6 months

6 months

 

It is almost one week since we celebrated Little L’s first small anniversary. I have never been aware of time passing as much as I am now. Past 6 months have gone so fast and so slowly at the same time. My own perception of time has changed so much. I’ve experienced minutes that seemed to be hours, and days that seemed to be seconds. Little L turned my whole life upside down.

One would expect that after waking up next to Little L 174 times I should be pretty much used to it. But I am not. Sometimes when I hold him in my arms I get this strong feeling that is hard to describe. I feel shocked, surprised, terrified, happy that I am a mother and he is my son and that it is perfectly real and it will never change. Other times during our walks when I look at him so peacefully resting I feel almost physical pain caused by an enormous amount of fear that paralyses my whole body. There is this little person that I will be worried about every day for the rest of my life. Every single moment in my unconscious there will be fear if he is ok, if he is healthy and if he does not suffer in any way. I realise how helpless I am, how many things out there I can not influence or change. I realise that all I can do is be there for him and the rest will happen in front of my eyes as a theatre play.

Past six months have been beautiful, intense, overwhelming, difficult, confusing. I stared to question everything much more than before. Making decision is not that easy anymore. Suddenly every litte thing seems to have bigger meaning. I am not responsible for myself only, I influence another life. This little person will be experiencing life through me for the first years, I will be middle of his universe. I feel the need, the necessity to do things right, to show him right, to teach him right whatever that right might mean, cause who is to decide.

I am wondering if one can ever get used to being a mother, a parent. For me its is so new every morning I wake up. Just like  Little L is changing every day, he discovers something new every day, he learns something new every day, I look at him and this simple statement “I am your mother” becomes so overwhelmingly meaningful that it fills up the room and takes us on a new ride.

 

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April from Bart Pogoda on Vimeo.

hello Berlin good bye Flat head

hello Berlin good bye Flat head

  

When Little L was born I could not see him during the first moments. Mr.B however was there to give me a sign if everything is OK and looks OK. The very first thing he told me with tears in his eyes was:”He does not have a flat head.” Even in such stressful situation I thought it was a very funny statement even more so because it was not meant to be funny, it actually was very serious. I remember how we were warned couple of times not to be worried when we see our baby for the first time as babies have really strange shapes of heads after the birth. But Mr.B knew that I have FLAT HEAD paranoia and he knew it was so strong that he even forgot that babies are normally not born with flat heads :).
Oh yes I had terrible paranoia of flat headed Leo possibility. This fear developed to its maximum actually in Poland. When we first met with Mr.B he had his hat on. The second time we met I was too drunk to notice that he had a really really flat head. At the point I discovered he is flat headed I found him to interesting and there was no step back :). But I truly like nice shapes of heads, and I like them even more now as they are really scarce commodities in Poland. Actually I have never ever seen so many flat heads as I see when I am walking streets of Warszaw. I don’t know where this comes from but its a fact. At one point I started doubting my own opinion but I was reassured that I am right when my sister came over. I did not tell her anything, I was just waiting. And it came. After couple of days she told me if I have ever realised how many flat headed men there is around. Mr.B know very well my flat head issues. He even asked a hairdresser once about a hairdo that would camouflage his head and the hairdresser told him he has a lot of men asking for the same thing :). So when Little L arrived we were only letting him sleep on the side. We were changing the sides of course and I was happy he had a really nice shape of head up to his two months. But than things started to change. No matter what I did he always ended up sleeping on his back, and his head was slowly becoming flat. Until one day when I looked at him from the side and realised that the situation is alarming and his had is as flat as polish landscape. I knew something had to be done. I goggled about flat heads on slovak sites and the only information I could find was “let it be, it will change as he gets older”. What a bullshit! Typical slovak, let it be and wait until things get done by themselves. Slovaks are truly very passive nation deep inside. Than Mr.B googled about flat heads on polish web and there was the solution. NO let it be, NO wait until it gets better but act and act now. This way we found out about cranio therapy which is a treatment of head deformities. Known in the world apart from Slovakia. We knew we have to do it so that Little L would never have to think about hairdos to make his head look good. We went to Berlin to cranioform clinic where they measured L’s head and suggested us to undertake helmet therapy for approximately next 4 months. I was not even aware of what kind of deformities of heads there are and how they influence facial and oral development of babies. Knowing what I know now I find statement wait until it gets better with age punishable. It would only get worse with time. And I was very happy to see how many parents with babies from different countries there were every day. Anyway we were leaving Berlin with a nice craniohelmet on Little L’s head /which stopped bothering him in two days if you wonder/ and some new plans for the future. New fresh place brought us some new fresh ideas. But I’ll keep those to myself until I’m not sure it will turn out the way we plan it. PS: And for those who think we are harming Little L to make him look good and we are some weird parents please note that flat headness – Plagiocephaly is a osteophatic condition characterized by an asymmetrical distortion of skull and can lead to problematic development of face, jaw bones and other oral problems. PS2: Those of you who might be interested there is a blog in polish on this topic and as far as I know there is as well place in Poland I guess in Krakow where they do helmet therapy as well. We decided to do it in Berlin because we wanted to visit Berlin, meet my sister who lives in Germany and because we thought they have much more experiences when it comes to therapy. PS3:Forum in polish
hello Berlin

