main blogorrhoea	Thursday, March 31 little star Took Rebecca in for her MMR yesterday. I'd prepared myself for cataracts of tears, but as the nurse slid the needle into her leg she gave a single squawk of alarm and stuck her thumb in her mouth, and that was the extent of her reaction. She didn't shed a single tear, and moments later was befriending elderly ladies in the waiting room while we hung around for the statutory 15 mins to make sure she didn't have an adverse reaction, while I bragged to anyone who'd listen how brave she'd been. Wednesday, March 30 fal-da-ree! In lieu of a leg workout yesterday I popped the Bug in her carrier pack and took her for a quick turn around the science park to see the bunnies. Becca currently weighs just over ten kilos, while the pack, the epitome of German engineering, is maybe four. Post-Caesarean, and with my wonky back, I've generally avoided carrying her in either front or backpacks, especially as she's got heavier. However as I've been PilateTM-ing assiduously (i.e. every day) for the past three months I felt that my Girdle of StrengthTM* might be up to the challenge, and once I'd got all the many straps adjusted to my liking it was far less painful that I expected. Took me back to my backpacking days, except that I wasn't stumbling through a grimy European capital with my nose in an inadequate McDonald'sTM tourist map on which the part with the youth hostel had been folded over fifty times and had had Fanta spilled on it. Also, in those days my luggage didn't blow raspberries, pull my hair, or croon happily to itself as I marched along. *WRRRRRRR!!! Tuesday, March 29 the loneliness of the long-distance runner Reasons why cycling is better than running: Cyclists go further. And faster. (Well, obviously) Availability of gears to get you up hills And you can freewheel down the other side. Wheeeeeeee! Possibility of speedy flight from muggers, large savage dogs, farmers brandishing pitchforks &c Unless you're doing a really technical bit of offroad, less jiggling You can get some really good thinking done on a long bike ride, whereas during my brief but agonising attempts at running the most coherent thought I've been able to formulate was: 'Will I make it to the next lamppost before hacking up a lung?' Quick but gratifying 18 mile loop yesterday afternoon to take the weekend total to 50. Next step: do it all in a single day. Monday, March 28 up the wooden hill After a Saturday of fuss and frolics with N&A, much of Sunday was given over to shrieking and wailing while her father and I tried vainly to eliminate the cause of her misery from the usual suspects: hunger? fatigue? teething? non-specific malaise? existential despair? Chocolate buttons, a special Easter treat before bedtime, seemed to improve her mood: she slept for 13 hours and this morning is much perkier. Tune running through my head du jour: Dave Brubeck, 'Unsquare Dance' (it's on some finance company commercial.) Not at all true, as Sue Lawley claimed the other day on Desert Island Discs, that it's impossible to clap along to: it's in seven-four time*, so it's ONE-two-three-four-ONE-two-three / ONE-two-three-four-ONE-two-three &c. *I know there are entity refs out there somewhere for time signatures and other musical notations but trust me that there is not the time... Sunday, March 27 spring forward Yesterday Rebecca learned an important life lesson: don't pat cacti. And I had a sobering reflection: I've spent ten of the last twenty years, viz. half of my adult life, living overseas. Nik and Andy came to visit: we ate spinach soup and walked down to the river and took Rebecca on the swings and slide, and then the grownups took turns on the flying fox, watched by wary toddlers, and then we came back home for posh ice cream. And in the evening I went to Scarlet's birthday party (theme: silly slippers and socks - I wore the sequinned black slippers I'd bought to wear to J's firm's Christmas party when I was seven months pregnant and couldn't face an evening in high heels). Strange to be at an adult gathering by myself, so naturally I gravitated towards the other mothers and spent the entire evening sipping lemonade and talking about pregnancy and babies and childcare. And at 1.59 AM the clocks went forward - evening training rides ho! Saturday, March 26 now that's what i call a good friday Yesterday did the Dullingham loop that'd defeated me last September (mostly it was the early autumn winds blowing me back down the hills I was trying to cycle up). This time no headwinds, just warm breezes alternating with cool, shady woodlands, vivid daffodils. 