Thanks to Coledale writer Rachael Mogan McIntosh for sharing this extract from her new book, Mothering Heights, ‘a love story about becoming a mother’
The Glittering Chaos
Biggles and I have a conversation one morning. ‘Biggie, the bathroom smells a lot like wee. Have you been weeing on the walls?’
He answers carefully. ‘I n’used do that Mama, but not n’more.’
Calm, I think to myself. Patience. I breathe deeply and then regret it. The place smells like the baboon enclosure at a subpar zoo.
‘When did you stop doing that, Biggs?’ I ask.
‘Just wight now,’ he says.
It’s clear that Biggles’ grasp on bathroom etiquette needs attention. The problem is, so does everything else in my life. The car is composting itself, Mount Washmore on the couch waits to be folded back into already overflowing drawers, and the glitter that four year-old Tabitha recently threw into the air has settled onto every surface of the house.
I have only the two eyeballs (plus the one in the back of my head that switches on when a child is in the pantry drinking food colouring) and each kid wants both eyeballs on them. All the time. How do I meet the attention needs of three children (one still cooking, requiring the juice from my very bones to knit its earlobes together) as well as a husband, a part-time job, the housework, parents, in-laws, friends and an inner self?
My hip is killing me. I should be resting it, not resting the weight of a sturdy potato-fed toddler on it, but that feels impossible. Everything in my life demands more of me than I have to give. I need to write, I need to do yoga to manage my pesky bad back and I need to have coffee with my girlfriends every once in a while, (as in actual human interaction, not ‘liking’ Instagram updates and shouting ‘Nice scarf!’ at the preschool drop-off).
Oh man; so many needs unmet. And these are just my own requirements, which are nothing compared to those constant incoming tides of demand that lap at my feet from the children and the house, where our walls smell like wee and the chaos glitters.
‘Mummy!’ Tabitha shouts in her squeaky chipmunk voice. ‘Can we do cwaft?’
There it is. The C word. Striking fear into mothers’ hearts since time immemorial. (Well, since the 80s, to be precise, when Professional Parenting began.) If you want to see a mother’s eyes dilate with terror, don’t talk to her about abduction or vaccination injury; no, creep up gently behind her and whisper in her ear: Mummy, can we do cwaft?
Mothering Heights is published by Affirm Press and available at Collins Booksellers Thirroul.
About the writer
Rachael Mogan McIntosh has written for publications across Australia, France and the USA. She is the recipient of a Varuna Writing Fellowship and the author of two books: Pardon My French, the hilarious tale of a year spent in France with her family, and Mothering Heights, a year of joy and survival in the trenches of early parenthood (and Collins Australia’s current Non-Fiction Book Of The Month). Mum of three, crisis counsellor and Coledale local, Rachael loves books, baths, coffee, podcasts, Below Deck Mediterranean and Terry’s Chocolate Orange; consuming them simultaneously whenever possible.
