Entry from my live journal

Well, it's not the new year by Western standards, but it is by many Pagan standards, because we just had the shortest day of the year. So the days will get longer and longer until the wheel of the year turns again.

Last night I went to Mary Anne's lovely cookbook party and she asked me if I was writing. C asks me this all the time. And I had to say no, not really, but I felt more sheepish with her. So I started to tell her what little I had been doing. And then my main reason to myself for not writing ran off and so I chased after her. And then I talked more about motherhood and not writing. And Mary Anne said that now she'd decided not to be a mother, she felt this pressure to be a better writer, because she couldn't say to herself well I'll always be a good mother.

And at the same time at this party, I received lots of validation that I was at least for those few hours a good mother, because Special K was at her most mellow and charming. She talked a lot for the first time to a bunch of people she didn't know, even saying her first 3 syllable word, octopus. Usually in front of strangers, she confines herself to a few monosyllables and I look like an idiot for saying she talks a lot, which she does when we're alone. She stayed up for hours past her bedtime and was clearly tired, but enjoying having her proper place as the centre of the universe confirmed. Today she's tired and somewhat fractious, and she cried because Daddy went away while I held her. But I still remember last night.

And as I snuggled in bed with her this morning. I realised that while I have my doubts about my ability to raise another human being to adulthood without damaging them too much in the process, I think every mother does and on the whole I feel good about it. And it's when I do feel good about myself that Special K is at her best.