June 2007

PostingSleep no more

The Bean is scrabbling at a kitchen cupboard door that her dad and I have barred against her. She tugs at the shiny cream surface, tugs again harder, loses her balance, teeters for a moment, then falls backwards onto her bottom. She emits a shriek of distress and indignation. Mishaps like this happen approximately twenty times daily, but don't normally bother her. On this occasion, however, because she is tired, the fall causes her alarm and distress. It is 9.30am, and we both know she is upset because she's now been up for two and a half hours and is due her morning nap. I silently wonder again how the researchers of a large US university could have decided in their infinite wisdom that letting young children nap could be harmful for them.

Looking smaller than usual sat down on the floor, she lifts up her arms to signal she wants to be held. I bend down to pick her up, cuddle her close to me, and carry my small, disconsolate daughter through to her bedroom, where I draw the window shutters, and lay out her sleep bag in her cot ready for her. She is too tired even to demand to play with her dreamcatcher or inspect her flowery chicken mobile that hangs from the ceiling. Go straight to the cot. Do not pass the toy basket. Do not pause to play with festive Santa bib.

I lift her into the cot, get her left arm into the hole of the sleep bag, then manage to remove her right-hand thumb from her mouth long enough to get the other arm into the bag. In another well-honoured part of our morning ritual she reaches out for the well-chewed form of Mr Bear, her faithful bed-time companion, clutches him to her, and reinserts her thumb in her mouth. "I'll be back when you've had a sleep," I tell her, but she's not listening. She's already shut her eyes, curled onto her side, and is slurping on her thumb, zoned out.

Every morning that The Bean is at home (not nursery) she has a nap on similar lines to this one she had this morning. Not just so that I can use the time to clean, do emails, chat on the phone or catch up on work, though, my goodness, it's great to have the chance to do that, but because she needs the rest, otherwise life becomes too much for her. She hasn't got the energy yet to get through a full day without a sleep top-up.

But woe betide me! For now research from Florida University says that daytime napping prevents children sleeping well at night - and could even impair mental performance. They say children's puzzle-solving abilities can deteriorate when they take longer daytime naps. I might have known it. Is there no area of parenting free of some controversial new recommendation? Pregnancy, toys, food, sleep.... none of it simple, all filled with advice from the so-called 'experts'. Who could be more 'expert' on whether my daughter needs a nap than me and her?

Now, I haven't read the full findings of the Florida survey, which I'm sure is well-intentioned and thoroughly researched. I read a summary of its findings over on Mumsnet. But the idea that day-time naps are harmful completely contradicts my personal experience. There's no way The Bean - 14 months old - could cope with a day lasting from 7am to 7pm without at least one nap. She'd be hysterical and grumpy.

This latest research into naps reminds me of last week's story that pureed food was bad for babies. What have we parents done to deserve so many scare stories that overturn so much received wisdom? Maybe the answer is that young (well, okay, I'm no spring chicken, nearly 40, so not that young) parents are a good target market for this material - you know, largely clueless, impressionable, desperate to do their best, lacking instruction manual or, indeed, clear instructions from the child herself. Ready to listen to anything that promises The Solution. Well, that's what I'm like, though in fairness I've gained a lot in confidence over the past months.

But it seems like the advice to parents changes all the time. This year's new parents are told to put baby to sleep on his back, scared witless by stories about what might happen if they don't. The previous generation was given exactly the same lines about how babies should sleep on their fronts, for the same reasons. In another ten years the 'experts' will doubtless change the advice again - but stick with the same dire warnings.

What really gets to me is that all these parenting gurus like to impart their advice with the message that if you don't follow it to the letter, disastrous consequences will ensue - with the pureed food research the authors said babies could get addicted to gloop, constipated and eventually obese. That surely can't be true, can it? In this instance, it's the threat of impaired mental performance. I don't know. Maybe they're right, and I'm stupid and cynical to suspect otherwise. What do other people think? Are we right to give our children day-time naps? Are we being preyed on by a parenting advisory industry?

Posted 29 June 2007 23:09 | Number of comments: 13 | Comments

Daughter Dilemmas Health Home Parenting gurus Play

PostingSpy Hard

There's more to this parenting lark than I first suspected. I can no longer agree with the father who told me: "A bit of nerve and a lot of stamina - that's all a new parent needs, really." I'd have to add cunning to the list. You see, it turns out I've been spied on in my own home. By a deceptively sweet-faced baby we call The Bean. Yes, she's had me under surveillance night and day for 14 months - and until recently I never suspected a thing.

Turns out The Bean has spent her entire life-time shadowing me here, in the privacy of my own home. A regular infant spook. She has scrutinised my every move. And now, oh how this makes me cringe, I'm seeing them - including some frankly unappealing character traits - relayed back to me by her. 

Sat on kitchen floor next to 'her' bins, arms akimbo, determined and cross, she reminds me of someone. At first I can't think who. Then it comes to me. Oh crikey - is that what I look like? Seizes her father's asthma puffer and pops it in her mouth, shuts her eyes and puffs on it. Grins. Like her dad.