  

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it took me 3 days to writ this post :)

it took me 3 days to writ this post :)

  

It is really difficult to write a decent blog post when having 4 months old person living with you, well at least for me it is. I know there are some super women out there who can handle it all but I have to officially admit I am not one of them.

First of all there is the well known not interesting “I have NO time” reason, everybody knows about IT, I knew about it before giving birth, well at least I thought I knew. And I was sure I will be able to manage without any problems, but THE reality exceeded my expectations. I really really have no time. 90% of my day I am a full time servant to his majesty Little L and the rest 10% is the time that I’d would like to spend spoiling myself by such a fancy treat as shower, maybe even drying my hair with hairdryer – what a luxury – or just a simple sitting staring to nowhere and doing nothing. But the list of to do’s is way to long and 10% is 10%. I have to set some priorities and writing a blog post is sadly not one of them. OK don’t get me wrong I am NOT complaining I am simply stating the facts here. But even when impossible happens like it did tonight and Little L, who seems to think that sleep deprived mama is FUN mama, goes to sleep at reasonable hour leaving me confused and lost with my laptop, I have a problem…WHAT should I write about. If I don’t want to bother you with small milestones of Little L’s everyday life than I would have to talk about my achievements in my own game called winning on dogs shit battlefield which basically means trying to step into least possible dog’s shit during our everyday walks in Skaryszewski.

But who would care about that? I can not turn this blog into “what I wore today” kind of blog because all you would look at would be photos of me wrapped around some blooming tree in the same sweatpants most of the week, and that is not a true fashionista style :).

I also can not run a food porn blog. I see myself standing in my pyjama with spots from leaking milk on my breast, here and there fresh traces of Little L stomach content, using only one hand to eat really quick while rocking Little guy who is sitting content in his chair, content unless the chair is rocked by me of course even though he can rock himself pretty well. Having a nice breakfast small talk with Mr.B is a story from different reality…But we did have a dinner together the other day, in the bathroom, Mr.B standing me sitting next to the bathtub eating soup that was not even warm enough watching Little L enjoying his evening bath…I do cook from time to time, and the food is even tasty but to upgrade this fact to a keystone on which food porn blog could be built is impossible as it is simply missing that final touch…so what else can a woman who is full time mother to her FIRST baby write about…/FIRST is in capitals because I do believe that by some miracle everything gets easier with the second one/.

I could write about Little L’s achievements, but as he is in his teething period the biggest achievement is one uninterrupted hour of sleep during day. I remember reading somewhere in some smart ass article that good mothers know why their babies cry. What a bullshit! Or maybe I am not a good mother. Anyhow there are times when he screams so much that he is all purple short of breath and I am worried he is gonna faint, but even if I try to be the best mother I can, I really have no clue what is his problem. There are common symptoms for teething, for stomachache but what if your baby does not show any of those and still cries like insane and than suddenly out of a blue something happens and its quiet followed by huge smile from ear to ear. I wonder who writes that kind of articles and how are they supposed to help to anyone.

Good mother – what does that mean anyway. When I was pregnant and complaining that I feel as if my belly was a public property I was warned that what comes after the baby is born is even worse. People telling you what to do and how to do it and by people was not meant the closest family but complete strangers that don’t know you at all. That was something I could not imagine and I thought it must be some kind of bad urban legend, but guess what IT IS NOT. This shit happens for real and I am amazed how it is even possible that somebody who has never ever talked to you can judge you as parent. How does that happen that some people are convinced that they can comment on other people’s lives. I don’t want to sound pissed or frustrated by writing this because I am not and by far I don’t even want to sound like I am defending myself because thats again something I don’t need to do. I just want to say that I hate judgements and monothematism.

