Why I pick city over suburbs - even & especially with family

A non-baby post, for a change!

Our 'spare room' - which will be baby's room.
Small but perfectly formed...

We live on a boat. A large boat as boats go, but a small space by most local standards. It's a confined space without outdoor space of our own, and that has some downsides - notably, the dog needs to be walked every time he needs the toilet, he can't just be let out. Later on when we've got the child, equally, I can't just open the back door and say, out you go!

Beyond that I truly struggle to come up with downsides. I love living in the city. My grandmother, with whom I rarely agreed about anything, was a city dweller all her adult life (and brought up two children in Vienna) and could not understand why anybody wouldn't choose to live in such a convenient place. I lived in New York City for a while and I'm still in touch with an amazing family with three girls who choose to live in Manhattan, right in the place which the majority of people (who can afford to) will leave as soon as they start families.

Bristol certainly doesn't compare with NYC in scale, but it's city living, make no mistake. So, you ask, it's crowded and living space is small and why do I love this?

One of our local parks - usually plenty of dogs
to play with!

• I get to live on a boat! - OK this isn't the kind of city living most people experience, but.... a boat! The character, the freedom to roam, the water's reflections on the ceiling... I love our home.
• Walking everywhere. Within (easy) walking distance are my dentist, GP, vet, a convenience store, and pretty much all the attractions tourists come here for. Within longer walking distance is my work, the main city centre with all its shops and services, the hospital, local markets. Our car gets used, on average, twice a week - the Mr. cycles to work as it's too far to walk, so he gets a workout each day without having to think about it.
  Not using the car has several advantages:
• It keeps me [somewhat] fit to walk rather than drive places.
• My Mr. enjoys cycling and it keeps him seriously fit - his route is very hilly!
• Wear & tear on the car, and fuel cost, is much reduced. 
• If I need to get somewhere in a hurry I can drive, but most of the time the walk to wherever I'm going takes me as long (short) as it would if I lived in the suburbs and drove to things.
• No gardening / ground maintenance. It's no accident that we have no allotment... I can't stand gardening. I'm not sorry to have no grounds to maintain! I do love a good outdoor space, however, and there are five large outdoor spaces within easy walking distance. We call the closest one, a small green under a flyover right by the river, 'our backyard' - almost the entire way to it is car free and the dog can go off lead, once there we can sit on benches or in the grass as he explores in safety. I look forward to times spent with our little one there too. If we want to walk a little further, there are proper woods to explore, a stately home with its grounds, ponds, rolling hills... how can a puny piece of yard compare?
• Neighbours. Now this may again be specific to our situation, but we know and talk to our neighbours. We help each other out. Anywhere I've lived in suburbs people rarely even knew their neighbours, and since everyone has their own large house / space to retreat to, life doesn't really happen in shared spaces the way it does in the city - where much of the living is done outside the small home, like in parks, libraries, or in our case, sitting in the sunshine on the pontoon with the neighbours. 
• Community. A different kind, not thinking about immediate neighbours but communities of interests. Whatever your interests: in the city, you'll find a group of like-minded people doing interesting stuff. I played Volleyball in New York City, and ran with the Hash House Harriers; in the last few months I've been astonished at the amount of community spirit and support for local mums. There are baby friendly cafes with baby/toddler activities; regular meet-ups for walks; plenty of baby/toddler activities to get involved in and make friends. If you're lucky enough to find an interest-based group in the suburbs that chimes with your own interests, good for you - but mostly, if it does exist, it's probably quite a long drive away.
• Culture. This from a totally non-arty person. I appreciate having local history and culture right around me, being able to access landmarks and tourist attractions and - in the future, with kiddo in tow - museums, the zoo, aquarium, libraries... all of which run kid-friendly programmes and features. Free and cheap opportunities to learn and entertain kids abound here.

I have never felt confined in the middle of a city. I don't always love all aspects of cities - in larger ones, the pollution, overcrowding, sheer noise and so on can make me crave a getaway into silence and solitude. But I always come back to the city. It's where so much life happens, and I can't wait to introduce our little one to the bustling life of the city!

A label for everyone: looks like I'll be a 'crunchy mama'

In trying to get ready for the baby adventure, I'm reading and learning lots. One of the things I've learned so far is that, since mothering is a mass pursuit (by which I mean, the very vast majority of all women do it), everything I might want to do or consider has been done or considered by someone else before. Here's a truth: nothing I do, think or consider in relation to my child is unique. Someone else has already done, thought, or considered it.

