Let’s hear it for the boys

I wasn’t going to write about this for fear of reprisals, but after several recent conversations with girlfriends the weight of evidence was such that I feel I would be doing a public disservice if I didn’t.

Turns out, second time around in the pregnancy game is a open season to men folk: Both their epically funny humour, and a miraculous transformation into the three wise monkeys. 

There are whole sites dedicated to the rude things people say to you when pregnant, but top of the list of things I have heard in recent discussions are “My God you weigh a ton!!” and “Making love to someone as pregnant as you is just freaky”.

Men, I kid you not, comments like this are not covered by the Geneva Convention: In fact there is a specific clause in it that allows for brutal torture of people under these circumstances.

There is never a time when telling your beloved lady she is the size of a house/ as sexy as a gnu is a wise and sensible life choice. Even if there is a tiny part of your brain which dares think it, have the good  sense not to ever, EVER say it in earshot of the lady in question. For preference, keep a whole entire time zone between you and her before thinking it safe to release any such thoughts back into the wild.

It’s more than just the comments though, it’s also the lack of help.

Perhaps us women don’t do ourselves any favours by being superheroes who hold down careers, kids and homestead but there seems to be a definite lack of chivalry after the first pregnancy erring towards almost complete and total denial that anything is at all different. If I were being ungenerous I would wonder whether it was fair to say that the novelty has worn off and so, therefore, has any real appreciation of the help that we need.

Maybe it is unfair to assume that a man knows that we expect the same treatment the second time around. After all, we’ve done it before right? What’s the big deal? Well my friend, I can sum that up in two words: Toddlers and Hormones. The two, when combined, suck the marrow from your bones. Maybe you think you do enough just going to work, but whatever it is you think you bring to the table, we are growing A WHOLE NEW PERSON, so don’t tell us how tired you are. You don’t KNOW for tired.

Also, you remember all that nesting we did last time? The buying of clothes, the washing of clothes, the putting away of clothes, and muslins, and nappies, and blankets? That stuff still needs to happen again this time. It doesn’t happen when there is a toddler demanding our time and energy so unless you want your newborn child wrapped in newspaper like it’s just arrived from the chip shop, we need your help. Please don’t wait to be asked, earn yourself some freaky brownie points and offer before we are tempted to smother you with our ten ton bellies while you sleep.

And when your mother in law steps in to help clean your house? Buddy, you best be making good with some running shoes.

True Story.

(Except the bit about the Geneva Convention, although that SHOULD be true)

He's Growing Up Too Fast

The older Alfie gets, the more I feel like I am seeing the world through brand new eyes. He amazes me constantly with his skills and his language but more recently with his emotions.

After I read this article on Friday I really started to think about toddler emotions, and whether empathy in particular was something that would have to wait a few years. I think about these things because in a few weeks Alfie will need to practice a whole new set of skills in his relations to his little sister and I'm not overly convinced that he will have the capacity to treat her generously. Or at least I wasn't until the weekend.

Keith had gone on a bike ride and called me to say he had seen a cat the worse for wear at the side of the road and could I run up there with Alfie to see if there was a collar with a number.

Well he wasn't lying, the cat was in fact an ex-cat and had clearly been hit by a car because while its limbs were still in the standard configuration, there was a little blood here and there and a glazed open eyed stare.

Alfie has never witnessed death before, certainly not first hand, and yet he surprised me utterly by his reaction. As soon as he saw the cat (which I would like to stress didn't look traumatic or gory) he instantly quietened down, frowned deeply and in a quiet voice said "oh no". Not in his usual melodramatic clownish way, but in a careful and considered way that made me realise he not only knew there was something profoundly wrong with the cat, but that the wrong was something to be sad about.

The whole time I was looking for a collar (sadly there was none) he continued to stare at the cat, frowning and deep in thought and it wasn't until a while later that he slowly came out of his pensive state.

I'm so proud of my little man and his capacity to pick up so quickly and intuitively on the things around him. He acts the clown so often and is such a complete rhinostrich that it is sometimes easy to forget to look deep into those eyes and see the quiet sensitivity that lives there.

I was also given a chance to witness this article in glorious techinicolour when our friend Matty came up to see us. He spent some time reading a counting book to Alfie and every time they got to this page, Alfie would take the book and turn it around.