Pretends to brush her teeth with our tooth brushes (though she won't suffer the real thing at bed-time). Pulls my bushy hairbrush through her soft curls. Gazes at self in mirror. Attacks chalk drawing in serious, purposeful manner I recognise of old. Wipes down her changing mat as she must have seen me do. Sighs heavily at computer's recalcitrance. Loves a joke and socialising. Laughs and giggles.

It's like one of those management courses in self-awareness. But I never signed up for this. Ok, the sleepless nights I knew about. But action replays of my every move... nobody warned me about that. Some of these traits I never even realised I had - the mania for wiping surfaces, for example. I shall have to be careful. Never mind about my scary and near-total responsibility for how she turns out as an adult just for now. Next, she'll begin blogging. About me. Now that's a really scary thought.

Posted 27 June 2007 12:44 | Number of comments: 14 | Comments

Childcare Daughter Domestic chaos Home

PostingProtest march

I've always been a literal-minded sort of person.

So when the Bean began screaming in protest today as I strapped her into her summer chariot it was something of a double whammy.

Firstly, though I suppose I would say this, her hysterical anger seemed a tad out of proportion to my crime. You know, maybe a little OTT when I was only trying to take her home for her tea.

My only response to her fury was to adopt my automaton air hostess voice. Something along these lines: "Will passenger Bean please remain calm, return to her seat, stow her seat table away and fasten her seat belt."

They'd have had her up for air rage on any flight. She countered by rearing up out of the buggy, a full two feet of small girl held rigid with the force of her rage.

I looked round furtively, afraid lest someone might hasten to the Bean's aid and call social services.

As if that wasn't bad enough, I'm doubly dismayed because the Bean is only 14 months old, a stage I thought was still meant to involve cherubic innocence. Too early for pram strikes, sit-ins (well, stand-ups, in this case) and unpredictable boycotts. And if this is the warm-up, what's the main event going to be like?

So it seems I was too literal when I thought the terrible twos were exactly that, an affliction that began on second birthdays and ended on the third. I never reckoned on this stuff beginning a full ten months before she turned two.

I blame nursery. She must have got together with the other babies. They've been giving each other ideas as they hang out, drinking Babycinos, doing their chalk drawings.

Yes, they've clearly been talking to the union, finding out their rights, ganging up on their poor, frightened bourgeois parents. Mark my words, one day it's pram strike, the next they'll be toddling through Paris to overthrow the reactionary 'system'.

Where will it all end?

Posted 25 June 2007 23:43 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Daughter Dilemmas Out and about

PostingLauriston Castle

Lauriston CastleWe drove out on Saturday afternoon to Edinburgh's Lauriston Castle, which overlooks a narrow stretch of sea known as the Firth of Forth that coils out towards the North Sea. A misty mile or so across the water were the patchwork fields and hills of Fife, rising up from the sea. Poor, impoverished Fife is the butt of many an Edinburgh joke. "Best viewed from a distance," goes one saying. 'NFF' or 'Normal for Fife' is a cheeky medical term to describe alcohol and tobacco intake most of us would consider wildly excessive. Yet despite the reputed disappointment of its close-up reality, Fife offers a tantalising vista to all who live this side of the Forth.

On this misty Saturday Lauriston was grey, Edwardian and mysterious, untouched by time, as if pre-war beauties and their beaus might at any minute stroll through the clipped box hedges, past the Italianate rose garden, for a spot of tea on the lawns. Fittingly, the place turned out to be home to several croquet lawns (pictured above), not, it must be said, a sport I have ever had previous reason to associate with Scotland.

It wasn't just the croquet that reminded me of England. In places the grounds were almost as lush and verdant as the English countryside, testimony to the wet 'summer' we've been having up here.

Beautiful, mature trees - horse chestnut, cedar, oak and monkey puzzle - were dotted thickly across the grounds. Inspired by frequent visits to the Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh, I'm learning more about trees from a small book from Dorling Kindersley. The trouble is matching up towering great trees with the little pictures in the book. The guide does have a little stick figure drawing next to its tree pictures, to show the scale, but I can't as yet always translate that to the jumbled mass of branch, trunk and leaf in real life.

Almost as unexpected as the untypically Scottish croquet lawns was stumbling on a beautiful Friendship Garden created in the castle's grounds to celebrate Edinburgh's links with the Japanese city of Kyoto. Formal, yet peaceful, that garden was more relaxing than aromatherapy, massage or The Bean's Baby Lullabies CD. Helped by two recent viewings of the film Lost in Translation, I managed to identify some Japanese cherry trees there, which made me happy. Soon I'll become a paid-up tree spotter with anorak, measuring tape and notebook.

The Bean was entranced by the pebbles in the 'dry' garden, which required some methodical sorting, examination and tentative licking before she allowed me to replace them.

The Mad Hatter would have felt quite at home inviting guests to a tea party in the grounds of Lauriston Castle. The Queen of Hearts could have held court, while the yew trees came to life and watched her preside over a ghostly game of croquet on the lawns, played perhaps by some of the castle's stone lions that she had ordered back to life for the occasion.

