Tuesday 31 March 2009

End of the month time

My three month anniversay of blogging has arrived - 90 posts under my belt since the first of the year. Not bad - I'm quietly impressed that I've managed to write something every day, particularly since my brain is so addled by pregnancy at the moment that I'm even worried I might go out with no shoes on or something equally ridiculous. I almost did that the other day - I was wearing my crocs in the house for some reason (probably due to the lack of kitchen floor at the time!), and ended up going to school in them to collect Isabel. Hmm, crocs with white socks - a very cool look....!

Anyway, March's stats have seen a bit of a drop-off in accesses to the site, so I clearly need to make more of an effort to publicise it. Or any effort at all perhaps! Maybe some impending baby photos will help. Or it may just drive all my male readers away. That's if I still have any after yesterday's post about nursing bras.

So, March has looked like this:
  • 137 visits from 45 unique visitors (down from 167 visits from 69 unique visitors in February)
  • 190 page views (down from 217 page views in February)
  • Average time spent on site: 56 seconds (up from 41 seconds - yay.....!)
  • Best day: 8 visitors on March 1st (down from 13 visits on 18 Feb)
I shall mull my promotional options over the next few days, but in the meantime I'm going to put away the laptop and watch something cheesy on TV while Husbandio is out playing football. After all, that's what he did all day while I was at my final NCT class! Don't worry, I got him working again once I'd got home...!

Monday 30 March 2009

Pampering, in a round about sort of a way

** WARNING: THIS POST IS ABOUT BOSOMS, SO IF YOU'RE JUST FEELING TOO MASCULINE FOR A DISCUSSION OF THIS SORT, FEEL FREE TO CLICK AWAY NOW!**

Today was the first day of my maternity leave, and the top job on the agenda was buying some nursing bras. You can't buy these until you are 36 or 37 weeks pregnant since it's unclear until then what size you'll need. In my case the promised pregnancy-related mega-breasts never did arrive, much to the disappointment of Husbandio and self. And today, to my mortification, it turned out that the smallest size of nursing bra you can get is a C cup (at least, it is in John Lewis, fortunately not in M&S!). Trying on and failing to fill several Cs in a row was pretty depressing. Especially when I could hear the fitting consultant in the next door changing room saying to another woman "right, so you're a 38 G". That must make just one of her breasts bigger than my head, surely. I think I'm happier as I am, on reflection.

I ended up buying 2 Elle McPherson bras in John Lewis for a grand total of £50. Seems a shame to be spending so much on bosoms that (a) are clearly too small to deserve it, (b) are never going to be anyone's playthings since that person would be in terrible danger of being hit in the eye by a jet of milk, and (c) will quickly ruin these nice bras by soaking them with sticky breastmilk. (It really is sticky, consistency like Diet Coke if you let it dry - yuk!). They didn't have any night bras though and Elle's ones just didn't look comfy enough to sleep in, too much lace and frill. So I bought some nice basic ones in M&S as well for a much more reasonable £25 for two. And if the M&S ones are comfy I may just take the John Lewis ones back and get more from M&S. In that scenario sorry Elle, you're toast.

After writing this I thought I'd see if there were good places to get these kinds of things online, and I found this link: does this really look like a nursing mother?! Where are the bags under the eyes, and the rattled look?!

Sunday 29 March 2009

A New Sensation

Whatever we give Isabel for dinner, she always has a massive energy burst afterwards. Tonight she had fish, chips and peas followed by a tangerine (not a msssive infusion of sugar!) and then decided that we should engage in our semi-regular post-dinner ritual of dancing. What usually happens (at least in the last few weeks) is that she and Husbandio dance to things like Greased Lightning or cheesy songs off the school disco album, but tonight we went with Islands in the Stream (the Comic Relief Gavin & Stacey version, naturally) followed by some INXS.

The results are below - enjoy (and sorry it if comes out sideways, I couldn't work out how to make either Picasa or Blogger rotate it, which is annoying). I know, I know, I should move to Wordpress, but my life is now governed by Google and I just don't have the energy, time or mental strength.



She loves her dancing, and we love watching her, but unfortunately she's always really grumpy afterwards, even though today we'd warned her that if she was grumpy after dancing then she'd forfeit tomorrow night's telly. Made no difference at all, she still sulked and was rude and stroppy afterwards and told us she didn't care that she'd lost Monday's TV. To which our reply was, "That's lucky then!"

Saturday 28 March 2009

The first kitchen crisis

We still have a beautiful kitchen, but with one small flaw. OK, quite a big flaw. The oven exploded this morning. Oops.

One of the things which we needed to do with the oven was to run it on high to burn off any of the chemicals left inside it after the manufacturing process. I did that to the top oven a couple of days ago with no problems, and then cooked a delicious (though I say so myself) quiche. We'd invited a couple of friends round to lunch tomorrow to christen the kitchen with a Sunday roast, so I thought I'd better burn off the bottom oven as well, since when you run it for the first time to get rid of the chemicals it really stinks. So, I set it to the top temperature on the fan setting, as advised in the instructions, and went upstairs for a shower. I left my mum in the kitchen chopping leeks and potatoes for some soup (thanks Mum!) and Isabel was watching Mickey Mouse clubhouse in the lounge.

When I came out of the shower there was a nasty burning smell, which I'd been expecting, smelt just like it had when I'd done the same thing with the top oven. My mum was getting dressed and Isabel was still watching TV, and when I went into the kitchen to get the soup started I found loads of black bits all over the floor, which I quickly realised was the remains of the oven door. Below is what the door looked like afterwards:

It was incredibly lucky that no-one was actually in the kitchen at the time since they'd have been peppered with very hot glass shrapnel - it must have blown with quite some force since pieces of glass were spread from one end of the room to the other.

So, we still have a beautiful kitcken, but now have to get the oven replaced. Hopefully that'll be early next week. And until then, it's food on the hob and no Sunday roast for us tomorrow. The leek and potato soup was nice though! And the underfloor heating works a treat and is a thing of beauty - worth every penny.

