Friday, September 24
a modest proposalThe joys of motherhood aside, a day that I consider the pinnacle of purely selfish personal fulfilment is a day in which I have had time to do the following things: read a non-baby-related book (even a couple of pages); blog (even a couple of lines); get some proper exercise (trundling around to the Hippy Hippy Co-op for fresh coffee supplies does not count, half a Pilates tape after the six-thirty handover does; socialise with an adult who isn't Jack (mother and baby groups and phone calls count); eat my five-a-day of fruit and veg. Am getting better at cracking all five by COP, although the socialisation continues to be the most difficult to nail, mainly due to the Bug's feeding schedule, which is in constant flux, and, increasingly, to my flustered lack of inclination.
Last night, post-rant, a simply solution occurred to me to the Ken Bingley abduction: why not propose to his captors that they swap him for Jack Straw? Or Tony Blair? Or, even better, both? Worth a crack, I'd say.
Thursday, September 23
white man's burdenI am sickened by the media's, not to mention Darth Howard's sycophantic sympathising with Tony Blair over the 'terrible dilemma' he faces over the fate of the hostage Ken Bigley. If you hear a dripping noise it's my heart bleeding for Tony Blair and his high and lonely fucking destiny. Is a member of his family being threatened with decapitation? I think this is what happens if you inflame dangerous lunatics by waging manifestly unjust wars in the name of slapping them down: you give them all the more motivation to rise up and strike back at the defenseless and innocent. And just how morally tortured was poor voice-in-a-wilderness Tony by the decision to engage in a war that has killed and mutilated countless civilians? Not nearly as tortured as he'd like us all to believe is my guess. And with this latest episode he doesn't even have to do the classic assumption-of-victim-status spin as Channel Four are obligingly doing it for him. Shower of bastards. legends of the fall
Was thinking of having the phrase 'What do you think I do all day?' printed on a t-shirt, possibly in block caps, but J says he'd prefer flashcards.
Wednesday, September 22
cauchemardesqueLast night the Bug woke at 1.00 AM screaming and thrashing. Went in, leaned into her cot, rubbed her stomach and sang to her, and she soon settled back to sleep (while I lay awake for the next two hours with my ears fixed in the 'alert' position). Fact that she settled down so easily suggests that her trouble was psychic rather than physical. Which leads me to wonder: what can a six month old baby possibly have nightmares about? The only thing I can think of is the boobie being taken away, and that, alas, seems to be her choice.
She seems happy enough by day though - some might say violently so - and has recently discovered sibilants and shaking her head. And yesterday she made a spirited effort at crawling towards a toy. This will work better when she gains strength enough to lift her arse off the ground and works out that arcing your legs upwards in the swan dive position and attempting to swim towards the desired object isn't going to work no matter how vigorously you kick.
Tuesday, September 21
severanceI think the Bug has weaned me. We've been mostly bottle-feeding for the past couple of months anyway, due to my body's lamentable failure to comply with the 'supply keeps pace with demand' dictum so beloved of baby pundits. However I'd managed hang onto one breastfeed per day, first thing in the morning, in bed. Until this morning, when Rebecca responded to the proferred boobie by sticking her tongue out at it and making a soft blpththththle! noise before turning away. Not sure whether to feel bereft or relieved. Or whether to try again tomorrow.
Monday, September 20
nothing but mammalsYesterday the Bug discovered friccatives, and spent parts of the day happily repeating 'th! th! th! th!' and looking highly pleased herself. I discovered the Impington Village College swimming pool, whose well-scrubbed facilities and kickass showers leave the Palais de Fungus for dead. Swimming langorously through patches of dappled sunlight, I try to make believe I'm Juliette Binoche in Blue. This might work better if the pool weren't so crowded. And if I could glide through shimmering waters in a plain black swimsuit conveying elegant mournfulness, rather than the pathetic struggles of a marooned marine mammal being forcibly returned to the oceans. Still, at least I didn't get kicked in the face. Or harpooned.