Posted 24 June 2007 23:12 | Number of comments: 4 | Comments

Daughter Edinburgh Out and about

PostingA good man

"Then get down on your knees and thank God for a good man," says Granny.

I am telling Granny how the Bean's dad gets up every morning at whatever very un-Godly hour his daughter awakes, then looks after her until it's time for him to go to work, while I enjoy a lie-in. Not bragging. Just casually explaining household workings.

"He's more of a morning person than me."

I'm lying sick in bed with flu, as she berates me. Too sick to genuflect as instructed. Too sick even to blog. Much too sick to disagree with anything she says. Even when she calls the Bean a little potato.

I give a humble, token nod at the carpet to indicate I take her point about knees. Just a gentle nod, though. Don't want to hurt my sore head.

Then I reassert myself: "Mum, it's not just him. It's this generation of men. They all help out more with childcare, the house."

"Even so," says Granny, in a certain tone of voice. "Even so. To have a man who'll get up every morning and look after your child, leaving you to sleep..... "

She used this exact annoying tone years ago, obliquely reproaching me for some poor judgement in my love life via discussion of the novel Vanity Fair. This is what comes of both being English graduates. An end to direct communication. Everything couched via easy-to-misunderstand literary references.

Needless to say, she was enchanted when I met Jack (also, surely no coincidence, an English grad). The afternoon I first took him to meet her, he bounded down the pathway to her house, huge bouquet of flowers and chocolates in his hands, desire to please writ large on his eager, honest brow. She almost visibly melted.  I could see the relief in her eyes that I'd picked a good 'un.

Three years later, and in between the chaos of looking after the Bean, both of us working, me trying to get established again professionally and keeping up with friends, I do forget to be grateful for how much he does to help me. It's easier to pick holes in his bottle-warming technique than remember to be grateful he does it all in the first place, even if it's not quite to my personal specifications.

Then this morning an article in The Times "Need a child-friendly dad? Then get divorced" reminded me to count my blessings. The writer of the article made the sad claim that divorced women get more support from their children's fathers than married ones do, saying many married dads spend more time at the office than they need to because it's less exhausting than the bath-and bed-time rigmarole at home. How grim.

So, for the record, I am grateful that Jack doesn't mind getting up early with the Bean, often around 6am, to supervise her loading and unloading items from various receptacles she's commandeered for her corner of the kitchen: waste-paper bin; laundry basket, computer packaging. A couple of mornings last week she was so tired by this ritual that no sooner had Jack gone to work than she was ready for a nap, meaning I got to lie in until 9am. Even I can't find anything to complain about in that.

Posted 23 June 2007 12:50 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Childcare Dads Daughter Dilemmas Domestic chaos Husband

PostingGiant step

The Bean has started walking. Short, wobbly steps that end with an abrupt sit-down on her well-cushioned bottom.

This should be unadulterated good news. My gullibility concerning parenting gurus and their writing means it's not.

Earlier this week I read a piece in New York Magazine called The Inverse Power of Praise by Po Bronson. A big mistake on my part. 

It reports that recent US research shows too much praise can make children insecure and risk-averse.

So I bite back any "Well done!" as daughter totters the width of the kitchen. I'm sparing in telling her how proud I am of her.

The research suggests children do better when praised for effort - something they can control and work on - rather than innate intelligence.

Why don't children arrive with instruction manuals that tells parents what to do - complete with a nice glossary explaining all their cries? Then I'd be less vulnerable to whatever the latest survey tells me.

Now, of course, I've got myself in such a muddle I don't know what to say to her.

Posted 22 June 2007 14:06 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Childcare Daughter Dilemmas Etiquette Parenting gurus

PostingNever-good-enough Mum

You just can't get it right as a parent. Hours of my life spent grafting at the coal face of motherhood, hacking up wholesome organic vegetables and reducing them to pureed slime, of which my daughter might, on a good day, consent to eat a grudging spoonful, and now look what happens.

I finally master an RSS feed from the BBC and one of the first things I see today is the latest directive from Mothering HQ telling me I've wasted my time, my sweet potatoes and my freezer space by pureeing all this food.

In all honesty I always knew The Bean preferred fromage frais to anything I made. Now it seems that pureed food is not just unpalatable, but bad, bad, bad.

For it seems purees are in fact the work of evil food manufacturers who want parents in their commercial  thrall for years to come.

The Unicef Baby-Friendly Initiative almost equates pureeing food with  formula-milk makers peddling their evil powder to third-world countries.

Truly, motherhood and martyrdom go hand in hand. I know now how poor old St Sebastian must have felt. Not so much plugged full of unfriendly arrows, as, in my case, pierced to the heart by my own Moulinex whizzing wand, stoned by a flurry of small plastic food receptacles, shamed in the village stocks by the liberal daubing of pureed parsnip thrown at me by my own daughter.

Like all parenting gurus, Unicef wheels out a battery of dire consequences for any parents foolish enough to consider ignoring the received wisdom on pureeing.

You see, babies get addicted to pureed food.

And spoon-feeding babies pureed food is unnatural and unnecessary.

Why, it could delay the onset of their chewing skills. Babies unlucky enough to be fed pureed food by their reckless parents have little control over how much they eat.

