Month: September 2016

Black Wednesday  

Calamitousmummy

Today is a bad day. It starts off alright, if you don’t count the rubbish night that is. It was a combination of Tinytoes crying out in pain from her teething and DH unintentionally waking me up in the night which kept me from sleeping. Paradoxically our newborn is the quiet one; waking just once for a quick feed when I was awake anyway.

The day starts well enough; DH gets Tinytoes up and out of bed, dropping her off at nursery on his way to work. I take Microtoes to the first session of the postnatal group I mentioned last week and finally get to meet some mums in my new village. The session itself is pretty boring: one and a half hours all about weaning. The three others are first-time mums and new to it all, whereas I was still weaning Tinytoes this time last year.

The day begins to deteriorate when I pick Tinytoes up at 1pm. It is lightly raining and I’d not had lunch as time was too tight between postnatal group ending and nursery pick-up.  I didn’t even have time to attach my sling properly and could feel Microtoes slipping lower and lower as I climb the stairs to the nursery.

Tinytoes is clearly unhappy and out of sorts: she is still teething and has a bad cold. She refused all her lunch at nursery. Her rebellious frame of mind becomes evident when she stops stock still on the stairway, refusing to descend more than halfway and refusing to give me her hand.

I hover nervously next to her, my left hand desperately clutching her eight week old sister to avoid her slipping out through the sling. I’m unable to move further up or down in case Tinytoes should trip and plummet to the bottom of the stairs. She can’t even walk in a straight line without tripping or hurtling into something, so descending a steep staircase is another matter entirely.  I stand there helplessly trying not to let her see how much I want her to move in case it makes her rebel further. This was not the place for a full-on meltdown, I think, as I gradually become aware that we are causing the most almighty bottleneck.

Tinytoes is blithely unaware of the commotion we are causing. Instead, she finds it entertaining; staring up at the parents queuing to come down the stairs with their little ones, while I grimace apologetically at those waiting to come up.  Terrified Microtoes is going to drop out the bottom of the sling, I cradle her tiny body with both hands and eventually step down in front of my toddler, allowing the people behind us to file past. I use my body to stop Tinytoes from falling. Once everyone has come down and everyone has gone up (this takes quite some time), Tinytoes waits until the last remaining person has exited the building before slowly descending as she grasps onto the banister, rather than my hand.

Assuming my troubles are over, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Still refusing to hold my hand, I panic as Tinytoes runs out towards the road. I tell her very firmly to hold my hand, cars are dangerous etc but she is unfazed. I raise my voice and grab her arm. Furiously she flings herself onto the wet road (next to a parked car) and refuses to get up. Across the road, a young woman holding a baby stares gormlessly at me. I try to pick her up but struggle with Microtoes who I’m convinced is about to fall from the sling. Eventually I manage to scoop up Tinytoes under my right arm, her wet and muddy arms and legs flailing, holding onto Microtoes for dear life with my left arm.

Back home I place Tinytoes in her cot but she refuses to sleep. I leave her for a while and try yet again to call one of my two main clients; whose contract is up for renewal tomorrow.  After weeks of calling, finally I get through. I run my own business and this particular London-based client has always been ‘delighted’ with my work.

The call leaves me reeling. The co-founding partner tells me that although they’re ‘delighted’ with my work, they won’t be renewing the contract as they have decided to use someone else.  I hide my horror and keep my reaction professional. To begin with I’m nonplussed. His explanation is that they’ve chosen someone who can do other areas of work (all of which my firm can also do).

Then the penny drops: it must be because I’m on maternity leave. When I’d first announced my pregnancy we’d discussed contract renewal. The partner had insisted they would be continuing with my company, initially via a Paris-based colleague I subcontract (whom they’d already met and apparently liked). They’d even gone as far to say it was ‘highly commendable’ for me to juggle work with small children and they were keen to support me in my endeavour.   Naively I’d believed them.

After hanging up I stare into space, my addled brain trying to process what I’d just been told. I have a nagging headache along with some  of the early symptoms of mastitis, which tends to flare up when my nursing routine alters. Microtoes jolts me back into reality, giving a little cry for a feed. She smiles up at me and my heart melts. For a moment nothing else matters.

Then Tinytoes wakes up and the proverbial sh#t really hits the fan. She is furious and in obvious pain with a streaming cold. I manage to administer the Calpol and the screaming continues. I manage to bring her downstairs and place her in her highchair, next to Microtoes. Mindful she had not eaten any lunch I manage to prepare her a yummy meal of sausage and baked beans (don’t judge me, they’re the sugar-free variety…).That’s about all I manage.  For the rest of the day. My plans to travel to the supermarket with both of them go out the window.

