A thing I know...

What a great concept! A regular post about what you know. I think it is important to acknowledge what we know is true. It builds self esteem and self trust.

I know my kid rocks

I know everyone thinks their kid is the best kid EVAH, but my kid to me, is AWESOME! 

We went through a shocking phase recently when I was all over the place with my Restless Leg Syndrome and anxiety about why I was anaemic and feeling so shit. I was so consumed with my own physical problems that I was avoiding Noo and we were clashing all the time. He disobeyed me constantly and acted out in a way that was dangerous (like running across a busy road!) and frustrating. He was obstinate and oppositional. I found it hard at the time to admit it, but I dreaded having to pick him up from daycare in the evening. I even changed him from three days a week to four! I'm now wanting to change it back to three because I just love being with him.

Walking in the rain, lollipop in hand, on the bike path in the city

Walking through Wynyard Park wearing his tie,
which he insisted on wearing

Up at the Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains

When I started feeling better after my iron infusion, I made a conscious effort to spend more time with Noo and everything changed. We are like best mates again. We understand what the other is saying. He is more respectful and behaves a hell of a lot better (as well as any three and a half year old, anyway) than he did when I was unwell. Kids just sense things! He is so intuitive.

Noo is confident in a way I could never be, especially when I was a child. He says hello to everyone and introduces himself and asks the other person's name. Even as a baby, when he was pre-verbal, he would stare at a stranger until they looked at him, and then smile. He has charm. He almost never cries and when he does, they are not serious tears. You can reason with him. I know this is odd for a preschooler but he can be reasoned with if his feelings are acknowledged and validated. Not all the time, he is three after all, but he is genuinely wanting to be a good boy. And he is a lovely, sweet natured boy. He is gentle with his six month old cousin.

In the playground on Tuesday, when a couple of boys started picking on Noo because he introduced himself to them, he just looked at them bewildered. "Why are they being like that mum? I only said my name was Noo". He doesn't understand teasing.

Noo is funny and he loves jokes. He can play independently for hours, creating amazing games with his toys. He is imaginative and creative. I love listening in on the conversations he makes his toys have and the world he creates for them.

Noo is my saviour.

I was so lost before I found out I was pregnant. I was slowly dying - killing myself with self hate, fear and loathing. I was living on the fringes of society, sleeping on a bare foam mattress on the floor of a junkie household. I was high all the time. Estranged from my family and friends. I didn't even know who I was really. Except for my name, I knew nothing of who I was or who I wanted to be, if I wanted to be at all.

When I found out I was pregnant it had been almost a year to the day since that horrible event that changed my life. Since the night a stranger took away what shred of innocence or dignity I had left. And it had been a year of punishing myself brutally for allowing myself to be a victim. A rape victim. Yuck! The R word. There, I've typed it.

From out of that darkness I created light. With a man, who will be unnamed for as long as I can manage before Noo gets old enough to ask questions that I can no longer distract him from. As soon as I saw those two purple lines on the testing stick I knew it was the light at the end of the tunnel. I felt a purpose for the first time in years, if not my whole life. A desperate need to give this new life, that had somehow managed to survive the battering I had been giving my mind and body, a chance. In turn I was giving myself a chance.

Those tiny little cells that divided and multiplied inside me never let me forget they were there. I sobered up immediately but had no other choice than to stay where I was living. I bought a new bed to get off the floor and proceeded to stay in it for 13 weeks. I vomited from 3am to 5pm every day. Retching violently I barely managed to keep my antidepressant medication down. I was dehydrated all the time and needed IV hydration at one point. Four bags from a drip in the waiting room of a of an inner city hospital. At several points I thought can I do this alone? I knew the father would not stick around despite proclamations of love and devotion.

Maybe selfishly I held on to him. To the thought of him. Even though as news trickled back to my real world that I was pregnant, both friends and family, and even my family GP thought I was crazy to have a baby when I was so fucked up. How could I look after another being if I couldn't look after myself?

But I loved him with all my heart and soul from that moment at around week 12 when I got the results of the CVS (Chorionic Villus Sampling) test I had to rule out Downs Syndrome. They told me he was a boy and immediately I knew he was Noo.

My son.

This is what I know.

V.

Linking up with Dorothy at Singular Insanity.