So to make things clear to those who are having concerns about Little L’s health or wellbeing. We take Little L for walks in his trolley  in a sling or a carrier. He loves the trolley and he loves carrier but he is not a fun of slings, and I love what makes HIM happy. Sometimes when I carry him for hours around the house I am happy my back can rest a little and we go for a walk with the trolley. Or I want to take photos and hanging a camera on your neck when there is a baby is quite impossible. There are times when he spends half a day in carrier because thats what we both want to do that particular day. I don’t understand almost surreal obsessions of some mamas over how to carry a baby. Common ladies take it easy. Our mothers raised 90% of our generation in the trolleys  that were archaic compared to what we have now and it does not seem to have damaged us for life or everybody’s family relationships. There are women out there who are on wheel chairs, women with back problems, women with other issues that bring some restrictions on the way they carry their babies but that sure does not categorise them to be bad or non carrying mothers. Women tend to become somehow militant when it comes to kids raising questions and that is freaky dangerous. Easy going mothers raise easy going people and easy going people are nice to be around.

…………….and some long forgotten photos from Vienna……….

 

  

  

moving pictures from Primorje

  

and little video from our trip….enjoy your sunday

  

  
Primorje from Bart Pogoda on Vimeo.
 camera, edit, colors – Silvia & Bart Pogoda
music Pink Martini – Anna (el negro zumbon)
www.bartpogoda.net
www.silviapogoda.com

  

Breast feeding and Birds

Breast feeding and Birds

  

I have been wanting to write this post for so long. I was dreaming about it. I planed to do it before Christmas, than during Christmas, than I thought I would post it on 31.12 or maybe 1.1. but I just was not able to take that time. To steal one uninterrupted hour, without beeping of finished washing machine program, barking of Mr.T, crying of Little L., without having to look at pile of clothes waiting to be ironed, diapers waiting to be washed, Mr.T’s hair on the floor screaming to be vacuumed. All those things that have to be done in short breaks when Little L. has successfully finished his visit in milky bar and fell asleep.
Now when it looks like this may be THAT one hour (there is still clothes waiting to be ironed, and full washing machine waiting to be turned on, and Mr.T will probably bark within next 5 minutes) – lets say almost uninterrupted hour I can’t remember what I actually planed to say. To be focused and concentrated exactly when that short moment of peace happens is quite impossible. I feel as I would probably feel if I was a man and I would be expected to have erection on demand – impossible – and I chose this comparison because I don’t even want to talk about mental possibilities but it looks like physical ones stand even more the way.
As soon as THE short moment of peace happens I feel like falling asleep right away…my body stops listening to me and requests to fill up the missing gas. It is not saying that Little L. is a difficult baby,not at all,but time management is different and I find it sometimes difficult to divide the rests of my free time when Little L. sleeps between Mr.T, my family, things I have to do and thing I want to do – the last ones always loose :)

Days are passing by and I see Little L. growing into small person that is not a veggie anymore…He starts to laugh a lot and I love to wake up next to him and see his smile first thing in the morning…A lot of things changed for us, for me…I start loving being a mother…I am not nervous any more about everything that I can’t do…I am not nervous about constant lack of time and days filled with repeated actions…I feel like a helpless observer when looking at Little L….he is changing daily…he is growing at ultra fast speed and only through him I am now able to understand passing of time…I know everything will be different in month, in half a year or in one year and I will miss these moments so much…moments of him being so taintlessly and absolutely dependent on us…A lot of things changed….the worse fear I had before giving a birth was me breast feeding…It was my secret night mare..I was googling any kind of information about women who refuse to breast feed because they don’t feel comfortable about it…I just could not imagine it happen…My breast were for my whole adult life a synonym for sexuality and now they were about to change their designation and a small human being was supposed to suck them all day long…HOW????….I desperately needed to know that it is OK not to be into breast feeding in the times when women fight for society to accept public breast feeding as something normal…and here I am, two months after giving birth breast feeding and what more…I find it absolutely beautiful…it’s the time when me any Little L. are completely detached from rest of the world and closed in our own bubble…I see him calming down, feeling secure, holding my finger and examining my face over and over…I love those moment and that incredible bond that it creates between us…

