Summer Holiday Shenanigans #1

As you may already know, I am currently on a 2 week holiday from work. S's nursery closes for 2 weeks, so I have no choice but to take that time off work.

As I mentioned in this post, I had been a bit worried that, after 3 months of her being entertained at nursery, S might be bored by just boring old me. I was worried that, since she has grown and developed so much over those 3 months, I might have forgotten how to spend time with her.

Actually, it turns out we're having quite a lot of fun. I thought it might be fun to make some posts about what we've been up to...

Monday 12 August

Went for a walk into town; bought some things for messy play, walked in and out of the M&S automatic doors about 50 times.

Had fantastic fun with messy play cake dough (which you can read about on Edspire); also made cakes and played with that silly soap stuff. S was not impressed with that though.

Went for a long walk with my 2 sisters and the trike.

S had tea and then the world's shortest bath before zonking out 10 minutes before bed time. Successful day!

Tuesday 13 August

Despite going to bed early, S had not slept well and was rather tired. We didn't go for a walk in the morning; instead she played on the mats for a while, then had a rather long nap.

Both of my sisters came round for a while, and iced yesterday's cakes while we went out to visit my cousin, who lives on the other side of town.

Once S had gotten used to seeing different faces, she had a fabulous time. She made friends with the giant Newfoundland dog, poked at the rabbits, almost allowed the guinea pigs to escape, and spent a good half hour just running up and down the garden.

When we came home S was a little cranky, so she sat on the work surface next to me and played with some bits while I made tea.

S had trouble sleeping again, so I put a dvd on for her; but she fell asleep really quickly, and slept through til 7 the next morning!

Wednesday 14 August

Out for a walk in the morning; I have learned this is the best way to guarantee a good nap! In and out of M&S automatic doors several times, but a meltdown when I introduced S to the escalator, and another when I allowed her to climb the stairs in Boots (holding my hands) but not to immediately go back down and do it again. We did spend 10 minutes in the downstairs window of Boots waving at passing cars though.

After S had had a nap and lunch, we went to soft play with both of my sisters.

We had never been to soft play before; it was fun, and S enjoyed herself; but I did not enjoy the lack of supervision of the older children, and the number of rude, obnoxious children who came into the baby/toddler area and jumped around or threw things so that it wasn't particularly safe for the younger ones. I got really angry to be honest, and in the end we gave up and left. S had a fabulous time though, and thoroughly enjoyed going down the slide!

Super messy tea (not on purpose), then bath and bed. Out like a light again! 

Thursday 15 August

Off to Bournemouth with my sister A, to visit the Oceanarium. We timed it with genius precision, so that S slept for almost the entire bus journey down there. Fabulous time had by all in the Oceanarium, slight rain situation did nothing to dampen our moods and we had a lovely toddle through the gardens before catching the bus home. Lovely day.

Friday 16 August

We had no plans, but we'd had a reasonably busy week so decided to have a quiet one. Accidentally went puddle splashing in the morning, when we nipped out for some bits and it started peeing down. S was happily splashing about in her rain coat; I was trying to be patient in my white top and no coat!

S had a massively long nap over lunch time, then we played a bit more, made cakes, and went back out for another wander. A nice lazy day!

You can read about our second week off here!

Early Motherhood - The End of the Paternity Leave

This post is one of a series I have written about S's birth and first few weeks of life. The first part is here.

The next few weeks were very stressful and confusing for me. 

I have already posted about how the ex hated my midwife, and I was therefore keen to have her discharge us from hospital care. S was still jaundiced, and I was terrified they would take her back into hospital; I knew if they did this, I wouldn't be admitted with her, and would have to be separated from her. That first visit, the midwife did another heel-prick test on S for her jaundice levels and weighed her. She had lost a bit of weight and I nearly cried. She told me the best thing to do was to feed, feed, feed, and to prop up the head end of her Moses basket to avoid any vomiting. I was also supposed to express milk into a cup or syringe, and top her up after feeding. This was the most depressing thing, as I didn't have a pump and had to do it by hand; it took ages and hurt, and was often wasted as S turned her head away at the wrong moment. Premature and jaundiced babies are often too tired to suck enough to feed as much as they need to get rid of the jaundice and put on weight. S slept most of the time, and I was still waking her every 3 hours to feed.

My tiny girl wrapped in blankets

That first day, the ex busied himself unpacking what was left of the boxes in my flat, and putting things where he thought they should belong. He went out to get teabags, and came back with a microwave. He'd forgotten the teabags, so he went back out and came back with a vacuum cleaner, broom, dustpan and brush and mop and some random food: bread, jam, cheese. He wanted to provide for us. I avoid eating bread because it makes me ill. I already had a dustpan and brush. I don't even drink tea. When I took the mop out of its box, it was broken. When I pointed it out to him he shouted at me: "I can't do anything f***ing right can I, nothing's good enough!" All I'd meant was that perhaps he'd like to take it back to the shop and exchange it. At one point he told me he might not be able to get a sitter to be able to see me over the weekend, and gave me £20, sending me to the shops to buy some food for myself. I left S sleeping in her bouncy chair, and him organising things in a cupboard, and wandered into town. It was nice to be out in the air, but I felt like I was missing a limb without S. It also crossed my mind more than once that I might return home and find that the ex had taken her away. I half expected the house to be empty when I returned, but it wasn't so I sat on the sofa with S and fed her early.

Because of the damp upstairs, the council had brought over a dehumidifier the size of a cooker. It was in the bedroom, wired up to some special box because it was too powerful to run off the mains. The man who brought it showed the ex how to work it, but he never showed me. This meant I couldn't switch it off, and the noise and heat it generated were too much to sleep with. For the next week, S and I slept downstairs, me on the sofa and her in the Moses basket next to me. I was still setting my alarm for every 3 hours, and would wake up, switch the TV on and feed her, then settle her back into the basket, switch the TV off and go to sleep. Several times, I then woke up half an hour later in a panic - I couldn't remember putting S in her basket, had I fallen asleep holding her? Where was she? Oh God, you've suffocated the baby, where is she, where is she... oh wait, she's in the basket next to you. I would also regularly wake up in a panic, convinced I'd slept through an alarm and S had gone more than 3 hours without a feed. I was exhausted and it was driving me mad. All I could think about was making sure she was fed on time so that her jaundice went, and she put on weight, and nobody would take her away from me.

