A Sure Thing

It seems impossible that 4 months have elapsed since I got the warrant to evict the Prawn from her uterine squat.

I expected to want to record every second of her babyhood but I've found it doesn't necessarily make great reading. Days are fairly routine; eating, sleeping, smiling, laughing, puking. I often come to Blogger with a nonsense post and give up in favor of reading "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" or "Aliens Love Underpants" to her.

Since I spend most of my afternoons with the Prawn just surfing around the internet, I usually try to have something vaguely intelligent on television to keep me company. (The Prawn doesn't watch, but she listens, so I have to make sure that what she's listening to doesn't suck.) The last few weeks, I've been going back though the third and fourth seasons of The West Wing, one of my favorite shows of all time. (And I'd just assume that if the Prawn has to listen to something, it's a script written by Aaron Sorkin.) At the end of the Fourth Season, Toby Zigler, the rather prickly White House Communications Director, and his ex wife have twins, conceived through IVF, on the same night that the President's daughter is taken hostage by Muslim extremists. In a rare moment of downtime, Toby gets to discuss the birth with Chief of Staff, Leo McGarry.

TOBY: I think I was nervous I wasn’t gonna love my kids… the way other fathers love theirs.

LEO: Why?

TOBY: I don’t know. If, for nine months, you’re hearing how this is gonna change your life, and: “You’ve never loved anything like this,” and, “My God, the love” and, “Nothing’s gonna be important anymore.” It just never really felt to me like I was someone who had the capacity for those feelings. Plus, you know, I… I like what’s important to me. I want it to stay important. I, uh…I wanna be able to do it well.

LEO: What do you mean, you don’t have the capacity?

TOBY: (pauses) Anyway, I was just curious.

LEO:Of course you’re gonna be a great father. Of course you’re gonna love your kids the way you’re supposed to, the way other fathers…

TOBY: My God, Leo, we look around, we see that’s not true. It’s not automatic.

LEO: I’m not talking about everybody. I’m talking about you and I’m telling ya, it’s a mortal lock. It’s guaranteed.

I'd been looking for just that sentiment before the Prawn was born. I was terrified that I wasn't going to get that "mommy" thing. That, even after all the heartbreak, I'd look at this pink blob and just go, "Okay."

The Prawn is looking at me right now, moving her mouth up and down and making noises that could best be described as a turtle chewing bubble gum.

It's a mortal lock.

Bookworm

This should make her grandparents, the public school teachers, very happy indeed.

OT: In Need of a Purge

I try not to write stuff on my blogs that I wouldn't actually say to someone's face. The internet, while ginormous, has a tendancy of becoming very small indeed very quickly with a targeted keyword search, as so many people have found out to their peril. I don't like to go spewing vitriol anyhow- I'm not a believer in karma, but it's always seemed to me that when I radiate bad energy, it tends to either eat me or come back on me later in ways I can't imagine. Today, it's eating me and I feel like I've got to give it a voice before it bursts, Alien style, though my stomach.

I find it ironic that Pru also chose today to tackle the subject of the difficulties of making friends. Both being ex-pats, we've faced having to start over again in a new country post-education, making it hard to meet new people. While Mr. DD and I actually DO have some functional friends, the majority of them are wildly dysfuctional and I probably spend more time than I should worrying about what they get up to.

I wrote a post last year that I deleted when I believed that some of the people mentioned might have gained access to my main blog, which, at a pinch, MIGHT be able to lead to this one. I was wrong, but I was glad I deleted the post nonetheless. Unsurprisingly, some of those very same people are STILL turning me inside out with frustration.

Our god daughter's parents have just split up. This is not a particular surprise to anyone. She was an "oops" baby and we've known for ages that her parents don't particularly care for eachother. My issue at present is her mother.

"***** is getting it in the neck for finishing with her boyfriend." her rather flip Facebook status read the other night.

In an MSN conversation with Mr. DD this morning (which was obviously less friendly from his end than she was expecting) she was also remarkably casual about the prospect of our goddaughter never getting to see her half-brother again. (Her father has a son from his previous marriage.)

