baby in action (sort of)

Advice for new mothers

1. Decide how many packets of chocolate biscuits you think you will need in the first month of your baby's life. Add on a zero to the end. Be prepared.

2. Breastfeeding can be difficult and all-consuming. Especially if you have a baby who is difficult and all-consuming. Whenever you think, 'but it CAN'T be food - you just ate!', it's food.

3. Rule number 1: Never wake a sleeping baby. Rule number 2: See Rule number 1.

4. People are keen to look after you and ask how you are when you are pregnant. No one will give a toss about you afterwards. Even if you did have major surgery. You are now only a machine to sustain your baby, and the sooner you get used to this, rather than insisting you are still a person in your own right with needs and feelings, the better.

5. Babies don't understand sarcasm. Case in point:

Deborah (on picking up a lip-smacking, about to cry Gretel, who is trying to ram her hand in her mouth... for her third feed in an hour): Poor baby, you must be STARVING

Gretel: (says nothing, stares straight ahead and feeds as though there will never be food again)

6. You will be able to do some things more often and easily than you thought, like updating your facebook page, browsing the net and reading books. In contrast, some things you took for granted before, like being able to shower AND dry your hair in the same day, will become Herculean tasks.

7. Have a bath every night. Even if it's only for ten minutes, you get to lock the door, feel human and like an adult. Plus it helps with the milk.

8. It's ok to feel regret, sadness and anger that you no longer have access to the life you had before. I was pretty keen on mine, as it turns out.

9. You may not have an immediate and overwhelming love-in with the baby. Truth be told, it is like being given a tiny, needy alien at first. With every day that passes, they become more human and comprehensible, but at first, there is no point of communication, other than the purely physical. Which, if you're used to reason, logic, emotion and WORDS, is tough. Depends on your style of course, but personally speaking, communicating primarily through one's breasts seems a strange idea to get used to.

10. Tell visitors in advance when to come and when to leave by. If they stay too long, tell them you have to sleep (this will work better if the baby is asleep).

11. Make sure your partner takes off as much time as possible. Two weeks paternity leave is laughable. You need more. Single mothers are clearly superhumans to be respected and feared.

12. Hang out with other people with new babies. They will talk to you about the boring baby minutiae that has become your life. It's not that you WANT to be dull... it's that you literally have nothing else to talk about because you haven't done, seen or experienced anything else.

13. Don't use cliches unless you really mean them. I'd feel better if other people said 'god, sometimes I really regret having a baby'...it doesn't make you a bad person and it doesn't mean you feel like that all the time. But I suspect there are a lot of people out there feeling that, but saying 'oh you forget everything and it's all worth it as soon as you see her/his precious little face'. It's hard. Why can't we just say it's hard?

14. Accept that you will have conversations about poo.

15. Just let it be what it is. You will constantly wonder if this is normal. Seems to me whatever it is almost always is.

Merry Christmas (courtesy of Riccardo)

Ten things I have learned since last Monday

1. Babies do smell nice, and not, as I have maintained for years, of melon.

2. I can type with my left hand.

3. When people say, 'you'll forget all the pain as soon as you see your beautiful baby', they are either lying or freaks.

4. Poo is not cute when it belongs to your own baby. It's still gross.

5. We have never really given the cat enough props for her self-cleaning abilities.

6. It is better if, when you are told you require emergency surgery, not to have that statement followed up with 'but you'll have to wait a short while, because someone else is in there having it right now, and she's having a haemorrhage'.

7. Babies are 100% feeling, 0% reason.

8. Major abdominal surgery, care of a newborn, and visiting hours which require your support network to disappear for 12 hour stretches, are not a happy combination.

9. Sleep is not overrated. As Joni once said, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone...

10. My baby really IS the most beautiful and intelligent one that ever there was.

Gretel Rose

no news is no news

Well, here we are at the weekend and still nothing to report. Baby-wise that is. Thea's show was fantastic - the highlight for me being 'blue christmas', as the vocal was just stunning. The whole show was really great though. And Alan had a spare guest list place, so Alice got in for free at the last minute too. Was really nice to have so many people - James, Alice, Riccardo, Kerena and Alan all there for (probably) the last pre-baby gig. Though Amy Wadge is playing the Half Moon in Putney on the 9th, if there is no news by then...

Watched 'Sweeney Todd' with Alice yesterday. It was pretty good, given that it was essentially one long murder-fest with singing. But Johnny Depp can really do no wrong.

Turns out Salon picked up on my research as well as Jezebel after the Guardian piece came out. All good news for me. Alice has been helping (read: entirely doing) with my new website, where all my professional/academic stuff will live. www.deborahfinding.com Hurrah!

