Monthly Archives: February 2011

Pregnant Women: A Word of Advice…

28 Monday Feb 2011

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??Merry pregnant woman

Yes I know, I know. You’re sick of advice. You’ve already been told what to eat and what not eat, what to drink and what not to drink, how many vitamins to take, the best exercise to do, what side to sleep on (yes seriously, they really do tell you this when you are pregnant). The last thing you want is yet another know-it-all to chirp up and put their tuppence worth in.

But I’m going to anyway. 

Because I have a valuable bit of advice for you that you are unlikely to hear in your next antenatal check up. They don’t talk about this on Babycentre or Netmums or Mumsnet or any of the other Baby Guru sites.

My advice is this: make sure your bra fits.

And this is why I’m telling you…

I had a doctors appointment today (don’t panic, I’ll live yet) and it reminded me of an episode in my life I thought I had buried forever. But it has come back to haunt me so, as a kind of therapy I am going to write it all down, never to dwell on said episode ever again.

Last May I was heavily pregnant (heavy being the operative word). We had just moved out of town to a village and were settling into rural life. Everything was rosy and sunny and home-grown and Cath Kidston-style lovely. In my head. Anyway, this was a particularly sunny day and I was rocking a rather trendy (if I do say so myself) check maternity shift and skinny jeans combo. I would never have admitted this at the time, but it took me about an hour and a half to get ready for my check up at the doctors. I needed to create the impression of an effortlessly fresh faced fertile beauty, when the real material I had to work with was fat haggard old crone.

Rather pleased with the final result, I headed out of the house. On my way to the car I bumped into my next door neighbour’s gardener. Community spirit got the better of me and I stopped to chat. We had a good old laugh about something or other. And off I merrily drove, to the doctors, safe in the knowledge that I was settling into village life. I sauntered (as much as a pregnant woman can “saunter”) up to the receptionist and signed myself in for my appointment. Buoyed by my recent conversation with the gardener and keen to further my Community Spirit credentials at the village doctors, I probably made some crack about the lovely weather. I didn’t just go in and sit down quietly anyway.

And that was my mistake. That, and not wearing a bra that had expanded to fit my heavily pregnant boobs.

Because, as I took my seat in the waiting room I noticed an old lady looking at me with disapproval, and an elderly man sniggering into his Country Life magazine. And then it started to dawn on me. The reason the gardener had been so friendly. The reason the receptionist was so keen to chat. You know what’s coming next. My oh-so-cool check maternity shirt had flapped open over my huge swollen bump and boobs. Not only that, but my huge swollen pregnant boobs had made a bid for freedom from my badly fitting bra. I had flashed not only the entire waiting room (which was full because it was OAP clinic day) but the entire village.

And then I had to sit there for twenty minutes because my doctor was running late.

So, pregnant women, forget folic acid or staying tee-total. The most important thing you can do for yourself is invest in a bra that fits. And don’t book a doctors appointment on an OAP clinic day.

[NOTE: This sequence of events is entirely true, as much as I wish otherwise.]

Review: Massage for Your Mind

27 Sunday Feb 2011

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I fully intended to write this review last night. But after listening to the Massage for your Mind MP3, I promptly fell asleep in a blissed-out state, dribbling on the sofa.

So, it’s fair to say it works. 

Like many new mums, I live in a constant state of sleep deprivation but am often too tired to properly sleep at night. I lie in bed, imagining I can hear the baby crying and trying to work out how long until she wakes up. I’ve got at least 3 hours, now I’ve got 2 hours, now she’ll be up any minute, better stay awake…I can almost guarantee that on the nights Frog does sleep all the way through, I will need a wee every hour, or the (self proclaimed) Northern Love Machine will have a particularly bad bout of snoring.

I am a woman on the edge.

So when I was given the opportunity to review the Massage for Your Mind MP3 from the Holistic Heartbeat Store (available to buy at £8.99) I thought I would give it a go. I have nothing to lose, right?

The MP3 is billed as a self-help hypnosis download to “help improve mental calmness, physical relaxation, confidence, competence, and better quality sleep”. Now, I’m no Paul McKenna, but I have tried a touch of Yoga in my time and dabbled with the odd relaxation CD and, in my limited experience, this one knocks spots off the others.

The audio begins with a hypnotic loop track which is non-intrusive and very relaxing. It complements the soft tones of Peggy Melmouth, the woman behind Massage for Your Mind, who takes us through a whole self-hypnosis session in just 20 minutes.