It took me a while to work it out, but when I did I was blown away by the logic of the kid: He was turning the bicycle the right way up. And just to confirm my suspicions and I asked him what he was doing he looked at me like I was a complete dumbass and pointed to the bicycle. 

I don't feel bad about being constantly behind the game where Alfie is concerned, I think the only way I could be ahead is if I woke up every morning assuming he was going to demand a volume of Keats to enjoy with his morning porridge.

In other news I have unpacked, sorted and started to wash the stash of newborn clothes. I had to share this photo because for the first time there is a pile of washing for Alfie, and a whole other pile for his little sister.

Call me slow but it's moments like that which make me realise that family life really is about to change.  

Shop Til You Drop

Hopefully not literally but I have been doing a lot of shopping recently for someone of my usual anti shopping disposition.

It seems to me that shopping for babies is a bit like shopping for weddings in that it is primarily a social occasion and luckily for my bank balance I have relatively few social shopping opportunities so I’ve limited my damage to a few key items:

Keith had been whinging about the current change bag for some time and trying to convince me that a £90 leather satchel was an appropriate alternative. Luckily due to the woeful stock control of White Stuff I was never faced with that moment of standing at the till wondering what level of epic mistake I was making and instead I found and have bought a far more suitable alternative.

See, practical enough to keep me happy  and manly enough to please Keith and with the merest whiff of leather satchel about it as well.

Next on my hit list was a Bednest because as I’m sure I had mentioned before, we’re planning on co sleeping with this little chickadee until she is 6 months old, at which point both kids will move into the larger back room where there is at least 20ft between them and us and a nice thick wall with an actual door to keep their chaos away from our ears.

Only slight fly in my co sleeping ointment is that I managed to coincide the decision with the worldwide shortage of aforementioned co sleeper so the prices of second hand versions have been going up while the new ones have been unavoidably detained in the sustainable forests of China. Still, I managed to bag one for £50 less than the new price and all I have to do now is drive to Cambridge to collect it.

Oh and find some sheets for it that don’t bore the bejesus out of me. If anyone has a stash of funky unisex/ slightly feminine brushed cotton lying about that I can cut up and turn into sheets, please let me know before I swallow my own tongue at the sight of more pastel shades.

The last piece of baby action for the week was the momentous occasion of us dropping off the pushchair for slight modifications. And by slight modifications I mean complete redesign because I’m an idiot and didn’t do my research properly.

Keith was violently opposed to the idea of getting a double buggy and only under duress and the threat of epic hissy fit did he eventually concede that there might be room for a double buggy in our lives as long as it was this one, which is the double version of our current single.

Yeah no problem darling, they’ve only been out of production for 12 years.

I somehow managed to find one at a reasonable price on eBay which only came with the seats, and not the bassinette you can see in the picture which was fine because we got a bassinette with the single. I congratulated myself on being a money saving genius and rubbed my hands with glee while it was collected for us by family friends and dropped off by Mr B senior.

So happy was I that I fair skipped into the garden with the bassinette in hand and a tra-la-la on my lips.

It didn’t fit.

Turns out I should have looked here before bidding because it says right there, clear as day, singles and doubles do not mix. Oh and you can’t buy new bassinettes any more. 

Still I made a good attempt at making it fit but pretty soon my tra-la-la was more SONovaBITCH and I was trying to think of some way of digging my way out of the inevitable I-told-you-a-double-pushchair-was-a-bad-idea lecture I knew was hovering in the kitchen watching my progress through the window.

Anyway, as luck would have it, we know a man; an incredible car interior upholsterer who has both the technology and the skill to turn my minor SNAFU into a workable solution. He seemed confident it wouldn’t pose too much of an issue and I’m confident I’ve avoided the worst of the lectures so fingers crossed by next weekend I’ll be collecting a fully working pushchair.

That’s actually is no bad things because I am now 30 weeks pregnant, which is in the right ballpark of numbers for this baby to actually be born.

Clearly she is related to Alfie so the chances are slim that there will be any baby action this side of Christmas but there is a slight frisson of excitement building about her arrival, because this girlie is the Michael sodding Flatley of babies and frankly I don’t know how much longer my body is going to contain her.

The left hand side of my ribcage hurts all the live long day and people have actually asked me if I’m OK because they think I’ve just startled. No, no, that’s not me, that is my unborn child rocking my whole entire body with the force of her kicks.

