What A Way To Make A Livin'

A feeling of anxiousness has been creeping up on me over the last few weeks.

My daughter is approaching her nine month milestone and while for some this could also be the time when they begin to worry about going back to work, for me it has brought a different worry. 

Fear Of Not Going Back To Work.

I accepted redundancy four months into my maternity leave. The previous four months had felt dominated with long emails and phone calls to a solicitor as I struggled to cling on to my job. And though there are laws in place to protect women who choose to become mothers and want to keep working, I was put in a position where it was impossible for me to return to my former employment.

When it was finally all over I felt shaken. But then I resolved to put it all to one side and focus on my daughter and our time together, now the cloud was no longer hanging over my maternity leave.

Only now the time has come when I would have begun negotiating how I would return to work, and instead I must begin looking for a new job from scratch.

I really want to go back to work.

I loved - sorry LOVE, present tense - being a journalist. It was the career I had dreamt of since I was a little girl. Well, maybe not quite how I pictured it would be, but I set my sights on my goal and I achieved it.

I love my daughter. And I really do enjoy spending my day handing her sticky bits of banana to stuff in her face, building towers for her to knock over, pushing her on the swings, letting her splash bath water all over me and watching her sleep.

But...

And this has been really hard to admit, because I do not want, or mean, to say that, "I don't want to be just a mother."

There is no such thing as "JUST" a mother. 

It is an incredibly hard, demanding, important and fulltime job. I don't care what people say.  (And I have met Katie Hopkins, and was surprised to find that I actually quite liked her. She is secretly a very friendly, caring and considerate woman. But that doesn't mean I agree with much that she says, especially when it comes to Stay At Home Parenting.)

But I DO want to be a working mother.

I want it all. I want to kiss my daughter goodbye in the morning and trundle off to work with all the other folk, work 9 to 5, three days a week, and then spend the rest of the time being a parent.

And I know it doesn't work like that.

First of all I've got to actually find a job, or some freelance work, that will let me do those hours and still pay me enough to afford the nursery fees.

And it is scary. Especially in this post-EU Referendum economy where doom and gloom is forecast in every direction.

It's not like it was easy for mothers to work before. I have lost count of the number of people I have met who have been told that it will be cheaper for them not to work, than pay for child care.

And as I scour the job ads for those two magic words, "part time", my feeling of anxiousness grows ever stronger.

I am not giving up.

But I am starting to consider that I might be PURELY a mother for a little while longer than I anticipated.

Six Baby Weaning Foods That Are Messier Than You Might Think

The outcome of last week's EU Referendum has turned our lives upside down and the future feels bleak and uncertain.

I am concerned about what the Leave result means for my daughter, but - as those running the country appear to know as little about what will actually happen next as I do - I feel unable to put my worries into words.

So I thought I would focus on a subject of constancy and stability instead.

My baby will always need to eat, and her eating will always create a great deal of mess.

But here are six foods that took me by surprise with the amount of clearing up I had to do afterwards.

1. Breadsticks

These seemed like an ideal snack. So compact and hand-sized, I naively believed I could just snap a bit off, pop it in my baby's hand and she'd merrily chomp away without smearing it all over her face or dropping it.

How wrong I was. Her tight little fists shatter dusty crumbs in every direction, while she sucks it into a sticky cement texture which she then drools and mashes into clothes, carpets, buggies, you name it.

2. Mango

I expected sticky juice from this soft fruit. But I was not prepared for the strings of flesh it would leave behind on every surface it touched. I have quickly learned the best tactic with any baby mess is, "NEVER let it dry!" But all it takes is one filled nappy or crying fit at the end of a meal for you to take your eye off the ball, and before you know it you are attempting to scrape mango off the highchair with a knife. The other day I found some still crusted on to dress that had been through a hot wash.

3. Peas

Don't be fooled by the non sticky texture of these sneaky little vegetables. Their ball-like shape should have been the warning sign. They roll everywhere. I keep finding dried up shrivelled little peas in the strangest of places, days after I last served them.

4. Rice cakes

These are the worst part of breadsticks and peas combined. They seem a great portable snack, but they quickly disintegrate into soggy Rice Krispies which will turn up everywhere, most likely your hair.

