Stick a fork in me, then hide it. I am DONE.

Everyone has their price and everyone has their limit. I just reached my limit. It's time for a change.

I've never been a skinny girl - even as a child I carried a fair amount of chub. My weight has bounced up and down for almost two decades, each time increasing a little bit more on the up swing and not quite shrinking back as far on the downward plunge. It's never really been a conscious effort on my part to lose weight, except when I was pregnant with Dom and put on the low-carb, practically no sugar gestational diabetes diet. I just seem to slowly reach a point at which I start losing, closely followed by another gain, like a tranquil seesaw on a spring evening.

Except now I'm sick of it. Now I've gone past "curvy," skipped over "voluptuous," bypassed "buxom" and side-stepped "rounded".  I'm less pleasingly plump than depressingly dumpy, and I've had enough.

I'm sick of worrying about how I'll cover up on the beach this summer.  I'm tired of planning my outfits around what they hide.  I hate that the only clothes I feel sexy in are my boots, and the only clothes I feel comfortable in are my pyjamas.  I don't want to lose yet another pair of jeans to the dreaded thigh-hole that appears when even denim, that most hardy and robust of materials, gives up against the constant pressure of one leg against another.  God knows, it takes long enough to find a pair of jeans that looks good and feels good and doesn't turn into an elaborate strangulation device after being washed.  I don't have time to try on six different tops every night before work, and I'm already bored to death with covering up with the same black cardigan.  I get more marks on my skin from a bra than I did from an entire pregnancy.  The season of less clothes, more flesh is almost upon us and I refuse to spend it in Spanx, which I wear not to hold me in, but to stop the torture of thighs rubbing together on a sticky summer's day.  I want to just smile in a photo instead of manoeuvering myself to the angle that shows, not my best side, but my least bad side.  I almost wore my "old faithful" black trousers for work, despite them being scruffy as hell, because nothing else fits - but they didn't fit. I AM FUCKING DONE.

So it's time for a few changes around here.  I'm not going to kid myself that I'm going to start running 5 miles a day and replacing all the biscuits with kale and quinoa.  I'm not deluded enough to believe that I can be a size 8, nor is my attitude to my body unhealthy enough to want this.  My frame is not a size 8 frame, my bones are not size 8 bones, and I am not a prepubescent girl.  I don't want to look like one.  I'm of hefty Northern stock and I like that - my aim is healthy, not skinny.  I'm not going to set myself up for failure by denying myself the pleasure of some less than healthy food now and again - in fact, I'll probably still be eating more "bad" food than some people who aren't working on changing their habits.  All I'm planning is a bit of a shift in how I manage my weekly food intake, and a bit more movement whenever I can fit it in.  Of the 14 non-breakfast meals I have a week, even replacing 7 of them with a salad or fish and vegetables or similar will make a difference, slowly and sensibly.  I don't have to tell myself that a takeaway on a Saturday night or a Sunday brunch of croissants and coffee is off the cards.  I don't have to stop taking sugar in my tea (because that's not going to happen.  If an Englishman's home is his castle, an Englishwoman's tea is her treasure, and how she takes it should be respected), as long as I'm not making EVERY choice an unhealthy one.  It's time.  I've got the wedding of the century to attend in July and I want to be, or at least feel like, the third most gorgeous woman there after the brides.

I've hit rock bottom and I need to stop eating so I can pull myself up.

What would you zoo?

The last time I went to a zoo was almost 10 years ago, back when I first moved to Spain.  I'd purposely avoided them for a long time, unable to reconcile the proud dignity of some of Nature's finest creations with the bored-looking specimens imprisoned behind glass or wire.  However, I'd just started a new job in a foreign country and the company I'd joined was unsympathetic to my ethical dilemma.  I had to attend a trip to Fuengirola Zoo so that I could then sell it to guests, and that was that.

As a kid, I loved the zoo.  We used to go on days out to Chester Zoo, which I remember as being a huge space with a river and parkland stretching as far as the eye could see.  I'm sure memory deceives me a little and my excited child's eyes weren't the best judge of scale, but I'm also sure that the tiny dimensions of the zoo in Fuengirola would have looked even smaller and meaner next to Chester's 45 hectares of greenery.  A measly 2 hectares in area, the overriding memory I have of Fuengirola Zoo is of a tiger pacing up and down, up and down, up and down in front of gaggles of excited tourists.  I know that pacing is a sign of depression in animals and it weighed on my heart to know that there in front of me was an amazing creature, brought so low by the hands of humans who couldn't even approach it without weapons and sedatives at the ready.  That, for me, was the end of my association with zoos.  I couldn't do it and luckily, I never had to again.

The zoo question hadn't really come up again until recently.  Occasionally visitors would ask what Barcelona's zoo was like and I'd simply tell them I'd never been.  If it seemed relevant or appropriate, I'd explain why and tell them a little about how I felt about the subject, but, to be honest, it wasn't really an issue.  My aim has never been to stop other people enjoying zoos, just as my aim during the 13 years I was vegetarian wasn't to stop other people enjoying meat.  It just wasn't for me.  Speaking to other adults made it clear that the zoo holds a special place in many hearts and that it's the home of as many beloved childhood memories as it is animals.  I'm not out to destroy that for anybody - this is just a personal standpoint. 

I'm not completely disregarding the good that zoos do.  Conservation and breeding programmes have ensured the survival of many species that would otherwise have been lost to us forever, and valuable research is undertaken by scientists affiliated with zoos the world over. But is it too little, too late, and for the wrong reasons? Humankind has destroyed the habitats of many creatures, eliminated their natural prey, systematically decimated their numbers for their teeth or fur or for the ivory tusks that we're so unworthy of, we need three of us to lift them.  We are an infestation on the face of the planet, a scabies-like scourge that no amount of insecticide will cure.  Mother Nature throws natural disasters at us like athlete's foot powder and we ignore her and get worse.  Making a few more animals miserable for "survival of the species" smacks of an exercise in guilt management.   Many of them wouldn't be struggling without the actions of humans, and I can't help but feel that we may be preventing others from following their natural evolutionary path by our insistence on prolonging their life spans.  

Recent events in Denmark have also shadowed my perspective of the conservation aspect.  While I'm sure there's a lot that hasn't been reported and a lot that I wouldn't understand if it were, I can't for any reason justify the killing of a healthy animal when there are viable alternatives.  The fact that the animal was bred in captivity and his genetic make-up was deemed unfit for the purposes of the scientists in charge (who created him) leaves a bad taste in the mouth.  With this in mind, I can't help but liken the "zoos as conservation" argument to a cheating lover confessing their actions to the betrayed partner in order to feel better about their actions.  The conscience of the transgressor is eased at the expense of the person they've hurt and they get to remove "lying" from their sin sheet.  We "conserve" creatures in order to make ourselves feel better, firstly about the necessity of protecting the few remaining examples of the species' we've come so close to destroying, and secondly to salve our consciences at exploiting them.

However, I'm now very aware that my stance on this may prevent my son from ever creating those memories that so many hold dear, and I've had to think hard about how important my feelings on the subject are. Suddenly my principles would have a direct effect on somebody else - on the person most dear to me in the world.  