33 miles all up, through mostly deserted roads. (I tacked on a quick blat along the towpath at the end to get over the 30 mile hurdle.) The day's lesson: apparently you shouldn't go at hills gung ho in as high a gear as you can manage. Apparently this knackers your knees, and is why I was hobbling creakily around last night and, so far, this morning. The trick, apparently, is to drop into a lower gear and pedal like hell. Apparently this is what Lance does. Lesson learned. Friday, March 25 pretty in pink Impromptu photoshoot. You're an animal, baby, yeah! (In this case, an orange heffalump.) when we were very young Another couple of minor markers marked the other week. Now Rebecca is one, we no longer make up formula for her as she has graduated to plain old cheap ready-to-drink cow's milk, a pint a day, so no more nightly faff measuring and mixing sticky scoops of formula ready for the next morning. Hurrah! And can she be weighed without the indignity of having her clothes removed first, or the screaming, kicking, thrashing hell that is putting them back on afterwards. (Carrie the Health Visitor explained that this is because as they develop both self-awareness and dexterity, it's good policy to steer them away from the idea that you can disrobe in public, and in front of relative strangers, on a whim.) Hurroo! And she's even crossed into double figures, having passed the 10kg mark. Thursday, March 24 even more weather Rebecca often has her morning sleep upstairs on our futon - I cuddle her off to sleep and then lie next to her reading until she wakes. The other day she dozed off while sitting up, legs extended in front of her, and as her sleep deepened, gradually slumped forward until her nose was touching her knees. She remained in this position, quite unconscious, for about ten minutes until I feared for the state of her spine and straightened her out. Great trick though: wish I could manage it as it would make long haul flights way more tolerable. Unless some prankster lowered my tray table while I was asleep of course. Wednesday, March 23 turn off the bubble machine Last week that arbiter of all matters cultural the Today Programme ran a piece marking the twentieth anniversary of Neighbours. Hugely popular over here, it's been broadcast twice daily for almost as long as it's been on air, apparently because when it went out in its original early afternoon slot British kids used to wag school in droves in order to see it. Discussing the 'Neighbours phenomenon' were Philip Pullman and some other talking brain; Pullman, who claims to be a big fan, ascribed its appeal to the fact that it is entirely plot-driven and doesn't waste valuable screen time with silly notions such as social realism or plausible characterisation. Ah yes, replied the other talking brain, but what about the shamefully Aryan makeup of the characters? And why do none of them have bad skin? And why are they all so bloody nice? Well this is precisely my point, says Pullman, it's pure escapism, no nastiness, no ugliness, no crime, no grime. The perfect diversion from writing clever-clever novels about free will versus predestination, the function of religion and the nature of death. No crime? I think you'll find that there have been two entirely unrelated murders on Ramsay Street the last fortnight, and this is to say nothing of the the attempted murders, burglaries, arson attacks and terminal but strangely non-disfiguring diseases that regularly afflict its unfortunate inhabitants. Insurance premiums in Erinsborough must be ludicrous. Fair point on the diversity question, although they do fling in the odd racial stereotype, such as the borough's only Italian-Australian family, a bunch of mobsters whose every appearance on screen is heralded by a burst of sinister mandolin music. Even so, I watch Neighbours avidly and generally tape episodes rather than missing them. It's the storyliners' economy I most admire: the way they can take a single event and rigorously pursue its every theoretical ramification, however preposterous, until it has been wrung dry of all narrative possibility. What's more, just when you think they've tossed a promising storyline away by letting it peak too early or taking it up a narrative cul-de-sac, they deftly reveal its true purpose as the crucial event linking all the other byzantine story arcs that will inevitably culminate in the biannual scorched-earth train wreck/arson/plague outbreak/meteor landing in which the surplus character or characters who haven't developed according to spec can be neatly discarded. (Or can they....?) It's the endless guessing game with the storyliners that keeps me watching soaps. I don't watch them all: EastEnders I can't get on with and never have done - have attempted to sit through the odd episode to find out what everyone else in the world is on about, but inevitably lose heart about eight minutes in and wander off into the kitchen in search of something to drink. (And that goes double for Transylvania 90210, or whatever it's called, although I realise that I'm losing friends as I type.) Coronation Street, on the other hand, I love. Although I did stop watching it in the 90s for about ten years after a scene that took place in a newsagents and played along the following lines: Old Bloke In Flat Cap: Eeeh, Mavis, I 'aven't 'ad me paper! Wrinkly In Flowered Pinnie 1: 'Aven't 'ad yer paper? Eeeeh, Rita, did you 'ear that? Percy 'ere 'asn't 'as 'is paper! WFP 2: 'Asn't 'ad his paper? WFP 1: (emphatically) 'Asn't 'ad his paper! OBFC: 'Aven't 'ad me paper! 