Ballast

I love carrying Isobel around in her baby sling, it's a lot like being pregnant again, even down to the way I can rub my 'bump'.

Not to mention that I can use her as weight resistance to increase my walking effort!

I'm not very good at economising, in fact there is no 'very' about it, I am rubbish. The one thing we did decide to economise on was our sling. I looked around (on the net, not always the best way of 'looking around') and thought the Mamas and Papas one looked fine, it even had a hood, and it was twenty quid cheaper than the Baby Bjorn.

BIG mistake, we hardly used it because it was sooo complicated - it certainly couldn't be managed by one person alone. So, a few weeks ago I went out and spent seventy-five pounds on a Baby Bjorn Active. Yes, there are cheaper ones, but, as we are coming to the Baby Bjorn party a little late it seemed wise to buy the one that lasts the longest.

Now with this simple sling, Isobel and I can be seen wandering around town under a parasol in the sun, or a good old brollie in the rain. I LOVE it.

A mood spiral

Today has been one of those days when I find being a mum a little tricky. I'm not really sure how it starts, it just does.

It's a day when I feel I need back-up but it isn't there, there will be no PD's return to spend the next hour promising Isobel, no-one to help with the giggles and smiles at bathtime. Perhaps I just feel I need it because I don't have it?

Am I struggling because Isobel is being a little grumpy or is Isobel being a little grumpy because I'm struggling?

I should have gone out; I should have done this that and the other, but I didn't. So, rather than looking forward to the funtime that is bathtime, I'm kind of dreading it.

I'm sorry little girl, I promise tomorrow will be a brighter day.

The only person who controls her crying is Isobel.

Last night I think I did an exercise in 'Controlled crying' But actually I'm not sure how in control I actually was, it certainly wasn't planned.

Isobel went to bed awake, was heard chatting to her bed friends a little and then went quiet - a point at which I can normally be pretty sure she is asleep.

Then she cried. Full scale I'm-in-immediate-peril-crying. So I ran up the stairs, burst in her room, my mummy cape flapping over my shoulder ready to rescue my little damsel in distress.

She smiled at me. Yes, she was lying on her back, she looked up at me and instantly smiled!

Ahh, she missed me.

I kissed her goodnight, again, and went back downstairs.

After a quiet moment or two, full scale crying, AGAIN. This time I waited five minutes; a very looong five minutes of me imagining her tangled in the cot bars or being strangled by her sleeping bag. (I'm sure the images got worse the more my wine evaporated.)

After five minutes, I ran up to her room thinking this just isn't like her AT ALL. Once again, she just smiled and I'm sure she even giggled a bit.

I kissed her goodnight, told her Mummy and Daddy love her very much, and I went back downstairs AGAIN.

She howled and wailed, but this time I was calmer and vowed to wait ten minutes.

By six she was asleep.

Not that my daughter is a wilful drama queen; no NOT AT ALL.

(Yes, she was fine, a peek confirmed she was asleep on her tummy, on the far side of the cot, holding flat bunny. Later, as she has mastered bi-directional rolling, she was back on her back still holding onto bunny.)

Well, I like to think of it as kisses

As baby sizes go, Isobel is now the perfect size for hugging. You can wrap your arms around her tight, they overlap, squeeze her to your chest, she'll stretch her arms out wide and wrap them around your neck or pull you close using your hair as handles, and then she'll put her cheek against yours.

If you are really lucky, she'll open her mouth and give you a big slobbery kiss.

Well, I think of it as 'kisses for Mummy'. PD? He just thinks she wants to eat everything, including her parents.

Mothers always know best, don't they?

I'm Henry VIII I am, I am

I do honestly think my relationship history is beginning to resemble dear old Henry's, without the syphilis of course.

Oh, and I haven't beheaded anyone, yet.

This is a hard post to write and is one I hoped I wouldn't have to.

...it's also a post I postponed because I respected PD and thought there were some people who wouldn't care to find this out this way. Yes, I know it's my blog and I can write what I want but I do want to show some respect for others feelings, even if it means censoring myself.

Okay, so that was a long preamble, more prevarication I guess, but it's time to be out with it.

I am now a single mum. That in itself isn't really that sad, to be honest nothing really has changed in that respect, Isobel still gets the same care she has always had, there is just one less smile around the house. What's sad is that our little girl will not be kissed goodnight by, and wake up with, both her Mum and her Dad. But I do kiss her for him and remind her that he loves her and tell her that I miss him too.

