Cupboard dry! Iron dry (ie, wet). Cupboard dry plus!!? And, for those who bought a tumble dryer to, er, make their clothes actually pretty much dry, we have the special option: Extra dry. Wow. This place will always amaze me.
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
forward and back
Today I came back to the city where we've been based for almost 4 years. One thing that bothered me about this city was its poor public transit. It is expensive, and extremely, ridiculously, execrably unreliable, and the drivers are often both rude and unhelpful. The first thing that happened on my arrival today was that I paid 2£ for my £1.80 ticket and instead of giving me 20p the guy printed out an EXTRA long ticket, which, if I had endless time at my disposal, I could return to their office for my cash, or so I gather. You just couldn't make this stuff up.
On the way to my packed afternoon full of work meetings we passed places where I'd been miserable (often transit-related, as it happens) and places where we'd been just so happy. I realised how much of my life experience now, how many of my memories, are about Nina (with a little of baby Annika in there too). There are untold hours at playgrounds, alone, with my lovely lovely friends and their little ones. Many hours, all together, walking the quick 10 minutes to and from their old nursery, Nina climbing on everything. Oh god, do I miss that commute with the desperation of someone who now commutes in London with a 7-month-old screamer and an exhausted, if very game, 3-year-old... Driving to/from her toddler gymnastics, taking her to the museum, spending time with her friends and ours, looking at the fountain... I walked near the hospital where they were both born, remembering the roaring, the trauma, the thrill of it, the warm lump of tiny baby suckling for the very first time... I passed the church where when Nina was a baby I took her to the baby music group; we still sing the little songs for Annika, or we tweak them to mock difficult bits of ours lives. I passed the bench near the Sainsburys where you sometimes see drunks but where I once, trying to get home probably from the music group, breastfed and breastfed and breastfed and couldn't get Nina to settle in her stroller, and eventually walked the 12 minutes home with her completely FRANTIC, worrying that I looked like a terrible mum. My neighbour said "don't you worry what anyone might think, if your child is making that noise she is going to be just FINE". I asked how old her daughter was, and she said '34'. I was so consoled. Her husband later told me he used to try to sleep while his foot rocked the buggy to get their baby to sleep, but he never quite got a good sleep while doing that :)
How did the distinction between me enjoying something and Nina enjoying something get so blurred? When she's happy, we are happy (and, er, conversely - that's probably it in a nutshell). It's not that I don't have a sense of self, or selfishness, believe me, I do. But in my picture of a 'really fun thing' to do, Nina is there, with her little grin of pure delight, as a huge film bubble rises around her at the bubble show last Sunday at the Science museum.
I think there is nothing that having children makes me aware of more than the passage of time.
Photos preserve an image, but in the end, don't we remember the photo and not the moment? How many moments do I really remember from Nina's babyhood? How can I preserve Annika's, those smiles, those wispy giggles, those little hands pinching my arms while she breastfeeds, those early 'da da ga ga's and the whole-body exuberance she shows when she's lying on her back and I come in the room and move towards her? And the other side: those screams, increasing in frantic intensity, during an epic trip home that should have been a 45 minute walk in the park (literally) that turned into more than 90 minutes of stopping for bathrooms, buying dinner, breastfeeding, formula feeding, puree-providing, cuddling, shoe-fixing and of course sneezing, all with a bad cold. And then there are the moments of tiredness, perpetual, endless, tiredness, tiredness whose pervasiveness wears you down so that you stop even mentioning that constant companion: tiredness. Since A. started dealing with Annika at night, mostly, this has faded. My hero.
Does writing about these moments lead to better, higher-quality memories of them than photographing them or making videos? Or will nothing really allow us to keep our babies forever?
On the way to my packed afternoon full of work meetings we passed places where I'd been miserable (often transit-related, as it happens) and places where we'd been just so happy. I realised how much of my life experience now, how many of my memories, are about Nina (with a little of baby Annika in there too). There are untold hours at playgrounds, alone, with my lovely lovely friends and their little ones. Many hours, all together, walking the quick 10 minutes to and from their old nursery, Nina climbing on everything. Oh god, do I miss that commute with the desperation of someone who now commutes in London with a 7-month-old screamer and an exhausted, if very game, 3-year-old... Driving to/from her toddler gymnastics, taking her to the museum, spending time with her friends and ours, looking at the fountain... I walked near the hospital where they were both born, remembering the roaring, the trauma, the thrill of it, the warm lump of tiny baby suckling for the very first time... I passed the church where when Nina was a baby I took her to the baby music group; we still sing the little songs for Annika, or we tweak them to mock difficult bits of ours lives. I passed the bench near the Sainsburys where you sometimes see drunks but where I once, trying to get home probably from the music group, breastfed and breastfed and breastfed and couldn't get Nina to settle in her stroller, and eventually walked the 12 minutes home with her completely FRANTIC, worrying that I looked like a terrible mum. My neighbour said "don't you worry what anyone might think, if your child is making that noise she is going to be just FINE". I asked how old her daughter was, and she said '34'. I was so consoled. Her husband later told me he used to try to sleep while his foot rocked the buggy to get their baby to sleep, but he never quite got a good sleep while doing that :)
How did the distinction between me enjoying something and Nina enjoying something get so blurred? When she's happy, we are happy (and, er, conversely - that's probably it in a nutshell). It's not that I don't have a sense of self, or selfishness, believe me, I do. But in my picture of a 'really fun thing' to do, Nina is there, with her little grin of pure delight, as a huge film bubble rises around her at the bubble show last Sunday at the Science museum.
