Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

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March 2009

Softly, softly

It's hard to resist the siren lure of 'soft play' centres when you are the parent of an under-three. They offer cheap and accessible entertainment. They tire your child out. Thus ensuring he or she will sleep well later that evening. Unlike real parks, there are no dogs. They sell skinny decaff lattes. You can go even when it's raining. What's to argue with? But, not being a big fan of a) communal playgrounds b) grubby PVC c) foam wadding d) crowds of other children (too potentially scary) or e) primary colours, I held out for some time against these places. Plus, from what I'd seen of toddlers 'interacting' (big infant buzz word) with each other, I suspected the play might not be all that 'soft'. However, last week I - finally - became a convert to these pre-schooler Meccas. A friend persuaded me and my two daughters to join her and her child at this Edinburgh variant on the theme. For the modest sum of £3, elder daughter was able to clamber at will for an hour around ramps, tunnels, netting, steps and mock fairy castle, grinning her delight at me as she did so. It was nice to feel I was doing something right after a disappointing trip involving fish that I posted about the other week. Parents are not only discouraged at this particular soft play place from staying with their children in the play area, they are forbidden from doing so. I had expected the hands-off approach to be difficult. In practice, it was liberating. And daughter's enjoyment appeared in no way diminished for not having me fussing round her. This rule has the benefit that it left her younger sister Button and I free to sit at the tables adjacent to the play area, watching as Beanie giggled, scrambled and raced around the rigging. I have tried soft play once before, at this place, where I was forced to crouch next to something called a 'ball pit' (exactly what the description says, no more, no less) while breastfeeding Button, with cracked nipples, and attempting to preserve a fragile facade of competence and good humour as I prevented an older child (whose mother would have had little trouble securing employment as a barge woman) from pushing Beanie down some steps. A wretched experience. It also had the disadvantage that its clientele could - theoretically at least - escape from their carers at any time if you weren't sufficiently vigilant (it's probably no coincidence that when I say 'vigilant' I'm borrowing a word more commonly used in the vocabulary of people who fight against terrorism). Whereas last week's place had a gate and security system that meant it felt safe to relax, enjoy one of the above-mentioned lattes and let Beanie get on with it. My friend, who is savvier in these matters than me, took a look round when we arrived and said: "Good. No trouble-makers today." So, obviously, as her comment implies, there can be difficulties, but we didn't experience any last week. If it wasn't for being stuck at home for so many months, semi-immobile with pelvic joint pain in pregnancy, we'd probably be fully signed-up fans of soft play by now. Give us a few more months, and we doubtless will have put that right.

Posted 23 March 2009 23:42 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Activities Edinburgh Missing sanity Pelvic girdle pain/SPD

In the deep

As regular readers will know, I love being a mother. Having two small daughters has brought immense fun and joy into my life. I've never been happier than when larking about with the family at home, messing about in the kitchen, pretending to be airplanes or some such nonsense. But this blog serves many purposes. One of which is an opportunity to vent. So I want to talk about one of the more frustrating aspects of parenting. This is something worse than being accidentally head-butted by a toddler. Even when they catch you bang on that sensitive part of your face, just above your top lip. It's harder - even - than getting yourself and two small children out of the house. Before lunchtime. It's more wearing on your nerves - gasp - than listening to 'controlled' crying and not rushing in to pick up the baby. All of these ordeals exact a terrible toll on parents. But none can compete in terms of sheer anguish with my greatest bugbear. The disappointing 'family day out'.

Expectations at the weekend were high - in retrospect, dangerously high - as elder daughter Beanie and I set off across the water from Edinburgh to this place. It is one of this country's top tourist attractions. The website showed amazing displays of fish. Beautiful, multi-coloured fish. Fish with names worthy of them. Like French Angel Fish, Domino Damsel and Green Chromis. Yellow Saffin Tang and Zebra Lyretail Angel. They come from all over the world, these fish.

The place is meant to be fun. I have heard only Good Things about it from my comrades-in arms. Namely, other parents. I was excited. So was daughter. She picked out for the occasion her best and favourite handbag, from Cath Kidston - a gift from one of her godmothers. And filled it with provisions worthy of a North Sea mariner. Raisins. Ham sandwiches. A banana. Then repeated to me from her car seat eyrie: "And we are going to have a treat?"

Daughter did not like the place. Did not like the trains whistling overhead on the Forth Rail Bridge at the entrance. Did not like the wind roaring in off the Firth of Forth. Did not like the hand driers in the toilets (possibly because reminiscent of above-mentioned wind). Did not like the crowds of other children. Did not like the fish. Did not like handling the starfish or sea urchin at the demonstration.

She did - with some reluctance - consent to walking on a travellator (like the ones you get in airports) through the underwater tunnel. Sharks circled overhead. Pretty cool, huh? And she liked the ice cream in the cafe. But overall, our expedition - not a great success. It turns out, however, this was neither my fault - nor Beanie's. Nor any fault of the place itself. Next day daughter began complaining of a sore throat. "Mummy, my tummy hurts". She must have been feeling grotty with the lurgy when we were on our day out. But didn't say. For fear of missing out on her treat. Poor Beanie.

