main blogorrhoea	Saturday, July 31 two legs good The Bug has just discovered that she has feet. Her mother has just discovered that when she snuggles face first into me, she's not being affectionate and cuddly: she's trying to dislodge something from her nose. Thursday, July 29 With trills, sweeps, whoops and chirrups, the Bug is exploring the upper register of her voice. Every day she adds another octave to her range. At this rate, one day I'll be suddenly unable hear her, then will look out the window to see the neighbourhood dogs gathered on our front yard. Wednesday, July 28 a medley of extemporania Am on a health kick at the moment - have cut out junk food and sugar and am eating tons of fresh fruit and veges. Turns out that a healthy diet gives you loads of energy, improves your skin and hair and even mellows your mood. Who knew? (No, I haven't been watching too much Schadenlardentelly. Especially not the coprophiliac Dr Gillian McKeith and especially not just after dinner. I swear to God, it's actually worse if you mute the sound during the poo analysis segment because then all you have are the gestures which are, well, eloquent.) In other news, the Bug was an absolute angel today, and thanks to modern pharmacology she no longer looks like a miniature Singing Detective. Hooray for Western medicine! And finally, today on BabyCentre: 'Avoid the temptation to add a little tea to baby's bottle. The tannin in tea interferes with iron absorption.' Why the merry hell would you want to add tea to a baby's bottle? I mean, why? (Especially when there is plenty of gin in the house.) Tuesday, July 27 glitch in the matrix First discovery of the day: as a way to spend the morning, playing in bed with the Bug and then falling back to sleep together to the mellow strains of Radio Four beats the hell out of running around the house with a dishcloth. Discovery #2: if you squirt a fly with Mr Muscle it vanishes into another universe. Monday, July 26 apostrophising Have finished my third book since birth of Bug (although I have read a lot of explanatory pamphlets about weaning, baby-proofing and the like, most of which contradict each other). Book was Johnathan Franzen's essay collection How to Be Alone (2002). I enjoyed it, and was exasperated by it too. Franzen's subjects are diverse and include the decline of Chicago's postal service, the US's private prison system and its effects on small town economies, a smattering of lit crit lite, and his favourite, alienation and what it means to be a Writer. For Franzen there are two sorts of alienation: the isolation of the reader and writer of novels, which is good and pure and true, and that of the Internet user (who by definition does not read novels), which is asocialised, intellectually inferior and slightly smelly. Moreover, the relationship between reader and writer is a privileged intellectual and spiritual communion, whereas that between Internet user and whatever he (I get the impression it's a he) reads online is facile and subliterate. (Most of this material was published in the mid 1990s, but is already surprisingly dated, as Franzen acknowledges in his introduction.) Far more interesting is his biographical material about his relationships with his family, in particular his account of his father's death from Alzheimer's, which largely informs his third novel The Corrections (2001). He isn't afraid to appear a disloyal snob - he's particularly harsh on his mother, and rather patronising towards his father (even while appearing to venerate him) - and for me this frankness makes him more appealing and more sympathetic. Am now well on the way with Eats, Shoots & Leaves. So far Lynne Truss's schtick is to draw the reader into a voice-in-a-wilderness complicity - 'my dear, you and I are the only ones who realise quite how important this all is' - and it's entertaining in short bursts (which is all I have time for at the moment, so just as well, really). However in terms of engaging the reader's sympathy, Truss's tendency to write as though sniggering at her own clever jokes lets her down quite a bit. Friday, July 23 your latest trick Rebecca has discovered that Daddy's beard is a fun toy to grab, and that swinging from the corners of Daddy's moustache has hilarious consequences. An even better trick: when Mummy is dressing you on the changing table on top of your chest of drawers, wait until she is rummaging in the top drawer for something clean to put on you, then, in one neat movement, turn your head and throw up into the open drawer. You have to admire the sheer elegant simplicity of this, really. Thursday, July 22 it's like a mommy Today, emptying the kitchen waste into the compost bin at the bottom of the garden, trying to avoid inhaling the winged ants that swarm forth each time I remove the lid while at the same time enjoying the smell of imminent rain, then pottering down the overgrown garden path planning a trip around the corner to the Hippy Hippy Co-op before the predicted thunderstorms set in, and later, possibly, an experimental batch of cinnamon bread from the new breadmaker recipe book, I realised with a guilty jolt that I was actually enjoying myself. Bad, bad feminist! Not supposed to enjoy being homemaker! Or am I turning into an Alice Munro character - one of her wide-footed, herb-garden-growing, silver-jewellery-wearing earth mothers? Hmmm. I have started wearing more turquoise... Last night Jack came home with a big bunch of flowers and a card with cute puppies on it, inside which were tickets to Shrek 2. As I hugged him delightedly he asked 'Notice anything about the tickets?' 