I think that's great! In the age of the Internet, I can learn from the experiences of others and hopefully avoid some of their mistakes.

Labels for everyone

Hippie baby... uh, no.

It also means there are groups of people with labels on. Think of 'tiger mothers', 'earth mamas', you name it... I certainly don't go around looking for labels and then trying to conform to any particular label. Although there can be comfort and support in that, because similar people cluster together and help each other. I've always done my own thing: I suppose I collect labels more like scout badges, never just one, and they don't usually go together.

So for example, I'm a vegan Christian. A Christian vegan. I have yet to meet another, online or in person - which puzzles me really, given that compassion ought to be a central Christian tenet, yet in the evangelical circles I move in this seems to apply almost exclusively to humans. Christians and vegans tend to be in pretty much opposite camps, for reasons unfathomable to me - vegans being (generally unfairly) associated by the other camp with unwashed hippies, Christians being (equally unfairly) associated with right wing homophobes. I like to think I'm neither unwashed, nor right wing or homophobic - I just try to follow truth (Christianity) and lovingkindness (veganism) without seeing them as diametrically opposed.

Crunchy?

Now crunchy is an interesting one - why that designation I have no idea (a shared affinity for crunchy granola? Crunchy over smooth peanut butter?)... I've come across that label several times when searching for things / ideas totally unrelated to each other, so I couldn't help but notice a pattern... looks like the things I'm considering, ways I plan to raise my child, often conforms with the crunchy label. Not always, mind! Urban Dictionary defines a crunchy mama like this:

Mother who supports homebirth, breastfeeding, baby wearing, cloth diapering, co-sleeping, gentle discipline, etc. One who questions established medical authority; tends to be vegetarian and/or prepare all-organic foods. See crunchy and hippie.

Here's the hippie label rearing its head again! (still no flowers in my hair). But yeah... here's how I plan to 'crunch' it...

• Homebirth: totally would, if it wasn't for the fact that this is a boat and if something goes wrong, I would need to be transported some 100 metres down the pontoon and up a ramp before getting to a road to an ambulance. Not a good plan. Plan B, a midwife-led birthing centre with a home-from-home atmosphere, feels safer and I still hope I'll never have to actually see a doctor.
• Breastfeeding: can't understand why everyone doesn't... it's free, it's nutritious, it helps you lose the weight, it bonds you to baby, no faffing about with bottles and sterilising and all that malarkey... oh yeah and as for breastfeeding in public: whyever not? I often eat in public as well, why shouldn't a baby? That said, I like to keep my boobs to myself and my Mr. (well and baby) so I expect I'll cover up in some way. Not so crunchy.
• Baby wearing: partly to do with space on our boat, but definitely I also see benefits in keeping baby close where they feel safe, protected, and warm!
• Cloth diapering: £300 for an all-new kit of cloth nappies and all you need (if bought new, which I won't do - now that's crunchy! - my kit, which is almost complete, cost £20) or £'000's over the years with disposables. Also, it takes about 3kg of raw material to make a cloth nappy versus about 120kg for disposables. That said, my newborn will start in disposables because I'm not totally mad - I'll give myself a couple of weeks to get used to baby!
• Co-sleeping: again, a space consideration, but even if that wasn't the case baby would definitely be with us. Why would I banish a tiny baby who experiences their world through immediate experiences like closeness, safety, or abandonment... to their own room? 
• Gentle discipline: yeah, but let's emphasise that both gentle and discipline are of equal weight here. I won't take no $h!t from a 2-year-old.
• Vegetarian: yeah totally. I wouldn't give my child harmful substances. As they get older they will have a choice, but I'll definitely make sure it's an informed choice.
• All-organic: nah. Not on our budget. 

I suppose all of the above just seem like common sense to me, however apparently they justify a label because not everyone agrees. Just like, I'd say, veganism is an obvious and decent choice for all but not everyone agrees. Oh well: another label badge then!

Children: decision or gift? [could I regret it?]

Before I begin, let me state this: I don't believe having children is ever 100% our decision. Even if you decided to stop contraception, to "try", or perhaps even to use artificial methods - apart from adopting a child, this new life making it through and coming out alive is a gift which you don't have 100% influence over getting. A common miracle.