Friday 27 March 2009

Finishing work

I've now finished work for six months - marvellous! The idea of six months off seems bizarre somehow, and October feels like miles away, although I'm sure it'll be here before I know it. It's a bit anti-climactic finishing work when you work at home - no fireworks and big hugs, but simply a closing of the laptop. And then opening it again because I forgot something, obviously. But I'm off into town later on for a few drinks with some colleagues which will be nice. I just wish I could get there without travelling for over an hour, but there we go, can't be helped.

Next important thing is to make sure that Pumpkin doesn't arrive too early since I'm looking forward to having some time next week to get myself ready and to do some non-child related activities! Also, since I've pulled another rib muscle I'd quite like that to heal before her arrival, since the concept of being in labour with pulled rib muscles doesn't bear thinking about. Bring on the drugs!

One thing I have done today is to do less - even emptying the dishwasher left me needing a little sit down, so I think this is definitely the way forward. Course, now I'm commuting into town for drinks, which is a bit contradictory. Might be the last time for a good long while though, so am determined to have a nice evening out while I still can!

Thursday 26 March 2009

Slowing myself down

Today I finally came to the realisation that it's pretty easy to push myself too hard at this point in the pregnancy ("Finally!" I hear you cry). And that's what I did today, even though what I was trying to do didn't seem that ambitious. All I was going to do after collecting Isabel from school was clean her playroom, and then make a little bit of dinner. Not tricky at all. Or so I thought....

We'd commandeered the playroom as an emergency kitchen area while the works were going on, and that, in combination to the builders accidentally drilling through the wall, meant that the room was really dusty. But I figured I was only cleaning one room, so how much work could that be? It wasn't the amount of work which turned out to be the problem, it was my inability to pick anything up off the floor without straining my sore ribs. I seem to have pulled another rib muscle, and it's now really painful, to say the least - when the doctor poked the area today while measuring the bump I actually yelped, which was slightly embarrassing. Not as embarrassing as getting on the scales though. Good Lord. Anyway, I digress. Isabel helped me to some extent with moving things off the floor, but then I had to sweep, hoover the mat, hoover the couch (with the hoover tools, obviously!) and then wash the floor.

Making the tea after all this activity was tricky, made more difficult by Isabel requesting that I come and play, trying to figure out how the new cooker worked, and then realising that my recipe books were still in the garage and I couldn't remember the quantities of milk, cheese and egg needed in a quiche. Phoned my mother for the answer, rather than fighting my way into the garage!

So, by the end of the day I felt quite shattered, and then someone called from work with a question that I just don't have time to answer and that nearly tipped me over the brink. Luckily the quiche cooked fine, another colleague took the question on, Husbandio came home and did bath and bedtime, and I was able to sit down. Oh, after going to the school for 90 minutes to learn about phonics. All in a day's work for an eight month pregnant working mother! Roll on tomorrow and the end of work - I've just about reached my limit, and don't think I'll be much use from now on anyway!

Wednesday 25 March 2009

Now we're all reading Roald Dahl

Having very much enjoyed reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Minpins, The Magic Finger, James and the Giant Peach and Esio Trot (and The BFG, but it's a bit scary for the small girl I think), and having visited the Roald Dahl Museum recently, I realised that there are still some adult Roald Dahl titles which I haven't read. I've therefore just read Boy, part one of his autobiography, and am now on to part two, Going Solo.

It was a fascinating early life although tinged with sadness (the deaths of his father and sister, for one thing, and being sent away to boarding school didn't sound like much fun). And he had his nose cut off in a car accident - truly! Apparently his mother had to hold it on until the got to the doctor's, and the doc then set about it with a needle and thread and no anaesthetic. Blimey. I remember reading somewhere that he had a plane crash later on when flying for the RAF, so I expect I'll come to that next. It's the physical stuff which has really grabbed me - the descriptions of gettting caned are hilarious and gruesome at the same time. Now I wish that there were other ones I hadn't read so that I could read them too!

Tuesday 24 March 2009

The Grand Unveiling

It's finally finished! The Bulgarian invasion of Chesham is now over, and the attacking forces have been repelled. In other words, our new kitchen is in and functional and, best of all, lovely and clean. I have to say that the builders did a great job and it looks beautiful - I couldn't be more pleased. Well, I'd have been more pleased if they'd finished in two weeks instead of three, but there was a lot to do. This was their list of tasks:
  • Move the boiler into the garage
  • Plaster the ceiling in order to get rid of the artex swirls
  • Remove all units, and the two (?) sinks
  • Move the sink to a new location
  • Take up the old flooring
  • Tile over the new underfloor heating (which we got a separate company to install)
  • Install all new units, dishwasher, double oven and hob
  • Tiling
  • Re-paint the whole room
  • Take everything to the household waste dump (who knew you needed a permit? I played the Eight Months Pregnant card, and that seemed to do the trick, luckily, since we had 2 Transit vanloads of rubbish!)
So, it was quite a big job, but totally worth it from my point of view and, crucially, finished before Pumpkin's arrival. I've spent about an hour just hanging out on my own in the new kitchen (Husbandio is at football tonight) putting things in cupboards and doing silly jobs like scrubbing the outside of the toaster and the kettle to make them look clean and new. Silly, but just seemed wrong to have grubby items in such a spanking new kitchen.

So, without any more whittering, here are some pics, including Isabel's first meal!

Looking towards the dining area
Opposite view (note the feature wall!)

New oven and hob (and posh extractor, which didn't come with a filter so looks posh but doesn't actually do anything as yet except act as an expensive light)

There was masses of room to fit in the tumble drier and washing machine...

And of course, the touch of comedy...!
All the things you need near the breakfast table...
And the first meal - Scrambled Eggs a la Husbandio (he really does make the nicest scrambled eggs ever), with fried mushrooms and chocolate milk. Delicious, and nutritious!

Monday 23 March 2009

Entering the final straight

On Saturday I turned eight months pregnant. Which in many ways is great - no-one wants the baby arriving too early, and I figure that by now she's cooked thoroughly enough to be able to manage pretty well whenever she does make her appearance. Lungs are in good working order by this stage for example and, while she could do with putting on a little fat, she could survive quite easily without too much intervention from modern medicine.

