Baby on Board

A sorry tale of a pregnancy low point, inspired by A Mother's Secrets

A week after I discovered I was pregnant, I decided to pop into Mothercare – the panacea for all things baby. I had, of course, been in here before to buy presents for nieces, nephews and off-spring of various friends, but now I was here for myself, because I was PREGNANT and the shop suddenly looked entirely different.

I really only wanted to buy a book on pregnancy but of course found myself browsing around the entire shop, taking in all the baby paraphenelia which we would need in the not too distant future. There was all the obvious big stuff like cots, buggies and car seats – I couldn’t believe how many shelves of car seats there were!

Then I found the maternity clothes which all looked massive and over-patterned so decided to move on to the cutest part of the shop – the baby clothes. I stood in awe of the tiny little vests, coats and soft shoes and picked up a couple of adorable soft toys, still in disbelief that we were going to need all these things.

Slightly freaked out already by the sheer amount of things in this shop and the unappealing maternity jeans, I then came across an aisle of maternity bras, disposable knickers, breast pumps and other bizarre looking equipment which I had no idea even existed, let alone know what it was for.

I felt totally out of my depth; in an 'other world' of which I knew very little and which my gymkhana rosette, netball medal, 9 O'Levels, 3 A'Levels, BA (Hons) degree, a year in Australia, a London Marathon and 11 years of work experience had not helped prepare me for at all.

I felt like a complete fraud or some kind of freak who spends their day meandering around baby shops as a result of some terrible tragedy in their past. I wanted a sign saying 'I'm pregnant' or a big bump like all the other women in the shop; I wanted to know what Almond Oil could possibly be used for, why there were 18 different types of bottle teets and I wanted to talk knowingly to an assistant about the benefits of a three versus a four-wheeler buggy.

Instead, I self-consciously picked up a book titled ‘Pregnancy & Childbirth’ which seemed to cover everything (although in hindsight it did look like it was produced in the 1970's) and paid the assistant who barely acknowledged me, let alone offer her congratulations on my ‘condition’.

In fact, she seemed to be completely disinterested in my reasons for buying this book which, I would have thought was pretty bloody obvious. I resisted the temptation to shout across the counter, "I'M PREGNANT YOU IGNORANT COW!", and wandered back home to read about the possible damage I had done to my unborn child by eating blue cheese a few days ago.

Baby on Board

In which I suffer from ‘Present Panic’

Continuing the ‘Seven Deadly Sins of Parenting’, I’m asking you to consider whether, as parents, we have become too greedy?

From the end of October to the end of the year is an extremely busy time at Hot Cross Mum Towers with both boys’ birthdays and Christmas.

During this time, I get endless phone calls from well meaning grandparents and aunts and uncles asking what the boys would like as presents and I panic. When I do think of something they might possibly need, this means that there really isn’t much left for ‘Santa’ to bring which leaves me wracking my brain for ideas again.

For weeks, we seem to have an endless array of friends, relatives and postmen arriving with presents, which although all very lovely and exciting (I’m a sucker for a celebration), inevitably leaves us grown ups feeling a little uncomfortable.

I’m not being bah humbug. Just perhaps a bit bah.

I end up stressing about where everything is going to go (when I say ‘Hot Cross Mum Towers, I am perhaps over-exaggerating ever-so-slightly on the ‘Towers’ analogy!). I try desperately to re-organise and re-house everything so it looks as though we don’t live in an actual toy shop.

I feel bad that some toys are hardly played with and do my level best to rotate them, but of course despite my best intentions this never happens.

We have started to ask the boys to choose one of their older toys to give to charity – which I hope goes some way towards helping them understand that not everyone is as lucky as they are, and perhaps helps them to appreciate what they have. Does it? I don’t know.

So parents, are we raising a nation of Veruca Salts, demanding their golden goose, and getting it? How can we balance the desire to give gifts and the excitement we see in our child, with giving them a sense of appreciation?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

In which I suffer from ‘Present Panic’

Four Year Old Logic

My (nearly) four year old has been asking for some time now about directions.

“What follows that way?” he would ask, as we turned left and he saw the road ahead going straight on. “And what follows that way?” he would enquire at the cars going past us in the opposite direction.

These discussions could last for the entire hour long journey between Dublin and our house. After running out of actual places where roads could possibly go to, I would amuse myself by telling him that the road over there led to the moon, that one to the end of the rainbow, that one to Bob The Builder’s house and the other to The Island of Sodor.

More recently, he’s been obsessing about ‘left’ and ‘right’. This again, has been the sole topic of conversation on many a car journey (the two-year-old does what only a two-year-old can do in these circumstances – falls asleep!).

Anyway, he seems to now have this sussed and on recent trips he will say correctly when I turn left or right. Then, the other morning, while on a mercy dash for more milk, as I took a left turn, a little voice piped up from the back,

“We turned left mummy didn’t we. I know that because this is the left hand side” (gesturing with his lefthand).

“That’s right love, well done”.

“No mummy, not right, left”.

“Yes (grrr), we turned left. That is correct. Well done”.

Then he continued, “So if this is the left hand side, this is the left leg side, isn't it” (points to his left leg), “and this is the right hand side (gestures with his right hand) and this is the right leg side (points to his right leg)”.

You can't really argue with the logic, can you?! Trouble is, it is not yet 8am. I need way more caffeine to be able to continue this conversation!

Four Year Old Logic