At this point, things get a little hazy. I have listened to the MP3 three times and still could not tell you exactly what was on it. But I think that is kind of the point. You are not meant to focus too much on what is being said, but are encouraged to let the sounds and voice wash over you. The audio is cleverly layered in parts, adding to the overall effect. The result? A floaty feeling, like the one you get just before you fall asleep. I feel as if I have just walked out of a head to toe pamper session at a posh spa (fat chance) or been fanned and fed grapes by an army of minions. This must be how Cheryl Cole feels every night. No wonder she looks so bloody good.

So, in short, I would recommend Massage for Your Mind to anyone like me – that is, those who are sleep deprived and need a pamper session but can’t afford a Spa Day. Now all I need is someone to do the night feeds and stop my man snoring.

Peggy Melmouth kindly donated the Massage for Your Mind MP3 for this review.

Forum Friends

26 Saturday Feb 2011

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When I was pregnant I thought I knew it all. I’d changed nappies before. I’d bathed babies. I’d held newborns. Caring for my own baby? Pah. Easy.

And then she was born. 

As a pregnant woman, I swore I would be an Earth Mother type. I was going to follow my instincts and not read a single book. But then Frog turned four weeks old and suddenly woke up. Gone was my sleeping, content baby. In her place was a little ball of trapped wind. With a fierce temper. 

And so I turned to the internet. Babycentre and Netmums became my new best friends. I spent my evenings “researching” my baby. I read countless baby forums and got completely obsessed with finding out how other mothers were doing things. I was a convert to the Gina Ford way one week, the Baby Whisperer the next. It is fair to say, I was a very disloyal baby guru worshipper.

The result? I was a nervous wreck, and so was my baby. One minute I was rocking her to sleep, the next I was leaving her to cry, afraid I would be setting up “bad habits”. Then I would break and would be back with her, rocking rocking rocking. As soon as she was asleep, I’d be back online, trying to find out what I was doing wrong. And there were countless answers and other willing mums ready to tell me.

But here’s the thing: every single answer was different. Where one mum advised breastfeeding to sleep, another said leave her to cry. Where one expert advised scheduling feeds, another advocated the benefits of feeding on demand. And I realised, no one had the answer for my baby. Because no one had my baby.

So I threw the books in the bin.

And I learned to trust my instincts again. As soon as I started to relax and do things my own way, Frog became noticeably happier. And anyway, I now know what was wrong with her all along. She was suffering from a problem no expert or forum mum spotted. She wasn’t overtired. She hadn’t developed a “bad sleep association”. She didn’t need “sleep training”. No. She just needed a really good fart.

Trumpy Frog

Bookworm Baby

24 Thursday Feb 2011

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Bookfrog

Call me an over-eager mum, but I love reading to my baby. I have done since she was about four days old. Maybe it’s because I had a bedtime story every night as a child, maybe it’s because I still love to read now. Or maybe it’s just that I like the sound of my own voice and having a baby is the perfect excuse to talk to someone who can’t tell me to shut up.

The poor girl never had a chance. Coming from a family of English teachers, Librarians, Journalists and Drama teachers, it’s fair to say Literature is in her genes (although we won’t count her computer game addict father whose idea of a good book is the autobiography of Chopper Reid, the famous Australian vigilante. Google him. Seriously scary).

From the day we brought Frog home from the hospital we decided to include a bedtime story as part of her night routine. Admittedly, at a week old she was very rude and slept through the whole thing, but I carried on with the stories, because I enjoyed finding out what happened at the end for myself.

I didn’t have the foggiest idea that reading to a baby is good for them, I just guessed it couldn’t be bad. But the research shows I’m not as stupid as I may have thought, because reading to a baby does have its benefits. Studies have shown that language skills are related to how many words an infant hears each day. In one study, children whose parents spoke to them a lot scored higher on standard tests when they reached age 3, compared to those whose mums and dads weren’t so verbal. And you can’t deny it, reading is a good way of talking to your baby, if general chit chat makes you feel like a bit of a plum.

But not all babies and children get read to, even if they would probably rather like it. We take access to books for granted, although with looming closures of many libraries maybe we shouldn’t. But, while we have to contend with library closures, in many parts of the world, some children have not even seen a book, let alone a library. It’s World Book Day on 3rd March and Book Aid International hopes to change this, in sub-Saharan Africa at least. If you have a minute, check out their blog and watch the video. If you question the power of books and reading, this may clear a few things up.

