Browsing Category: Parenting

My Mother’s Day established a new Mother’s Day tradition

May 16, 2017 Zoe

I had a seriously eye-opening Mother’s Day. It was intense and emotional, but also pretty transformational – what I did first thing in the morning on a day all about celebrating moms is definitely going to become a Mother’s Day tradition for me. But first, let me back up and tell you how it all came to be.

You see, I was approached for the Cape Town Embrace campaign, and I wrote about it a few weeks back. I wrote all about how even with all the love, support and help that I had as a new mom, it was still so daunting, so scary. And I encouraged all of you to take part in this idea of visiting moms on Mother’s Day. We’d reach out and encourage them, make their day a little brighter and generally just welcome them to the mom tribe. But there was one problem. I had no idea which hospital I’d be going to or what it would be like. So I felt like a total hypocrite, telling everyone to do this and not even sure how I would manage to do it. Well, the amazing Sharon from The Blessed Barrenness stepped up and organized for us to visit Charlotte Maxeke hospital on Sunday morning, and I was blown away. Continue Reading

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Comment Parenting, Preeclampsia, Rambling, South Africa

Motherhood is dancing with the fear

April 18, 2017 Zoe

I recently heard the phrase “dance with the fear” in relation to startups and other new ventures. The woman on a podcast was talking about how jumping into a new venture can be scary and you have to embrace that fear while letting other people believe in you even if you can’t believe in yourself. I nearly started crying in the car – screw startups or business, that was a perfectly apt explanation of motherhood. As Mother’s Day draws closer, I’m inevitably thinking about what it means – being a mom, making the journey into motherhood.

Then, on a TV show that I enjoy, a woman was rushed into an emergency c-section. It was a matter of life and death, and then her baby was born and I sobbed. Then the baby gave her first cry and I sobbed some more. I was holding Harley on my lap while watching TV (she was busy playing with her shoes, as is her way lately), and I was telling her that was how she was born. I couldn’t help myself, kissing and hugging her while sobbing watching a stupid TV series. Motherhood is complicated. It’s hard and lonely and absolutely terrifying. And that’s with a loving husband, supportive family and friends and the good fortune to afford all the things I needed during birth and those early days especially.

7 Comments Parenting, Sponsored

Fear and Loneliness Motherhood Sponsored

Mom guilt is real and can strike at any time

April 5, 2017 Zoe

I’ve seen so much about mom guilt, and while I can laugh at the cartoons about it or joke about how it’s a lose-lose situation for women, in the moment it can still feel crippling. I’d define it as the duality of motherhood – on the one hand you love your child and want to do any and everything for them, and on the other hand you also want to be a person and still feel like your own human being. This can be compounded if you also work, adding the dimension of feeling like a terrible employee whenever you devote time to your kid and vice versa. And I felt it acutely on Monday night.

Thanks to Harley being sick and staying home from school for a few days, I’d spent a lot of time with her lately. I mean, I always spend a lot of time with her, obviously, but even more so thanks to her having been sick. It was wonderful to know how much she loves me, that she feels safe with me and just wanted to be close to me all day every day while she was ill. Of course, that also meant that I was tired and worn out and seriously struggling to get my work done. Continue Reading

3 Comments Parenting, Rambling

Sleep training, co-sleeping and believing in myself

March 16, 2017 Zoe

Sleep. I love it, and I miss my old sleep patterns so much. I’m one of those people who has always loved sleep. I could stay up and party with the best of them, but most of the time I’d be in bed by 10 at night, asleep by 10:30 and happily lie in until eight or nine in the morning (when I didn’t have to go to work, obviously). Then, we had a baby, and all that changed. She hasn’t been a horrible sleeper, but she never did that whole sleep through for 12 hours thing. Ever. The best I’ve ever had is six hours of straight sleep, followed by a few more two to three hour intervals.

Recently, I started reading about night weaning as a means of helping her sleep through the night. But the more I read, the more everyone seemed to say that we had to get her bedtime routine down, that she had to learn how to soothe herself to sleep or she’d always need me to help her fall back to sleep in the middle of the night. While the articles made sense, I simply don’t believe in sleep training. I know it works for people, but I’m adamant that I will never let Harley just cry, that while it might teach her to “self soothe”, it also breaks her trust that I will always make her feel better, that I will always listen when she needs me. Continue Reading

Comment Parenting

co-sleeping Sleep sleep training

Baby Throne review – Stress-free toilet training

March 14, 2017 Zoe

Harley is now 15 months old, and to be honest, I hadn’t considered even thinking about potty training until she was at least two if not three. It just wasn’t on my radar of things to start doing now – she can’t yet communicate consistently, so how could she tell me when she has to go? And besides, how could she even have the body awareness to know that she has to go? I figured I’d wait and cross that bridge a bit further down the line.

Then I read this post from the awesome Mandy of Pregnant in Cape Town, and I wanted the Baby Throne. I even entered her competition (I didn’t win). Again, I forgot about it, figuring the time would come when we’d start toilet training and I’d worry about it then. But then I was sent a Baby Throne, and it is truly a remarkable piece of tech that has already started to save me time, energy and nappies. Continue Reading

2 Comments Parenting, Sponsored

Baby Throne Sponsored Toilet training