The Mule

"Are you putting her down yet?", the Health Visitor asked.  Her manner was stern, and slightly concerned, as if she might be simultaneously wondering who she might mention me to on the community mental health team.  With my baby just a couple of weeks old and sleeping on my shoulder like a dollop of marshmallow, I stammered, "Er...no!...Er...Should I be?!".  "Yes", she replied, unequivocally. "You need to start putting her down more.  If you hold her all the time you will create a bad habit." Oh.  I felt confused.  I didn't have any kind of parenting plan, I wasn't following the advice of any book, it just hadn't occured to me to stop holding this tiny soul.  I liked having her in my arms.  She seemed delicious to me in every way that it is possible to be delicious.  She felt at ease, draped across the body she had only recently vacated.  And besides, I didn't really have anything else to do, but hold he...

Yes, I know what you're thinking.  Another blog about the ridiculous cot death plot, how insulting it is to those who have actually suffered in this way, how they have missed a chance to cover a serious issue in a helpful way, how they have portrayed post natal women as hormonal nutters, and how in reality such baby swapping behaviour would result in a lifetime sectioned under the mental health act, but in soap land it will probably all be forgiven after a public apology in the Vic and a couple of weeks in Marbella. And so on.  Actually, this post isn't going to be about that.  Sorry.  Do you feel misled, but only in a small way?  Good, because that is precisely what this post IS going to be about. Before I had my first child, I was blissfully unaware of what life with a baby had in store for me.  I had a vague idea of how it would go, though, and I think in retrospect that I was mostly getting my information from Eastenders.  On Eastenders, and I'm ...

This time three years ago, my first baby was just a few days old.  And I can't help but recall the story, now worn thin with telling, of how she was born eighteen days past her 'due date'. Expected on the 21st December, it was to be a long and more than usually stressful festive season, as the days and nights of waiting wore on.  At a time of year when I was more inclined towards numbing myself with a mixture of socially acceptable 11am sherry drinking and, if that failed, a spot of monstrous overeating, I found myself nearly ten months pregnant and able to do neither.  Ladies and gentlemen, this was The Christmas I Cried.   When not lying on the sofa surrounded by used tissues, I spent my time eating pineapples, running up and down the stairs, going for bumpy car rides, having acupuncture, and drinking large amounts of castor oil, which, for those of you who are curious, tastes like melted tea lights, and makes you shit through the eye of a needle.  Th...

My toddler is currently sitting on the sofa, naked, wrapped in a blanket, eating a cold fish finger, and watching CBeebies.  She hasn't been like this all day, you understand.  We've been to a play group, done some cooking, played 'doctors', 'car parks' and 'shop', made playdough, and gone for a leaf collecting expedition.  In between all that I've made several meals, kept the house from the brink of chaos, and fed us both.  Oh, and looked after and breast fed a 5 month old baby.  And yet it doesn't seem to matter how many meaningful activities I fill my child's day with.  As soon as I put the telly on I feel only one emotion - Guilt. For some reason this guilt eases slightly between the hours of 4 and 6pm.  As a child I can remember quite a nice time of day, when, home from school, my mum would bring me a peanut butter and jam sandwich and a glass of milk and let me watch Blue Peter or Krackerjack.  Wholesome. So somehow it seems permissab...