5. Pear

Now I clearly am naive when it comes to how much chaos a baby can create at mealtimes, that much we have established. But I was knocked for six by the dirt that pear leaves behind. Bananas and avacados go black and leave dark stains on everything, I knew that. But pear?! If you don't get that into soak instantly then all those pretty, pale, pastel summer clothes will be sullied forever.

6. Broccoli

When the health visitor held a Weaning Advice talk at my Mother And Baby group, my daughter was only eight weeks old and solids seemed a world away. But one thing stuck with me. "A nice thing to try for baby-led weaning", she said, "is steamed florets of broccoli, that your child can hold like lollipops and suck the tops off." How sweet, I thought. Now, kindly tell me what kind of lollipop sheds a slimy green snowstorm all over every surface, so fine it seems impossible even to wipe up?! The worst part was the aftermath in the bath - covered with a film of floating broccoli bits that stuck back onto my child as quickly as I attempted to wash it off.

So now that my eyes have been opened to the perils of weaning, I am resolved to picking spaghetti off the floor and mopping sweet potato from between neck folds - at least I am expecting the result.

Nothing Left To Lose...

Last week I had to visit the doctor for a somewhat intimate examination.

I had worn a skirt especially to help the proceedings run smoothly and before she had finished asking me to hop on the bed so she could take a look, I was bunching my skirt around my waist preparing to whip off my knickers.

The GP began purposefully drawing the curtain around me and I blurted out, " Sorry, but since I had a baby I just don't feel like I have any dignity left."

"Yes, but we must try and hold on to a little bit," she said primly, as she pulled the curtain around me and my daughter's pram. Yes, I'd even taken a spectator, albeit an oblivious one.

My dignity. Is it really all gone? And where did I lose it, I wonder?

Was it in the labour ward when the third complete stranger entered the room and joined in with popping their fingers between my legs to check how dilated I was?

No, if I lost it that day it must have been before that. Perhaps when I sat bouncing up and down on a ball, wearing nothing but an old, baggy t-shirt bearing the slogan, "Hit Me Baby One More Time", (it seemed funny when I packed it in the hospital bag), and shouting at the baby inside me to wake up so that they could give me my morphine injection.

Did I misplace my dignity the day I came home from the hospital - no make-up on, my belly still distended, too tired to object to my father-in-law snapping pictures of me as I sat dazed beside the crib?

Or was it in the weeks after that, when I started leaving the house in sick-stained clothes to wheel my pram around the supermarket just so I could get a free coffee?

Is my dignity on the floor of a children's centre somewhere, where I shamelessly eavesdropped on other mothers' conversations, in the hope I could join in and find a friend?

Is it lurking in the tide of toys scattered across my sitting room floor, that I haven't tidied up because it would reveal an unhoovered carpet beneath?

Did I give up my dignity when I surrendered my battle with my employer to hold on to my job, and accepted a redundancy payment because it was easier than standing up for my rights?

As one great wordsmith, Bob Dylan, wrote, "Sometimes I wonder what it's gonna take, to find dignity."

A few days after I went to the doctor, I went shopping for a new bathing suit. The one I have been wearing to take my daughter swimming is old, the worn-out Lycra sagging and one underwire poking out dangerously between my cleavage.

The cheap, highstreet store I chose had a small selection of one pieces, even fewer that were plain, and just one in my size that was not designed to reveal as much flesh as possible.

I took the black, halter-neck swimming costume to the changing room to check my bosoms would be suitably contained by the scanty cladding, and hoping it was generously cut enough in the legs to require minimal pubic-pruning.

The shop assistant who checked me into the fitting rooms said the 'hygiene sticker'  - the one they put on the crotch of undergarments in shops to draw attention to the unsavoury prospect that a stranger's bodily fluids may be on the garment you are considering purchasing - had come loose and she would have to go upstairs to fit a new one.

I stood in the disabled cubicle, which was right in the entrance of the changing rooms, in view of the shop floor, with a curtain that didn't quite reach the whole way across, and pushed my pram back and forth as my daughter became more and more discontent.

By the time the assistant returned my baby was in full primal scream mode, but having come this far! I felt I might as well press on.

I stripped to my pants, trying to pretend I hadn't noticed the staff could see me through the gap in the curtain, along with the queue of people waiting to try on clothes, while simultaneously giving a running commentary to my daughter in a loud, singsong voice, aimed at cheering her up.

