How Not to Receive A Christmas Gift

In the tumble back to school for the new year, we missed a haircut for Eddie.

Consequently he looks like a young Justin Bieber. Never an image I would have consciously sort, and bizarrely inappropriate for a four year old.

But that is the least of my problems.  I know that one of the joys of children is watching them speak their mind, but, when a close family friend arrived at the weekend bearing some late Christmas gifts, the conversation went something like this:

L: Happy Christmas Eddie! (Handing over wrapped present)

E: What is it? (Sound of tearing paper)

L: It's a hat. I thought it would suit you.

E: Ugh. I hate it. (Throws present up in the air and runs from the room)

L: (Laughs, awkwardly)

E: (Running back in) Anyway, are you having a baby?

L: (Shocked) Er...no, I'm not.

E: Oh. Why are your boobies so large, then?


She didn't stay long.




Currently reading: Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd

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?

Crash, Bang, B*ll*cks!

As usual I am entertained by the relative linguistic expertise of both my children, surely one of the 'joys of motherhood'.

Gertie, newly elected to the School Council (just how exactly does that happen on Day 5 of one's school career?) came home for the weekend, marched up to the fridge and formed the word 'Friday' with the plastic magnetic letters, much to the astonishment of her mother. Two weeks' worth of education and she appears to be able to read, write and spell.

Meanwhile, Gilby has increased the use of one of his favourite phrases: 'Crash, Bang, Wallop!'; his immediate response to any loud noise, bang or dropped item. Except that he mispronounces it so that it sounds much more like, "Crash, bang, bollocks!"

Personally, I think that this is a much more articulate response to smashing something, or even life's general frustrations, and have therefore adopted it myself.

My due date has come and gone without so much as a teasing cramp...so frankly, all I have to say is, "Crash, bang, bollocks!"

40 Weeks Pregnant: Mouth is sore from excessive fresh pineapple consumption, to no avail.
Currently reading: Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Nous Sommes Back!

I know that one shouldn't complain when one is on holiday, but here are ten things I have struggled with whilst in the South of France (in 38 degree heat) and very heavily pregnant...

1) Heaving my remarkable bulk onto a lilo whilst retaining some dignity.
2) Watching all around me drink copious amounts of rose whilst I look on enviously.
3) Not being able to kyak to the Pont du Gard for fear of disproving Archimedes' Principle (and capsizing).
4) Heaving my remarkable bulk up from a sun-lounger.
5) French squat toilets: difficult to negotiate with precarious centre of gravity. (Although I did find the fact that Gertie did a wee on her grandmother's foot the first time she attempted to use one more than faintly amusing.)
6) Avoiding all those delicious but 'illegal' cheeses.
7) Covering up the chloasma or pregnancy mask.
8) Trying to get my back as brown as my front: impossible with a bump this size!
9) Climbing to the top of the amphitheatre in Nimes. Highly ambitious given the size and quantity of the steps.
10) Looking glamorous in a bikini. Ha!

That's not to say that it wasn't all brilliant and worthwhile. The 14 hour drive home was interesting, although my husband probably didn't fully appreciate the urgency and frequency with which one has to pee in this condition.

37 Weeks Pregnant: Wondering why I finally have an 'outie' belly-button when that never happened with babies 1 and 2.
Currently reading: How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

The Pied Piper of Languedoc

Well here we are in the south of France once more, staying at a fabulous house complete with pool in a tiny French village in the Languedoc region. All idyllic, and there are still two weeks to go.

The particular joy of this place is that it contains enough rooms to accommodate both sets of grandparents plus an aunt and uncle and neice or nephew or two. Admittedly, in some families this could represent a vision of hell, but with the constant vying for the attention of the grandchildren, Big-Fat-Enormously-Heavily-Pregnant-Mummy gets to have some proper rest and relaxation.

And my mother (or 'Nano' to the grandchildren) appears to have turned into the pied piper of Hamelin, merrily leading all the children off in the early morning to get the freshly-baked baguettes, pains au chocolat and croissants for le petit dejeuner, thereby leaving parents who inevitably stayed up too late the night before to have an extra hour's peace in bed. Though she brings them back later, so this legend has a slightlier happier outcome than its German counterpart.