'Aven't 'ad me paper! Bwark! &c. Mind you even in those dark days it was still better than bleedin' 'Stenders, which, every time I turn it on, has some downtrodden doxy slumped over a formica table nursing a split lip. Coro women don't nurse split lips, they dish them out (except for the pusillanimous Shelley) and then they set things alight and bash people with adjustable spanners, all in strict accordance with the show's governing principle that they are stroppy bitches and it's they who run things, whatever the men may choose to believe. All of the show's plotlines derive from this principle, and hubris, in the form of thinking he can outwit a woman, is the worst sin a Coronation Street male can commit, and inevitably brings spectacular and imaginative punishment. In New Zealand we have the (cough) 'medical drama' Shortland Street, a show which, like Neighbours, is populated by trendily-attired pretty people. However unlike Neighbours not all of them are pink. Mind you I haven't seen it since 1996. Although I did used to watch rather elderly episodes on ITV in a vaguely homesick way when I was still a student. And then the bastards yanked it without warning, and I was forced to resort to Neighbours. I think this is where we came in... Tuesday, March 22 (I don't think this one needs a caption.) Happy onemonthday, wee Jack! And remember, you can start sleeping through the night any time you want. Monday, March 21 greatly exaggerated Southwest villages loop a rewarding ride* on a cool spring day. Countryside still wintery and subdued, clumps of new daffodils along the hedgerows the only splurges of brightness in the thin grey fog. And it turns out I still have a pulse, even (and especially) after cycling up Chapel Hill outside Barrington, atop which, on my previous encounter with it one hot summer day a couple of years ago, I'd been copiously sick. (The following weekend, I found out I was pregnant.) This time as I crested it I was greeted with a cheery 'Well done!' by a cyclist who'd just come up the shorter, sharper 10% gradient in the other direction. *29.52 miles - dammit I should have gone around the block a couple more of times on the home stretch. Sunday, March 20 About to head off on an training ride so a few mins ago I strapped on the heart rate monitor J got me. Apparently I don't have a pulse, so other symptoms of life such as walking around, breathing and kvetching are purely anomalous. Ooop, here's Alison - gotta go! Saturday, March 19 better late than never Have finally got around to putting the rest of the Christmas photos up, and a few extras. Here they are! As always, also linked off the photos page. 101 H: ...'canard' is the French for 'duck'. J: (proudly) I know. As in 'confit de canard', which means 'the duck is comfortable'. Last night we watched Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, and learned that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Who knew? Oh, all right then, so I enjoyed it. Uncharacteristically restrained performance from Jim Carrey, whom I generally loathe, but who has a vexing habit of appearing in the odd good movie. Not convinced by dear little Elijah as a stalker-creep, but maybe his wide-eyed innocence was part of the point. And Kate Winslet's hair colour was a useful device for indicating past and present threads, but I can't decide whether this was a cheat or not. Righto, must go baby-wrangle. Friday, March 18 too much coffee woman Good grief, I'm sure I just heard one of the Tweenies say 'bugger'! Mind you I can hardly blame him in that get-up, he must walk into doors all the time. And doesn't the older female Tweenie sounds suspiciously like Mrs Doyle? Thursday, March 17 and condenseth to the milk of human kindness once again With Christmas and her birthday behind us, Rebecca now has a splendid collection of bath toys, and so we are now sharing the bathroom with a variety of brightly-coloured aquatic and marine creatures. What with all those little pairs of eyes, boggly and beady, staring fixedly up at me, my morning shower has become a slightly unnerving experience. Rebecca had a lovely actual birthday - I dressed her in her 'I Am 1' t-shirt she got from Kathie, Mike and Robert, to take her to Rhyme Time, where we sang Happy Birthday to her. Her Dad came home early from work, and there were even more presents from the whanau. As usual the wrapping paper proved to be the winner on the day. Thank you, everybody! Wednesday, March 16 late breaking Photos of Rebecca's first birthday party can be found here (and are also linked off the photos page). Enjoy! twelve months, twelve things about Rebecca, who is one year old today! Her full name is Rebecca Williams Elder, after both parents. Her dad chose her first name. She was delivered at 8.03 am by emergency C-section after a two-day induction that hadn't really proceeded according to plan. I believe in the end they had to prise her fingers off my ribs. We still can't decide what colour her eyes are. 