My gorgeous neighbour Debbie keeps on saying, “Slow down Beth!”

“I will! I am!” I declare, then leap into the car, swish on some lip gloss and screech off into my day. Later, at what feels like the dead of night, I screech back.

I don’t know what has happened to me this time around.

See, in the last two pregnancies I was not working and I could indulge in the luxury of luxuriating. With Pix I recall lying sleepily on the raspberry red carpet of a spare room, the sun beaming down through the tall Victorian windows. Sometimes I’d fall asleep there. I lived very much like a cat. With Roo I was sleepy, but I also went on long meandering walks along the coast and over the downs. There was this long slow release of energy and I had nothing much to spend it on so just schmoodled away the hours.

But this pregnancy has been v different.

Looking back, for the first 12 weeks I was zapped. Couldn’t walk. Couldn’t see out of my eyes. I would literally feel my body run out of energy at about 2pm in the same way that a car runs out of petrol on a hill.  I crawled to work, crawled to school, crawled through the day and collapsed by night.

 

Second trimester – energy SURGE.

In September an organisational firework hormone was unleashed. I began smashing out goals like a psychotic, wide-eyed road-driller drilling holes. All procrastination was replaced by a supernatural accountability push that has pushed every level of living up to the next level.

This is good …

But in my ears …

Debbie’s voice is ringing out …

“Slow down Beth!”

And she is right.

Problem is, I’m struggling to do this.

I’m currently ploughing towards new-motherhood like someone who is scree-running down a mountain side, an oasis of nappy changing and boobed-up sofa hours getting rapidly closer, screaming “I can’t stop!” yet there appears to be no way to curb the speed.

This week the situation has called for some new Slowing strategies; The 3 Crazy Mama Stopping Strategies

1. Action One: Cap Lists

Rather that to-do lists or growth-lists or Goal Maps, Crazy Mamas need to make “cap lists” with suspension dates that gradually trickle out towards the third trimester. Instead of looking to keep growing your professional and creative visions, look to temporarily cap.

This leaves your Stuff in a state of ticking-over-gorgeousness.

A bit like a flower in a little greenhouse, you can sit and gaze out of the window knowing that nothing is wilting so you can focus on luxuriating instead.

2. Action Two: Stalk follow toddlers.

This sounds dodgy but really isn’t. Usually, if you follow a toddler with care, the  parents will be unaware (as they are often absorbed in mobile phones), but the toddlers will often sense you.

They will turn around and smile curiously. They sense that the lady in the smart dress with the high heeled shoes is carefully, consciously, painstakingly placing … each … foot … exactly … where they are walking.

Go slow as a whisper; present as a butterfly; gradual as a snail.

I believe that whilst following toddlers, they sense that they are guiding us into their colourful, slow worlds. They sense we are not used to their gentle pace. Thankfully if we trip an stagger, they just chuckle.

Toddlers don’t tutt.

This is reassuring.

3. Action Three: Take a big FAT spa break.

This is a must-do strategy for slowing.

Suggested activities are:  unadulterated luxuriating; eating fine foods; stomping in the autumnal forests; looking for deer and hogs and chestnuts and edible mushrooms; having massages; floating in pool and afterwards sitting by crackling log fires. All this must be done

Very

Slowly.

Because I’m all about walking the talk, I am going to taste my own medicine and have booked a weekend at Careys Manor in the New Forest. Then, in case this isn’t quite enough curbing, I am going to book in fortnightly .. maybe ten-daily … WEEKLY massages with the Goddess hands of Hannah at Relax Isle of Wight when I come home.

I feel this could be moving in the right direction of slowness.

What do you think?