However, staying in a bit longer is better. For her, not necessarily for me. I shouldn't really grumble too much as it's been a relatively easy pregnancy again (other than the chest infections which weren't really Pumpkin's fault!). No morning sickness, and I'm not too big, or I haven't been up til now anyway. But now that the final month is upon me I'm getting to the "OK, I'm ready" stage, mostly due to various small physical irritations which, when combined, can get rather trying. These include:
  • Tension knots under my right shoulder blade, which fade away over night but then are back with a vengeance by about 9.30am and remain there all day
  • Inability to turn over in the night without waking up
  • Only two possible sleeping positions (on right side, or on left side!)
  • Getting up every night to go for a wee
  • Persistent low grade heartburn
  • Feet in the ribs (Pumpkin's feet, my ribs!)
I think she, and therefore I, must have had a growth spurt again in the last few days, since I'm also now having trouble with trousers. My maternity jeans are OK but I'm just bored with them since I've been in them solidly for three months. I tried a pair of black trousers today but they were too loose with no way of tightening them, and just kept slowly descending - since my stomach is now much bigger than my hips there's nothing stopping them once they start, so I ditched those. And my comfy house trousers (usually PJ bottoms) are all a bit snug now, so I've had to resort to Husbandio's PJ bottoms. Luckily they're really big, and have a drawstring waist. From now to the finishing line, comfort is definitely the name of the game.

Sunday 22 March 2009

Happy Mother's Day

I've had a lovely Mother's Day this year - if it weren't for Pumpkin pressing on my bladder and aiding the creation of tension knots under my right shoulder-blade I'd be feeling really relaxed. The day started well. I slept til 8am which I've not done for weeks, since Isabel stayed over with my mum last night (and was apparently up with a nightmare about rats at 5.30am, and never went back to sleep - oops, sorry Mum!). I met Mum and Isabel after they'd been for a swim, and we headed over to Regent's Park for lunch outdoors at the cafe. A second outdoor Sunday lunch in a row, and it's only mid-March - it's been beautiful weather the last couple of weeks. After a nice lunch we went to see my grandmother who plays tennis every week in Regent's Park (fitter than I am, and she's coming up on 80, puts me to shame), and then spent an hour in a lovely playground, including taking shoes and socks off and getting involved in the sandpit. When we'd dropped everyone home after tea and icecream, Isabel and Husbandio presented me with some lovely Mother's Day gifts - it really was a beautifully relaxing day. (Gifts included, as you can see, beautiful flowers and the DVD of Mamma Mia, plus 2 bars of chocolate - one with a bear saying "chocolate makes it all bearable" and the other looking like a packet of contraceptives, with the words Girth Control - luckily, I thought this was funny!)


Only one sad piece of news today - the death of Jade Goody. Beautifully ironic timing, as befits someone who lived much of her life in the media spotlight. I've never been a big Jade fan, and I laughed along with most of the rest of the nation at her appearance on Big Brother ("where is East Angular?" and "can you see my kebab?" etc). However, I did come to admire her tenacity and determination to succeed (often despite herself - her mouth was her worst enemy on several occasions, viz the Shilpa Poppadom incident), and also her ability to admit when she'd done something wrong or ill-advised. Goodness knows, very few people are good at that, myself included. Who likes admitting they're wrong, especially in the national press? And I also thought, from what I'd seen in the media anyway (and who knows the level of reality there?) that she seemed like a pretty good mother. Which is why her dying on Mother's Day is so ironic. Prince William was in the press the other day saying that he felt hollow every Mother's Day, and I can't imagine how awful it must be to try to avoid what can be cloyingly sentimental shop displays leading up to events like Mother's Day or Father's Day if you don't have a mother or father any longer. Or how awful it must be to lose a parent at such a young age, much as my own mother did. So, in addition to having enjoyed today's Mother's Day, I'm also counting myself extraordinarily lucky to still have both my parents, a lovely family, and the love and support of Husbandio and my beautiful Isabel. Thanks all of you - you make it all worth while.

Saturday 21 March 2009

A bit of peace and quiet

This is the second weekend in a row that Isabel has been away over Saturday night - last weekend she stayed at my dad's, this weekend it's my mum's turn. Gawd bless grandparents. I was anticipating a nice couple of hours of peace this afternoon while Husbandio drove the girl over to my mum's, perhaps some Desperate Housewives and a nap, but the electricians were here fixing various problems and installing the downlighters in the kitchen. I just couldn't nap or even really laze around with other people in the house, despite being officially eight months pregnant as of today, so I ended up dusting the whole house, and washing the floor in the hall, which was in a truly disgusting state after three weeks of people working in the kitchen. Luckily after that Husbandio came home and the electricians left, so I've been napping in front of the rugby, which reminds me of old times - I always did like a nap in front of an afternoon of sport.

Not having Isabel here does make sitting down a possibility - with her here, I find I'm always on the move. This is more my fault than hers - I just feel guilty sitting down and doing nothing, even when heavily pregnant. Ridiculous, I know. And she's such a bundle of energy that this can be really draining - she's just continually moving or speaking, and there's no off switch. I wonder when this changes and she'll become a lumpen teenager who won't shift off the couch. I'll be complaining about that too no doubt in years to come.

For today though, I shall enjoy a few more minutes of sitting down, then I'm going to clean the bathrooms while Husbandio does the hoovering. I really need to get a cleaner - we used to have one and I miss it. Might have to re-jig the family budget to squeeze that in, it's seeming like a better idea the more I think about it!

Friday 20 March 2009

Heston is my favourite TV chef

Husbandio and I have just watched Heston's Medieval Feast and it's propelled Heston Blumenthal to the top of my TV chef list. Traditionally I've always been a Gordon fan (the thinking woman's bit of rough, if you take my meaning), but the trouble with Gordon is that he publishes books that you're actually meant to be able to cook from, and so far I've never managed that successfully. His wife on the other hand produces eminently cookable recipes, but my skill levels clearly aren't on a Gordon par. Not yet, anyway.

