On whether or not to

Happy family of three

I think deciding whether to have a second child (or subsequent children) is a way more difficult decision than deciding to have the first one.*  Well, for me it is anyway.  For the first one we just had to decide whether we wanted to be parents or not.  Now that I am a parent, the decision on whether or not to add more people to our family is harder.

There are many reasons why this is.  Firstly, there's the experience of having just done the whole pregnancy/baby thing.  I know how hard this is.  I know how tough this can be on relationships.  And with an extra person in the mix this time, I imagine it'll be in many ways, even harder.  Because there are more people to take into account with making this decision, and the addition of another person means more people to take into account in life in general.  Yes, I'm sure some things will be easier.  There would be less fear-factor and more experience, but also a new challenge in learning to kiddy-juggle.

This may sound odd, but I love our new family so much and feel like this is so all encompassing, I don't know how there could be room for someone else to fit.  We are happy now, and after the massive changes in our family, this is an awesome and important thing.  I love Etta so much, would it break my heart to have to spend less time with her to look after someone else.  And sure, if there was another person I'm sure I'd love them too, but given how much I care and worry about Etta, how could I not feel guilty about spending less time with her?

BUT, if it is just her, and I devote so much time and energy to her, will she miss out on learning the important things she would if she did have a sibling?  Like sharing and compromise and playing nicely, and not being the biggest most amazing thing in the universe.  Those social skills that are (usually) intuitively absorbed through the simple fact of living with other children.  Sure, your kids can interact with others at Playcentre, Wriggle and Rhyme, school etc, but it's not the same as that constant interaction at home.  Learning how to cope with the frustration of possibly never getting what you want, or always having to put up with another human rather than just 'putting up' with X thing at Y place at Z times.

And if I spend too much time with her I'm pretty sure it'll screw us both up.  And we'll have to spend heaps on therapy and I may still try to watch her in her sleep when she's 20 and she may kill me in my sleep when I'm 50...

And then there's all those other good things like having someone to play with (or terrorise), someone to learn with, someone to fight with and someone to gang up on your parents with.  These things are undoubtedly harder when there is just one of you.  Unless you build a scary robot who does your bidding that even your parents are scared of (distinct possiblity...)

Murray has always said he is quite happy with one child.  I have always said I'd prefer two.  I come from a large, close extended family. Even though I only have one sibling myself, the idea of being completely sibling-less is quite scary.  Sure, my brother and I are like chalk and cheese, and I was awful to him when we were kids.  But now we are grown ups we get along fine and I love him.  And I am super glad that I was not alone in the craziness of our parents relationships.  Not just because it was crazy, but because all families are crazy, and it's nice to have someone around with a true insight to your families particular brand of crazy.

I hadn't thought having an only child was really terrible though until my cousin (who has an only child) said that it was only when she saw her Mum in the fold with her siblings at their mothers funeral that she felt worried about it.  Who would support him when she died?

That freaked me out.  Although I'm sure Etta would have friends when we die (and we will, everyone does), it's not the same as family support.  And even though she will have family support (we come from epic large, close family), is the support of a cousin (or in our case more likely second cousin) the same as the support of someone else who has just had their parent die?  Like your sibling?

Morbid (but important and valid) thoughts....

Here's another dark thought - is having a child just so your existing child has a sibling messed up?  I mean, it's kinda in the ballpark (kinda) of having a child so your existing child can have an organ donor (like in My Sisters Keeper).  With the first one I was super excited about meeting this person.  With the second one, if it's just about the First One meeting the Second One, that seems a bit wrong.  I mean, where is the love?

The pro for us of deciding in all finality that we're just having Etta is being able to get on with life planning.  We have places to visit and a business we'd like to start.  Not right now of course, but we'll work the timing around our current family, which would make both of these things more feasible sooner.  If we add another midget to the mix, these plans may be delayed a lot longer.  Not just because extra time would be required for saving/starting daycare etc, but because the reality is we'd probably have to buy a bigger house.

Yes, we have a three bedroom house in an awesome location with a little backyard which is ample room for two children.  BUT, we also have a me and a Murray.  We are both very independent people, and for sanity's sake, need our space.  Ever since we first moved in together we have had an extra room.  Because we need it.  Because if we don't have that extra space there is a high possibility we'd kill each other.  If we do decide to add another person to the mix, which is a super stressful thing as is, we'd definitely need a place with an extra bedroom to ensure we remain a happy family ie: the kind that all live in the one house. 

You may be thinking: do the things! Delay the second kid until the market/your finances/business plan is/are more stable.  Trust me, I would if I could.  But like most women starting families in their 30's, we're on the clock.  I'm especially on the clock given my gynae history - my chances of having another ectopic (which are already high) get even higher when I hit 35 so for us planning a pregnancy after this magic number, although feasible, comes with increased risk to my health.

