What an awesome weekend.

Seriously, weekends don’t often come better.

Most important thing I have to say is to Steve and Kim: Congratulations. I’m so glad you now have a squishable lump of gorgeous to call your own. She is beautiful and I’m sure she will bring you much joy.

Then there is another landmark to report in young Alfred’s life: We officially have witnessed, verifiable standing upness!

We went to the Pod at the weekend to see a bit of racing but mainly to catch up with friends and thanks to the harshness of the weather spent rather a lot of time in Abi and Andrew’s tea wagon. Alfie was busy performing for his audience and while moving from boring daddy to interesting friend he totally forgot himself and stood completely unaided between the two knees.

Keith and I did that thing where you grab each other’s arms and stare bug eyed not wanting to break the spell by speaking while wanting to convey through the power of grip the words “Holy cr@p are you seeing what I’m seeing?!“

When we did venture out into the wind, Alfie in his ear defenders turned out to be as unflappable as Alfie in ma belleh. Honestly, where has the year gone between this and now?! Last time I remember being quite amused at the fact that the only thing to get a proper reaction from the bump was a top fueller launching at full beans. This time, I would like to report that the only thing to get a reaction was .... a top fueller launching at full beans. And the only reaction that got was a bit of a jump and a very melodramatic pout.

Alfie is so bomb proof it actually scares me.

Sunday was all about me. Remember when I went back to work I started to run to get fit for the future? Well yesterday I ran my first half marathon with my friend Jo, and it was the second proudest experience of my life.

Unlike the first proudest moment, I spent the 2 hours 25 minutes of the race smiling my head off. I have never before felt so powerful, or so empowered. We killed it, the both of us, running further and faster than we thought we could and chatting the whole time we did it. There were so many magical moments for me, all of which I fully expect to forget, but as the saying goes, I will never forget how I felt, and that was literally, and metaphorically on top of the world.

On the way home we stopped for the best meal I’ll have all year. The food was forgettable, the service was poor but the company was just perfect. Rachy Chums was back from Oz for a family occasion, and had the honour (in Alfie’s eyes anyway) of spending some time in the company of my little boy. The last time I say Rachy was when I was about 2 months pregnant and had to tell her I wouldn’t be making it to her wedding so she had missed the fatness, the birth drama and the first 10 months of Alfie’s life.

I think she quite liked the small amount she saw of him. Unfortunately Alfie spent most of the meal flirting shamelessly with the lady at the next table which gave poor Rachy a rather good view of the back of his head.

Hopefully when she comes back at Christmas he will be more appreciative of her gifts and attentions, and hopefully I will be less spaced and will remember to take a photo of the two of them!!

Wherein I admit something shameful

I received a lovely text from Keith on my way home today. It read:

You will be pleased to know we have dealt with jiggy. It was usual disgustingness, no sign of Ben and Jerrys reaction though. Love you XXX

I know, there are so many things wrong with this whole scenario your head's about to explode, yeah?

First we fed our son ice cream which, oh no wait, that's right, we couldn't have fed our son ice cream could we because he's allergic to dairy isn't he? Well the jury is still out after a hideous bedtime, but having mugged his dad for half his tub o' vanilla it seems Alfie's digestive output was in no way impacted by consuming moo juice. In this house that counts as a result.

Secondly there's the whole fact that my husband saw fit to text me with the news in the first place. Seriously, we didn't start off like this, I promise you. We used to abuse our text service in the way most couples do before they reproduce and forget the generally accepted limits of conversation.

Finally there is the "jiggy" thing, which is actually what I wanted to ask all you fellow parents:

Do you have a nickname for your children's bodily functions?

Come on, be honest with me, I need to know. Are we teetering on the fringes of those career parents that you would be scared of taking to a Greek restaurant for fear we'll shout "OOPSIE" and start trying to sweep up the broken plates?

Impressive isn't it? I've just used up the 100th post on this blog to ask about nicknames for poo. I think I just done answered my own question.

A Moment of Cute

One of the best things about writing a blog is that it means you get into the habit of really appreciating some little moments of magic. I might still notice them if I weren't blogging, but I wouldn't have photographed them and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't remember them in years to come.


Yesterday was one of my days off, and we spent it pottering around.

In the morning I took Alfie to a toddler group for the first time, which he loved. There were toys that went BING!, fire extinguishers that went CLANG! and other babies to engage in much mutual face gouging joy. Seriously, why do babies do that? Ooooh hello, you look nice, so to show you how much I like you I will smile at you and then I slowly reach out and rip your face off your skull.