'Er, they're ... purple?' I guessed randomly. Turned out they were for that very night. 'But ... we have a baby...?' I faltered. 'I know. Claire's arriving in half an hour,' he replied, looking very pleased with himself. As well he might. Bug went down like an angel at 8:00 so we could depart with untroubled consciences. Movie hilarious fun, especially the cat. Big pot of icecream. Excellent evening. Several million points each to Jack, Claire and Rebecca. Righto, off to HHC to recycle plastic bags. Wednesday, July 21 à la recherche This parenthood lark certainly gives your time management skills a kick in the arse. In fact, it alters your whole attitude to time. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis, in the voice of the senior tempter Screwtape, describes puny humans' attitudes to time as essentially proprietorial: your time is your own, save the 40 or so grudging hours you sell to your employer, and, presumably, the hour on Sunday you spend shuffling in a chuch pew. Thus, humans tend to be very put out by supposed encroachments on 'their' time. The way to a holy life, explains Screwtape, lies at least in part in renouncing the idea of personal ownership of time and instead recognising that time belongs to 'the Enemy' (i.e God). The ideal situation, he adds scathingly, is for the subject, having spent all day in the Enemy's service, to be told 'Now you may have half an hour to amuse yourself' and to scuttle off ecstatic at having been granted such a boon. Now I don't know much about the holy life - my God-bothering days are long behind me. (Did I ever tell you about my rejection letter from Jesus? No? Well, another time perhaps. I've still got it, somewhere.) But it strikes me that Lewis's account is extremely pertinent to new parents who've just realised that their time is no longer their own. When you do get an hour to amuse yourself, my word, but you don't waste a moment of it. I always know how I can spend a spare hour when one comes along, if Rebecca falls asleep or Jack takes her out for a walk. I have at least half a dozen activities cued up and waiting to spring forth as soon as the front door closes behind husband and pram. And I often find myself scurrying around the house muttering things like 'Please, please, just let her stay asleep for ten more minutes so I can get the bottles done for tonight...' Sorry if this is incoherent. Am typing it one-handed with the Bug squirming over my shoulder. Sylvia Plath I ain't... Tuesday, July 20 ring cycle Having upgraded her Hungry Cry, Rebecca is now looking at making changes to some of her other alerts. Her all-purpose, 'give me attention now or it will be the worse for you' cry currently sounds like that of a Fell Beast, played back at a slightly slower speed. These vocal experimentations remind me of a mobile user trying on different ring tones and text message alerts. Just as long as she doesn't start emitting the Mission Impossible theme. Monday, July 19 rebecca is enthralled by her new baby gym you heard the weirdo Another truism of parent lore is that you can distinguish your own infant's cry from that of other children, just as a ewe knows her lamb from a flock of hundreds by its singular bleat. (Parent-lore types find it affirming to compare their own behaviour to that of parents in the animal kingdom, except, presumably, those animals that eat their own, or other animals', young.) I personally don't find this unique scream-recognition phenomenon to be true (which presumably marks me out as a Bad Parent). On the contrary, everything - next door's cat, a passing bus, someone slamming a car door - sounds exactly like Rebecca crying and must be investigated immediately. life is life On Saturday our Kiwi mate Paul came up from London to see us and inspect the Bug. And, as it turned out, to be vomited on repeatedly. He coped admirably and appeared to think she was pretty cute nonetheless. Photographic evidence, complete with clearly visible stains, below. Last night Claire came over with a bag of clothes for the wee one and cooked us a sumptuous meal of chicken korma, eggplant bhaji and rice with fragrant bits. Jack reciprocated with Alison Holst's (we worship