August 2007

PostingLearning the lingo

036_Small.JPGReading a piece in The Times about neologisms that are creeping into the language, I started to think about some of the mother-and-baby ones they missed from their list, which included gems like blogosphere (hurrah!), biopiracy, embed and podcast.

Here are some newly coined words and phrases for parents that I've encountered recently. Please let me know if you agree or disagree with them, and about others you've stumbled across.

1. Travel system

Or, to give it the full title, a 3-in-1 travel system. A complex arrangement of plastic, wheels, buckles and straps, costing the annual GDP of Moldova, that mysteriously transforms into car seat, forward-facing pram, rear-facing buggy, rocket ship and Formula One racing car. With optional footmuff and air conditioning. Special prizes available for anyone who can fathom the crypic instruction manual while pregnant or recovering from childbirth. (Pictured above is another kind of 'travel system' altogether)

2. 'Bye bye' - as transitive verb. 'To bye bye' meaning 'to dismiss'

Not strictly a neologism, but usage has changed. 'To bye-bye' is to wave away undesired objects. Example: "She bye byed away the broccoli as she was no longer hungry and waved for Petit Filou." When Beanie gets bored with something she says 'bye bye' to indicate I should remove it.

3. Develo-play

Wheeze to persuade parents of young babies that buying certain toys will boost early motor skills. Often billed as 'interactive'. How the human race survived so long without this stuff at its disposal I can hardly begin to imagine. It wasn't like this back in the late 60's when I was a kid. Cue Last of Summer Wine music.

4. Infant stimulation

The big buzz word of childcare. Surely a ruse dreamt up by toy makers' marketing teams, who have realised they can persuade parents to shell out on tonnes of unwanted and largely useless plastic by laying a guilt trip on them and suggesting that without these toys, children's development will be delayed? Baby Einstein provides CDs of classical music suitable for under-ones.

5. Baby gym

A nest of fabric and colour, with toys dangling from above, for newborn babies to explore.

6. Soft play

Perhaps designed to soothe our fears that children might get hurt while engaging in the rough-and-tumble normal to early childhood.  Little about this experience is soft.

7. Discovery cards

Remember flash cards? They've had a make-over. This is: "the perfect on-the-go learning activity for babies and toddlers"

8. Teether book

Book with plastic edges for babies to bite and chew on while teething.

9. Pacifier

Dummies are increasingly popular with modern parents. And they have a new name, borrowed from North America. Let's face it, pacifier doesn't have the same negative connotations as dummy.

Anyone know of any others?

Posted 30 August 2007 09:40 | Number of comments: 23 | Comments

Childcare Etiquette Kit Perfectionism Play

PostingCount-down

The wedding in Ireland takes place just over two weeks away. Two weeks in which I must primp, pluck and preen away two years of self-neglect. Two weeks in which to pray that the summer's long diet to rid myself of post-pregnancy weight has worked well enough for me to fit into a fashionable outfit. An outfit sans even the merest hint of smocks, peasantry or burgeoning bellies. An outfit I can wear with no-one, but no-one, not even the kindliest and most well-meaning, pointedly asking me about due dates or plans to have more children.

Two weeks in which I must:

1. Brave the Lewis' hat department to choose something called a 'fascinator' for my hair. Preserve it from Beanie's merciless ministrations. Wonder which Potter book it appeared in. Convince self I do not look ridiculous in it.

2. Repair to the local Floatarium for revitalising hour in a water tank. Resist temptation to draw unflattering parallels between self and Bertie's mum, the fictional Irene from Alexander McCall Smith's Scotland Street. A lady who also frequents the Floatarium - in her case, with controversial results.

3. Brush up on non-baby-related small talk. Perhaps find out if a World Cup beckons later this year. So that when people talk about 'the match' I'll know which one.

4. Psyche self up to be in roomful of mostly new people. On my own, without Va-vay (who's babysitting).

5. Remove, by scrubbing if necessary, any rejected fish pie or other gloop engrained on my person, hair or clothes.

6. Resist temptation to tell everyone I meet at the wedding that they should have a blog.

7. Unearth the nice underwear I last wore on honeymoon, before I got pregnant and outlawed underwireds to the back of the chest of drawers. As a friend said: "They did their job well, those bras." Probably repress dismay that I'll never again be a 36C. Try to be happy that at least Va-vay is pleased by my increased chest size.

8. Get hair do. Rejoice in freedom to have highlights done - as not pregnant.

9. Find wedding present

10. Remember to apply expensive face creams Va-vay brought back as gift from his weekend away. Dismiss negative thoughts that he might be trying to tell me something with this choice of present.

11. Train myself not to coo, trill, babble or sing at adult wedding guests.

12. Savour thought of returning from travels with handbag mysteriously devoid of crumbled infant rice cakes.

13. Look forward to being on plane where it will not be my job to soothe, feed or hush my poor, traumatised daughter as her ear drums get sore, and she wails in despair that she doesn't understand where she is or what's happening to her.