She angrily flings her bowl of food in such a way that the baked beans go all over me, Microtoes and the floor. I snap and shout at her and she roars in fury, totally inconsolable. Microtoes begins crying for a feed. I carry her older sister kicking and screaming up the stairs and place her in her cot until she calms down, which doesn’t happen. After feeding Mircotoes I return to her sister who is still kicking and screaming and shouting out for her daddy.  I’m normally a “glass half full” kind of person, but by now I am overwhelmed.  I pick up Microtoes who regurgitates my breastmilk back into my hair and down my shoulder, where it curdles into the baked bean residue.

How did things come to this, I wonder?  I eventually get Tinytoes to calm down slightly by offering her some packets of tissues to play with. She, Microtoes and I are all on my bed. One by one she takes every single tissue out of each packet, but I don’t care as she’s no longer crying. Microtoes  is on her back sleeping.

I breathe a sigh of relief as I hear DH opening the front door back home from work. Tinytoes leans forward and accidentally knocks Microtoes’ head, thankfully not hard, but enough to wake her little sister and make her scream. And Tinytoes joins in crying. It’s all too much for me and I begin to sob too. As DH enters the bedroom he is confronted by all three members of his family balling their eyes out. On a bed strewn with unused tissues.

He takes it all in his stride and Tinytoes is soon silenced, in awe at seeing her mummy crying. Microtoes is soon back asleep again. My husband comforts me, telling me I’m not a crap mum and it’s not something wrong I’m doing (it feels like it sometimes), but Tinytoes is just suffering with her teeth, her cold, not having eaten and is expressing herself the only way she knows how. I know all this deep down, but sometimes it takes someone else to tell me.

DH then whisks Tinytoes off to the supermarket (after she hungrily polishes off the remnants of her dinner) and leaves me to marvel at the silence reigning as I type up my blog (for those of you still reading: well done! Sorry it’s so long but I’m finding it immensely cathartic).

DH is the glue that holds the family together, I think to myself. How the hell am I going to manage next week when he’s travelling overnight (over 2 nights) with work? And how the hell do other people manage; single mums or dads with 2, 3 or even 4 kids? And why the hell is Tinytoes always as good as gold for DH – and nursery staff – and not for me?!

I take my temperature and it’s 37.9 degrees. Maybe another reason for things getting too much for me today…

Oh well, tomorrow’s another day; let’s hope Tinytoes is not still teething and that Microtoes’ feeding regulates so I can keep the mastitis symptoms at bay.

 

An apple in her nappy?!

Calamitousmummy

Little by little, 21 month old Tinytoes is starting to say more words. Some are crystal clear, but others are slightly more cryptic. She loves to abbreviate, saying “by” for “butterfly” or “a-ua” for “aigua” (Catalan for water), as well as conjuring up some of her own interpretations. For example “pea” will mean “pea”, but will also mean pretty anything small and round. If she sees a blueberry or a dot on her polka dot jumper, she’ll excitedly squeal “pea, pea, pea!”

Her favourite toy in the whole world is a small furry Winnie the Pooh. She has a completely unique name for him; not a sound in any way recognisable in the English language, thus making it impossible for me to try to spell it. It’s a strange, cooing sound made in the back of the throat, which almost sounds Danish. The best way to describe it is the noise a woodpigeon makes. In fact I once genuinely mistook the sound of a woodpigeon for my daughter’s wail at having dropped Winnie the Pooh.

So as not to confuse her beloved Pooh Bear with anything she might leave in her nappy (worried it may leave long-lasting psychological effects), I’ve generally tried to use the Catalan word ‘caca’ to refer to any nappy contents. And she in turns says “caca, caca” at the appropriate moment.

Today when I bring Tinytoes home from morning nursery, unusually she doesn’t settle for a nap. I watch her on the monitor screen and she is running back and forth in her cot shouting something out with great conviction. At first I think she is saying “a-ua” and I go to get her water. Then I listen more carefully and it seems to be the word “apple”. She is saying it again and again and again. I smile to myself. How sweet. She had enjoyed an apple yesterday and was very excited about it, properly saying the word “apple” for the first time.

Nearly an hour later she is still awake. Saying “a-pple, a-pple, a-pple.”  Suddenly I have a flash of inspiration. I run upstairs and the smell hits me. I realise she was in fact clearly telling me “a poo, a poo, a poo,” poor little thing. It was a pretty impressive-sized ‘apple’ too; no wonder she couldn’t go to sleep…

I marvel at the fact that although she does not pronounce “Pooh Bear” correctly, she is able to say “a poo” really clearly. The reason I had misunderstood her was because I thought that 1) she only knew it as “caca” and 2) that she was unable to pronounce the word “poo”. Now I know the strange woodpigeon sound is just her own name for her favourite bear and that she’s perfectly capable of saying the word “poo.”