Friday, September 17
that's my obsessionToday's One Song To The Tune Of Another is for all you Kiwis out there: 'Nose' by the Chooks, to the tune of 'Hi Diddly Dee'. Righto!
Thursday, September 16
a day in the lifeSome commemorative pics of Rebecca's bedtime routine, taken on her half-birthday:
She also got weighed by Carrie, our health visitor. 16 pounds 7 ounces. Or 7.47 kg, if you prefer. Nearly doubled her birth weight (8 lb 8 oz/3.85 kg), just like she's supposed to. Clever Bug. for today
Rebecca is exactly 6 months old today and I should probably be writing something profound about how her advent has redefined my entire existence in a deeply spiritual way, preferably in five bullet points. Not particularly good at deep spiritual revelations though, so let's just say that I love her more than life itself and leave it at that, eh?
If that leaves you wanting more, here are a few small ways she's changed my life: I now set the kitchen timer for exactly three minutes every time I make a cup of tea so I actually remember to drink it; I consider sleeping until 6:45 a lie-in; I am now, in a totally non-ironic way, an utter devotee of the popular Australian soap Neighbours*; I consider an outfit that only has vomit down one side to be wearable until at least close of play; I sway from side to side while making conversation with other adults, even when I don't have Rebecca over one shoulder; I sing nursery rhymes in supermarkets; I'm no longer unable to leave the house without taking a book with me just in case; I have become a born-again anti-smoking zealot; I'm not ashamed of displaying one of those much-despised 'Baby On Board' signs on my car.
As for Rebecca, she gets lovelier and more intriguing every day. A peach-coloured fuzz is beginning to cover her little bald head, she still has the astonishingly long, thick, dark eyelashes she was born with, and her eyebrows are turning golden. Her eyes, dark blue when she was born, are changeable, their colour shading through blue-grey, blue-green, grey-green and hazel, with a beer-coloured splash in the centre of the right one. Whatever their colour they are always bright with curiosity, anticipation or delight. She's got rolling from her back to her front pretty much sussed, and each time she manages it, lies in the cobra position snorting and looking around her with a mixture of triumph and alarm. She is starting to think about sitting up. Her favourite games include: Where's Rebecca? Whose Feet Are These? and Aeroplanes. She adores banana, mango and butternut squash, is indifferent to courgettes and detests carrot. Sometimes she wakes in the night and sings herself back to sleep. She has her father's warm, gregarious nature, and bestows dazzling smiles on strangers in supermarkets and waiting rooms. She is a happy, affectionate little girl and the best thing that has happened to her adoring parents. Happy half-birthday, my lovely little Bug!
*Philip Pullman likes it too so it's got creative creds. (And A.S. Byatt thinks that Terry Pratchett is a Great Writer, so there!)
Wednesday, September 15
Why I don't read baby books. Well, that, lack of time and, let's face it, sheer shiftlessness. And the fact that I'd rather read a real book. meeting againOn a Margaret Atwood jag (if two books in a month counts as a jag) - am a third of the way through The Robber Bride. Like most of her books it's about the return of the dead, bidden or not (see Negotiating With The Dead, a series of essays based on the Empson lectures she gave in the Cambridge English Faculty a couple of years back, in which she discussed the development and preoccupations of her writing career. My lovely supervisor presented me with a copy as a reward for submitting my PhD. It's well worth reading). Most interested, in RB, to discover where she's going with the relationship between the central characters, three women friends whom the eponymous Robber Bride returns to haunt. The three appear to represent mind, body and spirit (or should that be Mind, Body and Spirit), or perhaps, more tenuously, maiden, mother and crone. Am waiting to find out whether cauldrons will become involved.
Speaking of books, Radio 4's current Women's Watershed Fiction survey is making me feel desperately inadequate. Much as I love reading, twitchy as I get when I don't have a book on the go, comforted as I feel by the actual physical presence of books (libraries make me feel safe and happy as soon as I step through the door) I can't actually claim of any single book that it changed my life in any of the profound emotional, intellectual or philosophical ways the survey compilers seem to expect. Maybe, after all, I don't take books seriously enough.