14. Try to convince myself I won't miss her like mad, that I won't be thinking of her every minute I'm away from her.

Can it be done? I'll let you all know. The last one, number fourteen, will be the hardest by a long chalk. Wish me luck.

Posted 28 August 2007 21:22 | Number of comments: 22 | Comments

Friends Miscarriage Older mother Out and about Pregnancy

PostingUnfit for human consumption

This posting was meant to be all about a trip Beanie and I made yesterday to visit a local attraction that opens to the public only a handful of times every year. This local well features some fine mosaics, statues and columns and we had a good visit to its dank interior, despite the notice warning the water was 'unfit for human consumption'. Someone had thought to put tea lights around the pump, which gave the well an atmospheric, almost religious feel. Beanie made friends with a Scots terrier called Toby.

I say 'meant to be' because shortly after we got home Beanie was ferrying some toys from a basket in the window over to me when she tripped on a cushion, fell and cut open her forehead on the coffee table, blood spurting everywhere. She looked so indignant and shocked, as much as anything else, it broke my heart. It happened in an instant, as we heard people warning these things would do.

Luckily, there's not been too much damage. She calmed down quite quickly before I drove her to hospital, where they saw her almost immediately and patched her up. They don't think there'll be much of a scar, and with luck the cut will heal in a few days. Seeing some of the other children there and the state they were in, I began to wonder if I was making too much of a fuss, since I was crying more than Beanie by this point. Beanie's Grandad came over to lend moral support, since Granny was out on the golf course, in a fight-to-the-death with other members of the Veteran Ladies team, and Va-vay was away.

Talk about stable doors/bolting horses, but last night I taped some old towels to the table corners to prevent a repeat. As for Beanie, she has recovered her old jubilance and now looks quite the proper member of a pirate crew, sporting a bandage over her left eye, which she scratches at from time to time.

Posted 27 August 2007 09:42 | Number of comments: 24 | Comments

Daughter Health Home Safety

PostingL Plates Mum

Reading last week the story of a rise in unjust adoptions, I was taken back to my fears as an L Plates mum when Beanie first arrived and I hadn't a clue how to get from one minute to the next so sat in my flat shaking, wondering what to do next. Terrified the Baby Police (my friendly health visitor) would rumble me, I asked a friend who's a paediatrician if I'd get into trouble for general ineptitude in the matter of caring for a newborn. "No," she told me. "Not unless you're doing drugs or hitting her." Big sigh of relief, since I was guilty of neither crime, though I continued to fear the weekly health clinic weigh-ins when I had to de-robe Beanie and pop her in a set of kitchen scales. It felt like the neo-natal equivalent of annual performance appraisals.

Other News

In the Night Garden

Thanks to Littlemummy, who has a posting on how much her daughter Erin loves this programme, Beanie has discovered In the Night Garden on CBeebies. She's so excited by it, she insists on standing up and swaying furiously while it's on, waving at Iggle Piggle, Uppsy Daisy and their friends in what I take to be ecstasy, though her waves cause me a small pang of heartache, when I think how the characters will never wave back at her and see how unsuspecting she is of this. Her dad and I are pretty taken with In the Night Garden too. Va-vay in particular enjoys repeating the names of the different characters to himself. Sitting eating his veggie dinner a couple of nights ago he said, apropos of nothing in particular: "Tombliboos." Short pause. "Tombliboos." Va-vay, who has a degree in linguistics, is trying to pass his love of In the Night Garden off to me as an interest in the development of infant speech patterns. An interest that has led to him starting to get home earlier from work, in time for the 6.20pm start time. My cup, it runneth over.

Posted 26 August 2007 11:26 | Number of comments: 10 | Comments

Activities Childcare Daughter Dilemmas Domestic chaos Home Husband News

PostingBecoming a Mother

Enjoyed hearing Kate Mosse, the author, that is, not the supermodel, speak at the Edinburgh Book Festival earlier this week. Mosse wrote the excellent Becoming a Mother at the start of her writing career, before becoming an international best-seller with her novel Labyrinth.  Becoming a Mother is a wonderful book, deceptively simple yet powerful, that helped launch Mosse's fiction writing. And it's helped me immensely too, lifting the guilt and grief I've been struggling with since a miscarriage in May.

Reading Becoming a Mother, I'm reminded of that famous line from Alan Bennett in The History Boys, about how we read books to find that hand stretching out through the darkness to take ours. Bennett's referring to the joy and relief of finding a kindred spirit on the written page, meeting someone who's experienced the same feelings as ourselves when we thought we were alone in them.

Unlike most of the many books I've read on pregnancy and childcare this book doesn't judge any of the ordinary women who feature in it. Instead it tells their stories, starting from the decision to try for a baby through to the early days caring for a newborn. Without preaching or pedantry. Not once does she lay claim to being an expert. Not once does she lay down the law.

Mosse manages to get inside women's heads, and gives voice to many of the conflicting emotions we feel. She understands the rollercoaster of ovulation kits and pregnancy tests, the obsessive weeing on sticks, the running to the loo to check for bleeding every twenty minutes.

