Criminally Mumsy

I nearly felt the long arm of the law this week, and it was during something as seemingly harmless as trundling round the neighbourhood with little miss for an afternoon walk.

While we call a modest maisonette in an in-betweeny bit of town home, a mere ten minutes of pavement-pounding gets us into seven-figure-salary territory: millionaires' rows of mansions and farmhouses often with impossibly pretentious or infuriatingly ironic names (I've lost count of the amount of sprawling Mock Tudor piles which are a 'cottage' in their owner's eyes).

It's these parts of the neighbourhood which I like to trudge round when I take little miss out for a walk in the pram, partly because they're the most scenic routes but mainly because I want to imprint in her mind from early on that these are just the kind of houses that she might want to buy for her doting parents to eke out their twilight years when she's rich and famous.

This week, I made the mistake of turning down a particularly Arcadian avenue boasting extensive driveways and oodles of old world opulence.  When I got to the end of the road and realised the route I wanted to take lacked a pavement, I had to turn around and give those halcyon homesteads a repeat viewing.

Then I spotted the police car inching towards me.  The officers were driving slowly and keeping a watchful eye on me and little miss, as if they were trying to work out whether I was a harmless down-and-out who had simply got lost or a more unsavoury individual staking out the well-heeled neighbourhood or trying to peddle narcotics and designer knock-offs out of my baby's pram.  I can only assume that some local dowager looked out of her parlour window and didn't like the look of the wild-haired woman shuffling down her road with her equally shifty sprog.

I probably hadn't done myself many favours on the 'respectable or riff raff?' front, given that I was wearing a battered, buttonless parka, maternity yoga pants and grubby trainers, crowned with a mumsy mane of lank, unbrushed hair.  As I got closer to the car I was trying to work out what I could say to stop the police from bundling us away, pram and all, or slapping me with a trespassing fine on a par with the local homeowners' salaries.

Luckily it didn't come to that in the end, as the car sidled past me, only stopping one further time when we had turned out of the road to check that we were well and truly exiting the neighbourhood.

Maybe I'll wear a Barbour, twinset and (fake) pearls if I want to chance my arm at blending in down that road again.  However, I think people sometimes don't understand that when you're a relatively new mother, getting dressed and leaving the house is an achievement, and your first priority isn't making yourself look immaculate but finding some clean clothes that fit and getting your baby out of the house in the tiny window between naps, feeds and mini-meltdowns.  Perhaps if the police do ever collar me for trespassing well out of my comfort zone and salary bracket, I should maintain innocence and just hand over little miss.  She's the sleep thief after all!

Tummy bugger off

The past week has not generally been a keeper.  It began innocuously and ironically enough, with me looking in the nappy drawer and thinking: 'Oh, we've got plenty, they'll see us through the next fortnight or so.'  Then the tummy bug hit, and we must have gone through at least a week's worth in under two days.

Little miss has had a few minor ailments in her first half year of life, but this has been the longest-running, most challenging and messiest to date.  When the constant churn of runny nappies started, we assumed it was a side effect of finally mastering eating more than half a spoonful of the lovingly prepared purees we've been proffering over the last few weeks.  I never thought I'd say this, but I started to miss her pre-bug nappy habits, even the evening up-the-backers which she usually likes to do in the Jumperoo.

After four days, during which I really should have bought shares in Pampers and Metanium (poor little thing got a nasty nappy rash), a doctor checked her over and said she had most likely caught a tummy bug which had been sending local kids to the surgery in droves.  We were assured that we were doing everything right and both bug and rash should pass within five to seven days.

Eight days later, an out of hours GP said that the previous doctor may have been a little over-ambitious.  'It'll be more like ten, sounds like rotavirus.'  Fortunately, little miss is fully up to date with vaccinations.  Unfortunately, her dislike for medicine meant that about 90 per cent of the rotavirus vaccine coated her cheeks and chin rather than actually being ingested.

Hubby and I are resigned to spending the majority of the next couple of days hunched over the changing mat; little miss, meanwhile, seems none the worse for it bar a bit of soreness and sleep disruption, and has played her usual lovable pickle spiel throughout.  And, because every (shitstorm) cloud has a silver lining, she has started to say 'Mama' constantly, whether she's playing, feeding or batting me round the face when I take her into our bed in a desperate attempt to steal a few more minutes' shuteye.  She probably has no idea what it means yet, but the fact that it's directed towards the wild-haired, worn out woman changing the fifteenth nappy of the day means an infinite amount to me!