you, oh Alison!) apple crumble. Damn it was good. I've had a throat infection for the last week. It's bloody annoying. Haven't been able to go to any of my mother and baby groups, spreading germs among other people's tender young infants being generally regarded as Bad Form, and no swimming. It's progressed past the painful to the enticingly husky stage, where it would have remained except that now, because I simply can't shut up and give my tortured larynx a rest, I sound like a chainsmoking Dalek. The Bug, having presumably fed richly on my antibodies for the last few days, is in fine fettle. She has also upgraded her Hungry Cry. The oft-repeated truism that babies have different cries for different needs (a large gin and tonic versus five quid each way on the 10:45 at Newmarket, for instance) turns out to be, well, true, really. So whereas Becca's Hungry Cry until recently was simply disconsolate and bitter sobbing, now it's more 'I have been abandoned on an ice floe in the middle of a fast-flowing river' shrieks of anguish and despair. Sunday, July 18 rebecca meets paul, and learns that the revolution will not be televised Friday, July 16 how to stop daddy from taking the bottle off you up my street If there is indeed an epidemic of obesity, then I think that Arbury is,  if you'll excuse the sloppily mixed metaphor, its epicentre. Quite frankly I'm astonished that our entire estate hasn't sunk under the combined weight of its inhabitants. Schadenlardentellymakers, if you want footage of lamentably overweight tots buckling the frames of their mini-scooters, hie ye unto North Cambridge and set up your cameras on the corner of  my street. I passed a typically spherical family yesterday while out for a walk and offered up a little prayer for Rebecca: 'Please, please help me not to let her turn into that kid!' (And, as an afterthought: 'Er, and please don't let her inherit my disturbing food and body image issues. Thank you for your consideration in this matter.') Meanwhile, have devised a fantastic title for my best-selling, millions-raking-in, this-is-the-last-diet-book-you'll-ever-buy diet book: A Life Less Lardy. Whaddyareckon? Thursday, July 15 scuse me while i kiss this guy Whoever invented infant Calpol should get the Nobel Prize for Medicine. [The rest of this post has been excised due to its being about excrement] Wednesday, July 14 allons, enfants I seem to have baby sick in my hair. I wonder how long it's been there. Monday, July 12 because i'm the mummy, that's why A couple more photos of the wee one, on the fabulous Kiwiana quilt specially made for her by Margaret Robinson. your ignorosity is showing One of my pet hates (and believe me, there's a zooful) is people making up ridiculous words for things there is already a perfectly good word for. Especially abstract nouns. Frinstance, one of the participants in this morning's Start the Week kept banging on about 'victimage'. It's victimhood, ya twerp. Grrrrrr. Sunday, July 11 prepared earlier A few of my favourite Rebecca shots from May: Jack has also added some new pictures to the June and July photos pages. Enjoy! planet ouch I have just put my neck out. Was holding Rebecca when: crunch; *zoing*; 'Er, Jack, can you take the baby please, like, NOW.' Can't turn my head, can't lift things, can't drive ... on the whole not a state particularly conducive to baby-wrangling. Happy healing thoughts please. Preferably by tomorrow... Saturday, July 10 Just seen a trailer for the new King Arthur epic. When did film classifications get so specific? It used to be 'contains sex and violence'; now, suddenly, it's 'moderate battle violence and mild sex'. 'Mild' sex? What's 'mild' sex? Well, it is a English film after all - 'moderate' sex might be going a tad too far. But just how specific are these warnings going to get? 'Contains really great sex'? 'Contains head-board-rattling, pet-scaring, noise-control-alerting sex?' 'Contains a brief bout of lacklustre and ultimately unsatisfying comedy sex'? (That would probably be for a Richard Curtis film.) Friday, July 9 music of the night Have just been listening to Darth Howard on Desert Island Discs while nursing the Bug and God help us all if he didn't pick a track by Bryan Adams*. Never, never thought I'd say this but Anne Widdicombe is right - the man's clearly evil. *Don't ask me which one: like Oasis songs they all sound the same - same key, same chord progression, same dirgy tuneless melody line, in fact you could play them all at the same time and you'd never even notice. And don't get me started on Andrew Lloyd Webber... Thursday, July 8 Memo to self: when wrestling Rebecca into a clean outfit, never say 'You're going to vom on this, aren't you?' as she interprets the question as a command. Still, she does look rather fetching in her little white hoody tracksuit - like the world's smallest rapper. I wonder if Mothercare do baby bling? Wednesday, July 