'Blue', which is what we put on passport applications, doesn't really cover it, as they can look grey-green, hazel or smoky blue, sometimes all at the same time, depending on the light and what she's wearing. And she still has a subtle but distinctive amber splash around her right pupil, which we attribute to the many different varieties of Real Ale her mother sampled before discovering she was pregnant. She was born with a generous thatch of reddish-gold hair like her dad's, with a fox-coloured tuft on the nape of her neck. Then when she was a few weeks old it all fell out and she was splendidly bald for months. Now she has hair again, this time soft ash-blond stuff that sticks up all over her head like she was sucking a Van der Graaf generator. She has a vocabulary of three words: Mummy/Mama, Daddy/Dada and Babby/Bubby/Bebby. They are mostly interchangeable, and have wide semantic fields. She has a disconcerting tendency to exclaim 'Daddy!' at any adult male she encounters. Fortunately, around Arbury this does not raise eyebrows. She has the widest grin in the world, which she readily bestows on anyone she meets. At present it reveals seven teeth: four upper, three lower. Her favourite foods include cream cheese, which she licks carefully off a piece of toast before tossing the soggy remains on the floor, and clementines, which I have to feed her a segment at a time because if you give her more that once at once she becomes overexcited and sweeps them all onto the floor and then looks bereft. Her favourite toy is the set of multicoloured stacking rings I got her from Tesco, £2.49 well spent I feel. Her favourite soft toy is the Little Gay Bunny Rabbit, which Melanie and Chris gave her when she was born. He used to be lavender with pink ears, but is now an indeterminate shade of everything she's eaten over the past year. Her favourite book is I'm A Little Teapot, a miniature board book that she has chewed almost beyond recognition. She is also fond of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, the board book edition with the graduated pages, which she finds easy to turn. Her favourite games currently include Being Upside Down and Where's Mummy/Daddy/Rebecca?. She also enjoys sitting on my shoulders while I do full squats or jump up and down on the spot. She can almost walk, yesterday managing three unsteady steps forward before flumping down onto her arse. She always gets straight back up again. She is very determined. She has a very determined chin. What a year it's been. Happy birthday, my beautiful little Bug! Tuesday, March 15 hard grinding Current reading: Philip Roth Sabbath's Theater (1995), yet another absurdly priapic narrative. Think I'll go back to women for a while. Writers, I mean. Monday, March 14 well, did you evvah Becca's first birthday bash a blast: never have I enjoyed a party more. Hordes of people, large and small, scoffing twisty pink and green marshmallows and sherbet fizzy flying saucer thingies and orange and lemon jelly with bits of mandarin in it. The Bug, looking like a miniature Titania in her little green fairy outfit, spent most of the afternoon chasing the other children around and trying to eat the balloons while her mother tore eagerly into and exclaimed over her splendid pile of presents. She seemed somewhat bemused the presentation of the birthday cake and accompanying chorus of Happy Birthday, so her mum also helped her blow out her candle while deftly preventing her from sticking her hand in the flame. By half-past four all three of us were partied out and the birthday girl passed out in her cot for an hour and a half while her parents slumped on the sofa jittering from all the sugar. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go and chisel birthday cake off the kitchen cabinets. And if anyone has any tips for getting chocolate icing out of pale green tulle, now would be the time to write in. Life is good. Sunday, March 13 24 hour party people Not much time to post as the Bug's party is this afternoon and I have to blow up a couple of dozen balloons saying 'I Am One' (whicb strikes me as a rather zen sort of thing for a balloon to say) and make a grotto-load of fairy bread. Grownup party last night for Alison and Martyn's respective birthdays. Fi had kindly agreed to babysit for us, and it felt odd to be at an evening gathering at which the Bug wasn't asleep in an upstairs room. About time though - we've been pushing our luck long enough taking her along with us, bunging her in her travel cot and then rousing her when it's hometime. She's been remarkably sanguine about it too, smiling sleepily as we carry her to the car and obligingly going unconscious within minutes of our getting her home, but it doesn't really seem fair to keep doing it to her. Her latest sound is 'Dubbadubbadubbadubbadubba' - fast, staccato and slighly syncopated. It begs to be sampled, but we have not the technology. Or the smarts, for that matter. Saturday, March 12 whither hemingford? Cycled to Godmanchester yesterday afternoon to see wee Jack. Getting there was meant to be a shortish two-hour run but took nearly four: equinoxial winds must have come early this year and I spent nearly all of the 27 miles battling a headwind that at times took my speed down to a poxy 5 mph. What would Lance do, I kept asking myself, before reflecting that he'd probably draft one of his domestiques for a bit until his kneecaps stopped feeling like they were going to fly off in opposite directions. When I wasn't being blown backwards by the headwinds I was being knocked sideways by the crosswinds, which was exhilarating as I was sharing the narrow country lanes with the sort of SUV drivers who appeared to think that fox-hunting was for bleeding heart liberals and that it was those impudent no-road-tax-paying cyclists they should really