With Tinytoes happily asleep in a clean nappy, I feel relief that I can safely call a “poo” a “poo” (or an “a poo”) without scarring her. My mind turns to the imminent potty training and I wonder again whether it was wise for DearDaddy to have purchased a potty with the image of Winnie the Pooh inside. At least verbally Tinytoes can differentiate between her favourite bear and the contents of her nappy. I’ll just need to make sure I don’t change her nappy next time she asks for an apple…

Daddy’s girl and the bombshell

Calamitousmummy

Tinytoes has always been a daddy’s girl. Her face lights up when he walks into the room and she screams and screams when he leaves. Without a doubt she has a fantastic daddy, who has an unnerving amount of patience when she’s overtired or overwrought or overly demanding, or all three. But I’d be lying if I pretended I didn’t get hurt sometimes when she pushes me away howling ‘Baba!’ (Daddy) especially if I get up in the middle of the night to offer her a cuddle when she’s teething and crying out in pain.

Last night was one of those times I got a bit hurt. It had been a long afternoon, because 21 month old Tinytoes decided she wanted to skip her precious three hour nap, so I resorted to pushing her and Microtoes around the village in the twin buggy.  DearDaddy got home from work and, seeing me *just about coping* – as I simultaneously breastfed Microtoes and tried without luck to feed a tired and grumpy Tinytoes – decided it would be a good time to install some electrical wiring (!) To be fair there’s never a good moment, but seeing her Daddy disappear and then reappear into the garage was all too much for Tinytoes.

DearDaddy eventually got the hint – Tinytoes isn’t one for subtlety – and postponed the wiring in order to deflect some of the peas being pelted around the kitchen. I’d been hoping to bath Tinytoes, to bond with her a bit, but Microtoes needed feeding again and I needed to finish cooking the supper. I’ve now learnt that what I did next was a mistake. Not to be repeated.

Dinner in the oven and Microtoes drunk with milk, I prepare Tinytoes’ milk and venture upstairs to take over from DearDaddy.  I call through and ask if she’s ready for her milk. DearDaddy mishears my question and replies ‘yes’, when really the answer was ‘no’: she still had her hair to dry, teeth to clean and pyjamas to put on. I walk in with the milk and Tinytoes goes into a frenzy, shouting ‘llet, llet, llet’ (milk in Catalan).

DearDaddy cannot understand why I’ve shown her the milk, triggering afore-mentioned frenzy. He goes downstairs. At which point Tinytoes hurls herself onto the floor, no longer even interested in the milk, let alone having her hair dried, howling ‘Baba, baba, baba!’. Despairing, I eventually join in shouting for him and when he reappears she throws herself into his arms. “Give mummy a goodnight kiss,” he tells her. “No!” she roars, pushing my face away. “Baba, baba!”  So much for bonding with mummy!

I slink away downstairs. Obviously I’ve learnt a valuable lesson: not to interrupt the bedtime routine.  I try not to entertain the idea that if it had been the other way around – and DearDaddy had interrupted me putting her to bed – then she would have had a field day rather than a meltdown.

There’s no point wondering how on earth DearDaddy became such a superstar either. Before I got too pregnant he used to travel quite a lot with work and wouldn’t see so much of her. SuperGranny used to console me by saying “It’s because she doesn’t see him so often. You’re there all the time, so it’s only natural she should find him more exciting.” But he still seemed to be ‘more exciting’ when he stopped travelling and began to get her up every morning and put her to bed at night when I was too pregnant to lift her so easily or play games involving picking her up and twirling her around. SuperGranny changed her rationale to “It’s because he spends more time with her…”

So it was that this morning DearDaddy drops the bombshell. Seven week old Microtoes had slept eight hours straight and we were having coffee and croissants to celebrate. Just as I’m popping the last piece of delicious croissant into my mouth, DearDaddy (not one for choosing his moments) tells me that on Monday week he’ll be travelling overnight with work. He’ll be gone two whole bedtimes before Microtoes is even two months old.  And not only that, but the trip has been cleverly timed to fall when the only other person I know in the village, whose house I walk to at the drop of a hat in search of solace and cups of tea –  SuperGranny – is away on holiday!