I talked it out with his dad and I don't think this is something I'm willing to budge on.   I'm not going to put my foot down and refuse to allow him to attend zoos with other family members or his school, if the opportunity arises.  I'm going to have to accept that my personal ethics mean I'll miss out on the gleeful smiles of a child seeing his story books come to life, because he's too young to be forced to miss out on my behalf.  I just can't see myself walking around pointing at unhappy animals with a giant smile on my face, explaining to Dom how they usually live in the jungle with miles of space to roam but have been cooped up here, mired in a mere existence, for his viewing pleasure.  I may be incorrect here, but I don't think it's his God-given right to see a lion or a gorilla.  It would be nice, sure, but it's not something he needs and it's not something he deserves just because he was born on this planet.  Hopefully, by the time he's old enough to question it, he'll want to care for that same planet and the other inhabitants of it enough that he'll share my views.  If not, we'll agree to disagree.

This depresses the shit out of me.  

The Pregnancy Test Gender Gap

Whether you believe in nature, nurture or a combination of the two; whether you think that sex and gender are the same thing or whether gender, to you, is  socially constructed; whether you're a GI Jane or a Susie Homemaker; whether your male role model is Vin Diesel or Sheldon Cooper, it's safe to say that only biological women with fallopian tubes will pee on a stick any time soon and have it say anything other than "Not pregnant."  A conversation with Mat last night showed me just how fully the pregnancy test can emphasise the male/female divide.

Due to a wonderful coming together (or rather going away) of work schedules, bosses and internet connections, we had the opportunity for a rare Saturday night of doing not very much together.  Smoked salmon was placed onto gently toasted - OK, slightly cremated - bread, wine was poured and we settled down to watch a bit of Dara O'Briain.  

Some way into his set, Dara started talking about Clear Blue pregnancy tests.  This reminded me that I'd taken a (thankfully negative!) test that afternoon, so I shared this snippet of information with Mat.  As I prepared to settle into a litany of reasons I'd thought it was necessary to take a test, he turned to me and gently mentioned that not listening to 20 seconds of Dara O'Briain would mean having no clue of what the remaining hour of stand-up was about.  Fair point, thought I, assuming that he'd either pause the show or be dying to hear all about it the moment it was over.  Nope.  Apparently, the only word he needed to hear was "negative."  He didn't even need to see the test.  Weirdo.

Not my actual test.  Good job, because that faint line would worry me if it were.

Where's the fun in that?  Where's the interest in not hearing that I did the test because a common side effect of the mini pill is to stop ovulation, meaning that I no longer have a monthly "Not pregnant!  Woop woop!" moment?  Also, I've put weight on - sure, NOW I know that I've piled the beef on because I haven't stopped eating for three months, but there could have been a more complex reason.  (If I'm perfectly honest, despite not wanting another baby any time soon, there was a part of me that went, "Shit.  Suppose I'd better get off my arse and put the biscuits down, then.").  AND - and this was the clincher - my ribs hurt on Friday.  They've only ever hurt when I was having Dom, so obviously my brain put two and two together and came up with a little one.  Now see?  Wasn't that interesting?

I honestly cannot imagine sitting down with a woman - any woman I get on fairly well with and am pretty comfortable with - and telling them that I did a pregnancy test, it was negative, and moving on to another subject.  It just wouldn't happen.  There's too much to be discussed.  Why did I think I might be?  And I'm definitely not?  What would I have done if I was?  What would they do if they were, right now?  When do I think I'll want to be again?  What would Mat say (clearly not very much)?  How would Dom feel?  Do I want to be?  Do they want to be?  Is anyone else pregnant?  How do they feel about it?  There's hours of conversation to be had around an imaginary pregnancy, for God's sake!  Even some of my male friends would show more interest than Mat did. Come to think of it, only my very gay and squeamish friends would be less concerned about the inner workings of my reproductive system than Mat was.

Cheers, babe.  It's a good job he's generally fabulous, given his lack of interest in his non-existent second child.  And it's a good job that I'm pretty sure that he wasn't clutching at his hair demanding to see the test to be sure it was negative because he actually thinks another baby would be a great idea.  Which is sweet, if deluded.

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The scooter upstairs

We moved into our new place in May last year.  As we settled in, we discovered that the two couples on the top floor of the building were expecting babies - one, a boy due in November, and the other, a little girl due in March.  The couple who were expecting the boy had a little scooter on their balcony ready for the day some 4 or 5 years ahead when their son would play on it.  We laughed with them about it, as we have almost the exact same one, and Dom is still too young to do more than sit on (and fall off) it.  We exchanged grins about the silly whims of parenthood, the toys bought with a heart full of hope and only a vague idea of who the person would be that would one day play with them.

Throughout the pregnancy, they knew that their son would have some heart problems, though they wouldn't know the full extent until he was born.  She wasn't scheduled for a caesarean, which seemed hopeful - after all, if the baby's fragile heart was expected to withstand the ravages that birth placed on it, it couldn't be too serious, right?  

The baby was born on schedule and they named him Max.  I thought my heart would break for the couple when they came home from the hospital without him - he wasn't as healthy as had been hoped and he had to stay in for treatment.  I could barely imagine how it must have felt for them to come home from the hospital to a house ready for a baby who wasn't with them.  I thought then that there could be no worse pain for a new parent.

I haven't seen them lately - we're not close and I haven't wanted to intrude.  I've kept an eye out for the scooter on their balcony, seeing its presence as a sort of talisman, a guarantee that one day a little boy would play on it.  Maybe he'd bring it downstairs to show my little boy, and they'd play together.   I checked yesterday morning and it was still there, still giving me hope that one day soon I'd get to tell Max how long we'd waited to meet him and how much we'd all worried about him, these people he didn't know.

Yesterday afternoon I bumped into the lady who lives in front of them, the one whose baby is due in just 3 weeks now, and she told me that Max wouldn't be coming home from the hospital at all.  He'd had two heart operations in the first two months of his life and his little body couldn't take any more.  He passed away two weeks ago .

It sounds trite and it's all been said before, but I have no idea how people survive this.  I feel like my heart is breaking for a baby I never met - for every baby who doesn't get to come home, or doesn't get to stay.  I don't know how the man who told me, every time I asked how the baby was doing, that "Cada día es una victoria" (every day is a victory), is going to deal with defeat.  I wouldn't know where to begin.  The woman whose smile never quite made it as far as her eyes, the eyes that tried and failed to mask too much pain even before her baby was born - I can't compute how she's going to contain the world of agony that losing her baby has left her with.  I don't think she'd have room for it.  I don't think I could do it.  

It seems so unfair on them that soon their next door neighbour will be bringing home her baby, that newborn cries will be heard through thin apartment walls that never got to protect the little boy who belonged there.  I don't know how they'll handle that.  I can't help crying for them at the realisation that for them, this wound will be stretched and torn even deeper, that they will be up at night listening to the sleepless wails of a baby who is not theirs.  And some of my tears are for their next door neighbour, who I spoke to yesterday and whose happiness is tethered a tiny bit by the knowledge that others who weren't so lucky are right next door with their grief and without their son.  

Most of my tears are for the little boy who never got to sleep in his own bed, never got to play in the sand on a summer's day.  The little boy whose short life spanned less than one winter, but who brought sunshine for such a short time.  

And there were so many tears this morning, after I thought I had none left, when I looked up out of habit and saw that the scooter was gone.  

The Facebook Effect

I've noticed a curious occurrence recently after writing a blog post. Once it's done and posted, and I've looked at it from Google rather than from my own account, and I've either smiled fondly at it with a feeling of shy pride or, more likely, noticed a thousand typos and wanted to scratch off my own eyebrows in frustration (because the typos are only ever visible on my phone in a no-signal zone when I can't fix them), something odd happens.