On the subject of miscarriage, Mosse quotes one woman unlucky enough to suffer this experience saying:

"I know it is better to lose an abnormal baby - but the loss coincides with the ambivalent feelings you have at the start of the pregnancy. Half-feeling it was a bad idea - even if the pregnancy was planned - just makes you feel guilt when you do miscarry."

That's exactly how I felt when I had a miscarriage in May and I blamed myself for having felt daunted by the prospect of looking after two babies, both of them under two. I thought the new baby must have sensed my ambivalence and thought better of joining us, but couldn't admit this to anyone. Somehow reading that other women have felt the same way has helped me see it's ridiculous to torment myself like this.

Posted 24 August 2007 22:18 | Number of comments: 11 | Comments

Books Edinburgh Festival Guilt Miscarriage

PostingWorld's oldest dad

Age is all in the mind. Or so the world's oldest new dad would say. He has fathered his 21st child at the age of 90, and says he plans to continue breeding for at least another decade. After reading about these exploits I feel I hardly even qualify as a slightly older parent, despite having The Bean at 38. Next to this guy, I'm an upstart.

Nanu Ram Jogi, a farmer in the Indian state of Rajistan, told The Times he can't remember exactly how many children he's produced with his four wives but estimates he has twelve sons, nine daughters and at least twenty grandchildren. He attributes his success to eating all kinds of meat: rabbits, lamb, chicken and wild animals. "There is a dense forest around the village," he told the paper. "I go hunting most days and eat whatever I catch." The only slight hitch to meat eating in my home is that my husband, who's 39,  is staunch vegetarian. So while we're loving the veggie cooking ideas from Lily and Chew, there's no chance of imitating  Nanu Ram Jogi's lifestyle. Perhaps just as well.

Posted 23 August 2007 10:58 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Dads Food Older mother

PostingBad mother

It's a tricky business, being a mum and an individual. This morning I did something bold and daring, something few mums dare to do - I did something for myself. It wasn't easy, but I persevered, despite all my torment and guilt.

My first crime: taking the phone from my daughter so I could make the necessary calls.

An attempt to placate Beanie by offering her the TV remote control fails.

She simply gives me a look that said: "I'm no fool, you know. I see straight through you. I know you're trying to fob me off with some silly pretend phone."

I feel crushed, though no words have been said.

I remember how only an hour or so earlier she kicked her legs in delight when I fetched her out of her cot and beamed her best smile at me, how she laughed and smiled so readily at me when I played peek-a-boo from behind the shower curtain, how she tried to feed me some of her breakfast, even though I had my own toast and marmalade.

But I really, really need the phone to book some tickets for a couple of Festival events this evening.

I make the call and all hell starts to break loose. Not only have I stolen Beanie's favourite toy, but (my second crime) I am ignoring her and I think she might have also sensed my longer-term objective (third crime) of planning an evening out on my own while her dad babysits.

At first I hope she might settle down after a few minutes. Fat chance.

An attempt to buy on-line doesn't work any better and the computer freezes as I go to click 'submit'. By now tears are rolling down Beanie's face, and I feel like the worst mother in the world as I fight my own rising hysteria.

The guilt's almost unbearable and I force myself to remember how when I was pregnant I was so sick with nausea and joint pain I managed to go out roughly four times in the entire nine months. One of those occasions was an ill-fated trip to the Edinburgh Tattoo, which ended in me throwing up outside the Castle under the wary gaze of a soldier armed with a machine gun.

Someone once told me: 'The healthy mother takes time for herself'. Why can't I believe that's true?

Intermittent shrieking has intensified into one long wail, punctuated only with heart-wrending pauses to draw breath. Only ten minutes have passed, but it feels like eternity.

The computer creaks back to life. 'Your order is confirmed' flashes up on screen. Just as this happens a human being speaks to me on the phone. At least, I think it's a human being, though Beanie's screaming so hard it's difficult to be sure.

Then my brain clears and at last I know what to do. I pick up my daughter, cuddle her close to me and listen to her heaving sobs subside.

Will my guilt lend an extra piquancy to the festival events? Or will I sit there kicking myself for being so selfish? Who knows. She's sleeping now, as I write this. When she wakes up I'll give her my undivided attention - all afternoon. 

Posted 22 August 2007 13:28 | Number of comments: 5 | Comments

Angst Books Childcare Daughter Edinburgh Festival Guilt Out and about

PostingWhy not to have children

scan0002_Small.jpg Interesting piece in The Times yesterday about a new bestseller by French author Corinne Maier called No Kid: 40 Reasons Not to Have Children. I say 'interesting' advisedly, if only because the story made me wonder how Maier's managing chez elle, where I imagine her two teenage children have presumably had something to say to their mum about breaking this social taboo. I don't know anyone who's dared to admit they don't want kids, so I quite admire Maier for tackling this thorny subject.

