A New Season, A New Start

So here's the thing. When I started blogging, I thought that no-one would read my posts- literally no-one. Not even my Mum. Ok, maybe my Mum. But apparently, even though I've been busy having kids and clawing a degree and other shenanigans which make it nigh-on impossible to post all the time, lots of people do read it. I am exceptionally happy and thankful for this- but. There is a big but. (Haha). If I had known that people were going to read it, I would have started it differently. If I had known that people were going to expect me to come up with a genuine reason for why I called it 'Non Chav Young Mum' and then 'The Young Mum Chronicles', I wouldn't have called it either one of those names.
There isn't a good reason, as I didn't (and don't) want to be a 'Mummy blogger' (I'm sure they are a great bunch, I'm just not cut out for it). I don't think I fit the 'Mummy blogger' type and I don't like having to think of answers to questions like 'So how do you think your blog helps young Mums?' I don't think it does, really. In fact I hardly thought about that at all, to be honest, until people started talking about my blog as if it were going to wear pants over tights and start being all Hey-Let's-Save-All-The-Young-Mums-From-The-Giant-Stereotype-Scorpion, or something. The PR people who contact me only want me to do stuff that has to do with being a Mum- write about nappies, put up sponsored posts about slings, or do interviews about how people chased me down in the street and tried to rip me apart with packs of dogs because I was 20 and unmarried *shock! horror!* when I got pregnant.

That. Didn't. Happen.

Sure, I've met a few divs, and some non-divs who say stupid things about what I chose to do with my life, but so what. At the end of the day I never set out to make a big deal about the age at which I had my kids. It's irrelevant. All I wanted to do- all I really want to do, ever- is write stuff and make people laugh. That's it. Over the last year, being pregnant and  exhausted and sick, and then caring for a newborn and being downright shattered, and still trying to study- I have hardly touched on anything I wanted to write. But, happy days, in one week exactly my third Uni module will be over and I will have six whole months to do whatever the heck I like, which means writing, and getting enough momentum so that when I start my next module (which should be a breeze compared to what I'm doing now), I'll be able to be like "Hey, degree- sit the heck down. Wait in line, I'm blogging over here." Which would be just fabulous.

The other thing I would have done from the outset is been honest with readers. Sometimes, the reason I don't blog for ages is because I'm just a little bit (and sometimes quite a lot) nuts, and often I will write a blog post and then be so overcome with hatred for my own writing that I will delete it, and spiral into a whirlpool of self-loathing which will leave me paralysed to write anything else for ages. I'm serious. It's one of the many shitty symptoms of the depression and eating disorder that I've been dealing with for well over a decade now, and thankfully I would say that most of the time I am all good. But there's always that little demon in the back of your mind that wants to hack you to pieces, and it will always bite you in the ass over something you really care about- and writing falls into that camp for me. I was inspired this week by the best post I have ever read, on anything. It was a totally balls-out honest account about a blogger's mental health, and it sort of woke me up. Why the heck did I hide any of my own gremlins? Why didn't I use it, for inspiration and for posts and to make people laugh? Why couldn't I just be like "Oh hey, sorry I didn't post last week- I ate a bowl of pasta for the first time in ten years and it made me so devastatingly anxious that I could hardly think straight, let alone come up with some witty bits to blog about"?
Was I so afraid of people judging me for illnesses that I didn't choose, fought tooth and nail against and which very nearly killed me? Well- yes, actually. Which is dumb.

I want to start again, to start again as me and not as a mum- or a sister, or a daughter, or a next-door-neighbour, or any other relation in any way to anyone else. Of course I'll always write about my life with my kids and my other relationships, just as I'll write about anything that inspires me- but it's time to stop hiding behind this young-mum BS and just write as me.

Which is why, as of now, the Young Mum Chronicles are over. And if you will come with me over to the glorious Wordpress (and this is the last name-change ever- I promise) you will find Hannah Canavan's blog. As I will be taking down the Young Mum Chronicles to stop PR people asking me about young-mum things, I have decided to re-edit, polish and re-publish a selection of the better/ more substantial posts, so that they are not lost forever. And of course, there'll be a heck of a lot of new stuff. I really, really appreciate everyone who has read the YMC and everyone who has got in touch- it's just time for something new.
Hopefully, it'll be flippin' awesome. Can't get much heavier than this post, at any rate.


It's just started, here: http://hannahcanavan.wordpress.com/

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Potty Training

What a glorious, sunny day. I hope you enjoyed it. I didn't. For reasons I can't now remember, I stayed in and put Esmae and I through the horrific ordeal of potty training. I'd mentally prepared myself for missing out on the Sun, (no light task for me) and was going to keep all the windows open all day and pretend to myself that I was, at least, in some kind of conservatory. Unfortunately our loud next-door neighbours are somewhat less than immaculate when it comes to filtering their kids' speech, and they were in their garden all day. When I imagined having children, I didn't exactly dream of a situation where Esmae would toddle up to me at playgroup, look sweetly up at me and say, "Mummy, may I have a f****ing chocolate button please?" I don't really want that to happen. Ergo, the windows stayed shut today. Not. Fun. Especially considering that the heady blend of wee and Dettol is not, despite what you might believe, the new Chanel No. 5. 

 In between gritting my teeth and pinching that bit of skin in between my eyes with my thumb and forefinger, I thought of some things that are more fun than potty training:

 Labour and birth. I would confidently include post-partum theatre trips and stitches without anaesthetic in this category.  

 GCSE History. Even crop rotation. 

 Queuing at the bank on a Monday lunchtime. 

 Shopping in Tesco on a Tuesday, when all the pensioners have just got their week's money and are celebrating by clearing out the boiled sweet section. 

 Watching Cosmopolis. 

 Cutting up an unripe butternut squash into 1cm cubes with a plastic knife. 

 Listening to a black-cab driver talk about politics. 

Attending a beginners Pilates class.  

 Having a one-armed blind gorilla shave off all your body hair with a blunt razor, paying particularly enthusiastic attention to your private parts. 

 Memorising the names of everyone in the current government, their job titles and all their previous jobs in chronological order. Also memorising any qualifications that make them suitable for their post (this bit shouldn't take long). 

 Inking a huge tattoo of a naked woman on my own face with a needle and a biro. 

This list is by no means exhaustive. Esmae is also distinctly unimpressed with the whole potty concept. "No more chocolate button wees Mummy- I like nappies now please." I think we might wait until after Summer. 

Emosh.

Coming to you today from the most estrogen-fuelled flat in the block, I have a small plastic goat figurine tangled in my hair and Esmae has spent the morning begging me to read her 'Mr. Bump' book to her. I have done so. Twenty-one times. She was laughing manically at Bump slipping on frozen peas until the twenty-first time. Now she is inconsolable because she's realised that's he banged his head.
"Oh no, Mr. Bump, are you ok? ARE YOU OK?" she's sobbing. I've told her he's fine, that he was only playing. "But his head, HE BUMPED HIS HEAD! Oh no, poor Mr. Bump! POOR MR. BUMP!"
We've got the whole body-racking, shuddering hysteria going on. I can't figure out if being a toddler or a teenager is more of an emotional rollercoaster; I'm hoping that this is her getting it all out of the way and her teenage years will be filled with placid contentment and perhaps a happy tendency to do extra chores as a token gesture of her appreciation for my attentive mothering?
Yes? Anyone? Yes...?

Day Four in the Big Brother house.

One-fourteen PM.
Patrick has been off work now for a day and a half, and tensions are running high. Yesterday's whimsical trips to Costa and the cinema have been forgotten, and territorial battle has commenced. Arguments have erupted over whether or not Django Unchained was 'amazing' or simply 'good'; the correct way to clean the kitchen work-top; whether Esmae's giant inflatable dinosaur should be allowed into bed for her afternoon nap, and if the household should put up with the cold and have windows open to release the smell of baby poo. After a heated debate in which Hannah argued convincingly that Patrick could put on more clothes but she could not turn off her nose, she sought comfort in searching YouTube for clips of surprise encounters with sharks, and puppies acting like humans. Patrick has taken refuge in Medieval Total War, rendering himself evidently unable to hear anything when taking instructions from pop-up screens apparently sent from the Pope, circa 1066. Dinner tonight is looking dangerously as though it will be oven-based, devoid of greenery or any nutritional value and either made of potato, covered in breadcrumbs, or both. A nap is required, as is a large drink containing brain-inhibiting qualities. A stalemate is currently in place, with plans for post-nap peace and reconciliation over another slice of Costa cake. May report back. Over and out.

Tat's Not Good...