A strange feeling settles over me, a disquieting air of waiting for something to happen. When I first noticed the feeling, I couldn't work out why it felt slightly familiar. After all, I couldn't quite put my finger on what the feeling actually was, so how did I know it was familiar? It would be like being discreetly eaten by moths and thinking, "Ah! This reminds me of the time when...". If you don't recognise the feeling, how can you claim to have felt it before?

The answer became apparent whenever I posted a status on Facebook that (I thought) was  hilarious. Waiting for people to click "like" or comment some inanity on my inanities, I realised that THIS was the feeling. I was waiting for someone to "like" my blog post! Also, I realised that I'm a skanky online attention whore who gets my validation from strangers on the internet, which probably isn't one of my more attractive character traits, but it is what it is. I like people to like what I write, because by extension, they then like me. Or something. I don't know, I'm not paying for Facebook therapy.

The only problem with this is, for someone to read what you've written, they have to know it exists. I'm probably the only blogger in the world who hides their output from pretty much everyone. Far too thin skinned to be in this game, I live in longing and terror that one day I'll log into my blog to see that someone has actually left a comment. Probably not something I should admit on the internet, notorious stomping ground of the criminally rude and malicious, but given that no one reads my ramblings anyway, I think I'm safe for now.

When a NO is a YES

A friend of mine wants to be a life coach.  Years ago, when we first met, he advised me to draw lines around a central point, one for each aspect of my life - money, career, relationship, home, social life, etc.  On a scale of 1 - 10 and assuming that 1 was closest to the central point and 10 was furthest away, he said to mark on each line where my happiness levels were.  Then, when the lines are joined up from the score marker, it's easier to see which areas of one's life need work.

Here's my graph.  It's pretty obvious what's not working for me right now.

You don't want to know how long I spent making this pretty.

It's not that I don't have a job, it's just that the one I'm doing is so not my thing.  I've been doing it now for 6 years and am surprisingly pretty good at it, but I'm under no illusions.  For me, it's a job, not a career.

With this in mind, I recently applied for another job.  It was a job I thought I'd be good at; a job I thought I'd enjoy.  A job that seemed so tailored for me, it didn't even seem like a real job.  The job spec went something like:

*  Looking for a pedantic, judgemental grammar nerd; 
*  Must be hypercritical and able to pick out the smallest of faults from half a mile away.  In the dark; 
*  Must be prepared to be paid a decent amount of money for something they'd do for free, given half the chance.

Yes, that's almost word for word, exactly what it said.  YES IT IS.  Well, that was what I took from it, anyway.

So, I applied despite them asking for a degree, which I don't have (no, dropping out twice is not almost the same as finishing once), and experience, which I also don't have.  I talked myself up to feeling like a real freelance writer with my little articles about DIY that I've written for an unknown website; and despite the fact that I don't think anyone ever reads the pages that I proofread, I made my input to them sound VERY IMPORTANT INDEED.    I managed to get past the HR interview, which I know is really just a filtering exercise to make sure you're not a complete dickhead and can string a sentence together in the correct language.  I was still pretty relieved that my lack of anything listed in the job specification didn't earn me a bollocking for wasting their time.  I handed in a localisation project for them to evaluate, and waited.  And waited.

I wanted this job so badly that I decided to try a visualisation technique that my friend talks about (surprisingly, not the life coach one.  Evidently I attract a certain, more alternative element of society).  He's bang into the "Law of Attraction" theory made famous and lucrative by Abraham Hicks, and says that you have to imagine yourself in the position you want to be in, as if it's already happened.  Convince yourself that you have got the job, or the boy/girlfriend, or the car, or whatever it is that's holding you back from complete fulfillment.  "Act as if" you're already there and you will put the right vibes out to the universe, which will respond by giving you what you want.

This approach makes me nervous, because I'm more of a pessimist than I realised until I started trying to actively change my thought processes.  I prefer the "hope for the best, prepare for the worst" approach which leaves little room for abject disappointment.  Anyway, I decided to give it a go and was so good at it that the first morning I tried, I convinced myself a little too well and couldn't sleep through excitement.  Oops.  On reflection, it might have been wise to wait until I wasn't on night shift.  

During the waiting period, which was almost a month in total due to Christmas getting in the way, a strange thing happened.  The job that I'd convinced myself I had, that I wanted desperately, that I NEEDED with every fibre of my being, started to seem less appealing.  Actually, that's not strictly true.  The job itself didn't become any less attractive, but the effect it would have on my family life made it seem less and less desirable.  I went from planning my "first day at the office" outfit to desperately trying to figure out how to make approximately 22 days of holiday stretch over the childcare black hole of summer that lasts for two and a half months, to say nothing of Christmas, Easter and the multiple random days that Spain decides to close during the course of a year, just because.  I started telling myself at 6:30 pm every weekday evening that, were I to get the job, I'd just be coming in from work now and almost immediately starting the bath time/bedtime routine.  I started testing my feelings about losing time with my baby, going from 3 day working weeks where I'm out of the house while he's in bed and he goes to nursery Wed - Fri solely so I can sleep, to a full business week.  I worked out that, of the 168 available hours in a week, only 34 of them could feasibly be spent with my boy.  I worried about starting in a company which had no need or desire to be flexible with me for doctor's appointments, baby illness or inconveniently placed nursery holidays.  I realised that working 3 nights a week left 4 nights in which I could move shifts around if needed, but that expecting the rest of the world to adjust their working hours around my baby's teething when they, quite understandably, wanted to do business within the universally accepted time frame of Mon - Fri 9 - 6 probably wouldn't be quite so easy.  

With a heavy heart, I came to the conclusion that now probably wasn't the right time for this career move.  I fretted about what I would do if they offered me the job.  Turning it down would mean stagnating for longer in a job I had outgrown, but accepting it would mean saying goodbye to precious baby time, not being the person to teach Dom the rest of the animal noises, joining the millions of mums fighting through rush hour traffic or crowded public transport to get home just one minute sooner for just one more cuddle before saying goodbye an hour later at bedtime and again the next morning.  Doing that ALL WEEK.  Craving the scent of my baby, the time to just sit down and watch him figure out what the light switch does, the time to see him run around a park.  Despite my exasperation with so many aspects of my job (an entire post on its own), I couldn't deny the freedom it gave me to be a "full time mother" (GOD, I hate that phrase) 4 days out of the week rather than just two.  I had the balance, could I give that up to weight the scales in favour of work?  I know people do it every day, I know this is a normal life for most working mums, but I just wasn't ready for my graph to change so completely. I couldn't sacrifice all the lines for the sake of one. 

Evidently, the company I applied for felt the same way and turned down my application.  It was the most positive rejection I'd ever had - they liked my work, they thought I could do the job, but they ultimately received an application from somebody with more (read: any) experience.  

So now I'm back on the treadmill, keeping an eye out for the perfect job whilst continuing to drag myself through the working week where I am.  The short time that I had the other job (in my head) has given me an appreciation for my time with my family that can't be matched.  I've started turning off the data plan and wi-fi on my phone in the day so I'm not distracted from my time with Dom, because even if nothing in my working life ever changes, he changes every minute.  In no time, he'll be in school all week and I'll be free - free to get whatever job I want, or finally have a clean house, or go for a massage, or join a gym.  Free to give my all to looking for a job that will make me happy, without having to worry it'll simultaneously detract from the best part of my life and make me miserable.  Free to be more than a mama or a call centre agent.  But never, ever free of the craving for sweet baby skin, toddler knees, chubby arms around my neck, one more glimpse of the baby he was, the toddler he is, the boy he's becoming, the man he will one day be.  For the rest of my life, I'll never be free from loving him.  Never that.