Despite its provocative title and tongue-in-cheek content, No Kid actually makes some sensible arguments, with Maier suggesting, for example, that it's a mistake to pity people who do not have children, when many of them have chosen a positive and sensible alternative to becoming parents. Better to label them child-free, rather than childless, she argues. Perhaps it's an issue of semantics, but I couldn't argue with the underlying sentiment.

The book apparently emerged from Maier's concern that no one is doing anything to temper an idealised view of motherhood fostered by two potent forces in her native France: the state, which wants more babies to help pay pensions, and the baby industry. Belonging to a generation of women who despair at their own inadequacy if their babies don't possess the most desirable audio-visual stimulatory toys of the moment, ('stimulation' being one of the current baby industry buzz words) I know what she means.

The book certainly does its best to counter any idealistic views, listing all the things parents have to give up when they have kids:

1. A full night's sleep,

2. A lie-in

3. Deciding to go to the cinema on the spur of the moment

4. Staying out later than midnight (babysitters have to be relieved)

5. Visiting a museum or exhibition (children start playing up).

Then there's the colossal strain on parental relationships to take into account, when having sex has to be dutifully squeezed into those tiny windows when neither partner is too exhausted even to contemplate it, when differences of opinion on the best way to warm a bottle of milk (before adding powder or after?) assume monumental proportions it would take a peace camp to resolve.

This sounds like a clever, sophisticated book; it's already climbed to the top of France's best-seller lists, and its publishers, Michalon, must be hoping it will do the same here in the UK, but even so, I still can't agree with its basic premise. Having a baby is fab. 

Posted 21 August 2007 14:28 | Number of comments: 10 | Comments

Parenting gurus Books Childcare Dilemmas Domestic chaos Etiquette Guilt Paradoxes

PostingThe way to a girl's heart

The Bean remains in the smash-and-grab phase of her infancy, an uncompromising stage in which she displays no inhibitions whatsoever about seizing other people's belongings, but hangs onto her own with grim determination. Since I'd like her to grow up with at least a few friends, we're working on those social skills, and so while browsing in the signing tent at the Edinburgh International Book Festival yesterday (oh, okay, I admit it, hanging around  to sneak glances at Richard Dawkins who was there signing copies of his latest book The God Delusion), I found this lovely book by Julia Donaldson, author of The Gruffalo, called Sharing a Shell.

scan0001_Small.jpgI've bought Sharing a Shell in the hope it will help teach Beanie about sharing and friendship, since the book is a gentle parable (of sorts) about how we relate to other people, but now I'm wondering if we can learn that sort of thing from a book, whether in fact these are life lessons we have to figure out for ourselves. But I'm such a believer in books' abilities to have transformational effects on our lives I couldn't resist purchasing a copy.

Watching our sixteen-month-old children playing last week in a walled garden at an Edinburgh art gallery, and laughing kindly at my attempts to rein in Beanie's exuberant behaviour, a friend commented to me that children really learn mostly by example, while telling them what to do achieves little. When I look back at my own childhood, that's certainly true, and I think (though others may disagree) that children are acutely sensitive to parental hypocrisy (saying one thing, doing another). Oh dear, in that case I'd better behave myself then and set a good example to my daughter of sharing and friendship.

Still, I don't think Sharing a Shell will prove a bad purchase, if only because, as the cover rightly publicises, it has "Glitter on every page". Now only rarely, very rarely, can that be a bad thing, and Beanie absolutely loves it. Indeed she was so enthralled with her new acquisition yesterday afternoon that she spent about ten uninterrupted minutes fingering the glitter with rapt attention, pausing only to scream at me in indignation when the book fell out of her buggy. 

Posted 20 August 2007 11:18 | Number of comments: 15 | Comments

Daughter Etiquette Friends Books Edinburgh Festival Out and about

PostingNo escape

BookFestivalWarhol002_Small.JPG I accidentally plunged into the world of obstetrics again yesterday, in what was meant to be a break from hard-core mothering, during a lunchtime talk at the tented International Book Festival from writers Janice Galloway and Alan Warner on their launch of a not-for-profit publisher in Edinburgh called Long Lunch Press. Galloway and Warner set up Long Lunch with Arts Council funding to ensure an audience for unusual writing they believe deserves to reach the public but that wouldn't attract a commercial publisher.

Hearing this, I was sorely tempted to put my hand up and recommend blogs for the purpose of reaching readers but managed to refrain. However Vanessa at Fidra Books has plenty to say on the subject of not-for-profit publishing in this forthright and shrewd account of why she doesn't think publishing that sneers at profit makes any sense - and why instead of producing unread pamphlets Long Lunch should be promoting their work here on the net.

In keeping with the theme of unusual subject matter, Galloway read to us from Rosengarten, her prose-poem discussing the obstetric tools of child birth. It was the difficulty of finding a publisher prepared to accept this decidedly difficult account of childbirth that prompted Galloway to set up her new publishing venture.

