Mammy's Night Off

Yay! I've just been out! I've had a lovely evening watching bands and catching up with workmates. And I got to take a tiny handbag! Not one filled with nappies, extra nappies, wipes, spare clothes, dummies, toys, bottles, more toys and emergency organic carrot puffs (like wotsits, but made of carrot. Genius)

Came home to find The Baby and Husband both safe and well. Although I'm not sure how much trouble they could have got in, given that she was in bed before I left. This weekend will still be the real test...!

I am now rather worried about this weekend actually. Not about The Baby or Husband (he has promised that the Museum of Knives and Fire is strictly off the agenda), but about the other matter I mentioned yesterday. Tonight, I have realised that I am incapable of conducting a conversation without mentioning my baby, my life with a baby, other people's babies, or anything else baby-related. I just can't do it, it's like some kind of reflex. I also have no "Too Much Information" boundary. I think it may be because pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding are so undignified that you are left with absolutely no shame whatsoever. Which tends to mean that I'll be halfway through a sentence about my post-partum haemorrhage or difficulties with a manual breast pump, before realising that the friend's boyfriend I'm talking to looks like he wants to hang himself. Perhaps I will buy some trendy magazines and intelligent papers to read on the train down, so I can talk about culture and politics and that.

Off to bed now. I'm very tired. I left at twenty to eleven, I have no stamina any more. Night.

Separation Anxiety. Or not.

This weekend, I will be mostly going to London Town. It's the first time I will have been away from The Baby for more than a day.
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I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!

Bad Mammy, looking forward to leaving my child! I feel slightly bad about how excited I am. I'll admit, most of the excitement centres on the thought of buying new boots and drinking mojitos, but I am also looking forward to not dealing with tantrums, unidentifiable food, nappies and drool (unless my sister has developed some disturbing habits). I know that I'll miss her (I went to work and did a 14 hour day last Saturday, and was so pleased to see her the next morning) but I also know it'll be nice to play at not being a mammy for just a little while. Note to self: while in company of childless, city-dwelling young professionals do not talk about the following things: the changing consistency of baby poo, cracked nipples, breast pumps, episiostomies or the relative merits of forward and rear facing car seats. Bugger. What can I talk about?

I think I'm more worried about how Husband is going to cope than anything else, to be honest. He is a very good daddy indeed, but he does tend to get rattled by her days of random, inexpicable horrendous moods (such as today), whereas I tend to only want to throw her out of a window when I've been subjected to four of them on the trot. He also has a tiny bit of an information retention problem, so I wonder if I'm going to come home to find out that she's had 3 times as much formula as she's supposed to, but no bath. Ah well, as long as he doesn't take her to the Museum of Knives and Fire, I'm sure they'll be fine.

Poorly Mammy

I feel a bit rubbish today, this feels like the beginnings of a bastard of a cold. It may even be as serious as man-flu. The Baby, of course, has not noticed and does not care, and wants playing with. This is the hardest thing about motherhood - it stops for nothing. If you feel lousy - tough. If you are tired - tough.

I want to go back to bed. Unfortunately, Husband is in it after finishing night shift at 7am. I'm not so ill that I can justify getting him up after just 3.5 hours of sleep. I'll give him 4.

Venti Skinny Baby-tainment with an extra shot.

I am not buying The Baby any more toys. She has all kinds of exciting toys that beep and sing and light up, but I have never seen her as happy as she was today, when we gave her a Starbucks takeaway cup. I only gave her it because she was trying to get at my latte, as she has an inexplicable obsession with china, but I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. It ticks all the boxes - it's black and white, it has a face on it, it's made of paper, she can wave it about and she can chew it. Genius.

On another note, I have just seen something odd on the telly. "Prime Time on Comedy Central is sponsored by Las Vegas". As in, Las Vegas. Is it just me that finds that weird?

Stupid Mammy!

Ok, so The Baby tends to wake up in the morning with a giant poo in her nappy (I have no idea how such a little person produces so much crap). Lately I have been starting to worry that she might be doing them not long after I've put her to bed, and that I've been leaving her lying in her own filth all night. So last night, in a fit of uncharacteristic conscientiousness, I decided to change her, as I thought I could smell something dubious. The Baby was asleep, and in a vest, sleepsuit, sleeping bag and sheet. Despite my best efforts, and putting my back out trying to change her without getting her out of her cot, she of course woke up and got ridiculously over-excited to see me. She was then awake for about an hour. Entirely unneccessarily, as it turns out the dubious smell was coming from the nappy bin which hasn't been emptied for a while.

