Is there a Plan B?

Shall I go to BritMums Live?

2012-01-24T21:44:00.001Z

Sorry, any non-bloggers out there who might read this. This is one of those navel-gazing, cliquey, oh? you don't have a blog? Ri-ight type of posts.

Because I'm wondering about BritMums Live. The event (I think) formerly known as CyberMummy. (Is that right? Or is it something totally different and I've hugely insulted everyone involved, and probably got their brand manager sacked into the bargain? )

This could have been so easy. I could have gone the first year, when I was new and so was it, but we had a wedding. And then the next year (last year) we had a new baby. And if I'd been before, twice, then it would have been natural to go again.

But instead now it's this year, and it could be my first year, but it feels as though I've missed the boat. As though everyone else will know everyone else and I'll veer between standing in the corner trying to look approachable while at the same time hoping that the earth will swallow me up and affixing a rictus grin before bouncing into other people's conversations like Tigger on an uninhibited day and frightening everyone within a ten yard radius.

But if I don't book now, not only will I have to pay more, but I bet I'll also regret it nearer the time...

Who wants an obedient child?

2012-01-19T20:01:00.001Z

ME! ME! ME! ME! ME!

Please?

Last week a small miracle happened in my household. It went like this: I told the girls that they could watch telly before supper (the end of UP as it happened) and if it hadn't finished before supper they could watch the end of it afterwards. But that if it had finished we'd go straight upstairs after supper.

It finished. We had supper. I said: "Ok girls, time to go upstairs".

And they went.

No really, they went. Just like that.

I told L today, and I was not exaggerating, that that was the proudest parenting moment I've had this year, if not ever.

Because if there's one thing that wears me down about being a (mostly) full-time mum (and to be honest, wore me down when I wasn't a full-time mum too), it's endlessly, endlessly, repeating myself:

PLEASE: brush your teeth, eat your supper, stop hitting your sister, get down from there, share it with her, hold my hand while we cross the road, stop shouting, don't talk with your mouth full, don't snatch, upstairs for bed, wash your hands, put that in the bin, say please, say thank you, just do what you're told!

Except apparently I'm wrong. According to Annalisa Barbieri, in today's Guardian obedient children become doormats, compliant nobodies, victims of peer pressure. What we want, of course we want, is sparky, intelligent children who question the status quo, and stand up to authority. Starting with us. Apparently.

And when she puts it like that, of course I agree with her. But I'm still not sure I wouldn't take the risk. Just for a few more moments like the one last week...

Ballet for the terminally ungraceful

2012-01-16T21:15:00.000Z

I posted a while back about the ballet workshop that Scottish Ballet invited the girls to, and how they had also offered B and me tickets to their production of Sleeping Beauty.

Well, those tickets were for Saturday night, and we went with trepidation. I shouldn't be admitting this, having graciously accepted their kind offer, but neither of us is what you might call balletomanes (ooh! get me!). My brother-in-law at lunch said "the thing about ballet is I always rather think you enjoy it more if you shut your eyes", and, although I was trying to be cultured and didn't admit it to him, I rather felt he might have a point.

We'd had a had a bad night the night before with the children, so there was a suspicion too, that a comfy seat in a darkened theatre might lead to a bit more of the Sleeping than the Beauty.

How wrong could we be? We both, genuinely, loved every single minute of it. The music was, obviously, fabulous, but opening our eyes was even better... The costumes (no men in tights, either, always a bonus) and sets were extraordinary; an amazing orangery, with flamingoes and ferns and woods with the mist rising off an unseen lake were particular highlights, and I loved, loved, loved Red Riding Hood's ball gown, and some really witty touches on other costumes. As for the dancing, it was, honestly, captivating. I could have watched the pas de deux (see? more technical terms...) after the Sleeping Beauty awoke for hours. The sheer fluidity and athleticism of the dancers was extraordinary and what really came across was how much they were loving what they were doing.

Oh, and it was really funny too.

So thank you so much to Scottish Ballet, who have got a new fan - I was previously slightly dreading having to take the girls at some point, and now I can't wait. And to everyone else, although you've now missed it in Edinburgh and Glasgow, you'll still catch it in Aberdeen, Inverness or Newcastle. Highly, highly recommended.

Scottish Ballet: The Sleeping Beauty 2011 - Trailer from Scottish Ballet on Vimeo.

Making babies

2012-01-13T19:10:00.000Z

I know all about making babies, right? I've got four after all, and the making of them was the easy bit.

And anyway, even if I did want to find out more about it, not only would I (being me) be too embarrassed to buy a book about it, I certainly wouldn't be advertising it on the internet...

That's what you're thinking, isn't it?

Well, it's ok. You're safe. You can relax. This is a book review, and it is a book called Making Babies but it's not what you're expecting. Or at least it's not what I expected.

And that's why I'm reviewing it, because I was asked, for the first month of the Tots100 Book Club, to pick a book that meant something to me, and to recommend it to another blogger. And although I tried I couldn't pick anything else.

Because I want the whole of the Tots100 to read this book. And then I want them all to email me and tell me what they thought. Because I found I couldn't read this book dispassionately. Maybe we can never read any book dispassionately, but this one took it to an extreme.

It was actually sent to me over a year ago, by the lovely Pants With Names, when I was newly pregnant with M. And I couldn't read it. I tried, I really did, but it was too close to what I was experiencing. I couldn't divorce Anne Enright's "indifference to the world" from mine. As she says, I was "generally, as opposed to locally, pregnant" and I was, as she was, a mess. I was in the middle of "the stupidity of it, the blankness, the senseless days and the terrible, interrupted nights". And I couldn't cope with reading someone putting into words better than I ever could (although goodness knows, I tried) the immediacy of that experience. It was like having someone else pick your scab.

B, on the other hand, had no such qualms. He picked it up and snorted with laughter the whole way through it. I couldn't supress the suspicion that he was actually laughing at me, and not at sentences like:

"Every couple you meet is in an advanced stage of negotiation, whether thy have children or not... Marriage is like Churchill and Stalin breaking off, at Yalta, for a quick shag. Oh all right then, you take Poland"

And after I had M, it was still too raw. Still too new. She says:

"The body has no imagination; this is why you never take a jumper with you on a warm day, just in case. The body has no memory, which is why sex is always such a surprise"

and in reading this book, in the newness of new life, I was forcing those memories and I just wasn't ready for them.

Six months later, M back on the weight chart, sleeping through and feeding happily, and I devoured this book much as he does whatever concoction of mush I shovel at him. If I say it's a collection of essays about motherhood, that's true, but it's so much more than that. Anne Enright says she wrote it because she "felt it was important.". She "wanted to say what it was like".

And, for me, it is, and she did. In a way no pregnancy guide ever could. This book is motherhood. In 193 pages.

But, as I say, I couldn't be dispassionate about it. And maybe I still can't. Which is why I'm recommending it to Trish, of Mum's Gone To. She loves her books, and we've had lots of good chat about books, but she's well out of the baby stage, and so I'd love to know whether this resonates with her as it does with me. Let me know...

There is so much more I could say about this book, but I'll never say it as well as Anne Enright does these:

On having a second child:
The most surprising thing is that the love repeats as much as the pain

On maternal guilt:
And still there is an overwhelming sense that no matter how properly we reproduce, we are all DOING SOMETHING WRONG and no one knows what it is.

On out-grown clothes:
You can never give it away because you still don't believe it - any of it - you need proof that they were once so small.

On toddlers:
She is only two.
Though sometimes, I am two, too.

And on children:
They are our enduring love.

Politics. This time it's personal.

2012-01-11T22:39:00.000Z

So, apparently, after lots of hot air on both sides of the Border, we're going to get a vote.

Scottish Independence. Here we come. Or not, clearly, depending on what happens in 2014.

And, somehow, it feels personal.

Because I'm English. Born there. Bred there. But Scotland is my home. And the home of my husband (Scottish) and my children (well, what are they?). It's where I live and where I hope to die. I belong here now.

But if Scotland, and the Scots (does that include me? Do I get a vote? Will they be breathalysing voters for evidence of Irn Bru before they let them enter the polling stations? And what about the many, many Scots living in London, or Luton, or Lusaka?) vote to end the Union, for right or wrong that will feel like a rejection.

A rejection of England and the English. And, given that I am English, a rejection of me, by a country in which I have never felt anything but welcome.

I'm sure, in the years to come, we will hear plenty of arguments about how it's not England that subsidises Scotland, but the South East that subsidises the rest of the country (ies), or about how Scotland's in an arc of prosperity that includes Ireland and Iceland (bet Alex Salmond's wishing he'd never come up with that one), or economic this and social that, and what would happen with the pound, or the NHS, or defence, and how we do or don't need each other (and whether we ever have), and I suspect that I will have an opinion (ill-founded or otherwise) on many of these.

But for now, this isn't an opinion, it's an emotion. And it feels personal. And I don't like it.

How to tell if your children are just being fussy.

2012-01-09T20:32:00.000Z

B: So what are we going to feed these children tonight?

Me (bored of thinking about it): Pass

A (making her position clear): I don't like pass.

People who don't have children.

2011-12-29T11:43:00.002Z

Why do they let people who don't have children design things for people who do have children?

Yesterday, we took the children to lunch in the garden centre. (I know, we're all about fine dining and introducing them to new experiences here...)

In the well-equipped and planned baby changing room there were a changing mat, a big expanse for putting the baby on, a hook for your bag, a loo (top marks for that, because going for a wee in a very small cubicle while holding a baby is always fun)and a clever machine for those emergency nappy changing moments.

For the price of just a pound, it declared proudly (their capitals), you could have:

ONE soft disposable nappy (fits size 9-22 pounds)
ONE hygienic nappy bag

and, wait for it,

ONE baby wipe.

Now there's someone who's never changed a nappy....

Scottish Ballet's Sleeping Beauty (for kids!)

2011-12-29T11:28:00.000Z

I'm not a dancer. I don't have the build, or the grace, or the rhythmic ability. Nor can I, as we are constantly exhorted to, dance like nobody's watching. Because they always are aren't they? And while I'd love to move like liquid, losing all my sense of self in the power of the music (and don't phrases like that make you want to kick someone, probably quite hard?), I just don't. Can't. Won't.

My children, on the other hand, love dancing. Dancing is where it's at. Whether it's a Spoonful of Sugar or the Firebird. They also have two classical music loving parents, so they're pretty well up on their Tchaikovsky and Prokoviev. (It was with equal parts pride and horror (poncy parent alert) that I heard L, aged just four, inform someone in a shop that her favourite song was "Stravinsky".)

So I was totally delighted when Scottish Ballet got in touch and asked if we wanted to take part in their Forty Winks Workshop which is running in Glasgow and Edinburgh. The girls, obviously were so far beyond delighted there weren't words.

Having done our homework (downloadable sheets of colouring and questions about ballet and the story of the Sleeping Beauty, which will come in very handy for some while to come - we've got eight children in the house at the moment and have spent a very happy morning colouring in enchanted forests and drawing mutants (yes, they do feature in Sleeping Beauty, who knew?)), we bundled into the car yesterday morning for a trip to Edinburgh.

The workshops are taking place in the National Museum of Scotland which has just reopened and is amazingly brilliant, even without Sleeping Beauty Treasure Trails. We though, skipped past the dinosaurs, Egyptian artefacts and rockets to the education centre where we spent two happy hours (S and A first, and then L and a chum) being trees, fairies, bluebirds and rocks (me only - so that my bluebird could perch on the top), and waving our wands, pointing our toes and generally having a marvellous time.

The highlights? For me, the live accompaniment, with piano (clavinova), and percussion. Their ballet lessons happen with a tape, and I think the live music added enormously to the experience. For L, "climbing on Mummy". And "seeing a real ballerina". Though as the ballerina in question (actually one of the Scottish Ballet's ballet teachers) was not wearing a tutu, we had to have a fairly heated debate about whether she actually counted.

Lack of tutus (and costumes, which we had hoped to see) aside, we had a wonderful morning and can heartily recommend the workshops, and, perhaps more, Scottish Ballet's wonderful website and youtube channel which have a wealth of resources for children of all ages.

**********************************************

Obvious disclosure - Scottish National Ballet invited us to come to the workshops (normally £6) for nothing. They have also offered B and me a pair of tickets for the actual show (we reckoned the girls were a bit young still). I can't wait!

When did we give up the definite article?

2011-12-04T22:14:00.000Z

Pause for breath...

And rant.

What's wrong with the definite article? Those three little letters. You know the ones, you use them every day, hundreds of time, without thinking.

T.H.E.

So what is it about having children that makes them disappear? And from the one word that everyone's using?

"Baby".

Let's listen to baby.
See, there's baby
Shall we change baby?
How's baby's weight?

No. No. No. The baby. Your baby. My baby. Not baby.

But I stay calm and I don't scream. Because when you're pregnant or have just had a baby everyone thinks you're hormonal and there's nothing worse than being mistaken for an oestrogen-fuelled lunatic when actually you're a grammar-loving pedant.

What I most dislike about pregnancy and birth*

2011-12-03T20:25:00.000Z

Not labour, or sore hips, or achy backs, or stretch marks, or heartburn, or morning sickness, or insomnia, or getting fat, or sore breasts, or saggy skin, or that strange taste in your mouth, or leaky breasts, or strange spots, or c-section scars, or sweeps, or mastitis, or stirrups, or unsympathetic midwives, or false labour, or elbows in the ribs, or needing the loo every ten minutes, or pelvic floor exercises (or the lack thereof), or not being able to eat brie...

Nope. None of those.

The thing I most dislike?

Moulting. Still.

*with a caveat that clearly I was incredibly lucky to have easy, uncomplicated pregnancies and deliveries, and much worse things than any of these do, sadly, happen to much nicer people than me.

I admit it: I'm rubbish at crafting with my children.

2011-12-01T20:42:00.000Z

I have a guilty pleasure. And yes, it's blogging related. It's all those wonderful, beautiful blogs that show you amazing creative things you can do with your children. Brilliant blogs like Red Ted Art or the Imagination Tree. Only they're not really a guilty pleasure, they're more of a pleasurable guilt. Or just a guilt, in fact.

Because I'm rubbish at all that stuff. I'm rubbish at the ideas, and, more importantly, I'm rubbish at the execution.

Because is it just me or does it always take significantly longer to get the stuff out and put it away than the time they're actually entertained doing it? And does it not always end up with you turning your back to help one with a particularly intricate bit of gluing, and turn back to find the other two fighting over the scissors, or the blue paint or the sequins, or putting hand prints on the newly-painted walls.

And is it just my children or (whisper it) is the stuff they make not generally rubbish too? And of course I can do wonderfully enthusiastic as well as the next mum, but what do you say when they catch you, twenty minutes later, surreptitiously shoving it in the recycling?

I could claim it's more difficult because I'm trying to entertain three. Or that they're still very little. Or that they've got different abilities. Or that I don't have the right tissue paper, or glitter, or glue.

Because I try. I really do. We made these hats (now gathering dust on the table) on Monday. But it's never quite what I want it to be. I have visions of happy hours spent, chatting merrily, little heads bent in concentration over some masterpiece, while the clock ticks on unnoticed and we look up astonished that an entire afternoon has passed.

And somehow, it never quite works out like that. Maybe it's me.

I missed my baby

2011-11-29T20:38:00.000Z

About ten seconds ago, I had this:

And then I blinked, or I turned away, or I did something; but I don't know what, and when I turned back, and opened my eyes, I had this:

And I'm not saying that the second isn't every bit as magical and astounding as the first; I'm just saying that all I did was blink. And I missed my baby.

Because he's six months old tomorrow (or possibly the day after: B and I disagree on this one. If you're born on the 31st May are you six months old on 30 November or 1 December? And how much more complicated if you're born on 29 February?) and he's not a tiny baby any more.

And somehow, where with L, the first six months took years: an endless, wonderful, wouldn't change it for a second agony of learning curve and colic and sleepless nights, and with S and A they were a focused marathon, feeling every yard of those twenty-six miles, don't worry about whether you're enjoying them or not (for the record, I did; in parts), just get through, the last six months have disappeared in the blink of his unbelievably long eyelashes, or the flash of his ever-ready grin.

But I didn't want them to. I wanted to savour them. I had plans. There were pictures I wanted to take, that I never managed to get of the girls: the mole-rat face of a tiny baby, just off the breast, nose to the fore, eyes tight closed, like a naked rodent and no less adorable for it; the bottom lip, pushed out in fury beyond the seeming stretch of those tiny muscles; the first taste of solids (adores them, for the record, but I still haven't taken a picture); the first weighing in the calico hammock the health visitors bring; the moments he mislaid his thumb...

Because all those are gone, fleeting as daybreak, a moment in time that will never be repeated. Like the sounds and feelings that I will never experience again: the tiny weight of my newborn, the blind seeking for milk, the first hesitant squeeze of my finger, the tearless, angry, babybird cries.

And I tried, I really did. I have found myself thinking, countless times, that I wanted to bottle that moment, that feeling, that smell. But it passes, and I forget, and now I can bearly remember what he felt like at three weeks, or looked like at three months.

M is not the baby he was. He has lost his startle reflex. He has lost his skinny new baby look. His voice is older, his smile is more knowing. He has grown and changed and I am so proud of him. But despite all that I can't help wishing I had noticed the moment that I lost my baby.

What do your children call your friends? (Or your friends' children call you?)

2011-11-25T08:00:00.000Z

1. My mother, overheard a couple of weeks ago on the phone to the utility company:

No, you may not call me Mary. You may call me Mrs F....

Good on you Mum.

2. My friend Elizabeth, taking her children home after worms in goo (spag bol) and snot (stewed apple) on Hallowe'en:

Say thank you for a lovely supper and goodbye to Mrs C

Excuse me? Mrs C? Who is this Mrs C of whom you speak? I'm not Mrs C. Or at least I'm not if you're not the utility company, or my mates having a laugh. I'd like to say that Mrs C is my mother-in-law, but I think most of the time she'd be aghast at being called that too.

But why? When did that happen?

When I was a child my friends' parents (and my parents' friends) were all Mrs or Mr Whatever. There was an awkward stage when we were at university when we were all separately told, "Call me Marjorie" and we used to mumble "Mrs, erm, you, erm, Marjorie" and revert back to Mrs Whatever where we felt more comfortable. In fact there are still friends of my parents whom I feel much more natural calling Mrs and Mr than I ever will, despite my degree and my four children, by their first names.

But my children call people whatever I call them. And that's almost always first names. As a result there are, I think, only two categories of people that they call by their title and surname: teachers, and the elderly neighbours.

Because I call the neighbours Mrs Black and Mrs White. Of course I do. They're both in their eighties. They're both utterly charming and have said on numerous occasions "Call me Whatever" and firmly, both to their faces and behind their backs, I stick to Mrs Whatever. That's what you call elderly ladies, after all.

But is it still? And will it be what my children's friends will call me in fifty years time? And will I mind then, as my mother (not eighty) is clearly beginning to? Because somehow I feel that I will, and that it matters. That there is an element of respect implied in the use of surnames that people of an older generation deserve.

And so I wonder if Elizabeth is right, however odd it may have felt. I asked her whether she wanted my children to call her Mrs Cotton, and she said "It's entirely up to you, I'd just rather my children called you Mrs C".

I suspect it's too late to change the names of most of my existing friends, but should I be changing the names of the new ones?

Just call me Santa's little helper - The Craft Market has reopened!

2011-11-23T20:40:00.000Z

Welcome to the Christmas Craft Market!!!

Beautiful items made by real bloggers....

It's over a year since I last updated the BMB (now BritMums) Craft Market, and new stalls have arrived in their droves. Who needs catalogues or busy high streets when you have this much lovely stuff all handmade by brilliant bloggers?

Where better to get all your Christmas shopping done in one go?! (And they're a good read too)

For the background to the craft market, click on the craft market tab in my blog homepage, or to see the wares for sale, read on...

**********************************************************************

Tracy Glover makes beautiful dolls

Kerry Goodman makes amazing photo albums and wedding stationery as well as bespoke items

she also hosts crafting parties in West Sussex and Hampshire.

Tracy T makes artisan jewellery and crafts in silver, beads, paper and fabric

Fee makes really beautiful solid wood decoupage blocks which she sells through Notonthehighstreet.com.

Alyson makes pretty much anything with words on it: clothes, canvases, signs, wall art, name art, table plans...

Heidi-Elizabeth Storer makes all sorts of beautiful things in her Beehive

Becky at Hazel and Blue is a thrifty Kiwi who loves sewing and ribbons

Aimi Rowe makes various toys, soft furnishings, wall hangings, decorative door hangings and bags. all out of your childs clothing

Nicky makes stunning handmade paper products which she sells under the name of Gooseberry Moon

The Butterfly Experience is this month opening her bespoke online jewellery shop: Lunar Moth Jewellery. Check it out...

Zoe Grant is inspired by the seaside with products for you, your home and your Summer holiday (and Christmas too!)

Viv Smith makes jewellery and accessories including mummy necklaces and birthstone jewellery . She also creates ribbon flower corsages, available as brooches or hair accessories, including in school colours

Melisa Moody is originally a textile designer but now makes delicious looking jewellery and accessories.

Helen runs icklebabe.com producing all sorts of beautiful hand made things for babies, boys and girls, their mummies and daddies...

Amanda loves making shabby chic and primitive sewn items.

Fiona makes stunning personalised children's artworks:

Helen Rawlinson has two shops. One on Etsy, selling beautiful fabrics, mugs, bags, cushions and more fabulous stuff:

as well as her own website of lighting and textile design

Claire Mackaness also has a shop on Folksy, in her case selling vintage inspired gifts:

She also makes beautiful cards and occasionally runs classes in Brentwood, so pop by her website for more information.