Some of you reading this might be appalled by how pathetic I sound; flummoxed at the prospect of coping alone with a one-year old and a sub-two month old. My own children no less. There are millions of single parents out there, parents with multiple babies and those in far less fortunate situations than me. My problem is I’ve been utterly spoilt. By an amazing, hands-on husband who is so often there for me and the babies.  To such an extent that it’s not so much having to look after both babies by myself that is the issue, but dealing with the fallout from an absent daddy. Now that is an issue, for a tiny person who screams blue murder if her daddy so much as leaves her for five seconds to go to the loo.

But you know what? I reckon this will be good for me. If I can survive an unbearable pregnancy (birth was a breeze in comparison..), set up my own company, do a live interview on French TV falling down a ski slope, and run five marathons, surely I can cope with looking after two tiny people for two days? What could possibly go wrong…..?

 

 

A social life (or lack of it)

Calamitousmummy

A social life is one of the main things parents forsake when they have very young children. Okay so some people still might manage to have one, but we haven’t quite got there yet. Nor am I exactly ready for an evening social life yet. But in the daytime? I reckon I’m more than ready.

One of the issues with having just moved to a small village is that we don’t really know anyone our own age here yet: all our friends are either in London or surrounding towns.

Keen not to lose sight of my close friends, I’ve found myself organising a plethora of lunches throughout October and early November. Almost every weekend we have friends coming from far and wide to have lunch with us. I guess l’ll need to hone my cookery skills and get the cupboards better stocked. My friends know I’m no Mary Berry, but we can’t exactly serve stale bread and cheese if someone’s made the effort to drive all the way from Luton!

Anyway, this morning is meant to be the first session of the village postnatal group I mentioned in my first blog post last week.  Given the context outlined above, I’m disproportionately eager to attend. Despite having slept only a handful of interrupted hours (Microtoes feeding, Tinytoes teething, DearDaddy pulling the bed covers off me just as I was dropping off…) I wake up in good spirits. This would be a chance to meet potentially like-minded mums from the same village, as well as having some organised playtime with Microtoes. The only other baby group I attend is a good 30 minute drive away.

As usual I end up having to rush. I select my ‘best nursing top’ (oh the glamour!) which looks slightly less like a nursing top than the other ones, even put some simple make-up on (!) and end up leaving the house late due to a last minute epic feed (which I have to cut short), frantic top dabbing (when it gets covered in posset) and nappy change. I practically jog across the village to be there on time, carrying Microtoes to my chest in a baby carrier, with nappy bag and baby paraphernalia over my shoulder (because the group is being held upstairs in the surgery and I don’t want to have to lift the buggy up the stairs). I was determined to walk and not drive there.

I arrive, panting, bang on 10.30am and rush up the stairs. There is no one to be seen. Back downstairs the receptionist is having a mundane conversation with presumably a family member about eating baked beans for dinner. She sees me standing there, micro-sized baby clutched to my chest, nappy bag on arm, but continues to chatter.  I glare at her and she eventually hangs up and looks at me blankly. “What post-natal group?” she asks.

At that moment, pathetic is it sounds, I want to cry.  I marvel at how sad my life has become that I’m this upset about some dumb local postnatal group being cancelled or maybe not even existing in the first place.

I find out (hours later) that the woman who organised it was off sick and, because I’d been invited belatedly to join, my name wasn’t on the list of mums to contact.

Thank God for SuperGranny living in the same village (and very near the surgery). I walk on to see her and have a much needed cup of coffee and grumble. We pop back in the car to get the baby playmat and have our own postnatal session with Microtoes, who is none the wiser where her mummy playtime is being held.

I start to relax. There’s always next week and hey, what better local friend to spend the morning with than my own dear mum!

Sorry love.. Builders in the house

Calamitousmummy

img_1693Wednesdays are always more complicated, because it’s the one weekday that Tinytoes doesn’t spend the morning in nursery. Juggling two little ones by myself early in the morning is trickier than in the afternoon for three main reasons: 1) I’m usually half asleep 2) It takes a while for Tinytoes to recover from her raging despair at seeing her beloved Baba (Deardaddy) walk out the door to work and 3) Microtoes needs feeding quite a lot when she wakes up, making it tricky for me to entertain Tinytoes.

Today however, is different. We have special, in-house entertainment in the form of two balding builders from Manchester who have come to fit a new tile roof onto our conservatory. Tinytoes had been at nursery when they’d arrived at 8am yesterday morning (looking astonishingly cheerful after a 4.5 hour drive… ) and she napped and played at Supergranny’s in the afternoon until after they had left, so was none the wiser to their existence.