Now Heston, on the other hand, does not cook food which you could even think about trying to re-create at home. Indeed, at the start of the Medieval Feast program, he warns viewers not to try this at home. What a liberating statement from a TV chef! The things he made were just so interesting - fruit made of meat, four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie, and edible cutlery and candles. The research and the thought behind it were fascinating - and we still have to watch the Tudor feast episode which I'm really looking forward to. And, once the Fat Duck has been proven once again to be bug-free, I might even try to book a table - Husbandio tried to once, unsuccessfully - clearly we need to hire a PA to accomplish this particular task!

Thursday 19 March 2009

Everybody needs some pampering

When we went to the all day NCT class the other day one of the things we had to do was massage, and the only things I really liked were the foot massage and the hand massage. I must have intimacy issues, since the whole head massage thing, which some people just love, leaves me cold. I quite like back massage although the last time I had a proper back massage was during the period when I was still breastfeeding Isabel, and the idea now just reminds me of being unbelievably uncomfy, since lying on your stomach with rapidly filling bosoms is just unpleasant. Maybe hands and feet is OK because they're both extremities, so my personal space isn't too threatened. I think not liking head massage is down to the whole curly hair thing - anyone fiddling with my head just makes me look like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards.

Anyway, I'm interested to see who Isabel is going to take after in this regard, since Husbandio is a great fan of all kinds of massage. We had a little mini pamper session the other night which she seemed to enjoy, so perhaps she's a Daddy's girl in this regard.

Wednesday 18 March 2009

Procrastination

I spent much of today trying to write a report which I came to the conclusion I was just not the best person to write. And the more I tried to write it, the more I realised how little I knew, and the more difficult it became. I've been putting off doing this for days as it is, and it's now due in on Friday. I eventually gave up, which is not really like me since I can be quite tenacious once I get started on something. Anyway, I got to the point of figuring that I was just banging my head into a brick wall which was wasting both my time and the company's time, so I sent off a version of the report with as much as I could do, and just shouted "help!". So we'll see what comes back. It's annoyed me though, because the other report which I was working on has just been through peer review and came back with basically no changes, so it's not that I'm being incompetent or fuzzy-brained due to pregnancy. I just think I'm the wrong person to write this particular report. We'll see what comes back from my plea for assistance....!

I was however quite impressed by what I did manage to achieve while I was procrastinating over this report. I was SO desperate not to do it that I got my inbox down to 12 e-mails, an almost unheard-of low. I submitted an article a day early, and did loads of other things that I wasn't very keen on doing, but which seemed really quite appealing in contrast to getting down to the report in question. Usually I find that when I procrastinate I just get irritated with myself, but in this case it went so well I might try it again more often.

Tuesday 17 March 2009

What's in a name?

We're really struggling with this name business. Part of the problem is that we picked the name we liked for a girl last time. It's tricky to do that twice. I've now read, from cover to cover, the Oxford Dictionary of First Names and created a long list of 33 possibilities. Now it's over the Husbandio to whittle out the ones he really loathes to make a first shortlist, and then we can reduce that further to a final shortlist of about three or four. That might be as close as we can get before she's born - Isabel definitely felt like an Isabel once she popped out.

I do have a few criteria:
  • Nothing beginning with R. I'm not keen on names which begin with the same letter as your surname. Also, wouldn't it be terrible if she had a Jonathan Ross-like speech impediment, and couldn't say her Rs. One R to deal with in that scenario would be quite enough.
  • Nothing beginning with I, so we don't have issues with confusion over the post!
  • A name that doesn't make me sound like a fishwife if I scream it in the park.
  • Nothing that ends in N, since that sounds silly with our surname.
  • Our surname is short, so ideally three or more syllables.
You'd think that would narrow it down a lot, but there's still loads to choose from. Let the whittling process begin!

Monday 16 March 2009

When life bites back

As you all know, and are sick of hearing, we're in the process of getting a new kitchen (couple of new pics below, full unveiling over the weekend or next week.....!). We've been trying to be very good - the builder told us we needed to get a load of stuff (floor and wall tiles, paint, adhesive, grout), so we did, and of course half of it is the wrong type or size or colour so we've got masses of stuff to take back. Husbandio and I should know better really since this is exactly what happened when we did the rest of the house up last year. So that's one example of us trying to do the right thing, and just getting shafted.

The second example is below:


The electrician tried to do the right thing, but pressed too hard with the drill and went straight through into the playroom, which is next door to the kitchen. Fabulous.

The final straw though, when we currently have no heat because the boiler's packed in (the man's fixing it now, I hope, even though it's gone 9pm. Poor fellow) is that we went to the pizza place and my debit card got rejected. Always embarrassing, and it's happened several times in the last week or so. I even called Halifax about it on Friday, but they had no record of any transactions being rejected. Bloody idiots. Anyway, turns out that an indicator has been put on my account because of a concern over fraud - all because I took out £1200 in cash (over the counter - hardly the act of a fraudster!) and then £300 from the cashpoint outside the branch (on the advice of the woman behind the counter). Tried to do the right thing, play by the rules, and got kicked in the teeth. (Course, this is what I get for paying the underfloor heating people in cash....so perhaps I wasn't really doing the right thing at all, and this is life reminding me to stay on the straight and narrow!)

Anyway, here are a couple of kitchen pics just to keep you going until the covers come off in a few days' time.....drumroll please!



The units are actually cream, not white, but you get the idea.



Posh-looking extractor! Who know if it actually works properly though.....





And all off-set by a nice slate effect floor. On top of the underfloor heating - oh frabjous day, calloo callay, she chortled in her joy!

Sunday 15 March 2009

A little bit of me time

It's not been a stressful weekend, in fact it's been quite sociable and a lot of fun for much of the time, but I had a sudden moment of clarity this morning, at about 6am, which put me into a bit of a tail spin. My realisation was that in about five weeks' time I will be dealing with a new born baby and, perhaps even more frighteningly, I will be required to go through labour first. Of course this fact has been evident for some time, and I've known I was pregnant since last August, but I've now come to the point of having got the nursery ready, and I really need to get my hospital bag packed just in case everything happens a lot earlier than expected. Which is certainly possible with a second child, or so I understand.