Helen McIntyre also makes hand-made gifts for beautiful girls of all ages. She also sells crafting supplies if you're feeling inspired!

Janice Thomson makes baby gifts

Hilary Pullen makes little purses and beadkits for children

Harriet McAlonan makes bespoke children's jewellery for boys and girls Click the link for lovely pictures

Grit doesn't sell her playbags, she gives them away to local toy libraries. What a star. The playbag blog is here.

Louise Horler makes funky bibs, tooth fairy cushions, baking bags, activity bags, buggy blankets, aprons and more!

She is also the UK co-ordinator for Dress a Girl Around the World, a charity which asks crafty types to make a dress for sending to a girl who hasn't got a pretty dress. She's always looking for more sewers so get in touch if you think you can help! (Louise, you've got me inspired for one...)

Fiona Morris uses pyrography to create handmade wooden plaques, keepsakes and gifts for all occasions as well as personalised soft toys.

Aingeal at Mum's Survival Guide creates unique one of a kind pieces of jewellery (and cards)

Tola Popoola makes personalised chocolate bars

Maggy Woodley paints children's pop art and greetings cards

Kim at Four Teens and a Teabag makes beautiful bespoke bunting

Fanciful Alice makes handbags, brooches, children's toys and anything else she fancies

Petra Hoschtitsky (and a friend) make jewellery, knit, sew, embroider, crochet and work with many different materials (textiles often recycled/upcycled). They also organise jewellery making parties for children and adults, as well as art and craft or sewing parties in the Manchester/Cheshire area.

(No picture because the links never stay live to this one, I don't know why, but click the link to have a look)

Sew Mental Mama makes children's (and adults') clothes

Steffi loves to knit, make cards and has recently explored felting

You can also buy her book, A Hat in Time which contains 37 patterns for hats to knit and crochet and from which all profits go to Save the Children.

Jude specialises in creating personalised nursery art (including canvases and framed, boxed Christening prints)

she also turns your children's artwork into masterpieces for your wall ....

Suzanne Harulow is a freelance textile artist. She makes bespoke wall hangings and lots of other stuff

Mummy Mad at the Madhouse makes all sorts of wonderful crafty things with (and without) her children. She's also been known to sell them from time to time.

And then there's me. I make personalised children's stuff. T-shirts, towels, bedclothes. Anything you like really...

And I'm also a trained milliner. So if you need something special for a wedding, Ascot or just running round the park, let me know:

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night....

I killed their imaginary friend.

2011-11-21T19:53:00.001Z

No really. I did.

I pushed her out into the path of an oncoming car.    To be honest, I pushed her out into the road and held her there until a car came along and then I said:

Look. The car squashed her. She's gone.

It's A, you see. The child, not the imaginary friend, although her name begins (began?) with A too. Alla. L discovered them, Milly and Alla. Sisters, I think, or sometimes possibly just friends, but either way they get brought into the conversation from time to time. They don't particularly do naughty things, or get blamed when the children play up. They just occasionally come and stay, or have a race, or dress up.   A and S have also become rather taken with them, so now we have several Millies and Allas. ("My Milly and Alla, not your Milly and Alla....")

So, as I say, it's A. A is, at nearly 3, determined. I know all nearly-three-year-olds are determined, but A, well, A is part ox, part autocratic dictator. If she doesn't like something she'll let you know, and if she isn't sure where the boundaries are she will push, and push, and go one little step beyond.

Which is literally what she did today. She and I had gone to get L from school (actually pre-school, but there is pride and English friends who really are at school at stake here) and were coming back across the park. I had the pushchair, into which, apparently, Alla had been put, and A was pushing her, ziggaging across the muddy grass, bent almost double with the effort.

She got bored after a while and asked me to push while she ran ahead, through the arch and into the layby.

A! Stop!
A! Stop!
A! I said stop right there!

She was on the kerb then. Momentarily paused.

A! You stay there!

She looked round. Right at me. And she stepped out. Both feet. Into the road. As she has twice before.

STOP!

There was nothing coming and I was right behind her by this point, so I picked her up, heart in mouth, while she screamed and kicked, and manhandling her, L and the pushchair (and imaginary friend) crossed the road.

We turned into our lane. It's a cul-de-sac so I normally let them run along, but I couldn't trust A not to run back into the road just to prove a point (it's been done before) so I tried to put her back in the pushchair. She screamed. Louder. "Alla's in the pushchair!".

And out of nowhere I said,

No she's not. She got out. Look! She's run into the road. Come back Alla! No! She isn't coming back.
Oh no. A car's coming. It's squashed her.
She's gone.

And now I honestly don't know if I've solved the running into the road problem once and for all. Or scarred her for life.

If I'd never wanted children

2011-11-08T20:40:00.001Z

In my next life, if I'm not a beetle, I want to be someone who doesn't want children.

I've been imagining it.

Not that I didn't have children. That's a totally different imagining. I'm nearly 35 now. We started trying to have L when I was 29. In the parallel world in which we didn't conceive we've now had six years of trying. Six years of disappointment and doctors. Probably thousands of pounds of IVF and other treatments. Possibly now wondering when we get too old to adopt. Wondering when we give up.

I can imagine perhaps only a tiny bit of that life, only a minute part of that heartbreak; and I am so, so, endlessly grateful that that wasn't us.

So don't think about that. Think about a life in which I didn't, you didn't, want children.

Because that's what we mean, isn't it, when we have those guilty, secret thoughts? The ones we have at 8.34 on a Tuesday evening when we're trying to write a blog post and someone appears because there's a moth in her room. Or when she bites her sister. Or when a nappy leaks. Or when you have to turn down champagne, or a wedding, or the volume. The thoughts that say: "What if I hadn't had children?".

Imagine that life. Two incomes. No children and no regrets. Late nights. Classy (and not so classy) bars. Exotic holidays. New restaurant openings. Country pubs. Muddy walks with people who want to be there. Weekends spent in bed. Reading Sunday's paper on Sunday. The cinema. Dry-clean only clothes. High heels. Sheer tights. Filling other people's children full of sugar and then not having to clear up the mess. Pretending to be interested in stories about poo. New paintwork that stays new. A small car. Dangly earrings. Sleeping off a hangover. Finishing a cup of tea.

It's another life. And it's a life that, sometimes, I yearn for. But it was never a life I could have had.

Life lessons from the under fives

2011-11-03T13:30:00.004Z

Oh fu-pause-udge, I've done that badly!

Why Mummy?

Because driving backwards is difficult and it's not made easier by you three first messing around so we're late, and then whinging and fighting so that I can't hear myself think or concentrate on what I'm doing.*

We-ell Mummy... (Were ever two words more calculated to raise a parent's blood pressure?)...you and Daddy should have been thinking about that when you did say "Let's have children".

She's right of course. And I've been trying to remember that. It was only yesterday, but I'm trying.

*and yes, I do talk to her like that. I probably shouldn't, but I do.

What would you do if your anaesthetic didn't work?

2011-10-31T12:30:00.000Z

Rhetorical question surely? Of course anaesthetics work. That's the point.

Well no. They, specifically epidurals and spinal blocks, don't always. And they didn't for my friend S when she was having her second baby by caesarian section. She is not alone and she believes that this may be due, at least in part, to the protocol and questions used as standard in the NHS. S's story, in her own words, is below, but suffice to say, she is taking an experience so horrendous it never occurred to me it could be possible, and campaigning to ensure it doesn't happen to any other woman again.

She's starting with an anonymous survey, to gauge women's experiences of epidurals and spinal blocks and please, please, if you had either, whether for a c-section or vaginal delivery and even if you read no more of this post, click here to complete the survey. It'll only take two minutes.

And if you can spare another minute after that, please email the survey or this post on to more women. Your responses really could help.

Thank you.

********************************************************

"I had to have a c-section for placenta praevia. I hada consultant anaesthetist who put the epidural in and was VERY confident it wasin the right place. However, the anaesthetic worked on my motor nerves so Icouldn't move, but did not work on my sensory nerves so I could feel. The testthe anaesthetist was using to check what I could feel involved spraying alcoholonto my skin and saying 'Can you feel that as cold? You may be able to feel thesensation of fluid on your skin but can you feel it being cold?' I definitelycould feel but found it really hard to distinguish between the sensation of thefluid on my skin and cold. I stalled and stalled but eventually the weight ofexpectation that it would be working and the number of people waiting got to meand so I said I supposed I must be only feeling fluid not cold... Which was abad thing to do because the first incision felt like I was a bean bag beingopened and it got worse from there. They stopped the operation 3 times, toppedme up with seriously potent painkillers intravenously and gave me gas and air -the last was surprisingly effective but maybe that's because I was out of mymind with pain and just needed to be totally out of my mind. I stuck it out tosee my baby boy born but then had to have a general because the pain wasindescribable.

In all it was a really traumatic experience and then it wascompounded by nobody being told on the ward, and my GP and community midwifenot even knowing I'd had a general anaesthetic - so I left an operating theatreafter a horrific operation to zero support. Thankfully when, after 10 months, Itold my GP that I was still having flashbacks and wondered whether I could havePTSD, she was brilliant - which was just as well because initially the hospitalmaintained that I had been 'conscious and comfortable' when my baby wasborn. But while I could push for more than an apology (which I dideventually get) it's only ever going to be a hollow victory because it doesn'tchange a thing.

I started thinking about why I let it happen - and kept comingback to that one odd question. Talking to others I've realised that it wasn'tme not knowing my own body and mind but that lots of people have found thatsame question very hard to answer - which made me wonder whether a betterquestion could be used. I was put in touch with a very senior obstetricanaesthetist in the States who told me that he would never use cold and wouldonly test using pin pricks - and that's what he teaches his students todo.

So I've set up a survey (which respondents doanonymously) to gauge as much as I can in 10 questions about women'sexperiences of epidurals: whether they've felt under pressure, whether theycould distinguish between sensations on their skin, whether they needed furtherpain relief after the epidural was administered , whether their GP was well informed and whethertheir experience put them off having more children. And now I need as manymothers as possible to complete the survey."

Daylight saving

2011-10-30T19:23:00.001Z

Is today officially the best day in the year?

Pre-children that wonderful, lazy, extra hour in bed. Always in bed, obviously. Why spend an extra hour anywhere else? Post-children, the hour is less relaxing but so much more appreciated. I spend 364 days of the year wishing for another hour and today I get it.

And they want to take it away from me...

Am I the only person in the country who thinks this is an awful idea? It's not just, honest, because I'm now in Scotland. I've felt like this ever since I heard of these proposals. We're told that lives would be saved because evenings would be lighter when children are coming back from school, but surely that would be counter-balanced by the darker mornings when the same children are going to the same schools. Calling time by a different number isn't going to change the fact that we don't, whether in Land's End or John o'Groats, get enough light at this time of year. I should know. My birthday, in mid-December, gets less than seven hours of daylight, and to change that I'd have to go a lot further South than the South of the UK.

But my biggest complaint? It's the dark mornings. Wasn't that the best thing about this morning? Whatever time you got up, however much your children didn't appreciate the effect of that extra hour, or extra glass of wine last night, wasn't it wonderful that it was so light? And isn't the bliss of not getting up in the dark, even if only for a few extra weeks, far, far greater than the misery of dark evenings? I rather like dark evenings. I like the childish excitement of shops with their lights on, especially once the decorations start to go up, I like the anticipation of a warm house, and the welcoming glow as you open the door. And oh, I so much prefer it to the brain-assaulting blare of the alarm clock when your eyeballs tell you it's still the middle of the night.

Today was actually horrid. B and I were out last night and were late and tired. The children were up at some horrendous hour, and my parents are staying which always stresses me, but I still think today's great.

Please don't take it away.

You can take the girl out of England...

2011-10-29T16:44:00.000+01:00

L and I are listening to the Proclaimers, unofficial patron saints of Scotland (where we have now lived for 18 months).

"Why are they singing in French?" wonders L.

Not fully assimilated yet then.

Six things every parent should know about meningitis

2011-10-23T20:32:00.000+01:00

Go on. Admit it. You don't really want to read this post do you?

It's like turning over that stone. You know there's going to be something gross under it. You know that you don't really want to get whatever it is out and deal with it. Wouldn't life be much easier if you just left it there and pretended you never saw it anyway?

Well of course it would. Life's often easier if you ignore the stuff that scares you. And meningitis scares us, especially as parents; apparently more than any other disease.

But ignoring the things that scare us doesn't make them go away, and it doesn't make them easier to face when we do have to, so it was with that in mind that I agreed (actually I was enormously flattered to have been asked*) to attend the UK Blogger forum Unfolding the complexities of meningitis last Thursday.

Faced with representatives of the three UK meningitis charities and a GP, Dr Rob Hicks, we bloggers were informed, enlightened and able to ask as many pathetic, stupid and worried questions as we liked. I came away, not with my fears allayed (how could they be?) but determined that as many people as possible should learn what I had.

Who knows? We might save a life. Just read the blue bits... honest, it won't take long. And if you've got questions, put them in the comments - the charities have promised to provide an answer to every question.

Meningitis isn't that common

The good news first. On average, a GP in the UK will see two cases of meningitis in his or her career. That's it. Two in a career of, what, forty years, seeing say fifty patients a week. It's not common. It's a horrible, terrifying, life-threatening disease, but the chances are you and your children will never get it, or even come into contact with it.

That said, what that means is that most GPs won't have that much experience of meningitis. They also don't know your child as well as you do. If you're worried, and you think your GP isn't taking you seriously, call Call NHS Direct or NHS 24. Or even 999.

Don't wait for the rash

The charity representatives said to us that they had been victims of their own success. Everyone knows about the meningitis rash, but this is a late stage symptom and doesn't appear in every case. The rash is actually a symptom of the onset of septicaemia: the body is shutting down, poisoned by its own blood. By the time it gets to that stage the disease is very, very serious. Don't look at a sick child thinking "It can't be meningitis, there's no rash". It could be. Get help.

Oh, and practice the tumbler test too. It sounds awfully simple in theory, but it's much less so in a panic. Get a glass, put it on its side over the rash. Press. If the rash goes, it's not septicaemia. If it doesn't, ring 999.

Three symptoms you should worry about before then

The difficulty with meningitis from a parental or indeed medical professional, point of view is that there's no one distinct symptom that you can look at and say "Phew, it's not" or "Panic, it is". It can often appear as flu-like, and there are a number of different symptoms that can appear. Click here for a full list from the Meningitis Trust, or here for their smart phone app or call 0800 028 18 28 to get a free credit card sized symptoms card to keep in your wallet, or on the fridge, or anywhere you'll know where it is when (if) you need it.

That said, Rob Hicks said that he, as a GP, would be particularly worried by the following signs, any or all of which might appear before the rash:

Cold hands and feet even though the child (or indeed adult) is hot and feverish
Muscle, joint and limb pain such that the child can't stand up
Pale, blotchy skin and blue lips

Got those? Get help. Now.

If your child is fully vaccinated he or she still might get meningitis

This is why I started with the good news. Even if your child has had all their NHS prescribed vaccines, and their red book is fully up to date with a big gold star on the front, your child (or indeed you, your cousin or your friend) might still get meningitis.

This is because there are multiple different sorts of meningitits and only some of them can be vaccinated against.

Briefly, meningitis is an inflamation of the lining of the brain which can lead to blood poisoning (septicaemia) but which, crucially, can be caused by a number of different bacteria (or viruses or fungi, but these are less common and generally less serious), each of which responds (or doesn't where none is available) to a different vaccine.

Children in the UK are vaccinated against pneumoccoal disease, which can cause meningitis as well as pneumonia, HiB (another cause of meningitis) and meningococcal disease type C. That's it, and it doesn't cover the biggie.

The biggest infectious killer of children under 5 in the UK is meningococcal disease type B. There is, at present, no vaccination for this disease, although one is in development.

In addition there are three other types of meningococcal disease, A, Y and W135 (no, I don't know why it has a number either), which tend to occur in other parts of the world and are very uncommon in the UK. We're not vaccinated against those either.

Where to get help fast

If left untreated 90% of people who catch meningoccal disease type B will die. Even if diagnosed early and treated, 5-10% will die and up to 1 in 7 of the survivors (and new research by the meningitis charities suggests that this may be an under-estimate) will be permanently disabled.

Speed is absolutely of the essence. And this is why all the charities and the doctor were unanimous. If you think it might be meningitis, get help.

Call your doctor. If you get fobbed off or ignored, insist, or call someone else.
Call NHS direct on 0845 4647 or NHS 24 (in Scotland) on 08454 24 24 24 (I've actually rung both from Scotland, and they don't turn you away if you're the wrong side of the Border.)
Call 0800 028 18 28 for the Meningitis Trust's 24 hour helpline to talk the symptoms through with someone who knows.
Or 0800 8800 3344 for the Meningitis Research Foundation's helpline.
Call 999.

Don't feel stupid or guilty, feel relieved and proud

If you're like me, you'll be thinking "Yes, but if it turns out just to be one of those non-specified viral infections it was last time, they'll be looking at me like I'm neurotic and then I'll feel stupid and guilty for wasting the doctor's, or worse, the paramedics', time". But we were told, again and again, that that's wrong. If you see the doctor and it's not meningitis, you should feel relieved, obviously, and proud that you have taken action that could have saved your child's life, even if it turned out not to be necessary.

You are your child's advocate. If you don't fight for them, no one else will.

The Meningitis Forum was an amazing thing to have taken part in. I don't tweet, but apparently tweets from those taking part reached over 21,000 people on Thursday alone. This is important information and should be disseminated. Please pass it on. The Meningitis Trust wants symptoms information in every house in the UK; I really hope that it is now in yours...

The three charities who attended the forum were

The Meningitis Trust - which supports people affected by Meningitis in the UK
Meningitis UK - which does pure research into finding vaccines to prevent against all forms of meningitis
The Meningitis Research Foundation - which funds research, supports those affected and raises awareness. They are currently, in advance of the new vaccine, running a campaign called Counting the Cost: weighing up the cost of caring for a meningitis sufferer against the costs of vaccination. You can sign their petition here asking the Government to do all it can to support immunisation against meningitis.

All of them have agreed to answer any questions, any at all, on meningitis that you put in the comments of this post. Now is your chance....

Thank you.

*In the interests of full disclosure, Novartis, the drug company that is, you guessed it, behind one of the two new vaccines against meningoccal disease B currently in development, set up the forum and paid for me (and M, who throroughly enjoyed his trip to Birmingham) to go. Thank you to them.

Balance bike or stabilisers?

2011-10-18T21:11:00.000+01:00

We have a policy on Christmas (and indeed birthday) presents: try and get them something that we'd be buying them anyway. It's worked so far, although I realise it probably won't for much longer, and certainly not once they hit school and peer pressure.

Anyway, this year, with L four and a half and S and A coming up three, we think it's time we introduced another life skill. Time to get up on two wheels. Bikes it is.

But even the world of bikes is not as straightforward as it was when my parents bought me "Bobcat" thirty-odd years ago. There are now choices: do we go for the tried and tested stabilisers, or the modern and trendy balance bike?

I rather feel that for L, we have missed the boat (if that's the right metaphor in this context) with a balance bike, although that might simply be because you tend to see very small children on them, and not the slightly bigger ones, but that for S and A, we could decide to go either way.

Fortunately we have cousins, and fortunately the cousins have both sorts, so this weekend we tried them out in an attempt to see what suits.

My instinctive preference is for the balance bike. If riding a bike breaks down into two parts: balancing and pedalling, then pedalling is, surely, the easy bit. Better therefore to master the tricky one first and then add the easy one.

The problem is, of course, that that leaves balancing as the tricky bit, and three year olds, or at least my nearly-three-year-olds, aren't that good at perseverance in the face of initial failure. They tried the balance bike, gave up and proceeded to fight over the one with pedals and stabilisers* for the simple reason that they could do it. My sister-in-law also pointed out that with twins, balance bikes, which require an initial intense element of parental participation, are even harder - you can't hold on to two children on bikes at the same time, apparently, especially if they're heading in opposite directions.

So I'm veering back to the principle of four wheels good, two wheels bad, but what do others think? Does mastering a balance bike first really make learning to ride a "proper" bike easier in the long run? Or doesn't it make much difference?

PS: You'll be pleased to hear that compromise was finally reached...

Places my car keys are not

2011-10-17T20:13:00.004+01:00

The car
The table
The kitchen worksurface
My handbag
My pocket
B's pocket
L's pocket
S's pocket
A's pocket
B's desk
The toy box
Under the bed
My handbag again
L's school bag
Under the table
In the pushchair
The bedside table
The chest of drawers
My handbag one more time (just in case)
Down the back of the sofa
On top of the cistern
M's carrycot
The other toy box
The wendy house
The fridge
The kitchen drawers
The fruit bowl
The bin (even under the nappies)
All the other bins
The recycling bin

Air of desperation...

The oven
The dishwasher
The tumble drier
The architect's pocket (he was here this morning)

My handbag. Still.

If I don't find them soon, my sanity might vanish too.

*************************************************************

Update - and one place they were!!! Under the kitchen table, tucked into the frame into which the leaf of the table would fold if it were folded. Thank you A. Didn't look there.

Brainwashed by the breastapo

2011-10-12T19:59:00.002+01:00

Let's get one thing straight. Breast is not "best". Breast is "better". Unless you think there are more than two options for feeding a new born of course. Pate de foie gras? Chicken biryani? Steak and kidney pudding?

I have breastfed all of my children. I did it because I believed, as I still do, that it is better for them and for me. L, A and S consumed nothing but breast milk for the World Health Authority's recommended six months and beyond that they had it combined with food. It was good for them. They grew and thrived and enjoyed it.

But M, who is now four months, is different. He is, clearly, enjoying it, and he is, equally clearly, thriving and developing. But he is still not, really, growing. At 19 weeks he's now about twelve pounds (I think), which is significantly smaller than a friend of mine's (admittedly very large) four week old.

