Serendipity

Here I am with a quiet house, and I can't remember what I was going to say. Isn't it always the way?



Ah yes. So I was working the Nursery School booth on Saturday at the Labor Day Festible (as Monkey calls it) with a friend who lives down the road and has two boys just six months each behind my kids. She recently had the amazing experience of attending a birth, and was still buzzing with the adrenaline of it. (I've never been to any births where I wasn't the one doing the pushing, but I'd love to do so one day. It must be the most incredible thing to see life appear, just like that. (Further, less noble tangent: On the other hand, every time Monkey has a long and difficult session on the toilet, I feel like a midwife ushering these poos into the world, and I think again that it's just as well men aren't the ones who have to give birth because if this is any indication, they'd never manage it at all. Sorry. That is completely beside the point and a shocking generalisation.))

Anyway, she said she'd love to be a doula, but would have to sort out some sort of local and free childcare while doing the training and then to be able to dash off and attend births. Like a childcare swap. My mind whirred like a whirry thing and I diffidently said, "I could do it."

Lately, as you can see from the greater regularity of my blogging, I've been trying to kick things into a new gear, writing and/or career-wise. When Monkey was rising two, I felt like it was time to go back to work or get pregnant again; but I wasn't ready to contemplate work and I happily jumped the other way. I suppose I'm getting that sense again now - the stirrings of the two-year-post-partum brain - but this time I don't feel the need to procrastinate by pregnancy. I actually relish the thought of editing or even (shock horror) writing, and can begin to feel my way towards making it happen. I didn't think I'd be able to do anything concrete about it until next year, when Mabel will be at school three mornings a week, but when the universe drops an opportunity in your lap, it's rude to pass it up.

My friend is a warm and intelligent mother with a quietly wicked sense of humour, and a good person to boot, and someone I'd be more than happy to have watch my children on a regular basis. Moreover, I think the world, and this country in particular, needs more doulas - wonderful women who attend, support, coach, and empower mothers at a time when they need it most - and I'd be proud to help one more come into being. If I get some free time to write or edit or heck, clean my house, out of it, that's just powdered sugar on the funnel cake.