Walking holiday
I had a week off work last week. The main purpose of the week was to have another go at nightweaning LB. I'd gone back to feeding him when he was ill and then D was too ill to go to him at night for ages and LB just screams the place down if I go to him but don't feed him, whereas he settles for D, and it all went very 4.30ish again. In the event, there was just one bad night (everyone awake from 4.30am, including poor PB) and one not very good one, and then it was much better. He's still crying out enough to wake us once or twice a night, but not usually for long enough even to get out of bed and start putting your dressing gown on. And he's a bit prone to trying to start the day at 5.30, but that's a lot better than 4.30. So the time off work was unexpectedly not entirely consumed with catching up on sleep (although there was quite a lot of that) and it was lovely. Highlights included:
Being unreasonably and out-of-all-proportion pissed off and frustrated about something trivial, but being able to go for a walk in the local woods on my own to deal with it. I started off walking really briskly, almost making myself out of breath, because I was so wound up. But I quite quickly got into the rhythm of walking and started enjoying the sensuous pleasure of my own slightly rocking gait. I was wearing a very old pair of wellies with quite thin soles:
and I could feel and hear the (copious) squishy mud when I stayed on the very muddy path:
I hardly ever get deep into the woods these days because LB is too heavy to carry but can't walk that far. PB can do the circuit that goes round the near edges of the wood, but not much more. It was lovely to get into less familiar bits. I had a very strong sensation of walking as a productive activity. On this occasion it was being productive in terms of managing my emotions, but I remembered one of the last times I got deep into the woods, which was in the early stages of labour with LB. I remembered that feeling of walking being physically productive, in getting my body into the swing of labour and helping his head move down, and the deep, physical satisfaction of doing something that felt so right and so beneficial. I also remembered probably the last time I got deep into the woods when LB was a baby and I walked for ages with him sleeping in the sling on my front. I found myself missing the weight of my baby on/in my body. I felt sad that I will (probably) never experience that walking with that particular weight again. It was a very uncharacteristically embodied experience, for me.
(Bonus picture:)
The next day I'd managed to cock up and booked a work meeting in London on one of my working days. And worst of all, one of the two days a week the children are in nursery. But in the event, that was the day after the bad night, so it didn't feel too wasteful to leave D to sleep it off. I got into London with sufficient time to have an hour to poke around the British Museum. I was still noticing walking - the way pavements and hard flooring make your feet hurt where mud and leaves doesn't. But I also got into a rhythm of walking and still enjoying the sway of my body as I walked (that sounds like I was sashaying or gyrating. I wasn't, just walking normally, but I was noticing my body as it walked more than usual). I saw the swimming reindeer and the person leaping the bull from the History of the World in 100 objects series, which were great. And then I went for a general wander round the first floor. I got captured by a not-immediately-arresting broken bit of statue of someone's lap, skirts, ankles and bare feet. It was very plain and unadorned, and beautiful, and I was foolishly moved by the idea of people having had feet thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia. Then I started noticing feet more generally and particularly toes. I was interested that some representations of toes were clearly stylised and beautifully neat, whereas others seemed much more realistic and wonky. I thought about my own terrible hammer toes and how PB also has them, despite never having worn slip-on shoes in his life. I don't generally experience PB as resembling me physically, so I don't get that shock of recognition that other parents talk about, but his toes are utterly, clearly my toes and that is very, very weird and also wonderful.
Another day, I went for a walk with PB in the woods, and that was delightful. If we are dividing up the kids between the adults we so often end up with LB with me and PB with D, because that's what the kids prefer (LB more strongly than PB). But this time D took LB shopping and PB and I went out together. We walked for an hour and a half, initially up the hill to the churchyard (PB always wants to go in the church but it's always locked. Note to self: get grandparents to take him to their church when next visiting. A cunning ruse for some bonus childcare). Then we got into the woods again and it was even muddier (no photos this time). PB got me to sing 'Mud, mud, glorious mud' every time we got to a particularly sticky patch, saying 'I think we need another round of the Mud, mud song'. We held hands on those bits too, so we wouldn't fall over, and that was lovely too. We heard birds that I couldn't identify and saw some bluebell shoots coming up. Then we came home and did a bit of supper preparation together and then went and played at sleeping in my bed. It was so lovely to spend time with just him when I was concentrating on him, not trying to get housework done as well.
