OK, I promised myself I wouldn't do this, but the pickings are just too rich. Here we go - nursery rhymes - what the fuck?
I find myself mindlessly singing them to the baby, out of a sense that children should know nursery rhymes, and one I started with was Hey Diddle Diddle.
To refresh the memories of anyone who hasn't recently had a child:
Hey diddle diddle the cat and the fiddle.
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such fun
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
Now the baby is fourteen weeks old. She knows practically nothing. She can't tie her shoelaces, hasn't got a job, and hasn't even realised that the baby in the mirror is her. Silly baby. It's not her fault, of course, and it's our job as parents to fill her empty little head full of useful knowledge. How to read a bus timetable. How to calculate compound interest. Why it's important that you follow the Shakespearean rhyme scheme when writing your own sonnets. The important things in life.
Bearing this in mind, you would think that nursery rhymes would lend themselves to helping children understand the world around them, to cope with this strange and unfamiliar world. But no. What we learn from the above is:
- Cats can play the violin. Now the baby may actually have an idea of what a cat is. Because of Monty Cat. But he doesn't play the violin. Although I have frequently threatened to turn him into violin strings on several occasions.
- Cows can jump. She has no concept of what a cow is. But the one thing she will be sure of when she meets one is that they can jump. And also that the moon is close enough for a cow to jump over. Astro Cow.
- Dogs have a sense of humour - and a slightly odd one at that. They find cats playing the violin and cows jumping over the moon bloody hilarious. Oh, also, she has no concept of what a dog is. Other than the fact that they laugh.
- Dishes and spoons - this is probably the most disturbing. Not so much the - some would say - unnatural match (shouldn't a spoon run away with another spoon? Or does that make me homophobic? Or just wanting species-specific relations? It's a complicated moral tangle); it's more the fact that the baby sees dishes and spoons every day. And we put them in the dishwasher. This must seem to her like abject cruelty. Essentially the plot to Romeo and Juliet is happening every day in front of her little baby eyes, as the two lovers are systematically drowned by Mummy and Daddy. Oh, also she's learned that crockery can elope.
All useful things for her later life, I'm sure you'll agree. Perhaps I'll stick to singing her bus timetables in the future.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Friday, December 28, 2012
Baby steps
So it's been forever since I've Plogged. I have been racking my brains for a suitable subject, but the sad truth is that once you have a baby, there is nothing else to talk about. This is because every waking moment and quite a lot of the sleeping ones are spent looking after a baby. It doesn't leave much time for experiencing non-baby things. So whilst I could Plog loquaciously about breastfeeding cafes, nursery rhymes, various nappy brands (and nappy contents), I do try to remember that my core readership probably doesn't give a stuff about any of that. So I should try and find a separate topic. Something not related to babies. And hence lies the problem. Because, as referenced previously, there is currently very little in my life which isn't related to the baby.
So forgive me, if you will, for sharing this slightly baby-related Plog. Our baby does not like to sit down. She likes to be on the move. This would be great if she was actually able to do any of this stuff for herself. Sadly, we, her willing servants seem to need to step in. Her favourite way of being ported around the house is with this baby carrier.
Now, whilst I look relatively confident here, what with the baby, the carrier and all, those of you who know me well or have followed the Plog for a while, will know my total inability to follow any kind of three-dimensional instruction or drawing. So whilst TheBloke (TM), can heft this thing onto his shoulders and plug the baby in in about three seconds, it takes me about half an hour to work out how to put it on, and another fifteen minutes to be sure the baby isn't in upside down.
So I spend a lot of time referring to the instructions. And often, as I'm holding the item upside down, the instruction label is also upside down.
And this - dear Ploggers - is when I realised that the baby carrier instructions are essentially pornographic.
They appear to be instructions for putting a condom on. Too little, too late.
So forgive me, if you will, for sharing this slightly baby-related Plog. Our baby does not like to sit down. She likes to be on the move. This would be great if she was actually able to do any of this stuff for herself. Sadly, we, her willing servants seem to need to step in. Her favourite way of being ported around the house is with this baby carrier.Now, whilst I look relatively confident here, what with the baby, the carrier and all, those of you who know me well or have followed the Plog for a while, will know my total inability to follow any kind of three-dimensional instruction or drawing. So whilst TheBloke (TM), can heft this thing onto his shoulders and plug the baby in in about three seconds, it takes me about half an hour to work out how to put it on, and another fifteen minutes to be sure the baby isn't in upside down.
So I spend a lot of time referring to the instructions. And often, as I'm holding the item upside down, the instruction label is also upside down.
And this - dear Ploggers - is when I realised that the baby carrier instructions are essentially pornographic.
Sunday, December 09, 2012
Losing the plot
For many years, I've wanted to write a book. Ever since I was a teenager, I've fancied myself as something of a writer... albeit I'm too lazy to actually follow through with any type of plot or long term endeavour. There's always an excuse - a busy day job, moving house, upcoming holiday, baby. There's always something.
I did naively hope that maternity leave would provide me with the space and time to undertake some sort of writing endeavour. In actuality, even the simplest blog post means I have to type like this.
Having said that though, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm sitting on a bestseller, without the need for all that sticky, tricky plot, character development and actual writing malarkey.
Baby books. This is definitely the way forward. Keen to foster in our child my love of literature, I went out and bought her the most highly recommended baby book for her age group. It's called Pets and has four and a half stars out of five on Amazon. It cost about £4.00, so a bit cheaper than most adult books, but still, if I sold several million of them at this price, I reckon I'd still do OK.
So, why do I think I could write one of these books? Well, here is every page of Pets. SPOILER ALERT!
So, in case you needed a recap, that was: front cover (mirror), Dog, Rabbit, Cat, the end. Seriously? Seriously? Even if you were using this book to teach animal noises, the author kind of throws you a curve ball there with Rabbit. What a load of old tosh.
And how easy to write yourself? So, here is my new children's book. It's called Pets 2 and is twice as long as the original.
Guinea Pig. Goldfish. Hamster. Gerbil. Pony. Mouse. (Insert crap drawings and a few spots and stripes).
Piece of piss. Can I get an advance please, Mr Publisher? I reckon we can sell it for at least £8 as it's so much longer than the original.
I did naively hope that maternity leave would provide me with the space and time to undertake some sort of writing endeavour. In actuality, even the simplest blog post means I have to type like this.
Having said that though, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm sitting on a bestseller, without the need for all that sticky, tricky plot, character development and actual writing malarkey.
Baby books. This is definitely the way forward. Keen to foster in our child my love of literature, I went out and bought her the most highly recommended baby book for her age group. It's called Pets and has four and a half stars out of five on Amazon. It cost about £4.00, so a bit cheaper than most adult books, but still, if I sold several million of them at this price, I reckon I'd still do OK.
So, why do I think I could write one of these books? Well, here is every page of Pets. SPOILER ALERT!
So, in case you needed a recap, that was: front cover (mirror), Dog, Rabbit, Cat, the end. Seriously? Seriously? Even if you were using this book to teach animal noises, the author kind of throws you a curve ball there with Rabbit. What a load of old tosh.
And how easy to write yourself? So, here is my new children's book. It's called Pets 2 and is twice as long as the original.
Guinea Pig. Goldfish. Hamster. Gerbil. Pony. Mouse. (Insert crap drawings and a few spots and stripes).