The following day the ex was unable to visit. My mother came round instead, with a friend. They brought gifts for S, clothes that would fit her which was good. I forget what we talked about. When they left, the friend gave me a hug and told me I'd done really well and S was beautiful. I didn't know how to respond to that; I wanted to shout at her, no I haven't done well! Look what I did, I went into labour early and now my baby is tiny and orange and they're going to take her away because I'm doing it all wrong!! I knew it was all my fault, that something I had done over the Easter weekend had resulted in my going into labour 5 weeks early. Throughout my pregnancy the ex had told me so many times that other women had been pregnant with his child and ended up having abortions, they'd murdered his babies, and that if anything happened to this baby he would never forgive me.

The midwife visited a couple more times, and then discharged us. I was so relieved at this; no more tension with the ex thinking I was telling the midwife bad things about him. More importantly, if the midwife had discharged us then I thought she must think I was doing an ok job, and wouldn't take my baby away. I was petrified those first few weeks that I would be somehow "found out" and they would take S back to the hospital, where she would be safe away from me.

My little orange baby!

The pushchair I had bought was quite large and cumbersome. I found that I wasn't comfortable bumping it up and down the stairs with my tiny baby in it. This meant that I could only go out of the house when accompanied by the ex. If he didn't visit, or came round and didn't fancy going out, I was stuck in the house. I wanted to buy a sling, but had no money until pay day. A dear friend must have realised I was going a bit mad being stuck in the house, and posted me a sling she had not been able to get on with for her baby. The minute it arrived, I read the instructions as to how to tie it, put it on, and put S in it. That day was like a transformation in me. I didn't just wear the sling to go out; I wore it all the time, happy that I could now keep S close to me. The ex insisted S would not be warm enough in the sling, and bought a snowsuit which she had to wear whenever we went out. 

The week after we came out of hospital, we went to the council offices to register S's birth. As was standard, S was wrapped in 3 or 4 blankets inside of the pram, with a rain cover over the top because of the weather. How she never overheated during those first few weeks, I will never know. She must have been boiling. When we arrived at the office, we had to leave the pram outside and go into a waiting room. The ex carried S. He held her in the waiting room, and refused to let me near her. When we went into the office to register her, he held her. At the time I felt strange, not being allowed to hold my child. Looking back at it, I  notice that I was not allowed to hold my child until I had signed the register, put his name on the birth certificate, and answered the registrar three times that yes, I was sure I wanted her to have his surname and him to be on the birth certificate. I couldn't figure out why she kept asking me, and telling me that it was my choice, and mine alone. I held S briefly while he signed the register, but then I had to give her back. We were given copies of the birth certificate, and we left. 

I was glad when S was back in the pushchair, because I was allowed to push that. I did it wrong, of course, and was constantly told I was being stupid about waiting to cross the road and not bumping up and down kirbs. His favourite trick was to suddenly take off down a steep kirb and cross the road diagonally, then turn around to smirk at me trying to get across the road and keep up with him without getting run over. He also regularly tutted at me for being too slow and cautious. On the days we took her out in the sling, again he stormed off ahead of us, and I had to try and keep up without having S bump about too much in the sling.

None of this turned out to matter though; within a week the ex had stormed out, and a few days after that he finished with me. I was soon to become a single mother.

The happy ending is on its way... 

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Our Week: 26 Nov - 01 Dec

Monday 26 Nov
Up early and out to a mother and toddler group. Had ummed and ahhed about going, but figured I had nothing to lose by just trying it out. Turns out it was great fun, S had a good old shout, and we both really enjoyed song time at the end. It did mess with nap time a little though, meaning S slept for 20 minutes on the way there and 20 minutes on the way home, and had a slightly rushed lunch before we went back out to meet a friend for lunch. Awful experience in Slug & Lettuce (though S enjoyed herself, and I had a good catch-up with said friend) followed by S falling asleep again on the way home. Afternoon spent trying to clear junk from the living room whilst being distracted by a baby who has discovered her ability to squawk like a super-cute pterodactyl.

Tuesday 27 Nov
Morning spent clearing junk out of the living room ready for the floor to be put down tomorrow. Horrifying moment around lunch time when I looked around and realised that I'd removed 80% of the stuff, and the room still looked full. I've a feeling a lot of things will be thrown out rather than coming back into the room once the floor is down. Afternoon spent at a local church's mother and baby group. Lovely people, an invite to their Christmas party, and some strawberries! Walked home with my sister, who helped to move the sofa. And then more stuff-moving, while S resolutely refused to sleep.

Wednesday 28 Nov
A brief reprieve from the floor-laying meant a quiet day at home. D visited in the morning, S had a couple of good naps, things were cool. Didn't leave the house all day; it was bliss. Oh yeah, and I got asked out on a date. Nearly fell off my chair.

Thursday 29 Nov
My brother came to lay the floor, so S and I hibernated upstairs for the morning, playing with toys and mucking about. My sister turned up around lunch time, and we took S into town for a little wander and a spot of Christmas shopping, before coming home for a man from the council to assess the damage to my bedroom ceiling from a persistently leaky roof. Afternoon spent chatting to a lovely friend who doesn't visit often.

Friday 30 Nov
Up reasonably early and off to a Buggyfun class - I'd not been for a while because the class had moved to a place horribly close to the ex's house, but it moved back to its original location this week and I was very excited to get back to it. Nearly killed myself with running and a mini assault course, but had a massive grin on my face walking home. Visit from a friend at lunch time; afternoon spent having a go at putting all the junk back in the living room... Got as far as putting the Christmas tree up...

Saturday 01 Dec
Left S with a babysitter for the first time. Before I've left her with a family member outside of a shop, or left my sister pushing her around town in the buggy while I had my hair done... This morning I went into town for a whole hour, while she stayed at home with my sister A. Afternoon spent baking. S played happily with a wooden spoon, a pastry brush and a silicone oven glove.

We Will Remember Them

I took S to her first ever Armistice Day parade this morning. To be fair, she slept through most of it - but she was still there.

Members of the City Council

Veterans during the wreath laying

Veterans on the parade to the church

Various regiments on the parade to the church

The Band arriving at the church

This is a city with a large army presence, a lot of troops are stationed around here, and until recently Land Command was based here. This and the good weather meant there was a fairly large crowd for the outdoor ceremony, which was nice. The Gurkhas joined the parade too, which I've not seen before.

