A letter to Nelson: month three May 11, 2008

Dear Schmoo,

I am struggling to believe that next week you will be three months old. Something strange happens in adult brains, I think, when it comes to time and babies. The hours when you scream your displeasure at how tired you are seem to drag on forever. And yet it feels to me like only yesterday I was lying in bed, in the quiet of the early morning hours, feeling your little heels kick against the top of my uterus, and here today you are upstairs in your own big bed, cooing to yourself as you fall to sleep.

Son, this month as with the past two you have challenged me, tested my patience, broken my heart and mended it over and over again. I am speaking specifically of your ability to go for days without any great periods of sleep.

This last week your Special Aunty SimonaMinx came to visit me while your father was away on business in Europe. For three days, you slept in 20 minute power naps, and came out of each one fully pumped for whatever life could throw at you, and you seemed perfectly OK with the fact that babies such as yourself only needed four hours sleep MAXIMUM in the dark. I really thought we had the sleeping thing down with you: in the past it only took a dream feed at 11pm to keep you going through til 6am, but apparently you like to keep me on my toes and not get too comfortable. Who needs all that sleep anyway? It’s for the weak.

Then, of course, the first night your dad was home you selpt from 11pm through til 5am. Perhaps it is the peaceful vibe eminating from his aura that has calmed you. Whatever, on the one hand I’m happy it’s working, on the other hand, WHY WON’T YOU SLEEP LIKE THAT FOR ME (YOU LITTLE BUGGER!)?

Yesterday your dad and I started the process of getting you to sleep in your own room. This basically involves sticky-taping tin foil over the windows and skylights, so that your room is as dark as possible, and the purchasing of a baby monitor, so we can leave you in the room to go to sleep but still spy on you. Fingers crossed that the end result is you sleeping and napping for longer.

You loved your aunty, and you spent many hours grinning and chatting and giggling with her. She loved you back and you showed her just what to expect from a pooey nappy when she pops out her own wee bairn in a few weeks time. I think she was a bit shocked at just how much work you can be. I think even *I* was a bit surprised at how much work you can be when there isn’t a daddy around to help out (purely on a selfish note, though, it did mean I got all your love and cuddles to myself).

This made me think of two things: one, how amazing your Aussie Grandma is, because she brought me up by herself, with no daddy around to help. It’s only since I’ve had you that I’ve really been able to appreciate what she has done for me. And two, how grateful I am to have your dad around, because working as a team to bring you up really spreads the workload.

Last week I toddled down to the baby clinic to have you weighed - 14 pounds 6 ounces. That’s a stone. You are a big boy, no two ways about it: you dwarf many of the babies at group who are months older than you. I have given up carrying you around in your harness because you are just too heavy for me. Every day you seem to unfurl a little more, grow a little bit more into the wonderful person your dad and I know you to be.

This month you have started to drool and shove your fists in your mouth with gay abandon. Nothing is quite so entertaining as the feeling of your cute little fingers in your gummy mouth.

You love to kick in your basket and play with your squeaky pirate, to gurgle and ‘talk’ to me and your dad. You adore it when your father whistles you a tune, any tune, doesn’t matter what, you think it’s the funniest thing on the planet, and we are just eating that up at the moment because we know that in about 15 years time you will think we are the most embarrassing humans that ever existed.

You are also becoming a lot more physical with each new day. No longer are you content to lie on your back in your basket and let the world pass you by. You want to roll over, lift your head up, reach for things - and you let us know how unhappy you are when your body doesn’t do what you want it to.

No longer are you content to lie snuggled in my arms. You want to stand up and look around or at the very least, sit up and look around, so I grasp you firmly under the arms and stand you up and bounce you on your very long legs. I’m sure, given how time seems to pass now I’m a parent, that I’ll turn around and you’ll be running off to school or jumping puddles.

Love,

Mum.

A letter to Nelson: month two April 25, 2008

Dear son,

A-ga-ga. A-goo-goo.

Last week you turned two months old and overnight became a new baby. One day you were a squished up little red thing, and the next you had discernible facial features and a newfound ability to talk back to your parents, a fact that continues to delight all three of us.

In the past four weeks you have learned how to sleep for at least 5-7 hours once the sun goes down, which has utterly saved my sanity, and by default, your father’s as well. The first time you slept through the night I awoke at about 6 in the morning wondering who the hell was making it light at 3.30am. I couldn’t have been more proud of you than I was that morning, except I was twice as proud the next morning because you proved you were no flash in the pan when it came to sleeping in big chunks once the sky went dark, oh no, because you slept for seven hours straight again.