At nearly eight months, Frog now reaches for the pictures in her storybooks. She loves the sparkly fish in Little Fish Goes Exploring and laughs out loud when we read Dear Zoo. Her bedtime story has been the same one for the last five months, Bedtime with Humphrey, and now she won’t go to sleep without it. It’s a good way for her Dad and Grandparents to bond with her too, although I’m starting to detect a hint of boredom from her Dad when Humphrey comes out again, given away by his renaming of “Humphrey” to “Humphreyfina” (this is from the man who said he wanted to call his daughter Geoffafine because he likes the name Geoffrey so much).

Regardless of the ad-libbing, we will continue to read to Frog until she tells us to shut up, which I hope won’t be for a while yet. At least not until we’ve got to The Very Hungry Caterpillar. And Doctor Dog. And The Secret Garden. Oh, and Harry Potter. And The Gruffalo. And George’s Marvellous Medicine. And don’t forget The BFG. And Giraffe’s Can’t Dance. And Peace At Last.. And…………………………..

Soundtrack of my life

23 Wednesday Feb 2011

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The heroine herself

If you’ve seen last week’s Listography post, you’ll realise I have rubbish taste in films. And here’s the thing: my taste in music is no better.

I have tried and failed to like “cool” music. I went through the gig phase at university. I rather got into The Libertines at one stage. I even copied my (much cooler) best friend’s Doves CD. But, if I’m totally honest, I’m not really that bothered by it all.

So that’s why I’ve decided to be totally honest when replying to Ipswich Mummy’s (Him, Me and Three) Soundtrack of My Life post. I am a mum now, so I can embrace my totally crap taste in music. Isn’t that what parents are for – to humiliate and embarrass their offspring? Well, that’s what my mum always told me anyway….

  1. Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse of the HeartThis memory goes far back. It’s behind singing in the bath to Kylie’s I Should Be So Lucky (aged 3) but before crying at my love for Take That when they were on Going Live (aged 10).

    I am sitting in the back of my uncle’s car, by a rainy beach in North Wales. My cool older cousin has allowed me to stay in the car with her and her best friend while we listen to Bonnie Tyler. We have a new favourite song: Total Eclipse of the Heart. Or rather, they have a new favourite song. I just like it because my cousin likes it and anything she likes, I do too. We are learning the words to this amazing new song. Every time Bonnie warbles out a line, we have to pause the cassette in the tape deck and write it down, before repeating it. By the end of that holiday in North Wales I knew all the words and had my own copy of Bonnie Tyler’s album on cassette. I still know all the words and am happy to sing them for you, providing you give me a cheap Karaoke mic and a couple of Sambucca’s.

  2. Take That – PrayPossibly my favourite Take That song, like, ever. TT (as us fans like to refer to them) were the first band I saw live. Aged 9, I spent an entire week deciding what to wear and made my mum take me to Tammy Girl to get a new pair of jeans for the occasion. I went with my aunty and her husband. It was the Everything Changes Tour. Mark sang Babe in a big woolly jumper. The boys did the most amazing dance to Pray. I was allowed to stand on a chair and copy the older girls screaming (at the time, I’m not sure I was fully aware why they were screaming, but I’ve always liked noise and I didn’t want to be outdone). Brilliant.
  3. Eiffel 65 – Blue.I KNOW! But I said I was going to be honest…this was a summer holiday anthem when I was about 15. We went camping to France and I was among a gang of teenagers roaming the campsite being generally annoying. We thought we were so cool, making up a “big fish, little fish, cardboard box” style routine to this song. I taught the dance to my friends when I got home. We still know it now and have cleared dance-floors with it in the past. I can teach it to you too, if you like.
  4. DJ Sammy – Heaven.Again, I KNOW! Truly truly awful song. But I love it! Because it reminds me of my first year at university. I have met my future best friend and dance-floor partner. We are bonding over shots of Tequila and cheap wine. We are rocking the early Girls Aloud tassly belt and pointy boots combo. This is before GHDs so the hair is big. This song comes on and that’s it: mad scramble to the dance-floor and God help anyone who gets in our way. I’m not sure she’d admit to it now, but my (much cooler) best friend loved this song just as much as I did. Either that or she was humouring me.
  5. Kent – 747.Yep, I hadn’t heard of them either. This was the song the (self-proclaimed) Northern Love Machine tried to woo me with. It must have worked, because two and a half years later we have a seven month old baby. And the cycle of humiliation and bad taste in music continues…

If you join in please post a link in the comments box below. For those that are tagged, I won’t be offended if you choose not to take part.

I tag:

@KateTakes5

@SuperAmazingMum

@Jessies_online

Listography: Perfect Day

22 Tuesday Feb 2011

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Since having a baby, I’ve taken to daydreaming. This is partly because I spend my days in a half-awake / half-asleep state. And partly because, when you have a baby, there are many things you can no longer do. Not without at least two months planning anyway.