Piece of piss. Can I get an advance please, Mr Publisher? I reckon we can sell it for at least £8 as it's so much longer than the original.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Box clever
I don't like to turn up to people's houses empty-handed, and, due to visit a friend, I had duly gone out and bought a little something in the shape of a box of Thorntons chocolates.
Now, this sounds a small thing - and indeed it was - but it involved packaging a baby into a buggy, braving a gale-force storm (OK, a bit of wind and drizzle, and actually I took the car) and manoeuvring said buggy round the aisles of a shop. The chocolates were purchased, and it was ticked off of my list of things to do.
Fast forward two hours. I am upstairs with the baby, playing, "Who's that in the mirror? It's you in the mirror! And Mummy in the mirror!" (Literally minutes of fun; if anyone is interested in making a motion picture, I'd be willing to sell the rights.) I don't hear TheBloke (TM) come home from work. That is until he shouts up the stairs, "Daddy's home!"
"Thank fuck," I think. For the baby has just filled her nappy, and this way I can pretend it's on his watch.
We go downstairs. I enter the kitchen. TheBloke (TM) has opened the aforementioned box of chocolates, and is chomping his way through the most delicious ones.
"Nooo!" I say. "They're a present! For a friend!"
"It's not my fault!" TheBloke (TM) said, conviction strong in his voice. "You left me unsupervised. Around chocolates. It's your fault. You should apologise. What did you expect me to do? Not eat the chocolates?"
He graciously accepted my apology.
Now, this sounds a small thing - and indeed it was - but it involved packaging a baby into a buggy, braving a gale-force storm (OK, a bit of wind and drizzle, and actually I took the car) and manoeuvring said buggy round the aisles of a shop. The chocolates were purchased, and it was ticked off of my list of things to do.
Fast forward two hours. I am upstairs with the baby, playing, "Who's that in the mirror? It's you in the mirror! And Mummy in the mirror!" (Literally minutes of fun; if anyone is interested in making a motion picture, I'd be willing to sell the rights.) I don't hear TheBloke (TM) come home from work. That is until he shouts up the stairs, "Daddy's home!"
"Thank fuck," I think. For the baby has just filled her nappy, and this way I can pretend it's on his watch.
We go downstairs. I enter the kitchen. TheBloke (TM) has opened the aforementioned box of chocolates, and is chomping his way through the most delicious ones.
"Nooo!" I say. "They're a present! For a friend!"
"It's not my fault!" TheBloke (TM) said, conviction strong in his voice. "You left me unsupervised. Around chocolates. It's your fault. You should apologise. What did you expect me to do? Not eat the chocolates?"
He graciously accepted my apology.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Cry for help
It's the middle of the afternoon. I've no idea what I've done wrong, but it's something, and it's something bad, because I'm being screamed at. No amount of apologising and pacifying works. I am screamed at repeatedly. Then the hair pulling starts. Fistfuls of my hair are torn at, and the screaming continues.
Finally it quietens down. We have a nice moment. We forgive each other. But I walk around on eggshells, terrified I'm going to do something again to start the violence. I needn't bother. It makes no difference. I've caused the anger again. The screaming starts. Right up close, right in my face. No hair pulling this time, but sharp nails are raked down my face. I bleed. It's my own fault, I tell myself, I caused this. I am punched in the tits.
I say the right things, forgive, pretend that it's OK and it won't happen again. It was just a bad moment. We're over the worst.
Then she simultaneously vomits on me and fills her nappy.
I am in an abusive relationship with my baby.
But because she's quite cute, I keep forgiving her. And I'll get my own back when I'm an OAP and need my nappy changing.
Finally it quietens down. We have a nice moment. We forgive each other. But I walk around on eggshells, terrified I'm going to do something again to start the violence. I needn't bother. It makes no difference. I've caused the anger again. The screaming starts. Right up close, right in my face. No hair pulling this time, but sharp nails are raked down my face. I bleed. It's my own fault, I tell myself, I caused this. I am punched in the tits.
I say the right things, forgive, pretend that it's OK and it won't happen again. It was just a bad moment. We're over the worst.
Then she simultaneously vomits on me and fills her nappy.
I am in an abusive relationship with my baby.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Santa sacked
A dilemma...
As atheists, we have no intention of telling our daughter there is a God, watching her all day, every day and judging her behaviour to be black or white, bad or good. She won't be Christened, and whilst we hope to raise her to be tolerant of other people's cultures, I would also like to encourage in her a scepticism and a reliance on experience, on science, on facts, on provable hypotheses.
How does Santa fit into this?
On one hand, it seems harmless enough - a way of injecting magic into Christmas. I was told of Santa as a child - and whilst by the time I was 5 or 6, I think I'd stopped believing - I don't think it did me any long-term harm. Even after I'd ceased to truly believe, I still enjoyed putting out a mince pie and whiskey for Santa, and some milk for Rudolph, and seeing how they'd disappeared in the morning.
On the other hand - it sounds fairly damaging. "An obese man you've never met before will come into your bedroom. We've given him some whiskey so he might be drunk. You'll be asleep, so you won't see him... probably. It doesn't matter that we don't have a chimney. He can get into any house." I remember my two year-old brother being terrified of Santa, and healthily so.
And the things we're asking children to believe; that he's able to visit every house in the world in one night, that he flies, that he makes the presents with his elves - how does this tally with the scientific scepticism that we'd like to instil in our child? Doesn't Santa get sick of mince pies in every single house? Why does he need so many mince pies? When does he go to the toilet? How does Rudolph get in to drink his milk / eat his carrot (delete as per your family tradition)? How is this present from Grandma, if Santa's elves make the presents and Santa delivers them? Isn't that kind of adding an unnecessary step into the process?
Assuming Santa's magic means he can "freeze frame" the night to deliver all of the presents (which miraculously fit all in one sleigh), isn't it mind-numbingly tedious for him to visit every house in the world leaving presents over, and over? It's certain this this repetitive action (not to mention the exclusive diet of mince pies and whiskey) would send someone insane. Let alone having to do it every year.
It's not just about lying to the child (I'm sure we'll lie to her hundreds of times over the next 18 years: "Broccoli is yummy", "Crusts make your hair curly", "Monty Cat went to live on a farm"), but about challenging her to think through the logic.
Additionally, the whole myth has Christian overtones I'm not that happy with. Santa watches over us all and judges whether you get a reward - encouraging children to behave well for a reward, rather than because it's the right thing to do. He performs miracles. We don't encourage children to think about whether he really does visit the whole world in one night - what about the non-Christian countries? What about the time difference?
The final argument I hear for perpetuating the Santa myth is, "It'll spoil it for the other children." Part of me kind of gets that - it ties in with respecting other people's cultures. But for me - I'm not sure it's a good enough reason. We don't believe in God, and there's no way we'd pretend we did in case we "spoiled it for others".
Aged five I remember saying to my primary school teacher, "My mum says there's no such thing as the tooth fairy." In actual fact, she'd done no such thing. She had - actually - painstakingly written a letter to me from the Tooth Fairy in teeny tiny handwriting. But I was still sceptical. And my scepticism was vindicated when my teacher replied, "Shh, don't spoil it for the other children."
You'll probably be asking, well, why do we celebrate Christmas at all - as atheists, we don't celebrate Eid or Divali or Hanukkah. For me at least, it's about being with family - an excuse for some time off work to all get together. I can't put it better than Tim Minchin does.
Does that tradition need to include Santa? I'm not sure. Thoughts welcomed!