This last month has been hard for me as my depression has returned, but thanks to a marvellous little white tablet I get to take every morning, I can see hope now where before I could only see a dark, dim forest with no relief in sight.

You and I are continuing to take our wee town of Royston Vasey by storm as we attend mother and baby groups each Monday and Thursday. Ignoring the Stepford Wives, you and I charm the normal mothers, one of whom is actually our neighbour. You and her daughter get along very well, as well as you can when you are 2 and 3 months old and can’t roll over.

Each week you get bigger, and longer and stronger, and with each day you seem to unfurl and grow even more. You are starting to develop likes and dislikes, and you get better at expressing those as well. You particularly like your squeaky pirate, a gift from Aunty Mella, and the faces your dad pulls at you first thing in the morning. You also are quite soft on the faces of unfamiliar women, who in turn seem to think you are utterly gorgeous. Works both ways.

This week you received your first round of immunisations, a fact which pleases you less and less as the days pass. When the nurse jabbed your thigh the first time you looked at her as if to say, hey, I thought you were a bit of all right but clearly I was mistaken. By the second jab you were even less impressed about the whole deal and made your displeasure known to the entire surgery waiting room and most of the folks on the high street as we walked home.

You are still feeding for England, and possibly for Australia as well, and are growing out of your clothes faster than your father and I can be bothered going shopping to buy more.

I can’t really think of anything else to write at the moment, my snufflebug. But this is month two of your life, and as far as Dad and I are concerned, it’s the start of a great big wonderful adventure with you, and I want to make sure that we keep a record of things.

Love,

Mum.

Week 40 and a bit: where are you? February 8, 2008

Dear pikelet,

We were just wondering, your parents, why you have decided to be late. given that your parents are consistent over-estimators when it comes to working out how long it takes to get anywhere, and have been late for a sum total of about ooh, three things in their whole lives, our question to you is this: WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?

I, your mother, cannot talk on the phone any more, which is like your father voluntarily electing to never again use computers (but the day that happens is the day the world will end or men will suddenly develop the ability to bear a child, so no fear there), because I know every fucking time that phone rings it’ll be yet another well meaning friend or relative agog with excitement about your ALLEGEDLY impending arrival, screaming ANY NEWS YET? ARE YOU A MUMMY YET? To which my response has been thus far, no, and no, but if you want news cop this: I’ve watched five episodes in a row of Jamie Oliver’s home cooking/gardening show, which is more TV than I’ve watched in one hit for over two years. Take that. Pow, ANY NEWS IN YOUR FACE.

I, your beloved mother, who has thus far in your short, short life sacrificed her career, wardrobe, healthy eating regime, and any appearance of being even vaguely interested in housework in order to being you life, limbs and eyelashes, believes that YOU OWE ME TO SHOW UP. I would really like that, today, if at all possible, and even if it means going through many many hours of pain in the downstairs area or several gigantic needles in my spine combined with a lovely bit of gut splicing. Or even both. I am that desperate to rejoin the human race, the race that stands about and walks at normal paces and doesn’t get winded by the mere thought of walking up a flight of stairs. I would like my bladder back; I would like to be able to sleep in more than one position, in fact, I’d dearly love to just get some damn sleep.

We think you are a bit of a joker, and we’re cool with that, except for all the Braxton Hicks contractions you keep tricking me with. I get two in a row and I’m heading to the phone to ring your father, to say, this is IT, come home now and lavish (even more) attention (than usual) upon me and ease my discomfort, and then you in your wisdom will think it’s a tiny bit cruel to lead an excitable woman on in such a way, and settle down to a good hour of hiccupping and then a bit of a kick and a long nap.

I have already worked out that this is my first lesson of parenting: I may very much want you to do something, but if you don’t want to do it when I want you to, you won’t. You’ll do it in your own sweet time, and all I can really do is guide you and cross my fingers.

So hurry up already.

Week 39: we’re ready as we’ll ever be February 1, 2008

Dear sproglet,

Aside from the remake of the Saturday Night Fever album cover position, and the head-banging to Nirvana position, neither of which bother your father or me particularly, even while in the womb, did you have to take up the posterior position as your preference, just before birth?