*********     I first posted this back on  08/02/2014.  I had to take it down at the beginning of March when I went for a different job at the same company, as I'd stupidly mentioned I had a blog and the recruiter asked to see it.  I still wasn't sure that the time was right but I figured it's better to try anyway.  I didn't get the second job either, so now it can go back up without me having to worry it'll jeopardise my chances    **********

Getting to be a gobshite because I'm sick

I've spent this week trying to fight off a cold.  Doesn't that sound noble?  Like I've lowered my head, squared my shoulders and gone into battle, knowing defeat is inevitable but still determined to go down with my pride and dignity intact.  What I've actually done is feel sorry for myself, cough a bit louder when other people are around, and proclaim to anyone who'll listen that I feel AWFUL, but not bad enough to go to the doctor and get a sick note (cough.  Cough cough cough).  Basically, I'm suffering from man-flu.

Anyway, this much maligned and misunderstood condition means I'm in no mood for the idiocy of others and have decided to allow myself full rein to moan about anything that takes my fancy.

*  The guy sitting behind me in work.  You are not an opera singer.  I am not an opera fan.  Let's make these two facts work together.

*  Customers who don't read your emails, then call, ask you for an update, then ask you to put it in an email.  What, like the email I just read that update from that was sent to you three days ago and you didn't read?  Like THAT email?

*  My right nostril.  You have surprisingly little to do in life.  Remain fairly unclogged, catch germs and smell things.  You are currently failing on all three points.  Sort it out.

*  People on Facebook (or the internet in general) who can't spell, have little knowledge of or respect for the rules of grammar, WRITE IN CAPITALS, and write long status updates of utter drivel, which I'm forced to read because my brain tells me that something that long must have an interesting conclusion.  Seriously.  You just made me make an effort to be bored by you.  Pack that shit right in.

*  Anybody who calls my work phone 2 minutes before I'm due to leave.  Most of the people who call the call centre I work in are calling from the call centre they work in.  Given that most people's shifts begin and end at 7 or 8 am, why would they subject another human to the teeth-grinding fury that comes from having to regain the will to be helpful when their brain is already on the train home?  And don't give me that "different time zones" crap.  At any given moment, I can tell you the time in UTC, CET and EST, at the very least.  And I time my calls accordingly.  I don't call New York at 11pm CET, because I don't hate my customers.  It would be nice if they could return the courtesy.  Even if they do hate me, which they shouldn't.  I'm actually lovely to them.  Even at 06:58 CET.

OK, that was a lie.  And unreasonable.  But you know what?  Today, I don't care.

Ooh, I feel better now!  

My work desk.  Note the tissues - the reason for the rage.  I'm usually a little ray of sunshine, honest.

It's all about trust

When I was pregnant with Dom, my midwife told me that my two cats weren't a problem as long as I didn't go near the litter tray. She had me tested for toxoplasmosis and told me to enjoy my furbabies. My friend, however, was told by her midwife that the cat had to go, and go he did.

It's entirely possible that Mooch regrets my choice of midwife.

The thought that our midwife could easily have said the same thing still freaks me out now - even though I already knew that cats were fine as long as certain precautions were taken, I know for a fact that, had we been told by a medical professional to get rid of the cats, Mat would have moved heaven and earth to follow orders. As he'd never been around babies, he was very reliant on the advice of authority figures such as doctors, midwives, some fella down the pub who had a kid... I was a bit more relaxed, though in general I did think that the doctors should be obeyed. They're the professionals in this, after all. In fact, unless something seemed very strange to me (or unless I just didn't want to do it), I often didn't even think to question it - I did as I was told.

However, I had possibly more opportunities than some to question the advice I was given. As I'm from England and live in Spain, I had some knowledge of how things are done in the UK. I knew, for example, that eating sushi, shellfish and deli products was completely verboten.

Except, in Spain, it's not. Pregnant women are actually advised to eat a small amount of shellfish (though some varieties are still off the menu), and a more common sense attitude is applied to food in general. In my antenatal class, the midwife explained that they would never suggest that you go to your uncle's farm, have a squirt of milk straight from the cow and gnaw a chunk off the pig's leg that's curing on the back of the barn door (OK, the exact words are mine, the sentiment was hers). However, if you want to have some Philadelphia or a slice of jamon serrano on your toast, feel free. Supermarkets and the firms that supply them are so rigidly regulated that the likelihood of their products causing any harm to a growing foetus is practically nil. The rules given to pregnant women haven't been updated along with food hygiene laws, so they are out of date. As an extra precaution for the nervous, she suggested freezing steak before cooking if we planned to eat it rare, and only eating sushi which had been frozen prior to preparation and had not been left to stand.  This would kill off the bacteria that could cause problems and allow us to still eat our meat with flavour.

Anyway, I'm not here to tell anyone to go and eat a slab of beef that's still mooing. Everyone has their own comfort levels and will do what they feel is right, or what suits them. But it's an interesting way to look at things that I'd never previously thought to question.

Unfortunately, it then opens the door for a lot of uncertainty. I'm much more aware that doctors may not always be right, politicians usually don't have anyone's best interests at heart but their own, companies sell us food and cosmetics that they are fully aware could kill us, and that almost everybody has their own agenda. Of course, this isn't exactly surprising (especially the part about politicians), but now that I see this reaching into every area of my life, I'm obviously much more aware of it. Since I had Dom, I've done my own research on things like vaccinations (I'm with the doctors on this one), extended breastfeeding, circumcision (still over my dead body - luckily, not a 'thing' here) and the like. I've educated my own doctor on what contraception is suitable while breastfeeding and refused a painkiller that he said was OK for lactating mothers when its own literature said otherwise. In short, I appear to have grown a pair.

Maybe I'm very naive to have only come to this conclusion in my thirties, but it genuinely never came up before.  Sure, everyone's heard stories of cancer sufferers who decide they're going to fight the disease using nothing but herbs and organic chicken, but they're few and far between.  Until you're in a position where you're dealing with lots of new information and people on a daily basis for something can be literally life or death, it just doesn't come up.  Or maybe I was just lazy.

So yes, it is scary when you realise that there really is nobody out there that you can trust. No-one has all the right answers and nobody does everything perfectly. Doctors recommend the NuvaRing when it's known to have side effects on nursing babies and my own mother has to be reminded that Dom's food should not be salted. It's a terrifying world once it becomes apparent that we're effectively on our own in making some huge decisions and have the potential to mess up so much. When I left the hospital with Dom for the first time, I hovered by the door expecting someone to come and ask me where I thought I was going with that child and had I sat the exam so they knew I knew what I was doing? Even now, 18 months on, I find it hard to remember sometimes that I'm the boss (well, one of them) and I get to decide what works for my son. There really is no-one you can trust 100%, even yourself. We're all just doing the best we can with the tools we were given, and sometimes the only answer is to trust your gut.  

Driving home for Christmas...

I've just reached that point in the post-packing, pre-voyage maelstrom where every item of clothing in a 4 metre radius that isn't in a suitcase is going in the washing basket.  I know I'll heartily regret this on the 29th, when we come back from Liverpool with three suitcases full of washing and everything that wasn't warm enough for the frozen North in a tottering pile in the laundry room, but right now I could not give a dog's banana.  I've spent the last 48 hours washing, ironing, folding, matching and packing clothes for 3 people (to be fair, Mat owns just enough clothes to stop him being arrested for indecency so his part is easy, but Dom more than makes up for it).  The upstairs neighbours are coming to feed Mooch while we're away, so I've had to clean to "stranger standard," an elusive state which can only exist for more than an hour in a house that none of us are in.  If it was always this sparkly round here, I'd probably spend less time in the park escaping housework under the guise of committed parenting.