Now going to have a shower and probably head off to Oxford for Zoe and William's tea party for Nahum. I'm hoping an inconvenient distance from the hospital will prompt labour to start...

A tale of two Christmas albums

Well, not a tale exactly - more an observation that Thea Gilmore's 'Strange Communion' kicks Tori Amos' 'Midwinter Graces' out of the room, house, street and town. The difference between them is really quite something. As such, tonight's Tori Amos show at the Jazz Cafe, showcasing the album, will be the first time in about 6 years that she's done a London show that I have not attended. But tomorrow night, my last pre-baby gig will be Thea Gilmore's show at Bush Hall, and I cannot wait. I know there are a few surprises in store, and I'm sure it will be fabulous.

No news here on the baby front. I had a massage today which was very nice, but made me wish I had had one much earlier. Dear God, how everything hurts. Movies this week a little thin on the ground so far:

Harry Brown (really very good indeed. Bleak though- like 'Gran Torino' with no funny)

No Reservations

So, Harry Brown is possibly my last cinema trip pre-baby, depending on when she arrives. Thea will be my last gig, unless I'm still sans-baby on 9th Dec, in which case I might make it over the the Half Moon in Putney to see Amy Wadge. Last art exhibition was Pop Life at the Tate Modern (lots of Andy Warhol and Tracey Emin, but actually the coolest thing to see was Damien Hirst's 'Golden Calf' which was strangely sad and affecting).

Three out of six NCT-ers have now had their babies (two queue-jumpers...I was supposed to be second!). Everyone's been early so far. Apart from me. Baby now officially 'late', but this is clearly ridiculous, given that 'term' is anything from 37 to 42 weeks of pregnancy. Yet when you go to make your 41 week appointment, the receptionist says 'oh dear' and looks at you pityingly... clearly there is only one 24 hour period in which it is acceptable to have the baby. Having said that, if this baby was 100% my DNA, she would have arrived on time, as I'm a bit of a stickler for time-keeping. Sadly those MacKenzie genes probably mean she'll start off a bit late, get half way out, then realise she's forgotten something and have to go back :)

movies, waiting, reading, waiting, eating, waiting

Movies seen now include:

Law Abiding Citizen

P.S. I Love You

Saving Sarah Cain

Enchanted

Books I am currently reading:

The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher - Kate Summerscale

Starting Over - Tony Parsons

A Swamp Full Of Dollars - Michael Peel

I blame late pregnancy for my sudden inability to concentrate on one book - reading three concurrently is very unlike me (and something I abhor in others!). I feel most ashamed not to have finished Michael's book yet, as he's a good friend, and the book has been shortlisted for the Guardian first book award. Awards happen on 2nd December, and while everyone suggests 'it's a fiction year', he's done amazingly well to be the only non-fiction entry to even make the shortlist. And what I have read so far is truly excellent.

Despite me giving up 'Heat' once I discovered we were having a girl, James has kindly stockpiled some copies to keep me going during labour and any hospital waiting around that happens. After that, it's back to cold turkey.

Speaking of turkey, we're still planning to have Christmas dinner at our house, crazy as it might seem with a newborn. Yesterday, we bought an enormous (8 kilo) ham, and James is in the kitchen right now pouring all sorts of exciting goodness into a bucket to marinate/cure/brine it until it finally gets cooked in a few weeks. Including salt peter, which we got under the counter from a source who made us promise not to mix it with the thing that turns it into gunpowder (or the baby might come early after all). I can't wait for Christmas. I know we're going to be tired, but it will be our first family Christmas, and I have embarrassing santa outfits for both the baby and the cat - watch this space for a Christmas Day photo. I reckon we'll have about 5 minutes to take it in before mutiny sets in (from the cat) or vomiting occurs (baby).

Baby is technically due tomorrow, but I am extremely doubtful that she'll turn up then. Or even in the next week. In fact, I'm sort of at the stage where I'm not sure there will even BE a baby. It's like I've been pregnant for so long that I've accepted it as my lot in life... I'm not sure I really believe in a non-pregnant existence with an actual baby :)

So, this week I have plans to have coffee with the NCT-ers, go to the Thea Gilmore show on Thursday, and then maybe to Zoe and William's tea party for Nahum in Oxford on Saturday. We'll see how it all pans out... If things get really late, I comfort myself that there is an Orla Kiely sample sale on in Brick Lane on the 10th December. If baby is not here by then, I will go and buy a bag to cheer myself up. I hope she's not too long after that! I always thought it sucked for people who had their birthdays in the school holidays, and of course the closer it gets to Christmas, the more you have the 'one present for both' scenario to contend with :( My Granny's birthday is December 11th, and I guess it would be cool if they shared a birthday. After that, I'm all out of fun, and will just sit and home drinking raspberry tea and eating curry.

the cat mirrors my mood

More movies, more waiting

Clearly the last stage of pregnancy is characterised by being enormous...and sitting around. I'm too big and uncomfortable to do anything, but too not-catatonic to do nothing. So I end up doing things that either make me very tired through having to leave the house and walking, or things that only involve sitting on the sofa. Sigh. Apart from going to the pool and jacuzzi, which is a lifesaver, especially with the hell that is SPD.