To c or not to c: thoughts on a section

When I agreed to speak to the Observer for a piece on the ‘incessant increase’ in caesarean rates among first time mothers in the UK, I knew from the get-go that this wasn’t going to be a straightforward, ‘cut and shut’ story, but that it would spark reams of comments from readers outlining their own birth experiences or debating mothers’ rights and mindsets, the adequacy of antenatal information and the state of the NHS.

When the photographer arrived to take a (lovely!) picture of little miss and me, his first question was: ‘So, are you one of the good or bad case studies?’  I didn’t want to be the poster girl for either – my operation was unwanted but medically necessary, and while it ran smoothly the recovery was brutal.

I was relieved when, in the resulting article, the journalist had managed to make good sense of what I babbled at her and my case study seemed relatively balanced.  Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for some of the rest of the piece or, predictably, the comments underneath.  Do calls to action such as ‘stop first-time mothers having caesareans’ and phrases like (shudder) ‘too posh to push’ really help in any way when we are talking about mothers undergoing major abdominal surgery, in most cases on medically necessary, sometimes life or death, grounds?  Even the usual terminology, ‘elective’, is a complete misnomer, suggesting that choosy new mums opt for a caesarean in the way that they might pick out curtains or a Pret wrap.

Few people who have been adequately informed about the process, risks and recovery period want to have a caesarean over a natural birth.  For me, however, the knowledge that I might need one was never far away in the late stages of pregnancy, even as I pored over the pros and cons of water births and weighed up the merits of hypnobirthing. 

At 33 weeks, I was told that I would have to have a planned caesarean if my baby, who was using my uterus like a hammock, blissfully unaware of the complications she was causing, didn’t turn from a transverse position to head down by week 37.

Four weeks of frenzied bouncing on a birthing ball and uncomfortable moves from the Spinning Babies website and we’d nearly got there – I had a head down albeit slightly diagonal baby but she hadn’t engaged yet.  I thought I had plenty of time before I needed to start worrying about it.  Sod’s law had other ideas; my waters broke at 37 weeks and my tiny (4 lb 11) girl was pulled screaming into the world through an emergency c section after things didn’t get going after a day and a half and her heart rate went sky high mere minutes into induction.

I’d be lying if I said that the recovery period was a walk in the park – just walking up the stairs was an ordeal in those early weeks, and trying to sleep for the short stretches my new baby allowed propped up in an armchair was a fitful, excruciating affair.  The whole area surrounding the scar was black, purple and swollen for several weeks, the curse of someone who bruises like a peach.

Do I wish I didn’t have to have a c section?  Of course.  Do I regret that I said ‘yes’ when a concerned team of consultants scurried into the delivery room and gently recommended that it was the safest course of action for me and my distressed, low birth weight baby?  Not for a moment. 

However, I do recall a brief, pre-spinal, moment of weakness, where I said to my scrubbed-up husband and the midwives, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve failed.’  This comment was probably mainly fuelled by tiredness, nerves and nausea, but I think it’s a sorry state of affairs where pregnant mothers, especially anxious first-timers, are conditioned into thinking that they have not given birth in ‘the right way’, or that having a c section is in any way something that they or an obstetrician have decided to go through on a whim, for convenience or on cosmetic grounds.

There probably is a small percentage of pre-parenthood people who think a c section is a less painful, more straightforward option, or who prefer the idea because they are legitimately anxious about natural delivery.  Rather than slamming this group as selfish or weak, surely we need to be giving them the tools to make informed choices about how they give birth, and not stigmatising c sections when we are talking about saving the lives of the mother, the baby, or both?  In the lead-up to my op, I was equipped with advice from friends who’d already had c sections and what I’d learned in antenatal classes – that isn’t the case for everyone by any means.

As I say in the Observer, a caesarean is by no means an easy way out. But the most important thing is the baby’s safe arrival, whatever method it might be by.  I have the amazing efforts of the NHS to thank for that, and it’s something I am grateful for every day.