He has, thus far, had nothing but breast milk. And if I want him to put on lots of weight, which he is not at the moment, there is an obvious plan of action. I can see it. I can virtually smell it (unpleasant isn't it?). Formula. Formula fed babies tend to put on weight quicker. They tend to be bigger. They tend, let's face it, not all to grow up to be psychopathic killers.

But I can't do it. I have been brainwashed.

I know, logically, that formula is fine. I have many friends who have either never breast fed, for whatever reason, or who have, again for multiple reasons, moved onto formula before weaning. Their children are all just as exasperatingly, infuriatingly, lovingly, brilliant as mine (well, not as mine, but as most other people's anyway...). I also live in a country where I am fortunate enough to have clean water with which to make up my bottles. Formula is not going to damage my baby. I know this.

But I don't feel it. And what's weird is clearly nor do the health visitors. I think part of this is that although M is small we are not, now, worried about him. He is growing - just not as quickly as most other babies - and he is tracking the bottom line on the authoritarian charts. He is doing all the things a baby of his age should do and he is happy and smiley with it. But while no one is worried, we are all agreed that it would be nice if he were a bit fatter. Yet when I wondered out loud about formula, I was met with looks of horror.

What is that about? How did we all get so scared of something which, let's face it, the majority of mothers in this country use from birth? How have we, intelligent women all, become so brainwashed?

How did I allow myself to get to the point where I feel that if I introduce a bottle, I will have failed. I will be that dread being, the bad mother? And how is it that I know I am not alone in feeling like this? Why am I ashamed by the thought of giving my baby a bottle in public? Why is it that I know if I were to do so, I would be judged, and found wanting? And, most importantly, how does that help the breast feeding campaign? Is this really what they would want? How is that better for mothers or babies?

I know that formula is not going to hurt my baby, and I also know that if I choose to give it to him it will be for all the right reasons. Surely that decision, whether made by me or any other mother, should be praised and not condemned.

There is, here, an added level, perhaps. For me, dealing with three other young and demanding children, the time I spend on the sofa or in bed, M on the breast, secure in a bubble of us, is the best and most focused time I can give him. He doesn't get much of me and this is something that I can do for and with him, and for him alone. More than that, it is something that only I can do. No-one else can (given the lack of wet nurses in the Yellow Pages) do this for my baby. That feels very important. I feel, somewhere visceral (or possibly mammarian) that I need M, in years to come, to know that I did this for him, that I loved him as much as his sisters.

But that's stupid isn't it? Because loving him as much doesn't mean treating him in exactly the same way. If formula is right for him then giving it to him is as much an act of love as breast-feeding him currently feels.

So I know all this. I really do. But despite that for the moment I'm going to hang on to my time with my tiny boy, and the experience that only we can share. It just feels, perhaps against logic, right for us. Maybe I really have been brainwashed.

The strange taxonomy of children's clothes

2011-10-10T20:41:00.001+01:00

Since having M I've become aware of a whole new area of children's clothing. It's not the blue stuff, or the green stuff, or the brown stuff, although there's plenty of that.
No, it's the crabs, and the whales, and the bears, and the lions, and the tigers, and the snails...

Why? Why don't these feature on my daughters' clothes? Well, obviously, I now realise, it's because they're boys' animals...

Before I had children I had no idea that animals were, or even could be, divided by gender (other than the obvious, is it a boy sheep or a girl sheep? sort of division). But it turns out they can. Someone, somewhere, has sat down with a list of animals and, Noah-like, sorted them out. The list probably looked something like this:

Boys' animals:
Reptiles and amphibians (all sorts), insects (all sorts except butterflies), lions and tigers (but not, it appears, leopards), hedgehogs, alsatians but not most other dogs, crustacea (all sorts), bears, sharks and whales, aardvarks, dragons.

Girls animals:
Cats, rabbits, horses, most farmyard and domestic animals (though I remain uncertain about goats), all small rodents (except rats. Rats don't seem to feature strongly on children's clothes of either gender); dalmatians, dachshunds and yorkshire terriers, butterflies, fish (other than sharks) but not crustacea, seahorses (do they go with horses or fish, do you think?), birds (all sorts except parrots), zebras, unicorns.

Parrots, giraffes and elephants, turtles and most Australian mammals appear to be unisex.

But honestly, who decides this stuff? And what on earth are the rules?

ps The eagle-eyed among you may notice I've changed the title of this post. I woke up this morning and decided it wasn't very me. Not sure if that's allowed, but I've done it anyway...

A venn diagram of what my children will eat*

2011-10-05T21:16:00.000+01:00

* slightly exaggerated

Of course, if I spent half as much time encouraging them to eat new things as I have working out how to get this diagram up here, I might not have needed the diagram.

I've got a lovely bunch.... of flowers.

2011-10-04T20:07:00.001+01:00

Every now and then someone offers you something through your blog that you just can't really refuse...

... so when Interflora said would I like them to send me some flowers, I think I might actually have bitten their hands off.

They arrived today, on their next-day flowers service (they offered me same-day flower delivery, but as we weren't here, and I wasn't generous enough to ask them to send them to someone else, I said no thanks).

And here they are - roses galore. I'm particularly loving the red and pink combination. With some funny berry-like things too that undoubtedly have a posh name but I don't know what it is.

Oh, and please ignore the arrangement. When I win the lottery and have time to spare (the former being more likely than the latter) I'm going to go on a flower arranging course. In the meantime I'm of the "just plonk them in" school. I did ask Interflora if they could send me one already in a vase, but they didn't have any available (although I'm assured they do normally). So I just had to put up with these instead. Poor old me.

Thank you very much to Interflora!

Reader, I won!

2011-09-30T22:58:00.001+01:00

I don't normally blog slightly tiddly.

But then this isn't a normal evening!

I am sitting in a bus stop on Oxford Street. It is the end of September. It is 10.45 pm. It is 20-something degrees.

I won the MAD blog awards!

I am officially the best pregnancy blogger of 2011!

I am so delighted. Not least because I won, but also because I met more than just a mother (who B thinks is funnier than me - he's right, incidentally) and Sandy from Baby Baby, and Jen from the Mad House, and Kelly, and Circus Queen and Melaina, and Sally, who organised the whole thing... and many others.... They were brilliant, all.

Thank you so much to everyone who voted for me.

You have made me very surprised. And very happy too,

* Can't link from the bus stop (and my phone), so if you're reading this and there are no links, come back next week...)

ps I should also mention two specific thanks that I was too over-excited (ahem) at the time to remember - thanks to Bounty, who sponsored my award, and to M&S who amazingly generously gave me an outfit. I bought a beautiful dress (which I'm clearly not alone in appreciating as it seems to be sold out, so I can't show you a picture) as well as some magic knickers (I did have a baby four months ago so I think that's understandable) and some black tights which it was way too hot to wear. Thank you both.

"Pregnancy reduction" - pro-choice vs. pro-twin?

2011-09-26T23:13:00.001+01:00

Mid-June 2008. 9 a.m. I am pregnant for the second time. We have a scan later that morning.

"I don't care what they tell us about this baby. Just as long as it's ok. And as long as it's not twins."

Same day. 11 a.m. Still pregnant.

"Are there twins in your family?...Because I think I can see two... "

Last night. 10 p.m. An article in the Guardian Magazine on Saturday has me leaping out of bed and scurrying along the corridor to sit in the dark in S and A's room...

I'd never heard of Pregnancy Reduction until last night. This is the deal: you are pregnant with twins. And you don't, for whatever reason, want twins. So one baby, selected, usually, by the doctors on the basis of accessibility and viability is...well, is what? I can't pick the right word. Is terminated. Is aborted. Is "extinguished". Is reduced.

It was late when I read this article. I was tired. I wanted to snuggle down and go to sleep. But instead I got up, padded along the corridor and sat with my twins for a minute or so. Just to remind myself that they were there.

Why? What is it about this article, about this possibility, that got, and gets, me so het up?

I didn't want twins. I really didn't. So I can understand, in part, the fear that drives this decision. But as soon as that sonographer told me I was having twins, I wanted them both, fiercely and protectively. So I can also say that had I even known that this was a possibility, I would never have considered it.

But why not? I am pro-choice. I have, fortunately, never had an unwanted pregnancy, so I can't possibly say what I would do in that situation, but I am, in principle, fiercely in favour of another woman's right to choose. If I am accepting and supportive, as I have been of friends who have had to make that choice, why and how is this different? Why is it acceptable to me to "reduce" one baby to none, but not two to one?

Why, if I read an article about abortion, do I not insist on going to sit with L, or M, or indeed A or S, to reassure them that they were wanted?

This is, I realise, utterly illogical. But I am not alone. One of the early pioneers of the procedure (all these words are so nuanced aren't they? I hesitate in using each one) no longer performs it, after all his staff, from the sonographer to the receptionists, confirmed that they were not comfortable with what he was doing.

Why? My twins are special, of course they are. But if you asked me whether their specialness was bound up in the fact that they are twins, I would fiercely deny it, and point, instead, to S's charm, and A's determination, or A's demands for cuddles, and S's hesitations before she speaks. I am certain that twins, any twins, are individuals before they are a pair.

So if I have no moral objection to terminating a singleton pregnancy that would have produced a child that would have been just as special in its own way, why does the idea of destroying half of a pair feel so wrong?

A year in books

2011-09-23T11:42:00.001+01:00

I said I was going to blog about each book I read as I finished it.

I was wrong. Instead, for a whole year, I've done this with them:

I like to think they add a certain je ne sais quoi (messiness?) to the room. But perhaps they're easier to see like this:

That's a year in books, or at least the books I read at home.

The best of that lot? The Christopher Brookmyre or the Margaret Atwood
The most annoying? Definitely Sebastian Faulks
The most unnecessarily hyped? The Slap
The most useful? Probably the potty training one...

And for completeness' sake, here are some other books I read in other places:

It's a suitably random selection, if nothing else...

Is it worse to scream at your children or to have them see you cry?

2011-09-22T17:15:00.000+01:00

Just asking.

Because sometimes it's one or the other.

There's no such thing as a "baby essential"

2011-09-21T08:00:00.000+01:00

When B and I got married we (I say "we", but what I really mean is "my mother") had arranged for a bus to take guests back from the reception to the various hotels they were staying at. One couple had come with their then five-week-old daughter. They had planned not to drink and to drive back to the hotel, but one glass of champagne led to another and 1 o'clock in the morning found them (with the baby, an achievement in itself) on the bus back to the hotel. Unfortunately the carry cot, the spare nappies, the nappy bag, and all the rest of the paraphernalia were still in the car at the reception.

They are resourceful though, my friends, and so, finding themselves, a little tiddly, in a strange hotel with a new baby, they ransacked the cupboards for spare blankets, padded out the bath, settled her in and had as restful a night's sleep as you can have with a new born and the beginnings of a hangover.

I find myself repeating that story a lot whenever I read another press release about "Baby Must-Haves", normally shortly followed by "Top Unnecessary Buys for your Baby". Because maybe it's just me but it seemed to me, particularly when shopping for baby things the first time round, that the entire baby stuff industry had, subliminally, one slogan:

If you don't buy this, it means you don't love your baby.

Made me cross then. Still makes me cross now. Because, in fact, as it turns out, there is only one baby essential you can buy.

A car seat. Because if you've had your baby in hospital they won't let you go home without one. The midwives wanted to escort us to our car when we left with M because B hadn't brought the car seat in with him. They did eventually concede that with three other children to control, it was understandable that he hadn't chosen to lug in a piece of reinforced plastic and it was raining so they decided to trust us, but apparently they shouldn't have. Hospital policy: no car seat; no baby.

But that aside, there is nothing a baby needs that can't be fabricated in extremis.

Cot? Bath, drawer, pushchair, blanket on the floor. With a big blanket you can make a double bed for two babies and wedge them in on either side with pillows. I know, I've tried it.

Nappies? Muslin and a nappy bag with two holes in it for legs (not pretty but it will get you down the hill and into the nearest corner shop, where you can rip open an unpaid for pack of Pampers and stick your baby in one of them in the bread aisle. It's not the best look for turning up at your husband's godmother's but needs must.)

Clothes? Amazing how good a look the toga is on a three month old.

You get my drift.

But I've also found, over the last four years, that while there is nothing you need there is plenty that you might want...

So here it is, my top wish list of lovely baby things. None of them essential, all of them delicious. Apart from the breast pads which are most definitely not lovely or delicious, but I wish I'd known about four years ago:

Posh nappy bag. I just bought myself, on child number four, a swanky leather nappy bag. It makes me feel feminine and glamorous, no small feat when your nipples are at your knees and you have sick on your shoulder.

Baby Bjorn bouncy chair. Stupidly, stupidly expensive and I absolutely refused to buy one. Then we were lent two for S and A and they loved them and used to wail when I used the cheapy one that we had had for L. When my sister-in-law asked me for baby recommendations I said one of these. She bought one and about six months later I'm borrowing it from her for M. Feel a bit guilty about that...

Sling. Doesn't matter what sort, but hands free mobility is a life saver.

Merino stuff. I'm a complete convert to merino. It's one of those things, along with Napisan, that Antipodean friends raved about and I thought "yadda yadda yadda, yes it's wool, so what", but then we bought merino grow bags for L and they have lasted her, S and A and are now onto M. You don't have to worry about tog weights and they last and last and wash in the machine and I could rave about them all day. And then the lovely people at Nature Shop (who, as it so happens, also sell the sleeping bags) sent M a blanket (although they call it a wrap) (as modelled above) and me a dress and I love them too. The blanket is so fine you think it won't do anything but he's slept wrapped up in it every night since he got it, and it makes a splendid toga too (see above). As for the dress*, well, it's not designed for breastfeeding, but it works (wraparound), and, even better, it makes me look and feel good, and warm, and it goes in the machine. Genius.

Huge muslins. Another kiwi thing (top tip, next time you're having a baby, have it in New Zealand, they appear to have all the best stuff). I have no idea where these came from as a Kiwi friend gave them to me but they're brilliant: muslin, blanket, wrap, tent, breast-hider and picnic rug in one.

Carry cot. Pushchairs are controversial items. They're so eye-wateringly expensive that everyone you ask has to try and convince you that theirs is the absolutely best one, last word, bees knees thing in baby transport solutions. Clearly, the right pushchair for me is not going to be the right pushchair for someone else who has different numbers and ages of children living a different sort of life. (Prime example: the pushchair I have now, which I love, wouldn't have fitted through my front door in London, despite the manufacturers' claims. Top tip: if buying a side-by-side double pushchair, please measure your door first). The one thing I would recommend though is that your pushchair has a carrycot. I love being able to lift M in and out, and in fact he likes his carrycot so much he sleeps in it day and night. I also love the fact that I can get four children into a pushchair made for two, but that's a different story.

Lansinoh breast pads. It has taken a great deal of messy market research by me but these are absolutely the best.

And on the same front, lovely dress above notwithstanding, I am a big advocate of breast feeding clothes. There's something very liberating about being able to feed your baby in public without exposing your post-natal stomach or anything else. There are all sorts of small companies out there making really nice clothes that don't look "specialist" and are definitely worth supporting (pun intended).

Oh, and Anita make underwired nursing bras. Genius.

Reading through this list, it occurs to me, not only that this post has got too long as usual, but also how many of these things are for me, and not for my baby. Now I could, in a spirit of maternal guilt, take that to mean I care more about myself than my baby, but I don't think it's that. Or at least I hope it's not.

In fact, I think I've hit on something more important here than just "lovely new stuff". I think if there's one thing that really is essential for a baby, it's that its mother is, as far as she is able, happy and comfortable in her new life. I think even for those of us who are lucky enough to escape any form of post-natal depression, and even fourth time round, it's a huge adjustment and one in which our own identity can easily get lost. Now I realise that my identity shouldn't be tied up in my physical appearance, but I also know that if I look together, I find it much easier to feel together, and at a time when my identity feels fragmented into disparate parts of 95% harrassed mother and the rest varying proportions of daughter, wife, employee, friend, sister, neighbour, self; nurturing the "self" bit feels like less of an indulgence and more of a necessity.

So perhaps it's not If you don't buy this, it means you don't love your baby, perhaps it should be more If you want to be able really to love your baby, it helps if you love yourself. Sounds like the sort of thing that you'd buy, laminated, to stick on your fridge. Doesn't make it not true though.

* This is not a link to the website of the people who kindly sent it to me, as they seem to have taken it off there, but it is the same dress. Ask them if they can get you one! It's brilliant.

And in the interests of disclosure, Nature Shop sent me the wrap and the dress. They also sent me a really lovely organic cotton baby grow for M. Everything else I mention in here was either bought with my own money or a present/loan from a friend or family.

M is for midget

2011-09-20T13:47:00.003+01:00

So I spoke to the GP about M's weight.

Actually, that's a lie. I sent the GP a text that said "I'm a bit worried about M. I can't get an appointment with you for a week. Fancy coming round here, so that I can cook your children lunch and you can inspect my baby?"

And he said "Yes, how about Sunday?".

Sometimes I love living in a very small town.

Anyway, they all came round (his wife is also a GP), and poked at M, who smiled obligingly and looked thoroughly healthy, and we agreed that there was nothing obvious wrong, and that maybe we should come in to the surgery to have M checked out properly for the scarily vague Failure to Thrive.

Which we did, last Thursday. M was weighed and measured and prodded and listened to, and turned upside down and tickled, and had put on 8 ounces in just over a week.

Which still doesn't make him huge, but does put him back on the scale (at the 0.4th centile rather than just under it). More importantly his head circumference is still where it was at birth (75th centile - it's all those brains), and so is his length (25th). The GP and I went through the list of possible causes of Failure to Thrive (I feel it needs capitals) and none of them seemed to apply, so we are left where we were.

With a small baby. Whom I am to feed a bit more often.*

He's still not weed on me though.

*That bit obviously because one is not allowed to leave a health professional's office without having added to the layers of maternal guilt...It's one of the NHS's founding principles.

Would I know if there was something wrong with my baby?

2011-09-08T12:30:00.000+01:00

My baby is off the scale.

He is the best baby in the world. Officially. I've had three other babies so I should know.

He is three months old now. He gurgles, he smiles, he giggles. He grins at me, B, and the girls. He recognises our voices, he turns his head towards them. He rarely cries, preferring to sit and watch the chaos, smiling and nodding in non- judgemental approval.

He feeds well and happily, jaw moving strongly, eyes closed in pleasure, or wide open, framed by unfairly long lashes, as he seeks my gaze.

He sleeps, sometimes calmly and without moving, and sometimes noisily, sucking determinedly at the thumb he discovered about five weeks ago, but always deeply and solidly. For twelve hours a night and several during the day.

He has never weed on me.

He is the best baby in the world. He is off the scale of wonderful babyness. Even if he proves me wrong tomorrow and wees all over the place before wailing solidly through the night.

He does everything you would want a baby of his age to do. Only, of course, better. He is perfect.

But he is off the scale.

He is three months old and he weighs 10lb 4oz. In the last six weeks he has put on six ounces. Plotted against the newborn growth charts he is below the 0.04th centile.

He is off the scale.

If you lined up 1000 babies born on the same day as him, he would be one of the smallest four. The NHS red book says that babies of this size "will normally be referred to a paediatrician".

But M is not, yet, being referred. He is developing normally, he is doing everything a normal baby would and should do. He is not hungry. The health visitors are not worried. I am not worried.

Until we look at the charts.

One of the health visitors told me, and I don't think she was joking, that I should just stop getting him weighed. But then they looked at each other, and I could see the confusion and the tiny little edge of concern. Instinctively we all think he's fine. Small, but fine.

But what if we're wrong?

An off-line life

2011-09-07T22:19:00.000+01:00

It's opener there in the wide open air.

said Dr Seuss. And while I'm not normally a Dr Seuss fan (I think, like Bugsy Malone and pink biscuits, you have to have loved him as a child to appreciate him as an adult), there's something about The Places You'll Go that has resonated since I first read it, not that long ago, when I was a mother of a mere three.

Because that's where I've been. Off-line and out there. Since I last posted, over six weeks ago, back in the distant country that was July, Summer, sunshine and short sleeves, I have been, well, nowhere very exciting. But just out there, in the wide open air. And not here. Not on the computer. Not online.

That's a lie, of course, because I suspect that you have to make a conscious effort really to be off-line, and I wasn't doing that. I just wasn't actively here. I wasn't actually even passively here either. I read comments on my blog, because I get emails with them in, and I get them on my phone, but that was it. I didn't read other people's blogs, and I certainly didn't write my own.

So if anyone's done anything really exciting over the last six weeks, do please let me know. I'm going to try and catch up, but I'm bound to miss something.

And I enjoyed it. Without realising it, somehow blogging had become a chore. Another job to be done, to be squeezed into the lack of hours in my day. This blog is my space, and I was starting to resent it. I wanted to be doing something else: talking to my children, or my husband; reading a book; cuddling my baby; unpacking a box.

And I started to forget about this blog, and when I did find myself reminded, to think of it with a bit of a jolt, and a slight feeling of dread. That dread you get when you know there's something you have to do but you can't quite make yourself do it.

So I pushed it to the back of my mind and turned the computer off, ignored my emails and let it, and my mind, gather dust.

But then, a little while ago, about last week, I found myself writing posts in my head, and wondering what was going on in here, online, and so I am back, blowing the dust off and flexing my knuckles.

Now I've just got to think of something to write about.

Why would you not vaccinate your children? I really want to know.

2011-07-26T19:47:00.000+01:00

M had his first jabs today. It was surprisingly ok. For both him and me. My mother-in-law said to me, when L had her first jabs; "You've introduced pain into her world" and I of course remembered that again today. But despite the crumpling of his face, and the indignant look he gave me, and the tearless wailing, I can't feel guilty for doing something that I believe can only be of benefit to him.