It's an unfortunate fact of travel that the most important items in your luggage are those that you can't pack until only your elbow remains in the house.  This means that at no point the day before you leave can you fully clear your brain and think, "I'm DONE."  Oh no, you have to have a tiny part of your mind reserved for not forgetting things that you use right up until the LAST POSSIBLE MINUTE.  Another unfortunate and sadly ironic reality of travelling with little people is that their stuff is so much more important than anything you could ever have forgotten before.  In my previous life, leaving my GHDs at home would mean a few days of looking like I look every day when I'm not trying to impress people I haven't seen for ages.  However, if I forget the baby monitors, I've sentenced myself to a week of jumping at every sound and sleeping on a knife-edge in case I miss a cry.  

Thankfully, it being Christmas and time for family means that at some point all of this frenzied activity will become worthwhile.  I suspect that point will arrive around the time I smell proper bacon and someone opens the tin of Roses.  In the meantime, my arse has just touched a seat for the first time in two days and my Chinese has just turned up.  I'm going to lose myself in sweet and sour pork and Gone With The Wind.  Feliz Navidad!

The cutest ornament on our tree.

In which I try very hard not to kick the laptop

I recently wrote a post about having a second baby, and how it's NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.  I published it, I viewed it from Google and someone else read it too.  I've just remembered something I want to add to it and found that it's gone and the only evidence that it ever existed is a draft form that misses 90% of what I wrote.  And of course, it was my favourite post so far.

Why it has reverted to draft, I don't know.  I think Blogger and I need to have some strong words.  In the meantime, let me summarise the post just in case you're waiting with bated breath to hear why I don't want another one:

I like the one I have and I live in a two bedroom apartment.  Having a second one would mean definitely changing the latter of these things, which I don't want to do, and may have an adverse effect on the former, which I don't want to risk.  So that's that.  More to follow.

UPDATE:  I re-wrote it.  It's nowhere near as good as the last one and I know I've missed something, but it's there.  And if you read in chronological order, you already know this because you just read it. I swear, it's like Dr Who over here.

When are you having the second one?

OK, I've been putting this off, because there is little as frigging INFURIATING as having to re-write something you already wrote once.  Especially when I don't know whether it was my own technical ineptitude that destroyed a nicely polished-and-published post and rendered it a half-finished draft, or whether it was Blogger being a twatbastard.  If only I knew it was Blogger's fault, I could stomp around, crash-bang-wallop a bit, compose snotty emails in my head about quality of service etc, and otherwise expend my righteous anger until I calmed down.  Instead, I have to admit it was probably something to do with the same bug that sends Skype mental when I try to log into it from both my phone and laptop at the same time, which means I have to settle for a quiet, unenjoyable seethe.  I'll never be able to write it so well again.  The deleted half has now taken on the qualities known in relationship terms as "the one that got away" - because it's no longer around, I've convinced myself that it was actually perfect and that all the funny stuff and good writing was in the half that got deleted.  Of course, the first one WAS much better, but you'll just have to take my word for it.  

Anyway, back to it.  The post about why I'm not having another baby.

I hear the second baby question all the time.  I hear it at least once a day.  I even sometimes hear it from other people, rather than as an annoying chorus in my internal monologue.  Mat occasionally mentions it and, when I refuse, resorts to putting pink headbands on the Littlest Cat and pretending that he was trying to keep his hair dry in the bath.  Daddy REALLY wants a princess, gender not important.

See.  I told you so.

I have many reasons for not wanting another baby, irrelevant as they may seem when I'm snorting cradle-cap from the head of a friend's newborn and wondering whether they'd notice if I breastfed their tiny one, just to remember how it was when the recipient of my milk couldn't and didn't do a headstand mid-nurse.  

*  If we were to have another, we'd have to move, for starters, and we only moved 6 months ago.  I'm not doing that again, not least because I found our apartment by accident and, despite the dragon landlady with the dead eyes, we would not find everything we have (big terrace, massive living room, lemon tree, view of Tibidabo) for the price we pay in the same area.  

This lemon tree is OURS (for the duration of the contract).

Tibidabo by day.
At night it lights up and is stunning.  I couldn't leave it.

*  We moved from a 3 bedroom place with a lovely landlord to a 2 bedroom under the control of a dead-eyed Maggie Thatcher-esque landlady, which might not have been the most sensible of ideas, but I couldn't stop myself.  I think subconsciously I was removing the mere possibility of having another baby... or I just wanted a place that didn't have everything the previous tenants hadn't wanted still hanging around in case it came in useful.  I have hoarder tendencies and the previous landlord was a fusspot who worried that people might ask for things back.  After 3 years living there, we were still finding single shoes that neither of us recognised.  I swear, if I'd ever dared investigate thoroughly in some of the cupboards, I'd have met Mr Tumnus.  I love love loved our old place, but we were outgrowing it fast.  The new one has much more space and storage, but less bedrooms.  It's perfect for a family of 3, no more.

*  Since I had Dom, I've coupled having a brain made of mashed potatoes with a resurgence of ambition.  I want to find a job I LOVE, one I'm good at, one I wouldn't mind still doing in ten years.  My current job, while easy and comfortable and stable, doesn't inspire me the way I want to be inspired.  I get that not everybody can do what they love, but I'd at least like to try an industry that I'm not bamboozled by.  I don't think that's a lot to ask.  All of my boxes are ticked - home, family, relationships, even finances are OK.  The only box I'm not fully comfortable with is the career one.  I'm tired of stagnating in a job I can do in my sleep.  Until I find my niche, I'm not dropping everything to attend to a newborn.  By the time I come round from the shock a second time, I could well be on the road to retirement.

*  I often worry about tempting fate, which means that the next thing I'm going to say strikes cold terror into my heart at the thought of what visitations of hell I could bring onto us just by acknowledging it, but we have a baby who sleeps.  He also eats pretty much everything we put in front of him, walked more or less when he was supposed to and is generally a textbook baby (if textbook babies were soft and squishy and full of personality).  He breastfed from the start like he'd been doing it all his life and I'd have barely known I was pregnant if it weren't for the changing shape of my body, so symptom-free were the first 30-odd weeks.  We've been too lucky with him.  What if we have another one and it's a nightmare?  Visions of vomiting non-stop for 9 months (while looking after a toddler), c-sections and a baby who won't sleep, won't latch and won't stop crying plague me when I consider pushing my luck by having another.  

*  Possible TMI - Selfishly (because the last point was so unselfish), I'm not prepared to give up on my sex life again yet.  While all the planets align only around once a month so that I actually feel like it, in the last few weeks a wonderful thing has happened and I've actually, finally healed.  Properly.  I don't want more stitches.

*  I also don't want to give birth in Spain again.  I'm planning a full post about Dom's birth one of these days, but in the meantime, I'll just say that the midwife was a bitch and the entire outlook of the medical staff needs to piss off back to the 1930s where it belongs.