It just wasn't right, let's face it we never expected this relationship to go this far; whether you call it circumstances or destiny it has taken us from a dalliance; to living together; to being parents together. And actually it wasn't bad at all, in fact it was very good, there was just that something unquantifiable missing.

So, two months ago PD took the decision to leave, and last week he actually did. It wasn't easy for him as, in many ways, it is him that has the most to lose.

But you know what, we still love, and like, each other enough to bring up our child together. We've spent the weekend in each others company enjoying our little girl, and whiled away our evenings together, long after Isobel has been safely tucked up in bed.

I firmly believe we will make this work as a family, our own special kind of family.

Our cheesy family in the treetops today

5 Months old and finding her feet

I'm a little disappointed not be posting a picture from the Big Chill to be celebrating your five month anniversary little girl. I had everything sorted: disposable bottles and ready made milk; new baby sling; pram converted to pushchair so you could enjoy the sights and sounds; travel sleeping bag so even when ready for bed you would be safe in your chariot; a travel cot borrowed so you would sleep like a baby next to your mummy; we even paid for a tent to be put up for us so we would have less to carry but you. I worked out how to post from my phone so we wouldn't have to miss anything.

Basically a lot of thought had gone into making sure we could all enjoy the Big Chill and celebrate five months of you being in our lives.

But, we aren't there. We are at home. Rain was forecast, not just a little but mud inducing rain. And as little girl who likes to roll and play it wouldn't be much fun; it certainly wouldn't be the picture of us rolling around under the trees listening to tunes and drinking pear cider that Mummy had in mind. Gutted. Next year we can all wear wellies and dance in the mud!

Anyway, what that does mean is I can write a proper post about our last month.

Everyday you become less of a baby and more of a little girl, a fiercely independent, sometimes willful little girl and I must say I quite like it. As much as I don't want you to grow up, I'm excited to see what you grow into.

You are beginning to find your feet in the world, quite literally. You are standing taller and stronger everyday, a long way from going it alone but it is a sign of things to come.

You love your feet, and so you should as they will, one day, propel you where ever you wish to go (and allow you to wear the most beautiful shoes) . In the morning while having your bottle you keep checking to make sure they are there, making sure we didn't leave them in your sleeping bag. You hold them, and you try to eat them but your legs aren't quite long enough, yet.

It's a whole new world when you stand tall and proud, even if you do need hands to hold. You can always count on me to hold your hand and help you go wherever you wish my little girl.

We can't take the pace of this rock and roll lifestyle.

Last night the cot-o-batics reached an all time high (or is that low).

I'd had a lovely quiet evening pottering about, watched a bit of telly from nine, went to bed at ten and happily finished off 'My Booky Wook' at about eleven.

Isobel, nearly always stirs around ten, has a fidget (or a rustle if heard through the monitor) and after about ten minutes of earnest thumb sucking is back asleep. Last night, true to form she stirred at about half past, after some rustling I thought, considering the lunchtime antics, I had better check where she was - all was fine.

More rustling...

Even more thumb sucking....

00:08 still thumb sucking....

So, I popped in.

Yep, she was on her tummy, earnestly trying, and failing to get back to sleep. I always admire the fact Isobel tries to get herself to sleep long before she starts shouting.

I turned her over, thought about it and thought perhaps the time for jiggling had come, just for expediency - I wanted to go to sleep!

I rocked for a while (see what I did with the tittle of the post yet?!), finally she looked sleepy again.

More thumb sucking....

01:10 SILENCE

Needless to say we are both a little weary this morning, and I'm a little confused; what I really don't understand at all, is that when she first rolled it was from front to back. Front to back is apparently the easiest, so why didn't she just roll back last night? But what I am begining to understand is why people have monitors where they can SEE what baby is up to!

Bless

First day at school... well kind of

Today Isobel went for her first visit to nursery.

As you can imagine with any first day at school, there was much dragging of feet; much sulking and much posturing on how unfair life is. Yes, I can be a child.

As I walked, dragging my feet, I imagined writing this post and that it would end with me saying how lovely it all was, how much Isobel loved it and that it was not as bad as I imagined. But that wasn't quite how it played out.

There were many children crying, but that was okay, it was explained by the babies having their settling-in visit to the more grown up part of nursery. I felt reassured.