Oh dear. As a super-hilarious joke a few days ago I used a temporary tattoo that came free with a pack of Wildlife fromage frais, and transferred a picture of a blue wolf and the caption 'Howl!' onto my forearm. I thought I'd show Patrick and see if I could convince him for a glorious millisecond that it was real. (In Thailand, I wanted to get a minuscule two-week Henna design- costing 50p, somewhere discreet and of his name in Thai- and he got so distressed that he strode off down Khao San Road and left me standing gormless with a very confused local).
Since this free yoghurt-pot transfer was aimed at kids (bizarre but whatevs), I assumed it would fall off in a matter of minutes; hours at the most.

Oh, no. Last night it was still there, after I'd been forced to attend several playgroups and a bible study group with said wolf emblazoned on my arm. Frantic scratching last night just created a mass of red skin which essentially served as a sign. "Here! On my forearm! A hideous tattoo! NOTHING a sane person would ever pick to have inked permanently (or even temporarily, in a fit of hilarity) on their skin! Right here, people, come and JUDGE!"

To make matters worse, tonight I am going to a friend's birthday do- it's a beauty evening, with treatments and wine and dressy-uppy-ness; all the sort of things I dream of daily. I have been looking forward to it for weeks.
And now, do you know what i'll be sporting on my forearm, after further scrubbing? A glowing red patch of irritated skin, a blue smear of half a wolf's jaw, and- this is the best bit- the word 'Ho' above it.
Long sleeves it is then...

Never Again

I went to a kids' shoe shop today. There aren't many places that I'd rather cut my limbs off than visit, but to avoid kids' shoe shops I'd happily offer all four appendages and throw in my eyes or something for good measure. I don't like the smell of them. I don't like the displays, which are all arranged at toddler-height by someone who has clearly never met a child, let alone gone shopping with them. I don't like that fact that every two months we fork out £40 for a pair of shoes that have patent hearts or some other hideous design splashed over them and which will only be caked in mud, taken off and thrown at my head as I'm driving, or otherwise abandoned in a park or farm or library (occasionally I try to lose the whole child, but they are so stubbornly difficult to give away, aren't they?)
Most of all, though, I absolutely can't stand the conversations with the sales assistants. I used to work in sales. I know that 'cosy' means 'really small' and 'community feel' means 'gangs of 15-year-olds will leave fags and broken WKD bottles in your garden each weekend' and 'original/authentic' means 'no-ones wanted to live here since the Middle Ages, but please do nod and smile and hand me a large wad of cash, won't you?' I get it.
But when a miniature person is pulling at your leg and rubbing snot into your jeans and sweeping rows of merchandise off shelves with enthusiastic "WHOOSH" sound effects, and threatening any minute to collapse in a sobbing heap demanding "Chockot Biksit", it would really be just delightful if we were spared the ritual ordeal. It usually goes something like this, with a sales assistant who clearly detests children:

"Hi, could we get her feet measured please?"
"Ohh, certainly. What's her name?"
"Esmae."
"Oh, pretty. Come on Emsie have a seat."
Have a seat. She's two, not forty. She buys none of it. Toddlers can sense weakness, like Siberian tigers or polar bears. I wrestle her and the assistant jams the measuring thing on her foot.
"7G."
"Right. We'll need some new ones then please- what are these?"
"Ohhhh, they are fabulous. They're made in Europe, really soft leather and have full arch support- of course, haw, haw."
"Arch support?"
"OH my goodness yes it's the most important thing- the shape of the sole supports the natural arch of the foot so they don't get flat-footed. We wouldn't want THAT now, would we, haw, haw?"
"Oh. I thought that about half of people actually had flat feet? And the other half have an arch?"
"Hummm, well I suppose that's what some people say..."
"Actually the doctor on-"
"Well yes. Of course if that's the type of thing you're after then I completely recommend these- waterproof, with Bare Foot technology. It's as if you're not wearing any shoes; totally in tune with nature."
"But then there's no arch support?"
"Oh no- totally natural, completely moulds to the child's shape."
"But you just said arch support was the most important thing?"
"Yes."
"Right. What about these ones?"
"Ah Velcro, excellent choice. I always think Velcro's best for little ones, saves fiddling with laces and-"
"Or these?"
"Oh lace-ups, fantastic! The great thing about these is you can get a really good pull on them, you know? Like 'Oomph!' Really tight and secure."
"Sure. Those boots look nice..."
"Absolutely, you must try these ones! The higher tops give great ankle support, really important for developing legs."
"Or these.."
"They're my favourite; trainer-types are really good as they don't cover the ankle so there's loads of flexibility there. Really important."
"The fabric is interesting..."
"Canvas. Really pretty. Not waterproof though."
"Not waterproof?"
"No."
"Ok. It's just, as a family, we generally wear our shoes outside."
"They'll get wet."
"Right. The boots then. What colours do you have?"
"Well mostly pale pink, it always looks nice in the girls' range- but as it's Winter a darker colour would probably be preferable, else the dirt will show up more."
"Ok. So what we're looking for is a dark-coloured pale flat-footed shoe with arch support, Velcro AND laces (or neither), ankle support but definitely no ankle support. And waterproof. Do you have anything like that?"
"Yes. This pair. They're £480."
"Do you have them in 7G?"
"No."

I will be doing this every 8 weeks for the next twelve or so years. Or I'll just go to Asda.

Boom Baby...

It's been three months, one birth of a baby (mine) and approximately four and a half hours' sleep (also mine) since my last blog post. Eira Belle Canavan is lighting my life with her sunny smiles and filling my days and nights with buckets of dribble and poo so explosive that it spatters up her back and into her hair. Esmae has turned into a proper 'little girl'- she is no longer a baby, but a sharp-as-a-tack two-year-old who has everyone in
my family wrapped around her little finger.
Having two kids is beyond fabulous; exhausting, obviously, but shedloads of fun and bucketfuls of cuteness. It's also apparently validated my identity as a 'proper mum'- one kid could be any twenty-year-old's accident, but two would take a special kind of carelessness which is why people now ask me when the 'next one' is coming along- I suppose they're less afraid now that the answer will be 'Dunno, see if I fancy anyone at student night at Tiger I guess.'
Another great thing that's happened since having Eira is that I want to hurt Patrick a lot less. This might seem a bit confusing to people without permanent legal attachments to another human, or those without kids, but I can tell you it's entirely possible that when you are married or pregnant, or especially both, sometimes the sight of your spouse will make your blood heat up in such a way that you will really want to just PUNCH them right in the middle of their face. Most of the time when I was pregnant it wasn't Patrick's fault at all. He'd listen to me worry that we had no money, and that the squash I'd been watering down wasn't even squash anymore so I was essentially watering down water, and that I'd have to get a job and leave the kids at home alone with a bag of open Monster Munch and the TV set permanently to CBeebies. (It might not have been exactly like that, but you get the gist). Then he'd dutifully work 16 hour days, take on piles of extra work and come home to have me complain that he wasn't at home to help with Esmae. The poor guy couldn't win. (Other times, he'd use all the hot water running a ridiculous bubble bath and then forget about it and let it go cold, or scatter coffee grounds all over the kitchen, or tell he 'didn't feel like steak' when I'd cooked it, or spill Vicks in my best frying pan so that all our food tasted like menthol- then, he had it coming).
Now that we have two kids, not only have the pregnancy hormones sunk back down to reside in Hell where they were first formed, but Patrick has become exceptionally helpful. He looked after Esmae for a week after I had Eira, as post-blissful-waterbirth my blood decided to leak into my muscles and start clotting with remarkable enthusiasm; thus I spent a numb few hours on an operating table with surgeons sucking all my blood out and taking the opportunity to practice their crocheting skills with my organs. Naturally, I did not fancy taking Esmae 'Wiggle and Jiggle' or any of that kind of direness, on account of my insides being caved in. Patrick stepped in and outdid himself, and Esmae I am sure enjoyed eating nothing but jam sandwiches for a week.
So he's doing well, that can be said for him. However. I suppose there will always remain in men a certain tendency to be Really Bloody Annoying. Whenever we go out together, I get Eira ready and Patrick does the same with Esmae. It works well in theory. But when I ask "Are you ready?" and he says "Yes" but is wearing the t-shirt he slept in, a work fleece and a dressing gown, I have to question if it's a good method of doing things. I get the same thing when I tell him he's got to dress Esmae and I return five minutes later to find her naked apart from a nappy and her painting apron, but now the lounge has been turned into a giant tent and they are both inside it eating bananas and smashing breadsticks into the carpet. Also, when she eventually is dressed, her pulls her socks over her leggings so that she looks like a wannabe '80s roller-disco steward.
These are small things, of course. To be honest I wouldn't change them if I could- Esmae has the most attentive, fun and loving Dad I could have possibly have wished for her, and If that means that we are pretty much always late, or that her outfits will usually err on the side of eccentric, then of course I will put up with it.
But not the spilt coffee grounds. Not the coffee grounds.

