Σάββατο 22 Οκτωβρίου 2011

Happy and not-so-Happy birthdays







 My oldest son is angry at me. Because of a blogpost about my freerange kids. He believes that my posts about him and his brothers and my husband are lacking in respect towards them.  Which is the reason why I am getting those posts down tonight. Because my kid is infinitely more important than a couple of blogposts. On his birthday yesterday-as his friens were planning a big surprise birhday party at my school for him-I asked him what sort of present he'd like to have and his answer was ''As a present I want you to never ever speak to me again''. It was an answer meant to hurt me of course. And it did a pretty good job at it. Because nobody can hurt us more than those we love the most in this world.

His birthday brought memories of his actual birth 17 years ago. I was just 23, (see this picture of mine above few months before I conceived him ) and I come from a family in which females are notorious for having long and hard labours. So I had a real tough one myself. I was already 14 hours in active labour and half crazy because of contraction pains. The dear good doctor that was attending me gave strict orders to the nurses not to let me stay in any position other than my left side and I was practically strapped to that bed. Whenever I even tried to move to ease the pain,the nurses would forcefully push me back down on the bed telling me how horrible and irresponsible I was.

The good doctor would pop in from time to time to check on me. He would ask if I wanted something for the pain and I would invariably say no because I was determined to have a fully 'natural' childbirth and not let them fill my baby's bloodstream with drugs. At one time when I was almost delirious with pain and dilation was not progressing at all and I was still refusing the doctor's pain relief offer,I remember him angrilly telling me :''Fine,then suffer!'' When I finally did give birth (thanks to the compassionate help of a visiting midwife that helped me find the inner strength to push my baby out intervention-free), I remember having my precious boy placed on my belly, still all warm and crumpled from my uterus,and seeing his big,beautiful,shining,really bright, dark eyes looking at people and things around him,trying to focus, in wonder and in awe. And I felt the happiest I've ever been in my life. I don't care how much of a cliche that sounds,because it is true. I' ve never felt any happier ever since,because nothing compared to that moment ever.

I breastfed him exclusively for 10 months, to save him from allergies in later life and help him get a strong immune system and a well-developed brain. Even though my nipples got infected at first,all bleeding and sore and so painful that I would cry whenever I put him to my breast. He was a 'difficult' baby that wouldn't sleep for more than three hours in a row until he became 2 years old,when I had my second son. Sleep deprivation became a chronic condition for me from then on...

Time goes by real quick,doesn't it? As I struggle with two teenagers,a pre-teen and a pre-schooler at home,I have to keep reminding myself of this poem by my favourite poet Khalil Gibran:



Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.







                                              Love,peace and understanding

                                                              Eirini


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