threescore

but Lily loves moonsquirter sauce!

Had to go out and buy a baby spoon this morning, as she chews my finger pretty hard.

Which you probably knew already: those who use Binary, and those who don’t. 

Here are some interesting types of folk I’ve encountered recently: 

 1. I sat next to an Italian mum today in ‘Baby Buddies’ and explained what the health visitor was talking about. Very exciting. I don’t think they have a word for ‘lap’ in Italian. (Shame). I think eleven-year-olds are allowed to actually sit on car seats in Italy. (Intriguing).

2. Like the rest of my ante-natal group, I’ve discovered that at this point in my life I am moulting ridiculous amounts of no-longer-pregnant hair. It looks like the day after Crufts at our house and I’m surprised I’m not bald.

3. Squealy McSqueal had a passport photo taken today, and thankfully we got a good result (after turning round and lunging forward ruined the first two). I am not holding out much hope of it being acceptable however, as I have no idea WHAT the Guild of Passport Blurb Writers think they are on about.

4. Viewing nurseries has proved to me that quality does indeed vary, as testified by expressions on faces and the rule of messiness being inversely proportional to happiness in toddlers. The best places weren’t the ones I expected, but I picked up good ideas for activities and child-friendly furniture from most.

5. Most places that do weekday lunches do not do their fifteen-minute ‘meal or money back’ offers if there are 14 persons present and 7 of them are under 5 months old, but the staff are more smiley than usual and happier to bring drinks to the tables.

6. My mentee and I agreed that the more likely a young person is to have real issues, the quieter they are about them. And vice versa.

7. Blind boys find babies fascinating too.

8. When new people join your church it is interesting to see if you are related, even though you were born in completely different places. And then to see if you are related to the minister. In my case this actually happened last weekend.

9. Health visitors recommend baby products which are good for their skin (15 times thinner than adults’, apparently), but have no problem with them going swimming in chlorine-filled pools with a hint of water and coming out blotchy and red.

10. However much you smile, there are always some people who do not smile back. But most do.

My new favourite song, since finding a £4 gem of a CD at Woolworths last week, is Alma Cogan’s In the Middle of the House. What a hoot! We do not have room for a railroad track in the middle of our property, but we do have Scalextric from time to time and I’m saving up for some Brio.

I received my first Mothering Sunday card yesterday from my daughter (whose handwriting looks remarkably like her father’s). I also got chocolates and flowers, but only at home. We did not do Mothering Sunday at church this year. Too sensitive all round, what with various sad departures and friends of ours having lost a baby when he was born in October. Clare held Lily for a while in church yesterday and always asks how she is doing. They have put up more photos of Theo on their own blog recently.

I have to agree that celebrating mothers in public, along with an excess of saccharine or lateral  TV advertisements (”Who needs daffodils Mum when you can have a Nintendo DS?”) really is unfair on many people who do not have a living mother, as well as those who have suffered in their own upbringing or route to parenthood. It rubs salt in the wound, and pretends to kiss it better.

Some people say mother’s day is unfair on fathers, although they may like to look into the history of it all. I find it quite reasonable that my dad does not approve of Father’s Day, being manufactured by such kind-hearted capitalists as Hallmark. As my husband does actually send his father a card, we shall have to see what Lily decides to do in June…

Personally I would far rather encourage and thank both of my parents for their tireless and patient work bringing me up by living a decent and honest life, full of effort for others, hard work and love for family. Where I cannot pay them back I intend to pay the reward forward to my own child and any other children later.

Including singing along with Alma Cogan, when necessary.

what would you do?

Our days are so short on earth. Why not treat today as if it had been given to you as a bonus gift? Celebrate living. Treasure the details. Don’t worry or complain. Observe. Listen. Love. Find ways of enjoying what is regular and laugh at cheap sentimental blogs.

So, I am doing a bit of admin. I just came across the council Register of Electors letters. You have to contact them to tell them that nothing has changed in your voting status and jury eligibility. Oops. I think this letter has been propping up the inbox for some weeks. So I try registering BY INTERNET as advised, and discover that I cannot. I try calling the FREEPHONE number and get a friendly eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepclick. The click is the noise I make hanging up, but it is integral to the experience.

On the back of the letter I find a tiny telephone number and call it, full of apology for having a baby and not doing my paperwork yet. I discover that the letter was sent in September and that I already registered by internet and forgot to record it. So I apologise for pregnancy brain and forgettery (see May 3rd). Gulpclick.

I wonder what other paperwork I inadvertently did months ago and forgot about?

I wonder whether you have to do jury service if, like astronaut Jack R. Lousma, you were born on 29th February 1936 and are turning 72 today (or is it 18?). Then again, I doubt Lousma would be eligible to vote in Ipswich, being all American.

Yesterday I joined a Baby Buddies post-natal group where we were asked to give our children’s ages, names and reasons for names. I loved it! We had respellings of mother-in-law’s first names, foreign names, respellings of biblical names so they don’t sound too arky, made up names (deliberately difficult to spell and already regretted) and a little boy whose dad got to name him after a member of Pink Floyd if he was a boy. The mum had a girl’s name she liked, and it wasn’t David. She warned us not to enter into these kinds of contracts. It is good to know that the group babies will be exposed to much cultural stimulation, including language and music.