Now if you would please call me an ambulance I fear I may need a rib replacing. 

Evolution of Man Flu

Alfie is ill. The jury is out as to whether he has just taken his teething to epic new levels or whether he has caught a low level cold which has compounded his previous teething misery.

Regardless of which it is, Keith and I were treated to an insight into the evolution of man flu as Alfie swung from Woes through Doom and on to MUTHERFUCKINSNAKESONTHEMUTHERFUCKINGPLANE!!!

First he refused to be separated from us, even for a second, and insisted on being held. All well and good unless you are 7 months pregnant and trying to cook dinner at which point a 10kg child might as well be a fully grown hippo.

Then the special comfort food meal I prepared for his benefit (sausages, mash and home made tomato sauce) especially designed to be easy on gums, sore throats and any conceivable other ailing body part was spat out in disgust and fruit demanded in its place. Chopped fruit. In bite size pieces. STAT.

Bath time? GETMEOUTMYNOSEISRUNNING!!

Bedtime Drink? Give me all the moo juice in the land woman, I want it all. STAT MAX!!!

And hitting the grand finale of the day, we had bedtime. A bedtime of such epic disastrousness that my brain still itches: Although I did learn that my bump is now big enough to prop me up when I doze off sitting on the end of a toddler bed which seems like a skill I can make use of over the next few months.

The problem with Alfie’s man flu is that it seems to turn him into a total control freak. I spent hours last night being arranged by my son into various human origami positions that he considered acceptable for the purposes of being comforted. Just to add to my inner joy the position changed on a fairly regular basis and involved much huffing, shoving and unwilling compromise between what Alfie wanted and what was physically possible for two and a half people on a toddler bed, none of whom have reversible joints.

I tried extracting myself a few times on the basis that I was losing feeling in most of my body but no dice. Sorry, I mean NOMUTHERFUCKINGDICEBITCH!!!

No dignity either when Alfie sat bolt upright as I was crawling out of the room on hands and knees looking like some sagging sofa making a break for freedom. I should have carried on and pretended I always leave a room that way instead of backing up, yes backing up, still on all fours and assuming the last known comforting pose with a barely stifled sob.

I choose to believe that this is a temporary state of being and a compliment that my son finds such comfort in my arms when he is feeling rotten. I choose to believe these things because the idea of my boy taking this kind of behaviour to its logical conclusion in manhood means I might have to look into donating him to the lion’s den at London Zoo. 

What a Family Needs

Having babies close to your birthday is bad planning, not least because 2 weeks post-partum isn't exactly party time and even if it was, what would I ask for? Clothes for a temporarily wobbly body? Toiletries I won't use? Days out I haven't got the energy to attend?

The same applies to gifts for second children. I know this baby is a different flavour, but really, we have so much of what we need and are so picky about the additional things we want that we've made it virtually impossible for anyone to buy us something we will truly treasure.

And then I worked it out, and I know what will be the best and most valued gift that anyone can give us: Time.

I'm only off work for 3 short months and that time will get filled too quickly and pass too quickly. We did far too much during my time off with Alfie and it felt like I spent no time at all just being, and appreciating, and enjoying. I wasn't selfish enough with my son and while he socialised with a huge number of people from an early age, it was at the expense of my time with him.

I want to try a different way this time. I want us to spend acres of time together as a new family just getting to know each other and appreciating every last moment before it is gone forever. I don't want to share my new baby, my toddler, or my husband and I don't want to gallivant all over Europe. I want my world to be the four of us.

Clearly I'm not alone in thinking like this. Gloria Lemay's article gives a fantastic list of ideas and for my birthday I will mostly be asking for vouchers for a local laundry and cleaning company. If anyone does feel like they want to help us celebrate the baby arriving, or my birthday, please take the time to read the list of ideas because it will mean more to us than the most expensive toys, or elegant clothes could ever do.

Sleeping is good, abusing my son is NOT

I saw this link recently to a really nice little article on infant sleeping. Like a lot of articles it doesn’t really say much that doesn’t seem little blinding common sense but sometimes it just takes the right slant for things to drop into place.

