(While trying to express milk from the same side after baby’s had first go)

Him: I really don’t think you’re going to get any more out of there.
Me: You don’t say. It’s like trying to milk a dead cow.

That is all.

I can’t quite believe that the little one is now six weeks old, or how much he’s grown in such a short space of time. On Monday the health visitor came for his 6-week checkup, and I was absolutely delighted to discover that he was now 10lb 4oz, up from a birth weight of 7lb 13oz, and a whole 5cm longer too. I am clearly feeding him good stuff. Viva la milk.

The conundrum is that I do and I don’t want him to grow up. There is so much to look forward to, but these early days are passing far too quickly. He’s already outgrown all his newborn-sized clothes and nappies, and showing no signs of slowing down. He’s also started smiling at Him and me, and this time we don’t have to put it down - sensibly, if disappointingly - to wind.

Him and I have, of course, done the doting parent thing and come up with all sorts of cheesy nicknames for him. To date he is my sleepy slug, my oxytocin baby, my radiator baby, my piglet, and (grandpa-coined, this one) my toughie. Ah, what the heck, I’ll just be cheesy, because I love him completely and utterly to bits.

If nothing quite prepares you for the overwhelming love, nothing also quite prepares you for how helpless or inadequate you can feel when you inevitably realise you can’t be the perfect mother. Tuesday was the first day ever that I was alone with him for most of the day, and let me tell you, it is bone-crushingly heart-breaking when your baby is screaming until he’s purple in the face and you cannot figure out WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM, because he’s been fed and burped and changed and you’ve started the naptime routine within his sleep window and as far as you can tell he’s not in pain. Of course it always turns out that while you weren’t looking he decided he wasn’t quite finished with his meal, so I don’t know why I haven’t cottoned on yet. Muppet.

Another thing that I haven’t yet accepted is that some things are in fact out of your control. A couple of weeks ago he started developing some patches of dry skin on his forehead, which then started to crust over, and then all of a sudden it had spread all around and between his eyebrows (which reminds me, I missed out Klingon Toughie in the nickname list). We thought it was cradle cap and were treating it accordingly until it was suggested that in fact it might be impetigo, at which point I naturally reacted by thinking MY BABY HAS IMPETIGO ARRGGGHHH WHAT KIND OF A MOTHER AM I IS IT GOING TO LEAVE SCARS. Of course, it wasn’t impetigo; it was indeed cradle cap, which as far as I can tell I couldn’t have stopped him developing. But the point is that it still looks awful, and because I have obsessively and futilely pursued nice skin for myself for as long as I can remember, I naturally have hang-ups about beautiful baby skin. Such is a mother’s neurosis.

I’m not quite sure how stay-at-home mums manage to keep several children respectable and still do the cooking and housework, not to mention stay sane. I suppose Supermum status comes with time and I shouldn’t be expecting it at six weeks, but for now I will simply be trying to keep one little baby full, clean and well-rested. I stress the ‘one’, at least for now, which is why when my GP asked me the standard ‘what are you doing for contraception’ question at my postnatal checkup on Monday, I told him “NOT HAVING SEX.”

Mum and Dad flew home on Saturday night. I was fine at the airport but once we got back, there was no Dad on the armchair tapping away at his computer and no Mum whizzing around the house, and I knew I had to do this grown-up thing now that the little one was depending almost entirely on me, but you know what - sod being grown-up, sensible and self-sufficient: the house was empty, I missed them like crazy, and I just wanted them back.

Sunday I was tired, nursing a migraine (and a baby), and strongly aware that this was the first day that we were alone with the little one. At night, when he was overtired and screaming during his nappy change, even though Him was with me, I had another moment of HELP I CAN’T DO THIS.

Rinse and repeat, tomorrow we’ll have a better day.

Dearest little one,

Mamma loves you.
A lot a lot a lot a lot.
A lot.
A gazillion of lots.

Love (again),
Mamma.

*Future posts will be sporadic, but hopefully still (still?) entertaining.

I smell of milk.

In any other circumstance this would be a worrying development necessitating a shower. In these circumstances, however, I like it very much indeed.

In the garden store:

Him (hoisting shovel): Hey! We could add this to our arsenary.
Me: Um - arsenary?
Him: Oh, you know… er…
Me: Arsenal? Armoury?
Him: Oh. Armoury.
Me: Hee hee hee hee hee.
Him: I guess I just made an arsenary of myself.

****

(After sudden thought that one should check that ‘arsenary’ is not in fact not a Himism at all.)

Me: Okay, I’ve checked now and ‘arsenary’ isn’t in the OED.
Him: Who said it was in the OED.
Me: What then? Your mental dictionary?
Him: It’s in the appendium.
Me: Appendium?
Him: …
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Good karma swop:

Me: Arrrggghhh my thighs look like tree trunks!
Him: Stop bigging up your twigs.

*****

Him: What kind of road closure is this??
Me: The kind where you can’t get through.

I often feel like I have an enormous amount to write about, and then I come to try and put words to screen, and realise that so much of it is so mundane, like a joke you have to explain, so much self-obsession, or much more well-written about by somebody else.

Anyway, I’ve decided that this is not one of those times, so I’ll tell you about how at nearly week 39 of pregnancy I have put on nearly a third of my pre-pregnancy weight, which is particularly noticeable when trying to roll into and out of bed (though I must pride myself on my latest achievement of actually being able to get elegantly in and out of our RAV4). However, 12 kilos, give or take a couple, seems to be about the standard weight gain I’ve been quoted both anecdotally and in books, and also everyone from the cashier at the supermarket (oh look, I nearly typed spermarket, badum tish) and the local organic store to random passers-by keeps telling me that I’m ‘all bump’ which is codespeak for ‘you haven’t morphed into a beached whale’. Hurrah! Right before starting to look a little worried just in case they’re going to be called upon as an impromptu midwife within the next ten seconds.

Although it’s really anyone’s guess as to whether the little one arrives tomorrow or in two weeks, he’s nearly fully engaged and I’ve been falling prey to all manner of things typifying looming labour, so I think we’re on the home stretch now! So the bags are packed, the bathroom is gleaming, I got inordinate pleasure out of a snazzy new iron after our ten-year old one finally conked out at the weekend, and I’ve been whizzing my way through baby books galore. I think I’ve figured out which way is up and how not to drop the baby, and we’ll leave the rest up to the grace of God.

Off to clean the cloakroom now.

Tee hee.

In other news, 8 weeks to go, and I am completely knackered. But the little one is growing very well, according to my midwife this morning, and he is, very pleasingly, in the right position. He’s also got his feet wedged under my ribs at the moment. Hurrah! (ow.)

There is someone I encounter fairly regularly, though truth be told I barely know her, who just perplexes bemuses annoys the hell out of me, and I’m trying to decide whether I’ve turned into a model of intolerance or whether I actually have cause to be perplexed/bemused/annoyed.

She started out by offering unsolicited advice on what not to do in pregnancy, and asking me whether I was experiencing morning sickness, etc. Then more recently, out of the blue she suddenly asked me ‘how are your ankles’. Then she randomly invited me along to lunch with someone else, which I regret to say I rather ungracefully and rapidly declined. But today she has really got on my wotsits by asking how on earth a tiny thing like me could possibly eat the massive amount I was warming up in the microwave for my lunch. Which is exactly what a pregnant lady coping with an expanding bum and thighs needs to hear. And it was only a jacket potato with some filling plopped on the top.

Bwarrrrrrrrggghhhhh.

Is it just me being tetchy? I am normally unfailingly polite with people even when they are being muppets but she makes me want to just ignore her completely. Which is kind of what I did today, again much to my shame.