Oh Mum...

Lewis Appreciates Croydon

The phone rings. It's Lewis.

'Hi Lew.'

'Hi Han, you alright?'

'Yes, just in Tesco. You?'

'I'm good, just in Croydon having a coffee. You know the Clocktower?'

'Yes.'

'It's amazing. It's got so much in it. It's like, the epitome of the best bits of Croydon.'

'You think?' (It's a library with rooms for hire).

'Yeah I was in there and I was just like, this is awesome. It's got a really cool exhibition at the moment, you should take Esmae.'

'Oh, cool. What is it?'

'4000 year-old Ming china.'

'What?'

'It's, like, amazing. This guy had a collection of this ancient china and he's donated it to the exhibition. You've gotta take Esmae, she'll love it.'

'Lew, Esmae's one-and-a-half.'

'So?'

'So, I think she's a bit young for an exhibition like that.'

'Why? Don't worry about her breaking it, you're not allowed to touch it. It's in cabinets.'

'No, that's not what I'm worried about, Lew. I just don't think she'll appreciate Ming china. She barely appreciates Finding Nemo.'

'Well I don't see why you're writing it off. There's a big dragon mural if she doesn't like the china. She might love it.'

'Ok, I might take her. On Tuesday, after Wiggle and Jiggle but before Rhyme Time, we'll squeeze the Ming Dynasty session in.'

'Good. Right I've gotta go, there's another exhibition of Croydon Artefacts from the past century.'

'Ok, bye Lew.'

Two minutes later I got a photo sent to my phone. It was a picture of a man's thong in the shape of a horse's head, with the caption 'From Croydon Anne Summers, 1960.' Maybe the Clocktower is the place to be.

Mooday Me

I hope I don't ever get a serious illness. That may seem like an obvious wish, but it's not because I'm scared of pain or particularly fear death.
It's because I'd be the World's Grumpiest and most Snappy Cow, which apparently I'm currently practicing for. I'm not even going to deny it; I can feel the frown lines and every time I open my mouth I wonder who replaced my voice with miserable whining.
I'm done with being pregnant. Done, I tell you. I can't stand the thought of another month of this- it's nothing like it was with Esmae. I don't know if it's due to the fact that baby is back-to-back, or that my body's already shot from having Esmae, or maybe I've just used up all my patience and tolerance over the last 18 months; but this is just awful.
I have constant back pain. I waddle like a duck doing a John Wayne impersonation. Sitting hurts, but if I stand I get pins and needles in both my legs. At night, lying on my back means I can't breathe, whereas laying on my side means that my hips and back ache constantly. If, eventually, I do get to sleep, I have horrible dreams.

Last night I dreamt that I discovered that Patrick had had an affair with a friend of mine, and was actually the father of her unborn daughter. They were due at the same time, which he found both convenient and amusing, and suggested we treat them as twins. Even in a dream this did not go down well, so he suggested that we go for a lobster dinner at Jamie Oliver's restaurant to 'make up for it', which (amazingly) it failed to do. The last I remember of the dream was being extremely irritated at finding out he'd gone on holiday with this woman, and that her husband was hunky-dory with the whole situation.

Freudians: do your best.

This morning, after this dream, I woke up extremely angry with Patrick. How very dare he go on holiday and impregnate my friends, even if it was in a dream.
Finding a poster of Jessica Ennis (Patrick's crush and idol) stuck on our bathroom door as a hilarious morning joke did not help matters. It is safe I say that baby needs to come out soon, before I eat someone.

Motherly Love

Me: 'I'm looking forward to Dorset next year. There's no way I'm going on a plane with kids until they're at least six.'
Mum: 'Yes but by the time Esmae's six you'll be on number four by then, we'll probably do UK holidays for years yet.'
Me: 'Number four?! I don't think so- anyway I haven't even had this one yet, where did four grand kids come from?'
Mum: 'Well, contraception's not your strong point, is it?'
Thanks.

Kids' Stories

So we have the creepy child-snatcher in the form of Rumplestiltskin. The manic binge-eater that is The Very Hungry Caterpillar. And Winnie the Pooh, whose sewn-up stomach reminds me quite startlingly of a furry Frankenstein.
I hadn't realised until I had Esmae quite how bizarre lots of kids' stories are. Esmae has a book called 'Calm down, Boris', which as far as I can tell is about the narrator's attempts to quell a furry beasts' amorous advances (typical quote: "Stop Boris, calm down! Too many kisses!" Urgh). But look. I think I've found a winner. This is the one I read in the library today during our usual two-hour Wiggle and Jiggle ordeal that I've taken to putting us through every Tuesday (my theory being, if she's in a library she must be learning something and that makes me a Good Parent, or something). It didn't take me the whole two hours- I managed to fit in a quick flick through a charming book called 'Everybody Poos', the premise of which is essentially that everybody poos- but I did spend quite a long time on a few pages in particular. Mainly this one in the photo. If you don't get the storyline, don't worry. I didn't either. Just look at the picture of the sock and the cupcake, paying particular attention to the speech bubble and the KNIFE that is laying next to them.
Don't worry, though- after seeing Traction Man in a green knitted onesie, the cupcake forgets all about the imminent threat of forced-marriage violence and cracks up laughing.
I didn't read this one to Esmae.

Biological Education for a Toddler

Mum: "Ooh not long now till baby arrives!"

Me: "Nope, nine weeks if I hold out that long. Can't believe it's gone so fast."

Mum: "Does Esmae know?"

Me: "Does Esmae know what?"

Mum: "About the baby."

Me: "I don't know. I point to my tummy and tell her there's a baby in there but she doesn't seem to get it."

Mum: "Oh. Might be worth explaining to her then."

Me: "Explain what?"

Mum: "That you're going to have another baby in nine weeks and it will be her little sister."

Me: "What? I've tried, all she does is poke my belly button and go 'Beep beep.' She's eighteen months, I don't think she's going to grasp the concept of an in-utero sibling."

Mum: "Well try and explain it to her better."

Me: "And how exactly should I do that?"

Mum: "Talk to her."

Me: "I just told you, I have. I talk about the baby every day and she doesn't care. Look- Esmae? Esmae- look, where's the baby? It's in Mummy's tummy isn't it? (Rubbing tummy) Ahhh baby."

Esmae: (pokes belly button) "BEEP BEEP."

Me: "Look- there's a little baby in here. Are we going to say hello to the baby soon? Esmae's baby sister?"

Esmae: (hits my tummy) "NOOO. Bye bye! DOOSH."

Me: "This is going great Mum, feel free to have a go. Esmae- be kind to the baby. Ahh, the little baby loves Esmae. She wants cuddles!"

Esmae: "Woof woof! Juice?"

Good.

Sponsored post: Parenting with Contact Lenses vs Glasses

This is a sponsored post written by Meredith Hamilton. Meredith is a mother of two and enjoys writing about her time with her children and sharing helpful solutions for other mothers./span>


Despite the fact that there are more options now than ever before with regard to corrective vision, many people are still unsure when it comes to choosing between glasses and contact lenses. Unless you have a strong personal preference based on comfort or appearance, your decision of contacts vs. glasses should probably depend mostly on how you spend your days and nights. For example, many people who work at desks all day prefer glasses so that they can choose to give their eyes a rest whenever they please; however, many people with active lifestyles opt for contact lenses, so that they can be more flexible with their movements. At least, those are the general trends – so what should busy mothers choose for corrected vision? 


 Being a mother, of course, is not as easily defined as most jobs or activities. Being a mother may involve any number of different jobs or activities during a given day or night, which makes it a bit less obvious which form of corrective vision is more appropriate in general. However, consideration of a few factors makes it clear that for the most part, mothers would do better to use Acuvue contact lenses. 


To begin with, particularly if you have young children, there is always the possibility that kids will jostle you and knock your glasses off, if you are wearing them to begin with. Young children squirm quite a bit, and even throw tantrums occasionally, so it’s a good idea to have contact lenses in, as they will be less likely to be thrown out of place by a child’s antics. 


 You may also want to consider the fact that as a busy mother you are on the move quite often, and using contact lenses gives you one fewer object to keep track of. It’s hard enough to gather up your children and their belongings when you need to change locations, and if you happen to have taken your glasses off, they will be easy to forget as you move about. Everyone who wears glasses loses them occasionally, and managing children makes it far easier to do just that. 

 Ultimately, there are hundreds of little factors you may consider if you are debating contact lenses vs. glasses. However, considerations like those listed above, as well as others similar to them, illustrate why contact lenses are often more prudent for busy mothers. With so much movement and management already involved with young children, it never helps to get rid of an extra thing to keep track of; so, if you are comfortable in contact lenses, you may as well do your best to avoid the glasses. 

I'm OLD.