Part of what suddenly forced this realisation was yesterday's NCT class, and the fact that one girl wasn't there. Turned out she'd been in premature labour, but it had abated so she's hoping now to hold on until nearer her due date which isn't until early May I think. In the class, we talked about all of the things you need which I'd put to the back of my mind - these include lovely items such as stretchy pants which will get ruined and can be thrown away, plus maternity pads and breast pads. I've now bought these items, along with newborn nappies, nappy sacks and lots of other exciting maternity items. And I'm desperate to get the kitchen finished now because the washing machine's currently stored in the garage, and that means that I can't get all of Pumpkin's clothes and linen ready - everything need washing, and I need to choose stuff for the hospital bag. And we haven't really chosen a name. And we need to go and check out the hospital again so that we know exactly where to park, and how to get to the maternity unit in the most efficient way. And make sure that people are lined up to look after Isabel in case we need to shoot off in the middle of the night. And...and....and.... - the list feels pretty long.

So, I got myself into a bit of a hormonal pickle, and forced a lovely row with Husbandio. What a good plan (sorry about that Husbandio, my Constant Reader!). Having recovered over the course of the day, I've decided that one thing I really need to do is to slow down a bit. I just can't do it all - I've been pretending really that I can do exactly what I could do when not pregnant, and that's just not working any more. I need to accept that next week I'll be eight months pregnant, and that I therefore need to focus my energies on what's important. And at the moment that includes:
  • getting all my birthing ducks in a row, so to speak;
  • finishing work so that I don't feel guilty about leaving people in the lurch;
  • getting the kitchen finished and the house cleaned;
  • stocking the freezer with food to make life easier after Pumpkin's born;
  • Choosing a better name than Pumpkin (!);
  • Getting myself into a relaxed frame of mind, ready for the new arrival.
Since it's the end of the day, I decided to start with the last item, so I've just enjoyed a lovely foot spa while watching Comic Relief Does The Apprentice, which was great. Husbandio has followed my example - we've got no kitchen, folks, but the state of our feet leaves nothing to be desired.

Saturday 14 March 2009

Surviving the NCT

Husbandio did very well indeed today, and survived a six hour NCT class. It was quite long, I must admit, but I think he enjoyed meeting the other dads, and in fact felt almost like a celebrity since he was the only one who wasn't a first time dad. He even discovered that he and one of the others guys have a friend in common - small world indeed.

It wasn't too bad a day although it did drag a bit since the NCT teacher is overly fond of her own voice. We did some massage stuff, which neither of us found terribly helpful, mainly because I'm not desperately keen on massage-type things. We did also do foot rubs and hand massages which I did like, so for me it was worth it just for that! The other thing I found useful was the breast-feeding video and chat - it just made me remember useful stuff, and started to focus my mind on what I think I need to do in order not to repeat the weeks of tears and agony which I went through last time. Sometimes I wonder how the human race survived, given the number of women that find breast-feeding difficult and give up. It's natural, but it ain't easy. Unless you like the sensation of repeatedly slamming your nipples in a door and then holding the door shut. Five or six times a day, for about twelve weeks. I mean that, I really did find it that painful - my toes used to curl every time Isabel latched on to feed, it was just agonising. I hope that this time I shall be able to do it better - forewarned is forarmed, as they say. Or fore-bosomed, as the case may be.

Friday 13 March 2009

Governed by time

I went on a course recently which said there was no such as thing as time management - time in and of itself is an abstract concept and one which can not be slowed or speeded up, thus there is no way of managing it. What we can manage is how we control our approach to time or, in some cases, allow time to control us.

I'm a bit of a time freak - I get nervous without a watch, and being late makes me break out in a sweat. The other useful thing which this course taught me was that some people are not like this. I know, it's true, don't be shocked. To some people time is much more fluid and relaxed, and the concept of being late is simply not one which crosses their radar. In some ways I would like to be like that, but in other ways I wouldn't, since I know that when other people are late for things which I have arranged then it just drives me crazy. It makes me feel like I'm late, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. The control freak in me gets very nervous when things like this happen.

What I have found myself doing increasingly lately is trying to squeeze things into unfeasibly short periods of time. Thus, when I was going into the office regularly, I would leave knowing that I had about three or four minutes leeway or I'd miss my Met line train - and since I needed to use the Piccadilly line and the Bakerloo line before reaching the Met line this was foolhardy behaviour to say the least. I never missed the train though, although I did have to leap on once as the doors were closing. Luckily the belly wasn't as big then, or I might have had the belly inside the carriage and the rest of me dancing alongside.

But why am I pressuring myself in this way? Do I not have enough pressure? You'd have thought that growing one child while keeping the other child and Husbandio alive and in a clean house with clean clothes while working a four day week would be enough, but seemingly not. No, I must also sign Child #1 up for classes (ballet, tap, disco, swimming) and schedule evening interviews for work with people on the West Coast who can't do any other time. Or book myself into ante-natal classes which wipe out one whole weekend day, and then arrange an evening out on the same day. Or get a kitchen put in just a few weeks before my due date.

I shall attempt to use my maternity leave to get my sense of time put back into perspective, but before you know it I'll be chucking Child #1 into school and Child #2 into nursery while checking my e-mail and driving the car. Those all sound like tasks which can be accomplished at the same time. I think I'm going to blame the internet for all this actually - you can get access to everything so fast that it shapes our assumptions about the rest of our lives. I am now off to practice my deep breathing and concentrate on slowing down, but before that I must just .......... (kidding - over and out from me, for tonight anyway).

Thursday 12 March 2009

I want to climb Kilimanjaro too!

I'm writing this while watching the Comic Relief programme about the celebs going up Kilimanjaro, and it's really making me want to do it too! Not right now of course, don't think going up at 34 weeks pregnant would be a good idea. But I really fancy the idea of quite a serious physical challenge. There would be a couple of criteria though:
  • No running. Running and I do not get on.
  • Some kind of sleeping mat - no sleeping on bare ground. Physical challenge plus bad night's sleep does not sounds like fun either.
  • Not too heavy a bag to carry. I love walking, and think my stamina's quite good, but carrying an enormous rucksack would seriously detract from the experience as well.
I think that may well be one criteria too many actually - perhaps I'm reducing the level of this physical challenge to a stroll in the park! I watched a series recently with Ben Fogle on which he took people on various expeditions and those looked really good too, although the big rucksacks did put me off, I must admit. And I'd be worried about going up a mountain or something, since my lung capacity is not much to write home about at the best of time given my tendency to asthma.