We didn't go to the church service afterwards; I figured after 90 minutes standing outside in the cold, I was pushing my luck for either of us to last through a church service.

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Health & Fitness

A few weeks ago I posted on Facebook that I was having trouble deciding on subjects for blog posts. Someone suggested I write about health and fitness, and this is a post I’ve been working on, off and on, since that point…

A couple of years ago, I was a real gym bunny. I would regularly get up before 6 each morning and spend an hour in the gym before work. I would often go back for a class at lunch time, and on a weekend I would often spend three or four hours there. I saw a personal trainer regularly, who would inspire me to exercise and eat healthily, and really pushed me with my fitness. I would often be found in the weights bay at the gym, doing squats with a ridiculously heavy bar, or doing some weird exercise involving balancing on one leg whilst holding heavy dumbbells.

Then I had a nervous breakdown, and I never quite got back to the gym before I found myself pregnant and skint. I tried to stay active throughout my pregnancy, and would walk (or waddle) the two miles to and from work each day.

When S was born, and then her father left, I was very aware that I was at a high risk for postnatal depression – so was the health visitor, and she kept mentioning it. I was adamant I didn’t want the health visitor, doctors or anyone else to be at all concerned about me or my ability to look after my daughter. And I didn’t want to end up slipping into another pit I couldn’t drag myself out of. I knew from past experience that the best way of avoiding that was to ensure I exercised, and got out of the house every day – even on the days when I really didn’t feel like it. Especially on those days.

And so I went on Ebay and bought a cheaper, lighter pushchair so that I could lift it up and down the stairs on my own. And every morning, when S got me up at shit-o-clock, I would bundle her into the pushchair and go for a walk. We started off by going for a short walk, a couple of miles or so, and built up. On days we didn’t go for a walk, I would put S in the sling and walk around town while she napped.

Me walking with the pushchair

These days, I weight about a stone less than I did before I got pregnant. I started off going out for walks just for something to kill time, and to get us out of the house – but then I found I enjoyed feeling like I’d done some proper exercise, and would push myself to go further, faster than the previous day, incorporating hills, running between street lamps and taking the longer route wherever possible. There are several different routes I walk locally, and have even attempted to go “off road” and follow non-paths around a nature reserve a couple of times. There’s a notoriously punishing steep path called Stinky quite near to one of my usual routes, which I used to walk up every day last summer. I’m tempted to see if I can get the pushchair up there but I’ve not plucked up the courage yet.  Now I try to go for a long walk at least twice a week. Sometimes I will meet up with a friend, and on Saturday mornings my sister A will come along with us and we’ll do some extra cardio and conditioning work in the park too.

When I’d been doing my longer walks for a couple of weeks, I saw my old personal trainer in a park on the other side of town, busy putting someone through their paces. She stopped long enough to coo over S, and to tell me she ran a Buggy Fun class in the park on a Thursday morning. We went along that week, and had a great time. A, the trainer, now runs a local fitness company called Girls Love Fit with a friend, and is as crazy and motivating as ever. It was great to meet other mums and do something more energetic than the usual baby group stuff. We walked or ran up and down a hill in the park, did pilates-style conditioning moves, used park equipment to do push or pull-ups, talked about our weeks and felt good for working out while our babies played peekaboo with A or her 2-year-old daughter, who sometimes came along and made an excellent stand-in to play with the babies while we were laying on the floor doing crunches or leg lifts. Unfortunately the class I was going to merged recently with another one, and it is now run from somewhere different that I can’t go to, for reasons I won’t go into on here. It’s a crying shame, as I really enjoyed Buggy Fun and it gave me the confidence to push myself a lot more in my exercise. I would walk the long way out to the park for the class, and often on the way home I would push myself to run or to take a longer route. I’m hoping I can eventually go back to the class if my situation changes, and would definitely recommend it to anyone

I still have an umbilical hernia caused by my abs separating during pregnancy, which means I try to do a fair bit in the way of core work each week. If I fall behind on that, I really do notice it in a fairly painful way. That’s probably a good thing though, as it means I use my core muscles when I’m bumping the pushchair up and down the stairs, and am always pullign my belly in!

My diet is still less than fantastic, which is something I work on daily; especially since S started on solids. Most mornings I will have a fruit smoothie comprising of several of the following: raspberries and blueberries (frozen if fresh are not available); any other fruit I have hanging about the kitchen; fresh ginger; protein powder; spirulina powder; spinach (you can’t taste it); left over apple puree from S’s breakfast; yogurt; fruit juice. The drink tends to be purpley in colour, fills a pint glass, and usually keeps me happy until around lunch time. Lunch is usually a salad, either tuna, salmon or cottage cheese unless I’ve splashed out and bought something different or cooked some chicken. Evening meals are hit and miss: some days I’ll cook something “proper,” and other days I’ll have fish fingers and grill a red pepper at the same time to make it look a little healthier.

This all makes it sound like I have a super healthy diet and should be stick thin so let me just add that between meals, especially in the afternoons and evenings, I probably consume as many calories as contained in my regular meals in the form of cakes, biscuits, crisps and chocolate. This is the part I need to work on, along with all the Coke I drink. I did go through a (very yawny) couple of months where I went completely cold turkey on the Coke, what with the breastfeeding and all. Then Costa lured me back in again, and once I’d started on the caffeine it was easy to slip back into the Coke habit. I don’t drink anywhere near as much as I used to, but there are still a lot of empty calories (and chemicals, and caffeine) in there. I have switched to decaf Costa visits though, something that makes me cringe with each visit, as my order is now about 8 words long.

Today I am wearing jeans I stopped wearing months before I got pregnant, because they were a little too tight. These days they are too big, and I have to wear a belt. I have to admit I think I owe a lot of my post-pregnancy weight/inch loss to the fact I did a set of power plate sessions within a month of coming home from the hospital. I would go for a walk to ensure S was asleep in the pushchair, and then go and spend anything from 10 to 40 minutes doing various exercises on a power plate in the back of a local sunbed place. The advertisement posters they had up on the walls said that it helped to get rid of cellulite and “reset” your body, which I thought was a load of rubbish but to be honest, with very little effort I lost a fair bit of weight, and managed to tone up some quite saggy bits as well. Now I just have to make sure I don’t undo that with too many biscuits!