Once I had the costume on I yanked her out of the pram and jiggled her about in front of the mirror while we both inspected my reflection.

Overall, it was fine, but my udders were threatening to break free from the low cut neckline.

I poked my head around the curtain and appealed to the assistant, "Excuse me? I need a bigger size, please. Would you mind getting it for me? Because I've got the baby...?"

She was sympathetic, and kindly agreed to help.

While I waited for her to return I looked in the mirror at the woman in the bathing suit, a baby clamped on one hip, swaying back and forth, singing nursery rhymes. It took me a little while to recognise her. 

She didn't look like a supermodel or a film star. She certainly didn't look, "beach body ready".

But she looked comfortable in her own skin. She looked like a woman who was living her life. She looked like a mother who was doing her best to bring up the child she loves.

And in her own way, she looked dignified.

12 Baby Facts Yet To Be Proven By Science But Which All Parents Know To Be True

1. Your baby is hardwired to wake up the second you pour yourself a hot drink and sit down to relax. Do not even try to convince yourself you should have just said, 'Sod tidying the kitchen!', and had a cuppa first. If you had, your baby would have just woken up sooner.

2. Infants are predisposed to fill their nappies just as you are about to go somewhere. They are also naturally inclined to ensure their nappy leaks on the day you decide to put them in that brand new outfit you were saving for a special occasion.

3. A child's appetite will always increase dramatically in strength if you are in the middle of preparing, or have not yet managed to prepare, food. Just as the appetite grows larger when you are out and about and have only brought a set amount of food. It also follows that should you have pre-prepared a meal, particularly one that is homemade and requires a lot of effort, the baby's appetite will be lost.

4. Babies are genetically conditioned to sleep through the night the one time you don't bother to set an alarm but have somewhere important to be.

5. A child is not physically able to perform its best new trick in front of others, no matter how much they seemed never to tire of it in front of you. Your best option is to keep it to yourself and hope they spontaneously demonstrate it in public. But they are more attuned to do it when no one is looking.

6. A baby is able to sense the one time you don't have a clean nappy ready to go straight underneath when you change them, and are guaranteed to wee everywhere in seconds. They get an added endorphin release if it is on an occasion you thought you could get away with a quick change not using a mat.

7. Infants have a subconscious awareness of which substances make the most mess, even if they have never encountered them before. They also have an inbuilt sonar system to detect objects which are the most difficult to clean, so that they can spray said debris in that direction.

8. Babies feel most comfortable sleeping in the position which is most painful and uncomfortable for you. But, regardless of how deep their slumber appears to be, they will wake instantly should you move a millimetre.

9. Children are always more pleased to see their secondary carer the second they walk through the door, regardless of previous mood. Except if you are planning to leave them with the secondary carer and dare to take some time for yourself. Children can sense this and will act up accordingly.

10. A baby's cry will always be louder the more quiet their environment. Despite having no noise to compete with they emit a much greater sound when surrounded by silence, in locations such as a waiting room, a library, a church or a group activity populated by quiet and well-behaved children.

11. Children are able to lock their skeletons at will, imitating a plank of wood, rendering it impossible to put them into a buggy, highchair or bed when you need to.

12. A child's ability to fight sleep is colossal. They can smell exhaustion and any desire you have for an early night only fuels their fire. However, the moment you decide that keeping them awake might be at all convenient for you will trigger a reflex action in them to nod off immediately.

The Great Escape

4am: I can't sleep. I've been awake since about 1am with a million thoughts stampeding through my mind.

It's the day of my friend's wedding and I have the jitters.

It's not like I'm the one exchanging vows and I don't have to make a speech, or do a reading at the ceremony. I expect no one will even notice what I'm wearing, I'm only a minor guest.

But I am leaving my baby for 12 hours - the longest time since she was born almost eight months ago.

What if she won't stop crying? What if she won't drink milk from a bottle? What if she falls over and cracks her head open?

Don't be silly, my mother raised me and four other children, she'll be fine looking after her.

I need to shave my legs. And pump some milk. And find my good shoes.

Oh, maybe I shouldn't go. It's just not worth the hassle.

5.45am: The baby is awake. I must have nodded off at last.

It's a bit early, but I'll just go and get her and bring her into bed. I need to make sure she has plenty of milk. 