And I also did lots of useful and satisfying things, like finally making a curtain for the new door in the kitchen (on my To Do List since July), and painting the doorframe of the new door (I *do* enjoy decorating, and I hardly ever get to do it these days), and facilitating D demoulding upstairs, so we now only have perfectly reasonably quantities of black mould in the bathroom, rather than acres behind every piece of furniture on an outside wall.
It was a lovely holiday. And I'm still noticing walking more than usual.
Being unreasonably and out-of-all-proportion pissed off and frustrated about something trivial, but being able to go for a walk in the local woods on my own to deal with it. I started off walking really briskly, almost making myself out of breath, because I was so wound up. But I quite quickly got into the rhythm of walking and started enjoying the sensuous pleasure of my own slightly rocking gait. I was wearing a very old pair of wellies with quite thin soles:
and I could feel and hear the (copious) squishy mud when I stayed on the very muddy path:
I hardly ever get deep into the woods these days because LB is too heavy to carry but can't walk that far. PB can do the circuit that goes round the near edges of the wood, but not much more. It was lovely to get into less familiar bits. I had a very strong sensation of walking as a productive activity. On this occasion it was being productive in terms of managing my emotions, but I remembered one of the last times I got deep into the woods, which was in the early stages of labour with LB. I remembered that feeling of walking being physically productive, in getting my body into the swing of labour and helping his head move down, and the deep, physical satisfaction of doing something that felt so right and so beneficial. I also remembered probably the last time I got deep into the woods when LB was a baby and I walked for ages with him sleeping in the sling on my front. I found myself missing the weight of my baby on/in my body. I felt sad that I will (probably) never experience that walking with that particular weight again. It was a very uncharacteristically embodied experience, for me.
(Bonus picture:)
The next day I'd managed to cock up and booked a work meeting in London on one of my working days. And worst of all, one of the two days a week the children are in nursery. But in the event, that was the day after the bad night, so it didn't feel too wasteful to leave D to sleep it off. I got into London with sufficient time to have an hour to poke around the British Museum. I was still noticing walking - the way pavements and hard flooring make your feet hurt where mud and leaves doesn't. But I also got into a rhythm of walking and still enjoying the sway of my body as I walked (that sounds like I was sashaying or gyrating. I wasn't, just walking normally, but I was noticing my body as it walked more than usual). I saw the swimming reindeer and the person leaping the bull from the History of the World in 100 objects series, which were great. And then I went for a general wander round the first floor. I got captured by a not-immediately-arresting broken bit of statue of someone's lap, skirts, ankles and bare feet. It was very plain and unadorned, and beautiful, and I was foolishly moved by the idea of people having had feet thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia. Then I started noticing feet more generally and particularly toes. I was interested that some representations of toes were clearly stylised and beautifully neat, whereas others seemed much more realistic and wonky. I thought about my own terrible hammer toes and how PB also has them, despite never having worn slip-on shoes in his life. I don't generally experience PB as resembling me physically, so I don't get that shock of recognition that other parents talk about, but his toes are utterly, clearly my toes and that is very, very weird and also wonderful.
Another day, I went for a walk with PB in the woods, and that was delightful. If we are dividing up the kids between the adults we so often end up with LB with me and PB with D, because that's what the kids prefer (LB more strongly than PB). But this time D took LB shopping and PB and I went out together. We walked for an hour and a half, initially up the hill to the churchyard (PB always wants to go in the church but it's always locked. Note to self: get grandparents to take him to their church when next visiting. A cunning ruse for some bonus childcare). Then we got into the woods again and it was even muddier (no photos this time). PB got me to sing 'Mud, mud, glorious mud' every time we got to a particularly sticky patch, saying 'I think we need another round of the Mud, mud song'. We held hands on those bits too, so we wouldn't fall over, and that was lovely too. We heard birds that I couldn't identify and saw some bluebell shoots coming up. Then we came home and did a bit of supper preparation together and then went and played at sleeping in my bed. It was so lovely to spend time with just him when I was concentrating on him, not trying to get housework done as well.
And I also did lots of useful and satisfying things, like finally making a curtain for the new door in the kitchen (on my To Do List since July), and painting the doorframe of the new door (I *do* enjoy decorating, and I hardly ever get to do it these days), and facilitating D demoulding upstairs, so we now only have perfectly reasonably quantities of black mould in the bathroom, rather than acres behind every piece of furniture on an outside wall.
It was a lovely holiday. And I'm still noticing walking more than usual.