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Ponderings on Body Image

Look! It's Lizzie!

Some of my earliest memories are of my mother being on a diet. We would have our dinner; she would sit at the end of the table with a bland-looking baked potato with cottage cheese. It wasn’t just her; one day when I was no more than about 5, I walked into our living room to find her and two of her friends sitting on the floor, trying to walk on their bottoms like they’d seen on some exercise show. I remember them being very impressed that I could do it. It was the 80s, the era when Lizzie Webb encouraged us to exercise each morning on Good Morning Britain with that maniacal Jokeresque grin. The era when the workout video really began. The entire nation was on a diet.

When I was in first school, our PE classes were mainly playing with hula hoops in the playground, or kicking a ball back and forth. When I moved up to middle school, all of a sudden they wanted us to do cross country running through the woods. And so began my hatred of all things exercise. I spent secondary school coming up with elaborate excuses to get out of PE class, and was relieved when I went to college and found nobody cared whether I could play netball or not. I spent the next few years studiously avoiding all exercise. When I got a bit too chubby and needed to lose weight, I would go on a diet, as per years of examples in my life and the media. I never liked the way my body looked, and would usually just wear baggy clothes to cover my belly. At best, the shape of my body was something I tolerated.

A few years ago I joined a gym, and got really into it. I saw a personal trainer a couple of times a month, went to tons of classes, and at one point was in the gym every morning at 6:30am. I loved it. Then I had a breakdown, and it all stopped. Ironically, I also stopped eating for a time, and so finally my stomach was flat. I had something of an epiphany in a La Senza changing room where I realised my belly was flat, and yet I was completely miserable. I’d always thought if I could just take another couple of inches off my waist, I’d be happy.

Oddly, I think becoming pregnant and having a baby has done a lot for my body image. As soon as I had a bit of a bump, and I was supposed to be fat, I wore tight, figure-hugging clothes to show it off. Because I exercised throughout my pregnancy, and had some rather ridiculous amounts of stress to deal with, the weight I put on stayed on the bump. Once S was born, I was lucky in that the excess weight seemed to shift fairly quickly, and of its own accord. Because I was keen to ensure I stayed mentally fit, I went for lots of walks with S, which helped.

S's growth chart. Go us!

When S was born, she weighed 5 pounds. Relatively large for a baby born 5 weeks early, but still tiny. She was very skinny; I have photos of her sleeping where you can clearly see her ribs, and her legs were so small I couldn’t see how they would ever support her weight. As she’s grown, I’ve enjoyed the way she’s become podgy, like a baby is supposed to be. She has the most adorable little rolls of chub on her thighs and when she puts her head down she has a double chin. It feels strange to be celebrating fatness, when my whole life I’ve strived for exactly the opposite. She weighs 16 pounds now, and a friend commented to me that she looks really good for a premature baby who’s been fed only breast milk up until fairly recently. If I’m honest, the fact she is now on the 50^th centile on the growth chart in her little red book is probably the biggest achievement of my life to date.

Having a child, and thinking about the hang-ups I still have about my body, I am very mindful that I don’t want to pass that attitude onto my daughter. I remember a friend commenting a while back that her 5-year-old daughter had come home from school one day worried because someone had called her fat. I am very aware of the fact that although S is only 6 months old and cannot speak, she is very alert and takes everything in. She sees me inspecting myself in the mirror, changing my top if the one I first put on doesn’t look right. She sees what I eat, sees the crisps I grab when I can’t be bothered to put a proper meal together. Nothing motivates you to make an effort with your self image like knowing you could cause the same issues in your child. I love S with all my heart; she is the most perfect thing I have ever seen. To think that she could ever look in the mirror and not think the same would break my heart.

These days there is such an emphasis on image, and children seem to be sexualised earlier and earlier. Not so long ago a 4-year-old girl told me she had a new boyfriend at school. Makeup and bikinis are marketed to increasingly younger age groups, and the majority of toys for girls these days are based around appearance. It terrifies me to think my daughter will be growing up in this environment, where everyone looks up to Kim Kardashian as a role model because she… has flawless makeup? How do you make sure your child is happy in her own skin when society increasingly dictates what the dimensions of that skin must be in order to be accepted?

Thirty years on, the media is even more saturated with diets and exercise dvds. Magazines aimed at women are filled with photos of celebrities looking too fat or too thin or telling the secret of how they shed their excess pounds. In a recent issue of Closer Magazine there were 13 articles about celebrities’ weight or appearance; this made up 38% of all of the articles in the magazine. We are bombarded with it, and we are bombarding our children with it. How do I teach my daughter that the media and most of the women and girls she knows are wrong?

This post was inspired by this post on Hybrid Rasta Mama.
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Our Week, 15 -20 Oct

Monday 15 Oct

Up reasonably early and off to visit a friend who lives on the outskirts of town, up a big hill. Perfect workout for the legs and the lungs, only slightly marred by being rained on. Had a lovely visit with said friend, though she did give me the whole “look how far you’ve come” speech and make me a bit emotional. Afternoon spent playing, evening spent trying desperately to get S to sleep before giving up and having her sit in her bouncy chair until I capitulated and took us both to bed at 9pm.

Tuesday 16 Oct

Tiring day. S slept badly, which meant so did I. Got up late, breakfasted late. S had the world’s shortest nap and woke up grumpy, so I took her out in the pushchair thinking she’d go back to sleep. She didn’t, but I did bump into my auntie, which brightened my day. Came home, spent the afternoon trying to placate her after another pointlessly short nap. Put her to bed and prayed. Had about an hour of quiet before S woke up. Went to bed early and had a couple of hours’ sleep before she woke up, and stayed awake and grumpy until 9am. Far from ideal.

Wednesday 17 Oct

Day started about 5 hours before I would have liked. D, my Home Start volunteer, brought cakes, biscuits and a gossip magazine. Spent most of the day trying to get S to nap, or playing with her. She’s not big into doing anything on her own at the moment. No housework was done, and I really could not be bothered to leave the house. The only way is up… right?

Thursday 18 Oct

Desperate to get S to have some proper sleep, I took her for a long walk. It worked; she had a 2 hour morning nap. But no afternoon nap, and no proper sleep in the evening. Called the health visitor and a nursery nurse is coming out next week.