Which in turn makes them vulnerable to getting blocked up. Oh, and they could also become fussy eaters in later life.

If Unicef had their way babies would survive on a milk-only diet for six months and then move straight onto solids. Bypassing evil gloop altogether.

I've yet to meet a mother who made it to the six-month mark before breaking out the Organix baby rice. If anyone reading this has a child who made it that far on milk alone, I congratulate you. Please could you let the rest of us know how you managed it.

So, here's my idea, how about we expand the Unicef remit. It could include not just a Baby-Friendly Initiative, but a Mother-Friendly one too.

Ideally, one that publishes research proving what we all know - that once babies are onto baby rice at four or five months, their mums can get a decent night's sleep, without waking twice a night to open up the mini-bar.

Actually, no, forget about baby rice. If I'd known Unicef's ideas on purees sooner there'd have been no mulched-up carrots or rice. No, I'd have served up a nice, tasty steak and chips to my daughter. Start as you mean to go on. Medium rare, I think.... Softer on the (non-existent) teeth that way.

Posted 19 June 2007 02:38 | Number of comments: 22 | Comments

Daughter Food Mistakes Parenting gurus Perfectionism Breastfeeding

PostingFathers' Day

It's been months now, and I still haven't got over the demise of Ottakars' bookshops.

Every time I walk past the scaffolding in front of their old Edinburgh shop, I suffer a small pang of loss.

Now book-buying is either on-line or at a well-known chain of supermarkets masquerading as book shops. Hobson's Choice.

Maybe it's the funereal decor they use at the Chain. Maybe it's the taciturn assistants who look so wretched. Whatever the reason, I rarely linger.

Yesterday The Bean and I visited the Chain to buy her dad Kevin McCloud's Grand Designs Handbook for Fathers' Day today. Part of my master plan to build and live in our place in the countryside.

Also a sad reflection on how much early-evening telly we watch.

Kev's books live in the windowless basement. He wouldn't like it there. Bet his books don't either. Not inspiring, or heart-felt, uplifting or architecturally coherent. No irony, no fun, no taking the mick. Just lots of black. Someone should write and let him know.

Another downer is the lack of proper customer lift.

An assistant insists on accompanying us in the service lift. Presumably lest The Bean and I disappear, steal their books and vanish.

Try getting her to talk about books, though.... they might as well be selling sausages.

The service lift lowers itself down to us with impossible slowness. I wheel The Bean in; our minder follows. The outer door closes. The assistant reaches across to the inner gate. It draws shut with a resounding clang.

Posted 17 June 2007 16:25 | Number of comments: 5 | Comments

Dads Daughter Edinburgh

PostingTagged.... 8 facts about me

My dear fellow blogger Omega Mum tagged me a little while ago, so here goes:

1. When it comes to bedtime I wake up and become energetic. However, I have great difficulty waking up most mornings. I am the reverse of my husband in both respects.

2. Although I am Scottish, I speak with an English accent. Despite this, I become offended if people express doubt that I am really Scottish.

3. My husband and I spent our first night together in a Spanish mountain refuge surrounded by fifty unwashed and flatulent fellow hikers. A trip to the 'toilet' involved abseiling down a nearby cliffside, past a pack of wolverine hounds, complete with camping light strapped to my forehead.

4. Speaking of dogs, I have a pathological terror of the beasts. When I was four I nearly drowned running into the sea to escape one of them. My father ran in after me and pulled me out. I remember sitting in the sand dunes afterwards with my Grandpa, holding my dad's wet trousers out to dry, while my dad wrapped himself as best he could in a towel.

5. The first boy I ever kissed had gargled beforehand with TCP. He was diabetic and had needles for his insulin in his pocket. The worst bit is that he was the one who dumped me.

6. In 1984 I won a letter-writing competition in The Scotsman to be a judge for the Perrier comedy awards at the Edinburgh Fringe. I spent two weeks watching four or five comedy shows daily. I also got to hobnob with lots of journalists and comedians. It was lovely. Except for a minor faux-pas at the final dinner. I misjudged a skittish vol-au-vent that shot out from my plate onto the middle of the table. There was a ghastly pause in which I debated whether to haul it back in or not. Greed eventually got the better of me.

7. I love being outdoors. It is one of my favourite things in the world and where I feel most at peace. I am nearly 6ft tall and a good walker.

8. When I was at university I sank a punt. I cringe now, looking back. My fellow punters and I were so drunk and wet no taxi would take us, so we had to walk home, an hour's trudge via the city's ring road. What's worse, I let someone else explain to the authorities what we'd done.

Posted 15 June 2007 13:35 | Number of comments: 6 | Comments

Dads Husband Likes/Dislikes Out and about

PostingNursing rights

How considerate of the English government to pass a law enshrining women's right to breastfeed their babies in public. Good of them to give women legal redress if some nutter demands they stow away their offending parts, cut a feed short and hop it. So instead of meekly replacing damp bra pad, buckling up nursing bra and b****ring off elsewhere, screaming infant in tow, women now have the right to get lippy back. Good.