Mr. DD: will *** still get to see his sister?

Her: i guess, again depends on when (her boyfriend) has them

Mr. DD: :(

Her: again its probley not a great loss to *** as (his mother) will probley twist his head

Mr. DD: when he's older he'll want to know though

Mr DD: as will she

Her: i doubt he'll be that intrested as i said before, *** really happy we split up so she'll make him forget or not be bothered

Um....make him forget that he's got a little sister who he REALLY loves? Make him not interested that this person who's been with his Dad for almost two years now is suddenly not there anymore?

The fact that she's broken up with her partner neither surprises nor upsets me. What gets me is her STAGGERING flippancy about the whole thing as well as her daughter's relationship with her older brother. It's not like she's just tumbled some guy she met out at the pub. She's just broken up with the father of her daughter.

Our goddaughter was conceived at a time when I felt like my world was crumbling around my ears after my second miscarriage. This little girl managed to rescue something good out of a really messy situation for her parents and, in a way, for me too. To see her mother being so casual about ripping her world apart makes me want to throttle her until her eyes pop out.*

And writing all of this down makes me realize that I'd have no trouble saying any of that directly to her face.


*Can I also just mention a few other facts that make me want to commit homicide? She sits the baby down in front of the worst British soaps imaginable; Eastenders, Emmerdale, Corrination Street. In front of shows like Big Brother. Shows where people spent the majority of time screaming at one another. Also? She lives in a house crammed full of toys...with no books. This is a woman who told me I was having a laugh when I told her that we had an International Space Station. I have no hope for my goddaughter.

Goofball

The inevitable result of handing something to someone who doesn't know what hands are for.

Gums of Glory

Despite the serene photo, I should warn you; there's a whole lot of screaming going on at Chez Prawn.

The dreaded teeth are on their way. We hoped we'd have a few more months of lovely shiny gums before evil incisiors started trying to cut their way through our lovely little girl's flesh, but being as how she seems to be doing just about everything else early, it's all about shouting these days.

Being that she is her parent's child and by nature, perverse, while she SHOULD be getting her front teeth first, nature has decreed that her first tooth is going to be one of her BACK teeth, which usually don't come in til toddler years, so we're kind of puzzled about this turn of dental events. We thought it couldn't POSSIBLY be one of her back teeth, but the little white point is clearly visible in the back of her mouth whenever she opens it to emit an ear piercing screech.

To our joy, we've discovered that teething can cause all kinds of other problems including lack of appetite, causing every mealtime to become Wrestlemania. I even got slightly crazy the other day and gave her her first taste of baby rice after being completely exhausted by my efforts to keep her bottle in her gob. It didn't go quite as badly as I expected, although I think probably more of it ended up ON her than IN her. Ah well. Early days.

The cherry on the cake is the vaccination she's scheduled for tomorrow, which is bound to improve her mood. Her first round was administered by a needle that looked as if it was meant for horses, so we're battening down the proverbial hatches for a tidal surge of cranky.

At Least She Doesn't Go Up To 11

One of the slightly dimmer children in my mother's classroom, upon seeing this picture on the wall, asked if the volume knob actually worked.

Tattoo Designs

As some of you may remember, I've got ink. Of course, being as addictive as it is, the birth of a child is too large an opportunity to pass up for another appointment with the needle to burn another piece of permanancy into my flesh. (Tattoos are weird that way.)

Just trying to get a consensus on the design.

These are the Chinese Symbols for "mother" and "daughter". (Mother is the larger one on top) These would be joining two other Chinese symbols on my back.

This is a little design that I've come up with in Photoshop. May I just say hooray for the text to path feature previously only available in Illustrator? Obviously, this is the Prawn's name. Some people have commented that it is slightly hard to read, but I think I'm okay with that, as I think it looks nice as a pattern on it's own.



Both designs leave the option for a second one should be we lucky enough to have a second child. I can either add another "daughter" or "son" to the first one or a second name "wreath".