But it made me think about something I read in Juno in the first few weeks after he was born.

Juno (which was very sweetly sent to me by its editor Saffia, of Motherhood and Anarchy) supports and reports on a natural approach to family life and in many ways it doesn't sound like it's aimed at me. I didn't, and was never tempted to, eat any of my placentas, whether fried or encapsulated (who knew you could even do that?), my kids will go to school, they eat meat and were born in hospital, I use disposables. Our family life is often chaotic but not, in the parenting sense, always very natural.

But other people do do these things, and it is interesting to read about them. As Saffia said in the editorial to the Spring edition, "there is no absolute right way to live... no parenting formula that will ensure you will raise 'perfect' children". If I do something and others don't, that's fine. We're all different. We don't need to judge.

And I read that, and nodded, tolerantly and probably smugly. And then I read this letter. And I realised that I do judge.

I have not vaccinated my baby girl and I feel very much in the minority. With so much ignorance surrounding vaccines I feel as though I have to keep justifying my decision, or just keep quiet so as not to invite judgement and criticism...

Because if I met that woman I would judge. I would want her to justify her decision. I would criticise. Because I just don't get it. More than that. I think, and I know this will offend, but bear with me, that not vaccinating your children is verging on the criminal. If I have my kids at home, or I don't send them to school, or I feed them meat I'm not harming anyone else. You might not agree with my decisions for my children, but they affect only ourselves. I am not putting anyone else in danger.

But if I don't vaccinate my children and they get measles, and they pass that measles on to another child, that child could die. He or she could be brain damaged. Or wind up deaf or blind.

If I choose to put my child's life at risk, that is my choice. Whatever others might think of me and my attitude to parenting, it is only my child who is affected. But if I make a choice that could potentially harm someone else's child, and I do it with disregard for the harm it could do to someone else's child, I honestly don't see how that is different from drink driving. Honestly. If drink drivers only ever killed themselves, would it be seen as such a heinous thing to do? I don't think so.

But before you lynch me for my outrageously blinkered judgementalism, read on. Because Saffia's right. We all parent in our own way, and we shouldn't judge others' choices. And although I am judging at the moment, it is only through ignorance. So can anyone explain it to me? Why do people choose not to vaccinate their children? Even if they still think, despite all the evidence, that MMR is bad for their children why would they also choose not to vaccinate against meningitis, or tetanus, or polio? I honestly don't understand. What are they afraid of? What is it that they are choosing to protect their children from that is worth potentially exposing them to these hideous diseases? I've never read or heard anything that has made me even question my decision to vaccinate my children, but maybe I should have done. What is it that I don't know?

Please do tell me. I don't promise to change my mind about what I have done for my children, but I do promise not to judge. And if I understand, maybe I will be less likely to judge in future.

It's official. Blogging made me a bad mother.

2011-07-22T21:56:00.000+01:00

I've read quite a bit recently about Jojo Moyes' article in the Telegraph saying that blogging and hands-on parenting are incompatible. All parent bloggers are, according to Ms Moyes, plonking their children in front of CBeebies while they fritter their lives away online criticising people they've never met for the choices they've made for their children (who, of course, they've also never met).

Bloggers are bad parents. Allegedly.

And I would have ranted about this. And pointed out that I am only blogging this evening because B has put Clash of the Titans on and there's a limit to my tolerance for really dreadful special effects. And that in so doing, I am only ignoring him, my children having been put to bed at a sensible hour after a home cooked (ish, it was fishfingers) meal with real vegetables (broccoli and peas, if you're interested). Or how I never turn the computer on while they're awake (with good reason, sticky fingers can cause havoc on a keyboard). Or how television is only allowed for fifteen supervised minutes or so a day. Or when they're ill. As A was last Friday.

But unfortunately Ms Moyes is right. Blogging has made me a bad parent.

Cast your mind back to last Friday, when A was feeling poorly, and sitting wrapped up in a blanket in front of Toy Story. Friday is officially a working day for me so the girls (when not ill) go to nursery and I get a break from the cooking of fish fingers and the breaking up of arguments; but as M is only seven weeks old, I'm giving myself Fridays off. This means I could do the unthinkable - I invited to my house someone who I had met online. Unprotected and unchaperoned, I met a real blogger.

I was terribly nervous, but she, (am I allowed to name her?) was just as lovely in the flesh as in the word and we had a delightful hour or so in the sunshine, admiring my baby, eating chocolate digestives, and talking, oddly, about pretty much anything other than being a mum.

And I had such a nice time that I completely forgot to feed my daughter. Until she had an enormous tantrum and I realised that it was 1 pm and neither of us had had lunch.

See. A bad mother. Blogging did that. Ms Moyes is right...

How long after you have a baby does it take to get your figure back?

2011-07-19T12:41:00.000+01:00

My sister asked me this about three weeks ago, with that tone in her voice that only a sister can muster. The tone that actually says:

"And why haven't you got yours back yet?"

To which the answer, variously, is:

Nine months on, nine months off. And probably longer if it's your fourth and your stomach muscles are in several bits.

Oh for goodness' sake, he's four weeks old, give me a break

Do I look like bl00dy Giselle Bundchen?

Are you saying I'm fat? Weeps... (for the guilt inducing effect only, honest).

But she's got a point. One of the wonderfully odd things about my experience with this baby is how easy he's been. He sleeps, he feeds, he smiles. And it means that I keep forgetting how little he is and how recently I couldn't get through the door with a laundry basket (seriously, it was a great excuse not to do any laundry) and getting cross with myself because none of my clothes do up, and those that do give me a muffin top of which Starbucks would be proud.

And that's totally unreasonable. Because I'm not Giselle Bundchen, or Posh (although I get the impression she's in fashion-induced purdah at the moment, and we'll not see her again until she has been starved and winched into a size 0 dress of her own design) and I don't have a nutritionist, or a personal trainer, or indeed the will-power or desire to acquire either in pursuit of some (for me, frankly unobtainable) aesthetic goal.

Plus what's the point of needing an extra 500 calories a day if you can't eat them entirely in chocolate cake?

The thing is, I don't even know if I could be doing something about it, even if I wanted to. Is this actually a time to give my body a break and let it do what it wants? There is a little part of me suspecting (clinging to the hope) that it probably wouldn't be very sensible dieting or exercising at this stage, especially given that my body is a stranger to both. Is that right? Or would the boost to my ego of getting back in my jeans actually make me feel better than that extra slice of chocolate cake does?

Whatever the answer, the problem is, my sister's got it wrong. I don't actually want my figure back. I want someone else's. Angelina Jolie's would do.

On helping Mummy

2011-07-12T15:05:00.000+01:00

B, on leaving the house:

"L, are you going to be a good girl for Mummy?"
"Yes"

"A, are you going to be a good girl for Mummy?"
"Yes"

"S, what are you going to be for Mummy?"
"A mouse."

Oh good.

I could have been a contender.

2011-07-04T19:41:00.000+01:00

M is five weeks old tomorrow. So I'm going back to work.

No, I haven't gone insane, I'm just self-employed. And it's not as bad as it sounds. It's only one day a week, and it won't even be for the full day, but I do feel that I need to keep my hand in, my face known and my brain ticking over, or I won't have a client left when I do go back. And given that I only have one client, even if that client is my former employer, I kind of need to keep in with them.

So I'm not complaining. Much.

Actually I'm not complaining at all. I don't have to do this. The government very kindly gives me £120 a week not to work, and by choosing to work, I'm going to lose that (or at least I am after ten days of working), so I'm not doing this lightly. I'm doing it because I like my job and because I am incredibly lucky to have it. My client has supported (and indeed made possible) a move to Scotland and is continuing to support my career, even if I'm not technically employed by them any more. I get to work when I like and for as long as I like; I'm averaging about eight hours a week at the moment, which I get to do from the comfort of my own home, and it pays me enough to keep me in breastpads and floortiles...

So I am unbelievably lucky. I am out of the rat race. I no longer have to juggle. I don't have to make apologies to my colleagues for leaving early and to the nursery for arriving late, or take holiday when someone has chicken pox, or have my heart broken when someone else falls over and calls out the nanny's name rather than my own. I don't have to feel like my entire life is a compromise any more.

But then last week I found something out.

I have only had one real job in my life. I started on 10 September 2001, a new trainee solicitor with seven others. Of the eight of us, only three, including myself, are left with any connection to the firm.

And last week the other two were made partners.

That could have been me. That should have been me. I am as good a lawyer as either of them. I could have had that badge, that validation to the outside world that I am good at my job, that I have a brain and I'm not afraid to use it.

It could have been me. I could have stayed in the jungle of the juggle. I could, like the one of the other two who is also a woman, have dashed back to work early after maternity leave to prove my commitment. I could have stopped at one child. I could have remained in our little house in London. I could have stayed late at work to schmooze, to network, to bring in business. I could have written articles in my spare time, and got my name known and my face recognised.

I could have been a contender.

But I'm not. And I won't ever be. And the thing is I didn't, and don't, want to be. I made a decision to step away from that life, and I did it with my eyes open. I didn't want to be that person, and I didn't want to do any of those things. I looked at the future, at the prospect of that life and I decided that it wasn't for me. And I know that that was, and is, the right decision for us.

So why am I still just a little bit miffed?

Where did our confidence go?

2011-06-24T19:28:00.000+01:00

As I sit here, girls in bed (without too many tantrums), one hand on keyboard, little finger of the other in M's mouth (makes typing tricky but keeps him quiet), I feel, for a brief moment, like I know what I'm doing.

Which is clearly enormously tempting fate, so watch this space for news of an epic disaster (along the lines of the deer that jumped out in front of the car on the A1 last weekend - necessitating a lot of explaining to Direct Line about why offering us a fiesta to get home in wasn't going to work).

That aside, as I have a fleeting moment of confidence, I've been finding myself wondering: as a species, where did our confidence go?

This is my fourth baby, so you'd sort of expect me to know what I'm doing wouldn't you? I certainly expected that I would. But, while I definitely do have more confidence than I did with L, and more time than I did with A and S, I still find myself at a loss more often than not; asking for reassurance, checking the baby bible, reconfirming to myself that if I feed him again, or leave him to cry, or take him out for dinner with my mum, or let him roll off the sofa at three days old (a real low point), I'm not going to doom him, or destroy him, or ruin his chances of getting a proper job in twenty-odd years time.

But if I were a zebra I wouldn't feel like this. If I were a chimpanzee, or a kangaroo, or a mouse, I'd have my baby, or my multiple babies (and wouldn't having fourteen make twins feel like a walk in the park on a sunny day?), and I'd just get on with it: I'd know how he latches on, and that I'm doing it right; I'd know how to keep him warm without letting him get too hot or cold; I'd know, instinctively, how to keep him safe.

So why can't we? Why is there this huge industry around telling us stuff that every other animal knows without asking?

I mentioned this to my sister-in-law the other day, and she said it was about the information - because the information is there, we become insecure and we rely on it. She said if we weremembers of an undiscovered tribe living in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, we wouldn't feel like this; we would still have that instinctive certainty.

I'm not so sure. I suspect that for all a Papuan new mum may not have Gina Ford, or the baby whisperer, health visitors, community midwives, the co-parenting lobby, the nanny state or the breastapo, I bet she has a mother, a granny, an aunt or a neighbour, all regaling her with their stories of dreadful deliveries and breast-feeding nightmares, and all telling her, "We didn't do it like that when you were young" or, "Oh, no, we do it like this now".

I think it's something to do with being human. As a species we no longer have confidence in ourselves. But I'd love to know when it was lost. And I'd love even more to know how to get it back again.

***********************************************

ps Once again I feel like Cinderella. I am not off to CyberMummy tomorrow, due to new babies, small children, builders and the late and not at all lamented deer. Instead I will be heading back up the A1 to home, hopefully in a car which will fit us all. I will however be wishing I were there and sending a big hello to everyone. Have fun for me.

Four children, two adults, ten days.

2011-06-10T19:41:00.000+01:00

Well. Here we are. Ten days in. I have been discharged from midwifery care. We're officially on our own. Flying solo, just me, B, the children (it's very odd not being able to say "the girls" any more) and the tummy bug.

Oh? Did I not mention the tummy bug? It came to visit about five days ago and has cut a swathe through the girls (see, I can use it, but only in very specific circumstances), though so far has avoided B, me and, thank everything, M. While I'm grateful for that particular small mercy, I will confess that the clearing up of midnight vomit is not made better by the knowledge that you'll be up again at least once more before morning, whether anyone's sick or not.

Other low moments:

Tantrums. Lots of them. Not sure if it's being 2 1/2 or being a big sister or being ill, but the combination of all three has resulted in a lot of screaming. And that's just me.

The new shower screen shattering into a million pieces all over the plumber (who is fine, but shocked), meaning we can't move back into our bedroom this weekend after all.

The discovery by A and S that they can get out of bed. On their own. Whenever they like.

And the discovery that this gets more and more fun the later you do it.

The discovery by A and S that this skill is also useful during the afternoon nap.

Losing S's Piggy. Admittedly it was the spare Piggy and we have now found it, but it was a moment of sheer panic. For both of us.

B and I, both very tired, both fed up of clearing up sick and forcing recalcitrant toddlers back into bed, both at the end of our tether with being shouted at, nearly, but not quite, reducing each other to tears through sheer rattiness.

And the highs:

Paternity leave. Thank you, thank you, thank you Tony Blair. I could not have got through the last ten days without B who has been utterly utterly fabulous in every way. I never expected to have luxurious lie-ins with just my baby asleep in his crib beside me, but I have had them, every day since he was born, while B gets up with the lark (and the girls), gets them dressed, gets them breakfasted, even does their hair... It's six years tomorrow that we said "I do" and I couldn't be happier that I did.

Sleep. I know, that sounds ridiculous, but when the girls let us, we are actually getting some sleep. I realise that I am dooming myself by even admitting this, but M is letting us have six hours between feeds at night which at 10 days old I couldn't have hoped for and am more than happy with.

Breast feeding. And breast feeding just one. Don't get me wrong, I am delighted for both me and the (little) girls (see, it gets confusing, doesn't it?) that I fed them myself, but it was rarely anything other than functional: strap on cushion, lower self heavily onto sofa, roll baby up arm onto cushion, repeat on other side, feed... With just one you get all that lovely post-feed cuddling, the incredible lightness of a newborn against your shoulder as you wind him, the weird lopsidedness of having one full and one empty. I'm loving all that, I really am. And even better, he's regained his birthweight so I feel like I'm doing a good job too.

Big sisters. We've had our moments (see above), but there is something so incredibly heart-warmingly magical about how they want to stroke his head, or change his nappies (aka hold the nappy bag), or choose his clothes. I know there will be fights, and arguments, and tantrums, to come, but when it works, it's amazing.

And us. We are complete now. This is our family, and there hasn't been a day since he was born that I haven't, if only for thirty seconds, looked at the six of us, walking down the lane, or transfixed by Octonauts (well, maybe not all of us) and felt a glow of pride, and luck, and joy.

The birth story

2011-06-05T21:35:00.000+01:00

We are five days in. I am typing this half-lying on the sofa, arms outstretched to the laptop balanced precariously on my knee, while a small, very small, person snuffles into my neck.

It is magic. The sleepless nights, the logistics of managing four under five, the living in a building site are as nothing beside how magical it is to know this little person, who five days ago we hadn't met and couldn't imagine.

Can you tell we're still on a high?

It seems incredible that it is only five days since he was born. I'm already finding it impossible to imagine a life without him in it, as though he has always been here.

Yet it is only five days. This time six days ago I was settling down to bed in hospital, believing, irrationally, that I was never going to have this baby, and, more rationally, that I was going to be sent home in the morning, still bleeding, still intermittently contracting, still pregnant.

It was not to be.

If you are squeamish, uninterested in these sorts of details, or related to me by blood or marriage, you might want to look away now...

If you're still reading, and haven't read this post, it'll give you the background, but when I woke up in hospital at 3 am last Tuesday I was definitely not in labour, and I was definitely fed up. My mum had dashed up on Sunday when I was admitted and B sent her off to Tesco's to buy pineapple and curry, while he came in to bring me home, and the girls went to nursery.

And then the doctor appeared, examined me, and said; "Actually, we've changed our minds, we're going to break your waters. Have a nice morning, get some lunch and we'll be back at one-ish."

Oh.

We spent the morning sorting out the logistics back at home and walking, just to get some fresh air. I wish now that I had spent some more time relishing being pregnant, but I didn't and now I can barely remember what it felt like.

2pm. We are in the labour ward. I am not contracting, haven't, in fact, since mid-afternoon the day before, but nonetheless, this is happening. A midwife and doctor are doing unimaginable things with what looks like a knitting needle. Nothing happens, although they think they've broken through the membranes. We are sent for a long walk.

2.55. We are back from our walk. We have got very familiar with the loop up and round the hill over the last couple of days. The views from here are still much nicer than they were in London, and even better, this time the walking seems to have worked. I am definitely having contractions.

3pm. Oh. My waters have definitely broken now. Ow. Tens machine.

3.45. I look at the clock. This pain is almost unbearable I've only really been going for an hour. I can't take much more of this. I desperately want to be examined, to be told that I'm nearly there, but I know I can't be and I am frightened to be told that I have hours more of this to endure. I have apparently lost all my colour. I am made to lie down. I turn the machine up.

4.10. I ask, somehow, what happens next, and am told that although things seem to be happening quickly, I am probably still a way away, but I will, in due course, feel pressure in my bottom and an urge to push. I think; "I've been feeling pressure in my bottom. Don't hope. Don't hope. Don't say anything. It can't be."

4.15 (according to my notes). The midwife has gone to the loo. "I am pushing!". B is rushing down the corridor, desperately shouting for her. She runs in, dragging on an apron. Shouting for a colleague.

Push. Pause. Pant. Push. Pause. Pant.

I am very present in the moment, in a way I don't remember with L. It hurts. More than I could have possibly imagined or remembered.

Now.

4.29. "Put your hands down".

I have my baby. M. He is warm, and wet, and pink. He is not crying, but he is snuffling, breathing loudly and noisily. B is crying and now so is M. I am in love.

After L, A and S, comes baby T!

2011-05-31T19:14:00.001+01:00

Well, he was worth the wait.

Baby T (actually M but 'T' still amuses me and I've just given birth very fast so I'm entitled to be indulged).

His official time of birth is 4.29 pm. He weighs 7lb 7oz (3.38 kg) and measures (ish, clearly) 51 cm (they didn't tell us that in inches). He has dark hair and blue eyes and looks remarkably like L did.

He is obviously the most perfect baby boy ever to have been born.

What a difference a day makes! (One for the playlist, I feel)

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After posting this, I realised that this week's Gallery subject was "I am grateful for...". This post was obviously not written for the Gallery, but I couldn't miss the opportunity. Click here to see what everyone else is grateful for.

Not a birth story

2011-05-31T04:23:00.001+01:00

I know I said no more "waiting" posts. But then I hadn't planned for this.

It is 4am. I am in hospital. I am still pregnant.

I am bleeding. Not much, and not from, I am told, anywhere worrying ("oh, right, but then where is it coming from?") It started at 3 am on Sunday morning with a big clot (sorry if you're sensitive) and a dash in here. Eight hours and lots of monitoring later we were home, having abandoned the girls with, successively, a neighbour, my brother-in-law and B, once it became obvious that whatever was happening I wasn't having a baby.

Then the same on Monday night. 3 am. Blood. Ring. Dash. This time my mum was there, having left my dad with ten minutes warning and enough pills and ready meals for four days.

And, oh, the welcome pain! Contractions, real contractions, at last, after days of threatening and wondering. I am 4cm dilated. "Your baby will be here by 11.30" says the midwife as she puts in the cannula I need just in case (previous c-s again) and gives me the gas and air.

I will be examined again at 9 and if appropriate my waters will be broken.

It is 10 am. Time has a looser meaning in the NHS. My contractions have stopped. A new midwife will not break my waters because she thinks (the first disagrees) I am not ready. Nor will she give me gel, or a drip, or even another sweep.

I am moved off the labour ward to await a scan to see what is causing the bleeding.

And oh! More pain! I say nothing, willing it to stay, to worsen, to progress. I can't hide my silences every three minutes from B. We say nothing, hope nothing, pretend it's not hapenning.

Three hours later we are right. It is not happening. I cry. Huge heaving sobs of self-pity and disappointment. B reminds me that all this means is "not today" but I am lost in the irrationality of dashed hope.

I am scanned. All is fine. I am admitted for overnight observation. Others come and go. Off to labour ward and the arrival of their babies. B leaves to relieve my mum.

I wait. I will the pain to return. I sleep. I wake at three again. Sleep is elusive, contractions intermittent and merely uncomfortable.

I will be going home in the morning. I will have my baby, but I will still not have met him. I am, even while knowing how lucky I am, how I will, whatever happens, meet him in the next eight days, how this is merely a delay and a disappointment, fed up.

Dear So and So - the bored now edition.

2011-05-27T11:45:00.002+01:00

Dear Baby,

Come out? Please?

Mummy x

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Dear S,

Just because you can climb out of your cot, doesn't mean you should. And 3 am is never an acceptable time to get up. Ever.

Mummy x

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Dear Baby,

Please come out.

Mummy x

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Dear A,

Yes, ok, you've understood, and you stay in. Very clever. Well done. Thank you.

Still no excuse for being filthy during the day though.

Although when you look at me like that I can forgive you pretty much anything. But that works for your sisters too.

Mummy x

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Dear Baby,

Come on!

Mummy x

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Dear L,

I said I'd never say it, but...

Life's not fair. Sorry.

And being told off for something you did wrong has absolutely nothing to do with fairness, equality or the state of the world economy, it's just what happens. Tough.

