Veronica Foale

Author: Veronica Foale

  • Blocked

    Suck it up buttercup, I tell myself. You need to write, sit down and write it already. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or not, but you need to get over whatever this block is.

    But I don’t want to. I’ve got nothing to write about, everything has been boring.

    I don’t care. Just write.

    Just write.

    So I sit down and I just write and it’s not very good. And I poke at it and prod it and it’s still no good. I turn away, disheartened, and something inside screams that I need to keep writing and work through this block.

    I’ve got all sorts of good ideas you see, but I pitched to a parenting magazine today and in the event of them wanting something from me, a minuscule chance, I don’t want to have used any good material.

    Stupid, I know.

    ***

    The baby turns into a toddler with the arriving of his birthday. He stands on his own two feet and steadily makes his way around the furniture. He pulls a toy table over to the kitchen gate and climbs on it. For a moment, he hangs in the balance, tall enough now to topple over and land on the kitchen floor.

    Another moment passes and I’ve caught him, whisked him up into the air, alternately growling and cuddling him; my heart beating a little faster as I run through the what-ifs.

    He screams as I put the table away. I’m not prepared for him to be climbing baby gates yet.

    Instead, he climbs onto the coffee table and sits there, looking pleased with himself, bouncing and clapping.

    At least the coffee table doesn’t wobble precariously.

    ***

    The toddler turns into a preschooler, one who argues and has conversations with me, all in the same breath. She asks when we can go to school and when we can go and play on the slide. She wants to have a birthday every day and she sighs, visibly disappointed when I tell her that today is not a birthday.

    She walks away in a huff, flipping her hair as she goes and I can almost see the shadow of a teenager hanging over her head, flouncing out and exclaiming that I’m ruining her life forever.

    Not forever sweetheart. Just right now.

    ***

    Everything is changing, slowly but surely.

    Proof that life moves on, regardless.

    It’s just past seven months since Nan died and inside, I can feel it, a ball of grief, hardened and immobile. If I ignore it, it doesn’t bother me, but poking it threatens to bring this whole house of cards toppling down on my head.

    I wished I could ring her today, as my children screamed around me and the world spun while I reminded myself to breath. As I felt that familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach, that feeling of fear and dread and not knowing.

    I wanted her here and there was nothing I could do about it.

    So I did what I always do.

    I ignored it.

    I put the baby to bed, I cleaned out the horses water, I taught the puppy to sit. I fed the horses an extra slice of hay and I aimlessly clicked around the Internet. My son slept on and my daughter threw herself across my lap as I typed, watching the way my hands moved across the keys.

    I breathed deep.

    And I ignored it.

    That’s probably not the best way to be dealing with the grief.

  • Newspaper

    My other blog was mentioned in the Sunday Tasmanian paper yesterday. I’m still floating on air, just a little bit. I’ve been blogging over there for more than two years now and it seems things are finally paying off.

    They also asked permission to use my photo of Amy and I got photographers credit.

    Click on the image to enlarge it and read the article. You may have to click on it a second time, to maximise it.

  • Here-ya!

    He talks now, non stop. Most of it is garbled baby nonsense, but slowly, we’re pulling words out that make sense. He mimics me and claps animatedly when we have a conversation.

    Here-ya! he says delightedly as he shoves his hand down my throat, trying to feed me his biscuit. It’s soggy and a little mushed, but he is thrilled when I pretend to nibble it. Silly idea, as he promptly smears it all over my face.

    Here-ya! Here-ya! A mashed together word, meaning ‘here you are’ or ‘here you go’. I try not to mash my words together too often, but hereyouare just happens, without breaks in the middle of it and he picks it up. Easy to say, easy to remember, he adds it to his list of words.

    Not that I expect he has an actual list. He’s a baby and even the smartest baby is mostly daft.

    A hole! Let’s put my finger in iiiiiit WAAAAIIIIIIIL.

    Silly idea kid.

    They never listen, babies.

    ***

    He started as a ball of moulded flesh. Vaguely alien like, I birthed him and he was mine, ready to be shaped into whatever I wanted, so long as that shape was a little boy.

    ***

    This morning as he screeched his displeasure at having his nappy changed and threw his breakfast across the floor because it wasn’t what he wanted, I was struck by a thought.

    My baby. He’s turned into a toddler.

