Tailgating a toddler is hard work, so I stopped for a little while.

Wooka, wooka, wooka, wooka.

That’s the sound my helicopter made as it rose into the air above the playground, pitched left towards the grassy embankment and landed gingerly under the covering of camphor laurels. A small boy had been left behind in the centre of the concrete clearing, blissful and oblivious to my departure.

My eldest child is 3-and-a-bit. He can talk well enough to hold conversations with big kids now. He’s inquisitive enough and carefree enough to approach other kids in the playground, even if they are bigger than him and clearly don’t wish to be interrupted by a pipsqueak chiming in on their game. 

A baby changes everything, including your clothes

What do salad dressing and baby spew have in common? They are both liquids. They are both related to the act of eating. They both also have a scientifically unproven talent for projecting themselves onto white silk shorts.

In my previous life as one half of a double-income-no-kids partnership, I freely purchased items of clothing as they appealed to me. The restrictions I placed on such items were few and flexible. Fit, budget and style factor were at the top of my list.

As if having a child hasn’t changed my life in enough ways already, I now realise that my clothes buying habits will also have to be altered. Last month’s shopping trip in Melbourne was the first one since the birth of my son, so naturally I was keen to try on anything that accentuated my waistline. Elastic-topped maternity jeans be gone! Since I had been living in stretchy yoga pants and any t-shirt old enough to be able to stretch over my baby belly, some high waisted white silk shorts presented themselves as the perfect candidate.

Looking back now, it must have been because my husband was looking after our son on said shopping trip, that I forgot that I am currently spending most of my days feeding, changing and bathing a spewy, dribbly, pooey infant. So I bought the shorts.

The first time I wore these magnificent, sumptuous shorts I was also hosting a BBQ at my house. I made all kinds of wonderful salads. And dressed them. With olive oil and soy sauce. And my shorts got in the way.

It could happen to anyone, I hear you laugh, if they are stupid enough to wear WHITE SILK shorts at a BBQ. But hey, the occasions to wear such precious items are significantly fewer these days. So, yes, I was wearing the white silk shorts.

Next stop: dry cleaners. A week or so later, having paid for my shorts to be fresh and white again, I lovingly brought them home and set them in the wardrobe, still in their plastic bag. The very next day I received a surprise phone call from my best friend, saying she’s flying up from Sydney for the day and wants to meet me for lunch.

It was perfect shorts-wearing weather, around 28° and sunny, and I donned my special shorts for only the second time as my son lay playing happily on his mat. Looking smashing, keys in hand, I scooped him up off the floor and onto my hip. As I headed for the door, his mouth opened and a cascade of vomit spilled over his lip and all over the two of us. Unobstructed by his denim overalls or my top, like a tiny white water rapid the vomit tumbled down all the way to my shorts.

I was so naive. Blinded and selfish even. Now I have one who cares nought for fine clothes and special occasions, but makes me smile more than those things ever could. Glamour is nothing. Practicality is everything.

If only the care label had read, “Do not wear in the company of small children”.

When your newborn isn't new anymore

I feel fine. My skin has stopped glowing and my boobs have almost shrunk back down to their usual size. I don’t have bags under my eyes and my nails are starting to fall apart for no reason again. My pregnancy hormones seem to have now fully retreated whence they came.

The truth is, I’ve been feeling this way for about a month now, but sort of wishing I wasn’t. I now this sounds like I’m trying to have my cake and eat it too, but it’s a sobering thought to realise that my life has stopped being consumed by my new baby, and, like a gyroscope that always rights itself, I have now absorbed my son into my life so much so that I can’t remember what it was like before he was here.

While this is clearly a wonderful feeling, and I am relieved to have got to this stage, I’m also a bit sad that the daze of pregnancy and new-bornness is over. It affords you special status, where you can be excused for forgetting to do things or bursting into tears at any moment, because everyone knows you aren’t supposed to be able to cope. But now I’m past all that, and I’m back to just being myself. And I have to readjust to being myself again, because for 9 months I was two people, then when my son was born I became even less than one person, and now it’s just me again. With him. Still following?

I feel I am sliding quickly down the slope from the anticipated, media-hyped status as ‘new mum’ to the much more serious and rewarding, but less glamourous title of ‘parent’. Having been treading water happily in the roles of independent young woman, and then (still independent) wife for quite some time, this new transition seems to have happened way too fast. Because my son’s life is so short so far compared to mine, the ratio of change to days spent on earth is so much bigger. Instead of waking up and realising I’ve been in the same job for three years and only my hair colour has changed, I now wake up realising that Junior has gained three new skills that he didn’t have last week!

The key, of course, is to appreciate each stage as it happens. But clichés are easier said than done. Changes happen so quickly you can hardly keep up. At mothers’ groups around the world we lovingly compare each others rolling, crawling, walking and talking babies, wishing our own would start doing this or that, while at the same time nostalgically hanging on to those first few weeks when they were so fresh and dependent. The cure for this madness? Take one great night's sleep and count your blessings in the morning.

A mother of a decision

I don’t often receive nasty comments about the direction of my life. Not being in jail or on drugs or having a suitcase full of hateful ex-boyfriends, I’d have to say my life is pretty good. Sure, I’m not going to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry tomorrow and I haven’t written a bestseller (yet), but I think I’m doing OK at this thing called life. Not so! I found out this week, when two women from my past just couldn’t help but share their disdain at my latest endeavour, if you can call it that: the birth of my first child.

“What a waste [me] having a baby.” Pow! If that doesn’t knock you sideways you must be built like an Olympic weightlifter. I didn’t know that putting my reproductive organs to good use would actually cause the rest of my mind, body and soul to wither away into nothingness. Not to mention render invisible any great feats achieved during my first 29 years of life. I guess if I had read more of those pregnancy guides before I even got knocked up I would have found this out and maybe reconsidered my options.

But, not to worry, I had a few days to push this drivel to the back of my mind before the next gold nugget of unsolicited insults came my way. “You were such a smart girl.” Double pow! Did you know that giving birth diminishes long term brain function? Yeah, me neither. The nurse in the antenatal class must have forgotten to mention it.

Yes folks, like all humans, I’m not getting any younger. And yes, like many women, I was thrilled at the idea of starting a family of my own. So thrilled that I didn’t think about it for more than one second, didn’t consult my husband, didn’t mull over my possible career trajectory should I choose to remain sans bébé. I mean, who has time to think about all that stuff!

I know I’m not the first woman to come face to face with the dilemma of having a career and a family, but there’s nothing like being slapped in the face with it to make you suddenly take notice of what the female sex has been grappling with for over half a century now. I guess I am shocked that there are still those who somehow believe that you are a failure as an intelligent woman if you choose family over a career at some point in life.

In the dictionary, a career is defined as “an occupation or profession, especially one requiring special training”. Let’s stop right there. Not too many men I know have two of these going at the same time! So why should women be forced to feel inadequate just because they focus their attention on the occupation of motherhood whilst leaving paid work by the wayside? Of course, everyone knows that once you select your occupation, you can never change it. You’re stuck for life. Nobody ever decides to change direction or pursue a different career path... Hang on, sorry, my grandmother started typing there for a minute.