*  Dom was a surprise, albeit a wonderful one.  This meant that we had very little time to plan for his arrival, and it certainly wasn't enough time that I could save enough money to take time off work when my maternity leave was over.  I refuse to put myself through the heartrending agony of leaving a 6 month old baby with strangers again, so until I can afford to take the first year off, I won't do it at all.  And given that we have debts that need paying off before we can even start to save, it's safe to say we won't be comfortable enough any time soon.

*  I feel like I'd miss out on Dom, and wouldn't be able to enjoy a new baby half as much as I did him.  I feel like the work would outweigh the fun.  I feel like I'm only enough mother for one.  

*  I'm English.  I live in Spain.  Getting on a plane with one little person is doable.  Getting on a plane with two is not going to happen.  Either all my family move here, or Dom remains an adored only child.

SO, I'm well aware that this may raise eyebrows and have people thinking that "the lady doth protest too much," but there you have it.  A comprehensive list of why my womb is not up for rent again.  Maybe ever.

Am I asking you to put your nipple in my son's mouth? No. Then shut up.

Littlest Cat is coming up to his first birthday.  This huge milestone means not only presents, deciding whether to have a party and finally having to admit that my baby is now a toddler; it also throws up a question which I feel that I've been asked incessantly lately:

"So, when are you stopping breastfeeding?"

I don't understand the obsession.  He hasn't suddenly grown a beard and started reading Kafka.  He's still a tiny little boy, who hasn't yet quite worked out how his legs work and who thinks my tuneless renditions of Baa Baa Black Sheep are the height of entertainment.  75% of his nutrition should still be coming from his milk intake, no matter how much he enjoys chicken curry or fish pie.  And the healthiest, easiest and cheapest way for him to get that milk is from me.

He does have formula - a bottle before bed to try to keep him full for longer and often formula milk in his porridge or when I'm working at night, as pumping is no longer keeping up with demand and I can only spend so much time away from my desk.  I'm not anti-formula and I'm a firm believer that mothers should do what suits them and their babies.  What suits us, right now, is mostly breastfeeding with a bit of supplementing as required.

Even Daddy (Un)Cool has got in on the boob-bashing, though I have a feeling he was just in an argumentative mood and would have said black was white if it annoyed me.  During a protracted and heated exchange of views last weekend, he told me that I was making Dom into a mummy's boy; that he feeds too often (because a poster in the doctor's waiting room said he should feed 4 times a day and Littlest Cat has been known to do so 12 times); that there is no longer any nutritional value in my milk because it looks watery and once Dom needed more than his usual amount at night; that LC bites me; that I should get my life back.  In response, I told him that:

1)  Babies who wean when they're ready rather than being forced to often show increased security and confidence;
2)  All babies are different - Dom doesn't "feed" 12 times and day but bobs on and off, and that number is highest when I've been in work all week and he wants the security and closeness of the boob.  On a normal day with plenty of fun and as much Mama as he can stand, he may feed 3 times;
3)  Appearance has nothing to do with content of the milk and it is still important for him to have a large amount of milk daily;
4)  The biting doesn't happen often, only when he's teething or I misread his signals and try to feed him when he doesn't want it, and I see it as a teaching opportunity; 
5)  THIS IS MY LIFE AND I'M HAPPY.

Ideally, I would like to feed until LC decides he's had enough.  However, I don't envision myself being so patient or selfless as to keep going if he wants to breastfeed until he's 3 or 4.  In fact, if I made it to his second birthday and was still feeding, I would be very surprised - I just want it to be me or him who makes the decision, not someone outside of the nursing relationship.  I actually think that it'll start to faze out after his birthday.  He already rejects the boob at bedtime in favour of his bottle, so I think he's starting to assert his independence a little.  And I'm starting to look forward to having my body back, though it's not a huge deal for me as there is one piece I'll never get back.  The tiny boy who currently rules my boobs will always rule my heart, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

It's oh, so quiet...

I really need to PUBLISH posts.  This is from the beginning of May!

Life has been ticking along nicely.  Littlest Cat has settled into nursery and no longer has heart-wrenching meltdowns when I leave him (though he does burst into tears every time I pick him up, in a bid to convince me that the lovely staff at the nursery actually spend all day pinching him.  He hasn't yet realised that I watch him happily playing every day before announcing my presence).  I'm back into the routine of being in work, which usually consists of spending three days a week embracing the fact that there is somewhere in the world where I know what I'm doing, unlike the four days at home where Dom changes the rules every 5 minutes and I'm expected to pre-empt his every whim.  Daddy Cool has successfully given up smoking without feeling the need to make everyone around him want to take it up.  All very calm and relaxed.

So, like a pair of masochistic lunatics, we decided to move house. 

We're moving from number 56 to number 10 in the same street, which I'm glad about - I love my area and I enjoy seeing the same people on the school run every morning.  My day wouldn't feel off to a proper start without seeing the old lady with the dog, the very pretty Armenian girl with the little boy, and the American dad who always seems a bit stressed (though this could be because he has the longest legs ever so is always walking at 100 miles an hour).

I still find it hard to believe that I'm not going to live in my little house-that-Jack-built.  I've moved a hell of a lot of times in my life (this will be move number 26 into house number 22, which is a lot when you consider I've only been alive for 30 years).  But this house is special.  It's awkward and falling apart and messy and has far too much stuff and too many people in, but I love it.

Oh, the guilt.

A wise woman recently said to me, "When you become a mother, you give birth not only to a son or daughter, but also to a whole load of guilt." A truer word was never spoken.
Take now, for example. I'm writing this over a decaff  in a coffee bar, having recently dropped the Littlest Cat off at nursery for the day. How many things in that sentence do I feel guilty about? Let's take them one by one.
1). The big and obvious one - my boy is in nursery. Why don't I have the money or the budgeting ability to be able to take a year off work? Why am I paying other people to look after my son?
2). I'm actually only writing this because I felt guilty about not having updated properly in a while. I really want to be playing Candy Crush Saga.
3). I put sugar in my coffee AGAIN. I think my days of taking sweetener are past. My waistline shows it but I don't care enough to stop eating or start exercising. It's not like I want a sex life - another source of guilt.
4). I shouldn't be sitting in a café at all. I have a million and one things to do before returning to work on Wednesday.
Which leads me nicely into...
5). Am I selfish for going back on nights? I'll see more of Dom, but Mat will have to start doing night feeds for 3 nights a week. LC, with impeccable timing, has gone from sleeping 9 hours, having a quick feed, and sleeping another 3, to waking up every 2 - 3 hours. So I feel guilty that Mat will be knackered in work, all because I can't budget enough to work part time hours during business hours and lose the night bonus. See how seamlessly that flowed back to 1)?
There is a surprise extra. Bring on 6) - I feel guilty because I'm sitting on my arse, sipping coffee and faffing about on my phone. And I'm enjoying it. I'm not sobbing for the Littlest Cat like I did last Monday morning. I'm relaxing and being silent and NOT singing "I Know a Teddy Bear" as I scald the mouth off myself gulping my coffee before the inevitable meltdown that follows the pram stopping for more than 30 seconds.
Guilty pleasure? Hell yeah.

Awake and grumpy

After being woken up four times by the Littlest Cat, I have no patience for Daddy Cool coughing, chewing his tongue and wanting to lie all over me. Get off and shut up! That is all.

All the things she (nearly) said

I haven't forgotten about this blog. I'm just low on time, energy and inclination at the moment. It comes in waves, so I will be back when the Littlest Cat remembers about sleeping all night and how nice it was.

To jog my memory when I do come back, I want to write about baby brain, routines (and why I'm scared to mention them), Facebook and going back to work. Also, if I'm brave enough, sex (stop sniggering).