What do you ladies think? So far, the name wreath has the most votes, but I'm really open to either of them

Playtime

The arrival of the Prawn also heralded the arrival of many stuffed animals in our household. While is it very sweet to have a shelf of furry creatures with glassy eyes staring at our offspring, she unfortunately doesn’t seem to be all that keen on any of them just yet. We assume that she will make her own decisions on favourites, but we have to admit to a bit of lobbying on our part for 3 favourites of our OWN.

Sir Humphrey Bollagard: An extremely soft, cuddly donkey type creature bought by my virtual sister in law. (My b.i.l’s girlfriend who it’s painfully obvious to everyone that he’s going to marry) He started out as just Humphrey, as it seemed suitable name, but then Mr. DD began to use him as a crotch guard while changing The Prawn when it became obvious that she was making a serious kicking attempt to scupper plans for possible siblings, so he became Humphrey Bollagard. He was knighted after sterling service in the nappy changing arena.

He has one black mark against him however since he scared the living hell out of her on at least one occasion. Note: Don't place an unfamiliar stuffed toy on baby's lap when they are asleep.

I have mixed feelings about my child telling people that her donkey is called Sir Humphrey Bollagard, but you have to keep other people on their toes.


Ugly Worm: A gift from the Prawn’s godmother, my best friend from college.

As a recovering D&D player, I was actually mulling over the purchase of a cuddly Cthulu but my friend got this repulsive, yet cuddly beast for her goddaughter. Mr. DD doesn’t think he is as suitable a favourite as Sir Humphrey, but the lingering subversive gamer in me hopes that the Prawn will take Ugly Worm to her spit-covered bosom.

As I am a great imitator of ideas, I would dearly like to have a go at making an Ugly Doll myself. I am not, by any means, a seamstress, but I think I could probably handle an amorphus blob, a big creepy eye and a couple of teeth.

Many more Ugly Dolls are available from their home website.

Nichales Cow: I bought Nichlaes Cow way back in May of last year, before I was even pregnant. I loved his little face and hoped that we’d be able to have a child to enjoy him as much as I did. I highly recommend Nordic Kids, by the way, for unique baby stuff. Chances are, if I buy baby gifts, I buy them from there. The same manufacturer also makes a similar cuddly pig (which we have gifted to two other babies) and more recently, a cat.) I also own the change purse that bears his likeness, so, as you can see, I'm a big fan.

He is not quite as cuddly or large as either Sir Humphrey or the Worm, but what he lacks in cuddliness and size he makes up for in charm.

Musicality

In our quest to make the Prawn into a well rounded human being, we’ve tried to fill her life with as much music as possible. Indeed, she attended at least 3 gigs before she was even born. While she seems to be quite enamoured of Green Day and fairly tolerant of just about all of the rest of our record collection, we thought it was probably prudent to invest in some children’s music to make sure she doesn’t have any rage issues from being exposed to repeated listenings of Appetite for Destruction at an early age.

I went browsing on Amazon.com for suitable Prawn-friendly tunes and after handing over a fair amount of cash, I received a package from the States with many hours of listening pleasure in it. Children’s music can be so, so SO AWFUL and I was willing to part with a fair sum of cash to make sure that my daughter didn’t grow up believing “The Wheels On the Bus” sung by people that sound as though they have frighteningly white, sharp teeth was not the limit of her musical horizon. (Not that there’s anything wrong with “The Wheels on the Bus”. They’ve got to learn the basics of public transportation somehow. The wipers going swish, horn going beep…they pretty much have it covered except for the drunk next to you who goes puke, puke puke.)

First and foremost among my purchases was Peter, Paul and Mommy, the classic children’s album that was a classic even by the time /I/ started listening to it. The first track, “Marvelous Toy” had me in floods of tears as I remember quite clearly my mother and father singing it to me. The Prawn looked bemused; the whole sunrise/sunset thing was slightly lost on her. The rest of the album was not quite as perky as I remembered it although see seemed to enjoy “Daddy’s Taking Us to the Zoo Tomorrow”. I urged her not to take it literally as there is little time this week available for zoo visitation. (Luckily, there IS quite a good one just over the hill, filled with bears that are huff-huff-a-puffin, monkeys scritch-scritch-a scratchin and seals honk-honk-a-honkin.)