Hmmm. In any case, the creative work that changed my life the most is a film I saw once, years ago, in Edinburgh, on a whim: 37°2 le matin/Betty Blue. This film made me decide to go to university to study French. Which subsequently made a lot more things happen. Curiously, I haven't seen it since - it wasn't that particular film that did it, it was the fact that it was the first French film I'd ever seen, and hearing all that French spoken that made me want to dive back into the language.
Tuesday, September 14
Is becoming necessary to budget extra time at the supermarket for OAPs to swoop upon and fuss the Bug. Last time I went in I got stopped at least half a dozen times. Still, at least the old girls no longer ram my trolley, now that it has a cooing smiling baby strapped to the top of it: instead they descend on her, clucking hungrily, twig-like fingers outstretched, and chuck her cheeks and poke and pinch her chubby little legs as though they were made of gingerbread. Just as well I keep her firmly fastened in, otherwise they'd likely bear her off to a treetop. Still, when I finally made it to the checkout an elderly couple offered to let me go ahead of them (reflexively I demurred, but thanked them profusely all the same). And the lass behind the till gave me some interesting advice about potty-training. Apparently you should plonk them on it as soon as they're capable of sitting up unaided. (And surround them with lots of newspaper too, presumably. Or is that puppies?)Monday, September 13
sing ho! for the life of a bug
beauty in the bellow of the blast
Checked out the new Coldham's Lane cycle bridge on Saturday. It's been tacked onto the side of the Coldham's Lane road bridge, a steep, narrow, humpbacked bridge that I assume was originally built with drey horses in mind: barely wide enough to accommodate two lanes of traffic, it has no footpath, no shoulder, absolutely nowhere to go for the quaking cyclist trying to hold their own amid the continuous stream of trucks and vans that pour over it from the neighbouring retail parks, postal depot and building supply yard. Although not all that long, given its abrupt gradient it was quite a slow pedal and as there was no room to overtake, a single cyclist could choke up traffic for several blocks. Tackling it a couple of times at rush hour left me with lurid imaginings of being slowly mashed into its high brick walls, and I used to take quite circuitous routes to avoid it. However hundreds of cyclists used it every day. Now the city council have added a wide, pedestrian/cycle path on to the side of the road bridge and guess what? Cyclists are moaning because it's 'too steep'. Intrigued by these claims I tried it out and it bloody well isn't, it conforms to the exact gradient of the road bridge, but without the imminent threat of pulverisation. And post-birth-of-Bug, I'm still unfit and carrying a couple of extra stone, but managed it in short order and without getting short of breath. So, to the whingers, I have the following to say: Iddy, widdy, widdums. Get off and push then. You'll still be miles, miles safer, and get across far, far quicker, than before. Woiters.*
*'Woiter', a recently-coined term of abuse, is what Jack claims predictive text generates if you try to make it say 'woofter'. I don't see how this can be as it's a letter short and where the hell does the 'i' come from? the keypad layout's all wrong. Anyhow, despite its dubious etymology it's a good word, we use it a lot, and especially apt to the foregoing. Woiters!
Sunday, September 12
and yet no power cometh to help usGot sunburnt today, slightly. Hooked up with Alison for a ride out past the Wilbrahams towards Newmarket, then back via Swaffham Bulbeck and Lode. Jack, as before, acted as team mechanic, route planner and, ultimately, broom wagon driver. Weren't planning on needing the broom wagon, but it's been a blustery day, and while every climb came with its own headwind, on each downward slope and most of the flat bits we were buffeted all over the by great gusts of wind. So after a sweaty couple of hours we concurred that 22 miles were a respectable enough distance for one day and we needed to be picked up and driven to a pub, immediately. Since the Bridge in Clayhithe had been our planned end point, we went there anyway. It's recently reopened under new management, is now non-smoking, and gave us free beer when they forgot our food order. Result! Alison cut up my steak so I could eat it one-handed with a vomit-smeared baby wriggling over one shoulder, and all manner of things were well.
