Kimberley: ‘Kamp van Koningsbrugge turned out to be the perfect preparation for the tropical years’
Kimberley lives with Kevin, is (bonus) mom of Norah and baby Jackie. Every Tuesday she writes about motherhood and everything that comes with it. This week about expectation and reality, which turn out to be two completely different things.
I squeezed my baby out faster than this very first column. Now Jackie was already dented and beautiful at the same time on my chest, even before that epidural had taken effect. Yet. I simply don’t know where to start. At that second, almost transparent, line that changed everything? Childbirth? Or about how different motherhood is from what I had imagined?
Of course I had pre-baby imagined what it would be like. I had already been a bonus mother for three years and after that positive test, now 383 days ago – yes, I still keep track of it, my brain was immediately running at full speed. What name should it be? What shade of terra on the wall? Are we going for the handy IKEA bed or that crazy expensive rattan thing from Instagram? That name was quite practical, the rest totally nonsensical. But that was not what it wanted at the time. The nesting urge was realthe sense of reality is a bit less.
Neon pink hormone cloud
My friend, the father of a crazy toddler, did warn me. That it could really be quite spicy, such a small one. Shit, I thought, floating on my neon pink hormone cloud. Anyway, I didn’t want to hear about it. Getting pregnant – after an operation on my ovaries and few eggs in the chicken coop – was still a thing for me, but once knocked up I didn’t see any (teddy) bears on the road. Becoming a mother was my greatest wish; no matter how many sleepless nights, spray diapers, colic, teething and spat on sweaters… I would experience it all laughing.
The preparation for all this came from an unexpected quarter. It’s not the command book or the yoga classes (Breathing like a golden thread or candle I found more confusing than soothing anyway) today that get me through the jumps, but the binging Camp of Koningsbrugge turned out to be the preparation for the tropical years. With the difference that not Dai but the baby screams you out of bed every two hours. Camouflage is also the order of the day here, although it is almost impossible to smear those bags.
68732 syringe diapers
We are now five sleepless months, 68732 spray diapers and ditto spat-up garments further and I am slightly different in the competition. Keeping your ‘own’ baby alive and somewhat happy 24/7 cannot be compared to raising a toddler part-time who already has a wonderful mother. Pre-baby my date and I had a relationship and I could go to my own house after a day at Monkey Town. Now we live in the shrine palace.
Don’t yell Dai, but baby get you out of bed every two hours
My new life is getting used to. Beautiful, beautiful, but get used to it. And from now on I will take you into that new life, which I would not trade with anyone. Unless I have to get out for the third time tonight. Then yes.
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