I was there to fill in forms, which I did in the baby room accompanied by Isobel's key carer - another Saffir - would you believe it. She seemed nice enough, I tried not to stare at the angry patch of excema that was visible under her polo shirt.

The trouble is Isobel likes to play, she likes to have toys that do things, she likes to watch the world. So, plonking her in a bumbo seat facing away from everyone with a boring ball on her lap was bound to bore her. Lying her on her front where she can't see anyone with equally dull toys was also unlikely to stimulate her. Isobel likes to play, but needs some props at the very least.

And it was hot in there, yesterday was a hotter day than today so I dread to think how unbearable yesterday would have been.

There isn't room for our pushchair*... children were running around in just nappies...

Oh, I know I'm looking for excuses. Truth be told, I think Isobel is just a little bit too little for nursery right now.


*One thing I have discovered that is extremely challenging for a single parent is turning a pram into a pushchair, there are things that are definitely easier with two. That said, I've kind of done it; it was a struggle but worth it.

Heaven help us - realtime update

Okay, so Isobel went down for a nap at 11:30. At 11:50 I heard her chattering and afraid of what position she might be in, I sneaked a peek. She was fine, on her back, head in the right place, legs in the air - standard Isobel sleeping position.

Ten minutes later I heard a shout, it persisted so I went up to check it out. And I found this



My daughter has the turning circle of a London Taxi because this is how she should be


I do believe this is the thin edge of the Harry-Houdini-wedge; as I said before, I have the FEAR already.

And she's still not asleep!

Heaven help us

Isobel has become really quite mobile, not crawling or anything but mobile enough to get herself into trouble. I'm already feeling the FEAR.

In the last three days, these are the positions she has got herself into when, supposedly sleeping:

On her front, still in her sleeping bag with her legs trapped in the side bars of the cot - this position woke her up shouting, funnily enough;

On her front wearing her sleeping bag like a Superman cape as she discussed her dreams with Grandad teddy;

With her sleeping bag in perfect order, not a rumple in sight, but on her front facing the foot end of the cot chatting to Berry Doll about her dreams*.

And this is while all she can do is wriggle and roll...

*I was going to write that being quite a dreamer she gets from PD and not rumpling the sheets she gets from me, but I'm not sure that accurately portrays our characters!

Daddy's Half Pint

A picture of success.

A couple of years ago on holiday a friend was reading Paul Mackenna's Confidence book, not my usual cup of tea but, as I was devouring the books I had bought at the airport (one of my favourite rituals) and still had plenty of sun lounger time left (by which I mean I hadn't got a tan yet), I read it.

So flicking through said book there was an exercise to picture what success looked like to you. Mine looked a lot like today: my sunny garden, my baby and I surrounded by people I love, enjoying a sunny Sunday lunch complete with liquid sunshine. It may not have been quite perfect (there was someone missing) but it was close.

I'm a simple girl who enjoys life's simple pleasures and the fine things in life, good friends and nice champagne,respectively. And I think my daughter may be the same.

She now helps herself to milk which is a bit of a turn around from a few weeks ago!

And today she drank water for the first time out of a cup (both firsts).

But I think what she really wanted was the champagne. And NO, I didn't let her have any - what kind of a Mum do you think I am!

I hope to teach my daughter the lesson I'm not sure I have ever mastered: drink sensibly, NO-ONE is pretty when they are drunk.

... you are my sunshine, my only sunshine...

I hate the terms 'significant other' or 'primary care giver' because they sound too clinical for what a mother is.

But, everytime I walked into the room this weekend Isobel's face has lit up, she has smiled a smile so big I thought her face would split in two. It didn't matter who she was with or what she was doing, she smiled at me, a great big unsolicited smile.

I guess that makes me all of the above, AND her Mummy.

I don't know if she knew how much I needed that.

This mornings conversation between two VERY proud parents...

PD (via text): She Rocks.

Me (by email): Yes our daughter ROCKS; she rocks so much it’s almost an understatement.

PD (by email): I'm happy to concede that rocking is an understatement: she is an ineffable joy.

Ahh...


(Funnily enough it had only been an hour since PD had left for work.)

I guess it's really just telly in disguise

Many moons ago I got a DVD free in the Sunday Times (not a paper I actually read that often, not that I really read any paper that often these days), anyway I'm digressing. The free DVD was a Brainy Baby DVD.

