Why my baby NEEDS to be wrapped up in cotton wool

When my daughter was born you couldn't see there was anything different about her. Everything seemed present and correct and all in the right places.

But then I was the same when I came into the world.

So it was impossible to tell if I had passed on the cursèd gene.

However, one year into her life and it is has become clear that my daughter has inherited my affliction. Two left feet.

And now the evidence is staring me in the face whenever she smiles at me... with half her front tooth missing.

To a parent, their child will always look perfect. But they truly are closer to perfection at the start of their life. Their skin so smooth and unmarked. Their teeth so pearly white.

Fresh out of the box, they are so shiny and new and untarnished.

Looking down at the battleground that is my body all I can think is, "The poor little little mite doesn't stand a chance."

My knees are covered in the scars of trips and falls spanning three decades. My hips are littered with bruises from the numerous times I have bumped into doors, chairs and the pushchair over the past week. My hands are branded with burns from various mishaps with the oven or potato peeler.

My daughter's knees are always bruised now, the result of crawling doggedly over anything that gets in her way - from wooden blocks with sharp corners, to gravel and stones. Her forehead and nose often tell a tale of bumps into tables or tumbles over piles of toys.

As if it wasn't bad enough that her own mother is prone to clonking her head on the odd doorframe if we have to dash for a nappy-change, she is just as prone to clonking herself in the face with her cup or a book.

We've already been through the trauma of the A&E dash after I tripped over in the street while wearing her in the baby-carrier, and narrowly avoided crushing her beneath me. She escaped with a grazed face, while I bear fresh physical scars on my knees and raw emotional scars that prevented me ever using the sling again.

Together, we are a recipe for disaster. As Bath Time after a long, tiring, First Birthday weekend proved.

Having spent the day tidying up the house, playing with her new toys and eating leftover cake, we were both feeling shattered.

She didn't want her hair dried, but she did want to stand up against the side of the bath. So, for an easy life, I let her, while I hurried to dry her hair and get her pyjamas on so we could all go to bed.

But she really didn't want her hair dried, and she suddenly pulled her head away from me with all her might.

There was the most almighty bang, which echoed through the bathroom and shook me to the core.

I grabbed her and pulled her close to me, at the same time desperately trying to peer at her and work out where she was hurt.

Her face contorted in agony and that terrifying silence before her first shriek of pain seemed to last for an eternity.

I could see no blood. I could see no obvious bump.

Then there in her wide open mouth, on her outstretched tongue, I saw it - glinting like a gemstone, a bright white shard of tooth that appeared, to me, to be monumental in size. 

And then she started to howl.

Her cries didn't last that long. And within minutes she was all smiles again, tears still trickling down her cheeks.

The next morning I rushed her off to the dentist.

As I unfolded the sandwich bag in which I had kept the lost fragment of tooth, it suddenly seemed a lot smaller than I remembered.

"I'm not sure I can do anything with that," sighed the dentist.

The verdict is that the point is very sharp. But as my daughter went from smiling and waving, to screaming as soon as the dentist put her white gloves on (an irrational phobia in action), there is no point risking further injury by pinning her down and trying to file it off.

And eventually her milk tooth will fall out and she'll grow a new one.

The night it happened I lay awake, wracked with guilt and What Ifs and If Onlys.

But I've stopped beating myself up over it now. We've both got enough bumps and bruises already.

One Year Ago...

A year ago today I ate toast with butter and jam for breakfast, and drank my first cup of caffeinated coffee in almost ten months. The toast was cold and a bit soggy, and the coffee was only instant and also pretty tepid, but I was so hungry and grateful for them that I didn't care.

I was lying in bed in a cramped, curtained cubicle, hooked up to a bleeping machine that I'm still not sure quite what was meant to be monitoring.

It was around 6am and I had been awake for well over 24 hours.

Blinking under the throbbing strip-lights I had just begun to realise I had a headache among all the other different parts of me that were hurting.