I think- in fact, I am pretty certain- that I might actually be a forty-something trapped in the somewhat crumbling body of a 23-year-old.
Today, Patrick and I took Esmae to a local park. On the way, Patrick spotted a little playground but we decided it looked 'too rough' to go into. Yes, we have become park snobs. We carried on to the lovely one that we had planned on visiting and enjoyed half an hour of watching Esmae potter about, before something horrible happened. Across the field marched a huge group of high school kids, sporting the obligatory short pleated skirts and tiny stubs of neckties that identify the modern student. About thirty of these things flooded into the playground, taking over the swings and slide, lounging across all the benches and generally ruining it for all the tiny tots who were too intimidated to do anything but cling to their mums. I asked one of them which school they were from, googled the school's number and told the headteacher to get a move on and clear his horrible lot out of the playground (which did, to be fair, have a sign specifying for 'Children Only'). I might not have minded as much had the whole group of them not been swearing extremely loudly; all the other mums were too posh and dignified to do anything, which is where I believe being the token young/ not so posh mum comes in useful. I had to yell pretty loudly to get the whole lot to hear me- the full whack of my Croydon accent comes out when I shout, it's like a scene from Little Britain- but at least I saved twenty or so parents from having to explain to their toddler what 'pussyole' meant, as the teens shut up, mostly.
What struck me later, and what I still can't quite get my head around, is that these 'kids' who I told off were actually no more than five years younger than me. Five years. Five years ago I was in school, being a horrible teenager just like this lot. When, I wonder, did I grow up? I have a feeling it was when I had Esmae; a kid can't raise a kid, so I supposed I must have stepped up a bit then. My body, too, has aged hilariously since becoming pregnant. I was pondering on my premature ageing just now when I experienced the simultaneous effects of a) having already had a child, and b) being pregnant. I went for a wee for the second time in ten minutes. Obviously I couldn't wee despite feeling bursting as pregnancy bladder is about the size of my earlobe. I washed my hands and the smell of the soap made me gag. I threw up, dramatically, and wet myself. Oh, I did need to wee then. I would have laughed, but that would have made me wet myself more. I'm 23, in case you missed that. I should be buying Echo Falls and box sets of TOWIE, not stocking up on Tena Lady and Gaviscon. Ah, well. I would say I still have my dignity, but I guess now I've splashed this all over the net I can say bye to that, too.
Think it's time for my Horlicks.


May I also send a million congratulations to the newest recruits to Parenting Boot Camp, my beautiful friend Rebecca Cox and her lovely husband Nick. They welcomed a beautiful baby girl yesterday and quite frankly Rebecca looks so good in the post-birth photos that it should be illegal. Lots of love to the new family xxx

Should I Be Worried?

Just a few snippets from my 29 week appointment with the midwife today (who turned up 40 minutes late):

"Sorry I'm so late, I didn't expect there to be an accident on that road today."

"Some Mums get £3.50 a week towards fruit and veg for their kids, so if you have two kids that's like... Six or eight pounds or something."

"When the baby comes out she'll come up... No I mean down... Down first then up to you."

"When you're having contractions you might forget to breathe and we don't want you to not breathe for the whole labour, it can make things harder."

"If you feel like you've been stabbed in the stomach, go to A&E... Or if you get stabbed in the stomach, go to A&E too."

Then she locked her car keys in her car and had to call the RAC (who, quite frankly, I'm considering calling instead of the midwife when I'm in labour as they might be more punctual and/or give me a tad more confidence that I'm not going to die a horrible messy death in my own bath).

Second Pregnancies

The concept of second pregnancies, I am pretty certain, were fashioned by an evil jilted scientist living in his Mum's basement amongst a creepy secret lab and lots of comic books (probably).
I might be wearing heavily rose-tinted glasses, but as far as I can remember my pregnancy with Esmae was a flowery love affair full of sparkle and light and the promise of beautiful sweet-smelling baby at the end of it.
At this point (27 weeks and 4 days) in this pregnancy, my mood is pretty much dictated by the fact that I can see every vein in my body (discovery of the week: we have a LOT of veins, more than I want on exhibition). I look like a road atlas printed on pale translucent skin and I can't say this is a look I can see on the front cover of 'Smug Mum and Baby' or whatever parenting and birth magazines are out now.
Second pregnancies are very, very different to the first time, I have found. During the first gestational experience, someone could ask me how far along I was and I could confidently reply: 'twenty-one weeks and three days and forty-seven minutes and three seconds.' Now if I get asked 'how many weeks are you?' I have to take a minute to look down and remember that yes, I'm pregnant, and by the looks of things probably somewhere in my second trimester and my name's Hannah and it's 2012. I guess it's a combination of my braincells being driven forcefully from my skull by the previous pregnancy, birth and eighteen months of parenthood, and an understandable preoccupation with my first offspring whose primary goals in life are to a) run into oncoming traffic, b) get into the kitchen drawers and play with the knives and c) snap all our DVDs into small pieces.
Needless to say, it takes a lot more effort this time to take a moment to appreciate the precious baby that I will be holding in three short months' time. It makes me laugh when I remember spending hours with headphones stuck to my stomach with Sellotape so that Esmae could listen in-utero to 'Classics for Babies'- baby two is lucky if I remember to keep my midwife appointments or shove vaguely nutritious food near my mouth-hole; and if I manage to keep this up until the end of the pregnancy then quite frankly I deserve a wall chart and some gold star stickers.

Bus service: Turkey vs. UK

A month ago, my beloved Bampy (Grandad) passed away and I haven't felt like writing until now. But I know that if he was here he would be telling me that the World needs to know about my latest experiences with Turkish public transport- and I think he would be right.

I can't say I was particularly empathetic towards the recent London bus strikes- demanding extra pay to do exactly what one is hired to do seems a tad out of touch with the skyrocketing unemployment rates that the rest of Britain are struggling with- and after recently spending two weeks roaming around Turkey on their four-wheeled (mostly) public vehicles, I have to say that the Turks trump the UK every time for their ability to deal with their harried customers.
A Turkish bus, in case you haven't had the pleasure, is about the size of a small minivan. They're known as 'dolmus' (literal translation: 'squashed') and for good reason- the drivers' sole aim seems to be to test the maximum capacity of their little chug-alongs, and boy do they do it with gusto. I've never been more intimately acquainted with a stranger's armpit, nor seen tiny old ladies sit on the laps of those reluctant to give up their seats, and the '12-person limit' signs pasted on the doors of the buses seemed to be a personal challenge to each driver we met.
Not only do the Turkish drivers welcome surplus passengers as enthusiastically as British drivers reject them; they have a certain approach to customer service that puts us once again to shame. The Turks don't just collect the money and then drive the buses; they collect the money whilst driving the buses, taking several mobile phone calls and lighting a cigarette. Every time we clambered aboard a dolmus we had to wrestle our change from our pockets and fling it towards the driver while holding on for dear life; 0.5 seconds is the average time they waited for us to get on the thing before slamming the gas pedal to the floor.
Speed, however, is not always a good thing if you are going in the wrong direction. Every time we got on a dolmus we would check that we were on the correct one, embarking on the general route that we needed. These dolmus things always had signs on the sides saying where they were going, and they were always wrong.'Marmaris', it would say on the side in big blue letters. We would ask the driver if he was, in fact, going to Marmaris.
 "Of course!" was the reply (every time). 
"Are you sure?" we asked. "Because we got this one last time and it didn't go to Marmaris."
"Yes! Marmaris! Yes!"
"Really? Because we've got a baby with us and it's a real pain to spend ages on hot buses here."
"My friend, no problem! Marmaris, yes!"
What we found, after a few exchanges such as this, is that "Yes" actually meant "Maybe I'll take you to Marmaris, but maybe I'll take you to Bodrum instead, or somewhere else that you haven't heard of. If I do go to Marmaris, I'll take the longest possible route to cram as many people as you can humanly comprehend onto the bus and I'll have a couple of stops to pick up some hot tea in a tiny glass, which I'll drink as I drive. Or, I might get bored with driving and take you to the top of the mountain instead of the bottom and make you get a different bus, which also won't take you to Marmaris. I'll keep my window open so I can stop sporadically and yell at people- I might be angry or then again I might just be a shouty kind of guy. Oh, and if I'm feeling really quirky I may just take you for a long drive around the mountains and then drop you back at the hotel where you got the bus from. Also, I might let my family get on the bus so they can pinch your baby's cheeks. Cool, hop on."
It was an adventure, of sorts. Esmae certainly got to meet new people. And I have to say that despite the charming idiosyncrasies of the Turkish bus service, when have you ever- ever- seen a London bus driver decorate his vehicle with a pot plant?


The jury's out.

You Know You're Hormonal When...

