Friday, April 29
(I don't normally do this sort of thing.)17% Republican. | "You're a tax-and-spend liberal democrat. People like you are the reason everyone else votes for guys like Reagan or George W." |
upon our way we steal
Jofish, in town for a conference, is coming to lunch and to meet the Bug; meanwhile, we're off to Cornwall tomorrow so am scurrying about the house (Rebecca having obligingly passed out in her cot) in a state of extreme busyness, packing and washing and drawing up mental and actual lists and feeling like Rabbit in Pooh Bear. Morning's minor triumph: have managed to get a week's worth of clothes for both self and Bug into sports bag of modest dimensions. I rule!
Thursday, April 28
staring at the sunRecent proclamation from the Department of the Bleedin' Obvious - you can greatly aid your youngster's acquisition of language by talking to them from time to time. (Tesco checkout operator, rather querulously, as I waited in line with a four-month-old Bug: 'Why do you talk to her? Does she understand what you're saying?')
And you may wish to keep breathing while you're doing that, as the expulsion of air through the phonetic apparatus is important to the production of speech sounds.
Wednesday, April 27
jelly on a plateBeing mostly council estate, our neighbourhood has its fair share of boy racers in tinny cars of questionable roadworthiness. Nevertheless I'm always surprised by how many of them, having skipped the 'traffic calming' speed bumps along Camkin Road, screech noisily (and smokily) to a halt when they see me standing nervously at a pedestrian crossing with a pram.
Last night, for the first time in nearly a year, I went to an exotic wiggling class, or Egyptian Dancing as they call it at Hills Road Sixth Form College. It's a new class, and a huge improvement on the one I used to attend sporadically before pregnancy and attendant bouts of vomiting gave me a much-needed escape clause. For one thing the teacher is young, flexible, cute, and highly enthusiastic and bouncy in a very Home Counties sort of way. What's more she has an actual lesson plan, with choreography and a teaching method and everything. All of which is way, way more than could be said of my previous teacher, whose lesson plan consisted of grabbing seven quid off everyone in the room and then wafting around with a scarf exclaiming 'Dance! Dance what you feeeeeeeel!! No, no, not like that! We never do that!'
Unfortunately motherhood, while it has left me with more extra jiggly bits, does not appear to have magically endowed me with the earthiness or sensuality to jiggle them in style, since my dancing could at best be described as robotic - Kraftwerk meets the Middle East. But I enjoyed myself.
Tuesday, April 26
and there let us wallowLast couple of days spent languishing while Jack Bug-wrangled, cleaned and nursemaided. No fair a piffling head cold should make me feel as lousy as this - I who have suffered the pangs of childbirth (well, some of them). Still, at least I managed to get some reading done. Finally finished off Waterland (Graham Swift, 1983) which I'd got out of the local library on the grounds that it is regional lit, being set in the Fenlands, and in which I got, and I use the expression advisedly, thoroughly bogged down, partly because it's so dreary, mostly because Swift does some unspeakable things to syntax.
Apologies for the appalling run-on sentence - perhaps I have contracted Swift-itis in addition to my other afflictions. Was going to write further on Waterland's style and structure - the way the narrative reflects the landscape, and in particular its waterways - their diversions, channels, branches, tributaries, and the ultimate petering out and drying up (which left me one frustrated reader). However, little time for litcrit this morning: Jack woke up with a suspiciously familiar lurgy, so we are tag-team baby-wrangling in a clogged and befuddled way, with Becca frequently looking up in alarm at, and occasionally taking cover from, the strange honking noises her parents keep emitting.
Sunday, April 24
suffer the little childrenWhen the phone call comes, as it inevitably does, half an hour after your teething, fretful child has spent the previous half hour screaming herself to sleep, the child awakes as noisily as though the foregoing 30 minutes of fragile silence had been but a mere intake of breath between cries. Equally inevitably, the caller has the wrong number. To which the only response can be: 'No, there's no-one here of that name, but if you wouldn't mind letting me know where you live, I'm going to come right over and give you a stinging slap.'
Saturday, April 23
thought for the dayDoes the Tory's electoral slogan - 'Are You Thinking What We're Thinking?' - put anyone else in mind of another familiar phrase: 'Now, I'm Not Being Racist, But...'?
Friday, April 22
Rebecca's maiden voyage in her new stroller, a present from her Gran and Grandad:
popcorn trees
The top of Rebecca's head, for some reason, always smells of pancakes. (No tasteless jokes about battered babies, please.)
