Getting into a routine

Emily's now 12 days old, and we're working on getting into a routine since, from next Tuesday, Husbandio's fortnight of paternity leave will be over and he'll be back at work. This means I need to be able to get myself, Isabel and Emily up, fed, washed and dressed in order to get to school by 8.55am - no mean feat. I've managed this once so far, and may try again tomorrow - the difficulty is my inability to predict when young Emily will wake up.

One thing is becoming clear though, and that's the interval at which she seems to want to feed, during the day at least. She can last about three hours at the moment, so I figure that by feeding at 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm, 10pm and then once during the night I might be able to work in things like the school run and Isabel's swimming lessons without too many problems. I'm sure there are days when this won't work, and of course as Emily gets older she'll be able to go longer between feeds so I'll have to re-calculate after that. But this is the plan at the moment - I'll report back next week as to whether it works! But for now I'll sign off since the smallest member of the family is clearly aware I'm talking about her since she's kicking up a stink. And Husbandio's out seeing Wolverine, the lucky schmuck, so guess who's left holding the baby? You got it...!

Statistics

There are six of us in our NCT group, and, since the national caesarean rate in the UK is just over 20%, I suppose that statistically one of us had to fall into this category. So far, those of us who have already had our babies have had a pretty easy time - no epidurals, and barely any pain relief at all for two of us (more due to speed than desire in my case, I freely admit!).

I feel dreadful though for the girl who had to go down the c-section route, since it sounds as if she had a nightmarish time. The poor thing had her c-section after spending two days and three nights in labour (and therefore awake - which would give you the world's worst case of jetlag) and failing, despite the use of a variety of drugs, to dilate beyond 5cm. That really is the worst of all possible worlds - hours of painful labour, topped off with major abdominal surgery and the subsequent recovery period. I always quite liked the idea of a planned c-section (would be lovely to know the date in advance!) but the recovery sounds horrible and lengthy - not at all what you need with a newborn to deal with.

There's still two more girls to go (and goodness me, seeing them today reminded me just how pleased I am not to be pregnant any more - I even got into some pre-pregnancy jeans today, which was a major cause for celebration!), so fingers crossed that all goes well with them.

Getting back to my old self

After I'd had Isabel I remember feeling sorry that I wasn't pregnant any longer - not the case this time around. This time I'm hugely pleased that Emily's finally here, and that my body is my own again. Well, other than the bosoms of course, those are being shared for the next year or so!

I really enjoyed the whole process of being pregnant first time round - no morning sickness, and a very smooth pregnancy all told. Isabel was a very wiggly baby when still inside which was fun, and I quite enjoyed being treated as slightly fragile with people giving me a seat left, right and centre. With Emily, I again didn't have any morning sickness, but I was ill early on with chest infections and asthma, which was pretty miserable, and since looking after a four year old is quite an active job I never really had the time to relax, wallow and enjoy the pregnancy. And Emily was not a wiggly baby at all, so I spent quite a bit of time worrying whether she was still OK in there. Luckily this has carried on outside - she's a very sleepy baby, which suits me fine!

The most exciting things so far about not being pregnant are:

• I can bend down and pick something up off the floor without the whole operation requiring military planning
• I can eat peanuts!!! (and have a large bowl of chocolate peanuts in front of me as I'm writing this). And pate - we bought some at the weekend and I almost turned a cartwheel in Sainsbury's with excitement.
  
• I have the contents of my wardrobe back. OK, not everything fits yet, but I am in a pair of pre-pregnancy jeans for the first time today, and just saw my weight dip below the 10 stone mark. Hmm, perhaps those choc peanuts weren't a good idea after all!

This pregnancy shop is now definitely closed - I enjoyed it, but I'm done.

Back to reality

It's now been a week since Emily was born, and several things are becoming apparent.

1. This may be tempting fate, but I seem to have missed the whole baby blues thing this time. There's been no crying whenever people ask me how I'm feeling (that was most embarrassing last time!), and only the odd tear when someone sends a nice card or e-mail.
   
2. I was told that I'd be a lot more relaxed second time round, and so far that seems to be true. I'm slightly concerned about sorting myself out a routine in the next week so that I'm able to manage the school run and various other deadlines, but luckily I have a marvellous neighbour whose little girl is in Isabel's class and who has offered to drop off and collect if I need some help.
3. All babies are different. Again, perhaps a truism, but so far Emily's little character is quite different to her sister's. She seems a lot more chilled, but perhaps that's because her parents are more relaxed. She's already sleeping well - in fact last night, she slept so well that I had to try to wake her up at 4.30am (after last feeding her at 10pm) because I was so full of milk that something needed to be done! And after I'd fed her then, she slept 'til 7.30am, and only woke up when her big sister came in. Amazing. I certainly wasn't expecting a good night's sleep at this stage, but I've now had three good nights out of four, which is not to be sneezed at.
4. Kids are amazingly resilient. Isabel so far is showing no signs of sibling rivalry (maybe it's a bit too early!), and indeed is revelling in having a baby in the house. And everyone's been so nice to her - she's had presents galore (including from Emily - a new scooter, which went down very well!), and even a card from one of my friend's mums to congratulate her on her new baby sister. And she got two certificates from school on Friday which she's very proud of - one for 100% attendance last term at school, and one for good work. She had to go up and collect them from the headmaster in front of the whole school, very exciting. And nice timing, given Emily's arrival.
5. I'm ready to start getting out and about - managed to take Emily along with me when I took Isabel for her ballet class this morning, and then took the two of them for a walk after lunch since it's a lovely sunny afternoon. Meant to rain tomorrow and then for the following few days which is such a shame since it's been beautiful. Having said that, it'll give the flowers in my pots a chance, they're getting baked at the moment!