Friday 19 Oct

Another day, another walk to try and get S to sleep. Sort of worked but not much. Very short nap, followed by lunch and another very short nap, and then a visit from my aunt and cousin. Still going through the motions of the bedtime routine and putting S to bed at 6, but it’s largely pointless; she’s back in the living room by 7pm and we don’t go to sleep til midnight.

Saturday 20 Oct

Another restless night followed by an early morning. Up and out for a walk with little sis, then back home for visits from other little sis and her bloke, a friend delivering clothes for S, and another friend showing off a shocking new hair colour. Three messy meals necessitated Bath Night, followed by lots of frustration at trying to fall asleep. S had three naps today, all relatively short; am not sure whether this bodes well or not for tonight’s sleep. Cross your fingers please!

Hooray for Home Start!

Tomorrow is Wednesday, which means my Home Start lady is coming round. As I sit here on a Tuesday evening, I’m surprised to find that I’m really looking forward to her visit.

You know when you have a week off work, and you get to Thursday and suddenly think, oh bugger, I have fewer days off in front of me than behind, my week off is almost over, I’d better Do Something? I’ve had that feeling periodically since having S: the feeling that I’m wasting my spare time, and it will be at an end soon and I should be doing more, appreciating it more. Of course, I know that eventually I will go back to work, S will go back to school, we will have less time together, and this time will seem like a far-off utopia of days gone by – but I tend to get a more urgent feeling, akin to the sort you’d get if you were going back to work after the weekend. Just lately, it has occurred to me that this is it: this is how my life just is now, and it’s not going to change any time soon. We have very little to fill our days with, and often spend large chunks of time wandering aimlessly around Sainsbury’s. I’m not going back to real life on Monday; this is real life.

This last couple of weeks has been really tough. I’ve realised just how much I need S to sleep well, even if that’s just so that I can have an hour watching TV or doing housework without having to try and simultaneously entertain her. It’s physically and mentally exhausting for her to be awake constantly, especially when her lack of sleep means she is usually grumpy as well. I’ve been doing this on my own for six months now, without a day off or more than an hour to myself here and there. On the one hand, there have been several times lately when I’ve been desperate for someone – anyone – to take S off my hands for a couple of hours so that I could have a break. On the other hand, the minute she is away from me, I miss her terribly, and feel horribly guilty for being apart from her.

There’s an episode of How I Met Your Mother where a little girl brings Lilly a picture of a rainbow several times, and each time she says “oh wow, what a beautiful rainbow!” and then, the last time she brings one up Lilly loses her cool and says “seriously, are you kidding me? Another rainbow? Aren’t you sick of them?” This is what I feel like sometimes. S cries or gets grouchy over something, and most of the time I’ll go to her and calm her and chat baby talk at her and play with her toys or cuddle her or do whatever it takes, for however long it takes, until she’s ok… and then there’ll be an evening where I’ve been up and down the stairs to her five times, and I’m starving and about to bite into what is now a barely lukewarm dinner, and she cries… and the words I utter as I trudge up the stairs are a little more along the lines of “Another rainbow?”

I was talking to a friend yesterday about having a night out. The difference between us is that she is married, so if she goes out her kids are with their dad: they love him, they feel safe with him. She knows they will be looked after and she has nothing to worry about, and that they probably won’t notice much of difference than if she were there. For me, if I wanted a night out I would have to consider leaving S with someone largely unfamiliar. She has aunties and uncles, and I have several amazing friends, all of whom I know would do a good job of looking after her, but she only knows any of them as someone who’s danced around the living room with her for a couple of hours here and there. There’s nobody completely constant in her life with whom I could leave her and know she wouldn’t be upset by the disruption. And, of course, there is still the massive guilt at leaving here anywhere, with anyone – as if I don’t want her around.

I was toying with the idea of going to the health visitor to see if she would look into getting me some funding for a nursery place a couple of mornings a week, just to allow me a bit of a break and some breathing space from time to time. But this is largely unrealistic, since S is still mostly breastfed and won’t take a bottle (even if I could work the ridiculous pump I have enough to get a bottle full of milk for her). And I know that I would probably spend the entire time she was in a nursery, sitting at home pining for her and feeling guilty that I’d left her.

Wednesdays are my salvation at the moment. D only spends a couple of hours here, but during that time she will largely take over looking after S. She bounces her on her knee, plays on her play mat with her, pulls faces, sings songs and sometimes spends half an hour rocking her back and forth until she falls asleep. I do things like catch up on phone calls to the electricity company or sorting through paperwork. We have a cup of coffee together and I tell her about my week, and we chat about whatever comes up. She’s like a therapist and a babysitter in one! Plus, she always brings milk for coffee, and usually cake or biscuits too.

Our Week, 8-13 October

Monday 08 Oct

After a rather unsettled (and somewhat screamy) night’s sleep, we got up and walked across town to pick up some baby clothes. We were also supposed to walk to an out of town superstore in another direction to pick up an order, but I couldn’t be bothered. We came home instead, and spent a fair amount of time playing. And then a nap, and then more playing. Bed time appears to have become a two-stage thing, where S falls asleep and I sneak out, only to find her awake and crying 15 minutes later. This happened again, but fingers crossed it’s not a permanent change!

Tuesday 09 Oct

Walked in the pouring rain to the big out of town Next to pick up an order. Turned up at 9:45 to find they didn’t open til 10. Got drenched. Came home, got changed, and went to see the health visitor. My one has been off sick for months so I saw yet another lady I’d not seen before. It’s a different one every time these days, and far from an ideal situation.

Wednesday 10 Oct

Our Home Start lady came and brought cakes for me and two teething toys for S. In the afternoon my sister Z came round with some rice krispie cakes she’d made and I ate until I felt sick. We didn’t leave the house all day.

Thursday 11 Oct

Up and out early to run some errands around town. Home by 11am to attempt housework, but S had other ideas. Her poor sleeping pattern over the last few days has been getting gradually worse, and today she had no naps at all, and then couldn’t sleep at bed time. Ended up bringing her downstairs and pushing her back and forth in the pushchair until she fell asleep, then camping on the sofa.

