Posts Tagged "Mummies"

Friendships can be fleeting

Posted by cafebebemama on Jun 13, 2011 in Motherhood | 10 comments

This is a photo from May of 2009. Ella was playing with her best friend Little Bean. Sabina, Little Bean’s mummy, and I had met over a circle of babies at a baby music class through our local SureStart Children’s Centre. Our girls were about 3 months old at the time and Sabina and I always ended up sitting next to each other. We started talking, found that our girls birthday’s were only 3 days apart and continued to sign up for other classes at the Children’s Centre together. I met a few other mummies whose daughters were all a very similar age through Sabina and these classes. The SureStart Children’s Centre saved me. I didn’t know a soul until directed by our local health visitors. Finally I had some other mummies to be around! Eureka!

Over the next year, our Mummy Circle grew to include about 6-8 mummies/girls who all were born within weeks of each other. Most of us were on Maternity Leave at the time and had all the freedom that first-time motherhood allowed for. In addition to the classes we attended at the Children’s Centre, I started organising weekly “coffee mornings” or “play dates” and later, walking adventures to help us all get a bit more fit while we chatted. It wasn’t just me organising things but I tended to take the bull by the horns. We even started having a Mummy’s Night Off once a month, enjoying local restaurants and a few hours of “normal” before heading back to our families. Through it all, Sabina and I were quite close and did a fair bit together with our girls.

As all friendships tend to have their “season”, so did our group of mummies. Two of the mummies went back to work part-time which limited their availability. On the days they weren’t working there were jobs to be done and errands to be run and eventually, there seemed to be more “no, can’t make it” replies to the attempts to organise outings. I stopped making an effort to invite and by the time our girls were 1 1/2 we were acquaintances only, for the most part. I think you realise who you are truly friends with when the common bond (your children) is taken out of the equation. It’s totally understandable. But also, utterly depressing. It seems that friendship can be fleeting.

Obviously, me being a “foreigner” has put me at a bit of a disadvantage in the “friends” department. I didn’t have any friends when I arrived other than the few couples that had been friends with my husband. Unfortunately, most of them, while lovely and wonderful, were well beyond kiddie years and were closer to retirement years so I didn’t have a wealth of “peers” to choose from. Not going back to work also put me at a disadvantage in that department as well. I had made friends of my own with my work colleagues but they were just that, work colleagues. Again, once the common bond (work) was out of the equation, there wasn’t much else keeping me there.

For those of you in the blogging world who know me, finding out that I have only one very few friends in REAL LIFE may surprise you. For whatever reason, I’ve been able to strike up quite a few friendships in the blogosphere and am always outgoing and confident at blogging events and in public situations. I’m not sure why but I see it as a challenge. And as I’ve gotten to know many of my blogging friends better through their blogs, I feel like I’ve done the “hard work” prior to meeting in person and we can just jump into the middle of the friendship without a sideways glance. But my blogging friends aren’t here on a daily basis. They aren’t available for coffee mornings and play dates. They aren’t able to drive 3+ hours for a Mummy’s Night Off. They are my “other world” so to speak.

Since Ella began nursery in January (can it have been six months already?), obviously I have seen other mums on the “school run” which is all of 5 minutes from our house. However, it’s only a fleeting “Hiya” as we bustle our children into school, kiss them goodbye and tend to any business before racing back out the door. I feel like I should try to organise something but everyone is so busy and I don’t know if I want to be rejected like in the past. I don’t know what to do but I’m lonely and bored and feel bad for Ella because she only has Little Bean in her life and can’t even remember the names of the children in her class much less make new friends.

I’m whinging, I suppose…but that’s what I get to do every so often on my blog. And I think there may be a few of you who might feel the same in your corner of Real Life. What do you do to make new friends? Have you tried to “force” yourself on other mums at school? Do you feel like you’re holding your child back by not making more of an effort? Any suggestions are more than welcome.

Sleep Deprivation

Posted by cafebebemama on Dec 8, 2009 in Sleep Deprivation | 3 comments

Little Miss & Grandpa

As any parent knows, the first few years have got to be the hardest with regard to sleep deprivation.  We’ve been struggling for 18 months…I say “we”, I mean ME.  It’s not horrible and it’s not every night but most nights I’m up several times to soothe Little Miss back to sleep.  I know, it’s my own fault…yeah, yeah, yeah.  Well, I’m working on a plan for 2010…we’ll see how successful I am.

I wrote a post last week, Do You Hear What I Hear, where I asked if your partners hear the children in the night or if it’s only us lucky Mummies who do.  I had quite a few responses, most of which confirmed that yes, it is the Mummies with the ultra-sonic hearing and the Olympic sprinter speed to launch oneself from the bed.  I’m training for 2012 with some other Mummies now…we’ll kick the rest of the world’s butt.  At any rate, my Mum shared a video on Facebook and I found it utterly hysterical and would readily welcome my husband to attempt to replicate it.  I attempt to share it with you:
Baby and Father in the Crib Together
You can click on the link above to visit the site for the video…I can’t seem to EMBED video properly…if anyone would like to give me a lesson, I’m open for suggestion!