At least we can count our blessings: you’re not bum first, you’re not sideways, but you are … tricky. Doing things your own way, just like your parents, I figure. And we’re cool with that. But don’t let it remain unsaid that we won’t try and guide you into a position - like, say, ANTERIOR AND EASY THROUGH THE BIRTH CANAL, BUSTER - on your way out. Or is it the way in?

And unfortunately pretty much the only way I can guide you into a better position for birth is by crawling around on my hands and knees for as much of the day as possible and reading the paper on all fours. Let me say it now: THE THINGS I DO FOR YOU, CHILD. One website I read even suggested going up and down the stairs sideways and trying to sleep on my belly. That website was clearly written by someone who has never been pregnant before.

Anyway, whichever, but consider this your official eviction notice. Your new room is ready, resplendent with decorations home made by your parents and Aunty-Lady-Jane, we’ve packed the labour bag, and we are pretty much just hanging around out here while you hang around in there. Why not come out and join us?

After spending so long in denial about what it’s going to take to get you into this world (either many hours of pain in the downstairs area, including the infamous ring of fire; OR a fucken big needle or six in my spine and my guts cut open to find you) I have finally reached a point of just being completely tired of being the pregnant lady who can’t move further than from the couch to the fridge.

I have watched as much Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, 24 (Series 1) and re-runs of the Sopranos as I can handle. I’ve played way, way too many hours of MarioKart. I grew heartily tired months ago of those conversations with strangers wherein they inquire how long I have to go, then deign to impart to me their opinion about my weight, appearance and whether I’m still carrying to high to give birth. I have even stopped caring whether I punch those people in the face any more.

I’ve stopped answering the phone, partly because I cannot have any more Have you had it yet? NO! conversations, and partly because the phone is usually at the other end of the house to my grossly large beached whaleness. Very inconsiderate for a cordless phone.

I’ve even grown tired of the fucking computer. How am I even writing this? M i n d p o w e r. Get used to it, kid. By the time you understand what that means I’ll have eyes in the back of my head, too.

My pretend contractions are increasing with each passing day. This morning I had three strong ones in a row, the first of which woke me from my futile attempt at dozing while carrying a small elephant inside my female parts. Then your father made me coffee, I remembered there was the internet and bills to pay and then it was 2pm and I was still in my jimmy-jammies waiting for labour to start for real. Not unlike right now.

I was going to write a big long post about promises I want to make to you, and ones your father will smile and nod to, because he knows who the boss is of this family, the real boss, not the one who goes out to work Monday to Friday. In the outside world. With other people. Where they drink on Friday afternoons. And stand around. Bastards.

So these promises. I had a great post about it all lined up in my head at about 3am yesterday, and then forgot it, because my brain is still all mushy from the carrying a small elephant around in my girl parts for the past nine months thing, and then I thought about writing it again and realised that I just couldn’t be bothered.

And yet, here I am, so here goes, but first with the things I won’t be able to promise, and you’re just going to have to deal with that (send us the therapist’s bill):

1. I can’t promise that I’ll never spit on a tissue and then wipe crusty bits of food from your face right before you get out of the car to go to school. Sorry.

2. I can’t ever promise for definite that I won’t ever say: “You don’t have to like it, you just have to it eat it” or “I don’t say no for fun, you know” or “This hurts me more than it hurts you”. Again, sorry.

What I CAN promise, however:

1. Never to negate your feelings. What you feel is what you feel, and that goes for me and your pa as well. We will deal with our feelings and emotions about issues, events, problems, whatever - together, as a family. No drama (unless you really want some).

2. To take responsibility for my own feelings, and to separate them from your behaviour as best I can when you decide the loungeroom wall looks much better covered in glitter and non-removable crayon.

2. Never to put you down for what you are wearing, even if it means gritting my teeth from saying anything. Listen, the second you can dress yourself (which will be when, you’re three? four? help me out here), you’re doing your parents a big favour by removing a chore from their never-ending list. What are your thoughts on dusting, by the way?

3. Never to bust into your room without knocking. If your door’s closed, you cute little sulky teenager you, I’ll knock. I’m sure you’ll put me back in my place if I don’t.

4. To admit my mistakes, as a human, who is continuing to learn about life.

5. To accept when I am wrong.

6. To take you to Glastonbury one day. If you’ll have me.

Week 30: the nest December 1, 2007

Dear mini-me,

I am busting a gut to get ready for your imminent arrival. Well, when I say ‘imminent’, what I actually mean is ‘arrival in ten weeks or thereabouts’.