And I'm going to have to say goodbye to her in a few hours. I'm going to miss her!

7am: I must charge my phone so that I have full battery for checking she's okay.

Where did I put that smart vintage handbag? I need breast pads, money, keys, Oyster.... At least I don't have to pack nappies and wet wipes and an endless list of baby stuff.

8am: There's no point washing my hair until after I've fed her her porridge.

I must show my mother where the nappies are. And put her favourite books in a pile.

Is it too soon to express some milk?

9.30am: She's having a nap. She looks so peaceful. I'd better have a shower now while I can.

10am: I've forgotten how to put make-up on. I look like a clown. These eyeliner flicks don't match, but if I try to even them up I could end up having to start all over again and I just can't face it.

I can't remember when I last used a hairdryer. Is there any point? I've put some product in, I could just twist it up and leave it to dry and make it look like I've gone for that, 'Just Got Out Of Bed', look on purpose...

11.45am: I need to leave in five minutes. But she seems quite happy, so maybe I should just get out while the going is good. Before I change my mind.

If I give her a kiss goodbye it might set her off. Sod it! I want a kiss goodbye!

She's slobbering in my hair. Ah, how sweet. I'll treasure that clumpy bit of hair for the rest of the day. Hey, it adds a new authentic twist to the, 'Just Got Out Of Bed', look.

11.50am: I'm walking down the road away from the house. I feel sick. My stomach hasn't felt this lurchy since I was pregnant!

I can hear a baby crying! It can't be mine, I couldn't hear her from here. Actually, is there even a baby crying at all or is that just in my mind?!

I must make an effort to stop clutching my breasts every time I hear a baby crying.

12pm: My mother hasn't sent me any messages. Is that good or bad?

12.10pm: She's sent a picture of her playing happily. But maybe that only lasted a few seconds and she's screaming the house down now.

12.20pm: Another picture of her looking happy... It still could all be a cunning ruse just to make me feel better.

12.30pm: She's sitting in her highchair stuffing food in. Still smiling. Maybe she doesn't miss me at all.

I've read about this. There's some kind of psychological term for it, about how babies behave different away from their mothers.

12.40pm: I better not check my phone this much at the wedding. Oh God! I'm going to be one of those frightful bores who just talks about their kids and shows people pictures on their phone.

12.50pm: My mother just sent a picture of her drinking from a bottle! It's not even that really expensive miracle teat that we bought when she started refusing to drink from a bottle. She's not even making a fuss.

My mother says she's downed it all!

She doesn't miss me one tiny bit! She doesn't even care that I've gone!

That's a good thing. Of course it's a good thing. I wouldn't want her to have cried nonstop for 12 hours straight.

The little minx....

2pm: Now she's napping. She hardly ever naps for me in the afternoons. Not unless I take her in the pram and walk around for ages.

Why doesn't she behave so well for me?! I've been too soft.

5pm: That was a lovely ceremony. I'll just check my phone to see how things are going.

Ah, a video of her clapping. That's the first time she's clapped I think! She's learned to clap!

I'd better get out of this cubicle, I can hear a queue forming.

My breasts are starting to feel full already! Maybe I should have brought a pump in my handbag? Could I squirt a bit out into the basin if it gets too painful later? No that would be disgusting!

Ooh, champagne!

7.30pm: My mother says she drank another bottle and is now fast asleep! What was I worrying about. We could have booked a hotel and stayed out all night! I'm actually starting to have fun.

But I don't think I'd want to not be there when she wakes up. What if we miss the train?!

11pm: Phew! We've made the last train. We won't have to sleep at the station and we will be there for her in the morning. Actually, it's the train before the last train because I was so paranoid about missing the last one.

It was a great wedding. The band were really starting to get going. I'd quite like to have stayed a bit longer and done some dancing. Except my breasts are agony now. They might have started squirting across the dance floor if I'd risked jiggling them around too much.

12am: She's fast asleep. I'll just kiss her head very lightly so I don't wake her up. My breasts are like rocks! I could wake her up and feed her... No, I'll get the pump.

6.30am: My head feels fuzzy and my tongue feels furry. And my breasts are fit to burst again!

Oh good, she's awake.

She looks pleased to see me! She remembers who I am! She doesn't resent me for leaving! I should damn well hope so too!

