Road Trip

9:45am
I'm having a mini adventure! In fact, I am so excited to get out of dodge town, that I'm finding it hard to contain myself, sitting in this cramped corner of a fast train to London Marylebone. I wiggle in delight and a bearded gentleman to my left gives me a stare. I'm suddenly aware of my plunging floral neckline and so I zip up my jacket a little to protect my modesty.
I have a meeting with a dear old friend at high noon. She is one of my old pre-baby crowd, with whom I shared my life in the Caribbean. Unlike me, she is still having adventures - although these days they are more urban than oceanic. We are planning to DO lunch. How wonderful that sounds. Normally I simply have lunch, and often the lunch has me - my hair, my clothes, my kitchen floor (thank you Sofia)...
There is a small gang of intimidating youths in hoodies wandering up and down the train with apparently no purpose but to say 'fuck' as loudly and as many times as possible per minute. They have already checked out my shiny iPad. Time to put it away. (Must make myself less of a target, not more. Better put away the cleavage too then!)
3:25pm
I am on a bus. After meeting my friend for lunch I found myself wandering around somewhere in East London far far away from any tourist zones, as lost and lonely as a cloud, feeling distinctly over (or under) dressed in my racy little sun dress and designer shades. When I came upon a crime scene where a police riot van was still present, the windows of a flat blacked out, and a pile of floral tributes indicating some terrible violent event...well, I decided to get on the first bus I saw heading west! Not sure where I was, and I'm not sure where I'm going but what's the worst that can happen!
4:05pm
I am back in central London having a cappuccino on the pavement of a street cafe. I knew I was OK as soon as I saw street vendors flogging union jack flags and t-shirts that said "I ❤ London".
5:20pm
A dear friend was slightly concerned when he found out that my return train was leaving London at 5pm - the heart of Friday rush hour. His advice was thus:
"OK. Listen darling, you need to get on that train fast. Expect chaos. Don't wait, don't think 'Oh I'll just go get a sandwich' - NO! Just run for it! As soon as you see the platform number! (or you will be screwed)."
Now, I didn't want to get screwed thank you very much, so I was at the barrier in plenty of time, eyes locked on the departures screen, fingers tense around my ticket outta here, my leg muscles ready to leap, my hooves ready to gallop. I snorted and huffed when a suited man tried to elbow into my starting position, his brow furrowed with stress. Another city filly inched forward, but I checked out her outfit and knew she would never be able to take me in those heels. Something changed on the board, six hundred ears strained to listen to the announcement....and....we were OFF!
I hit the barrier first, waved my ticket, burst through, slung my bag over my shoulder and legged it. I was a flowery pink blur, all skirt and lots of action. I risked a look back over my shoulder... HA! None of those suckers were even close! Needless to say, I had my pick of the train and was already chilling on a table seat with my iPad and a Mars Bar when the crowd dashed past the window.
I'm looking forward to a shower when I get home. (My baby girl is staying with her grandparents tonight) I'm sure that the London underground has left a layer of dirt on my skin. In fact I am feeling SO filthy that a long soak in a deep bubble bath with a large glass of wine may be the only cure.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:London

Mothering Sunday Carnage

Nothing says Happy Mother's Day better than a shower of projectile vomit.

I retired to bed the night before full of excitement about my second official Mothering Sunday. I laid out Sofia's specially selected outfit - a beautiful white dress with embroidered flowers and petticoats, and was looking forward to a day at my parents with the whole family.

The morning dawned and with it the scene of carnage in Sofia's cot. Looking at her sheets it was evident that I gave into lazy parenting the evening before and fed my angel greasy fish and chip shop supper with plenty of ketchup.... Ugh. Not sure I can look at a tinned row the same ever again...

I blamed myself for an unfortunate choice of dinner and after breakfast, got her dressed for the day.

A few minutes later the white dress was unrecognisable, and completely awash with regurgitated weetabix and banana.

Suddenly it was obvious that she had the dreaded sickness bug. The friend I met for coffee yesterday admitted to having the norovirus bug just a couple of days before, when it had spread like wildfire throughout her whole family. She's such a sharer and clearly didn't want me to miss out on the action! (Who needs enemies when your friends do such a good job of raining (vomit) on your parade?)

By Sunday night I caught it too and my house was the scene of devastation.

Mothering Sunday 2012 ended up being a day that required me to be the best mother I could possibly be, to use every parenting skill I have learned. I had to pull out my last reserves of energy to get us both through the sickness. There was much mopping, cleaning, cuddling, stroking, soothing, and singing. In fact, if Mother's Day is a recognition of the role of mother to child, then I have never felt it more profoundly, and never been a better mum to my baby girl.