Presumably the motivation behind this latest legislation is the government's desperation to make us all breastfeed. There'll be grants for it soon, mark my words. Subsidies in the form of vouchers for nursing bras and nipple cream. Health visitors discreetly handing out wodges of cash at the sight of cracked nipples.

I suppose it is good that the government is giving breastfeeding women some legal support. Let's face it, it takes some nerve to get your breasts out in public, then use them to feed a shrieking baby, law or no law. But I have my reservations.

This law took effect in Scotland a while ago, before my daughter was born. So I have no experience of what it was like to breastfeed prior to the new law. But my sense is that while breastfeeding legislation is good, a hydraulic-lift nursing bra from the NCT is better. NCT nursing tops weren't so great, on the other hand, at least not the time I forgot to pull the flap back down and went shopping with rather more on display than I realised.

Frankly, though, who needs legislation to breastfeed in public, when there's the piercing screams of a small child telling you to get on with it? Any embarrassment about public breastfeeding was nothing compared to my embarrassment at my daughter's hungry crying. When the wail went up on-lookers dived for cover, hands over ears, waiting for the Luftwaffe to drop its bombs. "Aye, that's a fine pair of lungs she's got," ventured one brave soul above the siren.

I'd have done anything to quieten her. No, hang on, that's not right, I did do anything. I not just breastfed her in public, I breastfed her in parks, shops, cafes, beaches, buses, and cinemas, on walls, benches and trains. And you know what, in a year of all that, no-one so much as looked at me, let alone hassled me. Maybe that was the long arm of the law... or then again, maybe not. Whichever it was, I do hope the government isn't wasting tax-payers' resources again.

Posted 15 June 2007 02:20 | Number of comments: 6 | Comments

Breastfeeding Daughter Domestic chaos

PostingHostess with the mostest....

My chum New Town Mum has agreed to share another diary entry with me. Please see her column to read more of her pretentious outpourings.

Posted 14 June 2007 16:20 | Number of comments: 5 | Comments

New Town Mum

PostingThe Birds

"Lucky you, living in Edinburgh. So much cleaner than London," said an old work contact on the phone yesterday.

This struck me as a funny thing to say. I would never decide where to live based on its cleanliness, Black Hole of Calcutta being perhaps the honourable exception. Crime levels, safety, education, yes - cleanliness, no. One of my favourite cities in the world is Venice - I adore that stinking, damp-infested pile of decrepitude.

Also, I'm not sure Edinburgh is cleaner than London, despite what you might imagine. Okay, maybe the quality of air is better up here - but I have to disagree with the notion the city itself is cleaner.

The main culprits behind our slovenly streets are avian. The city's ubiquitous, mischievous sea gulls. Let me be clear - I love seagulls. Time was I enjoyed little better than watching them navigate what RLS called the "windy parallelograms" of the New Town by road. Hang a right along Howe Street, swoop into the grandeur of Great King Street, incline an elegant white wing to take a sharp left turn into Dundas Street (only in Edinburgh could we name a street after a lawyer, what that says about us I dread to think). So I don't have an objection to seagulls in themselves.

It would be nice, though, let me think how to put this tactfully lest I hurt their feelings if they ever read this, if they could arrange their early-morning cawing for a little, umm, later in the day. They caw noisily outside my bedroom window from 5am some mornings. Special, rubbish-day mornings. We residents have to put black bin bags out on the street on Mondays and Thursdays. Those are the days that entice hungry, wakeful gulls to poke orange beaks around in search of tempting delicacies. Not only do we get the cawing, when we leave the "stair" - as they call blocks of flats here - we're greeted with cans, bottles, nappy bags, and assorted detritus strewn across the pavement. Many's the time I see shop-owners and rubbish men clearing up all the mess - but only hours later. I know Londoners love nothing more than a good, ritualised moan - but in this respect I have to say I think those landlubbers might have it easier than us Burghers.

Posted 13 June 2007 17:08 | Number of comments: 7 | Comments

Domestic chaos Edinburgh Out and about

PostingStriking out

Golf clubs and other private members' establishments will no longer be able to ban women members from their bars or discrimi nate in any other way on gender grounds under a shakeup of equality laws unveiled today.

Oh happy day. And about time, too. Delighted to read this story in today's Guardian, after my weekend rant about being thrown out of a stuffy Edinburgh golf club a couple of years ago while six-months pregnant for wearing trainers.

The Guardian quotes a source at the Department of Communities and Local Government, which is publishing today's green paper, saying: "We firmly believe that people being treated as second class citizens when a club is open to all is simply not on." Hurrah. It's not that I want to hang around golf clubs, you understand, in Edinburgh or elsewhere. But I'd like to make my own mind up about that, thank you very much.

Years ago I had to interview a self-important old buffer at his "gentlemen's club" in St James' in London. The porter insisted I don an ancient elasticated club skirt before going into the restaurant, lest the "gentlemen "- huh, as if - be upset by my Jigsaw trouser suit. Hope they legislate against that sort of nonsense too, soon.