Need to supervise a two-year-old and a four-year-old in the pool whilst you get on with the important business of sunbathing? Then there's an uncle or older neice on hand to fulfil that role. Bliss.

I just hope this baby doesn't come early. Usually I'm wishing these last few weeks away, just wanting to get on with the business of meeting the new arrival. Not this time!

36 weeks pregnant: Wondering if participating in the extremely competitive volleyball tournament was the most sensible idea, and pondering exactly how one can achive an all over tan when clearly lying on one's stomach is a physical impossibility.

Currently reading: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Unbearable Excitement of Being

Gilby has 'hand, foot and mouth disease'. A 'febrile illness(caused by Coxsackie Virus) with associated vesicle formation on the hands, feet, and mouth of affected children'. It began with a few chicken-pox-type spots around his groin area, and it sounds much worse than it is, but it did mean that the very first day of my holiday yesterday was spent in the company of a screaming, irritable child. It is mild and short-lived though, so I am hoping that by tomorrow (his second birthday) he will be a little more sociable. He wants a 'Mr Bump' birthday cake, which seems quite appropriate.

Thankfully, Gertie is a little cheerier, and her perceptions of the world continue to delight. She is very, very excited about the arrival in a few weeks of her new sibling. It will coincide with starting school, so her little world will turn upside-down, but she is ready for it all. Except that she did ask me a strange question this week: "Mummy, you know that baby in your tummy? What clothes is it wearing?" I can't escape the image of a fully-dressed foetus in there now.

She also made me smile when she came across me reading in the bath a few nights ago. "Um, Mummy? What exactly are you doing?"
"I'm reading a book. I find it very relaxing in the bath."
She looked dubious, and glanced over at the vast array of brightly-coloured plastic toys that adorn our bathroom these days, and that I had tried, unsuccessfully, to hide for my sojourn into the water.
"But Mummy, how can you possibly relax in the bath when it's so exciting? I don't know how you can just sit there when there's so much to do!"

Well, who knew?

33 weeks pregnant: Struggling to heave my whale-like proportions around.
Currently reading: The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

Hippopotamuses and Showers

I find it hilarious the way Gilby acquires words, even faster and more furiously than his big sister did. The trouble with this incredible speed of language acquisition is that he occasionally gets it very, very wrong. I have tried to research this a little bit, but it is too scholarly and statistical for me, so I'm going with my own theories.

Apparently, when I was very small, I came rushing in to my parents' room very earnestly declaring that there was a 'hippot-mus in Teesy's bedoom'. Teesy was my name for myself, and I clearly struggled with 'r's. My parents were not convinced. Why would they be? In a second floor flat somewhere in north London, the appearance of this massive sub-Saharan African mammal would indeed have been most unlikely. But I was insistent. Very. Kept on repeating my claim. When they still wouldn't believe me I went to prove my case. I came back in with my tiny fist clenched. "Hippot-mus...HERE!" Upon opening up my hand I cried with pain as the wasp stung me. Quite how I had made the synaptic connection between the word 'hippopotamus' and the reality of a yellow, stripy, stinging thing is beyond me.

Gilby has repeated this feat, though with so far less painful consequences. He has inherited a toy-garage, one with a multi-storey car-lift. It is very exciting when you are not quite two. Except that, inexplicably, he insists on calling it a 'shower'.

Meanwhile, Gertie's current favourite programme is 'Little Bear'. At the start of each episode the episode's title appears, and being right on the cusp of reading it flashes up too quickly for her to decipher it, but she recognises some of the words and is always interested in what it is. "What does that say, Mummy?" she will inevitably ask.

Gilby has cottoned on to this, and must assume that it means 'what is that?', for now, when he doesn't know the name of something he will point at it and ask, "What does that say, Mummy?" just like his sister. Perhaps in some confused, mush-brained moment he asked me what his garage 'said' and I suggested a shower. Who knows?

It's Such a Perfect Day Until...