In a little Perspex box on wheels next to me lay a sleeping baby. My baby.

I knew I should try to get some rest but all I could do was stare.

After about an hour they unhooked me from the machine and a nurse told me I could have a shower while they kept my baby at the nurses' station.

That hot water felt so good, but the shower didn't feel quite the same as usual. When I closed my eyes and tipped my head back and let the water gush over me, I still wasn't able to completely let go of reality.

Part of me was still attached. Not to the physical world, but to another life, lying in that box out in the corridor.

Since that day I have never been able to find a feeling of total detachment again.

A year ago today I created a new life in another person.

When she is tired I can't feel rested. When she is upset I feel her pain. When she laughs I can't help smiling. And when we are apart I feel like a part of me has been left behind.

Over these twelve months I have occasionally felt lonely, but I haven't ever felt alone.

My thoughts are never fully mine, for a part of my mind is always with her.

I see dangers and mistakes all around her and I want to make her world a perfect place.

I see hopes and dreams dangling just out of reach and I want to lift her up so she can grasp them all.

For a while I wondered if I had lost a part of my old self, but I have come to realise I have gained a new side that has changed me forever.

A year ago today I learned how it feels to love your child - a love so powerful you would do anything to protect them, anything to make them happy, anything to put their life before your own.

A year ago today I stopped being the centre of my own universe.

A year ago today I became a mother. And I know I won't ever be able to completely let go.

Happy Birthday M.

Are These Symptoms Of Madness Or Motherhood?

There are certain things I was prepared for when I decided to have a child; sleepless nights, changing dirty nappies, playing repetitive games, even having no time to myself.

But some things have taken me by surprise. 

I am often hit by sudden out of body experiences - for instance, as I walk down the supermarket aisle, talking aloud to myself, "Now, what do we need to buy? Ah, yes, bread!" Looking down on myself I think, "Who is that person? What is she doing? Is she actually insane?!"

My daughter will be one next week and I have been looking back at the past year and how I have changed.

I realised I have developed some new habits, which a year ago would have made me think I was mad, but that I have now come to accept as just part of my life.

::Making Up Songs About Household Chores

My baby is bored/tired/hungry and is making her feelings known. But I still have to wait for the pasta to boil/empty the bins/finish taking the washing off the line.

In a bid to buy myself those extra few much needed minutes I try singing distractedly. "Mummy's making the food, Please don't be rude. I just need a bit more time, You won't get any lunch if you whine."

::Going To The Loo With An Audience

Life really is a cabaret these days, as I am always trying to distract a mischievous child from household hazards she shouldn't be playing with, whilst also avoiding a tantrum.

Hence any bathroom break means taking her with me and keeping up the performance from my porcelain throne.

::Hiding In My Own Home

A rustle goes up from the corner of the room. She is waking up! But if she doesn't realise I'm here she might go back to sleep...

So I drop to the floor or duck behind the door and hold my breath, pretending I am some sort of spy on a covert operation, before commando crawling or creeping away.

A futile exercise, as she never falls for it.

::Clandestine Eating

I don't want to share my cheese on toast! I haven't eaten since breakfast, I've been on my feet all day, and I am starving.

But if she sees me eating it, she'll want some too. Even though she's already had her own, lovingly cut into fingers, followed by two bananas.

So I hide it on the kitchen counter and duck in to sneak a bit when she isn't looking.

It's the same ritual for chocolate biscuits.

::Making Animal Noises In Public

Will I spend the rest of my life pointing at every animal I see and shouting out their associated sound? 

"Look! Quack quack! Miaow! Woof woof!"

I am officially barking.

::Checking Vital Signals

"The baby alarm is very quiet tonight. I'll just turn the volume up a notch and press it to me ear. Hmm, that could be breathing, or it could just be the radio crackle.

"I'll just pop into the nursery and check everything's okay.

"Aah, she's totally out for the count.