Posted 12 June 2007 15:57 | Number of comments: 9 | Comments

Edinburgh Out and about

PostingHug a tree

Queen St Gardens trees 2My 14-month-old daughter is afraid of trees. This is what comes of living in a city-centre flat. No garden, no shed, no trees. Never mind. I have plans for our astragal (Edinburgh-speak for minute iron balcony, home to pot of red geraniums)  and last week I took her to the lovely private gardens up the road from us in Edinburgh's Queen Street, annual subscription £70 (visited four times, not my best investment). As we inspected the trees she ducked her head down onto my shoulder and hid in fear. She thinks they are alive - and out to get her. In younger hippy days I used to hug trees. Nowadays I feel too inhibited. But how could my daughter not love them too?

Rain rescued her. We packed up the vol-au-vent, said goodbye to the scary tree people, and took refuge in a local cafe/photography studio/gallery opened last month in Howe Street by photographer Robyn Rowles. Daughter might not care much for trees, but a vanilla-flavoured babycino is another matter altogether... she was in heaven, bedaubed with milky froth. Robyn captured the moment on camera for us, giving us one of the best pictures we have of The Bean.

Posted 12 June 2007 14:16 | Number of comments: 11 | Comments

Daughter Edinburgh Fun Out and about

PostingExtreme childcare

I'm no great fan of posh gel Katie Hopkins from the BBC programme The Apprentice, though bless her, anyone who behaves like that must surely have "issues", but even I cringed at her grilling last week on television on the old chestnut of childcare arrangements for her two young daughters. I suspect we've now probably all heard enough about poor old Katie, who might not have got the apprenticeship but has assuredly been appointed pantomime villain to the nation.

But it got me thinking about "help" with childcare again, what's acceptable, what's not. At least Katie appeared to be living with her children, who were looked after by herself and other family. You can't say as much for every mother of young children. I know of one Edinburgh "mum" who spends four days a week working in the City of London, while a team of nannies looks after her little girl back here in Scotland, ferrying her to and from school, ballet lessons, tea parties etc, organising after-school. Some couples employ "night" and "weekend" nannies. And all this is before the kids become old enough for boarding school - the other big parental cop-out. Of course I love nothing better than getting on my moral high-horse and being all judgemental about other people's parenting. I only do it so I won't feel so bad about daughter's twice-weekly time at nursery, and one day with her reprobate Granny.

Posted 12 June 2007 13:33 | Number of comments: 7 | Comments

Childcare Daughter Granny Guilt Work vs mothering

PostingEscape to the hills

Swanston gorseJ and I escaped to the hills today while K stayed at home ransacking her Granny's handbag.  We have beautiful hills practically on our doorstep - half an hour's drive took us to the foot of the Pentlands - but usually by the weekend we're too exhausted to go anywhere much.

We parked below Swanston village, found the stony track as instructed in the wonderful Cicerone The Pentland Hills: A Walker's Guide and followed the signpost for Allermuir Hill, barely visible through its carapace of heavy mist. Robert Louis Stevenson, who grew up not far from where we live, also used to walk these hills, which was why we chose this route.

Out of breath, we struggled up the hillside past picturesque thatched whitewashed cottages, through kissing gates, before reaching open ground covered with thick, prickly yellow gorse, and pausing to pick some lucky heather. After I gave my last piece away to a sick friend, I had a miscarriage, so this walk was partly to replenish supplies. I don't think it was a good omen that I had to tug really hard at the stuff, which was oozing sap, before some came away in my hand and I could store it in a special heather-guarding pouch in my rucksack.

We lost our way on the descent, ending up marching across Swanston Golf Club, past blokes in little golf cars wearing golfing slacks. Big walking boots clumping across coiffed lawns. I don't like golf clubs. Last time I was in one was with Granny at her local club, I was six months pregnant, and they threw me out because I was wearing trainers, as if I was some teenage hoodie come to make trouble. I still seethe at the iniquity of it. Nobody accosted us as we scurried across the greens, but it was a relief to escape the manicured perfection of the place. I bet RLS never had to put up with that sort of treatment.

Posted 10 June 2007 22:45 | Number of comments: 11 | Comments

Edinburgh Fun Granny Husband Out and about

PostingWomen of a certain age

The number of women in their 40s going to IVF clinics has doubled, according to a posting on Alpha Mummy, but the likelihood of a successful pregnancy remains as low as ever. The social phenomenon is reportedly caused by more and more women waiting till later in life to have a child, despite the sad truth that fertility falls of a cliff after 35.

No offence to Alpha Mummy, one of my favourite blogs, but I've got to say this story smacks of those "have-it-all" attacks on working mums. You know, the idea that any woman who has the gall to want both career and motherhood will be punished for her audacity - in this instance with infertility. Other variants on the theme include: "Sending your child to nursery will damage him or her". It also doesn't tie with my personal experiences. I had my daughter at 38, comparatively late, yes, but because I only met my husband aged 35, not because of work. You can't legislate for when you fall in love with the right guy.

Nobody writes stories anymore about the success stories of IVF, about the couples blessed with children thanks to these techniques who would otherwise have remained childless, with the woman no doubt labelled "careerist". It's obviously very sad that women are disappointed in their dreams of having children. But to me, this is a scare story that smacks of resentment that women are taking control of their lives and their reproductive fate.