A friend's gift of Elizabeth Mitchell’s “You Are My Little Bird” after the Prawn was born turned me onto the children’s folk artist in a big way, inspiring me to download “You are My Flower” and purchase “You Are My Sunshine”. Although the latest album is by far the most polished, there are some lovely gems on her earlier recordings. Despite my rawk leanings, I’m really kind of a floaty, folk chick at heart who enjoyed living in a same sex dormitory in college and singing along loudly to the Indigo Girls. (No joke. I totally went to Lillith Faire) Mitchell obviously takes her folk music seriously (anyone who invokes the name of Woody Guthrie usually does) so I’m pleased to have her warbling away in my living room on most mornings.

No children’s record collection would be complete without at least one Dan Zanes album, I’m lead to believe, so, invariably, the Prawn now owns one. I don’t know much about him other than that he’s the Raffi of the day. (I can’t say I ever listened to Raffi, but kids went apeshit for him. But then again, kids also went apeshit for Bananas in Pajamas, which scared the hell out of me, so who knows WHAT’s going to turn the little buggers on?) I enjoyed the album a lot, although I believe that the Prawn will most likely enjoy it when she is slightly older. While Mitchell’s music is repetitive and fairly simple in structure, Zanes’ is slightly more complex, not to mention banjo heavy. I’m sure it will provide many happy hours of bopping around the living room for a toddler.

Along with the aforementioned Sesame Street Bathtime Sing-a-long and a Putomayo Playground compilation, I’m sure the Prawn is now musically tooled. For curiosity’s sake, please feel free to share childhood musical memories of your own!

Show Us Your Righteous Indignation

I have taken to taking the Prawn out for afternoon strolls in her buggy. I was once led to believe that small babies are quite passive and happy to stay where they are put, gleaning information from the world around them, ready to impart what they have learned in a philosophical treatise entitled, “Mama, Dada and Doggie: Nouns, Caregivers and Face-lickers” when they turn 9 months old or so. However, I found that I was much mistaken. The Prawn is BORED and lets us know by telling us, “ATTENTION PARENTAL UNITS. STIMULATE MY BRAIN OR FEEL MY WRAAAAAAAAAAATH!!” Hence, the daily change of scenery.

Yesterday, as I made my way up the sidewalk with the Prawn, a boy, on the unchanged voice side of puberty shouted out a window of a taxi at me, urging me to display a set of familiar female body parts.

There are many things that one thinks of saying long after a speeding car with a rude pre-pubescent wank-pot in it has disappeared, (i.e. “I would but you wouldn’t know what to do with them.”, “Come back when your balls drop”, etc) but nothing really covers the disgust that one feels when hearing something like that out of the mouth of a child while you yourself are pushing your 3 month old daughter up the street in her buggy. Having been to college in a small midwestern town with a high pick up truck/population ratio, I have experienced this phenominon on many occasions, but almost always from the person who was DRIVING the truck rather than someone who should be strapped into a booster seat in the back.

It got me thinking, on the rest of my stroll (The Prawn, who is supposed to BENEFIT from the change of scenery, fell fast asleep and when we returned home looked at me reproachfully as if to say, “Weren’t we going to GO somewhere, you lazy wench?”) about the whole nature vs. nurture argument. It’s fairly obvious to me that one can’t rely on either one or the other to completely shape a child, although either can limit the extent of his or her horizons. Children obviously aren’t BORN with a need to behave like utter asshats- asshattery is a learned skill. In the case of my squeaky friend, my guess is that he’s heard such phrases from his father or older brother with startling regularity. Obviously, I began composing an open letter in my head that I would dearly like to stick on the village notice board.

To the caregivers of the vile whelp who verbally assaulted me on Marsworth Road, 6th of June, 2007,

If you will pardon my tone, just what in the name of holy hell are you doing in that home of yours that makes your ignorant man-cub think that it’s okay to shout “show us your tits!” to a lone woman pushing a baby buggy up the road?