Mummy x

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Dear baby,

What do you want?

I've walked, I've bounced, I've drunk endless cups of raspberry leaf tea. I've eaten curry (Indian and Thai).

I've even resorted to leering suggestively at your father.

Is it pineapple? Because I can get pineapple...

Mummy x

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Dear builders,

You're doing a fantastic job. You really are. I'm so pleased. Just do you think you could do it slightly quicker? Would be lovely to have somewhere to put this baby... Oh, and a kitchen would be nice too.

Harriet

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Dear medical professionals and random women in the supermarket,

Yes, I know I should be resting. Yes, I know that the baby won't come if I'm not relaxed (actually I think that's nonsense - if I don't relax for 22 months does that make me an elephant), yes, I know I should get lots of early nights, but have you seen what's going on in this house?

My mother is 350 miles away and caring for my father, my mother's help is on holiday, my children are refusing to sleep, the builder needs to know whether I want the lights "here" or "here", and you want me to rest?

Yours grumpily

Kitchen-less woman, ex-pat (sort of) daughter, and mother-of-three and a nearly.

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Dear friends,

I've known only a few of you for more than a year, yet I am overwhelmed with how kind you are being. I have a list of names and numbers, and I know that whoever I ring, at whatever time, will be here like a shot.

Thank you all so much. I am doing everything I can to ensure that this baby arrives at a civilised hour.

Sadly, that's nothing, but it's the thought that counts.

Harriet x

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Dear self

Shut up. He'll come when he comes.

Bored now.

Me x

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Dear readers,

Sorry if I'm getting slightly tedious on the subject of waiting, but consider it a tiny insight into the inside of my head.

I promise though. No more waiting for the baby posts until he's here.

And head over to Kat's for more postcards.

Harriet

ps Oh, and if you were to fancy voting for me....

One in twenty...

2011-05-26T19:58:00.000+01:00

...babies arrives on their due date.

Looks like mine is one of the other nineteen.

On love and labour

2011-05-20T08:06:00.002+01:00

Being in labour is like being in love.

If you have to keep asking yourself: "Is this it?", it almost certainly isn't.

No child born to die

2011-05-19T20:29:00.001+01:00

I'm 39 weeks pregnant today. If this baby doesn't decide to make his own way into the world before then, they will break my waters for me on 8 June. If that does nothing, I have been told they can't induce me (because of my previous c-section) so I will be going under the knife on 9 June.

Whatever happens I will, in three weeks' time, be a mum of four.

And there's nothing I can do about it. It is going to happen. So I've got to that twingy, twitchy stage, where every niggle, whether it be in my pelvis or my patella, feels like a sign of labour. And where I'm starting to worry about all the stuff that can go wrong, all the stuff they can't scan for, all the stuff over which I have no control. The stuff that might do awful things to my baby. Or to me.

But the thing is, I, and my baby, are so lucky. He is going to be born (hopefully, unless it all happens very quickly), in a modern hospital with all the advantages of western medical care. If I have to have a c-section it will be in a clean operating theatre, with modern anaesthetics and a highly trained surgeon. I hope to breastfeed, as I have the others, but if I can't, the water I will use to make up his formula will be clean and germ free, and even then I have electricity and a kettle with which to make doubly sure.

His chances of survival at birth and in his first week are 992.4 in 1000. His chances of getting to 1 are 995.5 in 1000. His chances of getting to 14 are 99,988 in 100,000*.

This is not the case were he born elsewhere in the world. Worldwide, 955 children in every 1000 reach their 1st birthday. In Angola, only 720 children do. That's 180 children in every thousand who don't make it to the age of one.

Every year, more than 8 million children under five die worldwide from diseases that we know how to treat or prevent, such as diarrhoea, pneumonia and measles.

How can we not be doing everything in our power to stop this?

In January, Save the Children launched its most ambitious campaign to date, No Child Born to Die.

Save The Children is focusing on the provision of vaccinations and healthcare workers to save those 8 million children. In June there is a meeting in London hosted by David Cameron and attended by other world leaders. Save The Children aims to make as much noise as possible to ensure the funding shortfall for vaccinations (4.7 billion) is met by all the donor countries - to fully fund vaccines for every child in the world.

So why am I writing this? Because you can do a little bit to be part of this campaign.

Please sign the petition and consider joining in the crafty meme – :

1. Ask your child/children to draw a picture of themselves either now or in the future and add it to the blog hop below. L did this picture at nursery. I know because they've entered it (and presumably lots of others) for some national competition. The only problem? When I showed it to L (because, quite frankly, I thought it was much too good to be hers) she said "Oh no, I didn't do that. The other L did". So this might be L, or it might be the other L. It's a good picture anyway.

2. Blog about it and include details of the campaign and the petition. But be quick! The petition closes on 29 May.

3. Tag 8 friends.

That's it.

Like Muddling Along Mummy, who tagged me, I know that tagging and memes can feel like one of those things you really don't have time to do (and I apologise here to anyone who's tagged me in the past and I haven't got round to doing anything about) but memes really can build awareness in a short space of time for important causes like this one.

No child is born to die.

And with that, I tag (and you may already have done it, in which case, apologies):

Mwa
Iota
Pants with Names
Kelloggsville
Mum's Gone To
Motherhood and Anarchy
Notes to Self
Modern Dilemma

*All taken from the Office of National Statistics Statistical Bulletin Childhood, infant and perinatal mortality in England and Wales, 2009. I can't say I enjoyed reading this, but it was sobering to compare it with the global...

Oh my goodness! How to make a very tired woman's day!

2011-05-17T20:12:00.002+01:00

To my indescribable astonishment and delight, I am one of the five finalists in the best pregnancy blog category of the MAD awards 2011.

Thank you so much to anyone who nominated me, and if you did (or even if you didn't), please do vote for me too! Although if you want to check out the competition, here are the other blogs:

You can click here to see all the nominated blogs in all the categories, and here to vote.

Oh, and just in case you want to refresh your memory, you can click here to see all my pregnancy posts.

On having two pairs of hands.

2011-05-17T19:15:00.000+01:00

My life has been changed. Transformed. Made do-able again.

I have an extra pair of hands. Fortunately they aren't attached to me, because that would look odd, and make buying clothes that fit even harder than it currently is. (I realise I'm three weeks more pregnant than I ever got with the girls, but honestly I can't be that big, can I? I'm told, after all, that I'm measuring small. So why am I constantly flashing either belly or lower back?)

But anyway, my extra pair of hands are attached to Carol, and Carol is my new favourite person in the world.

She is coming three days a week, from 8 until 6. We are only on day three, but oh! it's wonderful. Suddenly you realise that a load of washing doesn't take all day, because suddenly when a war of attrition breaks out over a scooter while you're trying to hang the laundry up, somebody else can wrench them apart, so you don't find yourself soothing injured pride and sore heads, and forgetting what you were doing and then coming in once they're all in bed to find partially dried, irredeemably crumpled clothes on the floor where you dropped them in your haste.

Suddenly, you can drink a whole cup of (raspberry leaf) tea before it goes cold.

Suddenly you can take L out for a walk while S and A nap and come back to find that the supper is on, the ironing done, and the girls have woken up and are having a story read to them.

Suddenly coping with four children feels like it might be possible.

Forgetting how to count to nine and other side effects of a third pregnancy.

2011-05-04T21:39:00.003+01:00

A conversation. End of March 2011:

"Golly I'm exhausted."
"Well, my love, that's not surprising, you've been working all day, you've got three children under four and you're seven months pregnant."
"No I'm not. I'm about five, maybe six."
"Erm, I don't want to disagree with the pregnant woman, but you're having a baby at the end of May. It's now the end of March...."

Only it's now the beginning of May. I am (or will be tomorrow) 37 weeks pregnant. Officially in the zone, and completely in denial.

This pregnancy has been utterly different from my previous two. I loved being pregnant both times before. I felt so special. I felt as though I was, first time, the only person who had ever had a baby; and second time, the only person who had ever had twins. I was probably incredibly dull to be with, because I suspect I thought, and dreamed and spoke about nothing other than the miracle(s) that were growing inside me. I cherished every movement, I analysed every scan, test or illegible comment scrawled in my notes, I fretted and worried, and ate well. I planned and prepared. I was pregnant.

And now? Well, now I'm pregnant. But I keep forgetting.

A small list of things I have forgotten in the last thirty seven weeks:

How to count to nine.
That climbing ladders is not recommended when eight months pregnant.
That I can't fit through that space.
Or that one.
Oh, no, that one's not big enough either.
That having a baby car seat, crib and baby clothes in the attic is not the same as having them downstairs, washed and ready.
That chocolate is not a food group.
To get a MAT B1 and fill in the form for the maternity allowance.
That they have yet to design a pair of maternity jeans that a) stay up and b) look good.
That you have to pack your hospital bag, and not wait for the pregnancy fairies to do it for you.
That you are supposed to read your notes.
That maybe going to a hen night 350 miles away the weekend before my due date is not entirely wise. Even if the bride is a medic.
That there is a reason I am tired, emotional and irrational.

A smaller list of things that, despite the above, I have not forgotten:

In somewhere between three and five weeks' time I will have another baby.
It will probably hurt.
It will, once more, change my life forever.
I will never be pregnant again.

And it is the last that I must keep reminding myself of. This is it. And as I sit here, typing away, my tummy visibly rolling about like a sailor recently returned to shore, I must remember how privileged I am to feel like this. To feel the indescribable sensation of someone else's hiccoughs, deep inside. To watch as a tiny foot pushes against me, so fast that you wonder if you imagined it. To have L, and S, and A, dolls shoved up their t-shirts, put their cold, cold hands on my bump because they want to feel their brother.

I have hardly any time left to be pregnant. I need to remember to cherish it.

I am going to write that on the to do list.

The Gallery - April

2011-05-04T08:20:00.001+01:00

April? April? What can I say about April? Particularly now that it's May...

Well, April 2010 has been about picnics and birthdays and Spring finally being round the corner, and castles and walks and visitors, and builders and a new roof, and an ever growing bump, and a world tour of Kent, and Easter and chocolate and eggs, and suddenly getting the point of the Easter Bunny, and endless cups of raspberry leaf tea, and apple blossom, and only having one working loo between five of us and all the builders, and scraping the car again, and discovering that S is scared of ladybirds, and a new wendy house, and picking the spiders off the paddling pool, and some people getting married, and realising it's not as warm as it looks, and tulips and daffodils and deadheading and weeding, and blinking and you missed it and you've got the whole of the Summer stretching before you and a new baby very nearly here.

But that was April 2010, and this is just April. Because however old she gets, and however much she doesn't need me any more, April will, for me, always be about one thing. My first born. Because it is her month, even four years on.

L.

Click here for more Spring-like (and not so Spring-like) pictures in the Gallery

Four

2011-04-21T23:52:00.002+01:00

Not four children, although that day is not far off. (Five weeks today, if you believe the doctors).

Just the one child.

L.

Today she is four. If I can get the delayed posting thing to work, when this goes live she will be exactly four years old. Four years from 11.52pm on Saturday 21 April 2007.

She has driven me absolutely insane today. I have been to the end of my tether and back again, but I still wouldn't change a single cell of her exasperating, irritating, obstinate, argumentative, bright, sparky, beautiful, determined, inquisitive, talkative, engaging, loving little body.

Happy Birthday, beautiful girl.

The Gallery - My blog

2011-04-20T08:07:00.001+01:00

This is my blog. It is a friend. Or maybe a cousin. Or a sister. But either way, a friend. One of those friends or relations you have known from childhood, maybe all your life.

The sort of friend who you don't have to explain things to, because she has been there too, and she understands. The sort of cousin who you can tell anything to, not because she won't judge, but because she will, and although you might hate what she says at the time, and get all defensive and grumpy, and maybe even a bit teary, you will know she is right and is only telling you because she cares. The sort of sister who is so much a part of your life and your furniture that your memories are her memories and you have both forgotten why or how she came to be there, but just that she is.

The sort of friend that sometimes you don't really like very much. Sometimes she embarrasses you. Sometimes you think she doesn't really represent the person you'd like to be, although, in your heart of hearts, you admit, if only to yourself, she represents the person you actually are. Sometimes you feel she makes you do, or say, things that you wish you hadn't done or said. Sometimes you feel you hide behind her, letting her take the lead, when you should have the courage to come out and say things out loud instead.

Sometimes you wish you could just walk away. That you could take back the admissions you've made to her; admissions you've made because talking to her is like talking to yourself. That you'd never met her in the first place. But you can't.

Because no matter how much she irritates, or embarrasses, or is not what you'd always want her to be, you'd miss her if she weren't there. And your life would be immeasurably poorer without her.

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This post is, as posts often are on a Wednesday, for Tara's Gallery. Find out what everyone else thinks their blogs are like here.

The last kiss goodnight

2011-04-15T10:23:00.000+01:00

Imagine the scene:

You are staying at your parents'. The children were in bed hours ago and are sound asleep, probably with arms flung above heads and covers wrunkled round feet. You've had a pleasant meal, maybe a glass of wine, definitely a splendid pudding, and you're off to bed. You say goodnight and head upstairs with your best beloved.

You creep into the children's rooms, tucking them in and kissing each of them, relishing that sleepy baby breathing. You clean your teeth, wash your face, climb into bed and do whatever it is the pair of you do next (in my case, whinge about being uncomfortable, read a couple of pages of a book and warm my feet on the back of his legs (he loves that, by the way)), before turning the light off and settling down to sleep.

The door creaks open, light spills in from the hallway. In creeps your mum. She leans over the bed and gives you a gentle kiss on the forehead, brushing your hair out of your eyes. "Night, night, darling. I love you. I'll see you in the morning".

Or not.

Because funnily enough neither of my parents comes in to give me a goodnight kiss any more. I'd find it more than a little odd if they did.

But when did they stop? Because the goodnight kiss, the sleepy baby, the hunt for the lost Bunny in the darkened room, the tucking in of the tiny hands are all an essential part of my bedtime routine. I would be significantly more likely to go to bed without cleaning my teeth than I would without kissing my children.

But mine are (nearly) 4 and 2. So I can do that. They go to bed before me. They are asleep. They expect me to creep in, to tuck, to stroke, to kiss. And I know that I won't when they are 24 and 22. But what about when they are 14 and 12? Will they then be too cool? Too awake? Too grumpy?

When does it stop? When is the last kiss goodnight? How long have I got? Will I recognise it when it comes? Because I'm going to miss it when it's gone and I want to savour it until it is.

Canvassing

2011-04-14T21:14:00.002+01:00

This time last year there was an election going on.

Actually there were two. But there was only one I really cared about.

The MAD blog awards. I remember the astonishment and delight I felt at discovering I'd been nominated in not one, but several categories, especially when I realised the nominations weren't just from my husband and my mum...

But what I didn't do, then, was actually come out and say "VOTE FOR ME". I sat, and I watched Dave, and Gordon, and Nick work the streets, shake the hands and kiss the babies, and thought, "Well, of course if you want people to vote for you, you have to ask them", but I was too British, and embarrassed, to come out and say it myself.

This year though, I'm casting aside my Britishness, and my shame, and asking...

Go on, nominate me, (you don't have to be a blogger, a mum, or a dad by the way, they all count) and if not me, nominate someone else. There's a great list of fantastic blogs on the right hand side of this page. Pick one of them. Just do it before next Friday when the nominations close.

And if, having had a look at them, you still like me, I think I'm eligible for the following:

Blogger of the Year
Best writer (ha!)
Post of the year. I like this one, but you may disagree.
Best pregnancy blog
Most MAD family life (surely we qualify for that one?)
Most inspiring (double ha!)
Best pre-school fun blog

Oh, and if you are my mum, or my husband, you know where your duty lies...

And ps, if you have already nominated me, because someone has, a very big virtual kiss is coming your way. Thank you!

Movers and shakers

2011-04-13T21:03:00.000+01:00

My dad is a mover and a shaker.

Or rather he's not. He doesn't shake and he can't move.

He has Parkinson's Disease.

A little while ago, a friend of mine asked if my father was dead. Apparently I don't talk about him much. And it made me realise that I tend to use the collective noun "my mum" when I really mean "my parents".

And, mostly, Parkinson's is why.

When he was diagnosed I was about twenty and he was fifty-five. That's early-ish for a diagnosis, but not unheard of and doesn't put him in the Michael J Fox category of early-onset Parkinson's at all. We are lucky. To be honest it was a relief. I'd noticed things were wrong and although I'd never have said it out loud for fear of making it true, I thought it was Alzheimer's or a brain tumour, or something, I thought, truly debilitating and awful.

Something that was going to take away my dad.

Which is ironic. Because that's precisely what Parkinson's is doing. Slowly, yes, but inexorably nonetheless.

As I say, he's neither a mover nor a shaker. If you think of Parkinson's you probably think of old men with wobbly hands. He doesn't do that. He doesn't have a tremor, doesn't shake or shudder. Instead he has a freeze. The messages from his brain to his legs just don't get through and so, from time to time, three or four times a day, he can't move. He's stuck, for minutes rather than hours, but long, agonising, frustrating minutes while he counts, out loud, like a toddler with a new skill, willing his feet to carry him where he wants to go, his knees to bend, his legs to swing at the hip as they used to so thoughtlessly.

And it's not just his legs messages don't get to. His hands don't really work either. His writing, never what you might call legible, is now spidery: weak and nearly as painful to read as it must be to write. His mouth doesn't work, so he mumbles, and dribbles, and makes people shy away from him in the street, or look the other way, or just get cross and frustrated as he holds up an entire conversation trying to get the right words out at a level that can be heard. In the night, when he stops taking the two-hourly drugs that make any movement possible, all movement ceases, and he is totally reliant on my mum, a carer rather than a wife.

He doesn't read this blog and I wouldn't be saying any of this if he did. But he isn't, in so many ways, my dad any more. He's my dad, so obviously he's always been annoying and frustrating and embarrassing. But he was also charming and witty and sparky, given to random flights of fancy and appalling puns. He's still the same, but he's lost the ability to communicate the spark that made him such great company. His dad jokes are inaudible, his frolics of imagination unfollowable. He's an unbelievably adoring grandfather, but one who can't pick them up for fear of dropping them.

And if he's been taken from me and my children, how much more has he been taken from my mother, at a stage of their lives where they were looking forward to his retirement and freedom from children? I asked her once, early on, how she felt. She said, "I promised to love him for better or worse, in sickness and in health.   We didn't plan for this, we didn't want it, but I made a promise and I'm going to keep it".

Parkinson's is not fatal. He could, and should, live a normal life span. It is his seventieth birthday this year, his allotted three score years and ten, and we have a big party planned. He will be brilliant, I know. All his effort will go into hiding, as much as possible, the effects of this disease. He will, insofar as possible, speak up, not mumble, stand straight, take the drugs that keep him moving, and this will, in the days that follow, take its toll. And we will watch, and worry and try not to think about the Parkinson's related dementia that might, one day, add another symptom to his personal list.

I realise, even in writing this, that I am lucky. It is just Parkinson's. It won't kill him, and for the moment, it isn't taking his mind. But it is taking his body and his spirit, and it has already taken the dad I knew growing up.

Apparently I don't talk about my dad much, but then if I don't, who will?

*************************************************************

This week is Parkinson's awareness week. One person in 500 in the UK has Parkinson's. Even if you or they don't know it, you will know someone with it. It may be more or less debilitating than it is for my dad, but it will, regardless, have changed their lives and the lives of everyone who knows them. It will therefore come as no surprise to you that my charity for this month is the Cure Parkinson's Trust. You may well have heard of The Parkinson's Disease Society which does an amazing job of raising awareness and supporting my dad and others with the disease, but wouldn't it be amazing if their support wasn't needed ever again?

Soundtrack to our Son.

2011-04-12T22:05:00.001+01:00

Did you give birth to music?

I flatly refused the first time. B was keen on the idea. He would be. He likes a constant backdrop of anything from Charles Ives to Charles Aznavour, but I know myself and I realised that in the stress and pain of labour, the wrong song could be fatal to my irritation levels, and there was then a distinct possibility that the cd player might end up being used as an offensive weapon.

So L was born only to the melodious tones of her mother's voice. Apparently I swore. A lot.

When it came to A and S though, we were firmly told by the surgeon that we really ought to bring in a cd, as otherwise our daughters would be born to magic fm. Now I don't want to be rude about magic fm which has, after all, brought me hours of cheesy listening pleasure, but it is certainly true to say that it has the shortest playlist of any radio station I've ever listened to and Celine Dion is always on it. Even I wasn't prepared to have the girls' first auditory experience of the outside world be that horrendous.

So B made a playlist. Weeks of thought went into it, culminating a heated debate of the irrational sort that only a woman 35-weeks pregnant with twins can achieve. B wanted the Killers. I refused to have my babies born to the line, "Are we human?" I still maintain it was the right decision. The first song ended up being Here come the girls (Ernie K Doe, not the Sugababes, although EMI have taken it off YouTube so I can't link to it, sorry), which gave the anaesthetist the giggles, (not such a good thing given he was waving a large needle at my spine at the time) and they were actually born to Aretha (sorry Celine....)

Two and a bit years later, here we are again. And if baby T* has turned, which we will find out on Friday, then silence and swearing will once again hold sway. But if he hasn't, he'll be coming out of the sunroof, and, on the basis that Radio Borders is not much better than magic, we'll need a soundtrack. So far, it goes something like this...

Here comes the "sun"
He ain't heavy, he's my brother
Baby love
Boys, boys, boys (although actually I've just listened to it for the first time since about 1986 and it's awful, so maybe not. You have been warned).
Mad about the boy

And maybe, optimistically, a new dawn, a new day, a new life... Feeling Good.

My gut instinct (which isn't really in my gut so much as kicking at my ribs) is that he has turned, and so the chances are this list will never be required, but in the meantime I'm going to have fun adding to it...