When you think about infant sleep patterns as a biological imperative, it makes me wonder once again how we as a society (and I include myself wholeheartedly in this) have found it so easy to be sold a pup by these “infant sleep experts”. I suppose the basic premise of the sales pitch is that people fundamentally want an easy life, and anyone promising to pave the way to the nirvana of “through the night from 6 weeks” is basically on a gravy train.

In my head though it feels similar to the rise of the epidural.

Don’t get me wrong, I get it, I really do. Someone dangles this magic carrot in front of you and tells you that they can make your life instantly more comfortable with no nasty side effects that you need worry about then why wouldn’t you take them up on it? Except there are scores of sayings telling us that nothing is ever truly free and we all seem wise to that fact, except when the person offering the freebie is a so called expert.

Epidural to take your pain away? Of course it’s safe! Nope, no side effects here, move along, nothing to see. Your baby a bit drowsy and slow to get going? Nope, no ideas. Hey look over there, a nice Bounty Pack full of freebies!

OK so that is a very glib take on things and epidurals have helped a lot of women. My point is though, do women get the chance to make an informed choice about the effects of an epidural, or are they given a sales job for the benefit of the professionals attending them?

And does the same apply to sleep training? If you were given a balanced picture that told you that there was a way you could train your baby out of waking, but that doing so would have certain consequence, would you make the same choices? I’m not sure I would. If I had taken the time to associate shorter sleeping cycles and frequent waking with the biological imperatives of a newborn I think my parenting of Alfie would have been very different.

No actually, I know it would have been.

And mention of my son brings me neatly onto my mini rant – soft play centres.

People, do not use these places as a crèche!!

Alfie and I met up with some friends yesterday at a local play centre and had a pretty good time romping about. I did struggle a little lugging myself around after him but he enjoyed himself and we adults even had a few minutes to catch up when the children were persuaded to stop for snacks and drinks.

Not long before lunchtime Alfie was in a ball pool in the toddler area playing quite roughly with another similarly aged, but much larger child. I didn’t mind a certain degree of mutual clothes pulling but I was standing right there and as soon as Alfie put a toe out of line he was removed and told very firmly that what he was doing wasn’t on.

You know why I did that? Because I’m a responsible parent. That means despite being tired, pregnant, hot and bothered, I was there supervising my child rather than sitting at a table sipping a latte and hoping my toddler was going to act like an angel of his own accord.

It is the most ridiculous idea to take a young child to one of these places and expect that of them: Soft play centres are like kiddy amphetamines and you can’t seriously expect a toddler to be that over stimulated and still to regulate their own behaviour.

Well clearly the mother of Alfie’s playmate/ victim did because she was nowhere to be seen, which meant that it was me who had to step in and grab her son’s arm when he wrapped his chubby little fingers in my boy’s hair and ragged his head repeatedly up and down unto the ball pool until he was absolutely screaming in pain. When I prised his fingers off Alfie he still had a load of his hair in his hand and Alfie was in pieces.

I was SO angry.

Not at the child, but at the parent.

WHERE. WERE. YOU?

I’m actually glad that they didn’t make an appearance at that moment because I’m not sure I would have trusted myself not to have been extremely rude. I hadn’t seen a parent the whole time the boys were playing and there had been a few tussles that I had broken up. I don’t want to be that horrible over protective mother who won’t let their child get involved in rough and tumble because Alfie is more than able to handle himself, and is often the one getting told to calm down and be more gentle. There is a line though, and when my son is being properly hurt I draw that line and feel somewhat murderous to any who cross it.

Which is exactly why I don’t go to those places more often.

The Futility of Naughty

Alfie and I were off on more adventures this weekend, seeing some of my amazing family. Thanks to Keith being busy elsewhere, Alfie and I had a rare chance to co sleep and so when I snuck into bed snuggled up to him at midnight on Friday, I was hopeful of having a rare lie in wherein we woke up refreshed and smiling and ready to face the day.

Apparently “lie in” has undergone a slight redefinition since my student days.

I’m not sure what happened at 4am, perhaps a cow farted 3 counties over, but whatever it was clearly signalled to my little boy that sleep time was over and it was time for us to wake up and start the day. He wasn’t subtle in communicating this to me, his preferred method being to bounce up and down shouting while smacking me on the side of the head until I gave in and opened my eyes. There was no reasoning, forcing or otherwise persuading him to change his mind: He was awake and he WANTED TO PLAY!!!!

