Hurrah for Mother's Groups

Anna has been a bit stroppy this week and consequently a bit hard to be around. Actually, she's been great to be around as long as I am around very close to her (i.e., skin to skin contact at best, or within reach-out-and-touch distance if not) but if I get up and move, say to go to the toilet or cook something or just do any other very small non-baby thing to enhance my sanity, it doesn't go down very well at all. Worst of all, her bedtime routine has all gone to shit and she's suddenly not a happy camper if I put her down at her usual 7pm. Because I am weak and lily livered pragmatic and sensible, rather than fight her I just get her up again. She's delighted with this new strategy and she plays on her rug with her toys until 8.30 or 9.00 or so, then she has another feed and goes to bed with no complaints, just like the angel that I know she can pretend to be.

Just to get my own back and to remind myself that I am the adult and therefore hold the balance of power (Ha!!! ha ha ha HA HA! Cackles like an especially excited banshee) I have implemented a new 'we still get up at 7 o'clock even if we go to bed late, darling' rule. Well, I figured it worked on my brother and me, when I was 10 and my mother finally waved the white flag on the Great Bedtime War, and I don't see any harm in starting early. (HA HA! Does the banshee thing again). Unless harm can be categorized as my profound shock at seeing my smiling little cherub's 'first thing in the morning and happy to see you' face replaced by a snarling troll; in which case, yes, there is some psychological harm, certainly enough to make me dread the cold winter mornings on school days lurking on my horizon (if I start lobbying now, maybe I could convince the Education Department to start classes at 10 am by the time Anna starts school). However, out of stubbornness and a strong conviction that I am right – I don't get these very often, so I have to make the most of them when they arrive – every morning I gird my heart and continue to fling the door open as if I really want to be there, I cry 'good morning, my precious' as I scoop up my little troll, and I draw the blind with a gay flourish and sing the 'good morning sunshine' song to the bright, happy and unsuspecting world as if oblivious to the fact that the creature in my arms is rusting the hinges off next door's gates with her scowl.

And no, the times above are not typo's or wild fantasies; in the past Anna has slept from about 7pm until about 7am with, lately, a 10 minute breastfeed in the wee small hours; and yes I am aware that this is not at all usual for a baby and that most other mothers hate me with a sleep-deprived mania. Don't tell me I have had it lucky up to now and should shut the fuck up complaining, because I don't want to hear it. I have a right to stamp my foot and shake my fist at the universe and demand a continuation of baby-sleep perfection. And don't tell me that if Anna is going to get up at 7am I should cut her a bit of slack in the evenings and let her stay up till 8.30 or 9pm because I don't want to hear that either. I like my evenings to myself to watch crap TV and write my blog, and eating is always fun too. And don't even mention the idea that if I insist on a 7pm bedtime I should expect a 5.30am start to compensate, because Anna might sneak a look on this blog one day and get ideas. It will be bad enough having to explain why Mum can say 'fuck' but she can't, let alone trying to do it at the ungodly hour of 5.30am.

Just for the record, if there are any gung-ho but insane executives and/or ladder climbers out there: 5.30 in the morning is not get up time; it is roll over and snuggle in time. So stop doing it because you are setting a bad precedent for everyone else.

Anyway, hurrah for Mother's Groups! Mine is kind of tedious and depressing in many different ways but yesterday, oh joy! I discovered that almost all the other babies are also going through a clingy possessive stage, and all of them have started to rebel against their usual night time habits. (One babe has reverted to real little babyhood and started to wake every two hours again, which I think is a good enough reason to take her back as a faulty item and insist on a refund. You'd never guess the fault by looking at the baby: she's bright eyed and bushy tailed. It's her mum who's the giveaway: she looks like a badly drawn heroin chick in need of a long, deep, warm fix). I have never felt so glad to hear the miseries of other people. To know that however grumpy Anna and I get with each other these days, there are other people out there who have it so much worse, cheers me up so much I think I might just pile a whole lot of toys in Anna's cot with her and let her party on all night.

Swoon

Oh my. Oh my oh my ohmyohmyohmyohmy…… I am in the middle of a breathless swooning moment because I have had lots of emails from my friends and family telling me wonderful things about my writing and how good they think my blog is, and some of them are fabulously intelligent people who themselves write very well indeed, and I even have another comment from yet another complete stranger asking me when my book is out… well, suffice to say I'm all aflutter.

I had to go online to pay some bills, just to bring myself back to reality for a bit.