*T. To follow on from L, A and S.

Lies, damn lies, and small children

2011-04-08T21:09:00.000+01:00

Scene 1. Our house.

L pushes A. A screams. I enter, in time to catch the gist, but slightly too late to see the offence.

Me (cuddling A) : L, what happened? Why is she crying?
L: I don't know.
Me: Did you hurt her?
L: No
Me: A, sweetheart, where does it hurt? What happened?
A: L push
Me: Did L push you?
A: Yes
Me: L, did you push your sister?
L: No.
Me: Are you lying to me?
L (compounding the crime, in my opinion). No.

Repeat ad boredom

Scene 2. Our car. Me looking in rear view mirror, in time to see L hit S. S cries.

Me: L, that was very naughty. Don't hit your sister.
L: I didn't.
Me: Yes you did. I saw you.
L: How?
Me: In the mirror. That's not the point. Don't hit your sister. That's a naughty thing to do.
L: I didn't.
Me: Yes you did. And now you're lying to me.
L: No I'm not.

Scene 3. Our living room. A sitting on yellow cushion. I leave the room. A starts crying. I return. L is now sitting on yellow cushion.

Me: L, did you take her cushion?
L: No

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

So what do we do? Because, let's be honest, if I were nearly four, I'd do exactly the same thing. She's done something wrong. She knows it's wrong. Why would she own up? Because for all that I say "I won't be cross with you if you tell the truth" we both know that if she's hurt her sisters I'm going to be cross, otherwise I'm effectively saying it's ok to do so, as long as she tells me about it, which seems pretty shaky moral ground.

So how do I teach her not to lie? I can tell her that lying is not a good thing to do, but every now and then it probably works and she gets away with whatever it is she's done, so she's going to keep doing it, isn't she?

Not-so-innocent Queen of P(ee) (featuring a competition!)

2011-04-08T08:13:00.000+01:00

When innocent asked me to be their Queen of P, quite frankly I thought the P was precisely what they were taking...

Because at the moment, mid-twin-training, I am undoubtedly the Queen of Pee. And Poo. And Potties. And Pants. And washing, but that doesn't start with P.

But then I realised they wanted me, along with 25 other lucky bloggers, to Post a Picture, nay, a Photograph, featuring one of their new range of magnets. And I got P.

And I thought about Pee, and Poo, and Pants, and Potties, and Pictures, and Photographs, and Pickles (which is the nicest word I called my children when they dropped the P magnet (it would be that one wouldn't it?) down the back of the radiator), and Picnics and Parties and all sorts of other more or less interesting words beginning with P, before I realised there was only one I could use.

Because, when I look back at April 2011, in one, or five, or fifty years time, this is the P I'll think of:

Although I'm not sure you'd call it innocent...

********************************************************************

Innocent did, perhaps obviously, send me a bunch of lovely stuff when they asked me to do this, for which we are very grateful. It included three lovely P t-shirts. L has adopted one, as modelled left, but the other two are way too big for S and A, and so innocent have kindly said I can pass them on to any Poppies, Peters, or indeed Hermiones, Harries or Rons out there.

So, if you'd like a brand spanking new P t-shirt to fit a 3-6 year old-ish ( L will be four this month and is, I think, pretty tall for her age) , just leave a comment before next Sunday (17th) and my beautiful assistant will pick a two names out of the hat then.

You can find out more about the Innocent A-Z (and win more t-shirts with different letters and in different sizes) on their website or twitter by clicking on the links.

Are you going to watch the Royal Wedding?

2011-04-06T16:23:00.000+01:00

In July 1981 I looked like this:

What I wanted to look like, of course, was this:

Disappointingly the numbers of available bridesmaids in North Essex were limited and I hadn't (then) met my prince...

But I remember it so well. I was four and a half, and as far as I was concerned it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened. There was absolutely no question that I, my bridesmaid, and our parents would sit solemnly through the entire thing, live, on our new telly.

Fast forward thirty years, and I think I'd sort of imagined that L, six months younger now than I was then, would be similarly excited; and that I'd have to find out if I loved her enough to adapt my wedding dress (strapless doesn't work so well on the genuinely flat-chested) so that she and her sisters could play princesses-to-be in their turn.

But she's not going to. Not only does she not know there's a wedding happening, but she's probably never going to, because while however many thousand of their close friends are filing into Westminster Abbey and Wills and Kate are saying I do, we are going to be profiting from an extra-long weekend with no compulsion to visit family (they're coming for Easter) and heading South to catch up with various friends. I'm enormously looking forward to it, and have no regrets whatsoever about not catching the live nuptials. I'm pretty certain the papers the next day will show me what the dress looked like after all...

But will I regret it? Am I alone? Are the heralded street parties actually happening (they don't seem to be here)? Are your children wandering around with bits of net on their heads, and bouquets of daisies in their hands? Does that weekend mean more to you than it does to us?

Are you going to watch? And do you think I'm missing out for not doing so?

How shopping made me love my baby

2011-04-03T16:48:00.000+01:00

I admit it, that's a slightly over-dramatic title, but it's also sort of true.

Because however much I wanted (and still want this baby), since the moment I discovered I was pregnant there's been a little niggly voice inside me saying

"You're not going to sleep. You're not going to be able to play with the others. You're not going to fit them all in the car. The builders won't have finished. You have no idea what to do with a boy. Four children is greedy/ecologically criminal/insane. You won't be able to leave the house for the next five years. YOU AREN'T GOING TO COPE"

The odd thing is that B is the opposite. He was very cautious about going in to this; kept coming up with all sorts of reasons why we really should stick at three, but the minute that line went blue, he's been over-joyed. He's not worried. We'll cope. And how wonderfully exciting is it going to be to have a baby?!

And I say the right things and I smile and I nod, and inside I keep thinking "What on earth are we doing? I'm not going to cope". And where with the others I loved being pregnant and talking about being pregnant and being excited about being pregnant, this time I'm playing the very British jaded-mother-of-three-already card, and saying things like "Well, clearly we're insane, but..." and changing the subject.

Until yesterday. When I took L to a birthday party and seized the opportunity to nip into mothercare while we were going past and came out with this lot:

And it's tiny, and it's new, and it's blue....*

And the odd thing is, the minute I walked in there, and saw the tiny baby clothes, and the new baby nappies (yes even those), I started smiling. And that pile of stuff, which is sitting on the landing until we have somewhere better to put it (note to self, must remember to sort that out before going into labour) is still making me smile.

Because more than all the worry and the practicalities and the uncertainty, there's a baby. And it took shopping for him to make me realise how wonderfully excited too I am about that.

*I did also buy an armful of waterproof sheets and a new potty, but oddly they're not doing it for me in quite the same way...

The Gallery - Time to hit the bottle?

2011-03-30T08:28:00.000+01:00

There are many reasons I might hit the bottle. But this week's one is the subject of Tara's Gallery:

Hair.

Now I know Tara's really hoping for dreadful pictures of bubble perms and culture-club-esque rat-tails, but fortunately, by good luck and no management at all, I managed not to hit my teens until the end of 1990, by which time grunge was where it was at. So my worst crime against hair fashion was probably lank and unwashed, but otherwise remarkably like this:

Fortunately for the sensitive, there are no photos of my late teens, which were most definitely not my most attractive stage, but in this one, I was, guessing by the candles, eleven, and my hair stayed remarkably like that (minus the fringe) until I was about eighteen.

Now, however, it looks more like this:

Or this:

B, loyally and lovingly, says both photos are over-exposed and that isn't my hair colour at all. In my defence it's remarkably difficult to take a photo of your own head, especially when your hair is in your eyes, but you see what he's getting at. I'm not the same colour any more, am I?

Age eleven: pale skin, pink lips, luscious chocolatey dark locks - Snow White in a fetching check shirt. Now, well, you'll have to take my word for it that I'm just as pale, but the locks are definitely heading for the pepper and salt end of the metaphorical culinary spectrum.

And I'm wondering - is it time to do something about that? Shall I hit the bottle...?

How far would you trust your husband?

2011-03-27T15:32:00.000+01:00

Nope. I'm not talking about lap-dancing clubs, or boys' weekends away, or suspicious-sounding dinners with attractive ex-girlfriends.

This is much more important.

Would you trust him with the stuff that matters?

Can he sort out the delicates from the not-delicates?
Can he plan and shop for a week of meals that the children will actually eat?
Can he leave work on time to get to the doctor's for the immunisation appointment?
Can he do the washing-up when it needs doing, and not twenty-four hours later (and dry it up and put it away afterwards)?
Can he get them up, get them dressed, tidy their rooms, make their beds, do their hair, get them fed, sweep the rice krispies from under the table and still get them to nursery on time?

Would you trust your husband/partner to look after your children and your home properly?
And does "properly" only really mean: "the way you want them looked after"?

Because I'm not sure I can, and do. And I know I should.

When we had just had L, and were talking about our options for working and childcare, there was never any question about whether I should go back to work. I like my job, I'm good at it, I like my colleagues and it brings (brought) in useful money. I was also, at the time, better paid than B.

So we had a conversation. It went a bit like this:

Him: Well, I could always go part-time and you could go back to work full-time
Me: No.
Him: Ok.

It was instinctive. I didn't, and don't, want him to be what Rebecca Asher calls, in an article in yesterday's Guardian magazine, the foundation parent. Partly that was a visceral wanting to be the person L (and now the others) turned to with cut knees, or sore fingers, or broken hearts, and partly that was because I knew that I didn't trust him.

Not that I didn't trust him to love them as much as I do, or to notice when they were ill, or to throw himself into traffic for them. B loves our children as much, if not more, than I do, and is, in many ways, a better, certainly in the sense of more relaxed, more instinctive and more prepared to make an idiot of himself, parent than I am. But I didn't trust him to do all the other stuff that still seems to go with it. I knew, and remain convinced that I was right to know, that what would happen was that I come in every evening, tired and stressed, only to find that the house wasn't tidied (to my standards), the supper wasn't cooked (to my standards), I had no clean knickers for the next day, and I was left, grumpily and resentfully doing stuff that, in my head at least, we had decided was his job.

So instead, I am the foundation parent, and especially now that my working days take up an even smaller proportion of my week, I take on a much larger share of the day-to-day running of children, house and general administrative stuff than B does. As (by extension) I've just admitted, that's my job...

And this is, Rebecca Asher says, normal. I am normal. What happens is that when women are at home on maternity leave (the first six months of which, despite changes being brought in next month, will remain the preserve of women), we start taking on all this stuff that used to be shared. We are at home, we are bored, the baby is asleep, the washing needs doing, we want, when our partner gets home, to be able to sit and talk like we used to and not nag about state of the kitchen floor, or the shopping list for next week, so we do it. And then:

even when mothers return to work after maternity leave, the responsibility for the domestic chores accrued in that time often remains with them. In fact, women carry on performing almost the same number of domestic tasks when they switch from looking after their children full-time to working outside the home part-time. And even if they work outside the home full-time, they are still more likely than their partners to take responsibility for household chores, and to take time off work to look after an ill child.

What Rebecca Asher doesn't, of course, address, is whether this is also, but inversely, true in households where the father is the foundation parent. Do stay-at-home, or part-time working, dads also do all the other stuff? I suspect that my feeling that I would still have ended up doing it says more about my latent Monica-ish-ness than it does about the nature of parenting as a whole and there are plenty of dads out there who are just as much of a dab hand with a mop as I am.

Whatever the case may be there, Rebecca Asher maintains that for women returning from maternity leave domestic inequality becomes a habit, and, presumably given that she is here only talking about mothers who do more paid work than I do, a habit that I am likely to have fallen into more heavily than most. But it's not just that. Apparently I also take on this stuff, and do it, however grumpily, because I like the control, or I want to be a martyr, or because I want others to think I am supermum, however much of a myth we all know that last to be. And, as a result, husbands and partners make even less of an effort, because they know that when they do, they will only be criticised:

The forks go in that drawer, not that one...
The sheets aren't ironed...
They had fishfingers for supper last night....

To be honest, I'd probably stop trying too.

Now, obviously, I have no solution to this. Although it would be nice to say that parents should have a discussion about sharing the chores, or a rota, or some sort of organised division of labour, it's also true that, at least where B and I are concerned, I think both of us would resent our shared time with the children being taken up with the dull household tasks when instead we could be doing things as a family, and it's not as though I really want him to be sorting out laundry when he could be sitting on the sofa giving me a cuddle once they're in bed (although it would free up some handy blogging time...).

So what this eventually made me think was not how badly I am treated, or how unfair my life is (that was last week's rant), but actually how unfair my feeling like this is on B and the other men like him (because, after all, I am, apparently, normal). Because I do trust him, of course I do, I wouldn't have married him, much less had children with him, had I not done so, but I've never really let him prove himself worthy of that trust.

I'm not in a position to go back to full (or indeed part-) time office-based work (I'm not qualified to work in Scotland, so failing a career change, remote working is my only option), but maybe it's time for a girls' weekend away. If nothing else, we'll find out if he can trust me...

Just not good enough.

2011-03-25T15:43:00.002Z

Excuse me while I get a little grumpy and self-pitying.

Seriously. That's a warning. If you're looking for uplifting, inspiring or happy, click away now.

There's nothing actually wrong at the moment, but at the same time nothing's actually quite right either.

I've worked solidly today, not stopping for lunch, or B, who's here working too and periodically wants distracting for five minutes: reading files, analyzing missing areas, emailing people who might have the information and getting to within half an hour of having to pick up the girls with nothing actually to show for it other than a table covered in pieces of paper which are no longer in their orderly piles and will probably take longer than the available half hour to clear up.

There's nothing wrong, we all have days like that, and it probably will actually turn out to have been quite productive, when these people get back to me, but for the moment, it feels not good enough.

Once I've got the girls I've got some lovely people coming round for kids' tea and adults' drinks. The thing is, I really like these people. In a really sad way, I want them to be our friends. We've been trying to arrange a meet up for months and this is the first time it's happened. Only B arranged it. And he's arranged it for 5 pm on a Friday evening, when I'm tired, the girls are tired and our standard children's supper is eggy bread and baked beans. And of course I can give the lovely people's children eggy bread and baked beans, but it's hardly impressive is it? It doesn't say: I really like you and I went to lots of effort for you. It says, Well, that's fine and it'll do, but it's not really good enough.

There's no food in the house either. It's been cheese sandwiches for lunch all week. Which is fine because B's working in the office while the builders are here, so it's only me, but it still hardly the mybodyisatempleandababygrowingtempleatthat regime that I'm apparently supposed to be following is it? Plus there's only so inspirational I can be for supper with half a manky swede, two leeks and a bag of pasta...

I'm cross with the builders too. It's their fault. They were brilliant and superb for the first two months, but the pace has slowed and although what they're doing is still of fantastic quality and they're pleasant and smiley and tidy it just feels like things aren't happening as quickly as I'd like them to. I can't help feeling that some of that's my fault too - they want me to make decisions, which I can't, because samples don't arrive, or B and I suddenly find we really care about the precise shade of floor tile and put off a decision because it's easier than arguing about it, or I find something I like but I can't rid myself of the feeling that if I just spent another ten minutes on the internet I'd find something I liked more, and cheaper - and I'm just getting to the stage where I want it done.

I don't feel like a good mother at the moment either - I can't get through five minutes without asking the little ones if they need a wee; which is understandable, but doesn't make for fun parenting, and L's driving me mad. I came down the stairs with a load of washing this morning to find her going up. I said "Downstairs please L, it's time to go to nursery" and, well, and she solemnly kept going up. And I could have screamed and shouted, but instead I just felt utterly defeated. If I can't get her to do something as innocent as go downstairs when I want her to, what hope have I got with the big stuff?

I'm a rubbish friend too. We were supposed to be down South this week, seeing people we love. We cancelled, for all sorts of very valid and understandable being utterly exhausted reasons. And I know they understand, but it doesn't stop me feeling bad. As does the 73 unanswered messages on my facebook, and the not quite so many, but just as important ones in my inbox. Because these people matter to me, and I'm not treating them like they do.

Let's not get on to being a wife either. Pants with Names made me laugh this week recounting that her son had told her that he wanted to marry someone just like her when he grew up. Only less grumpy. The problem is I suspect B feels rather the same...

And I just feel rubbish. My legs need waxing, my toenails need painting, my eyebrows need plucking and all my trousers are falling down. And the girls don't care, and B doesn't care (is that a good thing or a bad thing, I never know?) but it still adds to the general disgruntledness.

In the grand scheme of things that matter, this blog is pretty low on the list, but I don't feel like I'm doing that well either. I'm not proud of it at the moment, and given it's another one of my babies, even if not one that needs its bottom wiped, that bothers me too.

And my chair I'm re-covering isn't working, and I'm a year and a bit behind with the photographs, and the bins all need emptying, and I've got to work out what we're going to eat next week so that B can go to Tesco's at the weekend, and it's L's birthday next month and I have no idea what we're going to get her, and can't even begin to think about a party, and I've got a baby coming in two months and I don't know where all our baby stuff is, much less whether its still useable, and I still haven't filled in the paperwork for the person who's going to come and help us when the baby arrives, and I haven't got the washing out that I put in at 7 am this morning and, and, and...

..and, as previously discussed, it's ridiculous and selfish to feel like this when there's so much worse going on in the world. Shut up Harriet. Get over it.

Sorry about that. Consider it my contribution to Muddling Along's Ranty Friday...

The Gallery - a photographic education

2011-03-23T11:47:00.002Z

Say cheese!

We bought L a camera for Christmas. I think we have learned more from it than her.

She uses it totally differently from how I use a camera - she takes pictures indiscriminately, click, click, click, without reference to view finder or screen. And while more often than not they're a blur of carpet or wall, every now and then she captures something that not only would I not have taken, but I wouldn't have even seen.

So I am torn between teaching her how to use a camera "properly", to compose, to think, to pause and check, and letting myself learn from her how much there is in the world to notice, if only you take the time.

But that's not the end of my photographic education. Because I need teaching, and I'm hoping, shamelessly, that the gifted and enthusiastic photographers of the Gallery can help me. We've been talking about getting a new camera for over a year now, and not doing so because of the sheer overwhelming nature of the choice out there.

At present we have a Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ5 which was my wedding present from B. It's fine, but it's both too big to slip in a pocket, and too small to take the amazing pictures I take in my head, if not in reality. It's also pretty rubbish in low light, and I am coming round to the realisation that low light is pretty much all we get up here from October to March. We used to have a little Nikon too, for the pocket slipping moments, but that's broken.

My sister, who is a semi professional photographer, uses and recommends, some sort of fantastically complicated Canon Digital SLR with a million different lenses and tripods, but I know that however much I'd like to, I'm never going to get my head around exposures, and apertures and all the other things one needs not only to understand (which I do, while she's actually explaining it) but to retain (which I don't; it seems to fall out of my head, as soon as she's safely 500 miles away again).

So, please, lovely Gallery contributors, educate me. I need a smallish camera that works well in low light and doesn't need too much fiddling with, but still takes good pictures. Does such a thing exist? What camera do you use? Would you recommend it? What would you go for if you were me?

***************************************************

Being not on twitter, I hadn't realised that for this week's Educational Gallery, Tara was hoping we'd post old school photos. And having now realised I can't anyway, because they're all at my parents' house down South. So sorry to anyone who was hoping to see what I looked like at three, or six, or sixteen. Although, come to think of it, there is one here....

Where are your children from? (Tick all that apply)

2011-03-21T22:12:00.001Z

We've just filled in our census.

I know that technically we're not supposed to do it until Sunday, but there was an internet option, and that version didn't seem to care when we did it, so we've done it.

And we've struggled with the bits about how many rooms we've got (if there are builders in them and they only have half a wall and a bit of steel do they count?) and what our job titles are (am I a consultant or a lawyer? Or both?) and grumbled at the fact that caring for small children doesn't count as caring, and avoided any discussion about religion by not commenting on each other's answers to that question.

But then they ask about nationality.

And ethnicity.

And those are easy. Right? Because I'm white and British. My passport says so. Which makes me, most times I'm asked, "White British". And I quite like that because it's a great catch-all for the fact that while I was born and brought up in England, my heritage is part English, and part Scottish and a bit Jewish and a bit French and a bit German and a bit, probably, if you go back far enough, Gothic or Pictish or Danish. And when I tick that "British" box, for me it covers all those and more; a one word answer for the fantastic melting pot that the last two thousand or so years of immigration has made this country. And "White"? Well, I am. Specially this time of year...

But that's not, or at least not here in Scotland (and I don't know if the English and Welsh census is different) what the census wants to know. Instead I get:

14. What do you feel is your national identity?

Scottish
English
Welsh
Northern Irish
British
Other

and

15. What is your ethnic group*?

A. White:

Scottish
Other British
Irish
Gypsy/Traveller
Polish
Other white ethnic group

And for question 14, I can tick all that apply, but for question 15, I get one shot only.

And in a way, that's fine for me. Because I can, and do, feel both English and British so on the nationality question I can tick both. Out of the list of "ethnicities" I guess I'm "Other British".

But what about the girls? What about the baby I'm carrying? Because three out of the four of them have to be on this census too. They're all under four. They have no understanding of any of these concepts. How on earth can we say what nationality they "feel"?

We asked L:

Where are you from? London or here?
Here. And London.
So that's clear. Not. And where that question is nebulous, and personal, the next one deals, apparently, in facts. What is their ethnic group? Well? They're white, that much is obvious. But what about the rest? Their mother is a hotchpotch of European immigration and their father is half-Scottish and half-English and, despite a recognisably Scottish name, if anyone traced his ancestry, is probably just as much a muddle of different things as I am. They were all born in England and now live in Scotland where we expect them to remain. Their passports just say "British". At the moment they all talk like me, but the Scottish lilt is creeping in.