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A Duvet Day

I'm having a lost day. Usually on Friday, Sofia's father collects her, and I wave goodbye, and then become a domestic whirlwind of tidying, cleaning, and organising; merrily ticking off my 'To Do' list, while humming a jaunty tune.
It's now almost 3pm and I am still wearing the same dressing gown I had on since first thing. I spent 2 hours hiding under my duvet earlier, (from who I'm not sure). Today I am sick of being a stay-at-home-single-mum and the thought of never doing anything different, or being anywhere different fills me with a cold dread. On days like today in the past, I would have booked a flight to somewhere far away and wonderful, and been gone before the month is out.
Tempting... but impossible, and I'm sure there's another underlying reason for my restless spirit today.
Maybe I will just bake some dazzling cupcakes instead, like a good stay-at-home-single-mum, and greet the return of my daughter later with smiles and tickles and smears of icing sugar on my nose.
...And nobody will ever know how much I wanted to run away (except for you...)

Back From The Void

You may have noticed the yawning chasm that is this blog; started enthusiastically in late November 2010, full of promise, perkiness and the kind of spirit that comes with the territory when you are imminently expecting your first child.

What's interesting is that in my effort to find inspiration as well as an original title, I searched for other similar blogs at the time, and found many that were surprisingly underpopulated or indeed, completely neglected. I remember feeling rather miffed that someone had reserved a great domain name for themselves (i.e. 'Mum's The Word') and then done absolutely nothing to advance it beyond a lonely title and a blank page. Fifteen long months later, mine befell a similar fate and now I finally understand why.

Becoming a parent is the single most difficult, all-encompassing, mentally and physically draining, devastatingly wonderful, world shattering event that will EVER happen to you.



Prepare for change, commitment and exhaustion beyond anything you have ever imagined.
Prepare to experience a love so true that it feels as though you wear your heart on the outside instead of within.




As for blogging...forget it! Even if I had found the time, my creative brain was long gone, leaving only a creaking sign in a tumbleweed wasteland that read, "Back Next Year - Possibly..."

Here I am, though. Now it's time to fill the void with some recounts from the last fifteen months.

Identity

I finally did it! Replaced my sexy single girl car in racy red with a sensible 5 door family hatchback with boot space for a pushchair. That's the last piece of my pre-baby identity gone. Here's some of my old identity losses so far:

- Collection of lovely fashion stilettos - boxed away (my feet have gone up almost half a shoe size and carrying a wriggly baby in high heels is just asking for trouble)
- Absorbing video game collection - gathering dust (as if I have time to sit down for 2 hours in front of a PS3)
- Bulk box of Alka Seltzer Extra Strength - thrown out (Im not going to be able to party so hard that I need hangover cure)

Now I'm officially a mum, haha, with the family car, the oversized handbag with room for baby toys, the magnolia painted walls (cheap n easy for touch ups), and the obligatory under-eye shadows. I looked into my daughter's eyes earlier and said, look what you've done, you've made me buy us a sensible car, I hope you're pleased with yourself little lady. In response she looked at me smugly and pooped.

She's brilliant :)

Visitors: A Benevolent Plague

People really do come out of the woodwork when they sniff out the arrival of a new baby, don't they. Not that I'm adverse to the cascade of well wishing cards and tissue-wrapped gifts of yet more pink baby grows, but surely, this can't go on forever! All I do from day to day is breast feed, change nappies and receive guests.

I am beginning to feel like I have given birth to the Messiah. I sent my dad up on a ladder earlier to check if there's a star attached to our chimney. I'm sure Mary and Joseph never had so many long-staying visitors to deal with, all of whom require refreshments and polite hospitality. I'm beginning to run out of teabags, not to mention tolerance towards the great unwashed masses. I see every new visitor that passes my threshold as a walking talking virus mobile. I imagine shiny swine flu molecules on their hands and fluorescent flecks of the common cold strain lurking up nostrils as they paw and breathe all over my fragile newborn angel.

If this relentless visiting schedule is comparable to the birth of baby Jesus, then I wish some of my guests would take a leaf out of the Three Wise Men's book. Take a bow, leave your frankensence and myrrh and then bugger off.

No doubt I sound irrational and unreasonable. I probably am. It's a result of hormones, sleep deprivation, no time alone with my baby, and an obligation to welcome my ex boyfriend's hordes of extended family into my home day after day.

New plan: Place sign on front door that says "Away on babymoon. Back in 2 weeks."

The Transition to Insanity

When I attended my NCT childbirth class back in November in my effort to be perfectly prepared for the birth, I remember giggling along with the rest of the class when our host described the infamous part of labour known as The Transition. For those of you who don't know, it's just before the pushing part when your uterus is contracting up, your baby is heading down and women tend to go just a little bit mad.

As I heard stories of women deciding to give up and demanding to go home, I had smiled smugly at the person next to me, thinking, Oh, that will never happen to me because I am a cool calm educated woman who has nerves of steel, not to mention a fully paid up NCT subscription

In reality, as I lay there in the delivery room on Christmas Eve, sprawled out face down in a pile of wipe clean bean bags with my bum in the air, I was a little less than rational. Here's a few of my favourite transition ravings!

"Fetch me a doctor, a surgeon, I need a surgeon now! I demand to see a surgeon!"

"No, no, I've had enough of this! I'm going home to get an epidural!"

"Can't you hoover her out?"

"I can't push. You do it."

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