You take massive offence at your husband cooking a curry at lunchtime, because you've already planned tonight's dinner and he's undermining it by eating a hot meal now. He makes it EVEN WORSE by eating the whole curry when it clearly said '2 portions' and now he has WASTED the equivalent of a whole other meal which you could have had for dinner to save you cooking; he clearly doesn't love you or think about you or want to make your life easier in any way. When he asked if you wanted some before he served it and you said no, you obviously meant yes but he was supposed to figure that out himself. Your husband will spend the rest of the week tiptoe-ing around making a rustling noise as you have made him too scared to eat anything that you haven't cooked, so he snacks in secret and hides the packets in his pockets.

You cry because you read a copy of Miami Fitness magazine and it features a bikini contest and you know that you will NEVER look like that and also because it reminds you of the time that you lost your voucher for a spray tan and the salon didn't let you have a spray tan and you were pale and sad, like now.

You cry because you're going for a meal out and can't decide what to wear.

You cry because you're going for a meal out and you decide what to wear and then discover that it's in the wash.

Just before you leave for a meal out you decide the bathroom must be cleaned NOW and you get bleach on your outfit and cry again.

You cry because you're in bed and the laptop charger won't reach that far from the plug and you have to move.

You cry because you buy some raspberry flavoured liquorice and you eat it and it tastes like liquorice and you weren't expecting this and thought it would taste like strawberry laces.

You cry in the middle of the night because you knock a glass of water off the bedside table in your sleep and are too tired to move and clear it up, so you lie there crying in the dark.

A Slice of Marriage: If You Don't Know By Now...

It might just be a funny habit I have, but if I ever come across skills or pieces of information that I know will probably be essential to my daily routine for years to come, I like to store them in my brain for future use as opposed to, say, ignoring them. These include nuggets such as 'how to bath a baby', 'how to make spaghetti bolognaise' (although not necessarily spell it), 'how to retrieve toothbrushes from the toilet U-bend', etc. Therefore it is eternally beyond me how Patrick can ask me questions like this:


"Does Esmae's vest need to be fastened at the bottom? And does it go under or over her clothes?"


Yes, really. I can't think of a time or place when metal poppers placed at the crotch of a baby vest were deemed to be the height of fashionable embellishment, which leads me to conclude that yes, they are for fastening the garment; nor can I recall any child, ever, wearing their underwear over their clothes (Superman impersonations excepted, of course).


I don't know what Patrick is thinking about when he watches me dress Esmae, but it is clearly so diverting that he doesn't pick up one ounce of familiarity with the process. To be honest it's probably coffee or running that is taking up his brainpower; it's certainly not anything like absorbing important everyday information like the items in our house or their general arrangement. Around once a week Patrick will ask me where something is; he will usually be searching for something that we use every day and therefore has a general 'place' within our home. A year after we got married, he asked me where we kept the plates. The plates. As in, the ones we eat off several times a day- the same ones that we get out of the same cupboard above the same oven every time we need them.
A couple of months ago, Patrick was searching for 'where Esmae's clothes are kept' (incredibly, they are in a large set of drawers in her bedroom- we are not talking Sherlock-style sleuthing here). The clearly overwhelming perplexity of the getting-Esmae-dressed saga became apparent yesterday when I asked if she was ready to go out. He said yes. Walking into the lounge I discovered my daughter wearing a nappy, jeans, socks and shoes. No vest and no top. "She didn't want a top", he explained.
Ah. But of course.

Birthday Running Joy

It's Patrick's birthday today, which means that he is allowed to browse for a few hours (but what feels like, and may actually be, all eternity) in a gigantic 'running shop'. A running shop to me is like kryptonite to Superman; I cannot think of many more painful ways to spend a Saturday than surrounded by fifty thousand pairs of trainers that all look identical but apparently possess completely unique and highly prized qualities like heel- formed gel insoles and bare-foot lightweight technology and other things that have skipped residency in my small brain-bank of limited knowledge.


Apart from the actual stock, this particular running shop (I don't know if they're all the same; I can't bring myself to go into any others) is full of- (surprise!)- runners. What you may not know and what I only discovered when I met Patrick, is that runners are actually another breed of human: a super-breed so dedicated to slapping one foot in front of the other that they will endure such horrors as ripped-off toenails, huge open blisters and even (and I might well be sick as I write this) chaffed and bleeding nipples from the friction of rubbing against their chosen sportswear.
I can't begin to understand the pleasure that these people get from their hobby, but I suppose that is part of the fun for them; belonging to a secret circle of like-minded sportsmen and women who can all push their bodies to the limit, and of course talk in The Code.


If you haven't heard The Code being used in everyday life then a) you are not a Runner with a capital R, and b) pop along to your next local park run and stand at the finish line. You'll hear them say things like 'Ah, I was three milliseconds off my PB today- its the DOMS from last week, it's killing me and I just hit that lactose threshold at the crucial moment- I was on for a CR and now look, I won't be on any LSD runs for weeks.'


It took me a while to realise that LSD runs don't involve shady trips to meet underhand characters or an exchange of illegal substances: an LSD run is a Long Slow Distance, which is a bit of a relief to know. I was sad, however, to discover that 'MP runs' are not hilariously middle-class sprints run by local suited and booted politicians (although I'm considering organising one; who wouldn't want to watch that?) but a 'marathon pace' run. Of course.
Anyway, if I ever escape this place alive and sane I shall inform you of our no doubt 'essential' and 'great value' purchases that Patrick is convinced we will find here. In the meantime I must stop Esmae from opening the protein bars and getting her fingers stuck in bicycle spikes and other apparently appealing activities.

Testing... Baby ESP.

Recently, I was asked by the lovely people at Three to test out some smartphone apps designed to make life a little easier for parents. 'Fantastic', I thought, 'A free 24-hour babysitting service that delivers qualified nannies at the touch of a button.' Well, almost. I have a few apps installed on my new Samsung Galaxy (a big thank-you to Three and Prima Baby magazine for such a lovely gift!) and I have been trying them all out and waiting for the miraculous calm and organisation that I've waited so long for to fall into my lap with each tap of the buttons. 

A particularly thorough and well-considered app is Baby ESP. For parents who wish to get their kids into a routine (and who doesn't, even to some extent?) this is a fantastic brain-space-saver. No more scraps of paper recording feeding times, no more trying to remember when a nappy was last changed; this app does it all for you and even records it in a handy schedule, as so:

You can choose to include aspects of your baby's routine including eating, sleeping, drinking, nappies, medicine and other little details such as growth measurements and weight to see how your little one is developing. 

Although it might seem fairly rigid, (if not downright paranoid) to record every single thing your baby does, for parents trying to establish a routine before going back to work or simply to try and pre-empt when they are next going to be able to snatch a couple of hours' sleep, this app will be pretty invaluable. 

It's even made me that extra bit excited about baby 2's arrival; no more first-time-Mum chaos for me, I shall be armed with organisation and ready for routine. Well, as armed and ready for a newborn as one can be...!

Yesterday Esmae, I and some good friends went to see Patrick run the London marathon; the evening before, he had spent hours pacing up and down the hall, muttering and moving things around and generally emitting tense and nervous vibes. Then we had this conversation, which I can only hope will never, ever, be repeated. 

"Darling, what are you doing? Why don't you come and sit down?"

"I'm packing."

"For what? All your kit is in here."

"Extras. Just stuff I've thought of today that I might need. I'll be in in a minute."

"What are you packing?"

"Plasters, for my feet. An extra bottle of water, which I'll have before the race. And wet wipes."

"What are the wet wipes for?"

"In case I poo myself."

I had been happily reclining on our sofa eating a cheese string, which obviously takes a fair amount of concentration, so I didn't get up. Patrick was still fussing outside in the hall, so I had a minute to think about this revelation before he stuck his head around the door.

"Where are the packs of wet wipes?"

"They're under Esmae's high chair. You are joking, aren't you?"

"About what?"

"Pooing yourself. In public. Or at all."

"Oh- no. It happens to lots of runners. They get nervous, there's nowhere to stop. It happened to Paula Radcliffe."

"You're not Paula Radcliffe, love. You can't be serious. If you need to go just stop at one of the porta-loos."

"I can't, my legs will seize up if I sit down. And I can't stop at the side of the road either, there'll be people in the way."

"You're having a laugh. So you'd do what, keep running?"

"Yes, I'd have to."

"I don't think so, love. There's no 'have to' about it; no one's making you do this. You can't possible be considering running 26 miles with poo in your shorts. It's disgusting."

"That's what the wet wipes are for. And I'd chuck the shorts as soon as I got to the finish. It'll be fine, love, you won't even notice."

"Perhaps because I won't even be there. I'm not battling the tube with a pram and waiting in packed crowds for three hours to welcome you across the finish line with diarrhoea streaming down your legs. Please, if you have to go just run into a toilet. They'll be all along the route."