With next year's London-Cambridge in mind, have set myself the goal of cracking off 1,000 miles by July. Doesn't sound like much, and it isn't really, only about 25 miles a week over the next 10 months. But while back in the day I clocked up about 30 miles a week simply commuting, since the birth of the Bug I've managed to put 69 miles on the odo, so either greater effort will be required or else I'm going to have to go back to work.
Friday, September 10
the harvest now is overAfter the wedding we visited Jo, Ieuan and one-year-old Dora, who live in Broadstairs, on the Kentish coast. Sat in the garden drinking wine and talking about babies, wheeled the prams along the promenade, around the network of narrow streets that sloped down to the sea and in out of second hand bookshops and boutiques, had coffee and sandwiches in a 1950s café that still had the original white wicker seats and served Knickerbocker Glories and other retro delights. Jack succumbed to a 24-hour lurgy and spent the day in bed groaning feebly; I succumbed to a attack of retail madness and bought the Bug an unjustifiably expensive pair of little lilac Alice shoes with a flower on the fastening (the Bug soon gave the lie to my rationalisation that the shoes would keep her socks on her feet by levering off both shoes and socks within seconds. Oh well, they'll make pretty ornaments.) Dora and the Bug got on spendidly and rolled around on the floor together, batting at each other curiously. Jo and Ieuan made us feel welcome and relaxed from the off, made a great fuss of Rebecca and assured me that it wouldn't matter if she vommed on their spotless carpet (thankfully, and miraculously, she didn't). A peaceful, uncomplicated couple of days. And for a British seaside resort, Broadstairs seemed a gentle place, stylishly delapidated rather than seedy, with a centre that hasn't fallen prey to the Clone Town syndrome with identikit Gaps and Starbucks on every corner, but instead is full of thriving independent businesses, cafés and restaurants.
And finally, if you'll pardon me for coming over all Bill Bryson, the best place names of the trip were Thong and Each End. going, going, gone
Thursday, September 9
Since I have time (the Bug, unaccountably, seems to have gone nocturnal again) here's one of us at the wedding:
shattered
For the first time in weeks, the Bug woke us at 3:30 am demanding food and entertainment.
So here's the thing that stood out for me at Sarah and Peter's wedding: the amount of time and imagination that had gone into looking after the particular needs of their guests. There were about 20 under-fives there and each one had a place at table, even the ones in prams (plenty of space to slide the three wheeler in between us during the meal); each place was laid with a present specially chosen for its young occupant (the Bug received a rather splendid sea horse rattle)* - at a stroke this made each kid feel special and included and kept them amused during the speeches. Sarah had even engaged a childminder to relieve parents of their young'uns for portions of the evening so they could use both hands to eat their meals. Thoughtfulness most stylish.
Sarah asked me to read a poem during the ceremony. Here's what she chose:
Poem XVII by Pablo Neruda
From 100 Love Sonnets
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
Or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
In secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
But carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
Thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
Risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way
Than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
So close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
So close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Fortunately the only heckling came from the Bug.
Saw Shaun of the Dead last night with the lasses. Genius.
*which I subsequently described to my friend and fellow new Mum Jo as a 'star fish under water horse thing' and she knew exactly what I meant. Such are the lobotomising effects of maternity. Or maybe there is, after all, something to the Irigarayan notion of a specifically female/feminine language.
Wednesday, September 8
i went to your weddingFirst holiday with Bug an unqualified success. She didn't complain about the long hot stuffy car journey, slept like an angel in her travel cot at the foot of our bed, lapped up the petting and fuss she got from everyone she met, and waited until the disco part of the wedding reception to projectile vomit on Daddy's best suit. And we didn't even run out of burp rags. She did, however, stymie her mother's cunning plan to avoid the mess and inconvenience of sterilising bottles with an absolute and vociferous refusal to feed from the pre-sterilised disposables I'd brought along. Mind you they did have a nasty chemically smell to them, so I can't say I blame her. Next stop Kuala Lumpur, which has a Mothercare, apparently. (I googled.) Phew.