So Week One gets the thumbs up from me - bring on Week Two!

The language of the newborn

When you're pregnant, many of the words which crop up in conversation are unpleasant - words like bump (not one of my faves, mainly because it rhymes with dump), fat, swollen and heartburn all spring to mind. However, once the baby emerges, a whole new vocabulary is required, and within days, nay hours, the new parent is spouting these with impunity. Here's a few examples - guaranteed I will use all of these several times a day for the next few weeks, and then never again.

• Lanugo - the soft coating of downy hair on a newborn (Emily has hairy ears like a little hobbit which is hilarious! She's gonna hate me later for that one)
• Vernix - the gunky Vaseline-like stuff which covers a newborn in the womb and protects their skin from basically being in water all day every day
• Colostrum - what breastfed newborns eat for the first few days until the breastmilk comes in. Colour of custard and consistency of water, should anyone be interested!
• Engorgement - what happens to your boobs after the milk comes in. The discomfort then wakes you up in the night while the baby sleeps soundly. Fun.

I'm sure there are more but those are the ones that are stuck in my mind at the moment. I actually think that some other words should be in use but aren't. My favour of these is Infanticipation (the state of being pregnant) - but I admit to having stolen that from my Dad!

The Arrival of Emily Rann

WARNING: THIS BIRTH STORY MAY CONTAIN SOME DETAILS ABOUT THE LABOUR PROCESS WHICH YOU JUST DON'T WANT TO KNOW.....!

I thought I'd know just what I was doing this time round. After all, I am an experienced mother, as the NCT class teacher said. Well, I don't know about that, but I do know that I was as nervous about labour this time round as last time, but in a different way. Last time, I was nervous about the unknown - this time, I was nervous because I knew what was ahead! Also, with Isabel (born in London) I had a mobile epidural which was great, whereas this time I knew that the hospital didn't do mobile epidurals, so that option was off the table.

As it turned out, I had no more clue about what was happening this time as I had the first time round. Luckily, my body knew a bit more about what was needed than my brain did. All day last Friday, I kept saying to Isabel, "your sister is sitting on my bladder, and it's quite painful". Mistake #1 - those were contractions. Very early ones, but contractions nonetheless. It was only after a few hours of this that I realised this bladder pressure was actually happening quite regularly - hmm, like contractions maybe? Stupid woman.

So, by Friday evening I started to have an inkling that something was going on. Husbandio's mum had arrived from Spain for a few days that afternoon, so we all had dinner together, and Isabel then went to bed. By about 10pm I was more and more convinced something was happening, but with Isabel I had a night of practice contractions before the real thing, so still didn't really believe that this was the real thing. So we watched Jonathan Ross and then went to bed - not much sleep though, maybe half an hour, and then I decided that some paracetamol and a warm bath might be in order. The bath felt great (and I thought I wouldn't smell bad if we did actually need to go to the hospital!). The contractions by this point were more obvious so we got the rented TENS pain relief machine out and hooked me up. Worked quite well, which was good since by 3am we decided that a visit to the hospital was probably in order. Good to have the mother-in-law in place since we didn't need to arrange for anyone to come round and sit with Isabel (who was gloriously asleep through all of this!).

We got to the hospital at 3.30am - nice quick drive since there wasn't much traffic on the road at that point! The midwife introduced herself and said her name was Rookie (turned out to be spelled Rukiya, not Rookie!), prompting me to say "goodness, I hope you're not!". I always was one for humour at the most inappropriate time. And I bet she'd never heard that one before. Perhaps she had, since it turned out she'd been working as a midwife at the same hospital since 1975, so she did know what she was doing!

She examined me at 4am, said I was about 6cm dilated, and that the baby would arrive in about an hour. Husbandio and I looked at each other doubtfully - with Isabel, I was also 6cm dilated when we arrived at the hospital, but it took her another 12 hours to make an appearance. Anyway, contractions came and went - strange ones though, one really strong, and then a couple of weak ones, so we were still sure there was ages to go. As the contractions got stronger I asked the midwife about the possibility of some gas and air, but she said that since I'd been feeling queasy it would probably make me sick. To which I replied "so what?", but no gas and air was forthcoming.

As 5am rolled around I started to feel like pushing might be a good plan, and hey presto, Emily arrived at 5.07am. Well, her head did, and the midwife then said "hey, feel the head, you can deliver her yourself now", to which I think I swore and said something like "just get the hell on with it", and with one more push the shoulders were out and so was the rest of her. They delivered her up onto my chest, and goodness me that's a slimy gift to be presented with. I'd have kissed her head, but it was all slathered with gunk, and not very kissable to my mind, so I settled for hugs at that stage. Husbandio cut the cord (well done Husbandio!), and then it turned out that my mum had just arrived, so she came in and we all admired the new arrival, and expressed our amazement at the speed of her arrival, and the lack of painkillers. I mean, paracetamol and a TENS machine, how ridiculous. Anyone would think I was auditioning to be an NCT poster child.