As atheists, we have no intention of telling our daughter there is a God, watching her all day, every day and judging her behaviour to be black or white, bad or good. She won't be Christened, and whilst we hope to raise her to be tolerant of other people's cultures, I would also like to encourage in her a scepticism and a reliance on experience, on science, on facts, on provable hypotheses.
How does Santa fit into this?
On one hand, it seems harmless enough - a way of injecting magic into Christmas. I was told of Santa as a child - and whilst by the time I was 5 or 6, I think I'd stopped believing - I don't think it did me any long-term harm. Even after I'd ceased to truly believe, I still enjoyed putting out a mince pie and whiskey for Santa, and some milk for Rudolph, and seeing how they'd disappeared in the morning.
On the other hand - it sounds fairly damaging. "An obese man you've never met before will come into your bedroom. We've given him some whiskey so he might be drunk. You'll be asleep, so you won't see him... probably. It doesn't matter that we don't have a chimney. He can get into any house." I remember my two year-old brother being terrified of Santa, and healthily so.
And the things we're asking children to believe; that he's able to visit every house in the world in one night, that he flies, that he makes the presents with his elves - how does this tally with the scientific scepticism that we'd like to instil in our child? Doesn't Santa get sick of mince pies in every single house? Why does he need so many mince pies? When does he go to the toilet? How does Rudolph get in to drink his milk / eat his carrot (delete as per your family tradition)? How is this present from Grandma, if Santa's elves make the presents and Santa delivers them? Isn't that kind of adding an unnecessary step into the process?
Assuming Santa's magic means he can "freeze frame" the night to deliver all of the presents (which miraculously fit all in one sleigh), isn't it mind-numbingly tedious for him to visit every house in the world leaving presents over, and over? It's certain this this repetitive action (not to mention the exclusive diet of mince pies and whiskey) would send someone insane. Let alone having to do it every year.
It's not just about lying to the child (I'm sure we'll lie to her hundreds of times over the next 18 years: "Broccoli is yummy", "Crusts make your hair curly", "Monty Cat went to live on a farm"), but about challenging her to think through the logic.
Additionally, the whole myth has Christian overtones I'm not that happy with. Santa watches over us all and judges whether you get a reward - encouraging children to behave well for a reward, rather than because it's the right thing to do. He performs miracles. We don't encourage children to think about whether he really does visit the whole world in one night - what about the non-Christian countries? What about the time difference?
The final argument I hear for perpetuating the Santa myth is, "It'll spoil it for the other children." Part of me kind of gets that - it ties in with respecting other people's cultures. But for me - I'm not sure it's a good enough reason. We don't believe in God, and there's no way we'd pretend we did in case we "spoiled it for others".
Aged five I remember saying to my primary school teacher, "My mum says there's no such thing as the tooth fairy." In actual fact, she'd done no such thing. She had - actually - painstakingly written a letter to me from the Tooth Fairy in teeny tiny handwriting. But I was still sceptical. And my scepticism was vindicated when my teacher replied, "Shh, don't spoil it for the other children."
You'll probably be asking, well, why do we celebrate Christmas at all - as atheists, we don't celebrate Eid or Divali or Hanukkah. For me at least, it's about being with family - an excuse for some time off work to all get together. I can't put it better than Tim Minchin does.
Does that tradition need to include Santa? I'm not sure. Thoughts welcomed!
Thursday, November 08, 2012
One step Ford, two steps back
It has been an age since I have Plogged, for which I can only apologise. I have spent the last six weeks mostly scrubbing poo out of various surfaces and trying to remember the non-rude version of nursery rhymes. And advising the baby that when Jack mends his head with vinegar and brown paper, that isn't actually the official NHS advice; really he should go to the local walk-in centre or A&E, as he could have a subcranial haematoma or at the very least, a concussion and might need an MRI scan.
One of the most difficult things to deal with, as any new parent will attest, is the sudden, irrevocable lack of sleep. Imagine having a hangover. Then imagine that you go out drinking again the same night. Repeat. Infinitely. Around week three, I caught myself thinking, "Never mind, I'll catch up on sleep at the weekend." No. There is no catching up. Not ever, ever again.
So in the fog of this desperation, a shining light presents itself. Anyone who's been a new parent in the last five years is surely aware of Gina Ford. She advocates a strict baby-schedule... the payoff of which is apparently that a five-week old baby will (Holy Grail) sleep through the night! So we try it.
This is how it worked for us.
DAY ONE
7 a.m.
GINA SAYS "Baby should be awake, nappy changed and feeding no later than 7 a.m."
LAURA DOES Crawl out of bed at 7, after two hours' sleep, determined that today will be the day we turn it all around. Change baby. Try to feed baby. Baby is fast asleep. Try to wake baby by gently stroking the back of her neck. Try gentle bouncing. Try more vigorous bouncing. Try something which is borderline shaking. Give up. Go back to sleep.
7.30 a.m.
GINA SAYS "Try to have some cereal, toast and a drink whilst baby has a kick on his playmat."
LAURA DOES Grab a handful of Thorntons chocolates and two sips of water. Realise baby doesn't have a playmat. Order playmat on Amazon, feeling guilty for neglecting child. Stupid baby still asleep.
8.30 a.m.
GINA SAYS "Baby should start to get a bit sleepy by this time. Check the draw sheet and start winding down."
LAURA DOES Wonder what the hell a draw sheet is. Mean to Google it, but baby wakes up and starts bawling. Feed baby.
10 a.m.
GINA SAYS "Baby must be fully awake by now. Drink a large glass of water."
LAURA DOES Baby has finally stopped screaming post-feed, and is beginning to drift to sleep. Try to wake her (see earlier methods). Give up. Boil kettle for cup of tea. Never actually get round to making it.
10.30 a.m.
GINA SAYS "Lay baby on his playmat to have a good kick around."
LAURA DOES Continue to try to wake up sleeping baby. Pull her ears a bit. She smiles in her sleep.
11.15 a.m.
GINA SAYS "Baby needs to be in bed no later than 11.30 a.m. Baby should sleep for two and a half hours."
LAURA DOES Baby is now fully awake and needs feeding again. This is punctuated with screaming, three nappy changes (including a sneaky one where she waits until I've taken the nappy off and then poos in a massive arc, hitting the lovely giraffe decal we have on her bedroom wall. Gina doesn't mention the best way of getting poos off a wall without ruining a giraffe decal).
2 p.m.
GINA SAYS "Baby must be awake and feeding, regardless of how long they have slept."
LAURA DOES Wonder if it counts if the baby hasn't slept at all, and has been feeding on and off for the last two hours. Notices Gina advocates another "good kick" on the playmat. At no point has Gina mentioned holding or cuddling the child. Begin to wonder if Gina has ever actually seen a baby.
5 p.m.
GINA SAYS "Baby should not sleep after 5 p.m. if you want them to sleep at 7 p.m."
LAURA DOES Baby falls fast asleep. Cannot be woken. Try making her dance to Bohemian Rhapsody. This doesn't work, but makes a super-cute Facebook video.
5.45 p.m.
GINA SAYS "Give baby a good kick around without their nappy"
LAURA DOES Not a chance I'm being fooled this time. Last time ended in scrubbing poo out of the nursery carpet and my jeans. Baby starts screaming. Work out how many minutes it is until TheBloke (TM) gets home. Get halfway through calculation and realise I haven't yet had lunch. Or that cup of tea. Also am still wearing pyjamas because Gina didn't tell me I could have a shower, or go to the toilet. Luckily I don't need to go to the toilet because I haven't yet had a drink.