The big girl's room

We have done the deed.  As of two nights ago, and at just over six months old, little miss is no longer spending her nights swallowing up her parents' bedroom floorspace with her cot bed, but in her own, not-quite-finished nursery.  Hubby and I knew the moment would come eventually, but unfortunately the transition ended up a month or two earlier than we'd hoped, born solely out of neighbourly necessity (those of you who know me well will know exactly what sorry state of affairs I'm alluding to here!).

In the lead-up to nursery night one I felt the expected mix of emotions.  Excitement that little miss would now be sleeping in a tailor-made, less cramped space which, thanks to a recent ebay smash and grab, is starting to look more like a little girl's room than a blank-walled dumping ground. Bittersweet pangs that she would no longer be sleeping mere inches from her mummy, and that the bedtime lullaby will now be on a rocking chair rather than snuggled up in her parents' bed.  Apprehension at how the switch would go, remembering how the first night in her cot bed produced a hyperactive and livid baby who somehow managed to traverse the vast mattress with her flailing limbs, ending up wedged and wailing in the top corner.

Speaking to other parents, it seems that the transition to the big girl's/boy's room provokes a range of reactions.  Some parents seem to be on a countdown from day one to the time when they can put baby in their own bedroom and enjoy a night free of nearby grunts and grumbles, while others put it off until they're sharing sleep space with a toddler.

There are no rights or wrongs to what to do or how to feel, but suffice to say I found it an ordeal, with a few tears after lights off.  Little miss, on the other hand, barely clocked any differences, settled quickly in her new surroundings (for the first night at least) and, aside from a brief bout of fussing at 2am, slept through happily.  As I'm not ready to leave her alone yet (not least because the baby monitor's only just been ordered!) I joined her later for a sleepover, spending a slightly less peaceful night shivering on a pile of sofa cushions.

All in all, the first night was a success, albeit an emotional rollercoaster.  I wish I could say the same for the second night, but that's another, sleep-deprived and sweary, story!

Teeny Weany

The time is finally upon us.  From now on, little miss will no longer be confined to thin, oddly fishy-tasting powdered milk when she needs to satisfy her hunger, she’ll get to supplement it with a wondrous range of painstakingly pureed mulch too.  Let the weaning commence!

I imagine that many first-timers have approached the lead-up to weaning in the same way that I have, veering between stages of excitement, apprehension and, to be frank, bemusement at having to suddenly master and find time for a whole new area of food preparation and administration at a time when their little ones are only just managing not to puke half their bottles up. 

During the excitement stage, I’ve pored over Annabel Karmel’s advice, drained Amazon of every bit of weaning paraphernalia I do and don’t need, and got hand blender-happy with assorted root vegetables.  During the apprehension stage, I’ve fretted over allergies, mess, routine disruption and the prospect of even more explosive nappies.  During the bemusement stage, I’ve bought vast quantities of Ella’s Kitchen pouches and reasoned that they will probably be received better than the unappetising orange lumps currently wedged in my freezer.

Little miss shared none of her mummy’s qualms in the feeding lead-up.  For the last few weeks, she’s been eying up her parents’ bolted-down meals as if she’d never been fed.  When we recently let her lick a piece of apple it was as if all her Christmases had come at once, plus many more considering she’s only had one so far.

Yesterday, after an evening of pummelling squash and sweet potato (a task my husband relished, since he hates both with a passion), it was finally time for our first teeny weany session.  We filmed little miss’s initial smiles and quick onset of disdain for her first mouthfuls of baby rice, as it formed a white goatee on her chin and her face started to say ‘Have you nothing else, dear?’ to her jittery parents.

One outfit change, a ginger goatee and a lot of grizzling, gurning and spluttering later, and today’s offering of pureed carrots has been met with even more indifference than its predecessor.  I know we can’t expect mealtime miracles in the first week or so, but I’m hoping for a little more success over the next few days as we move on to apple, squash and sweet potato.  My husband sure as hell won’t be eating the latter two if she doesn’t like them!

New year, new mummy?