Note to nappy-wearers: Tesco Extra Value Baby Wipes are utter pants.
Thursday, April 21
further and fasterYesterday at Rhyme Time, Rebecca demonstrated her newly-discovered powers of perambulation to great acclaim, then headed purposefully over to the book bins and, before I could stop her, selected a volume and tore the first page in two. Anna, the children's librarian and Rhyme Time convenor, was very understanding: fortunately the library's stated policy towards small children and their impact on books is pretty tolerant. Far better that they become familiar with books, even if they do mangle a few in the process, rather than seeing them as precious objects to be kept behind glass cases. Or, more simply, as alien artefacts: my mother, a primary school teacher, often encounters new entrants to whom books are a completely unknown quantity - not only do they not know what they're for, but they don't even know how to hold one, handle it, turn the pages. Books are everyday objects, they're not sacred and they're not supposed to be kept pristine, and I want Rebecca to grow up, as I did, surrounded by them.
Wednesday, April 20
getting there is half the funAfter Sunday's London Marathon I feel that the phrase ' to go for a Paula' is bound to enter the vernacular.
Everyone has their geographical illusions, civic, regional or national. For instance in New Zealand we have convinced ourselves that we live in a subtropical island paradise, which explains why we never heat (or even insulate, half the time) our houses, and why every time I go home I end up home I end up in shivering in front of a power-chewing fan heater in rugby socks and a thick fleece until it is time to fly back across the ocean to my little brick centrally-heated house.
In Cambridge we congratulate ourselves that we have all the advantages of proximity to the capital without actually having to live there, for all we have to do is hop on an express train and we're in the square mile quicker than someone commuting in from the London suburbs. This is, of course, entirely untrue. On Monday morning I set off just after nine, Jack having offered to drive me to the station, whereupon we got snarled in traffic for 20 minutes and I ended up getting out and walking the remaining three miles. Made it onto the 10.45 to King's Cross, then got engrossed in my book and got on the wrong Underground line by mistake. After a quick backtrack of two lines and three stops, I met Naomi for lunch in Notting Hill a mere three and half hours after leaving the house, feeling very much like a country bumpkin.
before He was famous
Last time I was in London I was six months pregnant and being crushed to jelly by frenzied Christmas shoppers on the Central Line. Motherhood and the intervening 19 months have not mellowed me, it seems: I find being stuck in a carriage with noisy fretful children just as annoying, and have as little patience or sympathy with their inadequate parents, as I did before the Bug. However a handful of the items on the To Do Before Leaving Blighty list require me to be in London, and since Jack, having spent all of Sunday at a cycling event, had booked Monday off to give me a break, I figured I might as well knock off the British Museum while I had the chance.
Naturally I wanted to see the Rosetta stone, but was also keen to track down the Tring tiles, mainly because our mate Jacqui - scholar, Pitt specialist and sometime babysitter of the Bug - had mentioned that they were worth the visit. Painted during the fourteenth century, they are essentially a series of comic strips illustrating the miraculous childhood of Jesus. In many of the stories they depict, the parents of Nazareth attempt to prevent their children from associating with the young J.C., with hilarious consequences. In one episode, a classmate attacks Jesus from behind by jumping on his back, and is instantly struck dead. The second panel shows two women, presumably the mother of the stricken youth and her best mate, confronting Joseph with raised forefingers and indignant expressions. In the final scene, Jesus, wearing an expression that plainly says 'This is so unfair,' grudgingly restores his chum to life. The museum shop didn't seem to stock Tring postcards. Or T-shirts, more's the pity.
Tuesday, April 19
green, white and violetThis morning Rebecca ripped up the LibDems' campaign literature. Clearly she's got wind of their plan to scrap the Child Trust Fund.
Meanwhile, tempted as I am to vote Labour just in order to witness the fun and frolics when Gordon finally decides to shaft Tony, to vote for a government that imprisons its own or anyone else's citizens indefinitely and without trial would be to be complicit in this egregious injustice. Sorry Gordon old son!
Sunday, April 17
baggy trousersWent to a wedding party last night (congrats, Helen and Richard!) during the course of which my trousers - purple, bead-trimmed and never worn - grew so baggy that I ended up getting a friend to safety-pin them to stop them slithering onto the dance floor as I strutted my funky stuff. Not sure if this is progress or erosion.
