On our 5th anniversary

Us. (My husband's the one on the left.)

Something my husband’s said to me over the last month or so:

“You’re prettier than the girl I married. I’m thinking of leaving her for you.”

Something I’ve said to my husband over the last month or so:

“You look like a homeless man who found a nice jumper.”

 

Obviously I’m still working on the whole ‘words of affirmation’ thing. It’d be nice to have a less devastating marker of time by which to assess our marriage, but if last year’s miscarriage was the wave that made it clear we were drowning (to continue with the metaphor from this post), this year’s has proved that not only are we afloat, we’re basically lounging on a brightly-coloured inflatable raft together drinking cocktails and soaking up the sunshine. Only 35 years to go...

So here’s a love song dedimication to you, my beloved husband, on our anniversary: On This Side by Clare Bowditch. This isn’t the official video (I can’t find that one); it does have Rory and Jess from Gilmore Girls in it but it’s slightly chopped up and has a lot of kissing (I don’t remember them being so young!). It’s really quite awful, to be perfectly honest; maybe you should just listen.

We are living in a treehouse
In the middle of the ‘burbs
We’ve got two kids now
He says he wants a third
Well, I would give this man
Most anything he asks
‘Cause I never did imagine
How green grows the grass

On this side
Things they work differently
Me oh my
We're all that we hoped we’d be
‘Cause this time
We dared to believe

Well, it wasn't always this way
I can tell you that for sure
Once the only colour I knew was grey
My heart was low, it was poor
Felt nobody could love me
The way that I loved them
That was before him

On this side
Things they work differently
Me oh my
We’re all that we hoped we’d be
‘Cause this time
We dared to believe

Why do we forget how to be loved?
Why do we bother doing it
when it’s only getting off?
I’m not talking making babies
Though that is also true
It’s whatever you call that thing
I’m in when I'm in with you
On this side

It’s a quiet night at home now
Little miracles in bed
And a birdy on my windowsill
That makes happy happen in my head
And it's funny all the little things
Boring to describe,
They taught my joy her roots
And brought my life alive

On this side
Things they work differently
Me oh my
We’re all that we hoped we’d be
‘Cause this time
We dared to believe
We dared to believe
We dared to believe

Happy birthday, little guy!

I was never a pet-names kinda gal before my son came along. My husband has always been “Alan” or “Al” rather than “sweetie” or “babe,” and though I envied friends who could sound perfectly natural saying, “Alright, honey, I’ll talk to you soon!” or ”Hey, darls! How are you?”, I never felt comfortable trying it for myself. And then, less than 24 hours after my son’s birth, without thinking about it at all, I heard myself calling him “my darling,” and have not been able to stop since. He’s still most often “my darling,” although he’s also (among others) “buddy,” “little man,” ”dude,” “Moo” and “stinky poo boy,” depending on what comes to mind first (and the state of his nappy).

Me: "Show me your happy face!"

Me: "Now show me your sad face."

Moses is two today. This is fortuitous because “two” is the only number he responds to number-related questions with, so when we ask him how old he is now he sounds clever by saying “TWO!”, but it’s actually the exact same answer he’d give if asked, “What time is it?” or “How many grains of sand are there on this beach?”. I love this languagey stage of his life, although now that he cares whether or not I understand him it can be stressful at times. For some words I have to go through a list of potentials (“Sit? Dig?”), then when I finally get it (“STICK!”) he yells, “Yeah!” and gives me a smile so huge and relieved that I feel like that guess was the best thing I’ve done all day; I can glow with that kind of achievement for a full hour or so. He’s repeating everything and playing around with creating his own sentences, which the linguist in me finds fascinating and the mum in me finds amusing:

(Having just tried to dive on Dadda’s head WWF-style, but landing on his chest instead): “I miss!”

(Carrying two paint cans as bags): “I shop!”

(Banging on table/box/floor/car/actual drum with fork and spoon/sticks/carrots/hands/actual drumsticks): “I drum!”

(Pulling on his seatbelt with a pained expression, while I’m driving): “I stuck!”

