www.parentingnetworknorway.no/ASKAXEL /blogg/Takingthefifth.
TAKING THE FIFTH.
This week I will be answering questions about parenting courses and all your different options in things you can do to ensure that you are prepared for the birth of your baby. Both parents can benefit hugely from a wide range of knowledge preparing for parenthood, from the simple parents-to-be classes which serve as an excellent opportunity to meet other parents-to-be and make friends. Friends who will become your support networks and your allies once you have landed back home with both feet on the ground and a baby in tow. To the useful first-aid courses for babies and toddlers, and more practical enjoyable courses like baby massage, baby signing and of course a wide range of Music and Movement classes.
As I have said before, I have taught many of these classes for years, and have always praised myself for the feedback I get. I always thought I knew my range of topics, that I was educated and could raise a child blindfolded given a chance. I thought I was teaching you well.
I was wrong, and I apologise profusely.
This is the part where I should take the fifth. Where I should, in the words of a very special sixteen-year-old: “Shut the fuck up.” I can’t though. I am going to have to tell you this.
I spent the last forty-eight hours in charge of four children. J’s children. Four very reluctantly standoffish children who didn’t want me there any more than I would like to chew razor blades.
It didn’t start well. It got worse. I messed up more times than I can remember.
I would make a seriously bad parent, however many courses and lectures I run. I do not know shit. Honestly.
I would like to apologise most humbly for the mind-blowingly bad advice I have been dishing out to Oslo’s finest parents-to-be. I have been wrong on so many levels, that it is not even funny.
For those of you signed up to one of my future classes, well don’t despair. I will be rewriting my courses. I will be telling you the truth. I will be urging you not to listen to a single word I say.
While I am still fully confident in my abilities as a midwife, and in all things related to the birthing experience, when it comes to raising your children, I have realised I have everything to learn.
I stole someone’s pushchair, an honest mistake, but if you were the parent who had to manage without one the other day, I hope you found it back where I took it from. I didn’t mean to steal it. Honestly. Truly. I am so sorry. If it’s any consolation to you, I can assure you that my little family will never let me forget my short stint as a pram-thief. Unarmed but still dangerous.
I said the wrong things so many times that I wanted to cry. I had no idea how to maintain a routine or deal with bedtime. I cooked an awful dinner that nobody really ate. I bought the potty that I would never have recommended anyone to buy, and I outed the man I love to people he knows. Not bad going for forty-eight hours.
I am back at work now, sitting comfortably in an office chair in the labour ward, with a baby asleep in my arms and three ladies birthing patiently under my care. This I can do. This is my life, where I am confident and happy.
Yet even though those past forty-eight hours felt like hell at the time, I loved every single minute. I laughed more than I have done in weeks. I made memories. Bonded. Giggled and cuddled. I was loved and I loved. I may have sucked at parenting these children, but I revelled in my awful attempts at adulting, and my juvenile ways of trying to make things work. It didn’t. I still loved it. I love those children. They may not know it yet, but I do. They are amazing.
I wish you well in bringing up your children. I wish I had your patience and have the outmost respect for all of you who do this every day. For the mothers and fathers who bring your children up alone. For the parents who struggle every day. For the parents who realise they just cannot cope. I hear you all. I get it now. I understand.
I have so much to learn. I have so much yet to comprehend. But I am grateful. Grateful and proud that I have been given this chance, this initiation into the exclusive club of those adults who parent. Those people who I meet every day and never quite understood.
I get it now. And I can’t wait for you to tell me how to do it right, because I am sure you will step up to the task and give me your best parenting advice for next week. Believe me, I need all the help I can get.
Love
Axel x
Sommerfeldt apartment, Skøyen, Oslo
A week later
The weekend mornings are becoming Axel’s favourite time of the week, waking up with Marthe’s foot in his face, Mikki pressed to his chest and Jens’ arm tight around his waist spooning him in the few inches of the bed that Axel has now claimed as his own. He’s the guy in the middle. The middleman. The one who gets the lumpy part of the mattress where no one else would ever sleep. He still loves it. He loves waking up like this, hot and sweaty, and skin and limbs, and hands and breaths. Waking up knowing his back will ache later when he is up and about, which he somehow doesn’t mind.
Especially when he thinks back to last night. Getting carried away in the kitchen with dirty kissing and hands sneaking into trousers and messy attempts at hand-jobs against the kitchen counter. Then both of them getting nervous at the thought of being caught, and giggling like little kids as they made out down the hallway, ending up with the messiest blowjob known to man against the washing machine in the bathroom. Jens shooting down his throat as Axel shot all over the laundry basket. Then laughing hysterically as Axel tried to clean it off, while Jens cleaned Axel up. With his tongue.
Axel wasn’t sure he had two orgasms in a row in him anymore. Turns out, he did. With Jens anything is possible apparently.
They fell asleep tangled up in each other’s bodies. Jens whispering all the little words that Axel needed to hear in his ear, making him feel like he was floating on happiness. Safe. Loved. Not alone.
Axel never struggled with his own company, with the long nights when he would sit awake for hours, when his body clock was so out of sync that he just couldn’t make his body relax enough to sleep. When he would sit in silence watching the sun set and rise out of the living room window. Listening out for the last tram to rumble past in the street below, only to jerk out of his restless daydreams as the first tram of the morning broke the silence. Only then would he let himself fall asleep, sleeping solidly through the day with sunshine streaming through the blinds until the light would fade and Axel would sigh with disbelief that he had wasted another day. Set himself up for another night of sitting on the sofa. Alone.
He would read. Research. Write and read up on medical journals until his brain couldn’t take anymore. Some nights he would let himself get lost in romance, in sappy films and sugary novels that made his heart ache just a little. He would wank off a lot too. Just hoping that the release would make his body tired enough to allow himself to sleep. Then throwing the pile of tissues on the coffee table in the bin, sighing in disgust with himself.
Now he can’t even imagine going back to his apartment. The thought of sleeping in his own bed, alone is a little bit terrifying. It’s like his body craves the warmth of his little pack. He is a lone wolf no more. Instead, he is some kind of crazy wannabe wolf dad, trying to rein in the alpha wolf and his lunatic offspring.
Which makes Axel smile again as he reaches out and pulls Mikki into his chest.