Today Jack's off on an Audax (day-long cycling event) and I have a drizzling, prickling cold which had better have gone away by tomorrow as I have a Quality Mummy Day out in London planned (recompense for Sunday fort-holding for the Audax).
Must resist urge to corral Bug in her baby pen all day in front of Baby Einstein DVDs while I languish on the couch. For I am not that sort of mother.
Friday, April 15
there's no use whining about the silver liningWhat's the one thing worse than prying a flattened, dessicated, drool-covered earthworm from your toddler's grasp?
You guessed it: prying half a flattened, dessicated, drool-covered earthworm ...&c
Shudder. Best not to dwell, I feel.
Jack was off work yesterday - a boon, you'd think, for the fulltime mother in the grip of spring-cleaning mania, as I could get him to keep one eye on her from his sickbed while I broke out the industrial chemicals. But in fact, determined to prove how truly full my day is and that I don't spend it slumped in front of Trisha sucking down cheap sherry, I ended up overcompensating massively, knackering both myself and the hoover in the process.
Thursday, April 14
late developerYou know that hormone-fuelled nesting frenzy that is supposed to seize women in the last days of pregnancy, sending them scurrying up stepladders armed with scrubbing brushes and buckets of bleach? Well, I think mine finally hit yesterday. Clearly my endocrine system is a bit slow on the uptake. Just as well I was induced after 42 weeks, really.
Wednesday, April 13
cathode ray nippleOver the last week, the Bug seems to have abandoned daytime naps as a concept, which means that if I want to get anything done without having to keep one eye trained on her, I have to imprison her in her playpen and stick CBeebies on. I am a bad, bad, bad, guilt-ridden, bad parent.
For a brief but glorious period, she would rub her eyes and clutch her muslin around eleven, whereupon I'd pop her in her cot and she'd obligingly pass out for an hour or so. Before this, I could at the very least get her down by lying next to her murmuring soothingly until she passed out. If I try it these days she just grins cheekily at me before slithering backwards off the futon and making for the nearest electrical socket. But if I don't at least try to get her to sleep during the day, by evening she's keeling over in her highchair, irritably batting away all attempts to feed her dinner. This can get very messy. So at the moment I'm putting her in her cot at 11.30 am in order to maintain the fiction that morning naps are a regular part of the schedule. To judge from the roars of outrage coming from upstairs, she's still not going for it.
And before you ask, I categorically refuse to read the Contented Little Baby Book.
No Rhyme Time today, alas. Rebecca's still producing snot bubbles the size of golf balls and I don't want one bursting all over some other hapless infant.
Tuesday, April 12
Congratulations to Susan and Micky on the arrival this morning of a little brother for Aidan. Well, we say 'little', although in fact young Dylan William Runham weighed in at an almighty 11 pounds 4 oz, or 5.1kg. Now, for comparison purposes I've just checked the Bug's record book, and, though by no means a small baby herself, she did not cross the 5kg mark until she was 6 weeks old. So much, much respect to Susan who, we are informed, did it all on gas and air. If you hear a squelching noise that will be all my internal organs clenching in sympathy. cabin feverMy poor little teething, cold-ridden, post-MMR Bug has been so miserable for the last couple of days that I've not wanted to drag her out into the chilly April weather. So by yesterday evening, not having been off the premises since Saturday morning, I was in dire need of a post-work blat, and met Jack at the door wearing my cycling gear and a pleading expression. Set off along the towpath, pedalling face first through clouds of fat crepuscular insects which, by breathing very carefully through clenched teeth, I managed not to inhale. With the extra quarter of an hour of daylight since the last PWB, I was able to reach Bottisham Lock before the sun started to sink and I had to turn reluctantly homewards, although I was tempted to press on as far as Upware. Maybe in a couple of weeks...
Have worked out how you can tell which Tellytubby is which - they're presented at the beginning of each episode in the order in which they'd appear on the colour spectrum. Thus, Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Lala, Po: purple, green, yellow, red. Cunning, huh?
Monday, April 11
happy happy joy joyBecca's transition to toddlerdom is nearing completion, as her primary means of locomotion is now to teeter across a room wearing an expression of incredulous delight, rather crawling across it, a method that is on the whole faster, steadier and more reliable. However we spurn such considerations as we are now almost fully bipedal! Except when we're very tired or cross, or need to get over to something forbidden before Mummy or Daddy spots us and takes it away.
