The Mule

As I get older, some rather interesting and unexpected things are happening.  One rather pleasing development is that some of the crap I've got shoved at the back of my wardrobe is actually coming back into fashion, meaning less trips to Primarni are needed in these credit crunching times.  Even stranger and more shockingly, I find I am beginning to mellow.  Gradually the waves of time are washing over me, and like a piece of glass in the ocean, my sharp edges are slowly being soothed and smoothed and rounded.  Or, to put it another way, as I make cock up upon cock up upon cock up, I am becoming less judgemental of other people's cock ups. Parenting can be a heady mix of both solidarity and judgement.  The vast majority of us are struggling along, fuelled by the most heart bursting levels of passion and love for our children, and desperate to offer them the best that we can.  There's of...

Well, you might have noticed, but although this blog hasn't been going for very long, I've already given Health Visitors a couple of mentions.  I'm passionate about good evidence based care for women during a really important time in their life: pregnancy, birth, and new motherhood.  The Health Visitor plays a vital role in helping mothers to bond with their babies, and care for them night and day.  They can influence the decision to breastfeed and its success or failiure.  They are there for women who may be becoming depressed.  They offer advice on health, sleep, feeding, weaning, growth, and much much more.  And yet in my personal experience, I have been offered some poor advice by them, and I have heard similar stories from many other mothers.  I feel that this is an important issue and one which should be discussed.  Health Visitors surely all mean very well and would want nothing but excellence for new mothers and babies.  I...

Once upon a time, in a very far away land indeed, there was a blisteringly naive but well meaning girl who thought that babies slept through the night after the first few tricky weeks and that then you could get a sitter and go out dancing, whenever you pleased and without a second thought, just like you did in the good old days. Four years ago, that girl was me.  As previously discussed, I thought all babies behaved just like the ones on Eastenders , and trotted gaily off into the dark forest of parenting, confidently swinging my basket of breadcrumbs.  Like every other woman, I was totally unprepared for what lay ahead.  And I absolutely had no idea that my nights, my sleeping hours, that sacred time that I took completely for granted as one of life's essentials, would take perhaps the biggest hit of all. There's absolutely no point writing a blog post about the horrors of sleep deprivation, as this is old news to haggard-faced mothers everywhere.  But the stor...

In the past few days there've been some definite signs that Spring has truly arrived, and no, I don't mean the warm air or the nodding daffodils, I'm talking about bloody sand all over my bloody house.  It's amazing how far a three year old can track the stuff, and it turns up in the most irritating places, its regular removal becoming your number one mundane and thankless task for the next six months, until the wheel of the year turns, and you can start repetitively and ineffectively hoovering up its Winter counterpart, glitter, instead. Yesterday, in between bouts of sand clearance, I launched a sunshine induced and uncharacteristic attack on my two daughters respective wardrobes, sorting out summer clothes from various chaotic boxes and cupboards and drawers.  Like all such jobs, in order to try and complete it I had to do two things - set the three year old on a lunatic project (how many layers of trousers can you get on?) and allow the...

Wellies.  Yes I realise this might seem an unlikely place to start.  But I'm all fired up about them.  I know, I know, it might seem trivial.  But bear with me.  Because, sometimes, the microcosmic detail reflects a macrocosmic problem.  And this is one such occasion.  Let me explain. Wellies.  I just popped into the children's welly aisle in a well known supermarket to chuck a pair in my trolley along with the six pack of pinot grigio I had actually gone in there for in the first place.  My daughter's number one recreational activity at the moment is puddle jumping, mine is taking the edge off the day with two glasses of chilled white before going to bed at 8.30pm: everyone's a winner. So here was the choice: pink background with dark pink stars, pink Charlie and Lola, pink and purple with rabbits, or, and this is the one that really got to me, pink with a picture of a princess, and trimmed with the words 'Waiting for my P...

Today, in our house, Operation Stack is in place.  We borrowed this code name from the Kent Police.  They use it to refer to the system of parking lorries on the M40 when the Channel Tunnel is closed.   For us it describes the days when all normal activities need to be halted due to a family member being so tired that they cannot perform the simplest of tasks without crying, yelling, or lying on the kitchen floor beating their fists on the lino.  Sometimes, this is the three year old, but more often than not, it's me. When Operation Stack is declared, it's an acknowledgement that no forward progress is going to be made, and that therefore it is better for all concerned if we just park up between Junctions 11 and 12 and stop trying.  We light the fire, we put the telly on, we wait for clearance.  And things just, well, stack.  Stacks of laundry, dishes, paperwork, toys; there is an unmistakable sense of 'stacked...

"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...