Haikus

I am typing this blog with one finger as I have a wee babe (almost three weeks old) in the crook of my left arm. I wonder how many blogs I shall post in this manner?!

Inevitably, I have found virtually no time to write recently, save the occasional blog here or on my other blog. I've also managed a few rushed lines here and there in my diary (yup, can't quite let the longhand diary go...there's nothing quite like picking up a pen and scribbling away, and it's been going since I was nine.) I am snatching moments here and there to sort out Women's Writing Wheel, but what I could do with is hours rather than minutes so I could just get it launched. I'm longing to do so.

Perhaps, in these days of major time restrictions, I should invest more in haikus. I adore the art of the haiku. Although it's traditional form has been bastardized to suit Western tastes, this Japanese poetry form is best known for containing three lines with 5, 7 and 5 syllables respectively. It encapsulates an image; a thought; an idea and is perfect for that time when you have a pencil and scrap of paper to hand and are suddenly compelled to capture and immortalize a moment. My husband and I have filled an entire notebook with our haikus, ranging from the poignant (well, pognant for us, anyway) to the downright silly. But they are all memories.

So, in celebration of the haiku, here is one for the here and now:

Damp, muggy August

We lift our heads to the rains

Dig our roots deeper.

 

We are a family of five!

It feels like no time ago at all that my boyfriend (now husband) and I were laughing in that half-jokey half-serious way about one day having children. And suddenly we were married. Then a new little person followed swiftly on. And then another....and now, as of six days ago, we are a family of five. FIVE!!! Incredible.

We have had a little boy after two girls and I think it's going to take some time getting used to the novel sensation of saying him and his and boy and son and dealing with all his different bits and bobs. I am incredibly happy and feel so lucky - he is now safely with us, with ten little fingers and ten little toes and a pair of lungs on him to bring the Taj Mahal down.

I remember when I had my first baby, I suddenly had all this enforced but very welcome time when my little one embarked on her marathon feeding sessions. I think I read a book a week during those weeks and months. Wow, how different it's going to be this time round. When I settle down for a feed, I pull out My Cleaner by Maggie Gee (fantastic read by the way, highly recommended) but then a few seconds later, the girls are having a tiff, or one of them falls over, or wants me to read a story....or something along those lines. And that is absolutely FINE and normal and the last thing in the world I want to do is neglect them, it's more a case of a knee-jerk reaction, associating feeding with reading as the blueprint of the memory is still there.

I wish somebody could genetically engineer an extra arm or two for a new mother (especially a writing-obsessed mother), then I could reach over to the keyboard and tippety-tap away with one nimble finger whilst I use another arm to feed and another to draw my girls in and give them as many hugs as I can.