Years ago, as a student, I had a medic friend who insisted to me the medical establishment was run by a bunch of patriarchal old fogeys who wanted women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen by their mid-20s. She claimed stories of declining female fertility were a ruse to keep women out of the workforce  and said she planned to wait till her mid-30s to have kids - which she did, producing a son and daughter.

Now our group of friends is in their late 30s, and the picture's a little more mixed. Some women I know have successfully conceived and carried healthy babies to term in their early 40s. For others it hasn't happened.

What I didn't know until recently, when personal experience put me on the wrong side of the statistics, is that getting pregnant is only half the battle. The miscarriage rate rises to one in three pregnancies for 40-somethings, compared to one in five for all women of childbearing age.

Not something my medic friend told me, or anyone else for that matter. It's not just getting pregnant, it's staying pregnant, and that too gets harder as you get older. Still, I'm sure there's a group of doctors somewhere who'd be only too happy to pontificate on how women should manage their own bodies by researching the subject further, then generating even greater alarm with their findings.  

Posted 08 June 2007 21:56 | Number of comments: 9 | Comments

Pregnancy Work vs mothering Guilt Miscarriage

PostingWorking mum

Good posting at Helena Frith Powell today about the tragic death of Zakia Zaki, a 35-year-old Afghan journalist who was shot as she slept with her 20-month-old baby in her home north of Kabul. Long unpopular with the Taliban, Zaki was one of the few journalists who spoke out against them when they were in power and she ran the US-funded radio station Radio Peace. But it seems what led to her being targeted was being a working mother. Reading the story I felt ashamed of every time I've ever thought I have it hard, juggling work and being a mum.

Posted 07 June 2007 20:43 | Number of comments: 2 | Comments

Work vs mothering

PostingAll in good time

Set in stone My husband and I cannot agree on what “leaving in good time” means. Last week was our  first parents’ evening at nursery – a momentous event in our small household. We built up to this for days beforehand. Somehow we still ended up half-running through Edinburgh’s early evening drizzle, sans umbrella. We arrived dishevelled, damp and out of breath.

When I'm not blaming my husband for our poor time management,  I blame poor Granny. After she arrived to babysit for our big night, an hour slid by. We rifled through cupboards filled with small plastic containers, tidied away toys. I produced breadsticks, cereal bars, potted apple puree; lifted down boxes of formula. Made cups of tea; relocated the remotes, chatted, got daughter to bed, and there we were, time to go. Another ten minutes vanished looking for glasses, applying lipstick, brushing hair, smoothing on “product”. Whoosh.

Jack and I clattered downstairs, giddy with the freedom of a rare night out. Then we looked at his watch, and panicked.

“We should have left earlier,” I began.

“I was ready a good half hour before you,” he said, in a mild way.

“No, you weren’t,” I retorted, knowing what he said was true.

“I think you'll find I was. I was waiting for you but didn't say anything as I didn't want to rush you.”

"You should have said something!" I blustered.

We began half-running/half-walking along Edinburgh's cobbled lanes, skeetering in our haste over treacherous, uneven stones lying sleek and smooth with rain. Every so often Edinburgh Council erects huge tents over the road, digs up these cobbles, cleans them and replaces them to make road surfaces smoother. Within months they revert to the default of their old uneven ways, set, as it where, in stone. The butterflies in my stomach refused to settle. Not a product in the world could have stopped my hair frizzing.

We could have driven, but decided lack of both parking skills and spaces might make it quicker on foot.

“You can slow down. We’ve got a good ten minutes to get there,” my husband tried to persuade me.

“No! We can’t be late. We’ve got to keep going, it'll take at least ten minutes to get there,” I insisted.

Of course I caved.  Ground to a halt. Wheezed.

“We should slow down. I don’t want to be all out of breath when we get there. I want to make a good impression. What will all the other parents think if we arrive like this?” I preached to my converted husband.

"Why do you care so much what other people think?" he asked.

I had no answer.

The grown-ups had reclaimed nursery for the evening. Someone showed us into a large room with drinks set out next to the Wendy House. We demisted our glasses. Under the felt-tipped airplane with pictures of children's heads pasted to the seats stood one mother. Over by the window stood another. That made four of us in the room. A nursery assistant brought us our drinks. Grimaced.

"Nice weather, isn't it? The other parents'll be along shortly I expect. Must have got held up by the weather."

Posted 06 June 2007 11:00 | Number of comments: 5 | Comments

Angst Car Dilemmas Domestic chaos Etiquette Husband Mistakes Nursery

PostingHappy campers

The first family holiday is a shock. Ours wasn't a holiday at all, not in the strictest sense. We worked harder than I've done in some paying jobs. It was hard graft. Day and night. Each evening I squirted my milk into a bowl and mixed it up with powdered baby rice for my daughter. I still remember the sound it made hitting the plastic. It was fun. But in an unfamiliar, cow-like way. I felt sad at losing the old freedoms. In private, I cried.

Back in the heady days of coupledom we used to book a cheap flight somewhere, then wing it, smug about being proper "travellers". We only once came to grief, descending from a Cevennol mountain to find a room for the night in the valley. A Festival de Cinema had taken all the accommodation in a 10k radius. No room in the inn. Again, I cried. A lot. It worked.

