Vowels Rise Like Balloons

Gertie turned ten earlier this week. TEN. I have a decade's worth of experience of parenting under my belt and I'm still none the wiser. The whole thing was, frankly, bewildering.

Her chosen method of celebration was a disco, for twenty eight of her closest friends. At home.

This took some strategic preparation: The borrowing of lighting systems to rival Blackpool; the sourcing of a playlist where not only did I not know many of the artists, but I couldn't actually distinguish between singers and song titles; the downloading of 'mixing software' in order to negate the requirement for a DJ; (Hearth-father secretly fancied the job, I reckon, but his lack of knowledge of contemporary pop rivals mine) the rearranging of every piece of furniture in the house to make way for a 'dance floor'; the purchase of more than fifty sausages, baps, and burgers for the accompanying barbecue. And so on. I feel that my new bookcases were enhanced no end by the sympathetic illumination. A 'bibliotheque', no less:

The allotted time came. I don't know what the collective noun for ten-year-olds is, but they arrived in their hordes. Initially there was a stand off: Girls in the sitting room (cunningly disguised as a nightclub), boys upstairs. There was a collective squeal everytime somebody new arrived. Then some ice was broken, after which they screamed, they sweated, they took selfies and slid down the staircase. They raided Eddie's toy box and had mock sword fights and gun battles. (Am I delighted to say that gender differences didn't seem to count? Not sure.) They charged around the house after the one person who has a mobile phone.

They did everything, in fact, but dance. Still, that's a disco for you.

After a while their noise seemed to float joyously, somehow, in a constant cacophonous chorus (the wine may have helped), clear vowels rising like balloons. Which rather reminded me of Plath's poem, copied below.

Ten years on from the 'birth day', I think I still feel similarly.



Morning Song 
BY SYLVIA PLATH

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I’m no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind’s hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons





Currently reading: The Husband's Secret by Lianne Moriarty

New Term, New Life

I have been somewhat neglectful of this blog of late: a combination of the start of a hectic new term and managing the fallout from the GCSE English debacle, with family illness and well, stuff: The general chaos of life, the universe and everything. But that general chaos has just increased exponentially.

We 'borrowed' a broody hen sitting on eggs from friends who really didn't want any more chickens - whilst we could do with a couple more; plus we thought the kids would like to see baby chicks growing up. We had a mild panic when we discovered that 'the black one' (our friends are not so keen on naming all their animals as we are, probably sensibly) was in fact sitting on fourteen eggs and not the four or five that they had thought. But somehow it all went according to plan: just two little babies were born about ten days ago - one black and one yellow, both monstrously cute. So all good.

But about three weeks ago, Arabella, our little black rabbit escaped. She was only in the garden and we kept catching glimpses of her, but we didn't catch her for a couple of nights. So today, I came home from work to Gertie enthusiastically telling me that Bella had two babies.

Well, I knew that was impossible as she lives all alone and always has done, but then I remembered those two wild nights out. In fact, Gertie was wrong. Bella hadn't had two babies. She'd had seven of them!

Half wild rabbit, anyone?

Smashing Splashing Birth Story in Brief

Well, last Monday evening, I 'SROM-ed'. I only knew this because I heard the midwife say it on the telephone to the hospital: "I need to book in one of my ladies who's SROM-ed." Spontaneous Rupture of the Membranes - or, my waters broke. This was bad news for me because my previous two deliveries had begun this way, both resulting in induction. It was the one thing that I really didn't want to happen. I SROMED just before midnight, but there was good news, because by early morning there were some weak and irregular (but encouraging) signs of contractions.

My midwife examined me, and described conditions as 'favourable'. I took the dog for a brisk walk, finished off a very spicy stir-fry (the previous night's leftovers) for lunch, and was sipping my raspberry leaf tea contemplating another half pound of pineapple for pudding, when things really began to get interesting. I phoned Daddy at work and when he returned at 3.30pm it really had all kicked off.

We began to prepare to go to the hospital (suddenly realising that it might be a good idea to get the baby car seat down from the loft, that sort of thing!) when the phone rang. It was the BT engineer who we had been waiting for for several days. "I'm about twenty minutes away, is that alright?"

"Um, twenty minutes you say? Ok..."

I sat contracting as quietly as I possibly could in the nursery, trying to stay out of the way as he tested lines and installed something (I was beyond caring what), desperately willing him to finish. Finally, we left for the hospital at 5pm. The journey took nearly an hour, and by the time we arrived, my contractions were about a minute and a half apart. I've got to be honest, I've had more pleasant car journeys in my life.

I began by loudly demanding an epidural, convinced that the midwives were going to tell me that I was about 5cm dilated and would have hours to go. Sensibly, they ignored my request, and began filling the birth pool. There wasn't even time for gas and air, let alone an epidural.

"I thought I couldn't have a water birth as my waters had broken?" I managed to gasp. "Well you're still within 24 hours, so there's no problem, if you would still like to try?"

I had written 'water birth' into the birth plan more in hope than earnest, and hadn't really considered the possibility that I might be able to have one. But the minute I got into the pool things improved dramatically, and my new little baby was born at 8.17pm, only about two hours after getting to the hospital. I say 'little' but he was 9lb 10 oz. And 'he' was a surprise as I really thought that I was having a girl. It was a really euphoric experience. What a difference from my previous labours!

So now I am a mother of three under-fives, and have two sons. How on earth did that happen?