Wednesday, May 26
One of the reasons I find it hard to blog about being a fulltime parent is I'm worried it'll turn into this. Plus exhaustion and the fact that when she's asleep I channel my own personal obsessiveness into frantically cleaning the house and doing laundry. Yeah, I know, sleep when she sleeps, that sort of thing, yeah. 'Cept when a teetering pile of vomit-stained sleepsuits is blocking your access to the bedroom. (Thanks Naomi for the link.)Sunday, May 2
the days are just packedWant to make some new parents very, very happy indeed? Show up at their place laden with pre-cooked meals in freezer-ready portions. A belated thank you to the lovely and recently betrothed Lisa and Paul, who showed up the other week with an armful of home cooking, including a tourtière - a traditional Québécois meat pie which was extremely tasty. ( The only other traditional Québécois dish I've tried is poutine, which consists of soggy French fries with brown gravy and cheese curds, and is about as palatable as it sounds.)
I'm just stream-of-unconsciousnessing here until my forehead hits the keyboard or Rebecca starts howling for attention. Bear with the incoherence. Or get used to it....
Jack's at the supermarket with the Bug, who loves being lugged about in the baby harness, sacked out on his chest while he shops, mows the lawn, hoovers and generally fettles and potters. And while I'm new-parent paranoid about her being exposed to the microbe-sodden atmosphere of the local Tesco, I'm also relishing the space and peace. Mind you I'm also feeling guilty about relishing the space and peace - curse this Catholic upbringing. On the whole, I'm still feeling very ambivalent about being separated from her. I hadn't expected this, but the separation anxiety is largely due to my feeling that Rebecca is still physically part of me. What's more, while I can deal with Jack taking her off me while I remain at home, I'm going to have to work up to going out myself and leaving her home with Jack. Clearly I am going to have to toughen up.
Meanwhile, the object of all this exquisite anxiety is growing larger, longer and stronger by the day. She can now hold her head up when it suits her, although when the opportunity presents itself she lets her skull topple heavily forward to administer a resounding head-butt. On her six-week post-natal visit to the doctor on Friday, she was 57 cm long and weighed 5.11 kg (11 pounds 4 ounces). Given that she weighed 5.02 kg on Tuesday, it appears that she's gaining an ounce a day. Blimey. However best of all, she is now managing spontaneous gummy grins. Especially when she's just done something disgusting. Or inconvenient. Or both. At present the most interesting thing in her world, apart from Mummy's ample bosoms, is the brightly-painted wooden fish mobile her grandfather gave her, which hangs above her cot. Not that she sleeps in her cot at the moment as her mother's separation anxiety is keeping her in a Moses basket in the parental bedroom.
Memo to self: toughen up, already.