When Galloway told her audience there was to be a reading about obstetrics, I must admit I thought what the many commercial publishers who turned it down obviously did too. And after the reading one couple got up and left, the woman white-faced.

But now I've had to time to get used to the idea, I rather like Rosengarten, which sheds light on a closed world. Stick with me here while I quote from the book, I was initially shocked too, but it's worth persevering.

"This is the business of life

with death, two balances in

precise relation. This is the

business of drawing air and

of drowning fluids, of

slickness and dry compression. Of making

two from one, of nerves

and channels, down and

muscle and veins. Of dark

to light, a business carried

out under the broil of

woollen covers, a business

of touch and steel and

random happenstance

There is bleeding of course.

And splitting and aweful surrender."

For their research, Galloway and her co-author studied obstetric implements, mainly forceps, through the ages, hunting through cases at the Wellcome Museum of Anatomy and Pathology, the Edinburgh College of Surgeons and the Hunterian Museum . Their conclusion? "Raking about... showed how little over centuries the basic designs of the implements have changed."

Maybe the implements themselves remain unchanged, but one aspect of obstetrics that could usefully change is the continuing secrecy and embarrassment about the process of childbirth. Perhaps women do deserve to hear more about what childbirth is really like, and it would be worth overcoming our natural squeamishness for that to happen. Our ante-natal classes were great for making friends, but I learnt little that was useful about the actual birth, then spent months afterwards in shock.

Then again, if someone had presented me with a copy of Rosengarten in pregnancy, would I have wanted to know? Nowadays, of course, I'm fascinated by anyone prepared to talk frankly about childbirth, even if it happens unexpectedly. 

Posted 19 August 2007 12:41 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Breastfeeding Health Pregnancy Blogging Childbirth Festival Books Dilemmas

PostingStrangers

Just back from an unpleasant encounter in a local cafe. An elderly man came across uninvited to our table to talk to Beanie.

"You're a smiling wee baby, aren't you?" he started.

Fine, but then:

"My wife doesn't smile at me like that."

Cue sinking feeling in my stomach, while I simultaneously steeled myself for battle.

"You're very pretty," he told her. Was this really happening? In a coffee shop in broad daylight?

Sure enough, his hand went out to ruffle her hair.

"She's not public property," I told him. "Take your hands off her."

Filthy look in my direction, he slunk off.

Despite my outburst, he still insisted on sitting at the table next to ours, while Granny and I drank our skinny lattes double-quick so we could make our escape.

"Taboo, taboo, taboo," he muttered to his wife as she joined him. Yes, the same one he described so flatteringly earlier.

After a short muffled conversation, his wife turned to me and informed me that they were respectable people who meant no harm. I nodded at her without saying anything. I began to feel guilty for saying anything, wondered if I'd misinterpreted his comments.

But if he'd been as well-meaning as she insisted he was, then wouldn't he have backed off? Possibly even apologised? Or left us alone as I asked.

I find this area so difficult. I believe my daughter has the right to go about in public without strangers touching her. But I hate embarrassing confrontation as much as the next person and I lose confidence in my own judgement.

My difficulty is that I don't want her to grow up seeing the world as a bad, dangerous place, since most people are absolutely great. Beanie is a friendly, outgoing child and I would hate for her to become paranoid and suspicious of everybody she meets.

The truth is I don't really mind when some people pat her on the head, or give her a cuddle.

But there is a tiny minority of people like today's plat du jour at lunchtime.

The guy today just gave me a bad feeling, a creepy-crawly feeling up my spine and sick churning in my stomach, even before the comparison between my 16-month-old daughter and his wife.

How do other parents handle this sort of thing?

Posted 15 August 2007 15:49 | Number of comments: 36 | Comments

Childcare Daughter Dilemmas Out and about

PostingWeighty matters

I had an ambivalent reaction to news in The Times today that guidance for parents on the optimum rate at which a baby grows is to be measured against a breast-fed infant rather than the faster weight gain of those fed on formula milk.

This is more than a technicality, as any breast-feeding mother who's faced the tyranny of a health visitor's scales can tell you. Life in the early months of a baby's life is dominated by weigh-ins that health visitors use to judge if a baby's thriving or not. The problem with the existing charts is that they can lead HVs to decide that breast-fed babies are growing poorly, because formula-fed babies put on more weight.

I was lucky with Beanie, whom I breast-fed but who still put on weight at a rate her HV decreed acceptable. That's some background to pre-empt comments from the kind strangers who like to write in when I post about breastfeeding to tell me why I should have breastfed my daughter - sisters, I did! But all too many breast-feeding mothers find their babies aren't putting on weight as fast as the HV would like, then get into a vicious circle along the following lines.

HV puts pressure on mum to supplement breast milk with a bottle, citing baby's poor weight gain. Mum, confused and anxious, does as HV wants, her own milk supply drops off at introduction of formula and breastfeeding ends abruptly, usually way before the recommended six-month mark for exclusive breastfeeding. Mum, conditioned by several trees' worth of government material on why she should breastfeed, comes away from experience feeling wretched and guilty, despite having done nothing wrong, except perhaps allowed herself to be bullied by her HV.