So that's about it as regards the birth - simpler than I anticipated would be the understatement of the decade. I didn't need any stitches (yay!) and opted for a six hour discharge from the hospital. Husbandio was home before Isabel was even out of bed so she awoke to the news of a baby sister, and they all came to collect me from the hospital. We were home by lunchtime - a nine hour turnaround time from start to finish. I wasn't racing though, honest. The speed of her arrival indicates another in a long list of reasons not to have third child - one contraction and it'd be out! Now there's a scary thought.....

Gave birth, and missed a day. Curses.

Well, I did tweet from the car en route to the hospital and then from the delivery room after Emily had been born, so perhaps I shouldn't be too hard on myself!

Birth story to be recorded tomorrow - right now it's time for bed. But basic details are as follows:
Name: Emily
Weight: 7lb on the nose

And here's a pic to be going on with ...... (beautiful to her family, undoubtedly just another squashed newborn face to other people!)

A Star is Born

I feel like I'm the last person on the planet to have come across this, but today I finally got round to watching Susan Boyle's performance on Britain's Got Talent (thanks, YouTube). While I do quite like reality TV occasionally, and usually watch the X Factor, I've never really got into Britain's Got Talent. And have been quite grateful. But this clip was just great, although it does show Britain at both its best and its worst.

The worst bit that it shows is the reaction of the audience as she first comes on stage and starts answering questions. OK, she seems a bit of a klutz, but the collective vibe coming from the crowd is really quite aggressive, they're thoroughly enjoying having a good laugh at her. Which of course we all do at the dreadful auditionees on X Factor, but it is disturbing to see a whole theatre full of people doing that to someone directly in front of them. However, she certainly has the last laugh. Once she opens her mouth and starts to sing, the mood in the place is just transformed, and the audience really take her to their heart. And she was fantastic - tone, pitch, and phrasing all spot on. You could see the stunned reaction of the judges and one was even in tears; so was I, but that's pregnancy for you. Having said that, apparently the clip made Demi Moore cry too, so I'm not in bad company.

So, today's recommendation is to go and view the clip, and watch this otherwise run of the mill woman amaze a whole theatre full of people. It's just priceless.

Cleaning

I did half the house cleaning today in anticipation of the arrival of the mother-in-law tomorrow - she's coming from Spain to stay for a few days. I could only manage upstairs before I was knackered - will handle downstairs tomorrow while Husbandio and Isabel head off to the airport to collect her. Isabel pretty much ignored most of the cleaning process although she did tidy up the sofa cushions. This was actually was very sweet, since picking them up off the floor (where she'd left them as part of making a pathway from the lounge to the playroom) is not as easy as it sounds for me at the moment! And when I kissed her goodnight a few minutes ago and said "thank you for a lovely day", she replied "thank you for a lovely day - except the cleaning that is". Goodness knows how much protest we'd have had if I'd asked her to contribute any further!

Sometimes I don't mind doing the cleaning, it's the thought of doing it which depresses me. Before we moved to the sticks we had a lovely cleaner, an old friend of the family who'd been with us for several years, and I wish we could have moved her with us. Since I'm now on maternity leave for several months with, theoretically, enough time to do the cleaning, and very limited earnings, getting a new cleaner right now isn't really on, but it'll be pretty high on the list once I go back to work. For now Husbandio is helping out, mainly because I don't want to carry the hoover up and down the stairs, but I fear it'll fall back onto my plate once the pregnancy excuse is over. Must get the Isabel training in this regard back on track! And since babies like white noise, I may well find that hoovering has additional attractions other than just getting the place nice and clean!

The changing face of the UK

I've just read an interesting article on the BBC web site summarising the latest set of statistics which show how the UK is changing demographically. The data compares 2008 to 1971, the year in which Husbandio was born, and the year before I was born. Some elements are unsurprising (for example that there are now fewer households containing dependent children), but it's the extent of the change that raises an eyebrow. As regards the households with dependent children, for example, the percentage has fallen from more than half of all households (looks like about 52% on the chart) to only just over a third (around 36%). That's a massive change, largely accounted for by the growth in the percentage of households containing couples but no kids (up from 19% to 25%) and of single person households (up from 6% to 12%).

Clearly this creates a dilemma for society - we hear concerns about an increasing lack of respect from "da yoof", old people being scared of gangs of hoodies, and falling educational standards in schools. But then, if a smaller percentage of households contain dependent kids, why should we expect an increasing focus on child-related issues? It's a dangerous road to go down from a government policy perspective, since this data does of course show percentages not actual numbers. But if we don't help people to bring their kids up with a sense of responsibility for themselves and their communities then, IMHO, we've missed the whole point. I think the concept of community demands a post of its own really (or even more than one!), but the trouble is that it's very difficult to analyse how our sense of community is evolving, which it is certainly doing. And these stats don't help with that.