Patrick thought hard. I thought he might be practicing clenching. 

"Ok. Fine. I'll stop."

"Thank you. You can always stop and start your stopwatch again to take it off your time. So you won't need the wet wipes?"

"I guess not."

The marathon was great. Patrick had to pull out after twelve miles as he twisted his knee, but at least he didn't poo himself. When I went to wash his kit, however, I made a small discovery. There at the bottom, wrapped in his running vest, was a small travel-pack of baby wipes, 'just in case.' 

There is no place or time in the Universe where I would take sport that seriously. Next year I'll be spiking his pre-marathon protein shakes with Imodium.

Esmae's First Pets

So I'm not an incredible pet fanatic. It's not that I don't like animals; it's just that I would prefer to spend my spare time sleeping rather than up to my elbows in urine-soaked sawdust, and would rather spend money on make-up and McDonald's breakfasts than small jars of pickled mice or mealworms or cans of pulverised intestine to feed the thing.
With this in mind, I hadn't really planned on getting Esmae a pet, especially at this age when she is too young to either feed or bury it herself. However, I can't resist a good educational project and when I spotted some frogspawn floating on the top of our local pond I had to liberate a few jellied blobs from its dirty depths and bring it home for Esmae to watch as it hatched. I say liberate- I had envisioned a kind of heroic Steve Irwin-style arm sweep from the edge of the pond and my triumphant return with some neatly potted spawn. In reality, I had to wade ankle-deep through algae and slime and try and tease some of the slippery sods into an empty jam jar with my bare hands and a splintery stick. Have you ever tried getting just a couple of bits of frogspawn from a big splurge of it? It's not easy. The thing stuck together in its huge gelled mass and flopped over my jeans, coat and hands as I shoved it into the container. Thinking I couldn't feel any more ridiculous, I turned around to find an old man and his four grandchildren watching me from the edge of the pond. A wide smile and mumblings about a "nature project for my daughter" allowed me to escape without further interrogation, but my pride was as mushy as the couple of spawn-speheres I was carrying.

As it turns out, I somehow managed to acquire much, much more spawn than I wanted. I had imagined two or three little tadpoles wriggling about in the big glass tank I had at home; we now have about sixty or seventy of the little critters. Esmae loves them but I'm drawing the line at naming them all- and soon, I'm going to have to think about what I'm going to do with sixty-odd baby frogs hopping around my lounge. Anyone want a pet?

Party Time and a Glam Adventure

Well, what a delightful few days. The curry bonanza on my birthday was held as planned, and the surprise guest appearance from Dad's goat curry went down particularly well with the hungry masses. (For the record, Dad is apparently pretty easy to win over. The main justification he gave my bemused Mum for buying several huge goat legs as well as a van-full of chickens was that 'they were nice butchers. They offered me an apple when I went in'. I don't know what the meat cost, but I would suggest that this was possibly the world's most expensive apple).
Amongst other lovely birthday gifts, I was treated to a beautiful ring from Patrick, a fortnight's holiday in June to Turkey from my extremely generous parents and a postcard with three scribbled lines of illegible but good-humoured abuse from my brother, who is currently being eaten by ticks and bears (and hopefully, guilt for missing my birthday) in the American wilderness.
Today, the fun continued. I received an email from one of the lovely PR ladies who like to sporadically sprinkle my life with happiness flakes. Would I mind awfully hopping in a cab to London with Esmae, being pampered for a while and having a photo shoot for Prima Baby magazine? And would it put me out awfully if they sent me home with a brand new Samsung Galaxy II loaded with some personalised apps to play around with? After much soul searching and heavy conference with Patrick, I decided that it would be distinctly uncharitable of me to decline such a request. Which is, of course, how Esmae and I found ourselves surrounded by a swarm of good looking and very nice-smelling people in a swish studio this morning, being fitted for clothes and sprayed with things and wondering- and this distracted me throughout the whole morning- how on earth you spell 'jooshed', (the j pronounced like the g is bourgeois, the oo's like cook, and the sh like the g in bourgeois again) which is apparently what they were doing to my hair. Esmae was very good, thankfully, and even kept her hair clips in for the photo shoot- I was just happy that the stylist managed to find something that didn't make me look like the Waistless Wonder.
The apps that the good people at Three are loading onto my phone, in case you were wondering, are all created to help with life's little parenting inconveniences. My original suggestion of a laser with which to zap whining children was unfortunately denied, but I am very much looking forward to the alternative- an app that consolidates times and locations of all the local playgroups, so that I can whizz a bored baby to a Wiggle and Jiggle at a moment's notice. I shall let you know how I get on.
We had a fantastic day with the Prima Baby and Three team, and Esmae especially would like to convey her thanks to them for keeping her happy and letting her sprawl in the pile of (new, clean, not-too-be-snotted-on) clothes in the styling room.
And I like being jooshed.

Big Birthday Plans

My phone's ringing. It's Mum.

"Hiya, love. Just thought we could go over some things for Saturday."

Saturday. My birthday. 23. About as enthusiastic about birthdays as I am about listening to football commentaries on the radio.

"Ok. What things?"

"Well, we thought it would be nice to have a BBQ."

"Yes, that sounds lovely."

"What would you like?"

"Hmm, could we have pr-"

"We thought we'd do sausages, chicken, nice steak and some of those wild buffalo burgers that Dad got from Scotland."

"That sounds great, only thing is red meat is making me sick at the moment. Do you think we could have some prawns?"

"No. Too expensive. There'll be sausages and burgers and-"

"Sausages and burgers are red meat, Mum. And you just said steak and wild buffalo burgers- they sound expensive. How about prawns instead of the steak and buffalo?"

"No, I don't think so. There's no room in the freezer."

"Oh. Ok."

"What would you like for dessert?"

"How about Pavlova?"

"Seriously? No, I thought I'd do a chocolate torte, apple crumble and a sponge."

"I'd really like Pavlova; I'm not eating chocolate while I'm pregnant, that makes me sick too."

"Ah, well. You can have the crumble then. Anything else?"

"Um, no. I think you've got it covered."

"Oh, hang on, Dad's saying something.... Oh, we're not doing a BBQ. Dad doesn't want to, he's decided to do a curry instead. What curry would you like?"

"Umm..."

"I thought chicken, lovely. Accompaniments?"

"Mm, some samosas would be-"

"I'll get some Naans. Ok great chick, talk to you later. Love you."

"Love you too."

All aboard the Curry Party Express.

A Confession

Yes, I might have fibbed a bit. Well not exactly fibbed; more like omitted key information in my last post. Yes, my workload from my course is heavy, and yes, it's tricky trying to juggle that with a kid and a daily blog. But really, the reason I've been on such a long and silent break from these pages can be found at the bottom of my toilet- the same place I find myself staring on a too-frequent basis now that I've been reacquainted with my old friend Morning Sickness (and I mean 'friend' in the same way that Tom and Jerry or Wile. E. Coyote and Roadrunner may be considered 'friends'). Baby #2 is well on its way- I am 16 weeks' pregnant and counting- and I can't believe how completely I had forgotten the physical joys of early pregnancy.

It's not just the sickness; a five-minute trip to the loo each day wouldn't completely inconvenience me, despite Esmae's best efforts to stick her hand into the toilet or grab my hair or throw her toothbrush into the bowl as I'm throwing up. It's the complete and utter exhaustion, the total wiped-out-ness that knocks you off your feet and renders you unable to stay awake past 7pm, that I had blanked from memory. I honestly feel like I did done nothing productive for the first three whole months of this pregnancy- the merest scraps of housework, minimal cooking and negligible studying- and now, seeing the light in the second-trimester tunnel, I feel like one of those Emperor penguins must feel at the end of a long, black winter, when the Sun starts creeping over the ice and shining its lovely rays and making everything sparkle again.
That doesn't, however, mean that I am 'radiant' or 'glowing' or any other remotely warm or fuzzy term that one might use to make fat hormonal pregnant women feel better about their shapeless lumps of anatomy. No, quite the opposite.

Have you seen the most recent Twilight film? The one where the girl gets impregnated by the vampire and it sucks the life and spirit out of her and crushes her bones from the inside? Yes, that one. Well I won't go as far as to say my little foetus-face is going to snap my spine in half, or that I am craving pints of human blood (yet), but there is a certain parallel to be drawn between the way in which Twilight-girl's beast-baby fed off her, and whatever is happening to my body. My skin is rubbish, my hair is rubbish, I have stretchmarks on my ass and if I eat more than three mouthfuls at a time, my stomach bloats like Octomum on her due date. Hmm. I am hoping that, as I wade through this second trimester, the baby might allow me a little aesthetic reprieve and at least allow my boobs to grow vaguely evenly this time. One can but hope.

P.T.I., s'il vous plait...