    I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little sad.

    He’s gone and grown up, with his own personality. He has wants and likes and they don’t always coincide with mine. For now, I am bigger and things like clothes and nappies are non-negotiable, but soon, my opinion isn’t going to be the one that matters.

    ***

    He’s smart and he is clever. He can pull the wheels off toys and chew on them, he can climb to the top of the couch. He knows how to steal food from his sisters plate and he can almost get into my bra by himself. He talks and slowly his words take on meanings, rather than just baby babbling. He knows to crawl as fast as he can when the baby gate is open, to seek the freedom of the kitchen and then, outside.

    But he still falls on his head occasionally when trying to climb down from the couch. He hasn’t learnt to fear heights and the falls accompanying them. He doesn’t remember that last time he played with the drawers, he slammed his fingers in them and this time, he’ll probably do the same thing.

    That’s my job – the job of safe keeper. To prevent the falls, to watch him in the slippery bath tub when he stands up and claps, my breath baited and hands ready to catch him at a milliseconds notice. To leave pillows on the floor next to the couch for a safe landing and to either wedge the drawers open or shut, depending on their contents.

    He’s bridging that gap between baby and toddler, faster than I’d like. He gets into mischief and laughs about it. He is my tiny little ball of energy, who follows his sister around like she is his God.

    He is growing up.

    For now though, he still needs my hands, ready to catch him.

    Because at the end of the day, he’s still a baby and we’ve got a lot of learning left to do before he figures out what this world is all about.

  • Weeding

    Standing in the middle of the tomato patch, I bend and pull weeds. Steadily I work my way through the plants, my head amongst the green leafy fronds. A stray tomato bumps me on the nose and carefully, I bend it around the stake to hold it up, away from the dirt.

    I’m running low on stakes and the bigger plants need more than one. It’s amazing, how proud I am of the plants that are merely doing what plants do. I gave them water, earth and sunshine and now I act surprised that they grew. Really, that’s what they were going to do with or without my watching them.

    I move through to the one single bean plant that grew and as I weed, I find beans on it, large enough to harvest. I clap delightedly and picking them, show my partner. He’s not as excited as I am.

    They’re beans.

    But they’re my beans. I grew them.

    So?

    Hmmph.

    Now, I eat the beans instead of clapping about them.

    I move back to the tomatoes, pulling the last of the weeds I missed before and tenderly stroking the small green fruit. Lifting my head, I find myself face to face with a spider. We look at each other, before I bend back to what I was doing.

    I pull the last of the weeds and leave the spider there, living amongst the tomatoes, hopefully protecting them from the bugs that would otherwise eat them.

    When I get inside, I realise, my hands smell like tomatoes. It’s a good smell.

    Spider

    Tomatoes

  • It’s hard sometimes.

    Standing in the middle of my dead grandmother’s empty lounge room. We’re there to clean the last of her belongings out before the house is officially sold and the keys handed over on Monday.

    My father, stands on one side of the room. I stand on the other, with the baby crawling at my feet.

    My daughter, in the middle of the lounge room, earnestly starts talking.

    We will go see MyNanny in the hospital! And she will get better. She will come home and she will play with me.

    She looks at me.

    Mummy, we are cleaning up MyNanny’s house for her. She will come home soon and we will play with bubbles? MyNanny is not very sick anymore. The doctors will make her better!

    I glance at my father, the same time as he glances at me. Normally, I talk to her about MyNanny and how she died. That she won’t be coming home. That she is gone and we’re very sad.

    Today though, I can’t bring myself to do it. Not here, standing in the emptiness of her house.

    Mummy. MyNanny will come home!? And we will play together, with bubbles! And she will not need to be in bed anymore. We will help her get out of bed. And then we will play!

    Tears well in my eyes and I can’t bring myself to talk. I bend and sweep the hair out of the baby’s eyes. My father and I look at each other. Then,  I change the subject for my daughter.

    Sweetheart? Show Poppy where you hurt your arm.

    Look Poppy! I hurt myself. I did fall.

    Mmmmmm, says my father. Ouch. How did you do that?

    I fell!

    She fell. I say. Trying to climb on top of the closet, using the couch arms and a pile of linen.

    Oh.

    Crisis averted. We’re not crying anymore.

    At least,

    not on the outside.