7 p.m.
GINA SAYS "When baby is drowsy, settle in bed, fully swaddled"
LAURA DOES TheBloke (TM) is home. Put him in charge of baby. She hates being swaddled. Screaming ensues. Most of it from the baby. Baby fully awake and wants to play with Daddy. Laura makes dinner whilst Daddy plays with baby. Baby falls asleep.
8 p.m.
GINA SAYS "It's important you have a really good meal."
LAURA DOES Open mouth to take first bite. Baby starts screaming. This is the case every time we try to have food. We now only eat meals that can be eaten one-handed, and pass the baby to each other every six mouthfuls. Baby finally falls into deep sleep.
10 p.m.
GINA SAYS "Turn up the lights fully to wake the baby for a proper feed."
LAURA DOES Turn all the lights on. Baby remains asleep. Undress baby, as per Gina's suggestion, to wake her. Baby remains asleep. Try to feed baby. Baby is too asleep to feed. Try neck stroking, bouncing and borderline shaking. Baby wakes up and feeds. Re-dress baby. Baby now wide awake, wants to play and screams every time we try and put her in her Moses basket. This continues until midnight when I relent and allow her to fall asleep on my stomach. At which point she does a massive leaky shit, and we have to change both our outfits again. Luckily, I'm still in yesterday's pyjamas.
1 a.m., 3.30 a.m., 5 a.m., 6.30 a.m Repeat feeding / shitting / changing scenario. I run out of clean pyjamas.
DAY TWO
7 a.m
GINA SAYS "Baby should be awake, nappy changed and feeding no later than 7 a.m."
LAURA DOES Baby is miraculously asleep. Ignore alarm. Ignore shit on pyjamas. Ignore two-day old vomit in hair. Ignore Fucking Gina Fucking Ford and go back to sleep.
One of the most difficult things to deal with, as any new parent will attest, is the sudden, irrevocable lack of sleep. Imagine having a hangover. Then imagine that you go out drinking again the same night. Repeat. Infinitely. Around week three, I caught myself thinking, "Never mind, I'll catch up on sleep at the weekend." No. There is no catching up. Not ever, ever again.
So in the fog of this desperation, a shining light presents itself. Anyone who's been a new parent in the last five years is surely aware of Gina Ford. She advocates a strict baby-schedule... the payoff of which is apparently that a five-week old baby will (Holy Grail) sleep through the night! So we try it.
This is how it worked for us.
DAY ONE
7 a.m.
GINA SAYS "Baby should be awake, nappy changed and feeding no later than 7 a.m."
LAURA DOES Crawl out of bed at 7, after two hours' sleep, determined that today will be the day we turn it all around. Change baby. Try to feed baby. Baby is fast asleep. Try to wake baby by gently stroking the back of her neck. Try gentle bouncing. Try more vigorous bouncing. Try something which is borderline shaking. Give up. Go back to sleep.
7.30 a.m.
GINA SAYS "Try to have some cereal, toast and a drink whilst baby has a kick on his playmat."
LAURA DOES Grab a handful of Thorntons chocolates and two sips of water. Realise baby doesn't have a playmat. Order playmat on Amazon, feeling guilty for neglecting child. Stupid baby still asleep.
8.30 a.m.
GINA SAYS "Baby should start to get a bit sleepy by this time. Check the draw sheet and start winding down."
LAURA DOES Wonder what the hell a draw sheet is. Mean to Google it, but baby wakes up and starts bawling. Feed baby.
10 a.m.
GINA SAYS "Baby must be fully awake by now. Drink a large glass of water."
LAURA DOES Baby has finally stopped screaming post-feed, and is beginning to drift to sleep. Try to wake her (see earlier methods). Give up. Boil kettle for cup of tea. Never actually get round to making it.
10.30 a.m.
GINA SAYS "Lay baby on his playmat to have a good kick around."
LAURA DOES Continue to try to wake up sleeping baby. Pull her ears a bit. She smiles in her sleep.
11.15 a.m.
GINA SAYS "Baby needs to be in bed no later than 11.30 a.m. Baby should sleep for two and a half hours."
LAURA DOES Baby is now fully awake and needs feeding again. This is punctuated with screaming, three nappy changes (including a sneaky one where she waits until I've taken the nappy off and then poos in a massive arc, hitting the lovely giraffe decal we have on her bedroom wall. Gina doesn't mention the best way of getting poos off a wall without ruining a giraffe decal).
2 p.m.
GINA SAYS "Baby must be awake and feeding, regardless of how long they have slept."
LAURA DOES Wonder if it counts if the baby hasn't slept at all, and has been feeding on and off for the last two hours. Notices Gina advocates another "good kick" on the playmat. At no point has Gina mentioned holding or cuddling the child. Begin to wonder if Gina has ever actually seen a baby.
5 p.m.
GINA SAYS "Baby should not sleep after 5 p.m. if you want them to sleep at 7 p.m."
5.45 p.m.
GINA SAYS "Give baby a good kick around without their nappy"
LAURA DOES Not a chance I'm being fooled this time. Last time ended in scrubbing poo out of the nursery carpet and my jeans. Baby starts screaming. Work out how many minutes it is until TheBloke (TM) gets home. Get halfway through calculation and realise I haven't yet had lunch. Or that cup of tea. Also am still wearing pyjamas because Gina didn't tell me I could have a shower, or go to the toilet. Luckily I don't need to go to the toilet because I haven't yet had a drink.
7 p.m.
GINA SAYS "When baby is drowsy, settle in bed, fully swaddled"
LAURA DOES TheBloke (TM) is home. Put him in charge of baby. She hates being swaddled. Screaming ensues. Most of it from the baby. Baby fully awake and wants to play with Daddy. Laura makes dinner whilst Daddy plays with baby. Baby falls asleep.
8 p.m.
GINA SAYS "It's important you have a really good meal."
LAURA DOES Open mouth to take first bite. Baby starts screaming. This is the case every time we try to have food. We now only eat meals that can be eaten one-handed, and pass the baby to each other every six mouthfuls. Baby finally falls into deep sleep.
10 p.m.
GINA SAYS "Turn up the lights fully to wake the baby for a proper feed."
LAURA DOES Turn all the lights on. Baby remains asleep. Undress baby, as per Gina's suggestion, to wake her. Baby remains asleep. Try to feed baby. Baby is too asleep to feed. Try neck stroking, bouncing and borderline shaking. Baby wakes up and feeds. Re-dress baby. Baby now wide awake, wants to play and screams every time we try and put her in her Moses basket. This continues until midnight when I relent and allow her to fall asleep on my stomach. At which point she does a massive leaky shit, and we have to change both our outfits again. Luckily, I'm still in yesterday's pyjamas.
1 a.m., 3.30 a.m., 5 a.m., 6.30 a.m Repeat feeding / shitting / changing scenario. I run out of clean pyjamas.
DAY TWO
7 a.m
GINA SAYS "Baby should be awake, nappy changed and feeding no later than 7 a.m."
LAURA DOES Baby is miraculously asleep. Ignore alarm. Ignore shit on pyjamas. Ignore two-day old vomit in hair. Ignore Fucking Gina Fucking Ford and go back to sleep.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Labour of love - part 6
So by the time I'd been prepped for a C-section (I'm not sure what this involved other than shaving my pubes and making me wear a shower cap), TheBloke (TM) was finally allowed back in the room.]
