My own mother suffered when I had it as a child, crying as soon as she would even leave the room. Every toilet trip was apparently shared, with me holding on to her knees. Actually, I’ve experienced this many times with Milla but only due to intense curiosity and not the desperate need to be with me.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want it to that severity but I’m just not sure why, as her primary carer who invests an incredible amount of energy and creativity and love with her, that she does not favour me over others one bit.

If she falls and hurts herself, she is quite happy for any old person to give her a cuddle and soothe her. If I walk out the door and leave her with grandparents or friends, she gives a quick wave and continues absorbing herself in whatever has taken her interest.

A friend psychologist said she was the most well rounded individual and this was all a good thing.
She went on to inform me that it’s not Milla’s problem but mine. She reminded me that I am an emotional being, a cancerian, the water element, and I am affectionate and loving. She said it was normal to feel this way and that everyone likes to feel wanted and loved particularly when it’s your own flesh and blood.
She also reminded me to be careful of what I wish for – a newborn and a clingy toddler were not a good match!

These stories about the daily achievements and hilarity of our Pride and Joys are utterly enthralling to us mums. However, to 99% of the rest of the world, they’re…somewhat less than enthralling. Some may use the term ‘boring’. They’re not even really stories, because they generally lack a beginning, a middle and an end. More snorey than story. Just a statement that ‘someone did something’. If the story-receiver isn’t invested in that ‘someone’, or the ‘something’ is not outrageously cute, I’m afraid it’s about as interesting as listening to your dream about how you were Spiderman, in great detail.

There are certain audiences I believe our wonderful stories and/or snories should (or shouldn’t) be bestowed upon:

Anybody telling story about the child to the mother = utterly enthralling. Always.
Mother telling story to father = interesting. As long as you just pick the best ones, not the ones that involve people throwing around his DVD collection.
Mother to another mother at playgroup = interesting. As long as they’re able to relate it to their child in some way as soon as you pause for breath.
Mother to grandmother = enthralling, particularly if the grandmother can play with the child while you’re telling the story, or talk about when the child is coming over next after you’ve finished the story.
Mother to family member or good friend = reasonably interesting, as long as it doesn’t drag on forever, which is difficult because the family is often a captive audience, so one tends to add unnecessary detail so you can talk about the child for longer.
Mother to childless acquaintance = generally boring, unless it involves poo. Then it’s gross instead.
Mother to childless male acquaintance = run, run for your life.
Mother to blog audience = you log on, you’re asking for it.

You know what though, we mums aren’t completely oblivious; we know that the fact our cherub bent upside down and laughed at us through his legs today may be boring to the guy at the servo. We just don’t care. Coz it’s our world and it brings us joy to experience it, and more joy to relive it by talking about it. Making people do the smile and nod is a small price to pay for that joy, I say.

And as far as I can tell, it’s gonna keep bringing us joy for the duration of our childrens’ lives, because I’m 26 and my mum still tells snories about me.

Milla is now a gorgeous 1 year old and still I wonder if I will see the day where I can reflect on my week and pronounce it ‘uneventful’.
Take the last 5 weeks or so for example:
Week 1: A fun bath for three turns into a disinfectant rampage when someone decides to do a poo (I don’t think I need to say it was Milla?)
Week 2: Sonny the dog gets bitten on the nose by a rat. We all take a trip to the vet and become $250 poorer. The dog made it through his trauma and will never take on a rat again. One can only hope.
Week 3: Milla has her first asthma attack and is rushed to the doctor. Thankfully the ventilator worked a treat but ongoing medication and precautions will need to be taken.
Week 4: The washing machine decides to dump water all over the timber floor and soaks the carpet in Milla’s room. As the timber floor is discontinued the whole thing needs to be replaced along with the carpet (which is also discontinued so one room in the house will be carpeted differently).
And Week 5: I finally get a night to go out with the girls and only five minutes before I am to arrive at my destination my all-day-pregnancy-nausea hits with full force and I vomit all over my new top. I turned the car around, go straight home and have an ‘I feel sorry for myself’ sob.

My husband says, “at least you know you’re alive when life keeps you on your toes all the time like this”.
I myself am the pessimist and see nothing good in eventful weeks – unless of course they are the type that bring things like moments of pure joy, a lucky find, and tattslotto winnings. Otherwise I am more than happy to take just plain and boring uneventful any time.

The next morning was my long awaited sleep-in. I heard Husband get up at 6:30 to go surfing, I heard him leave at 7 and he called saying he had forgotten the keys to get his surfboard out of the beach house at 8 and so I had to quickly get up and meet him halfway with keys. To say the last couple of days have been a disaster is an understatement in fact the highlight of my couple of days off will be seeing the kids and hearing the stories about their trip to the zoo, reading them a story before bed tonight and seeing them peacefully snuggled down under their covers in bed. I think if I didn’t have those things everyday they would be the things I would look forward to.