This year was actually the first time that I was sort of thinking about making some sort of resolutions for coming year…and surprisingly it has nothing to do with the need and necessity to plan that is essential when having a baby….my urge for resolution appeared while watching Winged Migration…I know it is an old movie, but I was never able to watch it as there are birds dying…this year I watched the movie while breast feeding Little L….it seemed as good time to give it a try and I was hypnotized…completely and absolutely…paralyzed by by the beauty and perfection of the nature…the majesty and flawlessness of birds…and the combination of those two was breath taking….and than comes the human to the picture and everything is fucked up…each trace of human action is like a black depressive cloud full of shit….humans and their creations their greed their ignorance their arrogance and ability to damage and devastate…many times I feel ashamed for human race…many times I wish they were not given a chance to spoil such beautiful place…but there are moments when I feel hate, strong extreme hate…and watching Winged Migration was one of them..I felt I need to do more, much more, to change more in my life…not that it would change the world but it would make me feel better about myself…it would make it easier for me to live with the fact that I am also contributing to destruction of nature by the way I live….So my resolution was to find ways how to lower the negative side effects of my being here…I plan to cut down buying crap, I plan to be more precise when it comes to choosing products I use…we already use only not tested cosmetics and cleaning products, but there is still place where I have to be more aware of what I use and choose, I plan to go more for second hand chooses when possible, I plan not to buy shoes, clothes this year, I plan to take some plastic bags when we go out for walks in the nature and pick up the shit that people leave behind…I simply plan to be more aware of my actions than I was until now…And I plan to illustrate a book for Litte L.

  

Little L is 9 weeks old today…in his short life he spent first 3 weeks in Warszaw, next 3 weeks in Klodzko, now 3 weeks in Slovakia and we are already packing to move a bit more south to Vienna…we make him live the way we live which means to constantly move between three places, three countries…just as I did for last 5 years without knowing which one is actually “home” and I already resigned on actually trying to define one of those places as my home…I don’t have that need anymore…the need to attach to one place, to imaginary strike my roots somewhere…my home is where Mr.B, Mr.T and now Little L is…and we have loads of travel plans for near future…dear Little man I hope u don’t mind :)PS: Some of these photos are taken from my INSTAGRAM account, so I apologize to those of you who have seen them already

  

BANKROT

BANKROT

  

I am writing this post sitting in the bathroom on the toilet with laptop in my lap :) waiting while Mr.L happily kicking enjoys his naked buns time. Every single moment is now controlled by the smallest person in the family and I have to admit I thought I would have huge problem with this kind of “life style” before, but now I am taking it as it comes, step by step, trying to soak in every single detail.

This little man changes in front of my eyes every hour, every day he is different, he grows up crazy fast and what was yesterday is gone with a blink of an eye.I have to admit that I still have not figured out some kind of regime that would allow me work on things I was working on before the big bang, but I believe it is also a side effect of the fact that in Mr.L short 5 weeks life we have moved from Wawa to Klodzko to spend some time and than further to slovak hobbiton….It looks like we are staying here for little longer so I might even be able to start to draw again…For now I am happy to share with you this little publication – collection of theater plays written by 12 different authors – where I had a chance to illustrate portrait of Julia Holewinska as well as her play….that is all for today…end of fun back to work :)

  

16 days of roller coaster

16 days of roller coaster

  

