Heart. Stop.

Oh God. Bad, bad, bad Mammy.

I lost The Toddler.

Yesterday morning, at soft play, nattering away with my friend, and I suddenly realised The Toddler had wandered off. Had a quick scan of the vicinity, expecting to see her in the big kids' bit, heading for the inappropriately large slide or something. Nope, still can't see her. As I'm holding The New'un, my friend goes off to conduct a more thorough search of the soft play structure, after trying to reassure me that she can't have gone far. I know she's right - we are in an enclosed area, but I can still feel my heart going like the clappers (what are clappers, by the way? Anyone know?). Still no sign. Think I may be starting to panic now. What if she slipped through the gate while someone else was leaving? What if she's somehow got right up to the top of the big kids' bit and knocked herself out? (How, I'm not sure, it's called soft play, after all.) What if she's drowning in the ball pool? By now, my head is darting about wildly and I'm going "oh my God Oh my God I've lost my child I've lost my child" and I can't believe what a terrible parent I am. Then the woman next to me pipes up that there is a little area with games and rides behind the man selling portrait sessions. I rush over, and, oh sweet relief, there is The Toddler, happily sitting in a minature ice-cream van with an "Out of Order" sign on it. I have never been so glad to see anyone in my life.

And in my relief, I fell for the portrait man's marketing spiel, and am now fifteen pounds poorer, and the proud holder of a voucher for a photoshoot and a free framed 7x5 print of the photo of my choice.

If There Was Any Justice In The World...

.. there would be a cold, cold bottle of Pinot Grigio in my fridge.

I am sweating my ass off. I have spent the last half an hour running up and down the stairs between whingeing children. The Toddler, having lulled me into a false sense of security by getting ready for bed beautifully, started moaning "Mammy.... Mammy.... Mammy" as soon as I started trying to find my kitchen under the pots and pans and stray bits of cous cous. The New'un did a poo and was very unhappy about that. The Toddler demanded to go to the toilet three times, and only did two wees. The New'un, once changed, kept spitting her dummy out and not being able to find it again. The Toddler then started screaming and telling me that she hurt. The New'un probably wants boob, but is no way no how getting that until the demon above has fallen asleep. Calpol has been shoved in The Toddler, whether she was fibbing or not. The New'un has given up hope of me ever going to see what it is she wants, and is zonked out in a weird, half-rolled over position on her playmat. My house is some kind of greenhouse and the first pair of trousers to hand this morning was an uncomfortabley warm pair or black jeans.

And I have no wine.

Some Bad Mammyness

I will clearly never win Frequent Blogger of the Year, should such a thing exist. I'll never win Perfect Parent of the Year either, and here are a few (more) reasons why...

• The Toddler has been a bit under the weather today, so has been allowed to watch telly ALL day. Because Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is a cure for the common cold, obviously.
• I keep forgetting where I have put The New'un. Really. It's a bit frightening. I'll be wandering around the house, tending to various bits of stuff, when all of a sudden I will realise that I put her down somewhere ages ago and haven't been back to get her, and can't remember exactly where. It's only ever cot, crib, moses basket or playmat, but still, it's slightly unnerving. Hopefully I won't start doing it when we're out.
• Oh, hang on. Just remembered another place I sometimes put The New'un. The sofa. And I know I'm not supposed to, and that babies can learn to roll freakishly early and freakishly quickly, and I still do not stop it. I will, though. Promise.
• The Toddler now knows most of the words (and some of the dance moves) to "Good Morning Baltimore", such is the amount of time she spends watching Hairspray.
• I keep forgetting to change The New'un's nappy, and then wonder why she's crying.
• If I can't be bothered to explain why The Toddler can't have something, it is "broken". I lie a lot.
• I have still not managed to implement any kind of discipline regime, apart from occasionally half-heartedly threatening to take things away, or put her in the corner. She always calls my bluff.
• I am still in denial about the fact that The Toddler needs toilet-training because I am lazy and frightened and dislike cleaning wee out of the carpet.
• If The New'un starts to cry for no discernible reason, she gets the nearest dummy plonked in her mouth, regardless of whether it came out of the steriliser or from underneath the sofa.