But back to the stats. The other irony they illustrate is that people seem to want to cling on to their child status for longer, either through desire or necessity. Apparently, almost a third of men and a fifth of women aged between 20 and 34 live at home with their parents, with children aged 20 to 24 particularly likely to remain in the family home. Those are massive numbers! I think that's changed significantly even over the last ten years - apart from a few months here and there I didn't really live at home after the age of 18, since I was either at uni or travelling. When I finished travelling I was at home for about nine months I guess, but then I moved in with Husbandio (or Boyfriendio, as he then was!) and we got married when we were both 25. I can't recall any of my friends living with their parents at that age, let alone up to the age of 34. But then again, property prices weren't as ridiculous then as they later became, and that must have been a massive influence on that statistic.

There are also some really sad stats - for example that a third of families live in "non-decent" housing which fail to meet minimum statutory requirements. One third - that's shocking in a developed, so-called first world country. And that lone parent households now account for 11% of all households, up from 4% in 1971. But then again, as I can attest, better to have two parents living separately but happily, than together but miserably. The trouble is, this data doesn't help us measure happiness - although that was done once in an earlier survey, which showed that the proportion of people in the UK claiming to be very happy fell from 52% in 1957 to just 36% in 2006. And that was before a global economic depression - wonder what those figures would be like now?! Knowing us Brits, we're probably happier now that things are going badly - it's that Blitz spirit shining through!

Ticking like a time bomb

I've now reached T Minus One - my due date is one week today. The doctor says the baby's head is engaged, and I do feel like she's moved down a bit in the last few days which I hope is a sign of the beginning of the end. Like most expectant mothers, I'm looking forward to the end of pregnancy - I would now like my body back, I'd like to get out of maternity clothes, and I can't wait until my internal organs are all back in the right place and no longer being crushed by an intruder.

I'm also aware though, this being the second time round the block, that the hard work has not yet begun, and so my eagerness to dispense with the pregnancy stage and get going with the baby stage is surprising me. The first three months with a new baby are no picnic - pregnancy should be considered as 12 months, since babies don't settle for at least 12 weeks, and I remember this as being very true with Isabel. I saw the girls in my NCT class today for morning coffee - two of them are overdue and very keen for their babies to arrive which now strikes me as strange since without a child to look after they can do whatever they want with their days. Such as spending it all day in bed (sounds idyllic!). They were all talking about ways to induce labour (eating ripe pineapples apparently, and spicy food), but I'm not that desperate. Whenever Pumpkin arrives will be fine with me so long as she's fit and healthy, and I'm not keen to be induced if she's late. Since the dating process is clearly flawed (pregnancies in France are defined as being 41 weeks, not 40, for example!) then being early or late seems to me to make little difference. The only thing which would persuade me to be induced would be if I found that the baby was getting really large - since that's clearly not the case, given the size of my bump, letting nature take its course is my preferred option for now at least.

Stumbling between greed and abstinence

I don't know why this is is on my mind - maybe it's a natural consequence of having vast quantities of chocolate in the cupboard calling to me. Anyway, today's topic is a moment of introspection. Increasingly I've found that I either really like something and want to keep doing it to the exclusion of all other things, or I don't do it at all. Some recent examples include:

1. Dieting. About six years ago I decided that I needed to lose weight, joined WeightWatchers and lost almost two stone. Since then, other than two pregnancies, I've pretty much kept to my goal weight, or at least no more than four or five pounds above it. I'm the kind of dieter that does it full on (whether through calorie counting or the WeightWatchers Points system) or totally lapses. No half measures here.
2. Blogging. As you, dear Constant Reader, will know, I'm a post-a-day girl. None missed yet since January 1st.
   
3. Breastfeeding. Many among you will know that breastfeeding is not as easy as it looks. I won't go into too many details, since it's really quite disgusting and you may have just eaten, but suffice it to say that knowing something is going to be agony and doing it anyway, repeatedly, several times a day, is not easy. But I did, and ended up breastfeeding Isabel for a year. Am I proud of this? In a way, but in my secret heart I know it says as much about my desire not to feel I'd failed at something as it does about my desire to feed my child.
   
4. Chocolate. Or most food, really. I know people who can quite easily open a bag of crisps or a bar of chocolate, eat half, and save the rest for later or even another day. How do they do this? And why?! It is beyond me. Once a packet of something, anything, is open it calls to me, preys on my mind, and will not let me rest until it's all gone.
5. Football. Pre-children, Husbandio and I used to go to every Chelsea home game, and I watched all of the other televised Chelsea matches, as well as many of those involving other teams. I knew players' names, details of injuries and recent form, and could pretty much hold my own in a reasonably serious footballing conversation. And then along came Isabel. Not only could we no longer afford to go, the logistics of attending a match were just so tricky that we simply stopped. Husbandio is still a proper footie fan, but I haven't watched a match in years now, even on telly. I can't keep up and go to live matches, so I dropped it entirely. Sad but true. Maybe one day I'll return.
   

