First cooking lesson!

On Tuesday, C and I made a plum clafoutis. She loved watching me break the eggs, and then she loved stirring the liquid dough. She didn’t want to stop. If I had let her, we still wouldn’t have a cooked clafoutis.

I felt a surge of pride about the fact that she was keen on cooking/baking, and a sense of nostalgia about when my mum and I used to bake together. I never liked cooking the starter or the mains, but the dessert, ah yes, I was always there for the dessert! And most specially for licking the large wooden spoon from which the dough was still dribbling (I always made sure there was lots left on the spoon after pouring the dough into the dish!), and then making my finger slide all around the bowl, till the last drop.

C didn’t propose to lick the spoon or dip her fingers in the dough, so I didn’t encourage her. There is plenty of time for that!

Sharing this kind of thing with a daughter – is there anything like it? Passing on your savoir-faire, your experience, your tastes, your preferences, subliminally at first, consciously much later – I think that’s what having children is all about.

That, and passing on your love of them and your love of life. So that they can pass it on too – hopefully.

Back in business!

It's a scary thought, but for the past few weeks I have been musing about my blog. How I've been missing it. How, wow, now, it looks like I really may have the time to write a post every now and again!

It's not a scary thought at all, of course. It's a blindingly wonderful thought!

Just yesterday, I had an idea for a post. I can't remember for the life of me what it was, but it doesn't matter. The fact is: I'm thinking about my blog, I'm thinking about what I want to write, and best of all, I'm thinking that I can do it! I can write again! I thought this would never happen!

So just in brief: yes, motherhood really is the hardest job on earth, no manual, no preparation, no anticipation possible, but YES YES YES it really is worth it! I'm only now convinced of it, it took so long (my daughter is now nearly 21 months old), I know, but hey, I got there in the end! My daughter is so funny, now that she can say quite a few words, in both French and English, and so loving, and so sweet, and so cuddly, and now that she sleeps well consistently, it's a whole new experience. You can't compare it with the sleep-deprived nights and hazy days. No wonder some of my friends have been relishing motherhood since their babies were tiny - because they were sleeping well (both mummies and babies). Now I can too!

So thumbs up to having a baby!

The realities of motherhood

This was written on 20 August 2009!

If you want a baby, you have to be prepared to have your world be ruled by Sod’s Law.

Here is all you should know before making the decision to have a baby. You probably won’t hear or read it the way you should ― your desire to have a baby anyway will be too strong, you won’t care about what you read, you just want A BABY, I know, I was probably like that too, but I feel the need to tell it like it is, because every woman deserves the truth about motherhood and because women lie to each other. They don’t have the TIME to tell you exactly how it is ― they just say ‘Yes, I’m fine, it’s a bit hard, I’m tired, but we’re fine’, when really, what they want to tell you is THIS:

1) You can’t spend any quality time with your husband/partner.
2) You can’t spend any quality time with your friends, mum, dad, family.
3) You can’t spend any quality time with yourself.
4) You can’t spend any quality time with your baby, even.
5) The demands on your time are excruciatingly... demanding. You don’t have time to brush your hair, to put on make up, to go to the loo, to make a phone call, to send that email, to drink that glass of orange juice, to eat that piece of toast. All these little things you didn’t even know you were taking for granted Before Baby (BB).
6) Looking after a baby is relentless, you keep doing the same things over and over, day in, day out, without respite, especially if your family live far away and can’t relieve you of a few chores every now and again.
7) It gets better, but it gets a lot worse. You get used to interrupted sleep, you get used to not having a life any more, you get to appreciate that little being, but at the same time, as you do less and less for yourself, you need to do more and more for that little one ― more cooking, more looking after, picking things up, tidying things ― and my daughter is not even crawling yet! I know it will get worse! But I’ll do even less for myself and my friends and so I’ll have that little extra time to do those new things...
8) The minute you finally hit the pillow, your baby wakes up and needs a cuddle to go back to sleep. Not every night, but definitely the nights before the days you work. For sure.
9) She always naps for 2 hours in the morning. The day you absolutely need a nap yourself, you tidy up the kitchen and prepare the next bottle and send an urgent email and make a crucial phone call, you go and lie down ― five minutes later she wakes up. Today, she only needed a 30mn morning nap. You have to get up again, go and see her, pick her up, smile to her, change her nappy, feed her, carry on for the next three hours, until she needs another nap. And then you won’t do anything, you’ll just go straight to bed. You don’t get bitten twice on the same day.