In order to save the sanity of the rest of the household, I dragged my bones out of bed and took Alfie down to the kitchen where he enthusiastically indulged in some fridge magnet hurling and I sat at the table drinking tea and trying to ignore the tired shakes.

I think as a form of escapism, my mind drifted off to a place where it could meander through a daisy field of self examination and unsurprisingly it settled on the theme of the word “naughty”.

Like a lot of people of my and older generations I have a reluctant familiarity with the word naughty. There were times when it was my second name and it was one of those words that I never actually took the time to examine, but the general principle of which made me feel hugely uncomfortable.

When Alfie got old enough to start challenging Keith and I, we very quickly needed to have a discussion about how to address his behaviour and my input was very strongly that I didn’t want us, or anyone else around him, to use the word naughty. I felt so strongly about it I remember sitting there shaking at how passionately I hated the idea of applying the word to a child of mine.

Discussion of the word naughty has been around for a few years now, and like a lot of parenting topics, there are two diverging camps – one who see traditional methods as the wisdom of ages and others who are re-examining the old ways and finding them wanting.

No prizes for guessing which camp I’m in. No really, no prizes, I can’t afford them at the moment.

One problem I have with the word naughty is that it is an easy label, not just for behaviour but for a child themselves. And I mean easy for adults, because it’s a pretty crappy label for a child to have to deal with on any level and also one that is almost entirely devoid of any logical explanation. Naughty is the very epitome of an abstract concept for a child. If you look at what naughty means it changes every time it is used. Naughty basically means “guess what you’ve done that has pissed me off and stop doing it”. For a child who is learning about behaviours that is a horrible burden to place on them.

Alfie does about a hundred things a day that could be called naughty. Was his 4am behaviour naughty? Well a lot of parents would have said so, yes. But what would I have actually meant by calling him naughty? Well I suppose I would have meant that waking me up at 4am was inconvenient, and that doing so by whacking me repeatedly on the face was unpleasant and that I wasn’t in a place to appreciate the explosion of excitement and emotion that was manifested in that way. I wasn’t in that place because I was exhausted and my brain was screaming OHMYGODCHILDSHUTUPANDSLEEPBEFOREIFEEDYOUTOTHECAT!!!!! But that’s my problem, not his, I shouldn’t have gone to bed at midnight. Would he have even understood which element of that entire scenario I was referring to if I had called him naughty? Or understood what I wanted him to do differently?

The other issue I have with the quicksand definition of the word is that it is also based on the premise that I, as the caller, am right and you, as the callee, are wrong. Always. There is no room for discussion or negotiation. I don’t feel comfortable putting myself up on that pedestal to be honest, or arrogant enough to feel that I deserve to think that my children should do so either. I am a moral compass to my children, all parents are, that is part of the responsibility of being a parent. But so is humility, and the awareness that they are going to teach you as much as you will teach them.

Naughty is a very lazy word because it replaces the whole paragraphs that your children deserve to hear. There is less value to using the word naughty, than explaining to your child what it is that you don’t agree with and allowing them to understand why. If Alfie launches his plate in the middle of a crowded restaurant one lunchtime what is more useful to him? For me to tell him he’s naughty or for me to explain to him that it’s OK that he’s tired, and doesn’t like his lunch and doesn’t want it sitting in front of him anymore, and that the way to deal with that is to hand me his plate rather than delivering a spaghetti Frisbee to the table 5 doors over. It takes more time to do that, of course it does, but it’s the un-lazy way to parent. It is also slightly uncomfortable for me because it means I need to acknowledge that it’s my fault that we didn’t sit down to lunch early enough and that I allowed him to get frustrated and tired and that I chose a meal he didn’t want, but then why shouldn’t I feel uncomfortable when I get things wrong?

I sometimes wonder if the fear that parents have is that those of us who remove the ‘old ways’ are happy to leave a vacuum in its place; that if I don’t tell my child he’s naughty it means I don’t try to implement discipline. Error. We discipline Alfie a lot, and we are 100% intolerant of malicious behaviour on the very rare occasion that his behaviour is actually malicious. Parenting Free From Naughty though is about looking more deeply, and it is surprising how rarely our son is genuinely in the wrong. He often gets over excited and plays too roughly, strokes the dog with precordial thumps, or tips his drink over himself just so he can shout “oooooh NO!” to us. Those things are frustrating as hell and require instant and calm intervention from us. They’re not naughty or malicious though, they are the first socialising steps of a young mind.