So what are they? They're not Scottish, but then nor are they notScottish and the census effectively asks them (or us on their behalf) to choose. Bearing in mind that in years to come, the genealogical investigations of my grandchildren's grandchildren will rely on this census, this feels like it matters. In addition, what B and I pick makes a statement to the governments, both in Edinburgh and Westminster, about more than just our children. It makes, or at least it feels like it makes, a statement, and this is presumably why they ask the question, about our attitudes to the Union as a whole.

So we've bent the rules, for the children and for B. We've ticked, if not quite "all of the above" on nationality, half the available options: Scottish and English and British, and on ethnicity we've gone for option B:

B: Mixed or multiple ethnic groups (please write in)

So we wrote: Mixed British (Scottish/English).

And while we realise that "mixed" is really asking about skin colour, and that none of them is, by any normal criteria, "mixed race", that seems the only way of saying, as clearly as we can, that they (and we) are a muddle. And we're proud of it.

*Incidentally wikipedia defines "ethnicity" as:

a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture (often including a shared religion) and an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy., "...in general it is a highly biologically self-perpetuating group sharing an interest in a homeland connected with a specific geographical area, a common language and traditions, including food preferences, and a common religious faith".

How much you think all of that can and should be applied to the English, the Welsh, the Scottish or any other group I suppose is going to be personal. I'm definitely not convinced by the "highly biologically self-perpetuating" bit though. Or the "food preferences". If the latter is true, I'm not sure my children share an ethnicity....

Naming of Parts

2011-03-17T20:00:00.000Z

I've had this going round my head recently:

LESSONS OF THE WAR

To Alan Michell

Vixi duellis nuper idoneus
Et militavi non sine gloria

I. NAMING OF PARTS

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,

To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica

Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
          And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
          Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
          Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
          They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
          For to-day we have naming of parts.

It's by Henry Reed, and he wrote it in 1942. It has been much parodied (Cakes, Harry Potter (allegedly, although I couldn't find the link), private parts) but despite that I'm not sure that it's lost, for me anyway, any of the power it had when I first read it, aged probably about 13.

Because, and I'm no literary critic so I may be totally wrong, but I've always felt it was about how we often find ourselves focusing on the stuff that doesn't matter, the transient, the trivial, the just plain unimportant. And at the moment, I'm blogging about poo, and potties, and breech babies, and thinking about paint colours, and fabrics, and whether wooden door knobs are nicer or less nice than metal ones, and whether I really do have to consult B on what wallpaper I choose, or whether the door should go there or *moves two inches to the left* there.

And I'm ignoring the stuff that matters. Because while I'm blogging or wiping, or choosing or dithering, in Japan we still have no idea how many thousands are dead, and in Libya people are being shot, or raped, or torn apart by dogs.

And I find myself getting incredibly stressed about the fourth wash of the day, or the exact colour of the skirting boards, and then coming too, getting cross with myself and saying utterly sanctimonious things like "Well, does any of this really matter, when entire cities can be washed away in an instant?", which not only makes me sound like some sort of priggish 1930s Angela Brazil heroine, but is also quite insulting, when you think about it, to the builder, who was only asking if I'd chosen the floortiles, and whose livelihood this is, and who is doing (thus far) an excellent job.

I mentioned this to my mother, who was here last weekend, and she, with the common sense for which my mother is famed, said, "Well, yes, but you can do something about what colour your walls are, and you can't do anything about the people who are still homeless in Christchurch." She's right of course. I can't do anything about it, but I still somehow feel guilty that my energy and time is being consumed by something so much less important.

So I sit and I stew and I get cross with myself for getting on with my life as though nothing has happened, even though I know that not getting on with my life helps neither those in need elsewhere in the world, or those sitting in a wet puddle on my kitchen floor.

And really what I need to do is get over myself, find one practical thing I can do, do it*, and then step away from the internet.

*************************************************

*Such as gather up the monthly donations I have been failing to make since October and make them to the Red Cross in the knowledge that they are doing amazing work in all the locations I have mentioned and many more.

Poem taken from http://www.solearabiantree.net. Thank you.

The Gallery - Trees

2011-03-16T08:27:00.000Z

You will not be surprised if I tell you that this is not the Scottish Borders. Nor it it March 2011. It's June 2006, B and I have just celebrated our first wedding anniversary, L is a twinkle in our joint eyes and we are at the Pont du Gard.

I could have, or perhaps should have, taken a picture of a tree in our garden, or in the park, or on the way to nursery this week for the Gallery, but I know lots of others (click the Gallery link to see them) will post cheery Spring-like blossomy pictures, and while it remains dreich and miserable (and snowy, at the weekend, although only in that slushy, melt by lunchtime, make a mess of the bottom of your jeans way) and the trees remain resolutely un-photogenic, I thought I'd cheer myself up.

So here you have it. Self-indulgent trees. Roll on Summer holidays!

Oh, and if you're not familiar with the adjective "dreich", there's a great definition here. Needs more usage, I say, because it's definitely not limited to Scotland.

My baby is upside down (or should that be the right way up?)

2011-03-13T19:41:00.002Z

I've got the title of a draft post sitting waiting. It's called "Too posh to push, or too nice to slice?" and in it I was going to wonder about how this next baby is going to make his appearance into the world.

I've got form for both, after all.

L was born vaginally*, without drugs, intervention or tearing, at 41 weeks and 4 days, after about seven hours of labour (although I've never actually worked out when you start counting from, so it might be more (or less) than that). B and I were alone for most of it, which I know some women would have hated, but which felt right, and in fact the midwife wasn't in the room until L started crowning, and I panicked (having totally, despite both NHS and NCT ante-natal classes, not at all realised that what I was doing was pushing, and also somehow forgotten that the whole point of the exercise was to get the baby out) and pressed the call button. She was born, with me on my feet, about two pushes later. We were home in less than twelve hours.

S and A, on the other hand, were a planned c-section at 36 weeks. I realise this isn't the norm at all hospitals, but where we were we were flatly told that this was the safest for our babies, due to the added risks of delivering twins with a shared placenta. I wasn't enormously keen on the idea at first, particularly given the good experience I had with L and the quick recovery, and the fact that I knew it was possible, as my sister-in-law had delivered her girls (also with a shared placenta) vaginally (although she did give herself two black eyes, she pushed so hard), but when the third consultant tells you that yes, they really do think this is the right thing, we went with it.

It was utterly different and equally wonderful. It was the day after my mum's birthday, so she and my dad came up the night before and cooked us a meal. We had a glass of champagne and an early night and at 7 a.m. the next morning, with a kiss at L's door as we went past, we headed off to the hospital. The scariest bit was the epidural, but otherwise I felt nothing worse than as though I was being poked through a very thick blanket. The girls were born within a minute of each other, and came out screaming. I fed them both in theatre, possibly in specific defiance of the doula who had told me, when I enquired about her helping us after their arrival, that if I had a c-section not only would I not bond with them, but I'd also never be able to breast feed. On the advice of friends I refused the codeine based painkillers (apparently the resulting constipation is worse than labour) and was up and about the same day, and out of hospital two days after that, although with strict instructions (vociferously enforced by my husband and father-in-law) not to drive or pick up anything heavier than the babies for six weeks.

I am, obviously, incredibly lucky to have had two such great experiences, but when thinking about what I wanted to happen this time (having had a previous c-section, they had assumed I might prefer another), I realised that the practicalities of another operation have to, for me, make aiming for another vaginal delivery the preferred option. If I can't lift anything heavier than the baby, how am I going to get S and A out of their cots, or into the swings at the park, or push all four of them up to the nursery? If I can't drive, now that we are no longer within easy reach of public transport, how are we going to get anywhere? We'd cope, I'm sure we'd cope, but it'd be tricky.

So we'd decided. We would hope, realising again how lucky we were, for a repeat of L's arrival. This all depends of course, on the position of my scar. So we had it checked out: looks fine, we'll check again at 30 weeks. Then we were told that the placenta was low: it'll probably move, we'll check again at 30 weeks.

I'm now (nearly, the consultant is on holiday next week) 30 weeks. The scar is fine. The placenta has moved.

But the baby is breech.

They won't try to turn him externally because of the scar (much to my relief, as I've heard lots of anecdotal evidence about how much it hurts and none at all about how it works), and they certainly won't let me try a vaginal delivery for the same reason.

So we're left with waiting, and hoping he'll turn over of his own accord, and me spending a lot of time on all fours wiggling my bottom. Which if nothing else is amusing B.

But the irritating thing of course, is that I can't stop thinking about it. Every time I feel a kick or a movement, I'm trying to work out what it is that's poking at me, and to extrapolate from that which way up he is. And, again of course, it's perfectly possible that at 30 weeks L was also breech, we just never knew.

So we wait. And wiggle. And do anything else that anyone else thinks will work....?

*I realise that's quite an in your face sort of word, but I just don't like the implication in saying "natural", that there's something "unnatural" about the way that S and A arrived. Sorry.

Oh, and I know I've posted that picture of A's arrival several times before, but I just think it's awesome.

Two days, two girls, two potties.

2011-03-12T14:24:00.000Z

It's started. We are officially potty training. In an ideal world I'd have left it until the Summer, A&S will be two and a half by then, and it'll be warmer (i.e. not actually snowing, which it currently is) and so they can run around with no knickers on and wee in the garden. But I'll also have a newborn, and I realise that there are limits to what I think I can manage, and simultaneous potty training, breast feeding and sleeping in three hour shifts seems to be taking masochism a little too far.

So. The theory is that we start now, and they're done by the end of May. Or something.

I had this great idea: we'd start with just S. She seems more ready than A - we've been plonking them on the potties before the bath for a while now, and S has definitely worked out what she's supposed to be doing. A is more excited by the fact that she gets to wash her hands afterwards (which does have its upside, but isn't actually getting anything moving down below). So on Wednesday, on my morning with just S, I took off the nappy and on with the brand new pants.

It took seven minutes for her to have an accident.

It took a further twenty four minutes for her to have a really nasty, throw the pants away, use a whole packet of wipes accident.

We had three further accidents and one success before A and L came home.

A took one look at S's new pants and insisted on having some too. So much for doing them separately.

Here's how the first two days went:

Accidents: S: 8 A: 1

Successes: S: 5 A: 2

Daytime hours spent in nappies due to naps and midwife appointments: About six

Smarties eaten: S: 8 A: 5 L: 3 Mummy: 0

Squares of cooking chocolate eaten: Mummy: 6 (and a bit. Maybe)

Bottles of wine opened before lunchtime: None. I'm pregnant...

Actually, I stopped counting on Thursday evening after the first two days and since then (famous last words), S hasn't had an accident at all. A, who seems to have an absolutely cast iron bladder that, if they weren't genetically identical, I'd say she must have inherited from her father, hasn't had many, but not many successes either. I'm not sure what she's doing with it, but am choosing to tell myself she must be sneaking off to the loo when I'm not looking...

... I live in hope. Wish us luck. It took six months for L really to crack this. I suspect it's unlikely doing two at the same time is going to be any quicker.

The Gallery (part 2) - Six letter word

2011-03-09T10:02:00.001Z

Inspired (and egged on) by Trish. I give you the adult version of this week's One Word Gallery. I call it How I feel about traffic jams:

You can see the rest of the Gallery by clicking the link above, or my official entry by clicking here.

The Gallery - Bubble

2011-03-09T08:14:00.001Z

I secretly hope it's still out there somewhere.

****************************************************

This was actually going to be my Simple Pleasures picture for last week's Gallery, but I never got round to posting it. Fortunately, this week Tara has set us the endlessly flexible, almost infinitely possible, One Word. Click the link to see what others have found in the dictionary.

Seven skills of the successful under four

2011-03-07T20:29:00.000Z

A little while back, Emily O made me laugh with her Seven habits of a highly ineffective mother. But while reading and nodding, I was also thinking "Well, this is all very well, but she needs to give credit where credit is due. No one gets to be a truly ineffective mother if they don't have a highly skilled crack team* of children on which to practice.

So, for the under fours** reading this blog, here are the seven skills, in my opinion, of the successful child. Do these and you too can have a highly ineffective, probably grey-haired, mummy.

1. Never do anything quickly. Take your time. There is no hurry. Let Louis Armstrong be your guide. Doesn't matter how busy she says she is, or how little time she says there is, Mummy can always be kept waiting just that little bit longer.

2. Care about the things that matter. It is important which bowl you have your breakfast in. Or which pair of socks you have on. Or whether the beans are touching the fish fingers.

3. If something isn't right, make your displeasure known. Make it loud or she might not hear you. How will she ever learn otherwise?

4. Mothers need to exercise their vocal chords. Never do anything on the first time of asking. Nor the second. Or third. Fourth is just about acceptable, but for really successful parental training you want to be aiming for six or seven repeats.

5. Whatever your sister/cousin/brother/friend/dog is playing with is always more exciting and interesting than what you're playing with. Get it.

6. Anything out of a packet is always, without exception, whatever the packet says on it (All Bran, Plain flour, Polyfilla) tastier and more appealing than anything out of a saucepan.

7. Treat her mean, keep her keen: at the end of the day, when Daddy comes in, stop what you're doing, look at him, smile winningly, lift up your arms for a cuddle, and ignore all the previous rules (but only where he is concerned) until bedtime.

*"Team" can, in this context of course, equally well mean the highly adaptable, exceptionally focussed, single child too. Any one of my three is perfectly capable of doing all of these (including having an argument) on her own.
** And probably the under fives too - I'll let you know in April.

Am I really dooming my children to failure by sending them to a (gasp) state school?

2011-02-21T20:27:00.001Z

An admission:

I am expensively privately educated. So is B. In fact (possibly ironically) the only part of either of our education that our parents didn't pay for was the university bit.

Our children, on the other hand, are going to be educated at the taxpayer's (and yes, that does include us) expense. State schools all the way. Mostly because we can't afford otherwise, but also partially because we are woolly Guardian reading types who believe in state education. I look at my friends from university, all highly (if not equally, most of them are much cleverer than me) intelligent, articulate, gifted people, and I see a mix of educational backgrounds. Admittedly they aren't representative of the statistics: if 93% of the population goes to state school, surely 93% of my university friends should have done likewise. No prizes for guessing that it's nothing like that much, but it's still a majority, as it should be, and it was a pretty good university too.

I am, admittedly, being a little disingenuous. One of the reasons we moved out of London was because we didn't want to end up in the panic of being allocated a "bad" school, and we did (of course we did) check out the HMIE (Ofsted to anyone South of Coldstream) reports on the schools round here before we moved. And, if I'm honest, if we'd been told all the schools were disastrous, we wouldn't have moved here but would have waited to find a house somewhere where we felt our children would get a better education.

But here we are. Our town has two primary schools and one high school, and we've already picked the primary school (it's the bigger one, so that we can separate A&S if we decide that's the right thing for them), and are looking at the high school pupils in disbelief that our children will ever be old enough to wear that uniform.

But, you know what? I remain, a little, frightened of this decision. We went to look at the primary school a couple of months ago and I was terrified. I think, somewhere in my privately-educated subconscious, I genuinely thought it was going to be a hideous, dirty, disorganised place, probably with metal detectors on the doors, and 8-year-olds shooting up in the playground. And (funnily enough) it's not. Admittedly the buildings aren't the most beautiful, but the staff were clearly committed, kind and interesting, and the work displayed was of excellent quality. Most importantly the children were pleasant and polite and clearly enjoyed their time there.

And I don't think that's unrepresentative. I suspect that the vast majority of UK primary schools, particularly those outside the bigger cities, are like that. I suspect that most children are getting a decent education and are making good friends, rather than taking weapons to school, or drinking in their lunchbreak, or swearing at the staff.

Yet that's not the image we get is it? There was (and this is what has provoked this post) a long article (part of a series) in yesterday's Sunday Times (I can't link to it, because you'd have to pay), telling the fictionalised story of a school in which the teachers are terrified to use discipline, the children attack each other with iron bars, and the head tells his staff not to stand in front of the class and actually teach the pupils (sorry, "students").

Katharine Birbalsingh, the author, was formerly the deputy head of a South London comprehensive, so must have a wealth of experience, and I don't for a second suggest that she's made any of it up in her quest to ensure that no-one is identifiable. I'm sure it is true, but it's true, or at least I hope against hope that's it's true, only in a tiny, tiny minority of cases. And what gets me is that it perpetuates a myth. The myth that your children will be doomed if you educate them in the state system. The myth that echoes unspoken round the privately-educated minority: that state school equals failure. Failure for the children, and failure by the parents who have not given their children, for whatever reason, the best start in life.

And I think that this has a knock on effect. I'm sure that if everyone was state educated, and we didn't have a two-tier system, then the system would be better for everyone. For a start, a significant minority of talented teachers wouldn't be being creamed out, and the parents, who must in the main care deeply about their children's education (else why fork out all that money?) would be putting their time and committment and interest into schools that benefit everyone, not just the children of other, similar, parents.

But that's not going to happen, is it? Or at least it's not going to happen while the myth prevails. People who can afford to will opt out, because they'll remain (as a small part of me still is) scared not to. Now, I realise that I am, once again, talking about the media, and I realise that "I had a perfectly lovely time at my state school and came out with fine results and no drug habit and am now reading an interesting degree at a good university" is hardly going to sell newspapers, but wouldn't it be lovely to see it? Just once?

Or am I wrong? Are my children doomed? And is the lottery my only hope?

The Gallery - One ordinary day of astonishing brilliance and banality

2011-02-09T08:18:00.000Z

I've found this week's Gallery amazingly emotional.

Tuesday 8th February 2011. Scottish Borders.

0000*

0736
I know, I know. I'm going. Out of bed. B was up and out over an hour ago. But just ten more minutes, please....? Oh, alright then.

0747
Oh sod it. I'm sure I look fine.

0757
Sunrise over the bypass. Going to be a lovely day.

0758
First nappy of the day

0810
Wake up L! She's overslept. Actually, we've all overslept. Now I've got to get them all fed and out in just over half an hour. How bad a parent would I be if I sent them to nursery with no breakfast?

0825
However bad it is, I'm not that bad. No time for toast though

0854
Everyone out! In the car! Quick, quick, quick!

0915
Back. Builders have been here since eight. Pop round to see how they're doing with our new kitchen.

0922
Back inside. Dishwasher loaded. Breakfast table cleared. What next? Laundry.

0927
Five minutes for me. Tunnock's teacake and a cup of tea. Who says Scotland doesn't have haute cuisine? Very proud of my mug too. Lidl's finest. £2.99 each. Or £5 for two. We decided two was extravagant. Regretting it now though.

0936
Tuesdays are a working day (hence the nursery). This is my orderly desk. Aka kitchen table. And yes, I did raid the children's chocolate ten minutes after eating that teacake. Apparently it's very good for the baby. Or something.

1322

Work half done. As usual. Leave it til later. Meeting with builder and architect about pipes and ducts (eh? Did they really think I'd have anything to contribute?) fully done. Girls collected, five minutes late as usual. Right you lot, out. Go and play quietly while Mummy has some lunch. And if I hear any whinging or arguing it's straight to bed. Go!

1328

Lunchtime. I know it looks disgusting but it was left over and in the fridge and not cheese on toast for a change (Nigel Slater Chicken and Bean Casserole if you're interested). Actually it was delicious.

Sneak in ten more minutes work before the fighting starts. Little ones off to bed. Protesting.

1413

Remember the laundry. And the dishwasher.

1423

Convince L, briefly, that she wants to play a "game". Finish playing the "game" by myself.

1542

Play L's game. She is a bird. I am, apparently, a caterpillar. I am required to wear the green spiral thing. Not a good look with a bump.

1601

Accede to a request for "big painting". Wonder where "big painting" is going to be possible when we have floors we actually like.

1628

Big painting lasts about ten minutes. Clearing up takes rather longer. "Ticking" now the activity of choice.

1648

Universal whinging indicates imminent starvation. I attempt to resist the lure of CBeebies and cook with girls hanging off three of my limbs. Fail. Give in. This is happening more and more often. Feel guilty.

1722

Builders gone. Sneak out to inspect their handiwork leaving children eating, unsupervised. Bad parent. Builders still have a way to go but am unfeasibly excited by a big hole.

1725

Three empty plates equals one happy mummy.

1744

Tidy up time. Allegedly.

1837

B home. Bathtime. So much easier with two.

1854

Dry, dressed, into bed

1855

B is reading L's story. I have A&S. L chooses The House at Pooh Corner. I have definitely drawn the short straw.

1938

All quiet from upstairs. Supper cooked and eaten. B out rehearsing. Time to do that work I didn't get done earlier.

Decide I am feeling post-modern instead.

2312

B off to Rome at 3 am tomorrow morning (via Amsterdam as apparently you can't fly direct to Rome from either Newcastle or Edinburgh. Oddly). Packing time. This is everything he needs (minus the sponge bage of course) for three days.

2359*

All quiet. So far.

Dull, wasn't it? Very like the day before, in fact. And, if my sister weren't coming to stay, very like today would be. Very like most of my days, and, I suspect most of the days of many other women (and a good few men) nation-, if not world-, wide.

So why did I find it emotional? The problem is, taking the pictures made me think about what I was doing, rather than simply getting through, getting by, getting on. And I realised how mundane my life is. How full of little, unimportant, repetitive tasks. How full of "must do this" and "no, not now" and "in a minute". And how, when I do have half an hour to spare, how little time I actually spend interracting with my children, sitting down and playing with them, doing what they want to do when they want to do it. They asked to do painting, but I can't honestly say I'd have agreed if I hadn't known it would be a good photo.

It makes me want to weep. I'm not sure how I got here. I'm not sure I'm being the mother I want to be. I'm not sure, sometimes, that I'm living the life I want to live, even if I'm also not sure that being in London, being a lawyer, being stuck on the tube, or in a meeting, would feel any less dull, less mundane, less banal.