You are clearly inbreds and should be locked in public stocks and pelted with rotten tomatoes at earliest convenience.

Love and kisses,

Rockmama

Battle of the Bulge

I realized that there were some hard truths to be faced this week when I begged MR. DD to drag 3 heavy boxes of summer clothes down out of our stuffy attic so that I could stop sweating profusely in my winter long sleeves. (The fact that the weather has now turned slightly more “seasonal” is not lost on me)

When one blows up a balloon for the first time and then deflates it, one will notice that it is no longer the taut, rubber bit of merriment that it once was. It does, in fact, more resemble a deflated testicle than a previously entertaining bit of latex. So it goes when inflating a human belly. There are, shall we say, bits left over that made it well nigh impossible to fit into ANY of my previously worn summer clothing without said bits hanging unceremoniously out the bottom. There were very nearly tears. And so it came to pass that I ended up in our local shopping centre looking for something to clothe myself with that didn’t make me look like a whale that wandered up a shallow tributary.

I can’t say that fashion interests me. Fashion is for people with too much time and money on their hands. Fashion is for people who conveniently “forget” to wear underwear to nightclubs and then make damn sure they open their legs wider than the Grand Canyon while getting out of their car so that the assembled throng of camera jockeys can get their money shot that will inevitably make it onto the pages of tabloids everywhere, but that’s ok because AT LEAST PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT ME. The only time that fashion interests me is when it precludes me from dressing myself in a flattering manner.

I’m in luck this summer, because the “thing” seems to be long shirts that cover a multitude of sins as well as reproductive detritus. Some of these “things” are very flattering- empire waist tank tops, etc. But, is it me, or do the vast majority of these “things” happen to be shapeless sacks that flatter NO ONE including the morbidly thin? How does something that makes someone like Kiera Knightly look like she’s been eating butter on EVERYTHING including breakfast cereal become popular? Something that looks bad on thin girls and fat girls alike shouldn’t be flying off the shelves. (And can we not even talk about the cropped 80’s “Desperately Seeking Susan” leggings that seem to be making a comeback? For anyone with calves of a circumference greater than coke can, these are a real no-no. Kiera Knightly, for example, or perhaps the Olsen twins, are the only people I’ve seen who make them work without looking like they belong on the US Olympic hurdling team.)

I managed to acquire a few items of clothing that I’m promising myself that I WON’T be wearing next summer; hopefully not even at the end of THIS summer. While I spent most of my pregnancy thanking the almighty that I wasn’t carrying through the heat of summer, I failed to realize that I would be giving birth too near to swimsuit season to have a chance in hell of not looking vast. While Hollywood people seem to emerge from the hospital wearing size 0 clothes, the majority of us do not. (I have a theory that no one in Hollywood actually gets pregnant. They pay surrogates and strap on a fake belly for 9 months. It’s the only real explaination.)

Size 0, however, is not my goal. I’d settle for a size 12 at the moment. Here’s to the hard work ahead.

Beware the Firm Who's Name Rhymes With "Mountie"

Changing the Prawn has recently become just about as easy as diapering an octopus. She seems to sprout limbs when I get her on the changing mat and uses every single one of them to make the process as difficult as possible. So, imagine my joy when the phone rang today, just as I’d gotten the bottom half of her babygro off.

Oh, how I hate unsolicited phone calls. Telemarketing is evil and no one can convince me otherwise, but there is a special circle of hell reserved for these particular telemarketers.

Possibly the day after my c-section when I was felt like Atilla the Hun was making war on my midsection and that Fog that eats people was camped out in my centre of higher reasoning, a woman came by my bed. She asked me for some details, my address, phone number, etc. Taking her for a nurse, I answered her questions, hoping maybe she’d give me some more drugs. But all she left was a bag filled with samples, which was vaguely confusing.