So my question for today is why do I have what some might view as these rather obsessive tendencies? And is this a good thing or a bad thing? In some ways, there are benefits (as the breastfeeding and dieting examples demonstrate). And in other ways it must make me a complete pain in the arse since I simply cannot let something lie if I think it's fixable, and this urge to fiddle until something's just right often gets me into trouble. As I get older however I'm coming more to believe that this is simply a part of my character - I can accept it, and try to take advantage of it where possible while accepting the downsides, or I can rail against it. Life's too short for too much railing. One thing I can do is blame my mother, since she is even more obsessive than I am. And since Isabel is showing signs of being the same way (nail biting, anyone?) she will doubtless blame me. Which is entirely fair.

Right, time to get off the psychiatrist's couch and go and do something more interesting, like read my book (Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - fantastic, read it now!). Adios all.

Easter is one of my favourite holidays

Easter's just great. There's loads of chocolate involved, several days off work, lots of relaxing, and no huge loads of presents to buy and wrap. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas, but Easter is just so more chilled since no-one really expects anything of you. We've had a food-filled day - started off with blueberry pancakes in bed (all three of us!), then lunch at my dad's (delicious cold salmon, complemented perfectly by lime mayonnaise, lush), and dotted throughout with chocolate. Doesn't get much better than that. We even managed to get out to walk the dog and didn't get rained on; given the weather over the last few days that's definitely worthy of comment.

Easter is a strange holiday though, since its meaning seems to be increasingly lost to most of the population (despite Wikipedia claiming that Easter is the "most important annual religious feast in the Christian calendar" - I don't know how much consideration they've given to Christmas, but anyway). Isabel came home from school in the week leading up to the holidays discussing the Easter story, but not in great depth; I guess the concept of crucifixion and resurrection is a tricky one to discuss with a class of four and five year olds. I said she should go in and ask her teacher what all this had to do with bunnies and rabbits (put the cat amongst the pigeons, me?) but I don't think she did. Would have been funny though. Apparently we can thank the Germans in the 16th and 17th centuries for inventing the Easter rabbit, and the symbol of eggs was adopted by early Christians as a a symbol of resurrection.

I think what I really like about Easter (apart from the over-indulgence in chocolate, naturally) is that it's lots of fun without being expensive. Again, me being cheap, but since we're now in a global recession my attitude is increasingly being adopted by others which is nice. Isabel and I had lots of fun this morning making Easter cards for Husbandio and for her Nanne and Grandpa (providers of the salmon lunch - thanks!), and we've also enjoyed several Easter egg hunts this year. Even before Isabel was born we did fun silly things like painting eggs and rolling them down Devil's Dyke on the South Downs - winner is the one whose egg gets furthest without smashing. Or being eaten by the dogs. See - Easter can be a fun holiday for pets too! Secretly, what I really like is that we in the UK and pretty much all of Europe get to enjoy a four day weekend, while the US keeps on toiling. Is that wrong? No, they have the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving, so they get their holidays too - but being off work when others are working is always fun. Especially with all that chocolate involved. Speaking of which, do excuse me, I hear an egg calling.....

Milestones

Just as an aside, yesterday marked the occasion of my 100th post - one every day since the first of the year. I thought that was worth celebrating, so we're having a curry tonight. Actually, the two aren't connected at all -we're having a curry because the new oven only went in this evening and I couldn't be bothered to work out something we could cook on the hob - but we'll pretend it's because of the blog!

Anyway, today's theme is another milestone - passing your driving test. Our friend Sam came out to visit us today in her new car, having passed her driving test a few weeks ago. It's funny how in London (central London anyway) people pass their driving tests pretty late - out in rural areas, driving is a vital way of getting about, but in London it's so simple to use public transport, and so expensive to drive and park, that a lot of people just don't bother learning to drive until their mid 20s or even early 30s. Husbandio and I both passed when we were 25 or 26, and we weren't unusual in that at all - however, my little sister, who lives in a Bucks village, started taking lessons just days after her 17th birthday and is desperate to get on the road since relying on buses and trains and lifts from parents is really restrictive.

When Sam arrived she was just buzzing with adrenaline and shaking like a leaf, and it reminded me really clearly of when I first passed my test. Today was the first day she'd been on a motorway (and she did it in style - M4, M25 and M40 all in one day!) which is scary in itself, and just the act of driving 30 miles is enough to make a new driver very nervous. I remember driving out from London to my dad's soon after I'd passed, which must have been about 25 miles, and I was just a quivering mess by the time I arrived due to the concentration levels and relief at having arrived in one piece. And I'd done a motorway lesson, which Sam hadn't. Even now seeing skid marks on motorways (always heading off into the grass on the other side of the hard shoulder) makes me nervous since it provides real proof of how often things can go wrong. That's why I never understand why people worry about driving in London. I suppose it seems easy to me because that's where I learnt, but also I don't understand why it's scary when you can rarely get over 25 mph anyway! Granted, it's easy to get lost, but that's the same in any city. What I don't like is driving on unfamiliar country roads, since I always end up with a local who knows the road well stuck behind me and desperate to get past. That's getting better though, since living out in the sticks I suppose. Oh, and I suppose more than 10 years driving practice hasn't hurt either. Since Isabel is coming up on five now she'll be eligible to start learning in twelve years time - good lord, that's a scary thought. I expect that will frighten me much more than my own driving ever has done....!