I think there is nothing that having children makes me aware of more than the passage of time.
Photos preserve an image, but in the end, don't we remember the photo and not the moment? How many moments do I really remember from Nina's babyhood? How can I preserve Annika's, those smiles, those wispy giggles, those little hands pinching my arms while she breastfeeds, those early 'da da ga ga's and the whole-body exuberance she shows when she's lying on her back and I come in the room and move towards her? And the other side: those screams, increasing in frantic intensity, during an epic trip home that should have been a 45 minute walk in the park (literally) that turned into more than 90 minutes of stopping for bathrooms, buying dinner, breastfeeding, formula feeding, puree-providing, cuddling, shoe-fixing and of course sneezing, all with a bad cold. And then there are the moments of tiredness, perpetual, endless, tiredness, tiredness whose pervasiveness wears you down so that you stop even mentioning that constant companion: tiredness. Since A. started dealing with Annika at night, mostly, this has faded. My hero.
Does writing about these moments lead to better, higher-quality memories of them than photographing them or making videos? Or will nothing really allow us to keep our babies forever?
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Our news in brief
The baby has a tooth!
Hyde park is gorgeous on a crisp fall morning
Nina loves the new nursery
I am so angry about our endlessly delayed house purchase that I can't talk about it
We are in an underground fluorescent dim den of a flat near lancaster gate but we have to leave Thursday and move... not to our HOUSE of course
Short term rentals suck and are very expensive
Nina still likes buses
London has a LOT of buses...
And that's our news in brief
Monday, 5 September 2011
Baby rice
Annika's almost 6 months now. She hasn't shown much interest in food, really. But the last couple of weeks have been a little rough, with her. She's up too much in the night. Last night she slept well through the evening, fed a lot at 12, then 2:20 a bit, then a few times (ARGH) between 2:30 and 5:15, then really well between 5:15 and 6ish, after which I had trouble getting back to sleep. And then the little squick woke up just after 7! I fed her AGAIN, then dumped her on Amps with instructions to beg the nursery to have her, and drop them both off there as soon as possible. He finally left in a torrent of in-and-out, door clanging, baby-screaming, Nina-singing chaos at 10. I got up shortly after that, went to work, and was still tired all day.
Anyway, it's like this with babies, and we should feel lucky that the past couple of weeks have really been the first time the little sweetie has actually ever been any real trouble. But now the theories come out of the woods: is it that she can't fall asleep on her own? (probably). Do I feed her to sleep too much? (probably, yes). Should we try 'cry it out' (CIO)? should we try 'pick up, put down' (PUPD)? Should we wait until she's actually 6 months (15 more days, folks!) and is officially "ready" to sleep through, and "ready" for behavioural sleep interventions (no acronym common)? Should we ignore it and realise that she'll grow out of it whatever we do, and just not stress about it (ahhh, probably, yes)? When things get hard, the urge to do something grows, obviously. But what? And now that mumsnet, and the internet in general, are out there, all these theories and plans and other peoples' anecdotal experiences and disagreements and similarities to us and differences from us are laid out, easy to find. And how is it that she naps at nursery? They don't breastfeed her to sleep or drive to Clevedon in the car (last post). Apparently she'll sleep for 1:15 there, compared to about 6 min 30 seconds around here ...
Well, anyway, she seemed a little reachy at mealtimes, and going for inappropriate choices, like pints of ale. So yesterday we bought some baby rice. I didn't think she'd go for it, really, as despite being really quite interested in breasts (mine), she isn't a big eater. She was pretty puzzled at first, kind of sucking the spoon, turning her head away and then back again, spitting it out, opening her mouth again. But she took to it. She sucked it down, and then we made some more, and she gobbled that too. So maybe she's been hungry, poor little 9th-percentile-for-weight child.
Anyway, about babies and sleep, I had read online that when they do something new, like roll over, pull up to standing, or start "solid" foods, they can get excited about it, and wake up thinking about it or practising it. I was telling Amps this when we realised that I had just suggested that 3 tbsp of lukewarm, tasteless, sludge could actually be so exciting as to keep someone up at night.