Needless to say after 2 hours of such heady excitement he slept soundly on the way home.

He was in a pretty good mood when he woke up too, which meant we got the chance to have a lovely al fresco lunch and then Keith and I spent a few minutes solving the Chinese puzzle of Mercedes drive shaft removal.

As soon as I had turned my back, Alfie was joined by his bestest bud Harry for a spot of chicken watching in the sun.

When I went to go back up the garden this is what I saw.

Excuse the terrible photo, I have to admit it was a bit of an afterthought to standing with Keith soaking up the cute.

A very special occasion

I want to mark today even though I don’t really know what to call it. Bizarre really when today is such an important occasion.


Today Alfie has been his own person longer than he was part of me. Today is 43 weeks and 1 day since he was born.

Moments like this are the sort of occasion where you look back, and really take stock.

I realise I have never really spoken about Alfie’s birth, and the aftermath it left. I realise I have never blogged about how hard I worked to talk out the negative feelings surrounding the pressure to be induced. The feeling of helplessness when there was nobody to support our wish to wait it out. How close I sometimes felt to depression afterwards when all this anger was bubbling up inside me that I didn’t know what to do with.

I’m not sure why I never really talk about this either. It’s not a deliberate ploy on my part, I guess I just always have other things to say on here.

Like the fact that Alfie has now moved onto “ooooo” noises. In fact they are his current obsession. Everything is either “Ooooo” or “Mmmmm-bah”. He has about a hundred different variations on those noises to describe any given situation.

He also loves to sing, especially first thing in the morning and in the shower. He is used to me singing to him in the shower (mainly the classics, like old Satchmo and Nina) and if I don’t start quickly enough he does it for me. He sounds like Mogwai from Gremlins and I’m going to make it my mission to get a recording of it somehow so I can play it to him when he’s a grumpy teenager.

He is also going bundles on walking. He can happily toddle behind a walker, or if you take his hands, and he’ll quite happily stand if you let him go ... until he realises and then he instantly crash lands.

I’m sure most working parents must feel this way, but I wasn’t prepared for how quickly he would grow up, or how much he would change while I was away. Every day I come home and he’s a slightly different little boy. I tell him to slow down, there’s no rush, but he still seems to grow up so quickly.

Mostly though, he’s beautiful. I don’t just mean physically - although he has stolen more cutes than any one child is entitled to - he just shines, and he makes us shine along with him. I wish somebody had told me earlier how amazing it felt to have your child just take your breath away with the light they bring to your life.

Something else has happened in the last 43 weeks too. At some point, I stopped waiting for his mum to arrive. He really feels like my son now, how cool is that?

And just because I want to make you feel more nauseous than you already feel, here’s a video from last night showing just how hard to please our son is. I think he would have been happier if we had just left him to take the damn thing apart!

Man Slugs

I normally spare you the finer details of our pillow talk (for your own protection, believe me!) but I had to record the conversation we had last night so in years to come I can chance upon it in the archives of this blog and crack up all over again.

For reasons you don't need to know, I was trying to describe an IUD (aka the coil) in ways that wouldn't gross out the kind of guy who turns grey at the merest hint of gore.

Me: So it's a bit like a plastic T, but the top is a bit bent.
Keith: OK, so how does that work then?
Me: Well there is copper wire
Keith: NO! NO! I don't want to heaar about ...
Me: No WAIT, let me finish, there is copper wire wound around each of the three parts and that's what does the 'working'. It creates a hostile environment, I dunno, acidic or something that stops any eggs implanting.
Keith: *thinking* ..... so a bit like slugs then?
Me: Say what now?
Keith: Slugs. You put the copper wire round the plant pots to stop them eating the plants?
Me: Yes darling a bit like slugs. Eggs implanting, slugs, it's all the same kind of deal
Keith: Hmmm, so I have man-slugs then?

What scares me is this is the bloke who is left in charge of cooking facilities and a small child every day.

Kate Ogg

Some of you may already have seen this news story, I hope so anyway because it is a truly moving story.

Kate Ogg was delivered of twins at 27 weeks gestation and one of her twins was declared dead by doctors.

After two hours of kangaroo care, he started breathing, opened his eyes and fed on breast milk she put to his lips on her fingertip.

Looking at the heartache on the faces of those parents as they say goodbye to their little boy, it makes my heart sing to know that Jamie is now a healthy 5 month old with his life ahead of him.

The word miracle is bandied about a lot these days, but I think this little lad has earned that title.