Practising relaxing

A very unusual situation occurred today - Husbandio and Isabel were both out, and I was left all alone in the house for more than four hours. It was marvellous. That sounds terrible - I love the family, natch, but the only time I ever have on my own is when I'm working at home, and that just doesn't count. Today Husbandio went over to my grandmother's house to collect an armchair which I should be able to use as a breastfeeding chair, and Isabel was taken out to Cliveden by our neighbours to take part in an Easter Egg Hunt. She's very rarely out without an immediate family member for any significant amount of time (given that she's only four!), so this was quite an exciting adventure. Shame it poured with rain for most of the day - but that's the Easter long weekend for you! It's meant to rain most of tomorrow as well I think, but then brighten up for Sunday and Monday - which for a UK long weekend isn't a bad record.

I wasn't quite sure at first what to do with my unexpected free time, so I tidied the lounge and put a load of laundry in. I'm just not very good at sitting down and doing nothing, but I accept that at 8.5 months pregnant it is a good idea, so I persevered and got quite good at it after a while. I watched two old episodes of Holby City and am finally up to date, which hasn't happened since Christmas I think, and also one Desperate Housewives (OK, while doing the ironing, I had a sudden burst of energy!). The most decadent thing was that I ate my lunch in bed. The Holby episode I was watching was on our Sky Plus box upstairs, so what else could I do? It was great, I felt quite pampered. And when Isabel and Husbandio got back they were both tired, so we had a movie afternoon and watched Babe. All in all, a thoroughly relaxing day. Well done me!

Online supermarket shopping

I've just placed an order for a delivery of groceries which should be with us on Saturday lunchtime. Hope so, since some of the items are for eating on Saturday lunchtime! It seemed a good time to start experimenting with this, for several reasons: shopping bags are heavy and I shouldn't really be lifting them at the moment, plus it'll be really handy after Pumpkin arrives to not have to go to the supermarket with her, at least for a little while. It seems to take just as long to do online though as it does in the store, although checkout is quicker! I'm slightly concerned about what substitutions I might get if they don't have what I want, but we'll burn that bridge when we come to it, as they say. The ordering process itself was pretty simple, but I of course kept realising I'd forgotten things, so had to go back in, add whatever it was to the order, and check out again. I think I did that three times in total, so let's hope the system doesn't charge me three times! Will report back on Saturday as to how successful the experiment has been......

In other news, Pumpkin remains firmly in place, no signs yet of any imminent arrival. I'm hoping for mid-week next week, meaning we can have a nice Easter chez famille first. So, as from Monday the menu will be full of hot curries and pineapple juice, both of which are meant to bring on labour. Actually, given the heartburn situation, we may need to re-evaluate that nearer the time, depending on how desperate I am for the baby to finally make its appearance....!

Exploring the locality

Even though we moved to the 'burbs from London about 15 months ago, there are still loads of places we haven't explored. Somehow we've probably explored places which are a short drive away more than some of the areas of the town which are closer to us. Isabel and I remedied that to a certain extent today, but more by accident than design. We were trying to go to the local park but I couldn't find anywhere convenient to park, so we drove for another couple of minutes to an area we've often driven past but somehow never stopped - seemed too close I suppose!

The reason I stopped there was that there's a large swan's nest, something I've never seen close up before. We drove past it a few times last year and it's just massive, must take ages to build, and given that it's back again this year it must be a place where this particular pair of swans build their nest every year. I wondered whether there would be any cygnets yet but no, just the mother swan chilling out on the nest, and the daddy swimming about looking protective. (Hope the pic quality is OK - I was using the camera on my phone).



There were also lots of ducks about, and sharp-eyed Isabel spotted a load of tiny ducklings, they must be only a few days old but were already swimming about, and so cute!

It's no wonder that poets from days of yore produced poems with sentiments like "Oh to be in England, now that April's there" or verses like "I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze." Spring really is a magical time in the UK sometimes, especially when you get weeks like this one when the weather man keeps predicting rain, and all we get is sun - makes any time spent outdoors seem like a real bonus. It won't last, but the unpredictability is part of the fun!

Surviving the Easter holidays

Day 2 of the Easter holidays, and we're surviving so far. In fact, Isabel and I are both quite enjoying it I think. We've done a few useful jobs (Sainsbury's, visit to the library, buying new shoes) and also some fun things (introducing her to all the pregnant NCT ladies, playdates at various friends' houses). Tomorrow it's haircuts and swimming lessons. It's difficult to book things in when you're 38 weeks pregnant though, since I'm very much aware that Pumpkin could decide to make her appearance at any time. The other difficult thing is that my natural inclination is to book lots of things to do, but I'm aware that I shouldn't be pushing myself too hard, so it's a delicate balance at the moment between doing enough to keep Isabel entertained while also not exhausting myself. Plenty of time for being exhausted after the baby's born, as people keep reminding me!