So I've neglected this blog rather terribly over the last month or so; my eternal apologies. A couple of things are to blame: firstly, my family fell into a dire bout of sickness which has meant that for the last month I have been dealing alternately with my fussy, snotty daughter and a fussy, coughing husband. Highlights of these five plagued weeks have included a trip to Mayday with a poor dehydrated gastroenteritis-y baby, sleepless nights, receiving a text from Patrick that read "I couldn't wash up bcos I was napping" and general feeling of helplessness that accompanies the illness of one's children.

The other reason that I have been otherwise engaged is entirely my own stupid fault. Over the New Year I treated myself to a double helping of stress in the form of another Uni module, which was a demonstration of such idiocy that I can now barely contain my irritation with myself. For those of you unfamiliar with the Open Uni, I shall briefly explain my current situation: I'm whinging my way through an English degree which consists of six modules of supposedly varying difficulty. You are generally expected to complete one to two modules per year as the institution is aimed at those people with full-time jobs or kids or other major distractions that mean that they only have a few snatched hours a week to read their books. They don't have any guidelines for Majorly Impatient and Easily Bored Students, though, so I took it upon myself to 'double up' with two modules at once; theoretically to minimise the risk of getting too bored and packing the whole thing in.

It hasn't worked. With one module I was fed up; with two modules I was fed up and stressing myself out trying to find 32 hours every week in which to study, as opposed to the usual 16 hours that I manage to grab when Esmae is napping or after she has gone to bed. Happily, the Open Uni are used to people doing silly things like this and are being very agreeable in allowing me to postpone the extra module until more convenient time. So I've gone back to my original study plan and I am now just on the one module, leaving me free to finish nursing my sickly charges and blog to y'all about nothing in particular (that's if, of course, anyone is still there...).

In other news, Esmae is now walking which apparently means that I no longer have a baby (sob!) but am officially a member of the Toddler Parent Club (this may or may not exist). As far as I can tell, this means that I get to do fun things like sacrifice my fingers for mincing between the sharp corners of furniture and Esmae's head, and pay £40 for shoes the size of a matchbox which will fit for two weeks...

Yoga, or What The Hell Is This.

I went to Yoga the other day. I figure that seeing as I now torture myself with a thrash about in the swimming pool on a regular basis now, I may as well try out all the classes that my club has to offer in the vain hope that I will walk into one and be told 'in this class, you have a nap on a mat and when you wake up you'll have the toning of Angelina Jolie and legs like Elle McPherson. I'm still waiting.

I've done Yoga on and off since I was about fifteen. My first teacher looked like Whooping Goldberg and had exactly the same voice (come to think about it, maybe she was Whoopi Goldberg), causing me to fall asleep more than once during 'relaxation'.
The teachers at Esporta seem to be less concerned with relaxation and more concerned with bending us all into impossible knots. They all have their different styles (school-marmish ballerina, relaxed Aussie chick and tough-as-nails East-End girl) and they all have their own flair and charm.

For this fateful session a few days ago, however, we had the instructor who I fundamentally do not understand. If she had to wear a label it might say 'Massive leaf-loving hippie', and she takes Yoga to places like the Tenby Haven Caravan Park (for which read: one visit per lifetime is plenty, thank you). She leads us in a flowing routine of wholesome backward bends and conditioning side twists- and then ruins it all by opening her mouth. Her accent means that everyone is concentrating extra hard on deciphering what she is saying, but by the time we've clarified the actual words it's clear that we are all on a different planet anyway as we have no idea what she is on about. Being in a session with her is what I imagine it would be like if you took a couple of tabs of LSD and sat in on a Year nine biology class.

"Now. Position your sits bones. Remove the flesh from your buttocks. Remove it. Imagine just the sits bones, making contact with the floor. Pressing into the floor. Close your eyes. Can you feel it? The bubbles. The bubbles of energy surging through your bodies. That- that is the Chi. The Chi, the life force flowing through us all. And the burning in your abs? That is the blue light telling us that our bodies are healing. Allow the blue light to course through the veins; it is cool and calming. Allow yourselves to be soothed by the blue light.

Now breathe in. When we breathe in we are inhaling energy. Breathe in more blue light. Now breathe out. When we breathe out we are exhaling tiredness. That is red. Breathe out the red light. You know why we feel tired in the day? A blockage, a blockage of Chi. The same reason we experience pain. Pain is when our Chi cannot pass through our bodies because of not enough Yin or Yang; it gets trapped. If you have muscle pain; this is because you are too Yin. The athletes, in the Olympics? They retire in their forties because they have done too much Yin movement, they have lost their balance. If you have joint pain? Like the old people? They have too much Yang. When we are teeny babies, we are Yin. Then between twenty and thirty years we are perfect balance. Then we move into Yang, and this is when our problems start.

Also a problem is our stress. Our gall bladder is our decision-making centre. If there is a blockage in our gall bladder meridian we have worry, we have stress. In this class though, we are good. We must bring light and love to the world. Rub your hands together, place them over your eyes. Feel the warmth; it brings sparkle to your eyes. Now reach out and harness the energies of the Earth; bring them into your heart. Now push up; we are pushing our light and love to the world."

You get the idea. All I can say is, I can't see any blue light (I certainly don't inhale any); I don't know who Yin is; I am certainly not 'perfectly balanced' right now and if my gall bladder is my 'decision making centre', then quite frankly we all have another reason to worry.

Hannah vs Siri

So I've got this iPhone. One of the reasons that I was so surprised when I unwrapped it on Christmas Day is that I am not the sort of person one might imagine to use such an implement of extravagant and sophisticated technology. I am not, and have never been, part of the 'i-Club'; you know, the increasing number of people who won't buy anything electrical unless it has an apple on it, and who say things like "Yeah, and you know I can stream the internet to my London pad from Manila" and who have black leather cases for all these apple-stickered items.

I can't stand the cases. I understand that they protect the phone, and inevitably I will drop it, but having the leather flap about by my ear really gets on my nerves. Patrick loves the cases. He loves anything that preserves this new, sacred addition to our family. Since I have had the phone, it has been in my possession for around twenty minutes. The rest of the time, I am asking Patrick where it is, since he constantly moves it from wherever I put it and stashing it in his pocket, or the Man Drawer, or wrapping it in a sweater and nestling it on the windowsill so that it feels cushioned and loved and can watch the squirrels leap about in the garden. It's like having another Esmae.
Apart from, of course, the fact that Esmae is too young to have any real attitude yet. Sure, she has her moments, but can generally be coaxed back to her toothy grin with a soft toy or a couple of raisins.

This little demon that has possessed my phone, however, seems to be immune to any placation or soothing, and appears to exist simply to throw a dark cloud over my excitement at owning this shiny new toy. It doesn't need me, doesn't like me, and certainly isn't afraid to show it. In fact, considering its job is to provide answers to my more abstract musings, and that it was sold to Apple customers as a 'personal assistant', I am amazed at its downright disobedience and rebellious attitude.

Siri.
This thing- this hyped-up, futuristic and conceptually incredible thing, was probably what I was most excited about when I got the phone. When you spend most waking hours talking to a dribbling infant, anything that will respond to you seems like quality company, and I was looking forward to filling my head with all sorts of nonsensical snippets of info that it apparently could provide me with. I was also looking forward to it texting for me, as my attempts at using a touch-screen are comparable to watching the Honey Monster thread a needle- that is to say, considerably sub-par.
None of these dreams, however, seem to be coming true. What I seem to have acquired is a teenage American boy- the nasally, just-broken voice; the long silence before an eventual reply and of course, a sulky answer that has solved none of my queries and left me wondering why on earth I didn't just Google it myself.

Things that I like about Siri:

* Its name.
* The hope that one day, we may have a flourishing relationship whereby I ask it questions and it answers them immediately and accurately.
* The fact that until that day comes, we will embark on a journey together which will be entertaining if not entirely useful.
* The fact that it reminds me of my pet chameleon that kept dying in increasingly alarming waves and recovering, forcing me to syringe-feed it ridiculously expensive powder until it did eventually croak- the concept that despite it being useless, it is still mine and therefore I must love it.

Things that I don't like about Siri:

* The fact that it repeats every question back to you, like a dodgy murder suspect. "My name? It's... Siri."
* The fact that exactly what I have asked it comes up perfectly worded on the screen, yet Siri will still claim "I don't understand what you are asking."
* The way it forces me to talk in a stupid accent in order for it to recognise my request. (Suggestion: there should be a Croydon User App).
* The fact that it is a male voice. I feel that if I end up arguing with it (as I already have) then a female will be more forgiving and understanding of the hormonal and emotional nature of Woman. This bloke seems to already have a grudge on account of the tirade of abuse I may or may not have launched at it after it called four different people before realising what I was saying. I'm just waiting for it to announce that it's 'out with the boys on Saturday'.
* The major attitude wall I come up against every time I ask it about itself.
"How old are you, Siri?"
"Does this concern you?"
"Yes."
"I thought so. I don't see why it matters."
* The fact that when I first turned on the phone I held it up to my face, glowing in expectation, and asked "Siri? Are you there?" and consequently had Patrick rolling around on the floor in laughter. And the fact that Patrick text my family to tell them I'd done this. And the fact that I still don't really know why this is so dumb; I assumed it could hear me. I know this isn't technically Siri's fault, but still...

