Why I Am Really Bad Mammy!

Can't believe I forgot this one the other day.

Lately, I have quite often woken up in the morning, feeling refreshed and rested, turned to Husband and said, "Oh, she slept quite well, didn't she?"

Erm.

No.

As it turns out, she is not sleeping well. I am. Husband is not. Husband is getting up with her two or three times a night, while I slumber on, blisfully unaware. This feels all wrong and bad. Surely, as a mother, I should be attuned to my baby's every need, be able to discern the tiniest whimper from two miles away, while at a rock gig, in a coma? I am a disgraceful mother, and a disgraceful wife.

I think she made me pay for it last night, though. Husband is on nights, so when she decided to wake up hourly from 2am, there was no-one else to deal with her. However, I can't help but wonder how long she now whinges for before I eventually rouse myself. And thanks to last night, I'm now really tired, so she'll probably have to burn the house down or something to get my attention.

Why I Am Still Bad Mammy

Over the last couple of months, I have started to believe that I am now less Bad than I used to be. On closer examination, I have come to the conclusion that that's not true, I simply have stopped worrying about it. Also, now The Baby is almost not a baby anymore, there is slightly less to worry about. However, here are some reasons why I still deserve the title of Bad Mammy:

• I still don't take her to do exciting and stimulating activities. That's what I pay nursery fees for, surely?
• Even though she is crawling around the floor all the time, and picking up and trying to eat anything from the floor that looks like it might be food (even though it could really be a piece of paper, money or an ant), I'm still shockingly bad at keeping the floors clean.
  
• I have moved her off formula, and stopped sterilising, before the Government-prescribed age of 1 year (because, at the stroke of midnight on their first birthday, ALL babies' stomachs can suddenly cope with this).
• The baby-proofing equipment is STILL in the cupboard under the stairs.
• I have not even thought about trying to reduce her dummy usage.
• I forget to put socks on her all the time.
• If she is having a tantrum, and I can't think of what else to do, I give her a biscuit. (Homemade biscuits though, surely that gets me some Good Mammy points?)
• I tell her she's naughty. Which is apparently really bad for their self-esteem, and just encourages them to be naughty, because they are being told that's what they are. Just what I need, a toddler with self-esteem issues.
• I let her steal my food, even when she's just had her own meal and I know she's not hungry. Wonder why she's so bloody huge?
• I enjoy being at work and away from her FAR too much.
  

But that's not too bad, right? Thankfully, by now lots of my mammy friends have relaxed now their babies aren't fragile, precious little newborns anymore, and I've made some almost equally Bad Mammy friends, so I feel much less alone in my rubbishness! But I'm sure the toddler phase is going to throw up plenty of opportunities to do things wrong. Bring it on, I say.

Happy Almost Birthday

The Baby is 11 months today! This means that I now have exactly 1 month left of having a baby under 1. That's scary. And it's making me realise that very soon I am going to have to stop calling her The Baby. Not sure I'm at all ready for that. Also, what will I call her? The Toddler? It doesn't quite have the same ring to it. The choice of "The Baby" was deliberate. Obviously she is my baby, so it didn't take the greatest leap of imagination to come up with that, but, to me, she is also THE baby. The only one in the whole world. Obviously, I don't really mean that literally. I don't come over all blind and deaf if there is another child under one in the room. But as much as I love my nephews, and my friends' babies, they don't take over my universe the way she has. And I guess no matter what I call her, or however big she gets, she will Always Be My Baby. And even when she finds out I have a penchant for quoting lyrics from the early works of Mariah Carey, I will always be her mammy. I'm happy about that.

Developmental Milestones pt 2

As The Baby is now the ripe old age of 11 months minus two days old, I thought that now would be as good a time as any to update you on her development. And I couldn't think of anything else to write.

So here are the things that The Baby is currently dabbling in..