Said DVD purports to Inspire Creative and Logical Thinking in babes from six to thirty-six months. Both valuable characteristics for any little girl, so with interest in the mobile waning I have taken to playing it for Isobel, or is that with Isobel? Who cares, she loves it!







I play it on my laptop because.... I'm not really sure why, but I think it's because it feels less like plonking my little girl in front of the telly.

Speaking of which, here are father and daughter bonding over the cricket. (Apparently, according to PD, sport is the only telly she is allowed to watch until she is two!)

Hayley Baby

Today my beautiful little niece is having an operation. I cannot imagine what my sister is going through waiting for it to be done. It must be very scary indeed, I guess being a parent brings fear to a whole new level.

Anyway, last week we made you a card, this week Isobel has been busy on her art wall, this is for you Hayley Baby:

Lots of love to you Amy-Blues and your lovely little girl. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Something I LOVE is books

And I really hope Isobel does too, so I was excited by this post on The Jackson Files (I guess as it was second-hand then it really is a third hand post here):


"Someone” reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. It’s not the Big Read though — they don’t publish books, and they’ve only featured these books so far. So here we go…

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you started but did not finish.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Highlight the ones you still want to read but just have not had a chance yet!
5) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 or less and force books upon them.


1. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
2. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
3. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
4. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
5. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
6. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
7. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
8. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
9. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
10. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
11. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
12. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
13. His Dark Materials (trilogy) - Philip Pullman
14. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
15. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
18. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
19. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
20. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
21. Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
22. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
23. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
24. Animal Farm - George Orwell
25. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
26. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
27. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
28. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
29. Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
30. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
31. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
32. Complete Works of Shakespeare
33. Ulysses - James Joyce
34. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
35. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
36. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
37. The Bible
38. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
39. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
40. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
41. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
42. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
45. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
46. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
47. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
48. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
49. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
50. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
51. Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott
52. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
53. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
54. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
55. Middlemarch - George Eliot
56. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
57. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
58. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
59. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
60. Emma -
61. Persuasion -Jane Austen
62. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
63. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
64. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
65. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
66. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
67. Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
68. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
69. Atonement - Ian McEwan
70. Dune - Frank Herbert
71. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
72. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
73. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
74. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
75. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
76. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
77. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
78. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
79. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
80. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
81. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie * (next on my list as recommended by Jenny)
82. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
83. Dracula - Bram Stoker
84. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
85. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
86. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
87. Germinal - Emile Zola
88. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
89. Possession - A.S. Byatt
90. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
91. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
92. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
93. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
94. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
95. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
96. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
97. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
98. Watership Down – Richard Adams
99. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
100. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

Well, still a fair few unread, but I've definitely read more than six and I'm sure there are some that should be here but aren't, Slinky Malinki, the rapscallion cat is missing for a start!

Project Me

Funny how life gets divided up into phases which, more often than not, are defined by the people we are with.

Right now I'm in an Isobel phase and that probably will continue for sometime, but my shifting role into that of a mother and the accompanying hiatus from work allows me the opportunity to take a look at someone else who is important in my life, someone who, if honest, is normally too busy trying to be what she thinks everyone wants her to be to be herself. Yes, it's ME.

I want to find out what makes my heart sing and if I can bring that joy into my daily life, maybe even earn a living at it. Now the only ambition I've really had was to be on Jackanory, but I guess I'll settle for reading stories to my kid. And as I don't think anyone is going to give me a bookshop anytime soon I've started a new project; Project Me.

To this end I've bought a book called 'Zen and the Art of Making a Living', it seems quite a cool mix of karma and careers advice. But, and it's a big but, it's one of those books that asks questions, you know they want you to stop and fill in the blanks. Now I'm not good at that, I don't have reams of childhood memories from which to plot my future. But I'll give it a go.


Ps. Does it say something about me that I feel I have to have a brand new notebook to start this project? Something other than I used to love the trip to Woolies to stock my pencil case at the start of a new school year - ooh that was a childhood memory!

Why on earth do they call it 'Solids'

I have never seen anything less solid than baby rice in my life. It's like thick soup or runny Ready Brek and you move on from that to puree - equally lacking in solidity if you ask me.

Anyway, whatever it is and why ever it's called it, we have started to introduce it.

All in all I think it's been a success.