Friday 12 Oct

Another day where we didn’t leave the house. Had plans to go out for a walk with a friend but after another poor night’s sleep I cancelled in favour of trying to get some rest. S actually managed a morning nap, and was in a fairly agreeable mood, meaning I managed to get a fair few things done. Unfortunately her afternoon nap, during which I was planning to sleep, was interrupted by a loud knock on the door, and so I spent the afternoon trying to distract S from grizzling; no mean feat. Despite this, I still managed to do some decorating, cleaning and washing – so not a complete loss.

Saturday 13 Oct

A slightly better night followed by a lazy morning. When it became clear S did not intend on having a morning nap, I took her out in the sling instead. She finally fell asleep after half an hour of wandering around the shops, so I stayed out for as long as I could in order to keep her asleep. Certainly feeling her weight gain in my back these days! When we came home she was in an agreeable mood, and even had a long afternoon nap, so I managed to get a lot done – baking, stewing and pureeing foods, cleaning the kitchen, washing up, more decorating, posting a gazillion items on Ebay. She is now in bed, but I’ve been up to her twice already. Fingers crossed she stays asleep now, and I get to have a lazy Saturday evening after a somewhat stressful week!

Our Week 30 Sept - 6 Oct

Sunday 30 Sept

S slept fairly well the first part of the night, but I woke up after a few hours feeling ill. It took  me a couple of hours to settle back down, and just as I did, S woke up thinking it must surely be time to get up and play. It took another couple of hours to get her back to sleep. On the plus side though, she did let me sleep in until 8:30 this morning so I can’t really complain. We had a lazy day: lots of laying on the play mats and giggling. We had a brief wander into town to buy a paper, but forgot the paper and came back with baby clothes that had been discounted in Sainsbury’s instead. And as it was a Sunday, I had a massive roast dinner delivered to my door in the evening too. Perfect.

Monday 01 Oct

S seems to have developed a body clock that thinks 4am is the time to get up and play. This is happening daily now, and really quite annoying. We slept late again, which was nice but not terribly useful, since we had an opticians appointment to keep. Walked to the optician, located inside a large out of town superstore. They took a ridiculous amount of time to do very little, and then so as not to have wasted the trip we wandered around the supermarket a bit, and bought some food we could have done without. Since S fell asleep as I walked back toward home, I decided it would be a good idea to wander around town a little. She read my mind though, and woke up as we got into town. So we had a little wander, then came home and spent a lot of time playing. S decided she really did not need an afternoon nap, which was fine until about 4pm when she turned into Grumpzilla. A friend came round and finished painting the living room wall, while S whined and cried and rubbed her eyes and I assured him she really is a happy baby most of the time. Ended up putting her to bed at 5:30 again. Have capitulated and ordered a copy of The No Cry Nap Solution from Amazon in the hope of sorting out this anti-nap stance she has developed. Evening spent writing a blog post I had really got into, and speaking to my OU tutor, who approved of my first essay submission.

Tuesday 02 Oct

We were up almost hourly all night. On the plus side, 8:30am seems to be our new wake-up time, which isn’t too bad. Weather was rubbish and I had things to do, so we stayed in this morning. I put the furniture back after the living room wall was painted yesterday, moved the flooring into a pile in the corner, washed nappies and towels, moved half my (rather large) book collection upstairs ready for the floor to be laid, moved a book case upstairs for the same reason, broke the loo roll holder I only fixed to the wall last week, and stewed some apples for baby food. S sat in her chair, lay on her play mats, and had a brief play in her door bouncer, resolutely refusing to nap until tiredness finally overcame her early afternoon. When she woke up we went for a brief wander into town to get out of the house for a while, bought a nice babygro from a charity shop on the way home. S had a second nap when we got in, which was nice, and she still went to bed on time.

Wednesday 03 Oct

A better night, and a slightly earlier wake up. Our Home Start volunteer came to visit, bringing milk for our coffee and post biscuits, which was nice. She stayed a couple of hours, long enough for me to make some phone calls and sort some paperwork. Managed to get S to have a nap, which was good. Afternoon was spent doing washing, watching a TV show about breastfeeding and tidying. Yeah, I’m living the rock and roll dream!

Thursday 04 Oct

S was awake half the night, which was not much fun for either of us, but worse for her as she seemed to be suffering tummy pain. Set an alarm for the first time in months to ensure we were up, bathed and dressed before the man from the council came to fix our windows at 9am. Received a phone call at 8:30am to say sorry but the man was ill. Appointment re-booked for next Thursday afternoon. Had a brief visit from a friend who brought a toy over for S but then had to leave because her daughter was poorly. S had a rare morning nap, during which I did fun things like take the rubbish out and sort the washing, and then we went for a walk around town. Narrowly missed running head-on into S’s father and his new girlfriend and child, which was a bit of a nightmare. Bought some material to attempt a home-made dribble bib. Came home for lunch and attempted an afternoon nap; it lasted 20 minutes, and then we played and blew raspberries for the rest of the afternoon. My sister came to visit for a while, which was handy as she played daft games with S while I dyed my hair.

Friday 05 Oct

A much better night’s sleep, though I did wake up several times in a panic because S hadn’t woken up to feed! One time I had to put the light on and pull at her arms until she moved because until that point I couldn’t hear or see her breathing. Panic stations at 2am do not make for a restful night! S had no clue though, and was sound asleep. Went to visit a friend this morning, which was nice for all 3 of us. Stopped in town on the way home to run some errands, though am sure I missed more than one. S played with her feet on her play mat for a couple of hours when we got in, and even had a short nap, but then got super grumpy and upset about something and was inconsolable until bed time, when she went out like a light. I think perhaps she is having a Wonder Week.

There is no entry for today yet, as it hasn't happened! We are off on a road trip soon to visit Big S (who my little S was named after). We've not seen her for aaaaages (since S was about 3 weeks old) and we're both super excited. 

Diary Entries from Early Motherhood

I'm still working on a proper blog post, so in the meantime here are some more diary entries from earlier this year...

19^th May (5 weeks, 5 days)

Today a visit from another dear friend: C drove all the way from Oxfordshire to see us. He had to be somewhere else though, so could only stay for an hour or so. It’s strange to see people I’ve not seen for such a long time, and jarring to think of who I was the last time I saw them. It seems incongruous to now sit before them with a sleeping baby in a bouncy chair at my feet, my only topics of conversation how she is sleeping or what is going on with her father.