He’s still affectionate, cheeky and inquisitive. He has a thousand different facial expressions which he puts to good use when telling stories or doing voices for his Duplo people. He loves hiding behind doors and then jumping out and saying “RAH!” at people (we/they act surprised, and he laughs) - we play this game every night before bed at the moment. He’s a champion soccer player and ball-catcher, and I’m not just saying that because I’m his mother (his completely-unbiased grandmother says so too). He loves dirt. He loves poo. He loves being with people; he waves at strangers and follows other kids around at the park, joining in their games as if they were all old mates. He loves olives and kiwi fruit and zucchini slice. My husband is envious of the way he can bend notes when playing the harmonica.

He loves his doll, who we named Holly but he renamed Meek. He loves Play School and “hole biscuits“ (donut-shaped rice cookies) - before his day sleep he asks for both and I remind him that he can have them when he wakes up; before his night sleep he asks about them again and we assure him that there will be hole biscuits and Play School tomorrow, too. He loves singing together:

Me: Here is the sea/The wavy sea/Here is a boat/And here is...
Mo: Meeeee!
Me: All of the fishes/Way down below/Wiggle their tails/And away they...
Mo: Basketball!

And he loves his birthday trucks. We took him to a toy shop to check out the prices of scooters and tricycles and think about maybe buying one for him, but he was far more interested in some plastic diggers he saw at the entrance, so we bought him a few of them instead. With a staff discount (thanks to my cousin, who works there) they cost $7.20. He takes them everywhere now.

In the immortal words of Savage Garden, I truly madly deeply love this kid.

You know those scenes in movies where someone in bed opens their eyes and yawns a bit and then asks the person next to them if they’ve been awake for long, and the other person says something like, “It’s okay, I was just watching you sleep”, at which point you reach for a bucket in which to vomit because gooey romance triggers your gag reflex? Who watches someone sleep?! Recently Mo’s been waking too early from his daytime nap and then spending the afternoon being cranky and annoying, but I’ve worked out that if I take him to my bed and lie down with him when it’s clear he’s still tired, he usually falls asleep again. And I watch him sleep. His cheeks are like magnets that my lips find it hard to keep from kissing, and, though my arm may fall asleep and my back may ache, I will stay in whatever position he’s most comfortable in so as not to disturb his rest.

Of motherhood, Caitlin Moran writes (on page227 of How to be a Woman):

You...observe yourself from a distance, simply astounded by the quantities of love you manufacture. It is endless. Your adoration may grow weary but it will never end: it becomes the fuel of your head, your body and your heart. It powers you through the pouring rain, delivering forgotten raincoats for lunch-time play; works overtime, paying for shoes and puppets; keeps you up all night, easing cough, fever and pain – like lust used to, but much, much stronger.

This may all seem a little mushy, but I realised recently that as the sole photographer in our family and therefore the one not in most photos with Mo, posts like these may be all he has to remember me by one day, and I want to make sure they’re the equivalent of the hundreds of pictures I’ve taken of him having a blast with my husband. So to my son, my darling, the one for whom I have given thanks to God (almost) every day over the last two years: Happy birthday. I love you completely. And, just so you know, you and I have just as much fun as you and Dad look like you’re having in all of those photos, if not more.

Surnames

from here

Here’s something that I’ve been chewing on for no particular reason lately:

In the chapter on marriage in How to be a Woman, Caitlin Moran says this (from page 194): “When else do you get named something else? On joining a nunnery, or becoming a porn star. As an ostensibly joyful celebration of love, that’s bad company to be in.”

But here’s what I’ve been finding confusing (it doesn’t even affect me! Why, brain? WHYYYYY?!): women who - for damn-the-patriarchy reasons - refuse to change their surname when they marry usually have no problem keeping their original surname, WHICH IS THEIR FATHER’S SURNAME, thus continuing the whole patrilineal thing for at least their generation. AND some of those women also go on to give their children their husband’s name. The only way to get out of the system, therefore, (for those who want to) is to either change one’s surname upon signing up to feminism or to sit with one’s husband-to-be and a phone book* and pick one you both love.

Free advice. And tonight I’ll be able to fall asleep slightly faster.

///

*And, possibly, if you really want to think ahead, a baby names book to make sure that your current favourites match any potential new surname. If you’ve always loved the name Tom, for example, it helps not to have the surname Morrow. You’re welcome.