It wasn’t until several days later that I twigged who had visited my bedside; a member of a rather well known marketing firm here in the UK. I felt like the top of my head was about to come off when I realized that the hospital had allowed this vulture onto a ward full of drugged up and highly confused women and allowed her to take personal details.

So, guess who was on the phone today?

Picking up the writhing Prawn, I went to answer the phone only to find this unscrupulous marketing firm on the other end.

“Just calling today to find out if you’d invested your £250 Child Trust Fund voucher, madam.”

Did I tell her that I found her firm’s methods odious? Did I tell her that I would happily set fire to the next member of her company who dared contact me? No.

“This is a really bad time,” I told her as the Prawn let out a shriek and tried to escape my grasp. I hung up before I could hear the rest of her apology.

Wankers.

A Public Service Announcement

No matter HOW cute they may be looking, it is completely unacceptable to eat your baby.

The Origin of the Species

I've found myself being slightly disconcerted recently by the realization that if Mr. Darwin had had his way, most likely, neither I nor the Prawn would be be here now.

This occured to me the first time soon after the c-section. If my cervix wasn't going to open after 3 days and a lot of fairly strong drugs, there was a good chance that it wasn't opening for for anybody. It doesn't take a degree in history to know what would have happened to me in the days before medicine.

As if that weren't enough, there's also the breastfeeding situation.

As much as I've been trying to convince myself that I don't feel guilty for my lack of success with breastfeeding, but the truth is, I do. My production is ridiculously low. I have tried breast massage. I have tried pumping well beyond when the breast is empty to stimulate production. I have tried Fenugreek. I have tried it all. But nothing seems to be working. If I get two lots of 80 mls a day, I'm lucky. In the days before formula, it also doesn't take a genius to know what fate would have befallen my daughter.

Health care professionals seem to be quite keen to point out the obvious to me. "You do know that breastfeeding is best for your baby?" one stern health visitor asked when I told her I'd been forced to suppliment. No, I thought, I must have missed that part of pre-natal class and the roughly 8 billion posters stuck to the walls of every health care facility I've visited for the last year, plus be bereft of an ounce of common sense. Telling me that I'm nutritionally failing my child when I'm already acutely aware of the fact is helping a lot, really it is. It also doesn't help that local NHS Trusts have breastfeeding targets to maintain funding, so it's not really in their interests to make me feel better about my situation.

That the Prawn is here at all is a minor miracle in my book. She's a tremendously happy and healthy baby. I just wish I could rid myself of the guilt of failing her.

It Has to Be Said

Okay, this story has been chapping my ass all week. I’ve wanted to write about it, but have been restraining myself.

First off, there can be nothing more horrifying in a parent’s life than a child being abducted. Nothing. It’s beyond awful. I check back with the BBC several times a day to see if any headway has been made in the search for this little girl and hope against hope that this story has a happy ending.

But.

Can anyone please tell me how any parent can think that leaving 3 children under 4 alone in a flat while you have dinner at a restaurant up the street is a good idea? The missing girl’s grandparents are quoted as saying that anyone who criticizes her parents is “misguided” and “has got it all wrong.” Excuse me, but did they or did they NOT leave 3 TODDLERS alone in a flat?

What blows me away further is that these are not stupid people. They are both doctors, which indicates a fairly high level of education. It is incomprehensible then, that no matter how “safe” they felt their resort community was, that they should have even considered leaving their children alone.

Let us put aside for a moment the whole pervert/pedo/deviant lurking in the bushes outside the window angle of abandoning a 3 year old and two 2 year olds in an apartment. THEY’RE 2 AND 3 YEAR OLDS. Do you know what they do? ANYTHING THEY FEEL LIKE DOING UP TO AND INCLUDING SETTING FIRES AND LICKING WALL SOCKETS.

When I was about 11 or 12, I babysat for my neighbor’s children who were maybe 5 and 3 at the time. 20 minutes after putting them to bed, I began to hear strange thumping noises coming from upstairs that were managing to cut through the soundtrack of whatever R rated film I’d chosen from their VHS collection for my viewing entertainment that I never in a million years would have been allowed to watch at home. You know what they were doing? CUTTING EACHOTHER’S HAIR. WITH PINKING SHEARS. Where they got them, I have NO idea. (Both of these children are now on the other side of college. God, how old am I?) At any rate, this adventure into the world of hairdressing happened with me simply downstairs and not a few hundred yards up the road.