Things don’t get off to great start today, however. At 7.45am there is a loud knock at the door. I frown. One of the builders is already on the roof, as we had left them keys to the back door so they could come and go as they pleased without having to bother me.  DearDaddy has recently left and Tinytoes still has tears in her eyes. Luckily Microtoes has just fed and is sleeping. I scoop Tinytoes up in my arms, rush down the stairs and fling open the door. We’re still in our nightwear, with crazy hair. I find myself face to face with the other builder.  Turns out he hadn’t known about the keys. “Sorry love, did I wake yer?” Chance would be a fine thing, I think, but accept that my dishevelled appearance must have suggested the contrary.

After dressing Tinytoes and Mircotoes (I always seem to forget about me..) making the builders cups of tea and giving Tinytoes her Weetabix, I sit down to feed Microtoes again, with my back to the kitchen door. Everything is surprisingly peaceful. The door suddenly flies open. “Sorry love, can we see your copy of the contract?”

“Erm.. I’m breastfeeding at the moment… give me a few minutes.”

“Sorry love!”

I wait for Tiny and Micro to finish feeding, relieved I’d had my back to the door. I’m in a dilemma. I’m sure the contract is upstairs, but I can’t take them both up with me and look for the contract, just in case Tinytoes unwittingly does something to harm her newborn sister.  Since most of Tinytoes’ toys are downstairs, I whisk Microtoes into my arms and head upstairs, knowing full well my actions may well trigger a meltdown; Tinytoes is unlikely to handle her mummy going off alone with her little sister for any length of time.

I look everywhere for the contract, with increasing annoyance. It’s nowhere to be seen and I’d been hoping to have my breakfast instead of looking for the wretched contract. Amazingly the only noises to be heard from downstairs are the occasional sounds of banging and drilling.

Eventually I give up – I didn’t have the foggiest where the contract was – and I was beginning to worry about the ominous lack of sound from Tinytoes:  far more concerning than any wailing.

I run downstairs and find her with her face pressed to the conservatory glass door staring, transfixed at the builders. She’s not even aware I’m in the room.

I apologise to the builder for not finding the contract and ask why he needed it. “Oh it was just to know how many LED lights you wanted fitting.” I sigh. That wasn’t even in the contact as we had decided later! I tell him we wanted six.  “Cheers, love”.

Before getting too annoyed at having raced around like a crazy thing hunting for a contract that wasn’t needed, I turn to look at Tinytoes. She is still staring through the door at the roof work, utterly captivated.

I decide to count my blessings and get on with the household chores, even managing to get showered and dressed without her noticing.  Microtoes is lulled to sleep by the noise of the electric drill. Maybe having builders in the house isn’t such a bad thing after all…

When to push the panic button

Calamitousmummy

keep-calm-and-carry-on-original-wallpaper-1It would be so much easier if babies came with bespoke instruction manuals. (Bet DearDaddy thinks the same about me sometimes…)   Last night, soon after Tinytoes had gone off to sleep, Microtoes, began crying. And I mean really crying.   That in itself would not have given us cause for panic. I mean she’s a 6 week old baby, that’s what they do. Except that Microtoes rarely cries; usually only a gentle whimper when she wants a feed.

Maybe she’s having a growth spurt, I wonder. I proceed to feed her and feed her for several hours. She glugs down the milk, but cries incessantly between feeds.

She seldom wants winding, but maybe that’s the problem and giving her more milk is just making matters worse? We trying patting her and gently jigging her up and down but still the crying continues. DearDaddy thinks we should try Infacol, but as I squirt the pipette into her mouth, Microtoes turns a deep red and starts properly wailing and spits the medication back out.

Last week at our 6 week check-up the doctor had agreed Microtoes had a possible ‘umbilical hernia’ (where the stomach muscles don’t join completely after birth and the intestine or other tissues bulge through). Her advice had been to “go to A&E immediately if she starts to cry or the belly button looks any different.”

We notice Microtoes’ belly button is more raised than usual and slightly discoloured. But surely taking her to A&E is a little extreme? It’s 11pm. Tinytoes is finally sleeping soundly (after 3 consecutive sleepless nights of terrible teething). Do we really want to wake her up and rush the whole family to our nearest A&E – a 45 minute drive away – in the middle of the night? Besides maybe her belly button has always been slightly discoloured and we hadn’t noticed? And it does tend to distend randomly; which is apparently common with umbilical hernias. And babies do cry…

I start sobbing as I’m overcome with exhaustion and worry and simply don’t know what to do for the best. I feed her again. Guiltily, we decide that sleep is the best possible action, and that I would take her to the local surgery in the morning.  We all sleep deeply until 5am.