Or it could just be because she's hungry. Who cares! She's sucking. What a relief.

Love Thy Labour

There was quite a buzz in the air at playgroup this week.

All around me women were getting fired up and excited, talking over each other as they raced to join in the conversation and say their piece.

I'd never seen this collection of sleep-deprived, worn-out women so animated.

No, we weren't discussing the ethics of controlled crying, the damage disposable nappies are doing to the environment, or debating Brexit. 

Someone had brought up the subject of labour.

It seems any mother who gave birth to her own child, be it by Caesarian section or through the more traditional exit, has a battle story they relish in recounting, gory detail by gory detail.

Like world-weary war veterans comparing their firsthand experiences from the front line, when a gathering of mothers start regaling each other with their bloody birth tales there's no stopping them.

And there are so many subjects ripe for dissection as the oneupmanship commences.

First of all there's the circumstances in which you go into labour.

Now there is plenty of opportunity for drama here. The woman whose waters broke at a football match and had the St John's Ambulance Brigade deliver her child on the sidelines, next to the orange segments at halftime, probably thinks she has a trump card.

But it's not all location, location, location when it comes to childbirth, and a speedy delivery leaves little space for disasters encountered along the way.

So the Bizarre Situation birth is having it easy as far as the Heavily Overdue mother is concerned. She went through three extra weeks of hulking that enormous bump around in the height of summer, her back breaking, unable to sleep. And then was admitted to hospital and made to walk up and down the corridor for hours only to eventually undergo all number of extra unpleasant procedures just to get things moving.

Then there's the issue of the midwife. 

Was she the kind who talked patronisingly to you like you were a petulant child and kept barking at, "Dad", to, "Come down here and have a closer look,"? Or had she worked such a long shift you realised she'd nodded off in the corner just as you were getting ready for the big push?

Pain relief is another big topic for discussion.

You've got the 'Natural Birth' advocates who did the whole thing without so much as a tug on the gas and air, and love to tell everybody about how they just channelled the pain away with their mind. Or admit that it hurt like hell, but they felt, "a real sense of accomplishment."

The majority of us will have resorted to something to numb the agony, but even then there are a variety of different options.

My NCT midwife was really anti epidurals and had succeeded in completely putting me off. She was full of horror stories of spinal taps gone wrong, and the drawn out labours of women unable to feel their contractions. I went from a birth plan that simply said, "epidural", to one that said, "avoid epidural at all costs".

As the midwife herself chirruped, "Maybe it's because I'm from Edinburgh, where they made Trainspotting, but I can't recommend morphine highly enough."

So when the pain was getting unbearable (and I was on an oxytocin drip, said to increase the agony), I hollered, "Give me the drugs!"

But the midwife with me at the time said, "Why don't you just have an epidural? Then you won't feel anything at all."

"Oh yes, okay then," I nodded, so exhausted and uncomfortable that I'd have probably agreed to just cutting off the lower half of my body if she'd suggested it.

It was then that Him Indoors tentatively reminded me that I had said that was the one thing I DEFINITELY didn't want and to insist on the drugs. 

So I ended up feeling exactly like Ewan McGregor when he sinks through the floor in Trainspotting and then had bizarre hallucinations of two maintenance men entering the room and discussing doing some work on the wall behind my bed, but agreeing they should probably wait until I had finished having my baby first.

When they had closed the door behind them I began to observe how strange it had been for them to come in without knocking, before realising hazily that they had never really been there at all.

But the opium did its thing, because while I felt every contraction, it just didn't hurt any more. Until the very end...

I've listened to accounts from women who hadn't planned to have water births but were too late for any other form of pain relief and there happened to be a free pool so they jumped in, willing to give anything a go. 

While others were embracing their water birthing experience, until the baby got stuck and they were dragged out so the medics could use the ventouse.

I've heard tell of an epidural that didn't work while the mother was in a foreign country, so her husband had to attempt to translate her frantic pleas to the doctors and persuade them to do it again.

And others have regaled me with tales of epidurals that worked a little too well, so much so, they didn't get the feeling back in one leg for several days afterwards.

There's the mother who, after hours of pushing, had to have an episiotomy and felt butchered as she watched a midwife hack her apart with a terrifyingly outdated looking pair of pliers.