7 if i had a hammer I emit a computer-knobbling field. In fact, I emit a generalised technology-knobbling field, but it's especially effective on computers, and even more so on printers. What's more, motherhood seems only to have increased my powers. Unless, unless... I have given birth to a one who shares my gift. Gah... Anyway, this evening I was trying to print something, just one lousy single bloody page, and as expected the printer was by turns pretending it hadn't understood the simple command 'Print', that no-one had given it any paper, and that the paper no-one had given it had jammed. Bastard. It was then that I hit upon a brilliant idea. We currently have, gathering dust on our fireplace, a derelict iMac and our old printer. How about we take a large mallet and smash up the old printer in front of the new printer, by way of a salutary lesson in what might happen to it if it persists in its defiance? Frustratingly, Jack has forbidden this course of action. But he's not here all day, is he? four wheels bad A friend has just sent me a link to this site, dedicated to the 'chav', 'chavs' being, as far as I can tell, people who wear baseball caps while driving unregistered vehicles, or, as this website would have it, 'Britains [sic] peasant underclass'. What's wrong with 'prole', I ask you, but apparently this is neither politically correct nor, in socioeconomic terms, wholly accurate. Now I'm trying to figure out whether the NZ equivalent of the chav (or its numerous regional variations) would be the bogan, but it's been too long since I was last home and the finer distinctions are beginning to escape me. the squid's embrace Yesterday in Sainsburys café I was hassled for breastfeeding Rebecca. The hassler was a woman in her thirties, monstrously overweight and encased in a grubby white tunic that was strained almost to busting point, so as far as giving offense to the eye I felt she was several points up on me. I didn't point this out to her, however, because I was trying to nurse my daughter in peace; also, I'd noticed that she was waving a copy of the Daily Mail, so scant chance of intelligent debate in any case. I can only hope, given her garb, that she wasn't a health care worker of some kind. Oddly enough, the latte I had while I was there was the best cup of coffee I've ever had in the UK. And the nice café lady, taking pity on my dearth of arms, carried it to my table for me. Tuesday, July 6 tour de force The 2004 Tour de France is upon us and this year Jack has got one of those digital decoder box thingies so we aren't reduced to taping half an hour's footage at three o'clock in the morning. During last year's tour, the centenary, I was newly pregnant, and watching those taut, Lycra-clad buttocks speeding away from the camera brings back poignant memories - the gallons of lukewarm peppermint tea, the mad dashes to the toilet to be sick, the inability to eat anything except cheese, the frantic knitting as a vain attempt to distract myself (two baby jerseys later it still hadn't worked and I packed it in), all the while watching Lance, Jan, Tyler and the lads slog it out for three weeks amid catastrophic collisions, incredible recoveries and giant sunflowers. The sportsmanship was awe-inspiring: Tyler Hamilton completing the Tour and even winning a stage with a broken collar-bone sustained on the second day's riding; Lance snagging his handlebars on a spectator's bag and going down like a ninepin and Jan Ullrich making his team stop and wait while the Texan gets back on his bike; Lance, moments later, slipping out of a pedal and thudding nads down onto his crossbar, but barely breaking rhythm. Stage nine, Joseba Beloki's tyre bursts and he crashes out mere feet in front of Lance; Lance veers off the course, cycles across a field and coming to a ditch, shoulders bike, leaps ditch, remounts and pedals like hell. Euro 2004? Peh! Real men ride the Col de Ventoux. This year, all this and even more at stake with Lance going for an unprecedented sixth victory. And what's more, no vomiting! I am even able to steal the odd slurp of Jack's beer, while our daughter sits up on her daddy's knee, watching the funny men, with round eyes. La vie est belle. Monday, July 5 oh. canada. Rebecca had her first taste of organised religion yesterday when we attended the dedication ceremony of her little friend Robert, first-born of Kathie and Mike, at the Olive Tree Fellowship in Ely. Much to our relief she behaved beautifully, joining in some of the hymns before lapsing into a deep slumber (ability to sleep through services of religious worship thus providing watertight proof of her paternity). Robert himself responded to being welcomed into his church community by smacking his father on the head with a rattle; bit of work on the Fifth Commandment needed there, I feel, but otherwise a promising start. Church folk were all very friendly and