Microtoes awakes her usual happy and gurgling self. When I call the surgery this morning I’m told appointments are fully booked.  I describe the issue and a doctor calls me back immediately to say we can be seen.

“You did the right thing bringing her in,” he says, after examining her carefully. “You don’t need to push the panic button just yet, but she does have a hernia and if the umbilical area gets any darker then you’ll need to call 999 for an ambulance to bring her to A&E and be immediately operated on.” A darker colour would denote strangulation of the bowel and could cut of her blood supply within hours. Last night’s crying, however, was probably unrelated (hers, not mine). Maybe it was just a growth spurt.

As I walk back home I wonder how much darker the belly button needs to be for me to call for an ambulance. And how I’d remember the exact colour it is at the moment to be able to compare.  Microtoes smiles up at me, and I focus on the fact that everything is currently ok and she’s a happy, beautiful baby. I think that’s all a parent can do really.

Bit of a boob in church

Calamitousmummy

This morning is our second stab at attending Sunday worship since Microtoes was born. I’ve always been a church goer, albeit with wavering regularity, and DearDaddy dutifully comes along with me. It’s actually proven quite a handy way of keeping Tinytoes entertained on long Sunday mornings, which begin so much earlier than they used to.

Embarrassingly, it’s also tended to be Tinytoes entertaining the congregation at our local village church, which is almost entirely made up of rather elderly parishioners. They coo and chuckle at her as she grins away, popping up from behind the pews during silent prayer or wandering out into the middle of the church halfway through the sermon. 

With a very young baby in tow now too, I am slightly wary of the dynamics of keeping Tinytoes in check and making sure Microtoes is fed and in a clean nappy (both of which needing doing at a fairly astonishing frequency). Bearing in mind we are not only on public display but in a church, I am apprehensive about how it will all work out.

Two weeks ago, it had all gone horribly wrong.

It had been a ‘goodbye service’ for the Canon at the church in the town I grew up in. Mircotoes was only four weeks old and I was nervous for all the above reasons. Things didn’t get off to a great start when I got the time wrong and we arrived at 9.30am instead of 10am. As more and more people filed in, we became squashed in at the back of the building next to my old headmaster, of all people, who was now a reverend at the church.

Towards the end of the two hour service Tinytoes began to get increasingly tired and hungry and thought it would be fun to squirt her fruit sachet all over her clean outfit, the floor and DearDaddy. At that exact time, Microtoes began to cry for a feed. I’m shy at breastfeeding at the best of times, let alone in a place of worship and sitting next to my former headmaster. Luckily I was not only wearing a very discrete nursing top, but I had taken the precaution of draping a wide scarf over my shoulder just in case.

I grabbed a handful of baby wipes to give to DearDaddy and self-consciously picked up Mircotoes. My dismay at seeing DearDaddy shoving a wodge of babywipes dripping in sticky goo into my former headmaster’s outstretched hands, was counterbalanced by the fact that the fruit sachet incident had ensured there was enough distraction going on for me to safely breastfeed without anyone noticing. Or so I thought.

Towards the end of the feed I asked DearDaddy if he could take Microtoes so I could use my scarf as a shield while I carefully repositioned my breast pad and covered my modesty. It was the end of the service and the Canon and all the clerics were processing in our direction towards the back of the church. To my horror, as DearDaddy lifted Microtoes he also managed to scoop up my scarf with her, taking it clean away from my body! I was left completely exposed and mortified, too embarrassed even to see who had seen.

So it wasn’t without a certain amount of trepidation that we decide to visit the church in our village. But, as it happens, this morning could not have gone more smoothly. Apart from the fact we bring our babies and not our pets.. It turns out the main church service has been relocated to a neighbouring village church, while our local village church is holding an outdoor service of worship for pets (much to the amusement of DearDaddy: the word ‘pet’ means ‘fart’ in Catalan.)

Tinytoes is delighted as she can scramble around on the chairs outside and it doesn’t matter if she shouts because there are a lot of animals making a lot of noise. Disappointingly they are all dogs. I’d hoped there would be horses, goats, sheep and pigs like the episode with the animal service on the Vicar of Dibley. Tinytoes doesn’t seem to mind and happily shouts “woofwoof, woofwoof”, at sporadic intervals which blend in with the yapping dogs. The icing on the cake for her, however, was when the vicar blesses her beloved Winnie the Pooh; our substitute pet.

And, as for Microtoes, she sleeps the entire way through.