Let me paint a picture of the Easter harmony and domestic bliss that issued forth from our home yesterday.

The sun is shining and we are in a kind of paradise, our very own walled garden. The children are having fun and their shrieks and laughter drown out the noise of the traffic from the A29 rushing past, so that you could almost imagine you were really in the countryside.

Both children had a sleep simultaneously following their morning swim, so that I have been able to get lots of housework done and do some of the enormous pile of Easter marking that I have brought home with me, so that I don't have The Guilt, and am actually able to sit outside and enjoy the afternoon.

I am on a sun lounger with a book. And although at 20 weeks I already resemble a beach ball with protruding limbs, my children are not judgemental. They are both smothered in enough factor-bastard suncream to last the England cricket team on an entire tour of Australia, so I don't have to worry about sunburn. Gertie is alternating between bouncing on her trampoline and splashing in the paddling pool with her little brother. We had the foresight to fill it up early this morning, so it is now sun-warmed and a very pleasant temperature. Gilby is content to sit in the two inches of water and steadily empty it out using a variety of plastic cups and containers onto the lawn (recently mown and not entirely overgrown). The bare patches of grass are covered with strips of turf, which, whilst not yet properly laid, at least give the impression of an expanse of green instead of a sea of mud.

The three vines we planted in a fit of optimism are still standing upright in their respective places rather than having been uprooted and dragged across the garden by the puppy as they have been most mornings this week. In fact, Kempton is uncharacteristically restrained, and none of the children's toys have yet been chewed today. She is not bothering the chickens, and the cat, in turn, is not bothering Kempton. The new garden furniture is fully assembled and in a shady part of the garden ready for when we all get too hot later on. It is 'rattan effect' and not the rattan itself that we thought we were buying, but we are over that now.

Peace reigns.

In my head, I hear the strains of Lou Reed: It's such a perfect day/I'm glad I spent it with you....

Gilby decides that he wants to strip off and be a 'nunga punga', and so his sister joins him. Together they run around the garden playing happily and cool off in the water from time to time.

And then, I suddenly hear, "Naughty Kempton, naughty Kempton!" I look up from my book. Something is wrong with the paddling pool. It has gone a funny colour. Strange things are floating in it. What on earth could Kempton have done? And then the truth reveals itself.

I mentally change the words of the song in my head: It's such a perfect day/Until Gilby does a poo...

I'm not sure which was worse; the fact that he did it, or the fact that he tried to blame it on the dog!

There's A Lot Of It About

I have neglected by blog lately; the household has been plagued with sickness for the last ten days. Apparently, There's A Lot Of It About. Isn't there always? Only Gertie has so far escaped.

At first, Gilby had a number of what can at best be described as 'unhappy nappies'. I put this down to teething, and we had a couple of more-than-usually-unsettled nights.

When I started feeling unwell on Saturday with stomach cramps, I thought nothing much at first. With number three now on the way, I had expected a little nausea. I got worse. To the point where I started thinking about phoning midwives or doctors. I didn't remember experiencing this amount of pain with the previous two pregnancies.

Then Daddy started throwing up. I've never been so delighted to see anyone else being sick! (Sorry Daddy, but this meant an ordinary bug rather than something more sinister and complicated relating to the baby.) So - hooray! All was well. If you see what I mean.

But poor old Gilby was going downhill, and was in too much pain to let his extremely raw nappy skin be touched. "No-oo-oo-ooo," he squealed, trying to hold his body away. "It's all right, it's all right," I kept repeating, aiming to soothe the little man. This became his tearful mantra for a few days: "It's all right. It's all right." He tried to convince himself. Not even the Sock Game could perk him up. (This is the one where they both sit on the bed and Daddy bowls rolled up socks at the pair of them repeatedly amidst much squeals and laughter. I don't really understand it, myself.)

"There's a lot of it about," said the doctor, when we finally took Gilby along to be checked out.

"There's a lot of it about," said the nursery staff, as we explained why Gilby wouldn't be there this week.

And, "There's a lot of it about," said my boss, as I told him I was expecting.