Posted 17 March 2009 23:20 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Activities

"Instructions Not Included", by Charlotte Moerman

It was the strap line of this book by fellow blogger Charlotte Moerman that got me intrigued (as all good strap lines should). "One mum, three boys and a very steep learning curve". Three boys - ah. You see, being the mother of two daughters, I have no idea what it's like to bring up a small boy - let alone three - and I have to admit to being curious. I'm happy to be a mother of girls - I always wanted daughters, and gave a great whoop of delight when the sonographer told us that's what we were having - but I do sometimes wonder what it might be like to knit things in blue. The front cover picture gave me some idea - it's of a woman with a blond bob hunched over her laptop. All around her is the chaos of toy diggers, waterpistols and general mayhem. Or, as the author puts it, "the ebb and flow of assorted plastic tat". Plenty of that round our way too. Only most of ours is pink.

This is a well-written book that succeeds in taking one person's experience of becoming a parent and weaving it into an entertaining yarn that speaks to many people. It's fair to say that Moerman maybe isn't in the league of some of the very best writers on parenting - say, Kate Mosse and Rachel Cusk - but she's not half bad, and her writing is well-observed, sharp and fresh. Moreover, she's funny. Here she is preparing her hospital bag for the birth of her first boy: "I must pack my hospital bag. I must pack my hospital bag. I must pack my hospital bag. I just wish it wasn't so off-putting. [...] For the labour, snacks, a big T-shirt you don't mind chucking afterwards and a pair of socks. Camera, huge paper pants that even Bridget Jones couldn't carry off and sanitary towels, each the size of a Magnum."

There are times the text jumps about in a slightly unsatisfying way that makes it easy to lose the narrative thread, and other times when you sense the writer has maybe had to self-censor on certain subjects (though I am only guessing here). But Moerman more than compensates for these quibbles with her skill in blending the universal experience of motherhood with the particular zeitgeist. This is, above all, a contemporary book, about what it's like to go from being a thirty-something career woman, holding your own with your husband, travelling and having fun together, to frazzled stay-at-home mummy, devoted to your boys but wondering what's happened to your identity. It's a book about the time in your life when your children get invited to more parties than you do. About discovering Gina Ford. About hanging with your NCT pals. It's fun. I've found myself returning to it several times over the past week or so.

I have two free copies of Instructions Not Included, £12.99, Virgin Books to give away. Please drop me a line at mail@motheratlarge.com by 31 March to be included in the draw.

Posted 09 March 2009 21:31 | Number of comments: 7 | Comments

Books Reviews

'My Bump and Me', Myleene Klass

I was looking forwards to reading Myleene Klass's autobiographical account of her pregnancy, My Bump and Me. After all, the front cover bills the paperback as "The Sunday Times Bestseller", so I thought it must have a lot going for it.

The first fly in the ointment was uncertainty over the author's identity. "Is she an actress?" asked my husband. "Errr, don't know," I had to confess. "Who is she, then?" Now, admittedly, neither husband nor I are in the same age group as Klass. We both listen to Radio Four more than the music stations. We only watch reality television when seriously wrecked from sleepless nights with the babies. So maybe we don't fall into the target readership. But it would have been nice to get a brief run-down somewhere in the book of the author (she is a musician) and her credentials. It's possible I missed her background material but nothing leapt out at me.

Klass does, though, dwell on her exploits in the television programme "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" and the quickie in a bathroom afterwards that resulted in her pregnancy. And, ultimately, this book. I was embarrassed for her when I read that part. I might have even blushed.

Reading My Bump and Me is not unlike eating your way through a box of Thorntons chocolates or watching hours of reality television. Pleasant enough at the time, but leaves you empty and disgusted at yourself afterwards.

It's the utter banality that gets to you. Not even knowing she's pregnant, Klass gets grumpy with her boyfriend, then is relieved to discover it's raging hormones that are causing the arguments. She is awed by the miracle of new life growing inside her, gets fed up with NHS maternity servies, is forced 'in desperation' to go private, debates baby names, reassesses her relationship with her own mother, moves house, gets in a tizz, needs to wee a lot, puts on weight and mentions her work modelling for Marks & Spencer about a dozen times too many.

When she poses almost naked for Glamour magazine (a nod to Demi Moore), a job for which she would surely have been paid handsomely, she describes the shoot as 'flying the flag for mamas'.

Her publishers brought in somebody to select and edit material for the book, but unfortunately much of the writing reads like one long text message.

She complains, in a mild way, about well-meaning but unwanted advice from friends, family and random strangers. This does not stop her offering her own tit bits of advice, (take drugs in labour if you feel like it, don't be forced into breastfeeding). But I suppose we're all guilty of offering advice when we would do better to say nothing.

Despite this, Klass herself comes across as a nice, cheerful person with a good heart. And she sounds like she'll make an excellent mother to her much-loved little girl. I wish I had more positive things to say about My Bump and Me. It does have a readable, compulsive quality (I read it in an evening) and it's innocuous; without anything upsetting or nasty about it. Unfortunately, I have to say I found the book a little bit vacuous. Not unlike the celebrity culture that created it.

My Bump and Me, Myleene Klass. £7.99, Virgin Books.