My mother came round in the afternoon; I find her being in the flat at all very irritating. I always feel that she is judging me, comparing my efforts with the way she successfully dragged 6 of us through childhood with no major injuries. I wait for her to tell me I’ve done something wrong but she doesn’t; instead she makes snide remarks about how rarely she is allowed to hold her granddaughter. Since my brother is not speaking to her, my mother tries to have S play the part of the two grandchildren she doesn’t see, as well as herself. S is too small for this responsibility. I don’t have the energy for an argument over it though, so I just pretend not to hear the comments and accept the gifts graciously. I feel ungrateful because the new baby clothes do not make me happy and I am too tired to smile; I just want her to leave so that I can share S’s next nap with her, before it is too late for a nap and I have to begin the bedtime routine.

I have made black and white patterns on old postcards and stuck them on the wall next to the table where I change S’s nappy. Apparently babies like to look at simple patterns and pictures of faces. I thought it was just one of those stupid things you read that turn out to be complete crap, but when I put her down for a nappy change today, she was completely mesmerised by my crappy drawings. I feel like I’ve finally done something right; perhaps I’m not such a rubbish parent after all.

20^th May (5 weeks, 6 days)

I have started going for long walks with the pushchair in the mornings. I don’t often use the pushchair, preferring to have S in the sling close to me, but now I take her for long walks and she has a nap. It kills time when we have gotten up early in the morning and the day is stretching out before me like some endless sentence of boredom and nappy changing. Today we walked a couple of miles, and then came back into town and I bought a cloth book for S. I’m hoping my recent success with the monochrome drawings will translate to a book with crinkly pages and pictures of faces.

Today S is wearing a baby-gro her father bought for her the day after she was born. She has only just grown into it. I love it, despite its reminding me of the life I thought I would be leading now, and the massive difference between that and what I actually do with my days. It was my sister’s birthday so we all went to Harvester for a meal. S slept through most of it, which was lucky as I am not so keen on breastfeeding in public places.

21^st May (6 weeks)

Today I did not leave the house at all. I know this was a bad move, because even before I had a baby I needed to leave the house at least once a day in order to feel normal. I feel lazy. My daughter has had no fresh air all day, that can’t be a good thing for her. I was just so tired though, and there was nothing I needed to do in town, no money to go frivolously shopping for baby clothes, and most of the stuff in the shops doesn’t fit her any way. She’s still wearing clothes for a newborn. Does 6 weeks still count as newborn? It feels like she’s been here forever now, no longer new but just as precious and breakable.

Although we spent so many hours in the flat, I cannot say what we actually did. We played with the rattles my mother bought for S, but she is a bit too young to even notice they are there. We played with the book, but that appears to be the same situation.

A lady from the childrens centre came round, I think the health visitor sent her. She had that sort of look a lot of people seem to have with me lately, the “oh poor you, you’re a new mum and there’s nobody to make you a cup of tea…” sort of expression. She gave me some leaflets and we signed up to do a baby massage class. I don’t think I even offered her a drink while she was here, what a terrible hostess. I should make an effort to go down to the centre though, I know it would be Good For Me to meet other mums; it’s just depressing because other mums invariably have a husband to share things with, and they invariably have that “oh-you’re-so-brave-you-poor-thing-I-could-never-do-this-alone-and-wow-she-was-early-too-however-are-you-managing” look once they know about me. I try to like other mums and to get on with them, but I tend to just feel jealous of them, which is never an endearing quality.

22^nd May (6 weeks, 1 day)

A friend came to visit today. She does not live locally so I’d not seen her since S was born. She had a baby a few months ago herself, and seems to have had a pretty rough time of it, though she doesn’t really mention it in much detail. She brought presents for the baby – clothes and such – but also some home cooked pasta for me, and some brownies. The perfect gift; I wish my family would take note of this. We sat and chatted for a long while, and she made me feel better about things. When she left she gave me a massive hug and told me I’m doing really well. I feel like I should be doing better though. Poor S only has me to rely on, I need to be two parents to her. When other babies are crying and their mothers are tired, their fathers take over the cooing and rocking. I don’t have that luxury; I cannot get tired. I am so lucky S does not cry very much, and seems to be a fairly chilled baby. When she does cry though, or when it takes her a long time to settle to sleep at night, I feel bad for her that she doesn’t have a second parent to come in and be all fresh about trying to get her to sleep. She just has me, begging her to please go to sleep. I’m sure other mothers don’t resort to leaving the hairdryer switched on in the bedroom for hours at a time each evening. I’m sure other mothers have more patience than me and for that I feel endlessly guilty.

Have You Ever Heard of Home Start?

This morning we had our first visit from our Home Start volunteer.

Home Start is a charity set up to support families who need a little help. They provide volunteers who will visit a family and offer support and guidance on a variety of different things. Home Start is a relatively small charity, but they  offer an invaluable service, going out into the community to help families who might otherwise feel isolated or struggle with things like post natal depression, bereavement, mental or physical disability of a child, or perhaps just trouble getting used to parenthood. Their services are available to all families with a child under five. Their website says they aim to create " a lasting, positive impact on the development of children and the health and welfare of the family." I was referred to them by my health visitor but a lot of people refer themselves to the service. Until the health visitor mentioned them, I'd not heard of Home Start before, so I thought I'd write a little post about them, in case anyone else could do with knowing about their services.

My volunteer is called Dawn, and she is lovely. She turned up this morning with flowers, coffee, cake, and a gossipy magazine for me. Who could ask for more from a visitor? 

Dawn will visit us once a week for as long as we need her support. The idea is that she will be someone to chat to (moan at!), distract Samaire while I make important phone calls that might prove difficult without that help, and to come to appointments with me to do the same sort of thing. She can't babysit for me, but she will come to the council/CAB/solicitor/whoever and keep Samaire entertained while I sort things out. She is also there to come to mother and baby groups etc with me if I don't want to rock up on my own, which is handy.

Today we just sat and had a coffee and a chat; Samaire and Dawn got to know each other, and I filled Dawn in on our story and why I feel I need the extra support of having her in my life right now. For me I think a lot of my benefit of having Dawn visit will be that I'll actually have to get things done. It's been easy to put off making phone calls, booking appointments, because there was always something to distract me. If Dawn has come round specifically to play with Samaire while I call the electricity company about my incorrect bill, then I may actually get around to making that call!

