug' or worse, 'pushy'.

The latter was the accusation thrown at me a while ago. Not directly of course; oh no, behind my back. Our daughter, now aged 26 months, has shown an interest in 'knowing stuff' since she was old enough to support her own head and point at things. Before she could talk, her days consisted largely of pointing at things and going 'gah', then looking at you expectantly until you told her what it was. Words and letters have always been a favourite, and by the age of 20 months she recognised the entire alphabet, and could recite it by 22 months. It is almost impossible to quench her thirst for knowledge. By 12 months, asking her to point at things in a book ('where's the red car?' that kind of thing) was an easy peasy task for her, and by 15 months she could recognise and point out nearly 30 different species of bird (this now extends to umpteen species of dinosaur, more than I even knew existed, as well as insects, mammals and reptiles)

Apparently, 'not letting kids be kids' and 'forcing them to read text books', as we were so accused of doing is little short of child cruelty in some peoples minds, it seems. Just for the record, we have done neither of these things; we have only ever taken her lead and responded to her interests. Since a young age, I've been aware that Flo is going to be pretty intelligent, and have never really spoken much about her development, other than to her doting grandparents and uncles. But sometimes you're so proud of your little person, you can't help but share your awe. So to then hear that THAT is what folks have said about you is upsetting.

So, I rarely speak about her achievements any more. I have to keep my pride in check, and this saddens me. I take no credit for who she is and the aptitudes she has. She is her own person; I have merely passed on 50% or so of my genes to her; so when I want to tell the world how amazing I think she is, I'm not saying "hey, look at me, what  GREAT parent I am!" I'm saying "How amazing is this little human being! I love her SO much!" All we have done as parents, is respond to that in which she had shown an interest, and 'knowing everything there is to know, as soon as is humanly possible' appears to be her aim. She is currently teaching herself to read (she already recognises quite a few logos and her own name) and will sit with a book whispering the letters in each word to herself, totally unaided by either of us. She can do basic subtraction too (she is VERY proud of herself when she does this!) yet despite this love for 'academic' pastimes, she is equally happy running, throwing, kicking, climbing, painting, drawing and pretend playing. We are letting her be a kid. The kid she wants to be; and if that means letting her be clever, then so be it.

Oh, and she's a great eater. And a pretty decent sleeper nowadays too, just in case you're interested in what really matters.

New Look Blog

And here it is. Well, it's different from how it was, if a little fussy. I doubt any web designers are losing any sleep tonight, put it that way.

Normal blogging will resume imminently.

Work In Progress

My blog looks a bit odd at the moment (by 'odd' I mean 'rubbish') as I fancied a change.

However, I am rubbish with this kind of thing, so it's going to take a while to make it look pretty again. Sorry about that.

Once it's done though, I will be blogging more regularly - I average about 2 posts a year at the moment so that won't be difficult - but I mean properly, actually regularly. Ish.