Anyway, it's like this with babies, and we should feel lucky that the past couple of weeks have really been the first time the little sweetie has actually ever been any real trouble. But now the theories come out of the woods: is it that she can't fall asleep on her own? (probably). Do I feed her to sleep too much? (probably, yes). Should we try 'cry it out' (CIO)? should we try 'pick up, put down' (PUPD)? Should we wait until she's actually 6 months (15 more days, folks!) and is officially "ready" to sleep through, and "ready" for behavioural sleep interventions (no acronym common)? Should we ignore it and realise that she'll grow out of it whatever we do, and just not stress about it (ahhh, probably, yes)? When things get hard, the urge to do something grows, obviously. But what? And now that mumsnet, and the internet in general, are out there, all these theories and plans and other peoples' anecdotal experiences and disagreements and similarities to us and differences from us are laid out, easy to find. And how is it that she naps at nursery? They don't breastfeed her to sleep or drive to Clevedon in the car (last post). Apparently she'll sleep for 1:15 there, compared to about 6 min 30 seconds around here ...
Well, anyway, she seemed a little reachy at mealtimes, and going for inappropriate choices, like pints of ale. So yesterday we bought some baby rice. I didn't think she'd go for it, really, as despite being really quite interested in breasts (mine), she isn't a big eater. She was pretty puzzled at first, kind of sucking the spoon, turning her head away and then back again, spitting it out, opening her mouth again. But she took to it. She sucked it down, and then we made some more, and she gobbled that too. So maybe she's been hungry, poor little 9th-percentile-for-weight child.
Anyway, about babies and sleep, I had read online that when they do something new, like roll over, pull up to standing, or start "solid" foods, they can get excited about it, and wake up thinking about it or practising it. I was telling Amps this when we realised that I had just suggested that 3 tbsp of lukewarm, tasteless, sludge could actually be so exciting as to keep someone up at night.
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
Monday, 22 August 2011
The magic wand
Amps and I used to have this friendly evening debate: would you want a magic wand that would make you an amazing Thai dinner? Or one that would clean the kitchen afterwards? We both agreed that cooking is a lot more fun than cleaning, so we'd go for the clean-up wand.
Fast-forward many years ahead to today. The question I have for you is: how much would you pay for a wand that puts your children back to sleep?
Now, there would have to be some rules. The wand wouldn't work, say, when the child shouldn't be sleeping, so you couldn't just use it like a mute button (now, a mute button for kids? Probably that would be popular too. I won't go there).
But at night, when it's sleep time, you could wave it, and your kids would go back to sleep.
I think this would change the world. Like a washing machine or a toilet, everyone would have to have one. Who scrubs all their socks on a washing board these days? If you didn't have one of your own maybe there'd be a wandromat or something where you could borrow one for a bit. Or maybe they'd be tied to property (like toilets); you'd mortgage an extra 100k for it and sell it when they got to be 8 or whatever. Like washers, dishwashers, dryers (I remember those! oh, I want one, not so much for the drying as for the floor space), running water: it would liberate women. Women, who are by far the majority of the night-risers, the night-feeders, the night cleaning-vomit-out-of-the-bed, softly-singing sleep-deprived pajama'd ghost-people ...
I figure 100k is probably a little steep. After all, we can survive without this device, in some sense. But I'd fork over 20k without hesitation, especially if I could mortgage the thing. And I'm talking £ here.
Fast-forward many years ahead to today. The question I have for you is: how much would you pay for a wand that puts your children back to sleep?
Now, there would have to be some rules. The wand wouldn't work, say, when the child shouldn't be sleeping, so you couldn't just use it like a mute button (now, a mute button for kids? Probably that would be popular too. I won't go there).
But at night, when it's sleep time, you could wave it, and your kids would go back to sleep.
I think this would change the world. Like a washing machine or a toilet, everyone would have to have one. Who scrubs all their socks on a washing board these days? If you didn't have one of your own maybe there'd be a wandromat or something where you could borrow one for a bit. Or maybe they'd be tied to property (like toilets); you'd mortgage an extra 100k for it and sell it when they got to be 8 or whatever. Like washers, dishwashers, dryers (I remember those! oh, I want one, not so much for the drying as for the floor space), running water: it would liberate women. Women, who are by far the majority of the night-risers, the night-feeders, the night cleaning-vomit-out-of-the-bed, softly-singing sleep-deprived pajama'd ghost-people ...
I figure 100k is probably a little steep. After all, we can survive without this device, in some sense. But I'd fork over 20k without hesitation, especially if I could mortgage the thing. And I'm talking £ here.
Sunday, 14 August 2011
A few pics while i feed this baby
At the park... in the car on the way back from the Cotswalds.. at the other park, and at the pick your own strawberries farm. These are good times, if tiring and overwhelming. But already I am sad in anticipation that they'll end so fast.
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