This post was sparked by a conversation I had with a friend who's a mum, who mentioned that there are times she regrets the decision to have kids. Every mum I've ever had an honest conversation with about children has said something along those lines - I believe there are moments for every mother when she wishes her kid(s) weren't there. They are moments, in crisis and stress and overtiredness... it's not that she truly wishes them gone or would go back in time to prevent having them, but still, I think every mother is familiar with those feelings and I won't be surprised if I feel that way too at some point.

At that point, I want to remember that I never decided to have children.

When we got married, we didn't know whether we could have any. We only decided to be open to the possibility.

And when I say being open, there's more to it than thinking oh well, we'll make love and see what happens! I do know where babies come from, thanks very much. We truly didn't know whether we could have children; I have been diagnosed with polycystic ovaries and some years ago I had no periods at all for almost three years. [They had been very regular again for a while before my pregnancy though.] My Mr. in the past has been married and they had no children, and had not been trying to prevent having them. So - we were not being naive to think that we may just not have any.

We decided to be open either way. To do nothing about it - we neither consciously "tried", nor did we use prevention. It was the only way I could have peace: if I had to decide whether or not to have children, I would have tied myself up in knots of indecision. And I might have regretted my decision, whichever one it would have been.

Because I didn't decide to have children - we didn't decide to have children - we know that we have been given a gift.

You can regret a decision, but you cannot regret a gift. You can get a gift you don't like very much (think socks from gran at Christmas!) but you still take it and smile and thank the giver. Because they gave it with love.

I'm not saying having kids is like getting socks for Christmas, but this gift is given with love and though I may at times not like it very much, I can't regret it because I didn't decide to get it. It was given by someone who knows exactly what this couple needs, and what this child needs, and who has nothing but blessing as his agenda. A blessing that's hard work at times, I have no doubt, but it wasn't my decision to make and I trust the one whose decision it was to give the gift.

How much *stuff* do babies really (really!) need?

Living on a boat, we're all about clever storage solutions - space is definitely at a premium.

To me that's an advantage, not a drawback. It makes you think twice about everything you buy and what you really need (or not). I like an uncluttered environment, so even the space we do have I don't like to fill up with stuff.

Babies, it seems, bring with them a whole lot of stuff. Some of it clearly necessary, but some of it perhaps optional... as a first time mum I'm well aware I may be eating my words in a few months' time and buying all the stuff, but at the moment, I'm taking a minimalist approach to buying baby stuff:

Things we are buying / necessities:

Our new car seat.

• A car seat. Just got one, second hand, never been in an accident, £10.
• Baby clothes. Got two bags full of second hand neutral ones, mostly bodysuits but also tops, leggings, three hats, scratch mitts, and two thicker outdoor suits - £10 for the lot.
• A carry cot. Got that for £10 too, unused even and still in original packaging! The mattress will be baby's main mattress, placed on our (king size) bed by my head at night (the bed is enclosed on 3 sides, baby being on the inside, so falling out is impossible). In the daytime, the carrycot can go wherever I happen to be at home - lounge, bathroom, wherever. It can be baby's sleeping place when we go out to see friends. We're looking at ways to hang it from hooks on our ceiling in the lounge - I'm liking the idea of baby hammocks with their gentle movement, and taking up less real estate on the furniture!
• A changing mat. Not bought yet; looking to get one that folds up so I can take it places. This is instead of a changing table, for which there's no space.
• Nappies. Can't get away without them! Probably disposables to take to hospital, but definitely reuseables after that. Reuseable cloths too. Coconut oil for cleansing & moisturising bottom. In terms of nappies I'm thinking of simple muslins and/or terry cloths with a cover, so that the cloths can do double duty and be useful for everything else too.
  I'm lucky to live in Bristol as there's a nappy library with lots of advice and even a hire service to try before you buy! Definitely plan to make use of that.
• Nappy / changing bag. Have yet to figure out exactly what I want, but a backpack style one would work best I think.
• A Pourty potty. The only potty design that seems to make sense to me. I plan to let baby relieve him/herself after feedings and whenever s/he seems to want to go, from the start - minimises nappy use & gets them used to toilets!
• A carry wrap. Not bought yet; this will be baby's main mode of transport, being carried by either one of us. This replaces a pram, which we have neither space nor money for; and besides, prams are a pain to get around with. When baby outgrows the wrap, we'll probably switch to a structured carrier like the Ergo.
  Again, Bristol is the place to be - a sling library is available where you can hire a sling for 2 weeks to try it out before buying! Definitely doing that.
• An old lady shopping trolley. Not strictly a baby item, but as there'll be no pram, I'll carry baby in a wrap and drag stuff (shopping, nappies, etc.) behind me in a shopping trolley. Which is much easier to work with through doorways, up stairs and so on!
• An ear thermometer. Am told that is a necessity.