Whilst writing that list, I have just realised something. I did not apologise to Siri after being rather impatient and possibly a tad or extremely rude to it when we were just getting to know each other on Boxing Day. I wonder if this is perhaps why it seems so reluctant to answer any of my questions; I shall prostrate myself before its tiny robotic noggin and see if begging its forgiveness has any effect. I shall report back.

Only 363 Days To Go...

Why hello there! I hope you can just about make out these words through the haze of leftover turkey and rejected Quality Street. I have certainly eaten twice my body weight in various meats and chocolate over the last few days and have put my already-tight pair of favourite jeans to the back of my mind, and indeed my wardrobe.

We had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas together, especially as it was Esmae's first- having a child really does put the cherry on the icing on the cake, if you will, when it comes to Christmas morning. Although at eleven months she is too young to understand everything that is going on, her little eyes lighting up at the twinkly tree and crinkly wrapping paper really made our day; it was gorgeous.

I'm not particularly fussed when it comes to receiving Christmas presents- I had made my Mum a padded pinboard which I was particularly excited about giving to her, and Lewis and Patrick both got tickets to a London comedy show. Dad had a Lovefilm subscription (which I will kindly test for him) and Esmae had a beautiful rocking elephant and around four million books, as well as lots of lovely things from other family members. I had not asked for anything specific, and was less than shocked when Patrick announced on Christmas Eve, the busiest shopping day of the year, that he was "just popping into town for a few bits".

Ahem. One of the things I've learnt about being married is that you need to pick your battles- Patrick's annual Christmas Eve shopping trip is not one of mine. Each year, despite passionately hating shopping, despite never ever doing a scrap of it throughout the year and despite having 364 days to prepare for the 25th December, Patrick will need to "nip", "pop" or otherwise get to Croydon (always using a verb that implies a quick in-and-out, grab-it-and-go sort of thing and therefore avoiding my objections at the waste of a precious day off) to get my Christmas present/s. This year, he phoned me after he had been in town for two hours.

"Hi, love. You ok?"
"Yep, all good, Esmae's just playing. You nearly home?"
"Erm.. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of- you got any ideas?"
"Any ideas for what?"
"What you want for Christmas."
"Huh?"
"Your Christmas present. What do you want- I've got some ideas, I just..."
"Just what? Um, I don't know love. I thought you'd have already got something, you've been nearly three hours. Anything you want to get me will be lovely. Can you comes home so I can go to Zumba?"
"Yeah, that's fine- yeah. Cool. Right. Ok, I'll be home soon."

Patrick came home. I went to Zumba. I came home.

"Love?"
"Yes?"
"I'm just nipping out for a bit."
"What? Why?"
"Just to finish off what I was doing earlier."
"What? Patrick, it's Christmas Eve. We're having dinner at Mum's. Don't worry about presents, I don't need anything."
"I really have to go back in. I forgot to do something. I'll be really quick, I promise."
"Ok. I'll meet you at Mum's."

Five hours, he spent in Croydon. Five hours. I have no idea what he was doing in that time, but part of the fog lifted when I unwrapped my presents from him- the usual posh chocolates, The Office box-set, a fleece from one of those middle-class 'We've-got-chickens-and-a-Range-Rover-haw-haw-we're-just-like-that-couple-from-the-Good-Life' shops, and- and- an iPhone 4S, which he had evidently been setting up in one of the rammed phone shops in the Whitgift Centre.

I have had some adventures with this tiny box of technology over the last 72 hours, and shall probably be blogging about it tomorrow. Until then, I still be here on this sofa, reuniting the loser blue-foiled Quality Street with the more delicious and attractive of its friends in my stomach. Here's to making the most of the full 12 days of Christmas...

Turkeys Are Less Stuffed.

So it's Christmas. You know- that time of the year when people who usually wouldn't spend five minutes in each other's company like to squidge into overheated family living rooms, ten per three-seater-sofa, and throw challenging culinary attempts and liberal amounts of alcohol into an already potentially explosive situation in a courageous effort to maintain the appearance of goodwill and joyful festivity.
Luckily, my family doesn't have to make any particular efforts in this manner, as we like to be overinvolved in each other's lives every single day of the year. So Christmas, for us, is just like every other day but with more food. And that is probably the oddest thing about it.

This is on account of my Mum being a 'feeder'. You've seen that 300kg man on Youtube, bed-bound and still being fed buckets of KFC by his devoted wife. My Mum could be that wife; every day brings a new freshly-baked cake and pots of steaming stew and chunky casseroles. Most people greet each other with "Hi, how are you?" My Mum greets people with "Hi, would you like some cake?" It's all very nice, although my brother and I agree that she has, forever and eternally, ruined 'eating out' for us. If we are ever in a restaurant, we can survey the menu and immediately write off at least half of it, knowing that Mum could do it better. This is true for lasagne; roast dinners and all cakes and desserts.

Today then, we expected a pretty average roast dinner (average being, by all accounts, very good) with the usual trimmings. We should have known better. Instead of, say, a turkey and a couple of pigs-in-blankets, we had the following:

A roast lamb
A roast chicken
A roast partridge
A roast wood-pigeon
A beef wellington
Wild boar sausages
Pork sausages wrapped in streaky bacon
And twelve- TWELVE- different kinds of vegetables.

This, of course, was followed by Christmas pudding, waffles, Victoria sponge and a carrot cake.

How many people, you may be wondering, was this for? Ten? Fifteen? Twenty hungry adult mouths?

Five. Five people. That works out at a whole roast animal each, with a heap of sausages and veg to boot. Suffice to say, I am regretting wearing skinny jeans, and have pushed my already-tight favourite pair of shorts to the back of my mind, and indeed the wardrobe.

Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope you are having as lovely a day as I am.

Three Years Ago Today.

Four months earlier, I would have got a new job and taken up a seat at the desk next to Patrick's. He would ask me if I was a Buddhist as I had a book by the Dalai Lama on my desk. (Answer: no.)

Three months earlier, I would think that Patrick was very strange. He drank green tea and had really wild curly hair. He also really annoyed me by putting a Malteser in my hot chocolate one time; now I can't remember why I found this so irritating.

Two months earlier, I had found that Patrick was the nicest person I had ever met. I still thought he was wierd, but was looking forward more and more to work every day, and started giving him lifts to and from work.

One month earlier, Patrick would buy me a bar of Fairtrade chocolate, which was unbelievably thoughtful and attentive as I spent most of our commute banging on about human trafficking charities and how I wanted to change the World, or something.

Three weeks earlier, we would be in the car. I would, for some reason, be talking about love. I would say something like 'sometimes, I guess the one for you is right in front of your eyes and you don't even know it'. I would realise at that moment that I loved Patrick. We would look at each other and away again.

Two weeks earlier, Patrick would come to an anti-trafficking meeting with me. The next day at work, he would ask me if I wanted to go and feed the swans at lunchtime. I would say yes. The swans were very aggressive and attacked a small dog in front of us. We still had a good time.

One week earlier, our friend would have a bad day at work and vent her frustration by blowing our cover. 'You obviously love each other so why don't you just get together instead of talking to me about it all the time!' she would yell in the office. Patrick and I would be mortified. He would come to my house after work and help me make a cake. We would go for a walk and I would avoid the inevitable subject for half an hour. Eventually, we would both admit that we knew that if we got together, that would be it, forever. We left it there.

Tonight, Patrick and I would be sitting on a sofa in our friend's freezing flat after a night at The Rectory pub in Purley. We would both be very nervous. Eventually, we would have our first kiss, after months of flitting about pretending we weren't absolutely besotted with each other.

Tomorrow, Patrick would sleep on the sofa at my house. We would spend every minute together from now on.

In three weeks, Patrick would tell me he loved me. I would say it back.

In two months, we would book a three-month trip to South-East Asia.

In four months, we would go on the trip.

In seven months, we would both get new jobs at a gym in Wandsworth. We don't know how to work apart.

In eight months, he would book a hot-air balloon ride and ask me to marry him. I would, of course, say yes.

In one year and five months, I would become pregnant with Esmae.

In one year and eight months, we would get married.

In two years and two months, our daughter would arrive.

An in three years exactly, I would blog about it all.