I'd be interested to know why a government that's forever pushing its 'breast is best' policy in new mums' faces has taken so long to change growth measurements. Ministers have been under pressure for a while to introduce World Health Organisation standards for baby growth, following fears that the formula-based growth charts are leading to the overfeeding of young children but have taken their time. The Child Growth Foundation complains the government could have got new charts in place a year ago.

One woman who had a child at the same time as me was so traumatised by the entire weigh-in misery (she was forced to introduce formula for her son at a few weeks old due to 'poor' weight gain) she more or less decided to have another child almost straightaway so she could have another go at getting breastfeeding right. Is it just me or is there something wrong with a health system that makes women feel so bad about themselves? Second time round, she's more confident and planning to ignore any pressure from her HV to supplement.

There's never any shortage of propaganda telling women to breastfeed their babies, but there's a lack of proper guidance and support (like the right growth measurements) to help new mums achieve all that the NHS tells us we should. It annoys me when people suggest breastfeeding's an innate skill, because I believe it's something you have to learn, like speaking French or driving a car. The result is that many women don't breastfeed, because often they've been let down by a system that doesn't give them the right help and advice, just lots of guilt-inducing leaflets.

Posted 14 August 2007 13:51 | Number of comments: 19 | Comments

Breastfeeding Childcare Dilemmas

PostingWaiting till you're older...

Sometimes people assume the fact I became a mum only at 38 is part of some grand master plan to dominate the universe through the cardinal female sin of 'having it all'. For those unfamiliar with 'having it all', this is the mistaken feminine belief that it's possible to have:

a) an interesting, fulfilling and possibly also even well-paid career

and

b) children.

Anyone who's taken a recent look at the job ads for high-status part-time jobs - no, before you ask, there aren't any - can tell you 'having it all' is a myth.

The truth is that I didn't feel I had any choice in waiting until I was slightly older because the right relationship didn't fall into place until I was in my mid-thirties. And of course, like all the annoying predictions said, it happened when I least expected. Early one morning, standing in the BA check-in queue for short-haul European flights at Gatwick - an exchange of longer-than-necessary looks with a young man ahead of me. I remember thinking, "My God, he's tall." Eighteen months later we were married.

Not everyone believes a stable partnership is necessary to bring up children and I have huge respect and admiration for everyone who brings up children on their own. They should get medals for all their work, not a drubbing in the tabloid press. But now we've actually got the Bean and I know how demanding being a mother can be (yes, also delightful, joyful and life-affirming) I'm even more convinced that I wouldn't want to be doing this alone. So although I'd have loved to get started on having a family earlier, I had to wait for that meeting at the BA departure gate. After all, this is for long-haul passengers only.

Posted 12 August 2007 12:41 | Number of comments: 27 | Comments

Older mother Daughter Holidays Husband

PostingIf I had my time again...

iStock000000095497XSmall_Small.jpg I'm fascinated by the issues that determine when women become mums. The reason I'm interested is that if - hah, dangerous thinking! - I could live my life over again, I would want to do things differently and wouldn't focus on my career as much as I chose to do in my twenties and early thirties.

Now I know how fantastic it is to have a child, I would have ideally become a full-time, paid-up earth mother early on - and started producing little earth babies not long after graduation - provided I could have found a willing earth father (and therein lies the rub for many women).

But the irony is that at the time, when I graduated, I would have thought it a disaster to find out I was pregnant. I was terrified of pregnancy as a student, and utterly convinced that happiness lay in a fulfilling career. It's only now I know how wonderful it is to have a family that I'd do things differently.

There are certainly lots of questions that are worth asking about the ages at which to have children, if only because most of us have control over this in a way that previous generations didn't. I'm thinking here of my great-great-auntie, a farmer's wife, and the proud mother of twenty three children, though she seems by all accounts to have been happy despite her prodigious progeny.

Apparently she even had some kind of competition going with the miller's wife from across the valley as to which of them could produce the highest child count. Phew, and they say marathon running takes a toll on the body...

As I approach the Big Four-Oh later this year (did I mention that before in a couple of postings, or twenty?) I know I could never hope to rival my great aunt or her arch-competitor. Ah well. Perhaps the important thing is to concentrate on making peace with what we have.

Posted 11 August 2007 19:54 | Number of comments: 11 | Comments

Older mother Dilemmas Pregnancy

PostingPrize money

The unthinkable has happened - I've made some money from blogging! And it's all been unintentional. Vicky and Piers at Little Legends, the free service to allow parents to find out what's good in their area and share their views, have given me a £50 joint-first prize for my comments on the site. I'm absolutely delighted, not least because I didn't even realise there was a prize available, and also because I'm now enjoying planning how I'll spend my winnings on a family day out planned around local activities suggested on the Little Legends site. Once the rain stops...