A full night's sleep last night, despite an unpromising early start, and a very happy and relieved Mummy.
Sunday, April 10
More photos, mostly of Rebecca. Also linked off the photos page keeping up with the mckenzie-jonesesSarah and Pete paid us a flying visit last night, en route to a christening in Gloucester. Seven months pregnant, S is blooming and pinkly excited about M-J Jnr's imminent arrival (pencilled in for June 18); airily waving aside offers of seating at a stage when I would have commandeered the entire sofa and demanded that my ankles be propped up on plump cushions and my brow fanned with lavender-soaked hankies.
As a foretaste of things to come, for S and P at least, Becca, currently suffering from a killer combo of teething, a head cold and the dreaded MMR hangover, decided to make a night of it, with the result that this morning Jack and I are frayed and tetchy: serves us right for spending most of the evening vaunting her prodigious sleeping capabilities I spose. At present she's toddling about the place chirruping happily to herself and drooling snot, and two cups of perked coffee in, I am still very, very insufficiently caffeinated, and talking myself most persuasively out of a training ride.
Friday, April 8
porridge apocalypseLast night, at the commuting hour, it snowed - great 50p-sized lumps of the stuff flurrying about. Jack, who cycles to work, arrived home in a very sorry state, clearly regretting his decision to wear shorts. the crystal bucket
A quick poll of fellow full-time mothers reveals that we all think Justin from Something Special and Tikkabilla is lovely, but that the older bloke from Tikkabilla is creepy and reminds us of someone's dodgy uncle.
Sometimes it worries me how much I know about children's telly, but I'm going to miss CBeebies, even if half the brightly-coloured blobs do sound like Bluebottle. Still, it's both instructive and entertaining: the other day Roly Mo did a rap about hats, With scratchy turntables and one of those rappy shoutouts: Sing he-ey! - He-ey!- Sing ho-o! - Ho-o! Sing Roly Mo! - Roly Mo! &c. It was great! (Or maybe I'm just easily amused.) What's more, there are no ads, which ought to gladden any parent's heart. Wonder what children's programming is like in NZ lately?
Thursday, April 7
joy to the worldHeaven be praised, a full night's sleep and a happy baby!
One of my favourite moments of the day is when Jack arrives home from work at around 6.15 - not just because I get to hand off the Bug-wrangling for a bit, but because of the love-in as Daddy and daughter are reunited. As soon as she hears him coming in the back door she leaves off what she's doing and without a backwards glance, speeds off to the kitchen on all fours, uttering little 'ur-ur-ur' noises as she goes to hasten her process. And then they catch sight of each other, and there is much rejoicing. We're looking forward to the day when she can run to meet him.
Wednesday, April 6
slow way to go downYesterday afternoon spent in Ely with Kathie and wee Robert. He and Rebecca are firm friends, even if he does demonstrate his affection by body-slamming her and then sitting on her head. In spite of this he seems to regard her as his protégée, and helpfully led her in a post-lunch shriek-in, during which he offered her many valuable tips on sound production and projection. All of which she was able to put into practice at 3 o'clock this morning: no doubt a delayed reaction to the MMR vaccine. I've said it before and I'll say it again: God bless the inventor of Calpol!
Unlike her rapidly aging mother she seems none the worse today for the sleep deprivation: she chortled and clapped her way through Rhyme Time, refused to take her usual morning nap in her pram afterwards, and is even proving more bipedal than yesterday, having tottered across the room, executed a flawless 180 degree turn and then tottered back: a complex feat for someone still in the Maggie Simpson phase of self-propulsion.
Tuesday, April 5
minority reportWere it not for these infernal child labour laws, I've just thought of a perfect way, in this paranoid age of identity theft, for Rebecca to earn her keep: document shredder. Not only shredded, but mulched!
On an unrelated note, went on Mission of Muffins yesterday chez Susan (and wee Aidan). Susan is currently as fed up as any woman well into her 42nd week of pregnancy, but displaying her usual forbearance and good humour. Happy sprog-dropping, no nasty C-section vibes to the Runham household, stat!