Is it more useful in the long term to nurture that mind to think about the consequences of actions, or to blindly accept the judgement I have made of them?

Those were my meandering thoughts as best as I can write them: I apologise for any errors in recounting them.

Did I mention my child woke me up at 4AM????

Feral Children

Sometimes there are days that you know you will always remember. They aren’t the big days, like the “where were you when ...” days, but the days when you are looking at your loved ones and everything just conspires into something so beautiful it takes your breath away.

Last weekend a group of us went out on a boat to have a picnic at Windsor. It was a replay of a trip we had all taken a few years ago when Sal was pregnant with Joe and I was pregnant with Alfie – actually at the same point I am now – and we had another amazing day enjoying the company of amazing friends.

Sitting in a field by the river, I had one of those breathtaking days watching three boys so full of the joy of life they almost glowed. There were no expensive toys, nothing really for them to do and still they spent the entire afternoon smiling and running and tumbling around.

 Alfie and Dan played chase until  they were both breathless with exertion and laughing, occasionally Joe would get too close and would scamper back to the adults as the boys tried to include him in the chasing.

It was amazing to see them, three boys who don’t get to see each other half as much as they should but who adore each other, and the time they spend together.

and strawberries.  

The Future is Bright

I did something recently that teetered wildly on the divide between brave and stupid.

I got my notes from Alfie’s birth.

Friends warned me that I should only read them with a big box of tissues and a cup of something comforting but that didn’t put me off; it felt like something I needed to do to close the door on the questions I had. As time went on, I wondered whether my morphine stained mind had played tricks on me and I wanted to see things written down in black and white to know whether the decision we had made was based on perception or supportable fact.

Anyway the notes came, and rather than feeling like an old wound being ripped apart I actually felt quite dispassionate, apart from a few “oooh, you sods!!” about some of the comments on us needing to be “managed more actively”. What I also felt was a real sense of vindication by the end, not just of my mind, but of my body as well.

I remember writing at the time about a phenomena called “Pit to Distress” and how I had those words ringing in my ears when the doctors suggested an epidural and another 2 hours of Syntocinon at maximum dose. I didn’t know why I felt like that at the time, nor why I had refused to let them turn the drip up earlier other than a gut instinct that there was too much contraction and not enough rest.

Guess what? My gut instinct was right.

I was bloody right!!!!

The notes show how many contractions I was having and at the point where I stopped them turning up the drip I was already contracting 4-5 in 10 and by the current definition, 5 or more in 10 is uterine hyperstimulation. Of the two people who have already looked over the notes, they have both looked up at the end and said “That would have been a Pit to Distress”.

It is cold comfort in some senses, but to know that despite being drugged to the hilt I called it right and stopped my son being put at risk makes me so happy. I trusted my gut instinct and it was right. I listened to what felt right (or not) with my body and I was right.

Those notes, rather than making me feel like my body failed for not dilating does the exact opposite, it makes me grateful to my body for being so “right” - holding onto my precious boy in a threatening environment, telling me clearly that it wasn’t happy - and that I had just enough clarity of mind to hear those messages.

And this post just keeps chugging along the happy tracks because the other thing I’m really excited to be able to share is that after nearly 6 months of epic fail, we finally managed to meet up with a lovely midwife called Amanda last week. You’ll get to know her name pretty well on this blog because she is going to be my midwife for the upcoming birth.

I did wonder at one point whether we were ever going to arrange a meeting and whether it was really worth all the hassle: The answer in both cases is YES.

Meeting this woman showed all our previous midwife experiences in their true light. For the first time, we were talking to a woman who had not only been there and done that when it came to VBAC but who had come out the other side of it with the ability and inclination to make sure other women had a better option.

For the first time, I feel like we have midwifery cover that will really make a difference to my labour. I don’t feel like we need to pray to the god of midwife rotas, or that poor Mel will have to come armed with nunchucks, because we have found someone who will fight tooth and nail for a good birth and give us the chance we deserve.

Also someone who suggested that if I wasn’t happy being examined that Keith might like to do it instead. I’ll let you know how that one pans out.