For those who don't already know it, Little Legends is a great way of allowing parents across the UK to share knowledge and ideas about schools, nurseries, activities, days out, classes, clubs, parks, hotels, pubs and cafes. Since it started at the beginning of this year, it's gathered more than 36,000 recommendations.

Despite having three little boys to look after, Vicky still finds time to write an entertaining Little Legends blog about fun things to do as a parent. Do have a look and visit the site. It's a valuable resource for all parents. The more people who contribute to the site, the better it will be!

On the subject of prizes, Flowerpot has kindly given me a Thoughtful Blogger Award. Thank you, Flowerpot. I'd like to pass it on (in no particular order) to Mid-Lifer, Land of Sand, My Wee Scottish Blog, Guineapigmum and Elsie Button. Ladies, you're all a great read.

Posted 11 August 2007 12:15 | Number of comments: 15 | Comments

Activities Out and about Awards Blogging

PostingBlog Fest

Guineapigmum, Erica from Littlemummy and I all met for a successful coffee and chat yesterday at one of my favourite childhood haunts, Victor Hugo's delicatessen, after Guineapigmum noticed a jokey comment here about setting up a Blog Fest to run alongside the several other festivals in Edinburgh in August and suggested we meet up.

Erica and I already know each other; we have children almost the same age, and have enjoyed meeting up a couple of times in the Botanic Gardens to chat about blogging and the delights (or challenges) of looking after our toddlers. Guineapigmum and I have swapped comments on each others' sites, but yesterday was the first time we met in person, and I'm glad to say we all had a good time chatting about the important things in life - like being mums, our children and blogging - before taking the younger children over to the swing park together.

It was great to meet up in person, encourage each other, swap tips and find out how we all make time to write postings while working and looking after families (I'm writing this as Beanie has her mid-morning nap, and the sound of her coughing means I'll have to end soon). Many thanks to Guineapigmum for taking the initiative to suggest it.

Yesterday made us all think it'd be great to get more of us bloggers together more frequently. Who knows? Perhaps in time we'll have a proper blog fest - and get to meet in person lots of lovely fellow bloggers from around the country! Keep an eye out for details of future get-togethers.

Posted 10 August 2007 10:57 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Edinburgh Festival Blogging Friends

PostingIt's Showtime

EdFestivalAug07009_Small.JPGContinuing my occasional series of Edinburgh Festival updates, that I plan to run on Mother at Large throughout August, this rather forbidding Edinburgh church normally serves as home to Beanie's weekly playgroup, but has thrown out the babies to make temporary space for a Polish theatre group. Somewhere along the way it's also had a make-over for the Fringe, as these chalked sign posts show you. So instead of the usual melee of mums, buggies and babies milling around outside, earnest and unsmiling Polish thesps hang out, soaking up the ambience and having a quick fag. I haven't quite got my head around how the babies' snack area morphed into Theatre 2. But this is Edinburgh in August, after all....

Posted 08 August 2007 19:33 | Number of comments: 7 | Comments

Edinburgh Out and about Festival

PostingTony Blair - the Musical

Labourshandsonapproach_Small.JPG Ever wondered how an ex-prime minister fills his time after leaving office? Well, seems he does like many aspiring comedians across the country and heads up here to the Edinburgh Fringe to tread the boards, make a (new) career for himself and enjoy the city's revelry. Oh, and, of course, get back in touch with that musical side that he didn't have time to indulge while he was busy being our premier.  Except when he had that get-together with his mate Bill on sax. Tony Blair - the Musical, written by James Lark, is one of the hot tickets at this year's Fringe, (cast members pictured left). It's got an afternoon slot at the Gilded Balloon and sounds like so much fun I'm tempted to play hookie from work one day if I can get a ticket to it. Failing that, I might treat myself to this CD of the show produced by web-to-print specialists The Friday Project.

Posted 08 August 2007 12:17 | Number of comments: 4 | Comments

Edinburgh Fun Festival

PostingAssisted place

Sad story earlier this week on a government poll that says many people are being denied IVF treatment, with numerous NHS trusts failing to follow government guidance to fund one full round of IVF treatment. Yet my impression is that IVF is increasingly mainstream. So much so, in fact, it's become part of conventional small talk to ask casual acquaintances if their babies were "assisted".

It's an odd turn of phrase, admittedly, but then I suppose people are still working out the etiquette around the entire concept. Here I'd better nail my colours to the mast, and say I suspect I only get asked this question because I had my daughter at the grand old age of 38.

Even Beanie's Granny got asked recently if Beanie was "assisted" in her creation, after she made the mistake of telling someone at her golf club she had to wait a long time for a grandchild. I tell you, it's not the country of Brief Encounter anymore - more's the pity.

I don't know why I feel obliged to point out here that Beanie wasn't "assisted" in her creation, since IVF is a wonderful invention that's brought happiness to thousands, but, for the record, no, she wasn't. Without wishing to be crude, her dad and I did the job ourselves. Unassisted. But in case my daughter ever reads this when she's older, I'll spare her (and myself) future embarrassment and stop there.