At this point in my life, I can only think that the only reason women go on to have at least another baby is that they have accepted that their own, old, normal life has been put on hold, perhaps indefinitely, but for at least 3 years, and they have ‘seen the light’ ― the one that shows 99% of the time the beautiful things that a baby brings into this world and into their life. I have yet to ‘see the light’, I must say. However, I know I have started to distinguish it, all the way out there, at the end of that tunnel, the tunnel that encloses the first year of a baby’s life (as far as I understand, it IS the hardest year ― but only because after that you are used to not having a life of your own and you have started to really appreciate your baby and his/her funny little ways and to accept that this is how it’s going to be for the foreseeable future).

The last few days, I’ve had a really bad virus. Today I’m at home, unable to go to work, barely able to type this up, but I’ve been wanting to write all this for so long, I just have to, while C is at nursery, hopefully not catching anything nasty. And it’s only when I was quite ill with this virus (Monday and Tuesday) and spent two days with my daughter, right next to her while she played and I rested on the sofa, that I realised how truly gorgeous she is and how playful and funny and full of life and lovely she is and how selfish I have been these past few months, thinking about me me me and my old life and how perfect it all was (yeah right!) and I have accepted that perhaps my new life is better after all and I really must erase that old life of mine from my memory and start afresh with this new life, consider only its positive points, never think back, never hypothesise about what my life would be like if I hadn’t wanted that baby.

And at bedtime, C gives me the biggest kisses and hugs that make my heart melt and my eyes water and my emotions swell throughout my body and I realise how much I do love her. It nearly makes up for everything else. Nearly.

My new job

This was written on 22 March. I didn't even have the time to post it!

Thank God I was never given the manual for my new job as otherwise I wouldn’t even have applied.

Spotless

Less than a week to go!

Yes, our house is spotless. It’s not like I’ve been nesting like mad just recently. It’s that I’ve been nesting regularly for the past 9 months. Now with the impending birth, I just keep things clean and tidy at all times, as I know that once Sprog is here, this house will never look the same again and I will never have this much time on my hands!

So in-between making photo albums (a 2-year backlog!), tidying up endless folders of digital pictures, deleting megabytes of blurred, badly framed or uninteresting shots, resting and reading lots of books, I do the occasional dusting, a spot of hoovering, a bit of bathroom cleaning, and I put things away and throw useless items out. It is therapeutic, and every day I feel better and better for it all.

Every woman should have maternity leave at least once in her life, regardless of whether or not she is about to have a baby!

Denial

Just over eight months – one more to go!

I thought I would write loads in my blog these last few weeks. I thought I would take the time to document my pregnancy. But I am already writing a journal for Sprog, and one for myself, so there is just no time or willingness to write about it all in here as well.

But here are a couple of pictures of my tummy, at 7 and 8 months.



There could be a month left, there could be 6 weeks left, there could be just 2 weeks... or less... But I’m OK, I haven’t reached the impatient stage yet (‘I don’t want to be pregnant any more, let this baby OOOOOUUUUUUTTTTT!!!!’), although I’m getting a little more uncomfortable each day now, especially at night. The baby is doing great, still growing normally, and I’m feeling fine, if a little (very!) tired at times.

Everything is ready – the room, the pushchair and carrycot and car seat, the Moses basket in case we decide to use it after all (a friend of mine gave me hers but we still do intend to put Sprog in the cot bed straight away), the clothes, the bibs, the muslin squares (ten – apparently, you can never have enough!) and the towels and bath toys and mini picture books (of course!) and soft toys...

Still, I have been in denial for about 3 weeks. I can’t quite make the link between what’s wriggling inside me and the reality of a baby in my arms in a few weeks’ time. I wonder why we have transformed the guest room into a baby room, why we have piles of baby clothes, why we have a carrycot ready to go in the car, and worst of all, why quite a lot of old clothes and towels and a collection of breast pads and maternity pads are packed away in a suitcase, standing and ready to be picked up at the slightest sign of labour...

I’m pregnant now, and this is my new state, FOR EVER! Of course there’s no REAL baby in there, of course nothing’s going to come out. I’ve just got a big tummy, that’s all.