So, I need to come up with a list of challenges (possibly, by the time I do it, suitable for the over 40s!) - hey, it could even be a family challenge, and Husbandio and I could watch our children achieve whatever it is much more easily then either of us. Now there's a cheerful thought!

Wednesday 11 March 2009

Kitchen progress notes

Well, we're half way through the kitchen installation (I hope!), so I thought I'd provide an update on progress. It's been pretty smooth so far, mostly. Glitches have at least not been down to me, which is always nice. For example, our builders' boss estimated I'd need four square metres of tiles, turns out I'll need five. But of course no one thought to tell me that until after I'd placed the order with the tile shop. Still, panic over, all tiles are now safely in my possession. One other problem is the back door - it's not very secure, and needs replacing, but apparently our door frame is very narrow, and none of the doors I want come in the right width. We've also had issues in trying to work out how to make the worktop go round a corner without it looking like a botch job - turns out there was only one way to do it, so that's now it is. And it looks fine, which is lucky.

One issue to be dealt with later this week is the larder cupboard pull out which the builder justs seems to think won't work - ironic really since in our last kitchen I tried to have a pull out larder cupboard which didn't really work, so we ended up with deep shelves and kept losing things at the back. I can see history repeating itself.

The look we've gone for is modern country kitchen with a touch of comedy. We like to be original after all. I'll save the full unveiling for a subsequent post, but here's a couple of pics to whet the appetite. This first shot is a close-up of the tiles we eventually chose, after much deliberation. They were actually among the first ones we looked at, and are very similar to what we had in our old kitchen, except in that case we chose cream and blue. They're arranged randomly - 60% off white, 25% ruby (the dark red), and 15% raspberry. The comedy element of the kitchen is also reflected here - there are nine tiles featuring different bugs. We just couldn't resist.


So, we went expensive with the tiles, but slightly less so with the worktops. In theory both of us liked the idea of wood, but the thought of the practicalities really put me off. As well as the cost, of course! I did some research online which described how real wood worktops need oiling every three-six months, and I was just too worried about damaging them by accidentally putting down a hot pan, or putting something wet down on the surface and leaving a ring. And I don't want to worry about these things, I want to cook and enjoy and live calmly in my kitchen. So, nix to the wood. Instead we went for a wood effect laminate called walnut block, which is a lovely colour, and should be a lot more user friendly. Here's hoping...!

Tuesday 10 March 2009

NCT daftness

I had the third of my NCT ante-natal classes today, and some of the advice given was so bizarre that one of the other girls and I had to resort to mouthing "it's rubbish" at each other. Admittedly the NCT puts itself in an odd position: it is intended, as an organisation, to promote choice, but it has also chosen to support the WHO recommendations about breast-feeding and bottle feeding, which means they won't give you any information on bottle feeding. Not that I was planning to bottle feed - I managed to breastfeed Isabel for a year, and plan to do the same with Pumpkin. But that's not the point.

Anyway, the advice which struck me as rubbish, and I clearly wasn't alone, was that the baby must have a primary food provider - in other words, if you're not breast-feeding then don't let anyone else give the baby a bottle as it will damage the nascent bond which is being formed. The evidence for this was a study which found that when children are faced with being separated from their mothers to go to nursery or playgroup, then those who had had a primary food provider were quite happy to toddle off and also happy to be reunited with their mothers at the end of the session, while those who had not had a primary food provider resisted the separation, and also cried when reunited. Isabel behaved in completely the opposite way to this - she was breastfed, but also enormously clingy - perhaps she's the exception which proves the rule. One girl asked whether it might not be nice for the dad to give the baby a bottle occasionally, but was told that this would not be the right thing to do at all.

This Saturday, Husbandio and I have a six hour class from 10am-4pm which he is most unwilling to attend. There's a three line whip in place on this event (I've paid for the course, so we're bloomin' well going!) and all of the other girls are really nice so it'll be good to meet their other halves and I think it'll be a fun day. But both Husbandio and I will definitely be taking all information provided with several vats of salt.

Monday 9 March 2009

Health in Pregnancy

I went to the midwife today, one of the oh-so-exciting regular appointments to which you are subjected if you're pregnant. I've had comments like "good luck at the midwife" from friends and colleagues - what do they think is happening at these appointments? If your pregnancy is running normally, which most do, then these appointments are simply to confirm that all is well, and send you on your way. For me they've always been the same: submit small pot of pee for testing, have blood pressure taken (mine's always low, except for the one time the midwife was running really late and I was in a hurry to be elsewhere!), occasionally get weighed (depressing), and listen to the baby's heartbeat (always nice, although when you can feel the little wiggler getting her feet dug in under your ribs you don't need a heartbeat to confirm that the baby's alive and well). Oh, and the appointments are also good for a nice whinge about pregnancy symptoms - heartburn featured high on my list today, along with the strangely painful feeling that my right leg isn't quite as well connected to my body as it ought to be.

The appointment went really well in most senses: I passed all of the tests, which is always good, and the midwife gave me my Health in Pregnancy grant form. For the up the duff amongst you who have not yet heard of this, it is a thing of rare beauty - the UK Government is giving pregnant peeps £190 to stay healthy. This is great! Mine's going on an iPod Touch, which will keep me healthy mentally, if nothing else, while breastfeeding in the middle of the night. I shall be posting the form off tomorrow with great relish, can't wait to get my hands on the cash!