Posted 08 August 2007 09:35 | Number of comments: 2 | Comments

Etiquette Older mother Pregnancy

PostingFringe benefits

UnicyclistAugust07.jpgHere's another picture from our weekend out and about enjoying the Edinburgh festival; with The Bean in the foreground on my shoulders. I'll be running pictures most days throughout the various Edinburgh festivals to give you an idea of how much fun the city can be come showtime in August, when it becomes home to the world's largest arts festival.

One of the nicest things about being a parent in Edinburgh at this time of the year is the super-abundance of street theatre to entertain and divert children. On Saturday Beanie and I enjoyed watching a group of about twenty youngsters enact a graceful Oriental dance in Princes Street Gardens, under the stony gaze of Sir Walter Scott. The dance involved some clever stuff with red fans, that made a sound like gun shots as the dancers unfurled them.

Someone from the dance group gave Beanie a show flyer they'd found time to craft into an origami bird. I hate to be a cliche, but because all of this is so new and amazing to her, I find myself enjoying these seemingly simple events with a new appreciation and delight. That said, Beanie wasn't sufficiently overawed by the beauty of her origami bird to desist from chewing the poor creature's head off. But that could have been a sign of her appreciation. It's not always easy to interpret these things.

Later, up in the High Street, she enjoyed sitting on my shoulders to watch a unicyclist, the entire length of his back tattooed with feathery wings, entertain the crowds. Her dad took this picture of her, and has patiently explained to me about three times already this morning how to re-size it for the web. I think I've got it now.

Posted 07 August 2007 11:11 | Number of comments: 9 | Comments

Activities Edinburgh Fun Out and about Festival

PostingFringe Fun

Fringe.JPGThe Edinburgh Festival Fringe has begun. Withnail-esque types in trailing overcoats have overrun the city, declaiming on street corners and entertaining us all with their madness. One flat in our street has turned into an art gallery, and the nearby church where Beanie normally goes to playgroup has evicted the babies to make way for a troupe of heavily-bespectacled Polish aesthetes, some of whom look like the living incarnations of Jean-Paul Sartre. It's not quite the Parisian Left Bank, but the city's great fun in August.

We got very excited when we heard the Tblisi Marionette State Theatre was doing a daily show nearby - perfect for the Bean! Though it was performed in Russian with simultaneous English translation. Potentially quite hard-core for the under-fives. But even we flinched at the story content: a re-enactment of the Battle of Stalingrad.

We did take The Bean to her first ever live performance on Saturday, The Greatest Bubble Show on Earth, running at the Carlton Hotel, North Bridge, at 12 midday until 27 August. The Amazing Bubble Man made big bubbles with people inside, a foggy moon bubble, helium-filled and edible bubbles. He illuminated, sculpted and kissed bubbles. One man's love affair with... the bubble. It lasted 45 minutes, long enough to feel we got our money's worth, but not so long that the hordes of small children there got bored.

Strolling up the High Street, the epicentre of the month-long event, Beanie and I also met The Selfish Crocodile  (pictured) who actually seemed like quite a friendly fellow when we bumped into him, we had a quick chat with an adventurous pigeon that wanted to drive a bus, and watched a knight in chainmail from Sword in the Stone clank past. Ooh, I love Edinburgh in August.

Posted 06 August 2007 16:45 | Number of comments: 12 | Comments

Edinburgh Fun Out and about Festival

PostingBreastfeeding Olympics

Next Wednesday, 8 August, is Synchronised Breastfeeding Worldwide Day.

The organisers want women around the world to stop whatever they're doing and breastfeed at 10am on that day. Like minutes of remembrance, but noisier. Countries taking part include Philippines, New Zealand, Greece, India, USA, Uganda, Dominican Republic and Malaysia.

Mark my words, it'll be an Olympic sport, at this rate. I might even suggest it myself....

Come the 2012 London Olympics, marks could be awarded in breastfeeding for the following:

1. Position 'Ooh, she's going for a triple cross-cradle on the horse! Performed simultaneously with flying from a trapeze and restraining two older children from thwacking each other over the head! '

2. Stamina 'Twenty hours after mum started feeding her Amelia's still refusing to settle! This little one has gnawed the nipples off her mum but look at that mum's perseverence! A tube of Lansinoh cream and she's still in the race.'

3. Style - judged on choice of NCT breastfeeding accessories, skills at assembling and using breastpumps (while in hormonal daze, naturally), dexterity and discretion in hauling up various items of clothing at a range of venues (mother-in-law's sitting room, cafe, bar, bus, beach, airplane)

I propose a special uniform (with all-important flaps) for contestants, the UK one put together with help from the NCT. Unlike other sports, droopy body parts could be an absolute asset in breastfeeding.

This is also one sport where Olympic officials won't need to worry gender confusion. I don't see any problems with big-boned eastern Europeans masquerading as breastfeeders. Not unless medical science has come on a long way by then.

Posted 04 August 2007 10:51 | Number of comments: 14 | Comments

Breastfeeding