I’ve gotten that off my chest now. If you have a moment this week, spare some good thoughts for the McCann family.

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry, Sorry....

OMG.

I know. Enough with the Prawn pictures.

But...

Damn.

Hands of Fury

Based on a lifetime spent watching nature programs on television and the last 6 weeks watching the Prawn, I’ve become increasingly baffled as to how we’ve managed to succeed as a species due to the fact that babies are really a bit useless.

This is not to say I don’t totally adore my useless baby. On the contrary I love every finger and toe on her squishy little pink body. But when compared with the offspring of other species, who are pretty much independent straight from the womb, she’s a little dopey. In the wild, her mother probably would have eaten her. This is, of course, the price we pay for our big brains; they take a good old while to jump start.

At the moment, it’s her hands that are bothering me; and coincidentally, bothering her as well. They seem to belong to someone else. A while back, a viral video was circulating the internet featuring a dog who’s hind leg seemed to have a mind of it’s own, causing the dog to attack himself. This is kind of how it goes with The Prawn. Her hands, under the direction of some obscenely gleeful puppet master, take great pleasure in pummelling her tiny head.

So we’ve started swaddling her at night and sometimes during the day if she’s particularly fussy. I’ve read some anti-swaddling propaganda on certain fringe websites, (it’s cruel, it’s restrictive, blah, blah, blah) but seeing as how the practice is thousands of years old, they can go suck it. Swaddling, of course, has it’s most famous proponent in the Bible. If the Virgin Mary thought it was good enough to keep the son of God from punching himself in the freaking face every 5 seconds, it’s good enough for the Prawn.

I’ve been told that The Prawn will eventually gain control of her limbs and cease trying to perpetuate this early form of self-harming and use her hands for good rather than ill. There are enough perils in the world that I must try to keep my child from without having to worry about her being one of them.

The Mommy Conundrum

Truman Capote once wrote that there are more tears shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones. Truman Capote, being a sensationally egomaniacal twerp, not to mention notorious homosexual deeply entrenched in the party scene in 1960’s New York obviously never considered infertility. However, these words sprang to mind around 4.30 this morning when my daughter’s regular velociraptor noises became a full throated wail and I was forced to abandon all notion of getting back to sleep in order to bring her into the living room to rock her in the rocking chair. The blackbird in the tree in the neighbor’s garden began to sing just after I sat down. I wanted to throw something, but I didn’t have anything to hand.

I knew I’d be doing this post soon enough. It seems that most blogs, even ones dealing with life after infertility, contain at LEAST one post who’s gist is, “I know that I wanted this more than anything on the planet, BUT….” I’ll apologise up front for it; I know how ungrateful it sounds. I also know that in a few months, things will most likely be better and I’ll believe that The Prawn shits sunshine and roses, but at present, I’m spending a lot of the day wanting to hide under the bed.

Ms. Prufrock, of Barren Albion wrote once, when her newborn was in middle of the worst of her GERD, that she was sure that she LOVED her daughter, but wasn’t sure that she LIKED her all that much. I’ve seen this sentiment expressed in more and more mommy blogs, which makes me feel not quite so much like a jerk. These women’s experiences helped to prepare me to accept that I might not have that love-at-first-sight experience, so it wasn’t massively disappointing when I didn’t. In fact, due to my obscenely bad hospital experience, I felt more like I’d been ambushed by a baby rather than having given birth to one.

There are some moments when it is extremely easy to like the Prawn; when she coos and smiles (this is a new trick and it won’t be long before she realizes that she can use it as a potent weapon against us.) and naps with her tiny mouth open, but the thing that sleeps in the cot at the end of our bed is a totally different creature. I mean, if someone walked into your bedroom several times during the night and went, “AAARRGGBBBBLLLLPPFTTTAH!” for hours on end, after you’d done everything in your power to meet their needs, chances are, they wouldn’t be on the top of your favourite person list. Chances are, you’d phone the police. So, why does anyone expect you to feel differently about a baby?