The downsides to the appointment were that the midwife is a rather boot-faced woman who never laughs at my jokes, and this depresses me. Also, I told her about the whole "my leg may be falling off" issue, and she said "ah yes, sciatica". At last, I thought, a piece of useful information from her. But no, I Googled it when I got home and it turns out that pregnancy is not linked to sciatica, and that it's actually to do with the relaxin that is released in your body when you're pregnant (which is what I told the blinkin' woman in the first place!). It's a hormone that enables your joints, especially those in your pelvis, to stretch wide enough to let the baby out. It can also make you prone to spraining your ankles (no jogging for me, what a shame...). Anyway, this can lead to something call Pelvis Girdle pain if your pelvic joints spread too far too early, which sounds like just what I have. Remind me not to bother asking her anything next time, I shall just go in and keep my mouth shut and rely on the web for everything else.

Sunday 8 March 2009

A weekend of socialising

Having no kitchen, temporarily at least, has made us a very sociable family. Since the house is quite dusty, and the cooking facilities very limited, we decided to throw ourselves on the mercy of our friends, who were kind enough to take us in and feed us. Funnily enough, both the sets of friends who took pity on us this weekend included girls (sorry, ladies) I went to school with - I clearly picked some long-standing winners in terms of friendship.

All this chit-chatting, though, is more than we're used to. We don't even have the telly on at the moment, and it's normally on in the background all the time as we sit on the couch of an evening. But I think tonight both of us are just craving a little bit of silence. I'm even finding it quite hard to write, because I'm just completely talked out. I have nothing left to say. I've said all I did have to say at least three or four times over during the course of the weekend, and now I can't remember what I've said to who, or even whether I've said stuff that I meant to write. This state of confusion is not going to lead to the most exciting blog post in the world, so I'm going to draw a line under tonight, and retire gracefully. Well, as gracefully as a seven-month pregnant woman can do.

Saturday 7 March 2009

Everybody needs good neighbours

One of the things I've noticed since moving out of town and into what I lovingly refer to as the sticks is that people are much more friendly. I know that London has a reputation for not being a very friendly city, and for the most part I found that to be true. Doesn't mean I don't like London - I grew up there and always enjoyed living there, but with some caveats. In the block of flats where we used to live we knew the residents of four other flats quite well, several others by sight, and some others not at all. Unfortunately London is also a place where people move on quite quickly, and of the four sets of neighbours that we knew, only one set was still in place when we moved (and was quite upset that we were moving). Those that moved did so for a variety of reasons: one couple (the only other ones with kids, I was gutted when they left) also moved to the sticks because she was pregnant with #3 and they needed a bigger place with some outside space, one guy defaulted on the mortgage and was evicted, and the last disappeared after a night of much noise and police, amid rumours that he'd been dealing out of the flat in question. We didn't miss him quite as much.

We now live in a cul de sac with four other houses, and know the residents of three of those houses pretty well. Our direct next door neighbours are great, in fact tonight they handed over half their dinner to us (a homemade pizza, lush) since our kitchen is now in a total state of destruction. They're paying it forward really, since their kitchen is being done in about a month so we'll be returning the favour then! And they have kids too, an eight year old and a four year old who's in Isabel's class at school so we occasionally share school runs and the kids are always in and out of each other's houses. The other neighbours include a lovely retired couple, whose handy photocopier/scanner I popped in to use the other day, and a couple with a seven year old who's also at the same school as Isabel. It's lovely and, for me, having lived in London my whole life, really refreshing to just be able to pop round to people's houses to ask for favours and borrow things, and to have people do the same with us, or just to pop in for a cup of tea. Isabel loves it - she says London was too bustly and crowded and she much prefers where we live now. She has very definite views for a four year old. Can't think where she gets that from....

Friday 6 March 2009

World Book Day = cultural outing

Yesterday was World Book Day, and even though I ostensibly work in the publishing industry it toally snuck up on me. In fact, I only found out because Husbandio saw an article in the local paper that said that the Roald Dahl Museum had free entry for adults and children on the day itself. So, we packed ourselves into the car after school and headed off for a bit of literary culture. On the cheap, naturally.

The museum was excellent - full of interesting bits about Roald Dahl's life, which I liked, and lots of interactive stuff for Isabel. And chocolate doors into one of the rooms (OK, plastic, but looked and smelled like chocolate - very cool!). She was very entertained by the story-telling session we went to, where someone read and acted out some of the Revolting Rhymes and Dirty Beasts poems. They're great - anarchic enough to appeal to both adults and children.

I know people say that Roald Dahl was an unpleasant character and that his books have more rough edges than today's delicate children should be exposed to, but I disagree. He may not have been very nice but he wrote like a dream, had a deliciously subversive sense of humour, and told stories which contain, for me at least, just the right combination of grit, fantasy and moral rectitude. I'm so pleased Isabel's now of an age when we can start to share some of his books and I'm amazed how much I can remember of them - I hope they make as much of an impression on her as they clearly did on me. And I'm also pleased that he wrote lots of more adult stuff too, since I think I'll be getting back into those as well. Trouble is that some of his stories are so memorable that even I, with my terrible memory, haven't forgotten them. I need a total memory block so I can read them all from scratch - 'til that's invented, I'll have to settle for living vicariously through my daughter.

Thursday 5 March 2009

A nice warm feeling

Well, the kitchen work is proceeding apace, it's all very exciting. We should hopefully be going from a beige 80s nightmare to a modern yet classic country kitchen look, offset by some very cool wall tiles, and complemented by the toasty toes feeling that only comes from underfloor heating. We're still in full destruction phase at the moment - just about all the units are gone, and we've moved the boiler into the garage to make space for more cupboards. We've also had new radiators put in upstairs and it's made it much warmer which is oddly thrilling - I've always found the upstairs rooms in our house really cold, and having warmer rooms makes it much more homey somehow. Tomorrow comes ceiling skimming (bye bye green artex!) and then putting everything back together again next week.

I can't wait til it's all done, but there is, oddly, one thing I'll miss, and that's cooking without an oven or a hob. I know that sounds strange, but there are several positives: there's not too many choices as to what to cook, everything you do cook can be done really quickly since the only equipment at your disposal is a microwave, a toaster and a kettle, and you don't feel guilty when you resort to fish and chips (and, drool, curry sauce...), which is what we did last night. And it was lovely.