In other Anna news, my brother Ric and I and a friend of mine went to see Heads We're Dancing last night and what a great gig it was. (They are off next month to hit the big time at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and just hearing those words was enough to spin me off into a reverie about summertime in Edinburgh and walking about in the shadow of the Castle soaking up all the atmosphere of the Festival and maxing my credit card going to see all sorts of wonderful and funny and literary and downright arty farty acts… mmmmmm, it was nice). Ric and I tore up the dance floor – we can be a pretty mean duo when we feel the rhythm. I think it comes of neither of us actually giving a shit what anybody thinks we look like. Ric was his usual gregarious self – by the end of the night he'd made friends with everyone on the dance floor and spent a great deal of time shaking hands and backslapping and introducing me to all of his new mates.

Anna stayed with Grandma for the second successful time but this time, did she sleep soundly all night long? Oh no, she did not. Apparently she woke up at 9 o'clock and refused to go back to sleep, so she and Grandma stayed up watching TV and eating chocolate. Hmmmm. I got home to find them snuggled up together in a purple velvet bathrobe, surrounded by abandoned toys and with chocolate foil strewn about the place. They had saved me some, which was nice of them.

All change

I'm all out of sorts because Anna is changing her routine again – I think. It always takes me by surprise despite the many times it's happened before; I spend a couple of days wondering why she suddenly doesn't want to do whatever she's been happily doing, and then the penny drops and I realise that the times, they are a'changing.

This most recent one is regarding my old nemesis, nap time. For the past couple of months (or weeks, or maybe days – I don't know, time has no meaning for me anymore) she's had a nice and easy routine of a two hour nap starting at 10.30 or so, going until lunch time (very handy) and then topping it up with an hour in the afternoon. This has been brilliant for me as I get a whole two hours to do whatever I want with (and you can bet it ain't been the housework!) but still had the afternoons free for visiting or shopping or escaping the dust bunnies in the corners. Now, she's not happy to nap until about noon and I'm all confused. I rushed off to consult my baby books and yes, apparently this happens somewhere around 12 months (terribly advanced and gifted is my daughter, you know) but there are no hints about what to do about the food issue if she's sleeping slap bang in the middle of lunch time, so again I'll be making it up as I go along. I have a million things to consider: do I give her a very early lunch, but run the risk of her being too tired and cranky to eat it? Do I leave it and give her a late lunch, knowing this will surely interfere with the afternoon snack? How do I work the breastfeeding around this given that her morning and afternoon tea have previously been a breast feed? Is now when I start to try get her to sleep without a red hot go at boobies? How can I put this off for longer, as the thought of all the crying and unhappiness is too hideous to contemplate right now? How do I work my lunch around it all – I will starve to death if I have to wait until 2pm or later to eat, but who ever heard of sitting down to lunch at 11.30? That would mean preparing it at 11-ish and I've only just come out of morning tea by then. Who wants to prepare a lunch with a belly full of cake or biscuits? (Oops, sorry, of course I really mean fresh fruit or yoghurt). If I eat on my own how does that gel with encouraging Anna to eat with the family and learn about social mealtimes, and the proper way to hold a fork, and how as fun as it no doubt is, dropping food over the edge is really not the done thing?

What is the bloody meaning of life, anyway?

I think now might be a good time to take a chill pill, relax and go with the flow. Despite all my crowing, Anna is really not having much truck with the solid finger foods anyway and I honestly don’t think she notices if I happen to be eating when she is. I suspect the socialising at the dinner table concept is something that sounds fabulous in theory but doesn't translate very well into reality. Not for an 8 month old, anyway. I am so determined not to make food an issue between us – I can see terrible two's* tableside temper tanties looming on my horizon otherwise, and I just can't be bothered with all that – so I need to be a bit Zen and let go.

Right then, I'm off to have my lunch.

* Although what I've heard from the gossip of my baby club networks is that two year olds are actually still pretty nice people – it's when they hit three that the gremlins take over. Three is the new two!

Underwater

Wednesdays are our swimming days and I think they are my favourite day of the week. Anna has been swimming since she was 13 weeks old and I really recommend it to any new parent. We swim with Oceanic Waterbabies who have a great philosophy about babies and swimming and have a very gentle instructing method (good for someone like moi, i.e. a big fat scaredy cat in the water) but I think that anywhere you go where you and your babe feel comfortable and have fun is OK.

Yesterday we parents donned goggles so we could go underwater with our babies and spy on them. Anna looks great, albeit kinda spooky – babies have this mechanism thingy where their air passage closes automatically in water (so they don't drown in amniotic fluid, presumably) which means they don't need to keep their mouth shut, and their eyes have a special film across them to keep water out so they don't need to keep them shut either; all this means that while we are holding breaths and puffing cheeks out and looking like land lubbers, babies underwater cruise around looking pretty much the same as they do above water. It's cute but freaky.