Wow, that's a boatload of stuff already! And I may come across more needful things yet...!

Things we have considered but aren't buying (not an exhaustive list - there are SO MANY THINGS you could buy!):

• Pram. As I said above, I'll start with a carry wrap and hope that'll work for us. Besides, carrying a growing baby around has got to count as a workout and help with rebuilding core strength!
• A baby bed / cot bed. Baby will sleep in our bed, on his/her own mattress so I won't roll onto them. They'll be within easy reach at night - no getting up to feed :-)
• Moses basket. Carry cot will do that job for us.
• Toys. I don't plan to buy any - there'll always be hand-me-downs. And babies don't start off needing toys anyway. As they grow, I'll figure out a system - an amount of toys I'm happy with, and then one in / one out.
• Baby formula, bottles, bottle warmers, sterilisers, accessories. My breasts will have to do.
• Baby monitor. The joy of living in a small space is I can hear what's going on! Besides, Fred (the dog) may turn out to be a perfectly good baby monitor, I've heard of many dogs that would alert the mum even before baby was crying.
• Baby bath. The sink it is!

I can't think of many more things but wow, this whole enterprise is certainly an education!

On taking up space

It's hardly a secret that I have a very messy past. I've talked about my dysfunctional family of origin... but there's much more to my mess than that.

For most of my teens and all my twenties, food was an extremely dangerous enemy to me - to be contained when possible. After years of utter chaos, pain and insanity, I found salvation in a programme of extremely rigid food containment (a blog I wrote for years still exists, both as a reminder for me and to give hope to others) which kept the demon contained. It took work and commitment, but for years I found that I could have a life between meals - all three meals were committed in advance to my sponsor each day, in detail, then weighed and measured; with nothing in between but black coffee, tea or water. No matter what. 24/7, 365, no exceptions. It took planning and commitment but I was able to live life in between those meals.

One day in late 2010 I was at a conference. People were prayed for. I felt no particular need so I stayed in my seat. Someone called me out and prayed for me - I don't remember what he said, only that it wasn't very earth-shattering - but I knew, that evening, that I had been freed. After years of daily, no-exceptions weighing and measuring of my food I started the next day with extreme caution. I took my scale to breakfast, but I had chosen not to call my sponsor that morning. I sat at breakfast and my scale remained in my bag. Slowly, as if the food could attack at any moment, I took my first bite. And another. And I was truly free.

Over the next few months I learned, completely re-learned, how to eat. I was no longer avoiding all sugars, grains and starches as the enemy. I no longer had to wait 4 hours in between meals, or avoid snacks. In learning, I gained some weight; but I never spiralled out of control. I truly had been healed, actually totally unasked-for (I had been convinced I'd found as much freedom as I could ever have!)... but it was like having to learn to walk after a stroke, I had to learn to eat in response to hunger cues and appetites and choices I could make.

While I have been free from the madness since that day in 2010, it's been a journey in terms of body image. I will never have a model body - I'm just not built that way. I'm short, muscular, and strong; not lithe and willowy. My wonderful man calls me 'curvaceous'. I remind myself often that he is the only person I really want my body to appeal to; as long as he likes what he sees, it's all good. That includes myself and my merciless eyes; it doesn't matter if they're less than happy at the mirror's reflection.

Photo taken at about 20 weeks.

Sharing this photo is seriously tough for me, because it shows lumps on an imperfect body (and fat arms); but I'm showing it because for the first time in my adult life, or perhaps ever, something is shifting in my own perception. For the first time, I have an inkling that the amount of space I take up is not too much. That my body has a right to take up the amount of space it does, because I'm pregnant. I'm not disturbed at my belly's growth, I welcome it - my body has every right to expand at this time.

I'm not eating for two, I'm not going crazy with food: those days are over. But I am gaining weight. And for the first time, I'm absolutely fine with that.

What I should and shouldn't tell my husband

Yesterday my Mr. and I spent some amazing quality time talking deeply. I relished every second of it.

Today I thought about it some more - about the things I said to him. I shared my fears openly, things I have thought about, plans for the future and feelings of right now. I've had deep friendships before, but there has never been any other person I have felt able to be so completely open with, to lay everything bare in complete and utter trust.