"Hang on, is that her chest rising? I think it is. I'm not sure... I'll just pop my finger under her nose to see if I can feel her breath.

"Oh, that's disturbed her! Phew! She's definitely alive.

"Quick, I'd better run before she wakes up!"

::Gazing Gormlessly

But I secretly quite like sneaking into her bedroom and watching her sleeping.

I quite often find myself just sitting and staring at her with a silly, big grin on my face.

Because as much as she drives me round the twist, I'm mad about her.

What Is My Technolegacy To My Child?

Whenever my daughter gets a chance to rifle through my handbag she systematically pulls everything out until she finds my phone.

Although we do FaceTime family on the iPad, she has never even been shown pictures on a phone, so - at 11 months - she doesn't know what they do. The screen is blank, but she stares at it in fascination and jabs at it with her fingers.

These little black boxes are a mystery to her, but they are also her biggest contender for our attention.

I am consumed by guilt whenever I realise that she is whining because I have been distracted by my phone.

I thought I was being a good parent by not letting her have screentime. But digital devices have been omnipresent in her life since before she was born, and I sent pictures of my scans to my family.

So what effect is technology having on her?

I was 14 when the Internet arrived in my school.

Every lunchtime hoards of teenage girls queued up in the library for their turn on the computers, so they could use chatrooms to talk to strangers. The school cottoned on relatively quickly and blocked chatrooms, but we just found 'forums' instead.

For months my friend and I shared our romantic woes and aspirations and sought dating advice from a 'friend' we had made who told us his name was Jack, he was in his 30s and he lived in America.

We could have been talking to anyone. It could well have been a 14-year-old girl in another school we chatted to that whole time. But a more sinister thought is that it was a man in his 30s.

I am now a carer for a vulnerable young girl who will soon be using the Internet herself.

In those days it took hours to share a photo and video was not even a possibility.

Some people believe that every time their picture is taken they lose a piece of their soul. There may be some truth to that if every time I see me daughter learn to do something for the first time, I reach for the camera and watch it through a lens, rather than living that moment with her.

Today, each stage of my daughter's life has been documented in pictures and videos and stored in a cloud somewhere. When she is old enough to want to see them there could well be too many for to have time to look at.

But I do not share them on social media. I do not feel I have the right to give away any pieces of her soul so carelessly.

Social media came into my life just after I finished being a student. I had a MySpace page and shortly after that a Facebook account.

At first it seemed a great way to keep in touch and track down old friends.

But as a young woman in her twenties who still cared so much what other people thought, it felt hard comparing myself to peers who seemed more successful, more attractive, happier even, than me.

I eventually realised that I had more 'Friends' on Facebook than I had ever had real friends. And that scrolling through all those updates and photos usually left me feeling alone, not connected.

I can't help worrying what it will be like for my daughter growing up with social media right from the beginning of that time in life when you start to compare yourself to other people.

I want to do everything I can to protect her. But equally I don't want her to be left out or   left behind in this ever updating digital world.

Now a recent report on the increase of childhood cancer rates cites radiation from mobile phones as a possible cause, and I have a new concern to add to my list.

Technology is a fact of life now. I have to help my daughter use it in all the right ways that will make her life easier and better.

But I also want to teach her that there is a real world too. And sometimes the only way to be switched on to it, is to turn off technology.

Pokepram Go

I was pushing my buggy across the road today behind a woman of pensionable age.

She spotted a friend on the other side and slowed down to say hello, so I started to turn down the street to avoid crashing into them.

But just as I turned, she stepped in the same direction and I clipped the very edge of the back of her enormous, padded orthopaedic trainers, ever so slightly.

As soon as it happened I stopped, gasped and began gushing my apologies.

I'd only got as far as, "I am SO sorry! I ...", when she flashed a look of daggers - all rage, no pain - that left me feeling far more maimed than she appeared, and snapped, "Yes, okay. It's just I've got a bad foot." And she turned and carried on chatting to her pal.