Well I'm back on the blogwagon after a wonderful festive hiatus, now the grateful owner of a living room which looks like it's been sponsored by Fisher Price thanks to little miss's doting grandparents, aunts and uncles.  It might seem unwise for someone who struggles to keep her champagne flutes intact for a year, let alone a bunch of resolutions, to even bother setting some, but as I'm a mum now maybe I should at least attempt to be, y'know, responsible.  So here goes:

1. Get out more with the baby.  While the weather needs to be nigh on apocalyptic to stop me at least venturing out of the house, most outings tend to be brief, mundane and necessary: doctor's, supermarket, coffee shop.  They're not exactly broadening little miss's horizons or adjusting her to unfamiliar surroundings and longer times away from home, something which became all too clear over Christmas, when the inevitable bevy of visits to family often resulted in a grumbling grandchild hankering after her own bed and unrivalled attention from mummy and daddy.  
2. Get out more without the baby.  A handful of date nights, girls' nights and work days since little miss arrived have slowly drawn me to the conclusion that as long as she's being looked after by hubby or family, I don't need to be there for every feed, change, cuddle or kick-off.  That reconnecting with who I am as a wife and friend as well as a mother is critical.  And that a large glass of rose once baby's in bed is SO DARN GOOD.
3. Decorate the baby's room.  We've graduated on from the early days, when little miss's room was little more than a dumping ground for boxes and assorted baby equipment which we hadn't had a chance to unpack yet thanks to her unexpectedly premature arrival.  However, it's still very much a cluttered space where little other than changing her takes place.  Hubby and I have been obsessing over pictures and frames practically since day one, but in true scatty style have got precisely nowhere so far.  Without going overboard and striving for Pinterest-perfect, I'd like us to create a little girl's room to be proud of, at least a day or two before we end up moving.
4. Learn to love every moment.  It's not always easy when I'm functioning on three hours' sleep, worrying how the next bill is going to be paid and on the fifth outfit change of the day (three for her, two for me).  However, against the odds we have a beautiful daughter, who depends on us, loves us and lights up when we enter the room.  That might be just about worth keeping the resolutions for.

The twelve days of Kidmas

On the first day of Christmas my baby gave to me
A giant poonami

On the second day of Christmas my baby gave to me
Two AWOL socks
And a giant poonami

On the third day of Christmas my baby gave to me
Three tantrums
Two AWOL socks
And a giant poonami

On the fourth day of Christmas my baby gave to me
Four squitty turds
Three tantrums
Two AWOL socks
And a giant poonami

On the fifth day of Christmas my baby gave to me
Five hours' sleep
Four squitty turds
Three tantrums
Two AWOL socks
And a giant poonami

On the sixth day of Christmas my baby gave to me
Six tepid coffees
Five hours' sleep
Four squitty turds
Three tantrums
Two AWOL socks
And a giant poonami

On the seventh day of Christmas my baby gave to me
Seven loads of laundry
Six tepid coffees
Five hours' sleep
Four squitty turds
Three tantrums
Two AWOL socks
And a giant poonami

On the eighth day of Christmas my baby gave to me
Eight milky muslins
Seven loads of laundry
Six tepid coffees
Five hours' sleep
Four squitty turds
Three tantrums
Two AWOL socks
And a giant poonami

On the ninth day of Christmas my baby gave to me
Nine goofy giggles
Eight milky muslins
Seven loads of laundry
Six tepid coffees
Five hours' sleep
Four squitty turds
Three tantrums
Two AWOL socks
And a giant poonami

On the tenth day of Christmas my baby gave to me
Ten sticky fingers
Nine goofy giggles
Eight milky muslins
Seven loads of laundry
Six tepid coffees
Five hours' sleep
Four squitty turds
Three tantrums
Two AWOL socks
And a giant poonami

On the eleventh day of Christmas my baby gave to me
Eleven minutes' me-time
Ten sticky fingers
Nine goofy giggles
Eight milky muslins
Seven loads of laundry
Six tepid coffees
Five hours' sleep
Four squitty turds
Three tantrums
Two AWOL socks
And a giant poonami

On the twelfth day of Christmas my baby gave to me
Twelve precious cuddles
Eleven minutes' me-time
Ten sticky fingers
Nine goofy giggles
Eight milky muslins
Seven loads of laundry
Six tepid coffees
Five hours' sleep
Four squitty turds
Three tantrums
Two AWOL socks
And a giant poonami

Prams and prejudice

Like all good hypocrites, I'm about to have a healthy rant about something which I was guilty of myself up until only recently.