To add to my feelings of mommy guilt, my breastmilk supply is really not all it should be. I can hear the rattlings of the La Leche League sabers and before any of them can tear the flesh from my bones, I will admit that I probably didn’t give breastfeeding the best shot I could have. Whether expressly expressing is the “easy option” I’m not sure, (I spend twice as long on the feeding process- first extracting the milk and THEN trying to get it down the Prawn’s gullet) but it doesn’t seem to be good in supply terms. I pump every time after we feed her, whether the feeding is a breastmilk one or a formula one. The health visitor gave me a disapproving look when I mentioned that we were supplementing with formula (by supplementing, I mean half and half, but I didn’t really want to tell her that.) and told me that it was just something that I’d have to accept since I didn’t choose to feed from the breast. Not the most helpful of statements, since, during the second week of her life, the Prawn spent a lot of time screaming because she was hungry and I was TOLD to supplement. I’ve ordered some fenugreek (which sounds like some weird continental cheese to me) online as I’ve heard that it can boost production. (So can oatmeal, apparently, but no one is going to be served if I spend the morning throwing up due to it’s absolutely vile consistency, so I’ll try the fenugreek.)

The Prawn is currently asleep in her father’s lap. Swaddled in her pink cellular blanket, gently snoring and smelling of lavender baby soap, she is easy to like. To love, even. When I can feel the same at 4.30 in the morning, I’ll know I’ve arrived.

A Thank You Note

To the Black Hearted Son of a Prostitute Who Has Been Using My Debit Card to Buy Phone Top up Cards and Pornography;

So glad to have been able to facilitate your texting/filthy movie habit. Being a new mum on a budget definitely gives me the leisure time and money to call my bank, sort out fraudulent transactions and then have to reclaim money that’s actually been debited to my account. You know, between nappy changes, feedings and senseless screaming, that’s exactly how I’ve envisioned spending my afternoon.

It’s gratifying to know that my maternity pay is going to a good cause.

You utter fucksock.

Love and kisses,

Rockmama

Moot Point

Well, my marathon plans were scuppered by the changeable plans of my potential ride down to the city, so I suppose the Prawn and I will be watching on TV. I doubt we'll catch a glimpse of Mr. DD, but you never know. It's especially gutting because it's supposed to be an absolutely fabulous day and Mr. DD really wanted to see us at the finish line.

But now I have a new problem. I think the Prawn has a cold. (Just as well I DIDN'T go to London)

Do I own one of those baby nose sucker-outers? Of course not. Is anyone in my family around today? Nope. Are any of our friends around today? No. Am I allowed to drive yet after the c-section? Hell no. However, my baby has a bunged up schnozz, so I think I'll probably risk a trip into Aylesbury to try to find a de-snotting device.

I spent my first night alone with The Prawn last night, hence the early morning entry. To tell you the truth, I was completely wetting my pants.

I've never had a thing about wanting to be in charge. In any number of retail jobs I've had, I've always turned down further training to become a manager because I had absolutely 0 desire to be in charge of people. I don't like telling people what to do. Not only that, but if I'm pretty honest, I didn't really want the responsibility. ( I'm rubbish with numbers and don't like having to kiss the asses of random members of the public with mild personality disorders just to "keep the customer happy".)

Being left alone with a baby is like the ultimate managerial position. The customer is almost ALWAYS unhappy, needs constant supervision, will call you after hours for assistance and you can absolutely, positively NEVER lose your temper with them. Mr DD and I have successfully managed to tag team the Prawn since her arrival without either of us going spare, but after an evening spent trying to keep the screaming at bay solo,(a new phase of screaming! Awesome!) I'm feeling pretty frazzled and sleep deprived. The Prawn, of course, is sleeping happily on our bed making congested rhinoceros noises. Little bugger.

Right. I need a cup of tea.