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

Hyde Park Waddle

I know this picture doesn't look pretty, but yesterday I took part in the adidas 5K Women's Challenge in Hyde Park, along with 15,000 other women.

I completed the course in just under 53 minutes. Not a particularly impressive time, but pretty good for 39 weeks pregnant, I reckon. I have been running this race for the last five or six years and felt that I might as well go for it, in spite of my protruding belly. It was a very supportive environment and there were plenty of well-wishers on the way. Gertie asked me at the end if I'd won! I felt like I had...

The scary thing is that I actually felt quite good afterwards. I 'ran' just over 1km and walked the rest, saving a little energy for a 'sprint' finish, and last night had more energy and less aches and pains than I usually would. I'm not sure that I want to explore the moral of this story!

I raised £222 for the MS Society, my biggest total so far. I am very grateful to all who supported me, and to the organisers for helpfully placing toilets just after the 3km mark. That was extremely important.

39 weeks pregnant: Wondering why a 5K run didn't get labour going...
Currently reading: The Two of Us by Sheila Hancock

First Day

What is it about school uniform that suddenly makes them look so grown-up?

Gertie was very excited about starting school, and not in the least bit concerned by the transition; in fact she seemed to think her mother's slightly erratic and emotional behaviour distinctly odd at times, though she accepted the morning's photo shoot with a mature tolerance.

All went smoothly from her point of view, though there were two minor failures on my part: the carefully sewn-in name badge on her cardigan came off and I forgot her water-bottle.

She was so ready to go that I really had no worries about how she would get on. Yet a small part of me can't help thinking about what is lost. Just a few weeks ago she was asking why I never plaited her 'front hair' (she couldn't think of the word for 'fringe'), and why God was always so 'baggy'. It took me a little while to work out what she meant, until she pointed at the sleeves on her white shirt that were loose at the ends, "like this". All the representations she sees typically picture God or Jesus in white loose-fitting clothing.

The concrete construal reminds me of another story I heard where a school inspector asked a reception child what they were drawing. "God," replied the child. "But nobody knows what God looks like," challenged the inspector. "They will in a minute," responded the self-assured five-year-old.

But when Gertie came home yesterday she told me that we must always wash our hands when we have touched something that has been on the floor, even if we are not about to eat. (I knew I had been lapse at this parenting-lark) and that the planets are all spinning all the time but so slowly that our eyes cannot see them. Aggie MacKenzie and Professor Brian Cox would both be proud.

Mummy? Is proud and just a little sad...

Nearly 39 weeks pregnant: Wondering if it is just pregnancy hormones, but suspecting that the other 750,000 Mums were also a bit weepy this week
Currently reading: Annie Dunne by Sebastian Barry

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

Things That Go Bump in the Kitchen

Another year, another birthday, another mess in the kitchen, another baking triumph (but don't look too closely, it's a little, er, 'rustic' round the edges).

Yes, Gilby was two last week, and with a few days to go before the event he announced that he no longer wanted another train cake, but 'Mr Bump'. Good, I thought, at least it's round. Though blue was not the most appetising colour for the, mostly adult, guests at his tea party.

Pregnancy hormones must be kicking in big time, because I also MADE bunting for the occasion. I saw some for sale at the primary school fete and thought, 'Twenty quid for a couple of metres? Pah! I'll make it!'

So, having invested in a sewing machine and a selection of fabric, I reckon my bunting has set me back over £200. Oh well.

But the little man was on top form, dressed in shirt and tie for the day, and even going as far as to sit back up in bed, more tired than I've ever seen him, just after kissing him goodnight to say, "Thank you for my party, mummy," in the sweetest, most angelic little voice.

Now, lest all this sound too good to be true, and I'm even sickening myself with the homely baking and bunting imagery, let me just pronounce, for the record, that the terrible twos began in earnest the very next day as Gilby kicked and screamed and demanded, "More presents, more presents, more presents..." for hours. So domestic bliss was short-lived...

34 Weeks pregnant: Definitely not feeling the bikini body...
Currently reading: That Summer in Ischia by Penny Feeny

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