Throughout the labour, I had been updating Twitter with hilariously witty and brilliant comments on the entire process. I hadn't really thought this through. Because at this point (with my last Tweet being something along the lines of "starting to push now"), there was suddenly radio silence from me. Which probably worried people unnecessarily. Well, a bit necessarily. We were a bit worried too.
They put up a little curtain thingy - well, more a large blue piece of kitchen towel from my neck down, so neither TheBloke (TM) nor I could see the gory stuff. I felt the surgeons draw a line across my tummy - this was the cut, but of course I felt no pain. I felt some rummaging around.
Then - quite, quite horribly, I felt them pushing the baby back up my foo foo. Essentially the baby had descended too far for a straightforward C-section, so she needed to be pushed back up again in order to get her out. It was like giving birth in reverse. Or - if you will - having a massive poo pushed back up inside you. Not a good feeling.
The next thing I was consciously aware of was a heavy weight being removed from my stomach. "Baby's clear," said someone wearing a gown. My stomach felt empty.
Then... nothing. No crying. The beeping of machines that shouldn't have been beeping. Or the lack of beeping of machines that should have been beeping. I can't remember which.
"How's the baby?" I asked Pooja.
"Baby's with the baby doctor," was the only reply I was getting. This was in stark contrast to every time I'd previously asked the question, when I'd been told, "Baby's fine, baby's happy." Baby doctor. Like I was too stupid to understand the word "paediatrician".
Nothing. Minutes of nothing.
Then finally - a cry. The baby was OK.
A bundle of something warm was handed to TheBloke (TM). And then to me, though I couldn't really hold her as the surgeons were sewing me up. Whipps Cross being a teaching hospital, I vaguely remember one of the surgeons telling the other one which bit to stitch. Which even at the time was a bit disturbing.
TheBloke (TM) left the room again, with the bundle of warmth, to be weighed. The bundle, that is, not TheBloke (TM). TheBloke (TM) weighed more than he had that morning because he had eaten all of my hospital food. Meanwhile, I had lost 8lb 8oz in literally two minutes.
Duly, I was wheeled into the recovery room, where I did some recovering. As I came round every few minutes from my drug-induced stupor, I looked to my right, and was surprised every time that there was a baby next to me. I kept forgetting I had a daughter.
This has happened several times since. Notably when I offered to go to Co-Op with TheBloke (TM) and forgot that someone would need to stay home with the baby. Still, I haven't yet accidentally left her in a carpark. Watch this space.
So - a summary: low points of giving birth:
Throughout the labour, I had been updating Twitter with hilariously witty and brilliant comments on the entire process. I hadn't really thought this through. Because at this point (with my last Tweet being something along the lines of "starting to push now"), there was suddenly radio silence from me. Which probably worried people unnecessarily. Well, a bit necessarily. We were a bit worried too.
They put up a little curtain thingy - well, more a large blue piece of kitchen towel from my neck down, so neither TheBloke (TM) nor I could see the gory stuff. I felt the surgeons draw a line across my tummy - this was the cut, but of course I felt no pain. I felt some rummaging around.
Then - quite, quite horribly, I felt them pushing the baby back up my foo foo. Essentially the baby had descended too far for a straightforward C-section, so she needed to be pushed back up again in order to get her out. It was like giving birth in reverse. Or - if you will - having a massive poo pushed back up inside you. Not a good feeling.
The next thing I was consciously aware of was a heavy weight being removed from my stomach. "Baby's clear," said someone wearing a gown. My stomach felt empty.
Then... nothing. No crying. The beeping of machines that shouldn't have been beeping. Or the lack of beeping of machines that should have been beeping. I can't remember which.
"How's the baby?" I asked Pooja.
"Baby's with the baby doctor," was the only reply I was getting. This was in stark contrast to every time I'd previously asked the question, when I'd been told, "Baby's fine, baby's happy." Baby doctor. Like I was too stupid to understand the word "paediatrician".
Nothing. Minutes of nothing.
Then finally - a cry. The baby was OK.
A bundle of something warm was handed to TheBloke (TM). And then to me, though I couldn't really hold her as the surgeons were sewing me up. Whipps Cross being a teaching hospital, I vaguely remember one of the surgeons telling the other one which bit to stitch. Which even at the time was a bit disturbing.
TheBloke (TM) left the room again, with the bundle of warmth, to be weighed. The bundle, that is, not TheBloke (TM). TheBloke (TM) weighed more than he had that morning because he had eaten all of my hospital food. Meanwhile, I had lost 8lb 8oz in literally two minutes.
Duly, I was wheeled into the recovery room, where I did some recovering. As I came round every few minutes from my drug-induced stupor, I looked to my right, and was surprised every time that there was a baby next to me. I kept forgetting I had a daughter.
This has happened several times since. Notably when I offered to go to Co-Op with TheBloke (TM) and forgot that someone would need to stay home with the baby. Still, I haven't yet accidentally left her in a carpark. Watch this space.
So - a summary: low points of giving birth:
- Uncontrollable shitting
- Labour pains
- Scary big red button
- Having a baby pushed back up your foo foo
High points:
- Drugs. Lovely drugs.
- Catheters. Now this is a good invention. You never need to go to the toilet again. You don't even feel like you need to go. Think of the time you would save!
- Being a first-time owner of a brand new one of these. What can I say? I love monkeys.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Labour of love - part 5
So, I was almost fully dilated... when The Worst Backache In the World Ever kicked in. This wasn't like the backache I'd had during pregnancy; this was exclusively down my right-hand side, low down, almost in the bone, near my hip. Despite the (vast) amount of painkillers I'd taken, this was something special.
"More... epidural..." I begged Debbie the midwife. Debbie said that epidural wasn't effective against backache. Even in my drugged state, this sounded like something of a lie.
"Shall I massage it?" asked TheBloke (TM), ever keen to be helpful, and whipping out the little vibrating hand massager he'd brought with him.
Suffice it to say that I had brought a lot of stuff with me that we didn't end up using. This included, but was not limited to:
Except I had had so much epidural I had no idea if I was pushing or not. "Push," encouraged Pooja and TheBloke (TM).
"More... epidural..." I begged Debbie the midwife. Debbie said that epidural wasn't effective against backache. Even in my drugged state, this sounded like something of a lie.
"Shall I massage it?" asked TheBloke (TM), ever keen to be helpful, and whipping out the little vibrating hand massager he'd brought with him.
Suffice it to say that I had brought a lot of stuff with me that we didn't end up using. This included, but was not limited to:
- A TENS machine (not so much pain relief as a different sort of mild pain to take your mind off it. A bit like trying to focus on the rabbit gently licking your arm, rather than the fact that your leg is being sawn off with a rusty spoon.)
- A music system to play my "birth playlist" during labour. To be honest, the playlist was full of songs I knew TheBloke (TM) hated, mostly out of spite, and because I knew I'd get my own way. The drugs meant I had my own sountrack.
- Lipbalm. Everyone said I needed lipbalm. Perhaps they meant "morphine".
- A hair band. Again, everyone said I'd need to tie my hair back. For what? In case I decided to bake some muffins midway through the experience? I don't think so.
- Birthing ball. Yes, because what I'd like to do now you've effectively paralysed my legs and hooked me up to a drip, is to balance on a fucking ball like a performing seal.
It was about this time that I heard the woman in the next room (either someone who had refused any pain medication (fool) or else a complete wuss) scream with a profundity that has stayed with me, "This is a curse." Even through the backache, it made me chuckle. I'm not sure why.