Before little miss graced us with her presence, I had little time for the pram-pushing posse of parents with an uncanny knack for blocking aisles, doorways and pavements when I needed to get somewhere.  My intolerance probably stems from seven years of London life, where I was one of the 'elbows up' brigade who thought Oxford Street needed a fast lane, who had a wide portfolio of tut sounds reserved for shuffling tourists and teenagers and who was always running late, half thanks to TFL and half thanks to my love affair with the snooze button.

Becoming a mother changed everything.  Suddenly I find myself walking in the sensible shoes of those tired pavement trudgers trying to manoeuvre unwieldy vehicles down uneven streets littered with obstacles and tutting pedestrians.

In the past few months, I've nearly up-ended my precious cargo over a particularly problematic kerb, abandoned shopping because trying to manoeuvre down crowded aisles was annoying me as much as fellow shoppers, and had to do about-turns on pavements rendered impassable by vans or wheelie bins.  I've gone for lunch where they seated seven of us, each with a pram, on the mezzanine level, meaning we each had to stand sheepishly at the top of three steps waiting for staff to help us get back down again when it was time to leave.  I haven't even entertained the idea of taking a train anywhere, for fear that my peculiarly British trait of not wanting to ask for help will mean little miss and I are stranded at the stairs-only station all afternoon while my pleading looks inevitably end up looking more like resting bitch face.

Husband and I didn't really bring practicality into researching prams.  We reasoned that living in suburbia rather than the Serengeti meant we didn't need a zippy little all-terrain number, and ended up with a beautiful but bulky Italian model.  While the pram's perfectly serviceable, I regret now that we were sucked in by its impossibly chic promo video (glamorous madre in heels, padre in a sharp suit) and detachable coffee cup holder (which, in a bitter twist, doesn't even accommodate my cappuccinos) rather than considering whether it was up to the job of navigating clogged pavements, muddy parks and country roads.

So next time you find yourself tutting as you find your festive shopping put on hold by a struggling mother laden down with a squawking infant and a bevy of bags, please remember, when you become a pram-pusher, the world is no longer your oyster but an obstacle course.  I tell myself things will be different once little miss starts walking, but that's probably the festive delusion setting in!

Baby, I'm amazed

It's almost a year to the day since we found out that you were on your way, and that I'd be spending the festive season fooling no-one with my lame excuses for sobriety.  Your frantic arrival in July, three weeks earlier and a pound lighter than expected, turned our world upside down and shook it vigorously like a vibrant, sparkling snowglobe.  We're counting down to Christmas this year far worse off in terms of money, free time and sleep (I even need to schedule in time to cut my own toenails these days), but the giddy excitement that we're sharing it with the newest, cutest addition to our little family more than makes up for this.

In the first few weeks after welcoming you into the world, we quickly realised we had a little diva on our hands, with a fussy outlook, insatiable demands and a powerful, neighbour-bothering pair of lungs.  We decided that our little handful had small baby syndrome, and quite frankly, though you've almost tripled in weight since birth, you still do.  But I marvel every day at the speed at which you're learning and growing, the complex little personality emerging, how beautiful you're becoming.

There have been dark moments, of course.  The three threatened miscarriages which dominated the first half of my second trimester of pregnancy, each heavier and with a bleaker prognosis than the previous one.  Watching my tiny daughter trying to fight off an infection which laid her low at only two weeks old.  My own early episodes of weakness when I agonised over whether I knew what I was doing, if I would ever get a decent sleep again, when you would ever give us a sign that you felt we were up to the job and making you happy.

I needn't have worried on the last point.  Since you started rewarding our hamfisted but well-meant parenting efforts with gorgeous gurgles and smiles, I've realised that we're getting it right at least some of the time, and that despite being tiny, you can match the infinite amount of love we have for you.  I've seen snippets of a glorious, goofy sense of humour emerging, and even if you're the only person out there who finds mummy funny and appreciates my singing, amen to that.

This Christmas, I won't be stumbling up a snowy drive and fumbling for house keys at 4am after a long, boozy tour of High Wycombe's watering holes, and I won't be struggling to keep my Christmas lunch down as a result.  I probably will be up at 4am, for completely different reasons, and I'll be hoping you keep your lunch down so that it doesn't decorate that gorgeous but utterly impractical tartan frock I'm planning to dress you in.  You'll be too young to fully appreciate it, but we want to fill your Christmas with cuddles, sparkles and special moments, whilst probably palming you off on your extended family for an hour or two so that mummy can get a mulled wine and festive nap in.