The lovely Kate Takes 5 appears to also enjoy a good daydream. In this week’s Listography, she is challenging other bloggers to list the 5 ingredients to their perfect day. Brilliant. I can give my imagination free-reign to daydream away. Because, let’s face it, the chances of any of these actually happening are slim to none at the moment….

 1. An unbroken night’s sleep, followed by a lie-in.

OK, so this is technically two things and I am probably cheating here, but they both involve sleep so I think it should be allowed. Sleep is a much under-rated and unappreciated thing when you don’t have a baby. I hold fond memories of the days I could laze in bed until I felt like getting up. One last thing, I want my lie-in to involve being brought a cup of tea in bed.

 2. Someone else to cook me a scrumptious breakfast of Eggs Benedict…and to clear up afterwards.

Food always tastes better when it’s cooked by someone else. It also tastes better when you don’t have to share it with your (BLW) baby and don’t have to scrape it off the walls afterwards.

 3. Swimming with my baby

I’m not going to go all mushy here. But I bloody love going swimming with Frog. She loves it and it is brilliant fun. So, on my perfect day, once the nanny has got Frog up and given her breakfast, I am happy for her to be handed to me for a swim. As long as I can hand her back afterwards so I can have a jacuzzi and go in the steam room.

 4. A meal out with the (self-proclaimed) Northern Love Machine

It doesn’t have to be anywhere particularly fancy. But it does have to be just the two of us and involve lots of wine and some tasty food. I’m not fussy about what sort of food. As long as there’s plenty of it, with gallons of wine, I don’t care.

5. Sambucca and dancing

I realise I am now sounding like a bit of a boozer, but in my pre-baby days, a night out wasn’t a night out unless Sambucca was involved at some point. I expect I would only have to sniff the stuff now and I would be on the floor. But I’d like to give it a go. It would help with the dancing to come later on, with all my mates. Not fussy about the music, but it would help if 99 Red Balloons was in there somewhere.

Zzzzzzzzz

21 Monday Feb 2011

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Have you ever been so tired you have walked past a wheelie bin and thought it looked rather comfy? Have you ever been so tired you feel all drunk and floaty and a bit giggly…before realising you’re at baby swimming lessons and should probably get a grip before someone calls Social Services?

Well I have. In fact, it is quite normal for me to feel like this at least once a week.

Sleep deprivation is a funny old thing. It can make you swing from feeling physically sick to ravenously hungry. You can be laughing hysterically one minute and crying hysterically the next. In short, it makes you a bit barmy. Actually, sleep deprivation is not particularly funny at all.

The worst thing about sleep deprivation has got to be not knowing when it will end. Before you have a baby, you know that, even if you are really really tired, you will be able to give in to sleep at some point in the near future. Not when you have a baby, though, oh no. Imagine running a marathon and being told at the finish line you have an indefinite distance still to cover. Then you have some idea of what being a new mum is like.

The thing is, Frog is not a particularly bad sleeper. She is not the worst, but she is not the best. She has slept through the night a few times. But then she throws a massive curve ball and is up every hour or so.

As if it is not bad enough being up all night with a miserable baby, you then have to field questions about it. Is it a growth spurt? Teething? Too hot? Too cold? Has she picked up a bad sleep association? I don’t bloody know! I barely even know my own name I’m so tired!

So I ring my mum for sympathy. Fat chance. “Well at least you know how I felt. You didn’t sleep through the night until you were five.” Great, thanks Mum.

Haggard old crone + baby

Baby, I’m bilingual

18 Friday Feb 2011

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If anyone ever tells you that having a baby turns your brain to mush, ignore them.

So called “Baby Brain” is actually an enhanced form of intelligence that women develop after giving birth. People tell us “Baby Brain” actually means we’re thick, because they are jealous. But what this condition really is, is a supernatural power to speak new languages.

That’s right, I am now *puffs chest out proudly* bilingual.

Well, actually, I am trilingual. Because not only do I speak Baby, I am also fluent in Toddler. For those of you who question if Baby and Toddler are actual, real languages, let me assure you, they are. In fact, they are actually harder to speak than Spanish, German, Japanese, Afrikaans…(you get the picture).

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t prescribe to the coochy coo and bumty bum and gobbledeegook school of Baby that some others do. In fact, these are made up words in the language of Baby, spoken by imposters who can’t actually speak the language (rather like my own version of French, which I have been known to practise while alone, but this is a whole other post).