be ridding the countryside of. Today, with Jack heading off for a 100 km cycling event, it's calm, clear, still and brightly sunny. Humph. (And I got lost. Twice, but we won't go into that. Grrr.) Worth it in the end, though: baby Jack is lovely - tiny and delicate, with bright dark eyes that I glimpsed briefly while leaning over his Moses basket, where he remained fast asleep for our entire visit (even when Rebecca made a shortlived attempt on the stairs that ended in a dramatic faceplant (how??) followed by twenty minutes of full-throated screaming). My word I'd forgotten how newborns can sleep. What's more, his mum and dad looking surprisingly chipper for parents of a tiny one - clearly they have this baby-wrangling thing sussed. Friday, March 11 rant of spring First properly springlike day yesterday, ambient temperature having crept within cooee of double figures. Not that ambient temp makes a lick of diff to me any more as I'm invariably sweating like a dray horse even when it's snowing. Used to think maternity had screwed with my metabolism transforming me belatedly into a hot person, then for a while surmised it was because pregnancy had made me lardy, but having got significantly less lardy of late have come to realise that it's because I'm constantly running late while heavily laden. Lunch with Juliet and Ishbel yesterday: assembly of portable booster seat took longer than the actual meal and when packing it away came over all hegemonically feminine and allowed Jake to do it for me while I giggled girlishly about my brain having turned to mush. Thoroughly disingenously of course, since I refuse to subscribe to the 'baby brain' theory any more than I believe in bloody biological clocks*. Whereas the Victorians thought that women should avoid intellectual pursuits because it would wither their organs of generation, now, in the 21st century we're meant to make like we believe that reproduction erodes our capacity for logical thought and causes our IQs to plummet. Of course if we allowed that 'baby brain' is is nothing more than a temporary reaction to sleep deprivation and being a tad tense occasionally, we might have to admit that fathers suffer from it too, and that would never do because only women are slaves to their biology, right? Phooey. *another rant, another time Thursday, March 10 all tomorrow's parties Party planning proceeds apace: have arranged with Melanie for the procurement of various luridly-coloured sweets, and am planning homemade gluten-free brownies for the colonically challenged. Next we need a birthday cake, the pinker and girlier the better as I feel it is now time to begin instructing the Bug in the value of irony. The other night while he was licking out the jelly bowl, Jack managed to get it stuck on his head in the manner of Pooh Bear and the honey jar. Must have been the red food colouring. Sadly I did not manage to capture this unforgettable moment on camera. Really, I don't know why I'm worrying about the effect of all those E numbers on our younger guests, since it's clearly the older revellers I should be most worried about. Wednesday, March 9 gone for a lurch I've gone soft. This morning Rebecca was up and yelling at 5.30 and now I feel half-dead. It's shameful, but if she will insist on sleeping through the night more or less reliably from the age of 11 weeks, she can only expect her parents to be lurching zombies on the rare mornings that follow a broken or truncated night. Already I can sense the universe gearing up to punish me for my hubris. Tuesday, March 8 thoughts of a dry brain in a soggy season Excellent. A local Adult Education Centre is running a course in Cheese Appreciation. For some reason this strikes me hilariously as the sort of course Gonzo the Great would enrol in. Or possibly coordinate. Clearly my two-year membership of the VUW Muppet Club has affected me more profoundly than I'd realised. My word, the Tweenies are a sinister-looking bunch, aren't they? Monday, March 7 i'm glad i spent it with you Faint-hearted intentions of a Sunday morning training ride fizzled entirely when I found myself trapped under a sleeping baby for most of the morning, with nothing for distraction but a really good book. Gee darn. In the afternoon we decided on a family outing and wandered the winter path around Anglesey Abbey admiring the snowdrops and eventually running into Kathie, Mike and a slightly disconsolate Robert, who brightened up considerably after milk and chit chat with Rebecca: at least I assume it was chit chat as they were speaking Baby. ('I have just soiled myself: how embarrassing.') Later, a lovely Mother's Day card and posh chocs from Rebecca, in whom her father is instilling filial piety from an early age: well done, that man. Current reading, since I mentioned it, is Gabrielle Roy, La route d'Altamont (1966): the UL won't let me borrow any of the American novels I was planning on reading so I might as well get stuck into their extensive collection of francophone lit while I still have the chance. And the Roy is superb: elegantly but simply written, poignant yet good-humoured: everything a memoir of childhood should be. Sunday, March 6 spring strains On sight of her own reflection in the mirror or the French