This post may be an unashamed slice of soppiness, but it's nearly Christmas and, well, you're wonderful.  Thank you for enriching our lives, little miss, all our love, and happy Christmas.

It's a hard life...

I find it all too easy to feel a pang of jealousy towards my daughter in my weaker moments.  One of these days, I'd like to be wheeled around at a leisurely pace on my back rather than having to trudge through town, fed and cuddled on demand and, perhaps most pointedly, indulge in several daytime naps and an unbroken twelve hours' shuteye overnight (it's great that she's now sleeping through, but I doubt very much she's waking up in an 'are-they-breathing?' panic at multiple intervals in the same way that her parents are).

This envy usually evaporates though, when I consider the fact that being a baby isn't so easy after all.  From the moment that you're either squeezed out of a tiny orifice or wrenched into the open at birth, every day brings a learning curve and the necessity of adjusting to new sensations, surroundings and experiences.  The fact that little miss has just started teething makes me think about the on and off agony my wisdom teeth caused in my teens, and how the pain would have been all the more excruciating if it was completely new to me and not something I could relieve myself ('spread Calgel on my gums' is not the easiest request to decipher from a four-month-old).  There are plenty of other moments my daughter goes through which make me realise that actually it's a pretty hard life, being a baby:

• The fact that, no less than eight times over a (thankfully now over) eight-week phase, her tiny legs were jabbed with vaccines which made her sleepy, weepy and irritable.  However crucial they are, it's hard to explain that to a small baby's red, crumpled face after they'd previously been all smiles each time in the surgery waiting room.
• Although she's made it pretty clear from week one that she hates it with a passion, her mummy still plonks her on her tummy at multiple intervals during the day and waves toys above her head while she inevitably faceplants, drools and squawks.
• Every Monday, she's taken to a baby music class where she's wrestled into various positions regardless of how full her tummy or heavy her eyelids, forced to put up with a full hour of mummy's caterwauling and the even louder singing of the less self-conscious mums around her, and usually placed next to an over-zealous baby boy twice her weight who cuffs her round the face during an excited rendition of 'round and round the garden, like a teddy-bear'.
• Every month, she's taken to a cold, clinical space where she's stripped naked without warning, flung onto a pair of scales then has to undergo the humiliation of her mummy discussing her latest bowel movement in graphic detail with a health visitor.
• And finally, the fact that her mummy is already plotting various ridiculous outfits to dress her in over Christmas which will serve as blackmail fodder and boyfriend deterrent for many years to come.

So, next time you find yourself looking at your sweetly slumbering baby and get a case of the green -eyed monster, look at it this way: they need that sleep to grow and develop, but also to recover from all the crap you put them through!

Date Fright

This week, hubby and I did the unthinkable.  Nearly four months since little lady was born, and nearly four months since they originally volunteered, we finally took my parents up on their offer to babysit while we had a much-needed night off.  Tickets for an evening SPECTRE screening were booked (a mere night before it closed in local cinemas) and I pulled out all the stops to make a special effort for the date in between firing up the steriliser and mopping up drool, even managing to brush my hair and squeeze into a pre-pregnant frock.

Try as I might, though, as I completed the all-important handover to my parents, valiantly failing to avoid patronising a couple who have successfully reared three children as I burbled about gro-bags, muslins and nappy sacks, any excitement at the two of us finally having a break was overridden by more unwanted emotions.  Nerves that, after a particularly fractious bedtime, little miss might wake up in 'one of those' moods and put my parents off ever wanting to babysit again.  Guilt, even after four months, that we might be leaving her to see less familiar faces if she woke up before we returned.

I still couldn't relax in the lifts up to Wycombe Cineworld, and found myself frowning at my make-up free reflection, which had the odd appearance of a haggard twelve-year-old.  During the film, I had to stop myself from constantly checking my phone, convinced that during three hours of sleep time while we were out little miss would somehow manage to run rings round my parents, despite being many months off walking yet.

As we travelled back, I texted my dad, worried that we would be coming back to puke-covered parents, clutching a screaming banshee baby and a noise abatement notice from the council.  His reply, that beyond a few wriggles in her cotbed, 'all is peaceful here', made me realise how much I need to lighten up.  How wanting some respite and a chance to recharge and reconnect with your partner doesn't actually make you a bad parent, but one that wants to be relaxed and ready for anything when you get home.  Hopefully we'll get to have another date night or two before the next Bond film comes out!