made a huge fuss of Rebecca (which she loves). There was tea and cake after the service and they even had a spacious room out back with comfy sofas and a feeding pillow so I could plug in the Bug in a relaxed fashion before the drive back to Cambridge. (You'd never get that at Kings College Chapel.) Congratulations Robert, Kathie and Mike! and thank you for inviting us. In the afternoon we went to a belated Canada Day barbecue hosted by our Canadian mate Fiona and her Scottish housemate Donald. Fiona makes splendid cakes, and Donald's style of hospitality could best be described as 'emphatic', a strange masculine hybrid of Mrs Doyle and Jewish mama following people about the premises pressing meat and drink on them. Still, never stand between a breast-feeding mother and a table groaning with food, especially when her baby has decided to stay asleep for an hour or so, giving her a rare opportunity to employ both arms to shovel food into her mouth. Happy Canada Day, and God bless us every one! Saturday, July 3 I've finally found a use for daytime telly (apart from driving the longterm unemployed to cheap sherry and large unsecured personal loans). It's the only way I can remember when I last nursed Rebecca. 'During Cheers' is much easier than 'two and three quarter hours ago, I think', plus I have only to glance at the TV schedule to find out when Cheers was on. Or Beat the Nation. And everyone knows what time Richard and Judy are on, even those who claim not to. Haven't quite sunk to Trisha yet but that's only because it's broadcast when she's still asleep. Friday, July 2 drown the cocks Not only are they exponents of bouncy ditties, Lemonjelly are also graphic artists. Jack gave me one of their prints for Christmas, and in February, I took it to our local picture framer, the ancient but modestly-priced Nobby. At the time I was massively, ponderously pregnant, and Nobby's front-of-house is so tiny that I could barely turn around without sweeping a cluster of crusty coffee mugs onto the floor with my belly. Nobby still has my print, and Rebecca is now three and half months old. This morning he's not answering his phone. What if he's dead? I mean I don't want to be callous, but I quite liked that print. Am wondering what the etiquette would be for claiming it back. Alternative future scenario has me walking in there accompanied by sulky teenage Rebecca: 'Yeah, I dropped off a picture when this one was a foetus - still not done?' Last night Kathie and I went to see a production of the Vagina Monologues in Bedford. (We had a brief Thelma and Louise moment driving off down the A428 without husbands or babies.) I'd seen the VM before in Cambridge a couple of years ago, with Nina Wadia performing the legendary orgasm sequence and Lesley Joseph gleefully cheerleading the audience in chants of 'Cunt! Cunt! Cunt!' This production had been put on by one of Kathie's mates, who had encountered some difficulty finding a venue but had eventually managed to stage it in one of the local schools. It was energetic and moving and the use of seven perfomers rather than the three added a depth to the performance. The material differed slightly from the other production I'd seen, including monologues from Native American women who'd suffered domestic abuse. The 'cunt chant' had been cut down to suit the size and sensibilities of the audience, but the orgasm monologue was still there, and was a tour de force. Excellent evening. And the mmurmurs, hiccups and occasional loud slurping noises from the tiny baby boy in the front row were an oddly sastifying counterpoint to the good-natured feminist ranting onstage. Speaking of baby noises, you know those nauseating nappy/baby product commercials that always feature highly synthetic-sounding coos, gurgles and squeals? Well, Rebecca is making those exact same sounds. Maybe I'm letting her watch too much telly. Seeing David Cronenberg's The Fly on TV the other night reminded me of a fantasy exam question contrived by my English tutor at Auckland: '"Peter Greenaway is a sick fuck." Discuss.' Thursday, July 1 in-ger-land, my in-ger-land As I went in to the mothers and babies group yesterday, a young father held the gate for me, and I noticed a 'Three Lions' emblem - the insignia of England's sports teams - freshly tattoed on his upper arm. Guessing he must have got it during the recent UEFA tournament, I observed that it was a very nice piece of work. At this, he rolled up his other sleeve to reveal a St George's cross, under which was inscribed, in neat cursive, the legend 'Made in England'. 'I, er... it's very nice...' I said, lamely. 'Yeah. Kind of wish I hadn't had it done now, though,' came the rueful reply. In the nursery just above the row of kiddies' coat hooks, was affixed a sign: 'Heuristic Play'. Couldn't bring myself to ask, really... Previously, in h-blog

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