Baba’s girl and 6 week check-up

Calamitousmummy

We managed to sleep five glorious, uninterrupted hours last night – from about 11pm to 4am. But that was about it. After Microtoes’ pre-dawn feed and nappy change we were just dozing off, when Tinytoes sprang into action. Gentle cries of “Baba, Baba…” (what she calls DearDaddy, her interpretation of the Catalan “Papa”)  drift across the landing just before 5am. Our bodies stiffen and wait. There it comes again a bit louder this time “Baba, Baba…”.  I sigh. Then “Baba, Baba, Baba, Baba,” increasingly loud and frantic. DearDaddy pulls back the covers to get out of bed.

“Just wait a few moments,” I groan. “If you go to her every time she calls out, you’re pandering to her needs and she’ll know she just needs to shout Baba and she’ll get a cuddle.  And then how will I manage when you start travelling with work again?” The covers go back on. We wait a few moments as it all goes quiet.

Then (she must have been taking a deep breath) “BABA, BABA, BABA, BABA,” she roars. “BABA, BABA, BABA, BABA, BABA, BABA, BABA, BABA, BABA, BABA, BABA, BABA.” My resolve evaporates: “Just give her a cuddle!” I wail.

Tinytoes has always been a bit of a Daddy’s girl but in recent months – while I’ve been heavily pregnant and then postnatal – Daddy has been increasingly present in her life. In the evenings he’s been bathing her and putting her to bed, while I cook the dinner and feed Microtoes, and in the mornings he’s been getting her up either to drop her off at morning nursery or to hand her over to me after I’ve finished feeding her little sister.

Mindful that our family has become slightly segregated – DearDaddy and Tinytoes versus myself and Microtoes – we’ve recently begun to swap roles: with me sometimes bathing and putting TinyToes to bed, while DearDaddy cooks the dinner (great idea in theory, but he takes longer to prepare it than me and although it’s usually yummy, I’m often starving by the time it arrives!).

Last night DearDaddy arrived home to find some random electrical gadget had arrived from Amazon that he was eager to install, so Tinytoes missed not only her bath time but also her playtime with Baba. This was possibly too much for her to handle.

Hopefully, as we continue to mix and match who does playtime and bathtime with her, her morning cries will stop. In the meantime, I guess I should be grateful she’s calling “Baba” and not “Mama”..

Much later this morning, at 9.30am (which feels like lunchtime), I bring Microtoes for her and my 6 week post-natal check-up. I learn a worrying fact when discussing immunisation. The doctor tells me only 50% of people living in my village bring their babies to be vaccinated. Apparently there needs to be 85% of babies vaccinated in order to guarantee the efficacy the jabs. Put another way, even if I vaccinate Microtoes she won’t be properly immunised.

Astonished, I quiz the doctor further. We will definitely be vaccinating Microtoes, and besides, although I’m not exactly cosmopolitan at the moment, I don’t intend to spend all my days in the village.  But why is it there are so many people refusing jabs? She tells me it’s because of a certain international school in the neighbourhood which has alternative views on medicine. “They believe that it’s better for the body to have illnesses – even cancer – than be treated medically,” she explains. “We have people coming into the surgery and asking for mistletoe, which they use to treat cancer, but we can’t give it out on the NHS and obviously it’s ineffective.”

My apprehension grows when she tells me about a measles outbreak in the village, which she says Microtoes won’t now be fully immunised against. I’m aware it’s a contentious topic, but I cannot understand why people would want to put other babies and children at risk.

Conversation turns to contraception. The doctor is keen to plug the coil (if you’ll pardon the pun). Being squeamish, I’m not so sure. She begins to convince me until I ask about side effects. “Ah,” she looks a bit uncomfortable. “It’s quite rare, but it can sever your uterus”. I pale. “The other side effect is that it’s not fixed into place so it can become dislodged and move up inside.”

My mind is made up. No to the coil, but a definite yes to the 8 week jabs.

 

“You have a tired face”

Calamitousmummy

The day gets off to a bad start when Microtoes wakes earlier than expected for her first feed of the day (NB: anything before 5am doesn’t count as the first feed..) And then doesn’t feed. She just teases my mammary glands for about an hour, while I get into all kinds of ridiculous positions to facilitate her feeding, until I have two giant balloons full of milk. I resort to laying her on her back while I drape myself over her, milk spraying in all directions except her mouth.  She just stares up at me in sweet wonderment. Thank goodness DearDaddy deals with Tinytoes in the mornings.

Before running a hot bath to relieve myself of said milk build-up, I check my phone to find the following message in from my Catalan mother-in-law (MIL) awaiting me: Que tal esteu? He vist una foto teva al Facebook i fas cara de cansada (roughly translated as “How are you? I’ve just seen your photo on Facebook and you have a tired face.”) Charming!