Sharing the motherload

‘Oneupmumship’ is something I feared well before our little miss came squawking into the world.  Knowing how self-doubting and nigh on neurotic I can be in so many areas of my life, I worried that suddenly becoming responsible for keeping a small person alive while surrounded by immaculate and judgemental supermums and their advanced, angelic babies could send me plummeting into an abyss of anxiety that I wasn’t doing anything right.

I really needn’t have worried.  Since getting to know many mothers on the Chiltern circuit, I’ve realised that mums and their little ones come in all shapes and sizes, no baby is an angel every day and (beyond the obvious!) there are few rights and wrongs of parenthood as long as you are keeping your little one relatively clean, cuddled and fed.  That we are all allowed an off day or ten, and even an experienced mum of three is capable of having the odd mini meltdown or being flummoxed by their new, very individual baby’s foibles and phases. 

Most importantly, I’ve learned that far from trying to outdo each other with tales of our babies’ lightning fast development or ability to sleep through the night from week one, what actually exists is a lovely, supportive network of mums sharing advice, special moments and milestones, horror stories and lots of tea and cake as we all muddle through motherhood and marvel at our little ones.  And we all muck in in support of each other: I’ve been lucky enough to have someone offer to cut up my food while I tried to eat brunch one-handed while cradling a tetchy two-month-old, and I’ve seen others helping to dispense wipes and sympathy as someone dealt with an off-the-scale poonami. 

You soon learn too that everyone has had difficulties of some kind - in my case, for example, if sleeping was a relatively easy nut to crack, feeding was an impenetrable, fortified macadamia in the early days – but sharing these struggles makes you realise that you’re not alone, you’re getting by and, clichéd as it may seem, problems do pass in the end.

This post may be an unabashed love-in, but I wanted to relay how much of a difference this special network has made as we all grapple with the thrills and spills of first-time parenthood.  In the words of one advert, ‘you’re doing great’, and to paraphrase another, let’s make time for some ‘exceedingly good cakes’ again soon!

Crying over spilt coffee

Up until last week, my mummy meltdowns had mainly been frontloaded in the first few weeks of my daughter's life, when, head spinning, struggling with feeding and still feeling excruciating post-c-section pain,  'Ican'tdothisIcan'tdothisIdon'tknowwhatI'mdoing' was my morning mantra.  Then somehow, around seven weeks, a magic switch was flicked and I suddenly felt a vague sense of being in control and partially clawing back some sleep and sanity, spurred on by the fact that I was no longer fighting a losing battle to breastfeed and little miss had deduced that peeing on her mummy at every change was actually not cool.

Last weekend, I regressed, and it was barely my baby's fault.  She's picked up a sudden habit of favouring her longest nap of the day at 5pm, frustratingly close to her bedtime but not late enough to start the routine unless we want a daily 4am wake-up call.  I've pulled out all the stimulating stops to try and keep her awake a little longer, but no amount of playtime or waving her favourite Vtech penguin around is enough to stop the stubborn little minx's eyelids going south.

Later that night, I made the mistake of deciding to stay up well past my usual bedtime to watch some Saturday night dross, only to be woken up at 430am by a baby who was so awake you'd think that her last feed of the night was Pro Plus tablets washed down with a triple espresso rather than the usual 6oz of Aptamil.

Clattering through the kitchen bleary eyed and frustrated, I caught my dressing gown sleeve on the door handle and knocked a full mug of much-needed coffee onto the carpet.  Up the walls.  Down the stairs.  Behind the radiator.  We'd asked ourselves when we'd moved in whether recarpeting our home in light neutral tones was a wise idea when we were seven weeks off parenthood, but I'd reckoned on baby puke and worse being the likely stain sinners, not Nescafe Azera.

Every expletive that I don't want my baby to ever learn, let alone say, erupted from my mouth as I ran wild-eyed into the bedroom to wake up my slumbering husband, then when I inevitably caught my sleeve on another door handle beating it with a muslin seemed like the best option.  Husband dutifully fetched the Vanish carpet cleaner while I bundled up my daughter, who seemed to be smiling wryly and rolling her eyes at her manic mummy.