Our instructor, Elvira, says to be 'right there' with the babies so as to maintain eye contact but although I follow this advice dutifully – don't want my little precious bundle to think I've left her in the deep end and have issues for the rest of her life – Anna really doesn't notice because she very rarely looks at me. She's too busy checking everyone else out, and keeping an eye on the floaty toys we use for some of the activities. Thankfully, unlike her completely useless mother who still can't dive – I'll be honest here, I still can't even keep my head under the bloody shower for more than a minute or two without getting panic flushes – Anna seems to have the water thing sorted. This is exactly what I was aiming for – I know for a fact that growing up in Australia, surrounded by some of the best beaches in the world, is a total bummer if one is psychically allergic to water.

In fact I think I might be in danger of raising a geek, because we have become the teacher's pet. We do everything to the letter. I listen to every single instruction because I irrationally believe if I miss anything, it will probably be an integral cornerstone of the whole experience, and Anna will drown without it. I am also fully aware that I get anxious in the water, so I deliberately leave all my personal judgements poolside and trust completely and absolutely what Elvira is telling us to do. It's the closest thing to a spiritual relationship I've ever had. If she says totally submerse Anna and let go, I ignore my Inner Hydrophone, go with the higher power and do it. Consequently, Anna is now going deeper for longer than the other babies who have mothers who have retained their protective maternal instincts (and to my surprise and great relief, she has not drowned even once). Even I am starting to get a bit tired of hearing Elvira telling me how well Anna is doing.

I'm pretty sure I heard all the other babies whispering about how they were going to get us in the parking lot after class.

Hello world

Firstly I think we need a drum roll because I've had my first commenter! Kirsten from Florida takes out that honour and thanks for saying such nice things. I couldn't have asked for any better even from my mum (who incidentally is the 2nd person to leave a comment.)

My blog really only went 'live' (or whatever the geeks call it) over the weekend. I have been writing blog posts since January when I had a totally dumb, stupid, and not user friendly blog that I won in a competition. I ditched that site after one too many frustrating contacts from their 'help desk' team (that phrase used very, very loosely) who were no doubt very knowledgeable but as they were all off-shore workers – getting paid about 3 peanuts per day, probably – their English and general communication skills could variously be described as 'patchy', 'laughable' and 'bloody awful'. In other words, no help at all. So although this particular company was Australian (technically, despite their offloading all the work onto poorer countries) and I do like to support a good Aussie, just to, you know, balance out the global juggernaut that is the USA; in this case it didn't work so I bailed both on the Aussies and on my principals. Ha! It's one of my strengths, I think: I'm good and flexible that way. Now I am with the Google powerhouse and it's fun and user friendly for a non-geek such as myself and I think I'm gonna like it.

If there are any Americans reading my blog (apart from Kirsten) who might take offence at the above paragraph, please don't; I don't mean to dis your very fine country and it's not your fault that George Dubya was ever born (good grief, look at the smarmy amphibian we've voted in: I'm hardly in a position to chuck stones!) but it's just that lately I (and several thousand others) have tended to notice just a teensy bit of cultural creepage happening from that part of the world that is sandwiched between Canada and South America. I accept that this is partly the fault of the people (i.e., me et al) who have thus far tended to more or less enthusiastically embrace everything American with nary a second thought. My gentle chiding of America, and my attempts to circumnavigate its dominance by using Australian where practical and possible, are merely a small and probably token effort to stem the tide of this creepage, and should in no way be construed as any criticism against individual people who live in America. (Except, of course, George Bush (both of 'em, in fact) who I'm sorry but I just can't bring myself to like, and also I’m not really fond of Julia Roberts either).

Whew. Where did that come from? I'm obviously feeling all apologetic and sensitive today. I could revert back to my usual blunt but loveable self: if anyone doesn't like reading this, then don't. Turn off the whole damn computer and go for a brisk walk instead, it'll do you a power of good.

Now. Back to the business of Anna. She has food issues already. (Actually, she's fine with food; I think it's definitely me that has the issues). The majority of my issues come from me lovingly cooking and mashing a whole lot of vegetables and then slowly but surely throwing them all away, in little teaspoon full increments. Anna will eat two or three mouthfuls, with a fairish bit of encouragement that I’m getting tired of doing already (I know, I have no staying power) and then I throw the rest out. It's discouraging. Especially given that she quite likes the shop bought muck-based baby food which all taste the same – cardboardish – and don't make me feel like a good and nurturing mum. And then even though I know that comparing babies is a sure fire slippery slope to parental gloom and despondency, even though I know this I do it anyway and I can't help but note that all the other babies at Mother's Group are happily scoffing their baby food by the bucket load and clamouring for more. One baby was even sampling the biscuits and dip! (and, tsk tsk, the potato chips and the choc chip bikkies but I won't say anything more because I remember that I am feeling sensitive and non-judgemental today. Apparently.)