Wedding splendid for a number of reasons, about which more later, with illustrations, what's more. Right now there are complaints from upstairs...
Friday, September 3
nobody knowsHave just been packing for the weekend away and the mound of stuff we appear to need for the Bug is so monstrous that I could sit down in front it and cry. In the meantime, the stealmystuff gods have been hard at work and I no longer know how to propitiate them - instead have been creeping around the house casting furtive sidelong glances in the hope of catching a glimpse of my sunglasses winking out from beneath a cushion, or, better still, of the portal through which they have vanished. It's no use. I shall have a calming cup of coffee and sit quietly with the Bug until her father gets home.
Thursday, September 2
the right stuffRetail expedition yesterday carried out like a surgical strike. Time pressures of shopping with an infant have actually expedited matters by forcing me to be more decisive. No more vacillating wearily around the racks and shelves for me, it's: shop, yes, department, yes, lift, there it is (out of my way, disabled person) what do I want, one of those, there's one, there's another, where's the changing room, will the pram fit in well it will if I fold the handle up, great, she's asleep, (stay asleep, stay asleep) great, that one fits, so does that, sod it, I'll take the first one, no I don't want one of your extortionate store cards, thankyouverymuchhaveaniceday, out, home, punching a fist silently in the air. Sorted. Sheer elegant precision. Damn I'm good. Even found the perfect shoes.
Off for the weekend tomorrow - going to a wedding in Kent. First trip away with the Bug. Thought of packing for every exigency utterly terrifying. Really hope Rebecca doesn't puke on my carefully shopped-for outfit. Particularly not as have been asked to do a reading and would prefer not to get up in front of everyone with sick all down my front. Planning on wearing cream top and only feeding her white stuff until after the ceremony. (Not from now on, you understand, just on the day. Orange really isn't my colour.)
Wednesday, September 1
ch-ch-ch-changesHaving lost all the hair she was born with, the Bug is now growing a layer of reddish-blond fuzz that matches her eyebrows.
As for me, maternity has brought about a few unexpected physical changes. Apart from the fact that my arse is now the size of the South Island, but it was never, as my family have never tired of reminding me, all that small to begin with. How to explain, however, that I am now a hot person and not a cold person? Or that after all these years I suddenly like cabbage? Still not a morning person though.
And finally, in honour of Lisa's gloriously burgeoning condition, we present Heather's Top Five Things Not To Say To A Pregnant Woman:
1. Anything about the Alien films. I'm talking to you, fellas. We know you're scared of childbirth and other freaky slippery gynaeco-liminal women stuff, but fundamentally, it's not you who has to give birth to the bloody thing, so get over it. Women never make Alien jokes. This is for the simple reason that they're not funny.
2. - Really, you're pregnant? You don't look pregnant at all!
If a pregnant woman says she has a bump, then she has a bump, OK? Even if she's only five weeks gone. Don't ruin it for her.
3. - Blimey, another three months to go?
OTOH, she doesn't want to hear that she looks like she should be about 3 cm dilated when she's still in the second trimester. Shut the fuck up, OK?
4. - But you should be enjoying your pregnancy!
Never say this to anyone who suffers from morning sickness. In fact, to be on the safe side, best avoid any sentences that include the word 'should' unless they are: 'Righto, I should go and get you a cushion and another piece of cake.'
5. - My best friend/'s sister/'s cousin/'s workmate had a late miscarriage/a stillbirth/a profoundly disabled child even though all the tests had come back fine/died in childbirth.
No pregnant woman wants to hear this stuff. Shut the fuck up. Shut up the fuck up now.
Next week's issue: Five Things Not To Say To A New Mother. You'd be astonished what folks will come out with!