By the time the coffee had been scrubbed from all surfaces, leaving a faint aroma of cheap station cafe, it was time to laugh, and concede that losing your cool over the mundane mishaps that parenthood brings is perfectly healthy, even character building.  Knowing that we're teetering on the brink of four-month sleep regression, further immunisations and (gulp!) teething, I have no doubt that I have many more to come.  And, as my husband up-ended his Sunday dinner over my knees that very evening, I sensed I'm not the only one!

Picture Imperfect

Ever feel like you can't take your baby anywhere?  I jest of course; it would be mildly unfair to expect a three-month-old to be cute on cue, perform for her adoring public and leave the nappies that necessitate a whole outfit change to the comfort of her own home all the time.  But once in a while would be nice!

Two recent instances have hit home to me that my daughter - mostly a gurgling, giggling delight behind closed doors - may not yet be quite so primed for the outside world.  In the first, our dreams of parading round a serene and smiling angel at a friend's party were replaced with sheepishly presenting a squawking, scarlet demon the moment we crossed the threshold.

In the second, a photographer running a session at the local baby group had set the scene for some perfect festive snaps of our little one.  I dressed her in an obscenely adorable crocheted cardigan with strawberry buttons, ensured she was well fed before we set off and arrived early to book the second timeslot.  What could possibly go wrong?

As I watched the photographer extract gurgles galore from the twins ahead of us, baby girl - who usually feeds every three hours on the dot - decided that in this case an early snack was in order.  Weighing up whether to feed her straight away or run the risk of presenting a wailing, fist-chomping banshee to the photographer, I begrudgingly got out the bottle, knowing we'd lose our turn and that the camera would probably capture her in her perennial postprandial state: sleeping, puking or both.

When we finally got seen, little miss was out for the count.  'She might wake up under the lights?' the photographer suggested.  Not likely.  One rushed and frustrating sleepy shoot later, she woke up right on cue and puked, thankfully not on the photographer's faux fur throw.  Suddenly she was all smiles - if I could blot the puke from her cardigan perhaps we could give the shoot another go? Unfortunately not - the long line of adorable babies performing for the camera before her had sent the session way overtime.

I wanted to love the snaps that came back, but propping a slumbering baby up in odd angles doesn't make for photographic gold.  'She just looks a bit sickly,' said my husband, as I killed off my dreams of bombarding everyone we know with cute Christmas cards.

It's not really a problem, of course; for one thing baby girl has saved me some money if not some blushes.  For now, if her parents see her best side more than those on the outside, I can certainly live with that!

Mummy mindreader

A recent postnatal group posed the question: 'If motherhood came with a job description, what would be on it?'.  Among the skills and roles that you might expect (multitasking, cleaner, entertainer, chauffeur, copes well with stress, etc. etc.), I was surprised that the one I offered - interpreter - was new to the speaker.

'What do you want?' and 'Why are you crying?' are the traditional, exasperated refrains of many a new mum and dad, as they try and extract meaning from a tiny person with their own set of limited, highly individual gestures and emotional cues.  If you exclude the obvious (change, feed, sleep), it's still possible that a baby might be reacting to an endless range of complex and conflicting emotional impulses in the only way they know how.

In our daughter's case, reading her mind has been one of the hardest parental skills to master in her first few months.  This is one feisty, mercurial and loud little being whose moods can swing from a sweet smile to screaming blue murder in one barely discernible movement.  Who used to eat her fist to signal hunger, but now seems to do the same for comfort, fun or out of sheer curiosity.  Who will look anywhere but the DIY sensory bottles painstakingly crafted by her mummy but finds a patch of ceiling endlessly fascinating.  Who can be preoccupied by a poo several hours before its explosive arrival.

As parents, finally working out what your baby wants after a ritual of temperature and nappy checks, play, quiet time and running the gamut of different positions and places to put them in brings relief on a par with the moments when they finally fall asleep after a long battle or when it's your partner's turn to change a particularly offensive dirty nappy.  For me, the only time that I can be sure of what my daughter is trying to communicate to me is when she snuggles up to me sleepily for a post-feed singsong, or her contented little smile of recognition when her mummy comes home from a much-needed walk round the block on my own.  It's then that I know that, at least in her eyes, I've got the job.