Not only am I suffering and working hard making eyelids, limbs, finger nails and all, but my husband is experiencing a lot of hard labour too.
His day starts with Milla shouting his name in the monitor. He makes her breakfast and delivers toast to my bedside table in between spooning Milla’s cereal. He then makes his own lunch, and rushes out the door as soon as I have managed to scrounge every last bit of energy to make myself vertical.

As Milla plays during the day, I make trips to the bathroom and when that dreaded pooey nappy arrives I have the bucket by the change mat ready and waiting. She thinks it’s hilarious. I rest when she sleeps. The house is left in total disarray.

When my husband comes home from work, he opens the door to a not so pleasant, not so smiling wife and there is certainly no dinner on the table…actually, the dinner never has quite made it to the table upon his return I must admit.
During the last few weeks I can’t even stand the smells of cooking, and certainly can’t even look at meat. So, on he trudges and cooks the family meal while I lay on the couch and quietly groan. The meal he slaves over ends up in the toilet a little while later even though I try so very hard to keep it down.

My dear hubby decided enough was enough and we both couldn’t suffer any longer. He did some research on the net and off he went to the shops.
He arrived home with what he called, ‘Chucking: The Survival Kit’. It contained ginger tea, ginger and lemon tea, gingernut biscuits, ginger tablets, ginger beer, sea/travel sickness wrist bands, and just for good measure, chocolate cake.

Unfortunately, none of the above eased the nausea one bit. In fact, I am pretty certain the ginger tea made matters just a whole lot worse. The chocolate cake did come quite close, but the ultimate cure quest would have to continue, or time would just have to pass.

I think back now at our wedding vows and am grateful they contained the commitment of ‘in sickness and in health’, because I just don’t know what I’d do without my wonderful husband, even if he did assist in getting me into this mess!

I needed hope, I needed to know that I wouldn’t be like this forever, that one day I would be able to be active again and be able to get up without needing both my arms to  support myself and so I did what most people do and went shopping. I ruled out clothes shopping, I don’t buy maternity clothes because they look awful and you can’t wear them for very long (not that you’d want to) and it’s hard to visualise what normal clothes will look like without a massively protruding belly and so I bought a surf board. No I can’t use it now, although it would be very comical, but it is my beacon of hope. It is my reminder that I won’t be this way forever, that there is a tomorrow, that one day I will be able to be active and fit once more, that one day I will be able to wear a bikini again (okay I might have got carried away with that last one but a girl is allowed to dream isn’t she?)

It wasn’t until I visited a girlfriend and her one week old baby that I realised I had become one of those vague mothers too.
It was pure bliss holding this gorgeous 2.5kg baby in my arms, smelling that newborn smell and watching him sleep peacefully. I was then asked questions regarding certain aspects of life with Milla as a newborn, and I went blank.
What times did Milla wake in the night? How many night feeds did you do? When did she start pooing only once a day? All of my replies began with, “Umm…I think it was….”

I’m wondering how this is possible when I have only been a mother for 11.5months!
Some explanations did come to mind eventually. Perhaps it was the sleep deprivation making that critical time seem like a blur. Maybe it was my subconcious trying to block out the screaming reflux baby I had. Or perhaps it could be that my mind acted like a filter keeping what was important and discarding the rest.

I now realise how important it is to write these details down.
I am grateful to my mother who wrote a journal and was sentimental enough to have hoarded loads of keepsake items. And, I am relieved that I too have made the effort to do this for Milla, so that even though some details are collecting dust in the back of my mind, she will be able to get out her books one day and discover for herself.

‘Hey Dad does there have to be completely no yoke to beat the whites stiff?’

‘Start again.’ He instructed simply before reminding me not to throw out the wasted eggs because they could be used for something else. My family is extremely thrifty, we never waste, not even egg whites that look like a watery cappuccino. So I began again and it seemed to work.

Here is what I ended up with. I know it isn’t a work of art, it kind of collapsed, I don’t know why, but I’m planning on telling people Wrigglebot made it by himself.                                                        

I was thinking of making it into a racing track but was so disillusioned I called it a day.

Here Wrigglebot is finishing up. I tried to get him to smile for the photo but he informed me that he was too busy working.

Squirm ended up supervising. Can you really blame her for eating playdough when it looks uncannily like the cake I made?

So Amy if you need help with the cake, I’m more than willing to lend a hand, as you can see I do have quite a special touch. On second thoughts maybe I could just send Wrigglebot over to help you.