All those in favour of cancelling the weekend, sign here.

I look forward to the weekends, I really do.  By Friday, Littlest Cat is usually sick of the sight of me and I'm ready to hand over a little bit of the 24x7 caring to Daddy Cool or our Rach.  However, I'm noticing that what I think is going to happen at the weekend rarely does, and in fact those two days can be the hardest of the week.
Now, I will fully admit that I'm a control freak, which probably doesn't help.  However, while I'm dreaming the modest mum dreams of a shower on my own, maybe a leg shave and a luxurious hair wash in my properly cleaned house with its empty laundry basket, the other occupants of the house are conspiring against me.
Take the hair washing, for example.  I put Dom down for a nap two hours after he gets up.  He only likes sleeping in his pram during the day, which is fine by me.  I keep his pram in the living room until after his afternoon nap, and he gets popped in there at the appropriate times and rocked to sleep (I know, I know, rod for my own back etc etc, but we'll sort out the nights first, then deal with the days.  I'm only human).  Once I'm sure he's asleep, I tell Daddy Cool, who is sprawled on the couch watching Discovery Max, to keep an eye on him and rock him back asleep if he stirs.  I tell him that this nap lasts anything from half an hour to 3 hours depending on how he slept the night before, but on no account is the baby to be allowed to wake up fully unless he has slept for at least 30 minutes.  Any less and he turns into a ball of whinge who cannot and will not be placated NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO.  I go and get a lovely shower, wash my hair and emerge from the bathroom 20 minutes later with grandiose ideas of maybe even breaking out the GHDs and straightening it once it's been dried.  The first thing I hear is Daddy Cool chatting.  "Oh, please no," I mutter to myself, before opening our bedroom door to find a giggling baby and a happy daddy, whose smiling face instantly shows a brief covering of guilt before he manages to cover it up.
"He woke up and wouldn't go back asleep," he says sheepishly.
"How long ago?" I ask, already knowing the answer.
"Ah, about 10 - 15 minutes..."
Great.  The baby slept for 5 minutes.  Is there some sort of secret way that I rock the pram that only I know about?  Does he have radar?  This never happens through the week!  Maybe it's because I use naptime to do productive things Monday - Friday, like dishes and washing.  Maybe he's been sent from an alien planet to make sure I never enjoy a pamper session again.
"But look!  He's in a lovely mood!" says Mat, anxiously checking to see if this is still the case.  Of course, it's not.  Thunderclouds are beginning to loom on the tiny brow as Littlest Cat realises that 5 minutes of sleep only feels like a proper nap for - well, about 5 minutes.  Now there is something wrong with him and he doesn't know what, but he would like the issue to be resolved, please.  Immediately if not sooner.  What he doesn't realise is that the problem is tiredness.  He's still tired - but definitely not tired enough to sleep again, oh no.  That would be far too easy.  I attempt distraction, blowing raspberries and hoping to stave off the faceache for just a few more minutes.  He's got just enough energy to vocalise his displeasure, and grizzles for the next two hours until his body clock tells him he's allowed to close his gorgeous eyes again.  Littlest Cat is a creature of habit.
Daddy Cool, his job done, lies back on the bed and closes his eyes - his subtle reminder that he is in work in a few hours and, having been awake for 60 minutes and spent a third of that time looking after the baby, has earned his own sleep.  I pretend not to notice and tell Dom that it's time for a nappy change, knowing that Mat can't resist the urge to offer to do things I'm already doing.  He thinks it gives him the same brownie points as actually doing things, without any of the pesky effort involved (more on that later).  I call his bluff.
"Go on, then, I'll dry my hair," I say, and leg it to the bathroom, hoping to make it in time to salvage something from the slowly frizzing mop on my head.   Too late - my fringe has already set itself in an odd shape that would not be achievable with a top stylist and 6 cans of Extra-Hold hairspray, there to remain until the next time I wash my hair.  This, of course, will be next weekend.  Thank Christ for thick, non-oily hair (actually,dry and straw-like, but let's count our blessings - it's not greasy) and bobbles.
Onto the cleaning.  I've already brushed and mopped before LC got up, so Daddy Cool takes great pleasure in scattering crumbs from his sandwich all over the living room.  Our Rach is 21, so is legally required to leave a trail of belongings behind her like a particularly well-dressed hurricane.  All thoughts of maybe doing the big jobs, like sorting out Littlest Cat's wardrobe (how can he have grown out of everything AGAIN?) or putting away my summer clothes, maybe clearing out the kitchen cupboards, are abandoned as I realise that everything I do during the week needs doing countless times at weekends, because having three adults in the house means that two people are thinking "I'll put it away in a minute," then forgetting to, and one (me) is silently fuming along, tutting and huffing and generally being a narky arse as rooms that were tidyish are slowly buried under mountains of stuff.  
Littlest Cat's grizzling reaches dangerous levels, so after a feed, he's back in his pram and I'm rocking and soothing, trying to get him to sleep.  This is when Daddy Cool starts to get ready for work.  This involves leaving the living room and bedroom doors open a lot, so that I consider just taping myself saying "Doooor" and leaving it playing in the hall which, apparently, we enjoy paying to heat with the energy that was meant for the living room (Spanish houses are built for summer, conveniently forgetting that other seasons happen. This combined with no central heating means high electricity bills to run a portable heater that is dragged around the house by the cable like a reluctant puppy).  It is necessary to his well-being that he only ever pushes a door handle down halfway, so every time he enters or leaves a room (approximately 8,000 times over a 20 minute period), his arrival or departure is announced with a loud click and Dom's eyes ping open.  He's running late, which means all pretence at being quiet is abandoned and my pleas to just keep it down a little elicit a stream of grumbles and grouches.  Finally, he leaves.  Littlest Cat is asleep, our Rach and her hangover are snoring on the couch, and I can start restoring my world to order.  Or, I can sit down and have a good old moan in Blogville.
I realise I sound like a right old grouch.  In fact - terrifying thought - I sound like my mum.  Like everyone's mum.  Every time I think "Am I the only one who can see things that need doing?" I'm transported back to when I was younger and lived with my mum and, later, with my aunty.  I thought I was being helpful by doing whatever was asked of me.  I'm sorry, ladies.  I now realise that the Holy Grail of motherhood is for other people to do things without being asked.  Otherwise, I'm just a nag.  What have I become?