Its been 16 day since Mr.L made his appearance into this world….16 crazy days…emotional roller coaster ride. There has been a LOT of crying….crying for no reason, crying for millions of reasons…out of sentiment, out of love, out of pain, fear, happiness, sadness, exhaustion, despair, simply loads of crying. Whatever I have thought that might happen after I become a mother was galaxies away from reality. And it started with birth itself. I was dreaming of a home water birth….I saw myself in that funny plastic pool in the middle of our living room. Mr.B would be cooking a dinner, Mr.T would be shocked running around, and I would be giving a birth to our son looking into the garden on those huge black crowns that wander around, of course with the assistance of a skilled midwife that I would fully trust. My dream of a home birth was cut short when I actually met the midwife which is known in Poland for promoting home births. Well the first thing she did when we met was telling me to give birth in the birth house that she runs and not to do it at home without actually giving me some reasonable explanation except for bureaucratic obstructions. I was so shocked that I could hardly talk to her back. The reason why I came to give birth in Poland was that I wanted to do it my way – the way it is not possible in Slovakia. And there is this “most” competent person who should help me and support me telling me that I should do it in her facility which , as she thinks, looks almost like at home. I was trying to fight back but when she asked about my past and heard about my miscarriage 3 years ago there was no more talking. I was simply not qualified to give birth at home. So I was trying to refocus myself to the idea that Mr.T will not be there during my labor, that Mr.B will not be making dinner and I will not look into the garden instead I will walk down that sterile hallway with plastic floor, horrible lights to end up in a room which is supposed to feel like home but in reality it feels like a fake room pretending to be “home” with fake bed pretending to be my bed, the room where nothing feels like home. But it seemed that there is no other way so I had to and I did sort of adopted that idea, but soon after new circumstances started to pop out. It looked like my pregnancy will never end and Mr.L has decided not to ever come out for some reason. I even started to think that he was gonna start to get smaller and smaller again until he would just disappear. The longer I was past my due date, the more confusing opinions I was getting from different doctors that were seeing me almost daily. Suddenly I did not even qualified for birth in the birth house because according to USG Mr.L was over 4 kg which meant I had to give birth in a proper hospital. All the pictures I had in my mind faded away and I was left with nothing to hold on to. All my plans, everything was gone and I lost the solid ground under my feet. After two very stressful and chaotic days of decision making I ended up in completely different hospital than planed, with midwifes I did not know. I did all I could to give natural birth, not at home in the water, not in the birth house…in the hospital but at least natural. I wanted the best for Mr.L and I am sure natural birth is the best. After 17 hours of labor my last dream exploded and it only took half an hour until I was connected to all kinds of machines with blue courtain in front of my face and Mr.B holding my hand….in a terrifying fear prepared for C section – something that I did not even think of as a possibility for long 10 months. Something that was such a bad option that I just forgot that it existed. The reason I am writing all this is the one short but monumental moment when I thought I’ve gone insane, the moment when I felt as if I traveled into the space around the earth and back in one second…the moment when I heard Mr.L cry, I could not see him, all I could see was tears in Mr.B’s eyes… I think if I gave birth the way I hoped it would be great peaceful and quiet experience, but the way things turned out made me go through something overwhelmingly strong….I felt so sorry for giving birth that way, I felt sorry for that little guy who was cut out of my body and held by some strange guy with a mask on his face and plastic gloves on his hands into the cold white hospital lights and sounds of surgical instruments instead of Nigel Kennedy as I planned. I was so sorry that first people touching Mr.L are those anonymous silhouettes doing their routine in the most emotionless way possible. I was following Mr.B with my eyes just to read from his face if everything is OK and the moment he looked at me and gave me a sign that little guy has all his fingers and other body parts on the proper places I could finally start to cry… Its been 16 days since the big bang day and I have cried every single day. I cried because my heart or whatever is the place where we store our emotions got so full that it felt painful. It was full of love towards Mr.B for being the best father, to Mr.T for accepting little man and towards Mr.Leo who came from some unknown galaxy and crawled on my chest as a little / ok maybe not so little / warm looking so lost and confused. I cried because in one moment I could feel all the fears of generations of mothers, I cried because I thought I can not handle having one more person to worry about in my life, I cried because I was looking at Mr.Leo and I had to think of mortality in a completely new way, I cried because I was afraid I will die while he is still a child and I will not be able to be there for him when he goes through hard times of growing up, I cried because I wanted to pause life for a moment, I wanted to have a chance to record all his facial expressions, every single sound he made, just to remember it. I cried because I knew it was not possible and that I am going to forget tons of beautiful moments and it felt so unfair. I cried because Mr.Leo cried, I cried because I was tired of Mr.Leo crying, I cried because I thought I will not make it – we will not make it, I cried because I thought I am the worse mother ever, I cried when I realized this is for real and I can’t give him back in hospital claiming that he is not what I asked for after not sleeping for 4 nights. I cried because he was so vulnerable, so fragile, so helpless that it hurt me. I cried for Mr.T because I was worried how he feels, I cried because Mr.B was the best husband I could wish for, I cried because I was so happy that it was literally taking my breath, I cried because I was feeling ugly and worn out, I cried because I forgot my bathrobe in the hospital, I cried when I went for the first walk with Mr.T alone, and I cried for no reason at all. Yes I did jump on a craziest emotional rollecoaster of my life, going up and down, going really high and really low within seconds. Most intense 16 days of my life and I believe of Mr. Leo’s as well :). Its has been very exhausting both physically and mentally, every single day brought some new challenges to fight with and I know this is just a beginning. For now all I can do is take it as it comes hour by hour, day by day. I don’t even plan for tomorrow, because tomorrow everything happens according to Mr.Leo’s decision and I will go with the flow. I’m learning a lot these days….I m looking out of the window thinking of novembers…november three years ago when I was short after loosing our “first” child and than I have to pinch myself to remind me that this all is happening for real.

PS: My instagram feed naturally became Mr.Leo and Mr.Teo feed…oh yes now I understand why that happens….simply because I spend 24 hours with those two polyps at home, ironing and doing washing in the short breaks between nursing.

PS 2: I have received a beautiful letter…true letter not an email from a person who did not leave any contact so I can’t write back. But I hope that person will read this one day and will know that I am very very very thankful for those words as much as for the fact that it was a letter and also for the fact that that person had to think how to deliver it to me as she did not know my address and simply for deciding to write it. Thank you so much !!!!

  

 

 

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I don't want my life to be a reason for other's life to be a suffering that is why I am vegan and that is how I want to raise my son. I love my little family, birds, rainy days and life on the road. I believe in life before death :).


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