Anyway, I thought, I'm over the baby mush, Anna is obviously over it too (she does like to chew the bowl and the spoon, which is encouraging) so yesterday she had finger food for the first time – tuna, egg yolk and some bread crusts. What a success! As long as you don't count her actually eating the food as the marker of success (in which case it was a bit of a failure because I'm pretty sure that not much actually went down her throat). But it was fun, and lots of the food went into her mouth which is fairly close to her stomach – the fact that it came back out again is a mere technicality – and I also managed to sneak in a few mouthfuls of mush while she was preoccupied. So now I am embracing the concept of true 'together' meals and am busily menu planning and getting excited about tinned spaghetti and vegemite toast and two minute noodles in ways that are probably all out of proportion, if not downright unhealthy.

It's only one small step until I buy an overpriced 'cooking for your toddler' cookbook written by some celebrity chef who is either childless or has employed a nanny since day one, and then – oh! And then! – then I will be throwing away artfully served and cleverly garnished food by the plateful instead.

Strong female role model wanted

So I'm at the doctor's with Anna yesterday morning and it has led me to pondering the nature of female behaviour and strong female role models and what impression I want to give Anna as she is growing up. (Don't ask me why I was at the doctor's – it is related to another bad incident that happened not too long ago and I am too ashamed to admit it happened again so I am denying everything).

My GP is great and he has restored nearly all my faith in male doctors (my having got annoyed with them in my early twenties and insisting on female GP's ever since). This one – I am reluctant to mention his name because I am not au fait with blog etiquette yet and don't know if I am supposed to – is an obstetrician as well as a GP and I got him by default as there were no female obstetricians around when I needed one. Anyway… despite his being all round lovely and caring and a genuine Nice Guy, every time I am around him I go all pathetic and girly and whiny and helpless. AND I HATE IT. I hear the stuff coming out of my mouth – "I hope I'm doing all right but it's really hard and I don't know if I should be doing this on my own and I think I'm doing OK but I guess I'll know when she's 15 and crawling out bedroom windows hee hee and please Leon (ooops) please send a dashing knight on a white horse to gallop up and save me because I'm just a poor wee damsel and I need saving." I hear it coming out of my mouth and I'm thinking, where is this crap coming from? Because I know it is not true – I know I'm doing a good job at mothering and I don't think I did the wrong thing being on my own and if a dashing knight did ride up on a horse I'd invite him in for coffee, but if he tried to pull any saving crap I'd send him on his way quick smart (I'd keep the horse).

It's horrifying and pathetic. It's also bad enough that I am doing it at all but even worse when I consider that Anna is RIGHT THERE listening and OK, she's only 8 months now so who cares what she hears as she doesn't understand it anyway, but if I don't sort out my shit now she'll be understanding it soon enough and I don't want her having a pathetic female role model. I want her to be strong and independent and self assured and not have to rely on giggling to get what she thinks she needs.

OK, I'll tell you why I was at the surgery in the first place – Anna fell out of her pram and grazed her little head. She cried for a bit and then went all tired and floppy and naturally, I freaked out, so I took her to Accident and Emergency where they pronounced her fine and dandy. But because Dr Leon (it's out now, no point hiding it) is her GP they faxed him about it and he got one of his frightening medical receptionist underlings to ring me to go see him so he could check her out. (See, he's nice like that – caring. Some people would find this an imposition and an invasion of privacy, I guess, but I think it shows that he gives a shit which in my experience is a rarity with overworked and underpaid publicly funded doctors).

This Pram Incident was more frightening for me than the Change Table Incident because with the pram, I was aware of the dangers and thought I'd got them covered. So it's not that I was being just a tad negligent, (bad enough), it's that I had a downright bad judgement call (worse). I think it's because my brain is still not the full quid at the moment, whether due to chronic tiredness or breast feeding or too much spider solitaire, I don't know. I do know it's a fact and I realised this because of the Penguin Incident this morning:

Anna, Bud and I were on the home stretch of our daily walk and coming up my street, only about 6 houses away from our house, I saw this black and white thing in a vaguely familiar position sitting on the pavement and my poor tired old brain says, perfectly seriously without a hint of a joke, Oh look, it's a penguin.

A penguin.