I’m a bit better these past couple of days – I’m back to reality. Maybe because it was my birthday on Monday and I didn’t do a thing and so I had plenty of time to talk to Sprog and feel him/her and tell him/her stories. But mainly, I think it’s because he/she’s growing so big now that I can feel every part of him/her: the back, the feet, the knees, the bum, that tiny little bum that makes me laugh so much when it pushes upward and looks like it’s going to pierce the skin of my tummy and pop out!

Intellectually, I know that in just a few weeks a baby will come out of me (try, anyway!), and now physically and emotionally, I am starting to feel that it really is quite possible that there is a real baby inside me and therefore it will want to come out at some point. It’s getting tight in there...

But Sprog, hang on in there. Mummy’s not quite ready, and you’re not quite ‘cooked’ either. You still need to put on a few more ounces and develop your lungs to their full capacity, so that you can give this powerful scream when you do come out...

Table for four

I had dinner at an Italian restaurant in Oxford last night with one of my (many!) pregnant friends.

‘Table for two?’ asked the East European waitress in a thick accent and barely audible voice.
‘Yes,’ answered my friend, N.
‘No, table for four,’ I whispered, smiling at N.

Ah, pregnancy bliss! The pleasure of being able to imagine and, now, to know that there is someone in there, a real person, who is growing stronger by the day, kicking harder every day...

Soon, there will be three of us in this household, but I can already feel that we are a family now. It is a wonderful feeling, one that I had not anticipated. Roll on third trimester!

Bruised

Six months today! Three more to go!

I am bruised.

All over.

But inside.

Mind you, outside too – I keep bumping into things, dropping things, hurting myself with forks and knives and jewellery and pens.

But on the inside, it’s not my doing. It’s Sprog’s.* I am battered, beaten, shaken, trodden, flattened and crushed. Day in, day out, and at night too.

I couldn’t go back to sleep last night. It was only half past midnight, I had been sleeping for a couple of hours, but Sprog had woken up and just used my bladder as a punching ball – the loo beckoned. Then Sprog never went back to sleep, hiccupping one minute, kicking the next. So I didn’t either. Well, until about 2.30 a.m., that is, after lying still on my back on the sofa bed in the study, resting, reading, till my eyes couldn’t distinguish the words on the page any more.

I hope that this is not the first step on the downhill slope that leads to the abysmal first few weeks after Sprog has joined the world (till he/she finally sleeps through the night). If so, it will be a long winter...

* I don’t like using the name ‘Sprog’ for our baby, but Monsieur l’Anglais likes it and it stuck pretty much from Day 1, so we carry on using it. I did suggest using the boy name we’ve chosen on ‘he days’ and the girl’s name on ‘she days’ (no, we don’t know what sex the baby is), but no, he prefers to use ‘Sprog’, so hey, I might as well use it here too!

Are you a Woolly Mummy?

Especially for T. ...

I have been reading The Yummy Mummy’s Survival Guide by Liz Frazer avidly, but I would like to write about a different kind of mummy – the Woolly Mummy.

You are a Woolly Mummy if:
- you are more hairy than a monkey – and yes, even in the most unsightly places
- you scratch yourself all over, in all kinds of places (nipples, areolas, small of your back, and of course underarms)
- you spend countless hours brushing your teeth every day (see my French blog)
- you can only express yourself using ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ and ‘mmmhs’, because you have a woolly memory and you get completely gaga in front of (pictures of) cute baby animals, e.g. cygnets under their mother’s wings (yes, under, or even between – see picture, taken by our professional photographer friend during a boat trip on the Thames)
- you get all excited and emotional when you look at your friend’s first baby scan – let alone your own
- you grow a hairy tummy and a beard!

Ah, the joys of pregnancy!!!

Advantages

There are advantages to being pregnant and feeling sick and/or hungry at night and therefore being unable to sleep for more than 2 or 3 hours at a time. Yes, really.

Take the moon, for example. Who saw the moon rise in the sky last Wednesday night, a deep apricot colour, just like the sun at dawn? And again the night after that, but this time a pale yellow, high in the sky, just like the sun at midday?

I felt it was Nature’s way of compensating for her evil ways, like making the female body produce an insane amount of hormones in order to make a baby and its support system – placenta, more blood, bigger uterus, etc. – and inducing nausea and exhaustion in the process.

Thank you, Nature – it made me feel so much better to be able to see the great things you are also capable of!