Wednesday 4 March 2009

I had that satnav in the back of my cab once

While in a taxi today going from a meeting back to the office, I noticed that the taxi driver had a satnav on his dashboard. I'm a big fan of satnavs - we've had one for just over a year and it's been absolutely invaluable since moving out from central London to more rural retreats. Husbandio's cousin is more dismissive of these devices than I am, and has christened them Twatnav! However, it seems much safer than looking down at a map propped on the passenger seat, and I find it takes a lot of the stress out of travelling to new places - just sit back, turn it on, and do as you're told. For this reason I think Husbandio is slightly less keen than I am - he can see the value, but hates being told what to do, and often tries to pick a fight with the machine, or deliberately goes the wrong way.

I was really surprised however to see a London black cab driver using a satnav device. Taxi drivers in London are famous for having done a very difficult test called The Knowledge, which requires between two and four years of study, memorising the location of each of 250,000 London streets, and then being tested on ideal routes to get from one destination to another. Indeed, research has proven that taxi drivers are more efficient than a satnav, and that certain areas of their brains have become enlarged as a result of all of this study. Seeing a satnav in the taxi made me rather disappointed in a way - usually I like to see new technologies being applied, but this could be the beginning of the end of the Knowledge, a nice little British eccentricity which I've always rather admired. And besides, it's just cheating isn't it?

Tuesday 3 March 2009

Doing too much - as ever

This week is destined to be one of those weeks where I can see every minute of every day laid out in front of me - it's making me tired just thinking about it. Having spent Saturday doing house jobs like filing and gardening, and then Sunday packing up the contents of the kitchen cupboard, and then driving 200 miles on Monday to speak to a group of undergraduates, I could really have done with a nice restful day today. Sadly, not to be. Today, I:
  1. Folded and put away all the washing
  2. Got self and Isabel dressed
  3. Made breakfast for Isabel and self, and then washed everything up so as to be able to keep the kitchen empty
  4. Welcomed builders, made tea
  5. Discussed kitchen plans with builders and their boss
  6. Did school run
  7. Chased tile company for samples and underfloor heating company with questions
  8. Did 2 hours work
  9. Went to 2.5 hour NCT class
  10. Did school run again
  11. Liaised with electrician re. plus sockets
  12. Liaised with builder over cupboard which might not fit
  13. Did an hour long conference call
  14. Built wardrobe for Pumpkin (with Isabel's help)
  15. Sorted out Pumpkin's clothes and got them ready for washing (also with Isabel's help)
  16. Read some more James and the Giant Peach
  17. Picked up Husbandio from the station
  18. Made dinner with Husbandio (not too taxing - nuked some hot dogs and buns!)
  19. Washed up
  20. Did bathtime and bedtime with Isabel
  21. Did some e-mail
  22. Wrote blog
Am I mad? Even though it's not even 9pm yet I'm going to take myself to bed I think. Day in town tomorrow, and then hopefully more restful times towards the end of the week. At least making dinner without a kitchen is quite an easy process - nuke it, or phone out for it. Now that's something to smile about at any rate!

Monday 2 March 2009

Judging my own performance

I've now been blogging for two months, so it's time to look back on February's stats, and see what's changed over January. As they say on the X Factor, "the results are in, the votes have been counted and verified..." (drum roll please)
  • 167 visits from 69 unique visitors (up from 84 visits from 35 unique visitors in January)
  • 217 page views (up from 132 page views in January)
  • Average time spent on site: 41 seconds (down from 1 min 59 seconds - boo.....!)
  • Best day: 13 visitors on Feb 18th (up from 10 visits on 28 Jan)
So, clearly the good news is that my audience is growing. In numbers, not size (although I am growing in size and not yet in numbers, which is ironic). The bad news is that they're not spending as much time on the site. My initial reaction was to be a bit disappointed, but then I realised that maybe this is a compliment - if people are visiting every day, they only need to read one post, which wouldn't take too long unless I've had a particularly windbaggy day. So I shall reserve judgment for now, and wait to see if average time spent changes significantly for March. I also want to understand better what made Feb 18th such a good day in terms of visitor numbers (I think it may have been that my friend MJ linked to me from her blog the day before, so I may well owe her a Manhattan by way of thanks!).

Anyway, Constant Reader (hope Stephen King hasn't trademarked that phrase), thanks for being with me on the journey. My intention is to continue writing every day - I'm sure I can achieve this in March, but can I do it in April? Will I be blogging through the contractions?! Will we decide to do a live streaming video of Pumpkin's entry into the world? Don't worry, I think you're safe there.....

Sunday 1 March 2009

Nesting

They say that, as the baby's due date approaches, the mum-to-be develops a nesting instinct, and spends a lot of time tidying, washing, ironing and generally preparing not just the baby's room but the whole rest of the planet, if possible. This weekend has definitely marked the beginning of my nesting period, although some of this was enforced rather than voluntary. And I must admit that I'm absolutely shattered, after a weekend that has involved:
  • Three loads of washing and drying, including sorting out the Moses basket which surprisingly seems to have survived being used as Isabel's toy basket when she'd outgrown it

  • Clipping the hedges and clearing the rockery plants which has been encroaching on the path. We can now actually get to the front door easily. Even though we've lived in this house for over a year, we've never used the front door regularly - the side door is much more convenient. However, we're getting a new kitchen put in over the next few weeks, and it may well be necessary for us to use the front door more often.

  • Planting primroses in the tubs outside the front of the house

  • Last, but not least, packing the entire kitchen and transferring it into the garage. Not entirely alone in this endeavour - my mum helped all day which was just invaluable, and Husbandio carried all the boxes we packed into the garage. And there a lot of boxes - I went to Sainsbury's twice and Tesco's once to collect boxes, and even then we ran out towards the end and had to use the handy boxes I'd fortunately bought in IKEA. I'm really looking forward to getting a new kitchen now, since the old one was badly planned and very dated. Most importantly, we'll have underfloor heating which will be blissful. At the moment slippers are vital in our kitchen in order to avoid frostbite.
I'm sure the next couple of weeks will include several very whingy posts about how annoying it is not to have a functioning kitchen, but at the moment I'm so pleased to have finished packing the bloody thing that I just don't care. And once you see the old kitchen, you'll understand why it is that we need a new one.....