What it's got me wondering though, is what people do about holiday childcare when they're working. I have a reasonably standard holiday allowance (well, standard in the UK, not in the US - sorry about that, US colleagues) but even then five weeks off in a year isn't enough to cover school hols, which in total add up to 13 weeks. Even if Husbandio never took any days off at the same time we'd never be able to cover that. This year, holiday cover is a moot point since I'm on maternity leave for the Easter and summer holidays, and will have enough left to cover half term in October and then Christmas. But in future years this will all become more complex. High prices of going on holiday during the school holidays is one annoying thing, but simply covering all those weeks is going to be hard enough. I guess I'll be investigating holiday clubs and the like, but it seems kind of unfair - kids need some relaxing time as well as more activities. But I certainly won't be able to work with them in the house, that's already been proven beyond doubt. Mind have to call on the grandparents as well I guess, that'll help - they'll be demanding a salary before I know it, and rightly so! My neighbour's got it right - her contract with her job is only for term-time. Now why didn't I think of that?

It's a Dog's Life

I've come into contact with four dogs in the last three days, and it's got me to thinking about how I'd really like us to get a dog. Having said that, I wouldn't want any of the dogs I've come across, although they do all have their good points. So this getting a dog business will take some serious thinking about. I thought I'd use this blog to make a list of pros and cons that I can then look back on once this whole having a baby lark is done and dusted (that's #1 on the list of reasons to get a dog, but not just now!).

Pros:

• Good companion while I'm working at home
• Loves its owner unconditionally, in theory (unlike cats, definitely not a pet for me)
• Would make me, Husbandio and the kids get out in the fresh air and do some walking
• Improves security of the house (depending on the character of the dog!)
• Good for kids to take a share of responsibility in looking after it
• Hoovers up stray food dropped by clumsy children (and Husbandio!)

Cons:

• Expensive (food, vets bills, pet insurance)
• Can be smelly
• Drop hair, so would increase the amount of cleaning needed
• A big responsibility - can't give it back if it turns out to have major character flaws
• Difficult to go away on holiday, need to make arrangements to look after the dog
• Needs a lot of walking even when the weather is grim

These look like pretty balanced lists, but they ignore the fact that I really WANT a dog. I always have really, but since I grew up living in flats in central London that was never really practical. And, until now, both Husbandio and I have always had jobs which required us to be out of the house from 8am - 6pm as a minimum, which just isn't fair on a dog, it'd get too lonely. But now I'll be working from home, which makes the whole thing much more feasible. So, any suggestions on breeds welcomed, although I'm pretty tempted to get a rescue dog from a home, especially after seeing that report last year about what too much inter-breeding has done to some breeds. Criteria for any dog would include:

• Good with kids
• Doesn't shed too much
• Not too enormous (smaller = cheaper, and a bit less walking!)
• Not too yappy - while I don't want a massive dog, I don't want a tiny ankle biter either

That's about it - am I asking too much? At the moment I'm liking the idea of a miniature Schnauzer since I have a friend whose mum had two and they were just lovely. But since I think it'll take us at least a year to make a decision as to whether this is definitely something we want to do I may well change my mind.

Artistic tendencies (or should that be autistic?)

We had a lovely relaxing day today - well, tiring, yet relaxing, if you know what I mean. It was another day filled with family - eleven of us went to the pub near my dad's house for lunch. My aunt drove up from Bristol with my cousin, who lives in Australia and hasn't visited for almost three years, plus my cousin's son and another cousin's son. There's loads of kids in our family which makes get togethers really fun, but can be confusing for new family members - Husbandio still sometimes leans over and whispers "what's so-and-so's kid called?" or "whose child is that?" and he's now been part of this family for coming up to twelve years! We need colour-coded badges really. After the pub the boys (a ten year old, two fourteen year olds, and Husbandio, who held his own very well!) played footie on the sports field for a while which my sister and I made daisy chains for Isabel, then we all came back to our house (in a three car convoy!) for afternoon tea.

The morning was the quiet relaxing part though - Isabel decided she wanted to do some painting, and I was brave enough to allow her to do it, even in the new kitchen. Full parenting points to me, I think. Course, the table was covered in an old shower curtain and she had a large painting overall on, but nonetheless! Husbandio got up as we were getting into our artistic stride and we all ended up doing our own version of a queen (or king, in Husbandio's case). To be honest, artistic talent is not something either of us are renowned for, as you see from the pics below. Can you guess which picture belongs to each of us? I wouldn't be surprised if the answer was no.


Isabel then proceeded to demonstrate that she is definitely the best artist of the three of us, with her interpretation of the weeping cherry tree outside our house which is just starting to blossom. Almost impossible to tell the difference between her picture and the real thing, if you ask me!

Good times with the family

We had a very nice day with family members from both sides of the family today - aunt, uncle, cousin and grandmother from Husbandio's side, plus dad, dad's partner and brother from my side. And a very jolly crowd we were, scoffing down portions of the largest lasagne known to man, and then following up, after a few of the assembled had taken the dogs for a walk, with a round of afternoon tea and cakes. The weather was lovely, glorious sunshine all afternoon, and everyone got on famously - it was the first time the two sides had met, and it was great to see everyone chatting away like old friends.

It made me sad in one way though, because today would have been my grandmother's birthday - she died a couple of years ago, and I still miss her. My whole family does, she was a real lynchpin (or gossip hub, from a different perspective!). I put up one of her plates on the wall in the kitchen today and made the lasagne in the Spode dish (VAST dish!) she gave Husbandio and I as a wedding present.