However, admin is not going to get discovered that it has already been done if I sit around one-handedly typing like this all morning. Must get on. Only 24 hours in a day.

Four and a half years ago I promised to love, honour and obey my husband, so when he placed a veto on my returning to work full-time I did not argue. It was unlikely that anyone could have talked me into it. We have tried to be prudent and allow for a part-time return to work for me. It seemed to make the most sense to us.

I have been getting used to the idea of going back to work, by keeping myself busy and visiting local nurseries.

This week I saw my Head, who told me that he cannot offer me part-time work as he has too many part-timers on the staff. I did not see this coming. Now I have to get used to the idea that I may not be working for a while at school. So I am investigating other ideas. Maybe things are working together for the best. I guess we may (or may not) understand with hindsight. I’d like to write a book with dad. I’d also like to spend time becoming a great mum. I’d also like to work abroad, fly a plane, speak another language fluently and have more children, but all these things are going to have to wait.

Today I did not have baked potatoes ready in time for lunch (there is a long and uninteresting story behind this), but I did have many family members over. I had foresight but circumstances kept interrupting. Yesterday we drove to London without checking the traffic and took 4 hours getting there, but one and a half getting back. I did not have foresight, or food in the car. From now on I will.

Lily, who finds my sister hilarious and laughs at her pulling faces, does not worry about what she will wear tomorrow or even about the hairs on her head. She just gets on with life and having her here is a wonderful learning process. She often sleeps well as she is very calm a lot of the time, but occasionally wakes at night and panics. When she summons me she knows she is safe and will be cared for. So we take one night at a time.

You find yourself using new words when you talk to young children, for example: smorgeous (to rhyme with gorgeous), sleepytime (sung high-high-low) and chickwhacking (only to be used when referring to a toy chicken strung from the handle of a certain person’s infant carrier).

Lily is conversant in Russian babble I discovered this week, as well as English. Intriguing.

A certain person is summoning me for a feed, before more sleepytime. Well, I can’t refuse; she is smorgeous.

Once upon a time I went shopping with dad last week. We parked in the parent-and-child parking, and as I was not a small child it was convenient that we also had Lily along with us.

Dad bought things like lentils and I bought things like chocolate and Lily didn’t buy anything but helped start conversations.

One of the things we found was a pack of game, such as one might use for making a game pie. (Not to be confused with International Pi day next month, dear reader.)

So very soon after I learnt how to make pastry and cooked a game pie. I did not pass Go and did not collect £200. It was not that sort of game. It was the sort of game where you find shot as you chew and you have to remember not to chew too hard, otherwise you take a chance and pay the dentist £100.

In order to make pastry for the first time in post-pregnancy memory, I had to use 2 egg yolks (the yellow bit) and leave the whites (the clear bit).

My husband, being a Clever Bloke, suggested that I use the remaining whites (still clear) to make a meringue. Ideally while the oven was still warm.

I read what St Delia of Norwich had to say and found the ingredients remarkably straightforward. 2 oz of caster sugar for each egg white (clear). ‘That’s fairly clear’ I thought. I did not think her idea of whisking until the eggs defied gravity suited my lifestyle of listening to a crying baby, so whusk until I felt ready to stop. At this point I added some of the sugar, and then all of it. I whusk and I whusk and I re-read the writings of St Delia and commited them to memory and I realised my error. There was no way I was going to create a meringue this way.

So I poured out the mixture (white) on to baking paper in a gooey line and cooked it. When I opened the oven this morning I discovered a surf board. So that was nice. Except it didn’t look very floaty or strong, and it was a bit little. So perhaps it was a cuttlefish in fact.

too young to know she’s young

heavying on my porcelain arm,

she laughed in her sleep

and me, rotten through with self-righteousness,

milking life for all I can:

I dreamt, and dream and lie awake again.

Musing on anniversaries

and trees - the only Elm in the parish

or the given fig, seeds sown and grown

he takes his tea

and those who can, remember jokes

and onion soup and dignity,

Old Spice and hedgehogs finding milk

Lily covered another 660 miles, this time in three days. It’s about time she learnt to drive, to relieve her exhausted mum and dad.

Some things that happened over the past 660 miles - all firsts for our little girl:

First grace in Hungarian;

First NCP car park;

First drinks party;

First time a man has offered (unsuccessfully) to feed her;

First hotel;

First meeting with maternal great-grandparents and great-great-uncle;

First four star hotel with free upgrade to family room with sea view;

First fire alarm while feeding (complete with two other babies, staff with radios, woman in towel, poodle and amused guests).

Nobody ever publishes books entitled “My Second Book” - is the market missing something? Life isn’t all about firsts. I think Lily has been through 26 counties now. She slept through several. Perhaps future visits will prove more interesting to her than the first.