[Aside: I don't refer to my husband as 'my best friend'. In my mind, that description falls so far short, it just doesn't come anywhere close to describing this relationship. A friend is something I share a bond with, I may love them, I may know them well; but my spouse and I are one in essence.]

I need to learn which layers
of the onion that is me
are helpful to share.

Anyway, after thinking about it today, I don't think everything I shared yesterday was a good idea to share with him. I'm still a novice at this marriage thing, so I have a lot to learn; and one thing I have yet to find good balance on is what I do and don't tell my husband.

He is, after all, only human - and no matter how open I am with him, he can't truly get into my mind to put in context what I'm saying. (oh for a Vulcan mind meld!) So when I told him, for example, that I didn't know what to do if I found our child's personality unloveable - that wasn't helpful. Yes, I've idly mused about it, but it's not a true worry for me. When I said it, however, I could see concern in his eyes and even as he tried to reassure me I knew I couldn't backpedal and take the words back, though I'd have liked to. He didn't need to hear this, it's not a true worry that occupies my mind, and now I fear I've planted a worry in him unnecessarily.

If I could have shown him my whole mind, with this particular thought in context, I would have done and he could have dismissed it for the fleeting, silly musing it was. But words skew things. Once I've articulated something it has been put out there and has become defined - even if before that, it was just a vague idea.

Johari Window

In short, I've got to remember that my Mr., though wonderful, is only human and the only person with whom I can truly share all the stuff is Jesus. That's because he has the context, as he knows my inmost thoughts (Ps. 139) - he knows what's big and what's small in my world and my words can't skew his perspective.

In the good old Johari window, God has the overall view, seeing things even I don't know. My Mr. knows what I tell him as well as lots of blind spots I'm sure to have, but he can't know what neither I nor others know, and there are parts of me in the 'hidden' frame that he doesn't need to know. And that is not about withholding part of who I am from him - as I say, all of me is his to know. It's only respecting that he is a fellow human being, with the same limitations as me, and the loving thing is to carefully weigh my words before dumping it all over him and leaving him with worries and burdens he needn't carry.

For myself, I need to cultivate the mental discipline to stay away from the unfruitful mental rabbit holes I can sometimes get stuck in (Mr. is great at not doing that!) but instead dwell much more on 'whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, praiseworthy, excellent' (Phil. 4.8) in my own mind, and be a source of strength, joy and encouragement to my man.

Reminder: I'm not in charge of my life (phew!)

Been pondering some huge things lately. Like, who runs my life? And if it's not me, is that OK?

As a single person it's fairly easy to think it's me. Myself and I, we're good, we have plans. (and God laughs?); married, it gets a little more complicated because every decision affects us, not just me. Now, with a new person growing inside me, I'm definitely starting to lose the blinders and see that I'm not actually in charge of my life. And the relief is beautiful.

If I was in charge, I'd have to not only make the decisions but face the consequences as well. When I make most of my decisions, I have to do it without knowing 100% of all the facts and possible influencing factors... so a decision made to the best of my knowledge at the time may turn out to be horribly wrong.

Just little me again, looking puzzled.

Those are some lofty and nebulous ideas, so let's bring this home to make clear where I'm coming from with this...

I (emphatically) never wanted to have children. Then I met my Mr. and he wasn't put off by that! He was ambivalent about them; happy to have them if they came along, happy to live the rest of his life as a non-dad. I asked him once if he would feel as if he'd missed out on something if he found himself 70 years old and childless. He said no, not at all. This gave me enough peace of mind to marry the man - had he told me he wanted to start a family within the year, I'd have run a mile!

That said, however, I didn't marry Mr. with a firm intention to have no children. [I did know he'd been married before and there had been no kids; but, the reasons for that I didn't know. So there was a real possibility that we couldn't have any children, and we were both fine with that.] I went into this marriage trusting that God had designs for it, and if children were to be part of that, he would also provide everything we needed. So we never tried to avoid conception, and neither did we particularly try to conceive. We just got on with enjoying married life!

If I had tried to finally and firmly make up my mind, think everything through, and come to a decision as to whether or not I wanted children, I would have tied myself in knots and still not been certain by the time the menopause arrived. So, glad I'm not the one in charge of my life, I left it in God's capable hands.

And he orchestrated this beautifully! About a year after we met, we married; about a year after that, we are now expecting our first child. I couldn't have planned it better if I had tried.

I think our God has a very fine sense for irony.