No, no, real Baby consists of a complicated mixture of plain English words, song and high-pitched vowels. For the beginners amongst you, here is a transcript of an earlier conversation I held with my daughter in Baby:

Frog (smiling happily): Oooooweeeeee he he he he

Me: Hello darling, are you enjoying yourself? What shall we play with today?

(Frog continues to play, ignoring me)

Me: Oooooweeeeee Frog! Frog woooooooooo what shall we play with?

(Still no answer)

Me (breaking into song): Theeeeeeeere was an Old Man Called Michael Finnegan…What is this toy? Wooooooooo yay! Ooooooweeeeee….

To an outsider, this may seem like a mixture of random sounds, words and song. But in actual fact, it makes perfect sense in Baby. I am quite proud of myself actually. It is no mean feat conversing in Baby all day long.

Now, once you have perfected the language of Baby, you will be ready to progress to Toddler.

I have already told you about our Arthur, Frog’s next-door Brother. It is amazing, but since giving birth I have been magically able to speak his language. The only problem is, as he gets older, he is forgetting Toddler and moving onto English, which is a shame, as I seem to have forgotten English and am now fluent in Toddler.

For those of you not yet familiar with the basics of Toddler, I will give you a precious gift. It is one word and is possibly the most important one you will ever learn:

Nanoo

In English, this means I love you. But, in my opinion, the Toddler version is far better.

Conversing in Baby and Toddler

(Footnote: If you are feeling generous and would like to share your secret understanding of Baby and Toddler, please add your words below along with the translation into English. Be generous, remember, not everyone has “Baby Brain”).

Productive me

17 Thursday Feb 2011

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It’s been one of those days.

You know the one:

Where your exhaust falls off your car; You make a pillock of yourself trying to book it into the garage (because you don’t actually know what car you have, you just know it’s green and has four wheels); Your baby decides to start straining loudly when the man comes to fix said broken car; And then you find a large turd in the middle of the living room. (Made by the baby, not the man who came to fix the car).

Ugh.

I have achieved nothing and everything today.

OK, so I didn’t do the washing. Or the ironing. Or the hoovering. Or ANY of the article I’m currently writing.

But I did play peek-a-boo with my baby until she giggled so hard she made herself “trump”. And I did work out that when I pretend to cry it distracts her so she stops screaming, for about a second. And I did find out that she can half crawl towards something she wants to play with (in this case, the huge turd she left in the middle of the living room).

So all in all, I think that’s a pretty productive day.

The thing about having a baby is that all former ideas of productivity go out of the window. It’s harder to measure what you have achieved at the end of every day. Especially if the day begins like it started (dirty nappy, food everywhere – and that’s just Frog’s Dad). You learn to be more realistic about what you can fit into the small chunks of un-baby time. And to appreciate that playing with your baby is doing something productive.

It also helps to totally give up on your appearance. And not to have a rubbish car.

My measure of productivity

Listography: Top 5 Movies

16 Wednesday Feb 2011

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I’m a definite list person.

I have lists for jobs that need doing, blog posts that need writing, places I want to travel to, things I want but cannot afford (pretty much everything), food I want to eat…the list is endless (see what I did there?). Yes, I really do love a good list.

So when I saw the Listography from the very funny Kate Takes 5 I realised I had to join in. If you’re new to this, it’s quite simple. Every week Kate posts a subject for us and we go ahead and list away. This week it’s Top 5 movies. So here goes…

  1. Dirty Dancing

Because “Nobody puts Baby in the corner” is the greatest line in any film. Ever. Because it has the best soundtrack of any film. Ever. And because it has the best ending of any film. Ever.  

2. Life is Beautiful

Because this film will make you laugh hysterically and sob uncontrollably. It would be my Number One if Patrick Swayze wasn’t so damn good. I haven’t watched it since Frog was born though, because I am now a gibbering wreck at the faintest whiff of anything sad.

 3. Anchor Man

Because I am a journalist and every journalist has to appreciate this film. And the one-liners are brilliant.

  4. Elf

Because it is the greatest Christmas film ever made. And again, the one-liners are hard to beat.

  5. The Notebook

OK, I’ll be honest, I ummm’d and ahhh’d a bit about putting this one in here. I could have lied and said something witty and intelligent, or funny and thought-provoking. But the truth is I bloody love this film. Yes, it is manipulative and cringey. Yes, the acting probably isn’t great. But I don’t care. I still love it. Now don’t judge me.

**Disclaimer from the (self proclaimed) Northern Love Machine: “I do not know this woman and will have no part in her poor taste in films.”