And not only that but I feel like an old parent already.  Having a knee fill up with liquid just from crawling around with Etta is not great.  And I'm sure it wouldn't happen if I'd magically been ready to have kids in my 20's.  My last pregnancy made me a cripple.  I'm currently anaemic.  What I'm saying is that it's already hard, and I'm sure it will only get harder the older I get.  If we do decide to have a second I truly think I'm gonna have to hit the gym and eat a lot better before we can even start trying to get pregnant just to get through the pregnancy in one piece.  And for me that's serious hard work - I am not a lady who 'gyms'.  And if I just have Etta, I may never have to be.

Ahhhhhhh!

That's pretty much my brain vomit done for the day.  Thanks for reading. Ideas/suggestions/experiences welcome

* Not that we took that decision lightly.  It took me about 30 years to decide it was a good idea in the first place, but still.  This decision is hard.

On the first three weeks of 100 Days

Holy ship balls Batman!  It's already been three weeks!  Time flies when you're having fun (or home with a baby it seems).

And my 'holiday' week is almost at a close, I am yet to blog, and the baby could wake up at any moment.  Pressure is mounting.  Shhhhh, sleep bonus time baby!  Mama needs to write this blog.

Anyway, today I thought I'd just quickly post some highlights from the work I've done so far and talk a little about the process that has come about organically just because I'm making myself think about (and do) arts.

Firstly, the BEST part about day one (apart from how excited I was about it) was the recipe I made.  The limitations of the project (in terms of the website) is that you can only post one visual image (or video) when often times the process, or other results are equally as important as the end result.  This first day I ended up with so many things it was difficult to decide which part to post.  So here is my invented on the spot, totally awesome recipe for honey toffee:

1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup water
2 Tbsp honey (pretty sure any honey will work)
1 Tbsp vinegar

Put all ingredients into a small saucepan.  Heat over a medium heat until sugar has dissolved.  Bring to the boil and boil until the hard ball stage (when a little of the mix is dropped into ice water it hardens into a ball).  Pour into moulds or onto a tray for cracking later on.  Seriously tasty.  A little tackier than regular toffee cos of the honey component, but YUM AS!

After about day two, the excitement (and eccentricity) began to wear off as I realised I was going to have to do this EVERY DAY for 100 days, and most days I would also have Etta with me most of the time.  So the time dedicated to this came down, but the involvement of others with my project increased.  Two of the other days that were really fun were when I had directives from others - Ngaio via emailed instructions, and Etta via toy selection.

Taking my brain out of the equation for a bit was really lovely, and doing the potato cuts with Etta allowed us some lovely time outside in the sun - helped greatly by Mum popping over for a visit as Etta was far more interested in exploring outside than in painting.

Due to my lack of confidence with free hand drawing (after having not drawn since, well, pretty much art school) I didn't get around to doing this until day 9.  And around day 14 I drew something I actually liked. 

Simple, yes, but drawing something I like is a big deal, as I haven't done this in such a ridiculously long time.  This gave me the confidence to pick up a brush (drawing in water colours) and do more of what I haven't done in so long - draw with paint.

And after a directive from a horoscope on day 15 to basically be less slack with my far away friends, I used this to almost create a project within a project - a postcards to friends project.

The first person I thought of was a friend (Helen) who is in the UK currently, and sends her friends (me included) the awesomest cards.  One of the more recent things she had posted on her Facebook page was a painting of Mary Wollstonecroft.  Having read her book back at art school, and knowing that Helen considers herself a feminist, I thought it'd be nice to draw Helen a picture of this feminist legend.

I deciding to do so I realised I had a lot of feminist friends far away (and close by too) and that there were lots of feminists I could draw.  I also discovered my pretty much unused hahnmuhle postcard paper - perfect!  So for the first time in a long time, I got excited about painting.

Excited, but anxious.  People who don't draw may not realise that it really is a 'practise', meaning if you don't practice you aren't as good - just like sport.  Being out of practice with drawing means that I am not good at it like I once was back when I was drawing every day.  In fact, I'm awful.  So to feel confident about doing this at all I had to prefix this series with 'badly drawn' just to feel ok about doing it.  Sounds crazy, I know, but necessary to make me feel ok with practicing drawing in the very public eye of posting said drawing onto a website every day where anyone can view it.

And then yesterday I actually drew something I liked.  Now this has happened, I'm hoping it'll happen more and more, and who knows, maybe I'll actually be 'good' at drawing again.

More importantly, I've created a small space in my life to draw in. It is usually quite late at night (between 8.30pm and 10pm) and takes up very little time, but it's becoming a habit.  And that's what's important.  Because maybe it means I'll have some sort of art practise again.  Which is super exciting, and wouldn't have come about without me making myself do something, which I wouldn't have probably done without the 100 Days Project.

I can't wait to see how things develop.