The backache went on for a while, and it was excruciating. They wouldn't give me any more drugs. Then suddenly, Debbie said, "You can have more epidural if you want."
"I thought you said I couldn't?"
"I just wanted to see if you could do without it. Do you want it?"
"Yes," I screamed, "yes, yes, yes. I want to kiss you. Can I kiss you? Oh, that's not sexual harassment by the way. Sorry."
More epidural was delivered, Debbie went home at 8 a.m., leaving Pooja in her place, and lo it was suddenly time to start pushing.
Except I had had so much epidural I had no idea if I was pushing or not. "Push," encouraged Pooja and TheBloke (TM).
"Am I pushing?" I asked. "Oh dear," I said. "I think I'm going to be sick."
And I was. If you've never seen a McDonalds apple pie in reverse, it looks a lot like a McDonalds apple pie the right way round.
I was told the baby was halfway down the birth canal - I was doing good pushing, but unfortunately the baby's heart-rate kept dropping on the monitor. This wasn't a massive problem (indeed, it's designed to do this), so long as it came up again, which it did.
Until suddenly it didn't.
There's a big red button on the wall. The midwife asked TheBloke (TM) to press it. Suddenly - and I mean suddenly - there were literally about ten people in the room. One of them introduced herself as the consultant surgeon and examined me. She told me the baby's head was facing the wrong way, the baby was effectively stuck and she was going to try and turn her manually.
And yes, manually does mean "by hand".
It hurt. Too much to continue.
With the baby's heart-rate dangerously low, we were told they'd take me into theatre, give me more anaesthetic, try to rotate her manually again, and if that didn't work, it would be forceps, and if that didn't work, it would be a C-section.
I was made to sign paperwork that I had no chance of reading, and was told that if they needed to give me a hysterectomy to save my life, they would. That was scary.
I was wheeled down the corridor in my bed, TheBloke (TM) following behind. He wasn't allowed in theatre to start with - was handed scrubs and told to wait. I kept asking for him, and was told he'd be in shortly. Neither of us has any sense of time over how long this part took. Eventually TheBloke (TM) was allowed into the room.
I was given more anaesthetic and the consultant tried again to manually rotate the baby. It didn't hurt me this time, but the baby was not for turning. Then forceps. Still no joy. The baby was stuck like a fat piglet with its head trapped.
At this point, TheBloke (TM) was sent out of the room again. It was C-section time.
Pooja shaved my pubes.
And on that sentence, stay tuned for the final episode.
Sunday, October 07, 2012
Labour of love - part 4
So - a recap: I'd been in hospital for about 24 hours. I'd had a McDonalds. I'd had a cannula put in my hand. Despite what the lawsuit says, I had not punched a member of the medical team. And whilst I'd fully planned to send TheBloke (TM) home for a good night's sleep, it began to look like things were kicking off big-stylee, labour-wise. We knew this because my swearing went from Slightly Sweary ("Oh Jesus Christ") to Really Very Sweary Indeed ("For fuck's sake, fucking, fucking, fuck bucket!"). This meant TheBloke (TM) was denied his opportunity to go home. Luckily he had already set the cat food timer so Monty Cat wouldn't starve.
I had had diamorphine. I was feeling OK-ish, though contractions still hurt and I still wanted an epidural. I just couldn't articulate it anymore. Luckily, it was all in the plan, and eventually a) an anaesthetist and b) a delivery room became available. At this stage of the story, I have to rely on TheBloke (TM)'s narrative, as my sense of time is a bit warped from all the drugs, and I'm not sure if the dancing gerbils were real or not.
So apparently, before they give you an epidural, they generally give you an enema. My memory of this is the midwife showing me a massive syringe and telling me she was going to shove it up my arse. At this stage I didn't care. "You will probably need to go to the toilet in about 30 minutes," she said, "and your husband will need to take you."
This would have been a tad embarrassing, but luckily TheBloke (TM) and I have never been one of those couples who is shy around each other. I have friends who say that they have never farted in front of their significant other. Christ, if that were the case and TheBloke (TM) had never even heard me fart, the next twenty minutes of his life would have been nothing short of fatally traumatic.
Amongst the things that childbirth has taught me is that I have quite an efficient bowel. I reckon it was no more than two minutes later that I said, "I need to go to the toilet. Now." There was no time to walk down the corridor to the toilet. A bedpan was fetched. And that, dear readers, is how I ended up squatting over the hospital bed, shitting my guts out into a bedpan.
Twice.
And once (fast asleep because of the morphine), shitting myself in my sleep, and having to ask TheBloke (TM) if what I thought had just happened had actually just happened. There's nothing like romance when you have to ask your life partner if you have just shat yourself. He wanted to take photos, but I used some of the language referenced above and he refrained.
As I was squatting over the second bedpan, in came the very posh epidural doctor, who practically fainted at the sight. I swear she needed smelling salts. Actually, anything to take the smell away probably would have done. She excused herself and came back five minutes later, asking the midwife to take away the bedpan.
Ah, the epidural. Lovely, lovely epidural. I don't remember much about the injection, other than having to keep still (tough during a contraction), but I do remember not being that bothered about contractions after that. I had a nice conversation / debate with the midwife about science versus arts, and TheBloke (TM) finished all the levels on Angry Birds.
At about 6 in the morning, a doctor came along to see how dilated I was. Apparently I was 8 cm. Yay me! He broke my waters, and told me there was meconium in it. This can be a sign of baby distress, as it means the baby has opened their bowels before they've been born. Apparently it meant we needed to get the baby out sooner rather than later, and the baby would have to stay in for 24 hours after the birth for observations in case the baby had inhaled the meconium, but there was no massive emergency. They put me on a hormone drip to speed things up. So far, so good.
Every hour or so, the midwife would top up my epidural. According to her, the epidural shots were £250 a time. Now, I pay quite a lot of taxes, so every time she asked me if I wanted more pain relief, I just saw it as a way of getting some of that back. About £1500 worth of epidurals later, the midwife shift changed, and I was assured we'd have our baby within an hour or so - she was already halfway down the birth canal so I'd avoided a C-section.
This labour thing - other than the random shitting - really wasn't that bad!
Next time: McDonalds - the return (and not in a good way).
I had had diamorphine. I was feeling OK-ish, though contractions still hurt and I still wanted an epidural. I just couldn't articulate it anymore. Luckily, it was all in the plan, and eventually a) an anaesthetist and b) a delivery room became available. At this stage of the story, I have to rely on TheBloke (TM)'s narrative, as my sense of time is a bit warped from all the drugs, and I'm not sure if the dancing gerbils were real or not.
So apparently, before they give you an epidural, they generally give you an enema. My memory of this is the midwife showing me a massive syringe and telling me she was going to shove it up my arse. At this stage I didn't care. "You will probably need to go to the toilet in about 30 minutes," she said, "and your husband will need to take you."
This would have been a tad embarrassing, but luckily TheBloke (TM) and I have never been one of those couples who is shy around each other. I have friends who say that they have never farted in front of their significant other. Christ, if that were the case and TheBloke (TM) had never even heard me fart, the next twenty minutes of his life would have been nothing short of fatally traumatic.
Amongst the things that childbirth has taught me is that I have quite an efficient bowel. I reckon it was no more than two minutes later that I said, "I need to go to the toilet. Now." There was no time to walk down the corridor to the toilet. A bedpan was fetched. And that, dear readers, is how I ended up squatting over the hospital bed, shitting my guts out into a bedpan.
Twice.