Anyway, movies I have seen now include:

A Mighty Heart

2012

The Bucket List

hmm...I feel sure there are more

Marcus Brigstocke was very funny, and Dar Williams was as good and as lovely as always. Today and tomorrow I'm going to the O2 to see the tennis. Today, Nadal v Soderling and Djokovic v Davydenko, and tomorrow Del Potro v Verdasco and Murray v Federer. There's doubles as well, but I'll have to see how I am coping - if I'm too uncomfortable the plan is for me to go and lie down in the car for a bit with pillows and duvet. Sad, isn't it?

On Wednesday, the remainder (apart from a few tiny bits) of my Christmas shopping should be delivered, and I will be wrapping things in a fiendishly organised manner. Then there is nothing in the diary (apart from coffee and cake with my fellow suffering NCTers) until 30th November, which is the day the baby is supposed to arrive. HAHAHA. I highly doubt we will be seeing any baby action on that day, as only 5% of babies arrive on their due date, and 75% come later. But I am so damn uncomfortable, I will be trying everything I can to hurry things along by then. So far, I have heard that the following things help bring on labour:

Curry

Sex

Pineapple

Red Raspberry Leaf Tea

Champagne

Walking

Anyone know any more? I will be trying them all in various combinations (apart from the walking too much, as that is too painful). I'm already on the raspberry tea, as it's supposed to help anyway.

Amanda Palmer writes to Robert Smith

If you've got a spare half hour, her letter is sweet, entertaining, slightly annoying, and cool.

Well, well, well

PhD has been submitted, and baby is two weeks away (allegedly). I've spent the last couple of weeks trying (and mostly failing) to unwind and generally chill. To that end, I signed up for one month of Sky Sports and Sky Movies, which has meant access to the tennis Masters tournaments (and the ATP tour finals next week) and that I have watched a ton of movies. Also managed quite a few cinema trips. So in the last two weeks I have seen:

Up

The Men Who Stare At Goats

An Education

This Is It

The Other Boleyn Girl

27 Dresses

August Rush

Definitely Maybe

Made Of Honor

The Jane Austen Book Club

In The Name Of The Father

Planning to see 2012 and Harry Brown this week, and have another 20 movies or so sitting on my V+ box, waiting to be watched.

Have also managed to wade my way through some trashy novels, though am about to start the more worthy 'Suspicions of Mr Whicher'.

Other sociable pre-baby plans include: Dar Williams gig on Wednesday, Marcus Brigstocke on Thursday, two days of tickets for the ATP tour finals next week, and the Thea Gilmore show at Bush Hall, if baby has not made an appearance by 3rd Dec. However, I'm now feeling like I can't really do anything because I'm so enormous and everything hurts a lot, so I wouldn't be too disappointed if the baby were to turn up today and I could do none of this.

Once I've bought a new battery for my camera, which seems to have just stopped working, I will take some pictures of the nursery and post them, as the room is now ready, and it will probably never look so nice again :)

It was lovely to see loads of people on Friday night for my 'brief window of opportunity' party. I made the sort of food I will probably not have time to do for some time (I suspect that with a baby, putting tiny mozzarella balls, cherry tomatoes and individual basil leaves onto cocktail sticks will not be high on the agenda), including my first foray into cupcakes, which were very successful and well-received. I have to say that I was fairly exhausted by the end of it though, and as such, I barely left the house all weekend.

I've got a few admin/work-type things to do today, and then I am going to start drinking raspberry leaf tea (it's supposed to hurry things along) in earnest.

Flowchart to pick your ideal religion

I knew it would all come down to bacon in the end.

Nick Griffin on Question Time

What do you mean, this isn't exactly as it happened? Just goes to show 'revisionism' goes both ways, Nick...

Cat Domestic Drama

Vortex

Break from blogging hopefully explained by 'single figure days in which to submit PhD' status...

Sometimes Republicans make sense

The Facebook Song

Look at this completely unsexist plea for organ donation

oh no, wait...

Dressed Up Delivery Kit

I thought this was a joke. Turns out it isn't. Hmm... I think I'll be going the 'unrecognisable monster' route if it's all the same to everyone. Oh My God. Trying really, really hard not to rant here... someone else do it for me please!!