Monday, April 4
insert richard curtisesque headline hereAm starting to warm to the late JPII, whose demise looks to have buggered up the already shambolic wedding plans of the Prince of Wales. The funeral is to take place on Friday, leading to an embarrassing scheduling conflict which will force various heads of state and religious leaders to choose whom they want to piss off least, Rome or the House of Windsor. You couldn't make this stuff up. Which is why, when I woke last Friday to some story about the royal succession passing to Tom Parker-Bowles on his mum's marriage to Charles, I failed to twig that it was just the Today Programme having an April Fool's Day larf, as it seemed entirely in keeping with the farcical nature of the whole deal. (Mind you I was very, very insufficiently caffeinated at the time.) buzz word buzz word
Here's a sprog-related concept I've yet to witness: parallel play. This apparently occurs when children who are too young to play together interactively (ack) will sit alongside each other, each playing independently and peacefully with his or her own toy. Have the good folk who make this stuff up ever seen small children playing together? In my admittedly limited experience, if you place a child in a room with another child and a stack of toys, within seconds Sprog 2 will crawl/lurch up to Sprog 1, wrest its toy from its grasp and then solemnly poke it in the eye; meanwhile, on the side of the room nearest the drinks cabinet, Sprog 2's parent is wearily protesting: Arabella no don't snatch heh heh it's so difficult teaching them to share at this age isn't it Bella NO give it BACK to Tarquin.... &c.
Sunday, April 3
who wants the bother of a country estate?Saturday's Quality Mummy Time spent at the swimming pool in the next village - I even cycled there, so returned home feeling doubly virtuous, and thus justified in devouring a large lunch of cheese, ciabatta and pastries brought home by Jack, who'd taken Rebecca into town to forage for parts for my new bike. After lunch, a family outing to Wimpole Hall Farm, where Rebecca rode on Daddy's (and Mummy's) shoulders and met a variety of farm animals, including fancy chooks, spotty pigs and some very wobbly and knock-kneed new lambs. To allow Jack to get a ride in we hatched the cunning plan of taking his road bike with us so he could cycle home after we'd done the family thing.
Jack knocking a ride off yesterday meant Alison and I could get some training in today, which we combined with another outing en famille (see how parenthood has sharpened our time management skills?) - a picnic and stroll around Anglesey Abbey, where Rebecca discovered grass for the first time: having become mobile shortly before Christmas, she's not really had access to it before, as until recently it's been covered in ice and snow or buried under mud. She seemed most intrigued, particularly by the flavour.
Ride itself took us through Cottenham and Wilburton, heading towards Wicken and looping back along the other side of the Cam through the Swaffhams to Lode and the Abbey, then home across the fields to join the towpath at Clayhithe. 36 miles all up, and while I'm feeling smugly tired, my tailbone is unusually sore. I blame Rebecca, frankly: I fear that pregnancy, and the fact that she got stuck while trying to emerge, may have bent it out of shape. What one does about these matters I may have to take advice on.
Saturday, April 2
a time for every purposeYesterday Rebecca walked across the kitchen - more of a Doctor Who monster lurch, really, but she managed to travel a reasonable distance before plonking down onto her bum.
RIP Bonnie. She was a beautiful, faithful and loving dog, and like so many dogs, helped her family through some tough times. We'll all miss her very much.
Friday, April 1
rant du jourLoad of typical retrograde Grauniad shite about how motherhood changes women's 'personal style'. I'll tell you how motherhood has changed my 'personal style': my cardinal sartorial rule has altered from 'Never wear anything you can't cycle in' to 'Never wear anything you can't roll around on the floor in.' Corollary: 'Choose trousers with an even roomier arse.'
The part about not wearing black is true though: it shows up puke stains something terrible. Ideally you should wear creamy-yellow until they're weaned, and orange and khaki camo thereafter. And I expect a good marmaladey tweed would probably disguise the lumpy bits. though some may harbour suspicions
If you can identify the problem with the sentence below, then you'll understand why the book I'm currently reading* is provoking many sharp intakes of breath.
Peering down upon the wide collection of vehicles, our red Polo looked tiny at the end of a long line.
Apart from the fact that it's riddled with this sort of thing, it's a compelling read.
If I were a superhero, I'd be the Purple Pedant.
Ten-mile mini-blat along the Cam yesterday after Jack got home from work, looping through the country park on both outward and homeward stretches. Had the entire towpath to myself, and the river too was deserted, dark green, and as still as I've seen it, apart from the occasional splashing moorhen and bright swan.
*Jane and Mike Tomlinson, The Luxury of Time (2005), which Jack brought home for me as a surprise random present.