And once (fast asleep because of the morphine), shitting myself in my sleep, and having to ask TheBloke (TM) if what I thought had just happened had actually just happened. There's nothing like romance when you have to ask your life partner if you have just shat yourself. He wanted to take photos, but I used some of the language referenced above and he refrained.
As I was squatting over the second bedpan, in came the very posh epidural doctor, who practically fainted at the sight. I swear she needed smelling salts. Actually, anything to take the smell away probably would have done. She excused herself and came back five minutes later, asking the midwife to take away the bedpan.
Ah, the epidural. Lovely, lovely epidural. I don't remember much about the injection, other than having to keep still (tough during a contraction), but I do remember not being that bothered about contractions after that. I had a nice conversation / debate with the midwife about science versus arts, and TheBloke (TM) finished all the levels on Angry Birds.
At about 6 in the morning, a doctor came along to see how dilated I was. Apparently I was 8 cm. Yay me! He broke my waters, and told me there was meconium in it. This can be a sign of baby distress, as it means the baby has opened their bowels before they've been born. Apparently it meant we needed to get the baby out sooner rather than later, and the baby would have to stay in for 24 hours after the birth for observations in case the baby had inhaled the meconium, but there was no massive emergency. They put me on a hormone drip to speed things up. So far, so good.
Every hour or so, the midwife would top up my epidural. According to her, the epidural shots were £250 a time. Now, I pay quite a lot of taxes, so every time she asked me if I wanted more pain relief, I just saw it as a way of getting some of that back. About £1500 worth of epidurals later, the midwife shift changed, and I was assured we'd have our baby within an hour or so - she was already halfway down the birth canal so I'd avoided a C-section.
This labour thing - other than the random shitting - really wasn't that bad!
Next time: McDonalds - the return (and not in a good way).
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
Labour of love - part 3
So the cannula was in, Dr Duffy remained unpunched, and all that remained was to be induced. This involved (unsurprisingly to those of you who have been following so far) more fingering. Though this time with some sort of hormone gel. The hormone gel was apparently SO effective that a) they would try it and wait six hours, b) because they didn't really expect it to work, they'd try it again six hours later c) then wait 24 hours and after that give up and put me on a drip. Brilliant. It sounded slightly less effective than the pineapple / long walk / sex / blowjob / curry combo already recommended.
Still, Whipps Cross being as busy as it was (see earlier reference to bastard queue jumpers), I got bumped out of my private delivery room and stuck back on a ward. No induction for me. My "natural" contractions were happening about every ten minutes, barely strong enough for me to feel, and certainly not enough to push a massive fat baby out.
The day passed. I read more of Remains of the Day. TheBloke (TM) spent more time with some Angry Birds. At 6 p.m. "dinner" was served. "Would you like a cheese and tomato sandwich or a tuna and cucumber sandwich?" I could take no more and sent TheBloke (TM) out for McDonalds. One McChicken Sandwich, fries, chocolate milkshake and an apple pie later, Whipps Cross were ready to induce me.
So I was fingered by yet another midwife (I assume she was a midwife, not just a passing stranger. I probably should have asked. By this stage I was willing to show my foo-foo to pretty much anyone who asked, and quite a few people who didn't). The special gel was inserted, and I was instructed to go for a walk, to make it work. Well, I couldn't be arsed to put my clothes on again, so TheBloke (TM) and I went for a wander around the hospital. At which point, in my nightdress, with one slightly leaky boob, I bumped into an immaculately-groomed member of my NCT group, who had come in for induction THAT MORNING and had already been induced. (See: queue-jumping bastards). I had been in hospital for 24 hours by this stage.
Miraculously (it seemed) after about an hour, contractions started in earnest. They are kind of hard to describe. A little bit like period pains, but only lasting for about a minute each time. A crescendo and then diminuendo of pain, each crescendo reaching greater heights than the previous.
Turns out TheBloke (TM) was right, and I don't have much of a threshold for pain. We came back to our bed on the ward (where no-one else was in labour, and where I must have terrified the other patients, as I understand I got a bit shouty when I was told that there weren't any rooms available for gas and air and the anaesthetist who was going to do the epidural had been called away).
When a contraction was in full force, I couldn't speak, couldn't shout, couldn't do anything other than focus on the pain. TheBloke (TM) had been to all of the classes. "Breathe," he said, supportively, "breathe."
I am given to understand my response was, "Of course I'm going to fucking breathe. As if I'm going to forget to breathe. Do you think one of the leading causes of maternal deaths is forgetting to fucking breathe, you fucking moron?"
It was shortly after this point, the midwives decided (probably for the sake of the other patients) that perhaps I should have some diamorphine.
I asked how long it would take to work and was told about twenty minutes. So I thought I'd venture to the toilet in the interim. Two things to note: diamorphine takes approximately 30 seconds to work on me. Also, isn't the word "toilet" funny when you think about it for too long? So long, in fact, TheBloke (TM) had to hammer on the door to ask if I was OK. I was fine. Just giggling at the word toilet.
Here is a picture of me in the middle of a strong contraction after the injection of lovely diamorphine.
I'll be honest, the next hour or so is a bit of a blur. I updated Twitter with something along the lines of, "Had morphine - off my tits." But I had to correct it twice, as I accidentally wrote "off my tots". Which kind of illustrated my point.
Apparently I was then moved back to a delivery room. I have no recollection of this. But this might be because the diamorphine had made me look a bit like this.
I don't know if you can see in this photo, but I am definitely smirking.
This was probably the high point of the labour. Tune in soon for: enemas, random shitting, sexual harassment of a midwife and eventually... a baby.
Still, Whipps Cross being as busy as it was (see earlier reference to bastard queue jumpers), I got bumped out of my private delivery room and stuck back on a ward. No induction for me. My "natural" contractions were happening about every ten minutes, barely strong enough for me to feel, and certainly not enough to push a massive fat baby out.
The day passed. I read more of Remains of the Day. TheBloke (TM) spent more time with some Angry Birds. At 6 p.m. "dinner" was served. "Would you like a cheese and tomato sandwich or a tuna and cucumber sandwich?" I could take no more and sent TheBloke (TM) out for McDonalds. One McChicken Sandwich, fries, chocolate milkshake and an apple pie later, Whipps Cross were ready to induce me.
So I was fingered by yet another midwife (I assume she was a midwife, not just a passing stranger. I probably should have asked. By this stage I was willing to show my foo-foo to pretty much anyone who asked, and quite a few people who didn't). The special gel was inserted, and I was instructed to go for a walk, to make it work. Well, I couldn't be arsed to put my clothes on again, so TheBloke (TM) and I went for a wander around the hospital. At which point, in my nightdress, with one slightly leaky boob, I bumped into an immaculately-groomed member of my NCT group, who had come in for induction THAT MORNING and had already been induced. (See: queue-jumping bastards). I had been in hospital for 24 hours by this stage.
Miraculously (it seemed) after about an hour, contractions started in earnest. They are kind of hard to describe. A little bit like period pains, but only lasting for about a minute each time. A crescendo and then diminuendo of pain, each crescendo reaching greater heights than the previous.
Turns out TheBloke (TM) was right, and I don't have much of a threshold for pain. We came back to our bed on the ward (where no-one else was in labour, and where I must have terrified the other patients, as I understand I got a bit shouty when I was told that there weren't any rooms available for gas and air and the anaesthetist who was going to do the epidural had been called away).