"Oh, forgive me! You see, I regularly go about trying to mow down old ladies with a pushchair. But if I'd known you had a bad foot I would have steered clear and chosen another victim."

So in honour of that very kind and empathetic old dear, I am launching a new app - Pokepram Go (Kickstarter campaign to follow shortly).

It is a virtual game played in the real world, whereby you score points for running into people with your pram or buggy.

Here are the top Pokepram Point Scorers:

::Little old ladies - 500 points

::Little old ladies with bad feet - 1000 points

::Business people who don't hold doors open or even bother to offer helping with steps because their job is clearly much more important than yours - 500 points

::People who walk really slowly because they are using their phones and keep slowing down, making it near impossible not to run into them - 100 points

::Parents who do not make space for a second buggy on buses (Come one, we know you can sometimes fit three at a push!) - 800 points

::Teenagers who crowd together on the pavement and pretend not to notice you trying to get by - 500 points

::People who block the whole aisle in supermarkets with their trolley - 800 points

::Shoppers who look irritated with you for even daring to try and push a buggy around a clothes shop - 1000 points

::Bus drivers who wait at stops and then drive off just as they see you running towards them, pushing your pram with one hand, while desperately trying to flag them down with the other - 1,000,000 points

Did I miss any?

Buggies at the ready parents. Got to catch 'em all!

Strike A Pose

It's London Fashion Week again and I couldn't feel more on the wrong side of the velvet rope if I tried.

Last time Kimye, Anna Wintour et al rolled into town I was imprisoned in a uniform of striped nursing wear.

Now, seven months on, my solid-munching daughter has dropped her lunchtime feed, and yet I seem unable to break free.

I went to a friend's birthday party at the weekend. She had a seven-week-old baby but had refused to let it steal her style - choosing to wear a glamorous dress with a sweeping floral cape at the front.

When it was time to breastfeed her daughter she excused herself, confessing she was going to have to go and strip off in the other room in order to access her mammary glands.

I, on the other hand, was wearing a red t-shirt dress with flaps at the front, in order that my 11-month-old daughter could dive in and help herself whenever she fancied it. And she wouldn't even need feeding until bedtime.

Somewhere during pregnancy I lost my style. And I still haven't got it back.

I don't mean that I was ever a particularly stylish or fashionista type of dresser. But I had clothes I liked and I wore them because they made me feel confident and I felt they expressed a bit of my personality.

But as the bump grew larger I began wearing bigger and bigger shapeless tents, before eventually abandoning dresses altogether, in favour of smocks and maternity leggings.

And that was it. The leggings enveloped me and I have been trapped ever since.

Leggings and stripy t-shirts with flaps in, leggings and oversize shirts, leggings and smocks.

Summer has seen me dig out a few dresses, but only ones that have easy-to-tear-open buttons at the front and are light enough to wear a vest underneath.

And since they end up covered in food and snot and I-don't-even-want-to-think-about-what-else, it seemed a waste of time to wear anything I actually like.

But as I stood there at the party in my wrong-kind-of-flapper-girl dress, I thought to myself, "I don't have to conform to the mother uniform anymore!"

I'll admit, it's a hell of a lot easier to wake up and pull on leggings every day. And some mornings I just don't have time to think about what would look good.

But still, I take the time to make sure my daughter's outfits are reasonably coordinated and attractive. So why not me?

I'm not saying I'm going to be Frow-ready every day. If you see me at the checkout in Lidl and I'm still wearing leggings, don't judge me.

But perhaps I'll dig out a nice dress next time I have somewhere to go.

If I'm going to end up covered in food and snot, then I might as well do it in style.

7 Cult Films I Feel I Have Been Living In Since Becoming A Parent

::Freaky Friday

1976, starring Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris and remade in 2003 with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan. Teenage daughter and mother wake up to find they have swapped bodies and after a day in each other's shoes learn to understand each other.