Home Start offer support to families in the UK, but also to the families of British Forces personnel in Germany and Cyprus, which is something you don't often think about with these sorts of things. As they are a charity, they rely on donations and sponsorship to keep going - and, of course, volunteers. They currently have around 17,000 volunteers who go out into the community to visit families, and another 2000 who run their local offices. I am sure they will always welcome new volunteers though so if you have free time that you'd like to spend making friends with a family and playing with kids, click on over to their website and take a look!

One great way you can support Home Start without even really trying is by going to this site and signing up; then they will donate a percentage of the cost of anything you buy through their site. You still shop at the normal websites, and it doesn't cost you a penny!

I will leave you with a quote from their website, which I liked:

If families crumble, communities disintegrate, children suffer. By working in the home to make families strong, children thrive. So we help give children the best possible start in life by supporting parents as they grow in confidence, strengthen their relationships with their children and widen their links with the local community. We work with the families who, for whatever reason, aren’t getting the help they need. Very often we’re the last chance they have.

18th May 2012 (5 weeks, 4 days)

This was written in my diary shortly after S's father had left. At the time he was still visiting occasionally. I was fairly miserable and unsure of what I was doing, and S was still very small and looked really quite breakable.

S sleeps in my bed now. At first, she would go to bed in her Moses basket, and each time I fed her I would put her back in the basket. And then, I just gave up on trying to get her to go back into the basket, and after the first feed she sleeps next to me in my bed. She seems to go back to sleep a lot more easily, and wake less, if she is beside me. Sometimes she reaches out and pokes at me in the night with her tiny little fists.

We wake around 7 most mornings, and S sits in her bouncy chair in the bathroom door way while I have a bath. If I am lucky, I have time to dry myself, apply moisturiser and get dressed before she gets fed up and starts crying. Occasionally I even have time to dry my hair. Once I am dressed I bring S downstairs in the bouncy chair with her clean clothes. I tend to remove her clothes before feeding her the daily dose of vitamins they recommend for all premature babies, as the iron can stain. Then we get her dressed, and I will usually feed her before we venture out of the house.

Today once we were both dressed and ready, we went to a friend’s house. She has three children of her own and is much more confident with babies than I am. She is also one of the best friends I have ever had, giving me her daughter’s old baby clothes and toys, tidying the house when she visits, offering advice, and most importantly telling me I’m not mad and I’m doing the right thing, whatever it is (unless I’m doing the wrong thing; then she’ll tell me that instead – the mark of a true friend).

S’s father visited briefly today too. I didn’t want him here; it makes me nervous and uncomfortable to be around him. I feel like he is running an appraising eye over my entire life, judging me and looking for the slightest sign that I may have done something wrong, something that may disadvantage his offspring in some way. He treats her like a possession. He brought us food and nappies, which I didn’t ask for or need, but one should never look a gift horse in the mouth, so I said thank you and crammed my freezer with meat I don’t have time to cook, and microwave meals full of salt and flavourings. He left £15 on the side when he went.

After he had left, C came round with her daughter. I went to school with C, but hadn’t seen her since we were about 12. Now she has a 7 year old daughter and runs her own business, she seems so much more grown up than I. She and the friend I saw earlier both make me feel like this motherhood lark is a doddle, and I’m perfectly capable of doing it on my own, with or without £15 left on the side by the ex.

Get Up, Get Out...

I almost didn’t leave the house today.

I aim to leave the house at least once a day, even if I feel like crap and there is nothing I need to do. Quite often in the mornings I will pack S into her pushchair and we will go for a ridiculously long walk.

Having suffered to a certain extent with depression, and considering myself to still be somewhat at risk of its return, I am ever mindful of needing to stay one step ahead of the black dog. For me this means making sure I eat reasonably well, take my vitamins, fish oils and various other supplements daily, see friends, have adult conversations, exercise, and get out of the house whenever I can. On a day when I have seen a friend for a chat, I notice the difference at the end of the day. On a day when I’ve not been out of the house, I really notice the difference at the end of the day!

This morning my sister in law came round with my niece for an hour or so, but I was planning to go out after they left, or perhaps after lunch when S had her nap. I try to time my leaving the house to coincide with her naps, because she always falls asleep in the pushchair or sling any way, and if she does that on top of a nap, bed time is far from fun. But when my sister in law left I did some housework instead, and then S had a ridiculously early (and long) nap which I didn’t want to wake her from just for the sake of getting out of the house. So I waited, and waited, and then it seemed like it was probably too late.

My ex’s daughter started a new school this morning. She was only moved there because I filled in the forms for her, and then sorted out her acceptance documents from my hospital bed after S was born. I know how excited she was to get a place there, and how much she will have been looking forward to starting there. I still have the thank-you card she gave me when she got the letter offering her a place there. I really wished I could have seen her or spoken to her to wish her well, but I know that’s not possible. By the time S woke from her nap this afternoon my reason for not wanting to go out had more to do with not wanting to bump into this girl on her way home from school. I miss her and her siblings terribly, but I also worry that they all hate me and would not react well to seeing me now. I do not imagine that anything even remotely pleasant has been said about me in that house for quite some time now.

Half-way through a Biggest Loser double bill though, I gave myself a stern talking-to. In the almost 4 months since S’s father left, I have bumped into him or members of his family around town precisely once, and that was my own fault for not taking note of what time it was when I was near the place his bus drops off in the mornings. It is ridiculous to stay home in order to avoid an 11-year-old girl who probably didn’t even go home through town today any way. So I bundled S into the sling and went for a little wander to post some letters and have a browse around Tesco. We were out for less than half an hour, and it was the highlight of my day. It’s easy to just stay in this flat, have my shopping delivered and only venture into town at times I’m not likely to run into anyone I don’t want to see. But I have done nothing wrong, and really, much as I appreciate people suggesting I should put a curtain over my front door so that nobody can tell whether I’m in or not, and avoid going anywhere near places I might bump into people who might be mean to me, that to me is cowardly behaviour, suggesting that I am ashamed of something. 

I would rather not have anyone shout abuse or accuse me of being an unfit mother in the middle of town, but really, that sort of thing reflects more on the person doing the shouting, doesn’t it? And I’d be a less fit mother (in both senses of the word) if I didn’t go out for some fresh air every day.