Your father and I have found a proper, growed up house for us to live in, complete with a back garden and a bathtub the size of a large park pond. I fully intend to spend whatever time I’m not napping or nesting in that bath, even once you arrive.

Your movements are becoming more pronounced and it’s hard for me not to think that you’re conspiring against me, because every time I stop still, even if it’s just in a supermarket queue, you ark up in there and give me an elbow in the liver or a head butt against the bladder just to let me know that hey, you might only be 1.25kgs, but you got the power, yunno? When’s a kid gonna stand up for its right to sleep if not starting in the womb?

Yeah. I know.

So as my third and final trimester trickles towards its inevitable end (and result), your presence down there is becoming more keenly felt than ever before. I can tell which bit of you is a foot, and where your head is. And watching you ripple the surface of my great white expansive belly is akin to watching a homemade version of The Exorcist. But in a nice way.

Clothes and gifts continue to pour in from relatives and friends. Tomorrow I get to visit The Great Swede By The Motorway and pick out a few things like feeding chairs and bathmats and £1 bargains I doubt I’ll need but will buy anyway.

Time for a nap.

Love, mum.

Week 12: you’re real July 30, 2007

Dear space prawn,

On Thursday your father and I got to see for the first time that you’re really in there, and you have four limbs in working order, a head, a nose, fingers and toes all accounted for and a very cute little wriggle action when you’re woken up.

We had our scans for Down’s Syndrome and to date your arrival properly.

I was a bit nervous before we went in. What if there were two of you in there? (At least that might help explain my gargantuan eating habits).

I lay back on the bed as the doctor spread some cold gel on

Week 11: child, how shall I discipline thee? July 21, 2007

My mother brought me up in a very “I am NOT having my daughter brought up how I was” kind of way.

Which meant, on the good side, that there was always food on the table, the electricity never got cut off and I never, ever saw my mother having a good time. As in, get drunk with mates at home. Or go out and get drunk with mates. No matter. Perhaps it is just not her way.

On the down side, my mother was extremely strict about my comings and goings, what I wore, who I spoke to on the phone, which people I hung out with. As a teenager, I felt very constrained, suffocated and frustrated by the sheer weight of the rules in our house.

For a long time whenever I thought about having kids, how I would discipline them came down to this: I am not going to do it the way it was done to me. Ergo, the pattern repeats, the pendulum swings, the cycle continues.

Can you imagine this dialogue in 15 years time (perish the thought I will one day parent a teenager)?

ME: YES, you bloody well will young man.

HIM: NO. I WON’T.

ME: When you’re living under our roof, boy, you live by our rules. Now DO IT.

HIM: (through gritted teeth) I. WILL. NOT.

ME: You will, and you’ll LIKE IT TOO.

HIM: NO I WON’T!!

ME: DRINK THAT VODKA YOUNG MAN, OR I’LL … I’LL … I’LL BLOODY WELL FORCE IT DOWN YOU!

HIM: Muuuuuum … I just want to read my book! LEAVE ME ALONE.

Weeks 10-11: my health, my god, the system, philosophies on gender and parenting in general July 14, 2007

My general health

I went through a real phase when I was about 28 of reading pregnancy week-by-week books, partly possibly because I subconsciously thought at the time that it might actually make me pregnant, a state I feared and hoped in equal amounts I’d be at the end of each 28 day cycle for as long as I could remember.

I also read them partly because of what I call the Snot Factor. Everybody has a Snot Factor, some have a factor higher than others. I, personally, have a reasonably high factor. I have no problem squeezing The Beloved’s zits, no problem watching pus or operations on the telly. So I partly read these books for the Snot Factor, thinking at the time: err! that’s gross yet fascinating! my body won’t do that. will it?

It has. It pleases me not.

Heartburn? Tick. Constipation? Tick. Oh, go on then, a bit of reflux? TICK. Indi-fucken-gestion? Tickety fucken tick. Let’s not forget the ever expanding bosoms and the ache they cause me when I move position in the night. Or the constant action in my bladder. Fucks sake. And it’s only week 10-and-a-half.

Having never experienced heartburn before, after my first attack I had to calm myself down (because there’s this part of your brain that goes, oh, shiiiiiit, I’m dying … IS THIS IT? NO BABY? NO WEDDING? Oh, man … aaarrrggghhh!!! the pain! I AM DYING!) then get myself to a chemist quick smart to get some pregnant-safe antacid.