One night I went to bed a wreckless young person with no responsibilities and my whole life ahead of me.

Next thing I knew I woke up and I have a child to look after and a house to clean and the weight of the world on my shoulders.

I feel like I have been thrown in at the deep end with no proper training or preparation and I'm having to make it all up as I go along in a desperate bid for survival.

Except there is no youthful body for me to swap back into, even if I could work out what magic spell would get me there. And all I really want is my mummy.

::Three Men And A Baby

1987, starring Tom Selleck, Steve Guetenberg and Ted Danson. Three carefree, successful flatmates find a baby left on their doorstep. Hilarity and chaos ensues as they attempt to get to grips with caring for an infant but can't help growing to love her.

I don't share their hairy chests or incredible Manhattan real estate, but so many times in the last year I have felt just like Tom, Steve and Ted. Whether it's getting pee-ed on, watching helplessly as my home is invaded by baby equipment, reading gruesome news reports from the paper in a cooing voice in an attempt to sooth, nodding off as she feeds or just generally feeling like this is really hard work that I wasn't in the least bit prepared for.

If only they popped round every now and again to sing her to sleep, Barbershop style.

::Baby Boom

1987, starring Diane Keaton. High-powered New York business woman is left orphaned baby by distant relative. She is forced to move to the country to start a new life, launches her own baby food brand and realises she wants more from life than a corner office.

If you have seen this movie you may remember a scene where Diane Keaton just can't take life as a lonely, exhausted mother and homeowner in the sticks any more and loses it - shrieking, crying, tearing her hair out and passing out, flat on her back, cartoon style. This replays in my head on a daily basis.

I don't want a corner office, I don't want to be asked out by a handsome and charming vet, but I do want to find a successful business venture to channel my creativity into and give me a sense of purpose in life. And I would quite like to have a mini-breakdown, just once, and let it all out.

::The Sound Of Music

1965 starring Julie Andrews. A young nun struggling to fit in at the convent is sent to try a new vocation as a nanny to seven children. She finds that pretty difficult too but attempts to make life fun with lots of games and singing. And then she ends up marrying their father and they all escape from the Nazis.

I like to sing and I seem to spend all day serenading my baby. But I'm certainly no Mary Poppins, as I am not Practically Perfect in any way and I don't have any magic tricks up my sleeve. So Dame Julie's other childcare film seems to resonate a lot more.

I do enjoy going swimming and to Messy Play with my daughter and generally joining in with her games. I'd love to be able to yodel and sew clothes out of curtains and dance around fountains.

And when I look into her big wide eyes and see that she loves me back, I do think, somewhere in her youth and childhood, I must be doing something good.

::Home Alone

1990, starring Macaulay Culkin. An eight-year-old boy is left behind when his family go on holiday for Christmas and at first he is delighted, but then he starts to miss his family. Meanwhile, two burglars are targeting the neighbourhood so he must defend his home.

At first it was great having the house to myself. I could stay in my pyjamas all day if I fancied, watch what I wanted on Netflix and eat junk food. That quickly got boring and I all I want is some company and a cuddle. 

But if Kevin McCallister taught me anything, it is to man-up, do the laundry, tidy the house and get a nutritious meal on the table.

And instead of a bad guy with missing teeth trying to invade my home, I have a bad baby with growing teeth trying to destroy it from the inside who I must fend off... without the bricks and kerosene.

::Gremlins

1984, starring Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates. A boy is given a cute little furry creature as a pet, but after not sticking to its strict care regime it turns into a terrifying, uncontrollable monster.

I signed up to take care of an adorable and helpless little creature with big, blinking eyes and a sweet little mewl, who was so cute and cuddly.

Now I have a torturous, screeching, fanged monster on my hands who I can't control.

::Dirty Dancing

1987, starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. Coming of age romance with some smooth moves, a fantastic soundtrack and some unforgettable lines.

Because, "Nobody puts Baby in the corner." As if she'd ever let me forget it!