The relationship I had with her was really the ideal grandparent/grandchild relationship - I used to spend lots of time down on the farm that she and my grandfather lived on in Gloucestershire, weeks at a time during the school holidays, and spent every Christmas there for many years. Those times seem to me now like a real golden age even though we didn't used go out and do exciting things every day. She just fitted me into her regular routine as if I were one of her own children - I even used to go and help her clean the local church (and me such a nice Jewish girl!), and to this day the smell of furniture polish transports me back to those days. To me she was always loving, firm and fair and of course, like all grandmothers, she dished out the occasional treat. Anyway, before I write my way into a maudlin heap of hormonal tears I shall sign off - Happy Birthday Nanny, I miss you. I hope Isabel and Pumpkin enjoy the same closeness with their grandmothers as I did with mine, and for as long.

Possibly the last outing to the movies for many months....

One of the things which Husbandio and I promised we'd do in our week off together before Pumpkin's arrival was go to the movies. We did lots of jobs earlier in the week but today managed to squeeze a movie in during school hours - I've never been to a movie at 11am before, but it was kind of cool. And we even managed a trip to Sainsbury's first, to stock up in preparation for several family visits over the weekend.

The movie we chose was The Boat That Rocked, the new Richard Curtis film. It's about a pirate radio station operating off a ship in the North Sea during the 1960s, which on the face of it is not very promising for a sitcom-type of movie. But, as with all Richard Curtis movies, the ensemble case was very good and really carried the film - Bill Nighy was fantastic, as was Phillip Seymour Hoffman. For me, Nick Frost was kind of weak (sorry, not a sex symbol in my book, and never will be....), and the effects were poor. The blue screen work at the end and the rocky camera work at the beginning (to demonstrate that we were on a boat - yes, thanks, I got that....) were, respectively, very obvious and very seasick-making. But the plot was fun, if stretched out a little bit (could have been 20 minutes shorter), and just the act of going to the movies is always a treat for me. Especially on this occasion, since I'm not sure when we'll get to go again, plus we bought the tickets using the points on the Nectar card, so it was essentially a free outing. And we all know how I feel about free....!

Catching up with old friends

I spent most of today with a friend that I met through a baby group I used to go to with Isabel years ago. After the group ended, a handful of us used to meet up every Friday afternoon, ostensibly to do some singing with the babies, but in reality to get the singing out of the way so that we could drink tea and eat choccie biscuits. We met regularly for more than three years, and it became a really important part of my week, and an opportunity to get together with mums and nannies who had kids almost exactly the same age as Isabel.

There was a two month age spread amongst the kids, who were all born between the middle of July and the beginning of September 2004, and it was fascinating to see how different they were in some ways, and how similar in others. For example, there was a very big range in ages of when they all walked for the first time - one walked at 8 1/2 months, and another not until almost 18 months i.e. a span of nearly a year. But the one who walked early didn't speak many words until he was at least two, whereas the late walker was waving and saying "bye bye" before he was a year. I guess the brain at that age can focus on getting a few tasks right at a time, and for one it was walking, while for the other it was talking! Isabel was in the middle - walked at 13 months, and talked reasonably early - I remember her answering "not keen on mushrooms" to the question "do you like mushrooms?" well before she was two. Chatting has never been difficult for her!

It was really sad when the group started to break up. Most of us have moved house - one to Suffolk, one to Athens, one to Barnes, one to Golders Green, one to Putney, and us to Bucks. I think only two of the group haven't moved house, come to that. And of course all the kids have started school, and that in combination with the whole house moving issue makes it really hard to meet up. I saw all of them at Hallowe'en, but missed the Christmas party because Isabel was sick. And I'm meant to be seeing all of them at the end of the Easter holidays, but I don't think that the timing will work with the arrival of the mother-in-law's flight from Spain. And the meeting date is also four days before Pumpkin's due date, so events in the meantime may prevent me from attending anyway - will have to wait til the summer holidays instead. And rely on Facebook! Or maybe a reunion in Athens is an idea worth considering....hmm, now there's a nice thought!

The jobs just keep on coming

There seems to be a lot to do to get ready for Pumpkin's arrival, and every time I think I'm nearing the end of the list I seem to add a few more tasks on to the bottom. I think actually it's new baby jobs plus new kitchen-related jobs - today we spent some thrilling times taking things back to Homebase and Topps Tiles which we hadn't used. Well, seems a shame to throw money down the drain by not returning things like tile adhesive, can't see us having a family tiling afternoon! But there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel - Pumpkin's room looks pretty much ready (not that she'll be in it for six months or so!), the garage is clear-ish and looks tidy at any rate, and the kitchen is now in tip top shape. Apart from the oven door of course!

I think that means it must be time for a couple of quieter days - I was going to suggest a trip to IKEA to check out curtains for the kitchen, but just can't be bothered. We did have some chilling out time today while waiting in for the cooker engineer to verify that the door had indeed exploded ("ooh, never seen that happen before etc") but more of the same would be nice. We watched Quantum of Solace after lunch which I'd been keen to see for months, and of course I managed to sleep through a good 45 minutes of it - curses! Having slept through two other films in the last few days (Wanted and Iron Man), it's starting to get aggravating. I'll have to do more ironing while watching movies - sleeping while standing up is beyond even me!