Now, it's true that our suburb is chocka block full of native flora and fauna but thus far, sadly, no penguins live around here. (This is damn shame in my opinion; I think the world could do with a few more penguins hanging about street corners and under letterboxes and bushes). Merest seconds after my brain gave me the penguin hypothesis, the rest of my brain – the bit that works – said don't be an idiot, it's not a penguin, it's just a normal boring cat*. And yet another bit – the bit that has actually already jumped ship, it just checks back every now and then to reassure itself that it made the right decision – this bit thought, what a bloody shambles.

*This bit was correct.

You've got to be kidding

Oh my lordy, this bunch of seriously dysfunctional baby names is hilarious. I'm warning you, make sure the baby's door is closed if she's asleep, cos there are some serious laugh out loud moments in this lot. A couple of 'em literally brought tears to my eyes. This site is better than Prozac.

I found this site courtesy of a little pregnant- I don't believe in God either, but if I did I'd be praying for a baby for you.

Whatever

I haven't updated anything for a while because I have been feeling generally BLAAAH. Oh, I suppose a few exciting things have happened – I bought a highchair, and in my universe, that's pretty high on the list of excitement – and I've had a fairly social week, but in between times when the door is shut in the face of the world and it's just me and my dependants, I've been grumping at Buddy and watching crap TV (is it just me, or is Super Nanny getting a teensy bit repetitive?) and playing Spider Solitaire.

Here are some other things that happened.

1. Anna started to turn pages of her board books on her own! And I'm pretty sure she is 'following' the story, or at least anticipating the giggly bits, or maybe she's just laughing at the book itself; I don’t know and I don't care – I just am so pleased that she's shaping up to be a little bookish person. When I found out I was pregnant my biggest fear, over and above her not being 1. A girl, 2. 100% healthy, and 3. A One Nation voter, was that she wouldn't be a reader. My God, I thought, what would we talk about? Where in the world would our common ground be? Given that my only interests and skills in the world are reading and writing (judge for yourselves on the latter), there was a fairly narrow scope for any meaningful connection.

2. Anna has her first crush – on a big felt wall hanging of Winnie the Pooh with a bunch of balloons. It's hilarious – she gets a great big smile every time we go into her room, and she giggles JUST LIKE the schoolgirl she will be someday be, and she gets all shy and hides her face but then she can't help herself and she peeks out, just to make sure he's still there, and then she giggles all over again. She's been doing it for days and I am still entranced.

3. Buddy has disgraced himself big time – I have discovered that he has been sneaking into next door's back garden, stirring up the big dogs over the back of their fence, and eating their cat's food. (It's better than eating the cat, I suppose…) Anyway he has now been confined to our own back garden, which is a bit devastating for him and a pain in the arse for me because I have to keep remembering to close the gates. Up until now he's been the sort of dog that hasn't needed fences as he'd just hang about the front garden on those few times when he'd shift himself off the couch to go outside. Terribly illegal of course but I've always joyfully flaunted that particular council regulation, smug in the knowledge that MY dog is well trained and MY dog doesn't go wandering and MY dog is cool enough not to cause disturbances. Damn.

4. A while ago I totally took leave of all my senses and entered Anna in a 'beautiful baby' contest run by Mother and Baby magazine; and in a blatant case of appalling judgement she hasn't made the finalists list. Bummer, because I was hoping we'd get the free trip to Sydney and from there we could fly cheaply to Melbourne to visit friends. I know that sounds like sour grapes but really and truly, it is why I entered … yet I have to admit there was a tiny and incredulous part of me that wanted to see her face beaming out at the world from a magazine cover. Really ridiculous. Probably her not winning is for the best, as I'd no doubt turn into a nightmarish boring competitive bitch of a stage mother and Anna would spend her whole life trying to get away from me.

5. I was right on the growth charts! Those bloody percentile graphs that a certain health nurse whose name I shan't mention for fear of legal repercussions made me feel bad about because Anna was down the bottom of; well, according to the World Health Organisation, the data used to calculate the 'average' and acceptable weight gain is based on a study of American bottle fed babies done 20 years ago. Arrrgghhhh! I have nothing personally against either American babies or bottle fed babies or babies born in the 80's, but I would like to point out that they have NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH MY NEW AUSTRALIAN BREASTFED BABY and so why oh why our bloody health system has been pushing these charts on us is beyond me. This sort of thing really, really pisses me off. Why? Well, for starters, I went through a lot of stress and my confidence as a mother was really knocked about due to Anna being at the bottom of these charts, and to find out it was unnecessary is pretty annoying. One of the mums in my mother's group actually stopped breastfeeding and took up bottle feeding because she felt bad that her baby was at the bottom end of the scale. That's not just annoying, it's a tragedy.

If anyone is interested, click here for WHO's girl weight-for-age growth charts and here for boys.