But when I stopped feeling self-pitying, I also realised how happy some of this quotidian life makes me. How amazing my children are. How lucky I am to live in this beautiful place, in this beautiful house (or it will be). How incredible it is that I have the choice to work when I want to, and am not tied to the nine to five, Monday to Friday.

So although it was dull, and it was pedestrian, it was, and is, also my 24 hours. My day. My life.

*Actually, that's artistic licence. It was actually about half past ten, but midnight (or indeed one minute to midnight) isn't a time of day I voluntarily see very often anymore. I can't imagine it looked much different to this though.

Where's Sheila Parry?

2011-02-07T21:28:00.002Z

I watched, last night, with fascination, the last episode of Bruce Parry's brilliant series Arctic.

If you're not familiar with the fabulous Bruce, he's an ex-Marine who now presents tv programmes in which he lives, for a week, a month or longer, with another culture, putting himself as closely as he can into their shoes, living in their houses (or huts, or tents), working with them, sleeping with them, eating their food, wearing, in some cases, their clothes. He's also absolute nails.

I think he's amazing. I am in awe of how he manages, despite the barriers of language and culture, to become close to these people, whether they are Ethiopian cow-jumpers, dressed only in ropes across their chests, or Norwegian reindeer herders, equipped with helicopters, skidoos and fluent English. I suspect it's very well edited, but I don't think you could fake the fact that these people really like him, and you certainly couldn't fake the enthusiasm with which he eats freshly-killed seal eyeball, or attempts to lassoo a reindeer, or turns his youknowwhat inside out (no, really).

But what does bother me about Bruce Parry, and I realise that this is almost certainly not his fault, is the fact that he doesn't, and perhaps can't, ask the questions that I want to ask. The questions I'd ask the women:

What is is like raising children in this environment?
Do you have any autonomy?
Will you be educated?
Can you choose who you marry?
Can you work independently of your husband and family?
What do you do without nappies? Or, for that matter, tampons?
How is/was childbirth?
How do you feed your family?
Is it really true that you can manage not to bond with your newborn in the knowledge that he or she is unlikely to survive until he is five?
What do you really think about genital mutilation?
What do you hope for your children?

Do you have a voice?

Because Bruce doesn't give them one, and, as I say, I suspect that that is because he himself is a man, and that in many of these cultures he simply can't have those conversations. I also realise that, in Arctic at least, he was concentrating on the, perhaps "bigger" issue of climate change and how this is already affecting the communities in which he stayed, so the "smaller", more immediately personal questions I wanted to ask perhaps were asked, but ended up on the cutting room floor. Or perhaps just weren't so relevant in communities which are already much more industrial and like our own.

So I find myself watching, fascinated by the glimpse of another culture afforded to me, but also frustrated. Frustrated that I can't find out what it would be like to be the Darkhad, or Kombai, or Daasanach equivalent of myself or my daughters, born female, but into another culture so vastly different from our own.

The Gallery - Shapes of Tunisia

2011-02-02T08:28:00.000Z

It's been a while since I took part in the Gallery, what with one thing and another, and I've come back on a particularly tricky week.

Not only does Tara want the wonderfully vague and innocent-sounding Shapes, but she also wants us to go out and actually take pictures of them rather than scrolling through our archives of pictures.

Well, sorry Tara, I'll give you shapes, but I didn't take the pictures this week. The most exotic place I've been this week is the bathroom showroom and I forgot my camera anyway, so these are a few months old, but the thoughts are recent, so I hope that counts.

Tunisia

Because we had a holiday in Tunisia last October, and one of the things I loved most about it (because I wasn't that enthusiastic about the resort) was Tunisia itself: how friendly the people were, how happy they all seemed, and how safe a country it felt. One day B and I put the children into childcare for the morning and went off to Carthage with a guide. Just us and her. We talked a lot about modern Tunisia, and why it works and what the political system is, and why hasn't Islamic radicalism taken over, and what is the position of women, and how does the electoral system operate and what's the major source of income and and and, and I came away thinking "Tunisia works"....

Only, apparently it doesn't. Or didn't. And apparently everyone knew that actually former President Ben Ali was horrid, that opposition was suppressed, that elections were rigged.

Well, I didn't. And I didn't until two weeks ago. And I didn't know that the same was true about Egypt either, where we'd also considered going on holiday.

And I consider myself, if not as well informed as I was when I had time to read a newspaper every day, and could actually listen to what John Humphries was saying rather than interrupting him with, "Will you just eat your rice krispies and no, you can't have any more apple juice", at least relatively politically aware, and, perhaps more importantly, politically responsible.

So why didn't I know? Why weren't we, as a nation, being encouraged to boycott a country that imprisoned journalists and other dissidents and falsified purportededly democratic polls? Why are we being told not to visit, say, Burma, because in so doing we are supporting the junta there, but not given the same advice for Tunisia, or Egypt, or probably, presumably, others?

I get it, of course I do. It's not in our interests to interfere in a country which, however unattractive the government, is stable and which, perhaps more importantly in Egypt's case, has influence in areas in which we want to have a say. The British (and US) governments needed Tunisia and Egypt, and so they turned a blind eye, and that meant that the media also turned a blind eye, and people like me, who perhaps didn't do the full research they should have, didn't know.

But nonetheless I feel really stupid. I feel like I should have known. I feel as though I've been misled, and I feel cross that I allowed myself to be. That I took what I was told at face value.

Now, I accept that had we gone to Portugal (not a dictatorship, as far as I know) instead, it wouldn't have made the blindest bit of difference either to the ruling groups in Tunisia, or to the (I now discover) oppressed majority, but I wish I had known. I wish I had been able to make my own choices and decisions in full possession of the facts.

None of this really matters now, Tunisia and Egypt will change, for better or worse, and what I did or didn't do is hardly going to influence that, but for myself it has made me suspicious, and much more sceptical about what I am told. Where Wikileaks failed, Tunisia has succeeded. And that may not necessarily be a bad thing.

Why are more women "choosing" caesarian sections?

2011-01-30T16:43:00.001Z

Yet a nother piece in another national newspaper today about "birth choices" and why women are, or aren't, giving birth in accordance with whatever the latest guru/bit of research/NHS funding report says.

And, actually, this time this one didn't really irritate too much. Mostly because Joanna Kavenna, a mother of two herself, acknowledges that each woman's "choice" is personal to her, and based on her history, both medical and emotional, the circumstances she finds herself in, the size and position of her baby and a million other factors, over most of which she has absolutely no control.

But she did get me swearing at this:

Now it seems we have lost confidence in our ability to give birth naturally: today one in four babies is born by caesarean, up from one in 10 in 1990"

Why, why, why, why, why, can't she and any of the other hundreds of people who opine on this subject not see what seems so perfectly obvious to me: this isn't about our confidence in ourselves; women don't choose to have caesarians. The medical profession chooses for you. Women simply, in the main, do what they are told is best for them and their baby.

Look around at your friends and relations. I bet lots of them will have had, or their partners will have had, caesarians. How many of them actually, prior to the birth of their first baby, decided, with no medical requirement to do so, to have a caesarian? One? None?

How many of them, rather, after a 24, or 36, or 58-hour labour, exhausted and frightened, were medically advised that it was necessary; or were told their baby was breech and the hospital didn't have enough midwives with the necessary expertise to deliver a breech baby; or they were (like me) having identical twins and were informed (although it turns out this isn't the policy at all hospitals) that the risks to mother and babies meant a caesarian was the safest option? Pretty much all of them, I suspect.

So why do we say this is about maternal choice? Why do we use words like "elective" caesarian, when what we mean is "planned" or "medically advised", or even "had an absolutely horrendous time last time, culminating in an emergency operation, followed by weeks of painful recovery, and is understandably terrified to go through it again"? Why does the media label four in ten British women "too posh to push"?

Now, I accept that there may be women who really do have the mythical tummy tuck at the same time, or want to time their birth so it fits in with the release of their latest fitness DVD or whatever, but I don't know any of them, and I'd be pretty surprised if they make up even a thousandth of a percent of the many, many women who have caesarians, on medical advice, and against what they had originally hoped for in this country every year.

So can we please, please, stop beating women up about this? Why can't we accept that any delivery that results in a healthy mother and healthy baby (or babies) is a successful delivery, whether it costs the NHS more or less and whether it is the one we planned or not?

How do you get two whales in a mini?

2011-01-24T17:31:00.001Z

Down the M4...

Unless you live in the Scottish Borders of course, in which case the M4 wouldn't help at all.

Anyway, I digress.

A more important question. How do you get four children in an ordinary sized car?

I say "ordinary sized", but of course given that we already have three children, our car is anything but ordinary sized. It looks like this:

It's even that colour.

It's not what you might call a nippy little number. It's not sporty, it's not speedy, it's not swish and it turned out to be rubbish in the snow, but it has one major advantage: you can get three small children, three large car seats and a vast amount of kit in it in (relative) comfort.

Only now we're expecting a fourth. And I don't know where we're going to put him.

I'm not good with cars. This one is the first car I've owned and we didn't even get that until just before A&S were born. At university I had a bike. It was pink and I loved it until it got a buckled front wheel on the way back from my last final, so I abandoned it chained to a bike rack and for all I know it's still there (bad girl). Then I had a tube ticket and a pair of comfy trainers. Then I had a baby and everyone told me that I'd need a car, but I like the tube, and I don't like driving, so although I upgraded occasionally to a bus ticket (easier for the pushchair) we stuck with the no car and the smug feeling that we were doing something for the environment when really it just suited us fine.

Then they said we were going to jump from being three to five, and I caved.

But, as I say, a mere two and a bit years later, I'm not sure it's what we need.

I've thought about this:

It's called a multimac, and it fixes into your isofix points and magically turns your back seat into four childseats (with optional clippableonable baby seat). It's also, while not cheap, significantly cheaper than a new car. Sounds perfect? Well it could be but it strikes me that they'll be sitting awfully close together, and given that any journey longer than about ten minutes with my three already invariably degenerates into a slightly less muddy car-seat reenactment of trench warfare, with endless millimetre-sized incursions into enemy territory met with excessive and violent reprisals, I'm not sure that putting them closer together than they already are is really the most sensible plan.

So then I thought about putting two of them in the middle seat, and two in the pop up seats at the back. Which could be fine, but what about getting them in and out of the dreaded car seats? How does that work when the only way at those seats is by leaning over from the middle?

So B says we're going to have to do something like this:

But the thing is, that while I'm not a car person, I'm also most definitely not a van person, and especially not a van that looks more than a little like a hearse. I realise that having four children means there will be a lot of compromises, but I'm just not sure I want to start this early.

So, is there a solution? Is there a way to transport four children, all still requiring car seats, in comfort and, if not style, at least something that looks like we might have chosen it because we like it?

Answers on a postcard. Or in the comments box. Please?

2010 in pictures

2011-01-10T22:59:00.002Z

Some significant years in my life:

1976, 1989, 1994, 1995, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2008...

And now 2010: It started somewhere over the mid-Atlantic, and ended with an Upstairs Downstairs marathon and a Thai meal. I started as a Londoner, an employee, a mum of three and ended as a rural-dweller, a Scot (by adoption anyway), a consultant, and with the weeks until I have four ticking away a lot quicker than I expected.

We passed through a third birthday, two second birthdays, Tunisia, Spain, the North of England (several times) and a great deal of weather. We said a lot of sad goodbyes, and just as many happy hellos (and hello agains).

And here we are, ten days in, 2011 definitely underway, and I'm looking back at the year that was. In pictures. Sian at Mummytips has set up a competition, which I absolutely want to win (the prize is a ticket to CyberMummy, and the predicted arrival of number 4 some three weeks earlier means I'm reluctant to go out and spend the money now, but am nonetheless twitching in case it does all work out, I can go, and then then there aren't any tickets left. (I was sceptical last year, couldn't go anyway, and then saw how much fun everyone else had....)).

So here goes. This was 2010.

Here's to 2011......

Finding out (part 2)

2011-01-08T11:39:00.001Z

I am told, with 99.9% certainty, that my future holds some, if not all, of the following:

Unconditional love (but not always when I want it*)
Mud, lots of it
Lego
Cold rugby touchlines
Guns
Blue and khaki and green and brown
The other half of the baby names book
Noise
Being weed on*
Fisticuffs
Tractors and cars and boats and planes
Monosyllables
Less whinging (couldn't really be more)
Sticky sheets
Straighforwardness
Dinosaurs
Lists and quizzes (cricket averages, presidents of the US, flags of the world, top goal scorers in 1974 with a Z in their name....)
Never having enough food in the house
Willies (well, just the one)
Sympathising with girlfriends
Train sets
Grubby knees
Socks under the bed
Computer games
Boundless energy and enthusiasm

Slugs and snails, and probably some puppy dogs' tails too

Here he is:

Our son.

He might do, and be, all, or none, of the above. But I am so looking forward to meeting him, whoever he is.

*Thanks to Mwa and Trish for those pearls of joy....

I don't want to go.

2011-01-06T23:02:00.000Z

Ok. First off, I'm a spoilt brat. Clearly I want to go. Clearly I am a very lucky girl who has a very lovely husband who spoils her rotten. Clearly I should be jumping for joy with excitement. But....

...On Tuesday, L and I, courtesy of her best friend moving there, B having a load of air miles that he's uninvited and un-hinted-at offered to us, and a pair of very loving and tolerant grannies, are off to Singapore for six days. A and S are staying here. They will be looked after very capably by B and his mother for the first four days, then he'll take them down South and my mother will take over the granny role for the last two days, before we get collected from Heathrow on the following Monday. They couldn't be in better hands.

It's a minimum of 26 degrees in Singapore. It is clean. It is tidy. We have free accommodation with utterly lovely people (and I'd be calling them that even if they weren't putting us up). We can swim, and potter, and shop. I will have only one child to look after, and someone else will be cooking for her.

But.

While I am looking after my one child, my babies, my tiny, defenceless, two-year-old, obstinate, stroppy, wonderful babies, are going to be a million* miles away. What if something happens? What if something happens to one of them and I can't get back? What if something happens to me, and I never get back? There are planes, and motorways, and icy roads, and illnesses, and accidents of unimaginable kinds to contend with. What am I thinking leaving them for so long to go so far away?

A, in particular, is not making this easier. I think she knows. She's at that stage where she understands a lot more than she can say, and I think she knows. I think she realises I'm going and I'm certain she doesn't want me to. For the first time ever, I'm having to sit in their room with them until she falls asleep because she won't let me leave (and now she's capable of climbing out of the cot - and I don't think it's fair to take the sides off and then leave them with other people for a week - I can't leave until I know she's not going to take a nosedive).

I actually tried to explain to her tonight. I sat and I stroked her hand through the bars, and I told her I was going away but that I would not be gone long and I would do everything I can to be back to her soon. And I find myself thinking, again, so that I bore myself and can't sleep: "But what if I can't? What if I'm not?"

And I know, I really do, that as soon as we're on that plane, and L, who is beside herself with excitement, has settled down with her own private telly, and I have a book, or a mindless movie, and the anticipation of all the wonderfulness ahead, that it will be ok. That it will be more than ok. I suspect that this may end up being L's first memory that she takes with her into adulthood, and I hope it's going to be a wonderful one. I'm determined to make it a wonderful one. It's our girls' adventure, and we've been planning it for months. We are so very lucky.

But there's still a very big part of me that wishes we weren't going at all.

* Please note, distances may not be geographically accurate, but emotionally they're spot on.

Finding out

2011-01-01T21:35:00.001Z

This time next week we'll know.

Boy or Girl?

Entirely new wardrobe of stuff with cars and monkeys on it? Or a lifetime of handmedowns?

Because we've decided. We're finding out.

We didn't with L. We didn't want to spoil the surprise. But the thing you realise when you actually have a baby is that the baby is the surprise; the crying, wailing, blood-and-gunk-covered, amazing bundle of pink and white and odd grey-blue that someone's just handed you. She could have been boy, girl or anything in between and I'd still have been astonished by her.

We did find out with A and S. We were being scanned every two weeks. Somehow when they're giving you fortnightly updates on their blood flow, projected weight and leg length, it feels stupid not to find out what there is (or isn't) between those legs. We knew so much about them before they were born, but the meeting them was still nothing I could have imagined.

So this time, we've got form for either. But we're going to find out. I think.

I want a boy. Everyone else wants me to have a boy. It's my turn for a boy. I've got three girls already. A boy would be amazing.

Mums of boys tell me that no-one will ever love me like a son. I'd love to know if that's true. I'd like not to be scared by the thought of changing my friends' boys' nappies. It's about time too that B had someone to keep him company, now and in 12 years time when this house becomes a monthly war zone of oestrogen; that he, the eldest of three brothers, had someone to be a boy with himself.

A boy would be so exciting. For me, for B, for our families who are inundated with girls. Of course we want a boy.

But I want a girl too. I know girls. I have girls. The girls want a girl (well, L does; the little ones are more at the pointing at my tummy stage and saying "baby" because they know it makes me smile.) A girl would be easy. The dynamic of four girls would (I hope) just work.

So I lurch - I imagine it's a boy and get all excited at the thought of telling people, of the different, of the new. And then I imagine another girl, the familiar and safe, the four little girls playing together, and I want a girl.

I guess I must just want a baby. Maybe we should leave it as a surprise... Because really I know: whoever (and whatever) he (or she) turns out to be, he's going to surprise us.

************************************************************

Oh, and I hope everyone had a splendid Christmas! We were mostly ill, but still managed to have fun, and even better Father Christmas (or Santa as they definitely call him this side of the Border) managed to find us in our new home.

And here were are in 2011....Happy New Year!

Dear So and So - 3rd week in December

2010-12-17T22:31:00.000Z

Dear boss,

Nothing is actually going to happen if I don't get absolutely everything done by Christmas. You know this, I know this, the clients know this.

When is one of us actually going to come out and say it?

Yours, hassled.

Consultant and all-round dogsbody.

**********

Dear L

"Torch-er" is not actually the verb we use for "having a torch".

And if that's what you actually want to do to me, whinging is so much more efficient.

Mummy

**********

Dear B

I've had a word with Father Christmas and he reckons that you'll be happy with a packet of fruit gums and a satsuma. I told him that'll be fine. That's ok isn't it?

Loving wife

**********

Dear Postman

There are things I need at the moment: Christmas presents (everyone's), Birthday presents (mine). And things I don't need: twin breast-feeding cushions, printer paper.

Please can you concentrate on delivering the former and leave the latter to languish in a sorting office? Just for the next week?

Yours, with cushion.

Non-breastfeeding mother

**********

Dear B (2)

Oh, and it's not just FC who's been rubbish about thinking of presents for you this year.

Loving (but inefficient and unimaginative) wife

**********

Dear Girls,

I realise you're now two. But could we not go for "terrific" instead?

Mummy

**********

Dear B (3)

Thank you for making me go out tonight. You were right and I was wrong. The world feels so much better after three hours away from my children. Oh, and a half of lager.

Yours much more cheerily

Loving (and slightly tiddly) wife

**********

Dear weather

Just a little warmer? Please?

Yours freezingly

Pathetic Southerner.

**********

Dear Readers,

Head over to Kat's for more postcards.

love and Happy Christmas,

me x

Pre-natal depression

2010-12-15T23:36:00.000Z

Is this a thing?

Maybe it's a thing?

Please let it be a thing. Because if it's not a thing, it's just me. And somehow that makes it so much worse.

I'm not depressed. I'm not someone who's depressed. People who are depressed want to hurt themselves, or others. They cry.

I don't feel like that. I'm ok. I'm just tired. So tired and so sick. It'd be ok if I could just stay in bed. I don't know what I'm going to do if I get out of bed. How am I going to cope? I've got the girls, and I can't think about what I'm going to do with them, what I'm going to feed them, what I'm going to say to them.

And then there's the washing, and the cooking, and the shopping. And I can't do it. How can I do it? How have I ever been able to do it?

But it's ok. People keep telling me it's ok. People seem to think I should be happy. Happy about this baby. And they say that, and I paint on a smile, which I know can't look real, and I say "Yes, it's wonderful, I'm so happy". And I know what they're really thinking. Because it's what I'm thinking. What my brain is screaming at me, every minute of every day. How am I going to cope? I can't cope with the three children I have, how on earth will I manage another one? How can I be happy when I am failing already and all that's going to happen in eight months time is I'm going to fail more? Fail harder. Fail worse.

Go back to bed. Hide. Make it go away.

*************************************

I don't feel like this. I really don't. But I did. For all of October and some of November. And then it passed. And now I am happy. Happy and bumpy and looking forward to feeling my baby move. But I wasn't. I really wasn't. And I couldn't say. I couldn't say because I didn't want people to think less of me. To think that I had gone into this with my eyes closed. Or, more importantly, that I was bringing a baby into the world that wasn't wanted. Because it is wanted, so much.

And is it a thing? Am I the only person who feels like this in early pregnancy? Because this isn't the first time. I felt like this with L too. I upset B enormously because I gave him the impression that at eight or ten weeks pregnant I didn't want our much wanted, much adored first-born. I caused him to question me, and us, and our decision to have this baby. But it wasn't any of those things. It was just so hard. So hard getting through those first few weeks. And so much harder trying to pretend to be happy when everyone wants and expects you to be happy and when all you can do is try desperately to hold it together and not scream; "I don't know if I want this. I don't think I can cope".

I've called this post Pre-Natal Depression, and in so doing I am not trying to undermine the real seriousness of Post-Natal Depression, but just to share how I felt, on the off-chance that although this isn't something we speak about, and it isn't something the medical profession recognises, and it isn't, maybe, as bad or as serious as proper PND, that is is a thing, and that I (and anyone else who has felt, or is feeling, like this) am not alone.