I also discovered yesterday that, thanks to a pint/litres fail on my part, I've been using twice as much sterilising solution as I was supposed to. Only been doing it for about 3 months. Oh well, it clearly hasn't done her any harm, apart from perhaps giving her a taste for formula with a strong dash of Milton (other sterilising fluids are available. I think.).

Here's hoping for a less stupid day.

Big Fat Chunker

Went to get The Baby weighed today - felt like a Bad Mammy indeed when the Health Visitor said "She's had quite a jump since last time!". I am turning my baby into a big fat fatty who will end up being the subject of a Channel 5 documentary.
And I am leading by example, as I should be at my yoga class right now, but instead am sat on my arse blogging.
Oh well. On the Good Mammy side, I have made a lovely homemade tomato and vegetable pasta sauce for her. Which she will probably eat too much of and get even fatter.

Get Your Tits Out!

I have been asked by a friend to write something about breastfeeding, and as she is my first (and, so far, only) follower, I am only too happy to oblige. Those who are squeamish about this kind of thing, look away now...

I breastfed The Baby for just short of 6 months, although she had a bottle of formula a day from about 8 weeks, and more over the last month as I wound it down. Lots of people will go on and on and on about how wonderful breastfeeding is, and how it is the natural thing to do and how it's better for the baby etc etc, but the main reasons that I did it were:

1. I couldn't be arsed faffing on with bottles and kettles, especially in the middle of the night.
2. It is free.

I'm not sure I quite buy in to all the "Breast is best" propaganda there is out there. It's obviously what boobs are there for (sorry guys, they weren't actually made to be plastered over the pages of Nuts magazine), and I reckon it probably is a bit better than formula, but I've read some stuff (can't remember where, which I realise does not exactly give credence to my argument) that says for every study that says breastmilk is better, there's another one that says it isn't really. Some mums get really militant about this, and say that formula can't possibly be any good because it's not what nature intended, but, you know what, neither are shoes, chemotherapy or Haribo Starmix, but the world would be immeasurably poorer without them.

Right, now I've got my opinions out of the way, here is Bad Mammy's guide to breastfeeding:

• Give it a go, cos it's free.
• If it doesn't work, don't worry about it. As long as your baby gets fed, it'll be fine.
• "If you're doing it right, breastfeeding doesn't hurt" - this is a big fat giant LIE!!! It FUCKING KNACKS! You have a HUMAN BEING chomping on your nipples for 18 hours out of every 24 - how is that not going to hurt?! Thankfully, somebody told me this before I gave birth, otherwise I might have given up. In the end I figured that if it looked like she was getting some milk out, and I wasn't crying in pain, I was probably doing ok.
• It does stop hurting eventually, thank God!
• Do NOT pay attention to the bloody pictures in those bloody books and pamphlets the NHS give you. The babies in those pictures must have had their arms removed for the photoshoot. The nice simple steps the pictures show you don't tell you what you're meant to do when the baby has confused your boob for her own fist and is trying to get milk out of that instead.
• In fact, don't pay too much attention to those books at all. They all say "your baby will open her mouth wide and then you can bring her to your breast". No. She won't actually. She has got her mouth just wide enough to do some ineffective, painful chomping. So that's really helpful. If this happens, simply wait until your baby is screaming its head off, and shove boob into gob.
• Loads of places now have nursing rooms, so you can sit in a room that smells of poo on your own for half an hour. Sod that. Starbucks and Costa have sofas and a nice, mostly liberal clientele which means they can't glare at you for getting your wabs out for fear of looking unenlightened. Starbucks' sales of decaf caramel lattes must have gone way downhill since I stopped feeding.
• They say sleep when your baby sleeps. I also say eat when your baby eats. It's the only time you get a bloody chance. Develop a repertoire of dishes that can be eaten with one hand (sandwiches are good, as are things like shepherd's pie which only need a fork). Remember to clean the crumbs and dribbles of mash out of the baby's ear afterwards.
• Realise that you will never again see your breasts as a private part of you. Especially when your baby gets a bit older and starts getting distracted when she feeds, turning her head to look around her and exposing your nipple to a packed Starbucks.
• Don't wear dresses or long tops without buttons up the front or a low neck. You might look good when you leave the house, but you look stupid hoiking it up to unhook your bra.

If you're about to embark on this adventure, good luck! And buy a Savoy cabbage. Seriously.