Though she won't win sympathy from the woman who had a horrific and agonising perennial tear, only to be told just a few hours later by a blunt obstetrician, while she was still recovering from the shock and trauma, that next time she will be better off having a Caesarian.

But despite all the competition, women also find sharing their labour stories something of a bonding exercise.

And it's a very good way to find out more about a mother you have recently met and so far only discussed your offspring with.

It would actually be a great way to introduce people at parties.

"Emma, I'd like you to meet Lisa, she had a forceps delivery and her epidural only worked on her right side. Lisa, Emma's epidural didn't work properly either and she felt her entire Caesarian Section. I think you will both have lots to talk about."

Do you enjoy talking about your labour? What's your stand out moment?

Frozen

Once upon a time there was a little princess whose mother breastfed her to sleep every night until she was seven months old.

The idle queen was so lazy she would sit for hours in a darkened room watching trash TV on an iPad, waiting for the princess to drink herself into a deep sleep, so she could lay her in the cot and creep away.

If the princess ever stirred the queen dashed in and thrust her teet into her rosebud mouth as a quick as a flash, in order to keep peace and quiet reigning throughout the kingdom.

Then one day the queen was invited to a ball to celebrate the wedding of a friend.

It would be the king and queen's first night out together since the princess was born, but just a few weeks before the big day there was an addendum to the invitation which said, 'No babies'.

The queen knew that she must persuade the princess to take a bottle and learn to settle herself to sleep so that the queen mother could babysit, and she could go to the ball.

So the queen trawled the World Wide Web for spells and knowledge and embarked upon her new quest - sleep training.

On the first night bedtime began as normal for the poor, little, unsuspecting princess.

The queen read her the same story, wrapped her in the same blanket and breastfed her in the nursery chair as normal.

But just as the princess was drifting into The Land Of Nod, the wicked queen popped her into her cot, kissed her good night and vanished from the room.

The precious little princess awoke with a start and wondered where her warm, cosy mummy could possibly have gone and why she was left all alone in the cavernous cot.

Her cherry red lips trembled and tears immediately sprung forth from her big blue eyes, streaming down her face and pooling up in her ears.

The princess wailed and wailed with all her might, sure that this would bring her mother dashing back to her side, as it always had for the whole of her life until now.

Her tears flowed out of her eyes and down her cheeks and filled the cot, until they spilled onto the nursery floor and seeped under the door. Or so it seemed.

But outside the nursery door the cruel queen sat on the stairs listening to the princess' cries and looking at her watch.

After five long minutes that seemed like 100 years, she returned to her daughter. But when the princess realised she wasn't going to pick her up, her screams only grew more hysterical.

The cold-hearted queen administered superficial kisses and pointless pats before turning her back and deserting her little darling once again.

And so it went on for about an hour until eventually the princess gave up and sobbed herself to sleep.

Later on in the dead of night, the silence that echoed around the castle was broken by the sound of a weak and feeble whimper.

The princess had awoken once again, but had clearly lost all faith in her mother and didn't have the strength to call out for her in her usual manner.

The queen lay awake staring at the baby monitor, waiting.

If the cries grew worse she resolved she must go and tend to the princess. But she knew that as soon as the princess set eyes on her, the hysteria would begin all over again.

After letting out a couple more pathetic whines the princess gave up.

The queen checked the baby monitor and could hear breathing.

She felt deep down in her heart she should go and check the princess was tucked up tight, but she didn't want to risk disturbing her, so she remained rooted to her own bed.

In the morning the wicked queen woke up and went into the nursery to see her baby.

The princess had kicked off all her blankets and wriggled her way up to one corner at the top of the cot, where she lay awake, blinking her wide, sorrowful eyes in disbelief.

The queen reached out to touch her tiny toes and they were cold as ice.

She pressed her heartbroken princess to her rock-hard bosom and promised to buy her a new sleeping bag to keep her warm through the night.

The princess suckled forlornly at the milk she had been denied all night and gazed up at her mother with a look of disillusionment.

Eventually she came up for air and broke into a grin. "Dadadada", she chuckled.

The queen hugged her princess to her chest and hoped she had forgiven her for her wicked ways.

But there on the princess' cheek she was sure she could see, one last, tiny tear, frozen like a diamond, shimmering there forever after.