The Adolescent Parent

This post has nothing to with teenage parents, or the parents of teenagers, so sorry if you've stopped by hoping for advice on what to do with a long-haired, spotty monster who lives in the room your baby used to occupy; or if you've found yourself in the terrifying position of becoming a parent before you've quite finished being a child. I'm afraid in the case of the former, you're several years ahead of me and I'll probably be asking you for tips one day. If the latter, then I hope you have support (real, pro-your-choice, helpful support). If not, send me a message or something and I can ask my friend Google for impartial advice or just be a sounding board. Sometimes it helps to talk to someone who's objective.
Anyway. I digress. The adolescence I'm referring to is a state of mind I've come across in myself where I started out with the kinds of lofty and inflexible ideals usually found in teenagers, only to find that in the real world, they don't quite work. (I don't mean to be patronising to teenagers there, I'm drawing solely on my own experience of being a bit of an insufferable know-it-all between the ages of 12 and about....well, it started when I was a teenager or as good as, so let's blame that. When it stops, I'll let you know). You might be familiar with the type - from speaking to and observing others I find that I was by no means as unique as I thought I was during those years. You know - "I'll never work for a big corporation/all possession is theft/meat is murder" etc etc. I know there are many admirable people who do define their principles as teenagers and manage to unswervingly stick to them throughout life, and I have respect for their tenacity (though I do think that sometimes a bit of flexibility shows a commitment to personal growth and adapting to your environment isn't necessarily a bad thing, but again, I digress. Please bear with me, this is going somewhere - it's just that it's 4:16 am and I'm not really sure where. How did I get here, again?)
Ah yes - adolescent parenting. Even before I was pregnant or planning to be (to be honest, I never planned to be, but there's a story for another day), I held very firm beliefs on how I would raise my child(ren). These beliefs were as set in stone as some of the beliefs I held as a teenager, and, I now know, just as incompatible with my own life and character.
An example. When I was about 22, I worked in a restaurant. There was a family who used to come in every Sunday lunchtime at 1 o'clock - mum, dad and The World's Best-Behaved Baby. I swear, they would walk through the door, TWBBB would smilingly greet his adoring public (mainly consisting of me and my boss), they would be seated, order some wine, wave a magic wand and the baby would fall asleep for two hours. EVERY WEEK FOR 6 MONTHS. At first, I thought it was a coincidence, but it went on and on happening. After ascertaining that they weren't drugging him, I enquired as to what witchcraft was this that they were so casually employing in public. Their reply? "Gina Ford."
I was fascinated, and swore to myself that, were I ever to reproduce, I would buy that book and do whatever that woman said. I was sold before they started in on the "he sleeps from 6pm - 8am every night, has 3 naps a day, is a developmental genius and his dirty nappies contain golden eggs" speech. My children were going to be Gina Ford-ed to within an inch of their lives.
Fast forward 6 or 7 years. I'm in the slightly surprising situation of being pregnant and happy about it. I duly get myself onto Amazon, order the baby bible, and wait with bated breath for it to arrive. When it does, I dive into it and emerge some time later, fearful and shaken. I don't like it. I don't think it will work for me. I find myself focusing on the reviews that bemoan the rigidity and lack of freedom for both mother and child, rather than the "laying golden eggs" ones. But I'm far from home, living in a different country to my family, and unsure how to be a mum without the book to tell me what to do. I resolve to see what happens when the baby is born.
The baby is duly born, as they tend to be. I haven't looked at Gina since.
I realise that I'm leaning a bit more towards attachment parenting. We don't co-sleep (Daddy Cool still smokes and is too much of a deep yet fidgety sleeper to risk it), though the Littlest Cat is still in our room. We don't use a sling, purely because the Littlest Cat very vocally eschews any form of carrying that doesn't require both hands and a genuine effort to be made on the part of his willing servants. But I'm breastfeeding, I'm reading up on baby-led weaning, I'm telling myself that Cry It Out and Controlled Crying is torture, I'm generally into the whole idea.
Then.
My return to work date looms. My angel baby suddenly stops sleeping through the night and starts refusing to go to bed after his bath. His long-established bedtime ritual of bath at 7:30, feed, cuddle, chat until sleep takes him, usually between 9pm and half past, stops working. One night, Daddy Cool is working a rare weeknight late shift, and LC just will not lie down without screaming. He falls asleep in my arms countless times, only to wake in full voice every time I lay him on the bed of nails that his bed has become. This goes on for four hours.
In desperation, I put him down and leave him in the Moses basket while I eat some chocolate and despair of ever sleeping again. I post a status on Facebook about wishing I still smoked, just to calm my shredded nerves. A couple of people comment, telling me to do the controlled crying method of waiting 5 minutes, soothing, waiting 10, soothing, etc. I argue. 5 minute pass while I disagree and explain my views on CIO.  I go back in, soothe my baby and realise I'm still not calm.  I quiet him and leave again to try to gather my thoughts. A minute after leaving for the second time, he is asleep.
Now I'm in a quandary. I don't like controlled crying!  Is that what I just did? But all of these people, people that I respect as parents and as human beings, are telling me to give it a go. What to do?
That's when it hits me. There is no right or wrong answer. Do what works - for me, for him, for us as a family. So I tried it again tonight. It worked.  There was no full voice screaming, because I wouldn't have been able to handle that.  It was more "Grumble and Whinge For A Few Minutes" than anything so dramatic as "Cry It Out", really.  It appears that my son actually prefers to be put down while drowsy and left to drift off to sleep on his own, rather than sung and swung and shushed to sleep.  How can he be growing up already?!
It may be coincidence. It may be a one off. Tomorrow, all the rules may change again, as they have constantly throughout this terrifying, exhilarating journey of parenthood. And that's OK. I'm learning that that's OK. As a person with very strong opinions, it is difficult for me to realise that a) I don't know everything and b) Adapting and being flexible is not failure - it's survival. It's evolution. It's OK.
I don't need to be ashamed of changing my mind.
What a revelation.

Who are we and why are we here?

So, here we are.  Another blog that I'll probably start and forget about in a few weeks.  I'm running out of email addresses to set up new Blogger accounts, as I don't want to link all of my "failed" blogs - out of sight, out of mind and all that.  If I have to look at them every time I log in, it'll expedite the giving up process and I'll just never log in again.

Anyway, why am I here?  Well, I recently became a mother for the first time, and am finding the process fascinating - I think most women do, judging by the sheer wealth of information online, in books, provided (often unsolicited) by friends and family...  Not only is getting to know my beautiful baby boy (born July 2012) absolutely amazing, but I'm getting to know a whole new me and undergoing some of the most rigorous changes I think I've been through since I was a baby myself.  This time, I want to at least try to document them.  Barefoot Mother has a lovely post on The Birth of a Mother, which I found enjoyable and beautifully thought-provoking.  I'm not sure about blogging etiquette, so I won't link to it unless I can get her permission in case that's Just Not Done, but Google can help you there, if required.

I read a lot about parenting styles, "attachment parenting," and what I think of as "the strict one," (the one that's not attachment parenting, basically - you know, advocates Cry It Out, parent-led routines, Gina Ford et al, all that jazz).  The name of the blog comes from what I've realised is my own style of parenting, and, if they're honest, possibly that of  thousands of other mothers and fathers out there.  Basically, it's a mix and match, learn-on-the-job, asking for and acting on and ignoring advice, following books and my head and my heart, crying more than the baby sometimes and occasionally feeling like I know it all and am perfectly qualified to comment on everyone else's choices, more often cursing people who feel like they know it all and are perfectly qualified to comment on everyone else's choices, muddling through, trial and error, forgetting my ideals and working with reality style of parenting.  I thought that might be a bit long-winded if I ever reach the giddy heights of someone actually typing my blog into a search engine, so I figured "inadvertent" would work.  Plus, my boy was a bit of a surprise, so there's that, too.  And there are no political implications to using the word "parent" rather than specifying my gender or role - it just sounded better than "mother" when used with "inadvertent."

This was our first family photo.  It still makes me cry.

So like I said, here we are.  Myself, the Littlest Cat (my boy Dom's first nickname - cute story or one that makes me look a bit daft - one day, I'll stick it here and see what the general consensus is), Daddy Cool (AKA Mat) and the Scaredy-Cat (an actual cat and not his real name, but his terror of people who aren't family prohibits me from giving his real details in case it somehow means he ever has to interact).  Our Rach lives with us for now, as well - my cousin and the sister of my heart.  Hi.  It's nice to meet you.  I have to go now, the baby just woke up.

Knackered and proud.

Not impressed at no longer being the baby.