I immediately know which photo she is referring to – I’d thought of it as a nice, natural photo. One friend even posted the words “Just beautiful” underneath. Okay so I’m not deluded enough to think my friend was referring to me: I have my glasses on and no make-up and I’m cradling Microtoes who has her back to the camera, all bundled up in a foetal position.  But “You have a tired face”?!  What does my MIL expect? I hesitate briefly before replying in Catalan (which takes time to cross-reference spelling) “Of course I’m tired with two under two – it’s to be expected!” accompanied by a laughing emoticon to evoke ironic mirth. I hastily exit the app to save the reply she is typing until I am feeling a bit more benevolent.

I get out of my milky bathwater to be startled by a loud knock at the door. I fling on a strange mixture of skimpy clothes, ingeniously concealing exposed post-partum waistline by holding Microtoes lengthways, and open the door to a rather bemused postman. “Here’s the ‘thing’”, he says cryptically, handing me a crumpled-looking plastic envelope. “Oh the thing!” I scoff as I remember.

Yesterday he had handed me a bill for £7.99 owed for a package with incorrect postage. “Lot of money that, it’s probably from abroad,” he’d said. I’d instantly assumed it was a present from one of DearDaddy’s friends or family in Spain to congratulate us on the recent arrival of Microtoes. My annoyance about having to pay for something before we knew what it was, was tinged with a smidgen of excitement at the thought of a ‘baby girl’ present from Spain. It had just better be worth more than £7.99 in euros.

My heart sinks as I study the creased package. It is from the Spanish consulate. Despite paying £20 for five official, certified copies of Microtoes’ birth certificate, DearDaddy had decided to send her original certificate to the Spanish consulate along with the other documents needed to get Spanish citizenship. I had ‘slightly’ flipped out when he first told me this. After all you only have one original birth certificate and I want it to last her until she’s 100. Mine is still in pristine condition and I’m 37. Microtoes, on the other hand, is only 6 weeks old.  “It’s fine, we’ve got lots of copies”, he’d said, slightly missing the point.

My suspicions are confirmed when I open the envelope and out falls a sorry-looking bit of paper. We now have five immaculate copies and a distinctly shabby original. My face grows a whole lot tireder.

I feed Microtoes – properly this time – and as the milk drains away, so does my irritation. I’m sure there’s a correlation. I check my watch and it’s nearly 1pm; time to head to our first baby weighing clinic at my local surgery.

I walk briskly in the mid-September heatwave and suffice to say I’m fairly ‘glowing’ by the time I arrive at the surgery. The receptionist waves me upstairs; quite a challenge when carrying carrycot, wheels, nappy bag and baby. I glow some more. I’m greeted by a closed door. I knock several times and get no reply. I call my health visitor on her mobile and get the answerphone. I leave a terse message, not quite able to remove the irritation from my voice. “Hello. It’s 1.15pm and I’m at clinic but no one else is here. I’ve walked all the way here in the heat and not had my lunch yet. It is rather awkward because I’ve had to ask my mother to collect my toddler from nursery so I can be here. I hope you’ll be here soon.”

I’m on the verge of heaving everything back down the stairs when a pleasant-looking lady appears, looking rather surprised to see me.  We establish I’m the one with a 6 week old baby due to be weighed today. She stares at me. “You know clinic is not until 2pm?” I inwardly groan.

Luckily for me, the lady agrees to weigh and measure Microtoes, even though she is not a Health Visitor. She helps out at the clinics and happened to arrive 45 minutes early. I immediately click with her and we end up chatting until 2pm. She asks me if I’m left-handed, which I am. Apparently – and I quote – “left-handers have a more analytical brain, but after childbirth the dominant section of the mother’s brain switches hemispheres, so if you were very organised beforehand you will struggle now.” I have no idea if there is any shred of truth in that (Googling seemed to suggest there isn’t) but I’m happy to accept that as an excuse.

Despite her lack of hunger this morning, it turns out Microtoes has grown three whole centimetres both in length and head circumference over the past four weeks and put on over a kilo of weight. At least some of my milk must be getting into her. I tell the lady I’m new to the village and she invites me to a weekly postnatal group for mums and babies, which is starting next Thursday morning. I agree to attend, hoping it won’t be full of first-time mums 20 years younger than me.

Back home I’m in a better frame of mind and check my phone to read MIL’s reply: Ja se que som lluny, pero qualsevol cosa que necessitem ens ho dieu (“I know that we are far, but if you ever need anything at all, you just have to ask”).  I instantly feel bad for being annoyed. And, after all, I do have a tired face these days!