A double-edged sword: the agony I was undergoing with heartburn was equalled only by the really shitty tasting tablets I had to chew to get rid of it, a pint of milk not being within buying distance. I mean, aniseed tasting salty chalk?? What the fuck?

Small sundry health snipes aside, my general health is good. The morning sickness has subsided (mostly) and been replaced with the most gnawing hunger I’ve ever experienced. I wake up hungry, I wake up in the night hungry, I go to work after three bits of toast and a bowl of cereal and I get hungry; this is interrupted only by mild nausea mid-afternoon in combination with the almost completely overwhelming urge to sleep my life away, at least for the subsequent 60 minutes.

My health, according to the system

I endured my first visit from my allocated midwife last week. Madam Too Busy To Be Nice was very busy ticking all the boxes on all the forms and rushing through the asking of questions that she forgot her bedside manner and to be gentle when she took my blood. She was also too busy to take my blood properly, so some of our test results are now a little late in arriving. If she’s like that sticking a needle in my arm, I thought, there is no way she’s getting near my clacker. Absolutely no fucking way.

Not impressed, was my assessment, and after two days of hand-wringing, desperate for some way through the maze of the NHS that would allow me to pick someone who, you know, at the very least acted like she gave a shit I was pregnant and going to squeeze a giant watermelon out of my clacker in about seven months, but for a while there I thought I was going to be stuck with the dragon the “free” system threw my way. Luckily, this is not the case. Luckily, I have a very nice GP who specialises in antenatal care at my local surgery, so after a wee weep with the district nurse, who took my blood properly and gently, my problem was solved. One step at a time. And breathe.

Baby brain: not so much

One of the first signs for me that something was a little up the duff was that the sound of kids and babies crying no longer bothered me. It still no longer bothers me, to the point that I now bother new mums on trains and in the shops to start up a conversation about how I’m pregnant and ooh, so cuuute! The little one! And where did you get that pram from?

My baby brain does not extend, however, to sighing and cooing over baby clothes in shops. In the shops, clothes for babies under six months are in neutral colours like beige (NEVER ON MY WATCH), white (clearly made by people whose babies don’t shit or vomit), pastel pink or pastel blue. Over six months there is immediate and very distinct gender characterisation occurring: clothes are either pink/red or blue. Flowers or trains. Hearts or bears.

WHERE IS THE FUNKY PURPLE? THE CRAZY ORANGE? THE CLOTHING THAT ISN’T CROSS MARKETED WITH A MOVIE/TOY?? WHERE, good people, where?

This antiquated notion of rigid and boring gender roles for fucking humans WHO CAN’T EVEN WALK, let alone think for themselves, my god, what is this? My brain does not understand this need to relate to a boy baby differently to a girl baby. It’s just a baby. *It* doesn’t care what it wears, as long as it’s warm and dry. It’s only a societal, adult perception that babies and toddlers should be immediately identified as either a boy or a girl, leading on, still, boring as it is, to relating and coaxing those little human sponges into continuing this gender stereotyping that I REALLY FUCKING HATE.

I have for quite some time been of the opinion that people should relate to, and treat each other as exactly that, people first, and your esteem for another be based on information, evidence, words and deeds. It doesn’t matter their sex.

Apparently the makers of children’s apparel are of a different opinion.

Fine. Fuck them. I’ll learn to sew my own.

Parenting in general

The Beloved and I have been talking about parenting and how we are going to approach the family dynamic once this sprog comes into the world.

We have talked well into the night about what it means to be happy, and what we think makes a child happy (other than boob juice and swaddling). I think we are united in how we are going to go about things, which gives me confidence going into this thing.

A child cannot be spoiled with too much love. There is no such thing as too much love for a child, I really believe that. You cannot spoil a child by telling it you love it every day. But children are spoiled with toys and other material things and given love in ways that spoil them. I am already committed to making sure that my child will never doubt my love, never question who its family is, or doubt that it can talk to me or The Beloved, about anything. It may doubt my methods, and will probably spend a great deal of its teenage years hating my guts in general for being embarrassing (can’t wait to spit on the tissue to wipe on its face!!) or for not buying that PlayStation X, or whatever the latest game will be by then. But it will never hanker for my time or my (quality) attention.

Unless it’s having a tanty. Then it’ll just get locked back under the stairs, where it belongs.