doors, Rebecca now confidently declaims 'Babby!' Not sure if this signals self-awareness or not. I suspect child psychologists would say not, but what do they know about the Bug? She's also taken a fair few steps. Not all at once, mind: she usually manages one or two tentative totters at a time before plonking down onto her arse. She first did this in Brighton last month, after which attempts at walking were put on the back burner for a couple of weeks. But she's made a few more attempts over the past week or so. Although occasionally while standing up she will grab at something out of her reach but without moving her feet or shifting her weight, which results in a full-body faceplant in the manner of a felled tree, followed by floods of tears. Saturday, March 5 suddenly, professor liebowitz realises he has come to the seminar without his duck Went to the Lemonjelly gig last night after all the snow had melted away (and refrozen). Bounced and bounced and sweated and sucked down litres of water and sports drink, and participated in mass singalong of 'Nice Weather For Ducks', during which the gentleman next to me produced a small yellow plastic duck and Blutacked it to the crown of his bald head. Sadly, I'd left my duck at home, but this didn't dampen my enjoyment of the event, for the house was well and truly rocked, especially by the finale, 'The Staunton Lick', which almost brought the roof off. What's more, that's another item crossed off the Things To Do Before We Leave Blighty list. Friday, March 4 and another another thing When I hold her up in front of the mirror in our bedroom she repeats 'Baby' after me: 'Bee-bee ... Bab-bee ... Beb-bee ... Be-be-bee ... Bay-bee.' She's still at it, as she crawls around the house, and as I carry her upstairs and place her on the changing table and change her nappy and carry her downstairs again. the more it snows... ... the slimmer our chances of getting to the long-awaited Lemonjelly gig tonight, given Cambridge's civic penchant for seizing into a gridlocked panic at the first flakes. There's a good couple of inches on the ground so going on previous years I predict city-wide mayhem. Meanwhile the council's road work crews are no doubt sitting in their depots scratching their bollocks and muttering that it's too late/early/the wrong sort of snow to be worth deploying the gritter trucks. Would be a shame to miss gig as it's one of the items on our things to do before leaving the UK list. Mind you it seems to have stopped falling. For now. Rebecca's due date was a year ago today. Not surprised she wasn't keen on coming out. In Desperate Housewives last week, a man beat a woman to death with a food processor. In the same episode, a sequence in which a harried mother of four went crazy ape bonkers, smashed up the kitchen and put a gun to her head turned out (phew!) to be just a stress and pill-fuelled hallucination. So we can watch a woman being beaten to death, but we can't show depressed mothers succumbing to stress, not even when they direct their violent impulses against themselves. Thursday, March 3 and another thing She can now say 'Mummy'. Sometimes she even says it to me. because it was there Rebecca is not one to do things by halves. Yesterday at Kathie's, she climbed upstairs: an entire flight of stairs, on her first go. Needless to say that I shadowed her all the way, hands hovering millimetres from her backside in case of slips. Once at the top she took her moment of triumph in her stride, calmly accepting a shower of praise before lunging off in search of further amusements. Currently planning her first ever birthday party, in a couple of weeks' time. We're thinking jelly, balloons, and toddlers hopped up on sugar and E numbers. Wednesday, March 2 Have just thought of a title for a self-help book: Women Who Are Going To Start Breaking Things In A Minute. Now if only I could come up with some snappy contents. Tuesday, March 1 bed among the lentils Rebecca is, most of the time, a good-natured and reasonable small person, but every so often she likes to jolt Mummy out of her complacency with lightening changes to her feeding and sleep schedules. For instance, just lately, having refused her usual morning nap, she has taken instead to passing out in the middle of lunch, leaving me on the horns of a dilemma: do I cleave to the Golden Rule of Parenting* and leave her in peace, face down in her puréed lentils, or should I risk waking her with a quick sponge-down before said lentils set to a concrete-like substance that will be traumatic to remove later? Of course being me I eschew the easy option with an airy wave of the hand and set to with the flannel, with predictable consequences: Becca wakes with shrieks of indignation; I carry her upstairs, murmuring soothing murmurs, and place her in her cot, whereupon she leaps to her feet and bounces up and down with urgent cries until I take her back downstairs, strap her back into her high chair and resume shovelling lentils. Next time I'm going to leave her to sleep in her highchair and see what happens. Might even get some reading done over my lunch. *NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY Previously, in h-blog

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