The nice monsieur in the local hotel rang round. After many worried looks, he found us somewhere and sent us off with rabbit stew for our supper. After all he'd done for us, I had no heart to confess my husband was vegetarian. The cottage was grim; no windows. The bed too small to accommodate me or husband. I woke several times with nightmares, unsure if awake or asleep. A long night.

We left the next day, both blaming the other, and got a room in the hotel, which all the actors had by then finally left. We stayed for two days, because we had no money and the one cashpoint in the village was in a shop that didn't open until then. The hotel staff asked every time they saw me "Ca va mieux?", which seemed to translate as "You're not going to have a nervous breakdown on our premises, are you?"

Not wishing to risk a repeat of this on a family holiday, we've agreed to plan ahead. I'm not experienced in any of this, but we're ruling out hotels. Either we'd have to leave daughter alone in the room while we got our meal. Or sit there in silence and darkness from 7pm.

The obvious solution would be self-catering. But that would mean booking a place for a week or fortnight, and then we'd be stuck. I've a yen for adventure, and would love some of the old spontaneity.

So we're investigating tents. I discovered on Saturday tent brands are named after birds. Buzzard, Hawk, Shrike. It speaks of freedom. Prairie, Roadrunner, Vista, Oregon, Halo, Aurora. Challenge and adventure. In my imagination, I'm there. But our daughter is already ahead of us. Her Pop-Up Activity Tent arrived home yesterday. Mine, however, will be waterproof.

Posted 03 June 2007 20:19 | Number of comments: 6 | Comments

Daughter Dilemmas Fun Husband Kit Mistakes Out and about Toys Work

PostingRights of working mums

One of my favourite sites, The Times' Alpha Mummy blog, has an excellent posting called Legal advice for working mums: six things you should know. It provides answers to questions such as whether you have to notify an employer when interviewing for a job that you're pregnant (no, you don't), is an employer obliged to give time off for family emergencies (yes, but it'll be unpaid), and what's the best way to make a case for flexible or part-time working (write a letter citing recent legislation).

It also looks at how employment law affects people who employ nannies (not one of my problems, have to admit), and whether you can enforce a nanny confidentiality clause (again, not an issue for me; can't imagine anyone being that interested in my domestic set-up). I'm no expert on any of this, nor are many of my friends, and so it was good to see some answers to these difficult issues.

As I said in a comment on the Alpha Mummy posting, there's a need for more information on working mothers' rights.  I speak to so many mums who aren't aware of their employment rights, and hear of bosses who don't hesitate to exploit that lack of awareness. The law seems to change so fast in this area as well. I suppose there will always be bosses who try it on - just as there will always be some bad-egg employees, too - but at least if people are better-informed about their legal rights, working mothers have a better chance of a decent deal.

Posted 02 June 2007 19:44 | Number of comments: 1 | Comments

Money Work Dilemmas

PostingVicious circle

My heart sank this morning when I read in The Times about yet another pregnancy survey that will alarm many mothers and mothers-to-be. Apparently women who suffer stress in pregnancy transmit their anxiety to their unborn child from as early as 17 weeks. Stress levels in foetuses as young as four months old rise and fall in line with those of their mothers.

The Times quotes a midwife for Tommy's, the baby charity, saying: "What is now clear is that high levels of stress in pregnancy can in some cases be detrimental to the health of the baby and to remain as stress-free as possible is certainly important."

The researchers, though doubtless well-meaning, seem to have forgotten something important in all this - stress is part and parcel of being pregnant. Pregnant women are biologically programmed to worry about anything that might present a danger to them or their child(ren) - and pregnancy is a stressful time. I fear this research could make many mothers feel bad about themselves.

Professor Vivette Glover of Imperial College London, who carried out the research, has suggested previously that the greater the stress felt by a mother, the lower her baby's IQ. The babies of stressed mothers are also more likely to be anxious and show signs of attention-deficit disorder.

In fairness, medical staff have responded to the findings by asking the family, friends and employers of pregnant women to give adequate support and reassurance during their pregnancy.

Consultant obstetrician Pampa Sarkar who worked with Professor Glover on the research is quoted in The Times saying: "We do not wish to unduly worry  pregnant women. It should be remembered that one of the best ways for people to avoid general stress is to lead a healthy, balanced lifestyle."

Pregnancy is stressful at the best of times, even with a supportive family. Will the baby be okay? How will I cope? Will I be a good mother? How will my relationship with my husband change? Will he still fancy me? What will the birth be like? What about my work? Will we be okay on one income? How will wider family politics change? What on earth have I got myself into? Will I ever get a good night's sleep again? Why has he got all the duvet on his side?

When I was pregnant the last thing I needed was someone coming along to tell me I shouldn't be stressed, because it might harm the baby. There's no escaping that life can be stressful, especially with a battery of people trying to take control of your body. In fact, I felt quite stressed just reading this report.

Posted 01 June 2007 09:36 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Angst Guilt Parenting gurus Perfectionism Pregnancy