I did do painting AND play-doh today though. Check me out.

Pants

The Toddler has an endearing new habit. She has taken to removing her nappy in bed, and then weeing. Or worse. Which, as you can imagine, is less than fun for us. We've tried many things to prevent this - putting pants on over her nappy (not an obstacle to her at all), removing a toy from her bed every time she took it off (looked like it might work, until she handed over two toys at once and said "Away"), and bribing her with the promise of a new toy (only done this tonight, I'll have to update you on its effectiveness. But could prove an expensive way of doing things). So far, nothing's worked. As a result, Husband and I keep running upstairs to check on her, which keeps her hyped up, so we usually have a still-awake toddler come 9pm. It's at times like this that I wish I'd had the foresight to see video monitors as more than just another weapon in the paranoid parent's arsenal, but hey ho. I'm not about to buy one now, so we'll just have to spend our evenings listening out for the telltale sound of Velcro (unfortunately, the sound of her dragging her toenails along her bedguard sounds exactly like nappy tabs being ripped open, so the stairs get much unnecessary pounding).

I'm guessing that this behaviour is just another sign that she's nearly ready for potty training. I was hoping I could put this off for a bit longer because a) I'm lazy and can't be arsed, and b) I have no idea how to go about it. I've been kinda hoping that I can just leave her to it, and one day she'll just turn around and say "You know what, Mother? You don't really have to put these nappies on me anymore, I'm quite capable of going to the toilet on my own". Not sure it really works like that though.

I'm hoping it won't be too difficult. She is quite often dry for a fair few hours, and will say "Mammy wee wee toilet" or "poo poo" (although this usually means wee or fart) when she needs to go. Sometimes she will even do a wee once she's put on the toilet, congratulating herself with a "Yay!", thanks to all the loving encouragement we've been giving her. For the last couple of days though she's been refusing to go once there. Unless we're in a restaurant, or similar. For some reason, restaurant toilets are wildly exciting places and we must go there many times for The Toddler to squeeze out the teeniest bit of wee. I'm offended on behalf of my own three perfectly adequate and more-or-less clean toilets, and the little training seat we bought her. Which, by the way Mothercare, is not worth £6.99 just because you have stuck one Peppa Pig sticker on it. Especially when the sticker is on the bit that goes under the toilet seat.

In Praise of The New'un

I realise that most of my posts are about the trials and tribulations (and sometimes the good bits) of life with The Toddler. That's because she is very entertaining, time-consuming and demanding, and, you know, just generally DOES more than The New'un.

But I feel The New'un deserves some blog time. So here it is.

The New'un (who's actually not that new anymore, so perhaps she needs a new name) is now 8 weeks old. She is GORGEOUS. I think she might even be gorgeous to an objective outsider, and not just gorgeous to my biased adoring-parent eyes. I've not had much to report thus far, because small babies are kind of boring. They cry, you feed them. They cry again, you change their nappy. They cry again, you walk around with them for a bit. They get distracted by something shiny in the distance, then fall asleep in some kind of unfeasible position on your arm. And that's about it.

But she's starting to get interesting now. She can hold her head up and look around pretty well, until she forgets how to do it and headbutts me in the nose. She looks at things and smiles at them, or makes other strange gurning faces, and coos at them. She has whole conversations with her Winnie the Pooh mobile. I think she's even starting to bat at things with her hands, and tries to eat the fish toy on her playmat. She tries to latch on to my nose when she's hungry. She looks pleased with herself when she wees on the changing mat.

None of these things are probably all that exciting to anyone but me. But she is one of the two most beautiful things I have ever seen. Even though she has just been sick on my arm. I am a lucky girl.