• Crawling. As if she has a rocket up her bum. I may have mentioned this once or twice. That's because I still cannot get over how fast she can go. Like a teeny, mischievous, destructive cheetah.
• Eating me out of house and home. She's good at eating. Things she does not like - raw tomatoes, asparagus, and.... I'm out.
• Pulling herself up on the sofa. And the toilet. And the cooker. And the rickety table that quite often has a cup of tea on it. And the back of my legs while I'm standing at the kitchen worktop, so I then can't move.
• Screeching, shouting and otherwise making a lot of noise. Usually in the middle of Asda, which is clearly the most exciting place in the world.
• Putting things in places, and taking them out again. Quite cute when it's her toy box, less so when it's my pyjama drawer.
• Developing strong emotional attachments to inanimate objects. This week it is Bedtime Bear. Bedtime Bear solves all problems. Nearly.
• Playing with cause and effect. Baby drops the toy, Mammy picks it up. This is good. Baby drops the toy again, and sure enough, Mammy picks it up again. Baby drops the toy again, Mammy decides to teach her that sometimes dropped things stay dropped. Helpful passer-by picks up the toy. Bum. Baby looks smug.
• Expressing her likes and dislikes. Ooh boy, especially the dislikes. She is currently reserving most of her venom for getting dressed in the morning, and getting undressed at night. To say that she is not a fan would be something of an understatement. This is the one problem that Bedtime Bear cannot help with.

And some things she is refusing to do..

• Walk on her own, or which I am profoundly grateful. Oh God, imagine how much trouble she's going to get into.
• Say "Mama". We have "Dada", we have "Ta", we have "yaddle yaddle", "loggle loggle", and what may have been "Colin", but nothing for me. Boo.
• Feed herself without decorating the kitchen in porridge.
  
• Let go of anything that she's not supposed to have - keys, phones, bottles of shampoo. You can try and take them away. See Expressing dislikes, above.

Remember, all babies are different and develop at their own speed. She may be lazy. Or she may just want to embarrass you by making you lose the "my baby is better than your baby" contest.

This is Normal Now.

I was reading something somewhere the other day (it may have been an interview with someone like Amanda Holden in something like OK. Who knows? Doesn't matter) about how you spend the first year of your baby's life waiting to wake up and feel normal again. It's so true, for me anyway. I love my baby, love being a mammy (however Bad I may be) and all of that, but somewhere in the back of my mind has been the belief that things will get back to normal someday. But it's been gradually dawning on me that they won't. This is what's normal now. This is my life. Nappies, watching The Baby like a hawk (albeit a slightly blind and easily distracted hawk), childcare schedules, worrying about salt content, planning excursions around pushchair-accessibility - these are the things that shape my day and occupy my increasingly addled brain. You might think this is a bit of a depressing realisation, but actually, it's oddly liberating. Accepting that your child-free, carefree days are over means that you can look back on the ones you did have with fond nostalgia. And you're really appreciative if you get to play out for a night! You get less annoyed at the rubbish parts if you're not subconsciously thinking they are getting in the way of a more fun life.
Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I need to get out more. After all, I am getting life epiphanies from OK magazine.

Brain Gone All Dead

Sorry, I'm being a bit rubbish lately, aren't I? I have a confession to make, that last post wasn't even original, it was something I posted on ScaryParenting a couple of weeks ago. I just didn't want to leave you, my faithful readership, down. I'm sure your lives would have continued somehow though.

Anyway, I've still not got anything scintillating for you I'm afraid. My brain's gone dead, probably because I've had to work really hard at work to make up for phoning in sick with a lurgy on Monday. It was not fun. No idea what it was. I possibly caught a chill, which sounds so lame and old-fashioned that I refuse to believe it could be true, but I did go for a walk to the beach in the rain in £4 pumps from Primark. And no socks.

There are probably tons of things to report about The Baby, who is generally being cool at the minute. She is getting in all sorts of trouble with her ever-improving crawling skills, and learning new things all the time. And either I am being less Bad at the moment, or I am just so Bad and so used to it that I don't even notice it anymore. Hmm. I think it could be the latter. I promise I will do you a round-up of developments soon. Bet you're on the edge of your seats.

The No-Nap Workout Solution

I have cracked it! The secret to being able to eat whatever you want and lose your baby weight at the same time! Forget diets, Pilates, or expensive gym memberships, The No-Nap Workout Solution is where it's at.

The concept is simple - take your baby into the living room, and wait until she is rubbing her eyes, whinging, and generally carrying on like she is tired. Take her upstairs, lie her down, give her a kiss, and go back downstairs. After about 5 minutes, realise that you can hear some odd banging sounds through the monitor. Go back upstairs, to find your baby crawling about, standing up rattling the bars, or doing something else that is patently not sleeping. Lie her back down, and go back downstairs. Go back again in another 5 minutes to find her standing up again. Decide she isn't tired, so take her back downstairs, whereupon she will immediately start whingeing and rubbing her eyes again. Restart whole process and repeat until you have buns of steel, and have burnt off the calories in the Mars Bar you had in lieu of lunch.