When a contraction was in full force, I couldn't speak, couldn't shout, couldn't do anything other than focus on the pain. TheBloke (TM) had been to all of the classes. "Breathe," he said, supportively, "breathe."
I am given to understand my response was, "Of course I'm going to fucking breathe. As if I'm going to forget to breathe. Do you think one of the leading causes of maternal deaths is forgetting to fucking breathe, you fucking moron?"
It was shortly after this point, the midwives decided (probably for the sake of the other patients) that perhaps I should have some diamorphine. I asked how long it would take to work and was told about twenty minutes. So I thought I'd venture to the toilet in the interim. Two things to note: diamorphine takes approximately 30 seconds to work on me. Also, isn't the word "toilet" funny when you think about it for too long? So long, in fact, TheBloke (TM) had to hammer on the door to ask if I was OK. I was fine. Just giggling at the word toilet.
Here is a picture of me in the middle of a strong contraction after the injection of lovely diamorphine.
I'll be honest, the next hour or so is a bit of a blur. I updated Twitter with something along the lines of, "Had morphine - off my tits." But I had to correct it twice, as I accidentally wrote "off my tots". Which kind of illustrated my point.
Apparently I was then moved back to a delivery room. I have no recollection of this. But this might be because the diamorphine had made me look a bit like this.
I don't know if you can see in this photo, but I am definitely smirking.
This was probably the high point of the labour. Tune in soon for: enemas, random shitting, sexual harassment of a midwife and eventually... a baby.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Labour of love - Part 2
I woke up at 4 a.m. on the ward, ravenously hungry. Luckily TheBloke (TM) and I had planned for such eventualities, and I snacked on a handy cereal bar.
I dozed until 6 a.m. when I got another good fingering by the midwives, who still couldn't get my pesky cervix to open.
I'd never been that impressed by Whipps Cross Hospital; antenatal appointments had occasionally run two hours late, their admin systems were ridiculous, and once I waited seven hours for a doctor, whom I was repeatedly told "would be here in a minute". So I was disgusted, but not entirely surprised, to notice as the dawn broke that my undersheet was covered in dried blood. I wasn't bleeding. It was not my blood.
The next time the midwife came over, I pointed it out to her in a haughty tone of voice. She apologised, said someone would be along to change the sheets, and promised they were clean on... and then questioned, "Hang on a minute, could that be chocolate?"
I remembered the Tracker Bar I'd wolfed down at 4 a.m., then noticed (a little too late) my pillowslip and nightdress were similarly festooned in chocolate. I apologised and resolved not to be any more trouble for that shift.
TheBloke (TM), on my insistence, had gone home for the night; nothing was happening, and chances are he'd be up all night at some point in the next few months, whenever the naughty little monkey decided to grace us with her presence. So he was due to come back in the morning. Which he did, after spending a good hour driving round and round the carpark at the hospital, utterly failing to find a parking space. Stupid other people. I hate other people. In the meantime, I'd been moved to a private room on the labour ward.
We met our midwife, who ran through our wanky birth plan. I shan't detail all of the wankiness, but essentially it involved:
They meant business! Induction time was go go go! Except it wasn't. Because suddenly the labour ward got really full of people who were giving birth naturally (or as I like to call them, queue-jumping bastards) and they didn't have enough staff on hand to induce me. So I read The Remains of the Day and TheBloke (TM) commandeered my iPad and set to work destroying piggies in Angry Birds.
For the second day running, I was offered a choice of lunch - exactly the same lunch as I'd had on the same ward when I had labyrinthitis. They clearly have the same lunch every day. It's like Groundhog Day. Cheese and tomato sandwich or tuna and cucumber sandwich. I chose cheese and tomato. TheBloke (TM) ate it.
The next step was to put a cannula into my hand for a saline drip to keep my fluids up. Now, I have seen enough junior doctor programmes to know that cannulas are tricky beasts. I made the mistake of mentioning this to my midwife. "So long as you don't take nine attempts to do it," I quipped. "Oh no," she replied. " I'll just have one go, and if I can't get it in, I'll get someone else to have a go."
I tried not to worry - after all, when I'd been on the ward before with labyrinthits, they got it in first time, painful though it was.
The midwife had a go. She didn't manage it. She brought a second midwife to have a go. She couldn't do it either. At this point I looked something like a failed suicide attempt.
So they called on Dr Duffy. Dr Duffy was Welsh. And - to give him his due, he got the cannula in first time. But it hurt. A lot. And he put it in my forearm, which was a really stupid place to put it. And did I mention it hurt? So much so that I might have threatened to punch him. "Oh," said Dr Duffy, "the last person who did that is still paying me compensation of £5 per month."
This interested me. £5 a month? I shouldn't have opened my mouth. "That sounds totally worth it," I said.
"Yeah," said Dr Duffy, "but look at me, a six foot Welsh hard man. I think I can take you."
And that, dear readers, is how a nine-and-a-half month pregnant woman ended up being threatened by NHS staff. I will be writing a letter shortly demanding my £5 per month.
I dozed until 6 a.m. when I got another good fingering by the midwives, who still couldn't get my pesky cervix to open.
I'd never been that impressed by Whipps Cross Hospital; antenatal appointments had occasionally run two hours late, their admin systems were ridiculous, and once I waited seven hours for a doctor, whom I was repeatedly told "would be here in a minute". So I was disgusted, but not entirely surprised, to notice as the dawn broke that my undersheet was covered in dried blood. I wasn't bleeding. It was not my blood.
The next time the midwife came over, I pointed it out to her in a haughty tone of voice. She apologised, said someone would be along to change the sheets, and promised they were clean on... and then questioned, "Hang on a minute, could that be chocolate?"
I remembered the Tracker Bar I'd wolfed down at 4 a.m., then noticed (a little too late) my pillowslip and nightdress were similarly festooned in chocolate. I apologised and resolved not to be any more trouble for that shift.
TheBloke (TM), on my insistence, had gone home for the night; nothing was happening, and chances are he'd be up all night at some point in the next few months, whenever the naughty little monkey decided to grace us with her presence. So he was due to come back in the morning. Which he did, after spending a good hour driving round and round the carpark at the hospital, utterly failing to find a parking space. Stupid other people. I hate other people. In the meantime, I'd been moved to a private room on the labour ward.
We met our midwife, who ran through our wanky birth plan. I shan't detail all of the wankiness, but essentially it involved:
- Music to be played throughout the labour. I had created my own birth playlist, filled with music I knew TheBloke (TM) hated, mostly just to irritate him.
- Give me drugs. Lots of drugs. Fuck off with your "natural birth". Keep me away from your stupid water births. I want drugs.
- TheBloke (TM) to cut the cord
- Delayed cord clamping to ensure the sprog got all those lovely nutrients
- Just to reiterate, I would like drugs.
They meant business! Induction time was go go go! Except it wasn't. Because suddenly the labour ward got really full of people who were giving birth naturally (or as I like to call them, queue-jumping bastards) and they didn't have enough staff on hand to induce me. So I read The Remains of the Day and TheBloke (TM) commandeered my iPad and set to work destroying piggies in Angry Birds.
For the second day running, I was offered a choice of lunch - exactly the same lunch as I'd had on the same ward when I had labyrinthitis. They clearly have the same lunch every day. It's like Groundhog Day. Cheese and tomato sandwich or tuna and cucumber sandwich. I chose cheese and tomato. TheBloke (TM) ate it.The next step was to put a cannula into my hand for a saline drip to keep my fluids up. Now, I have seen enough junior doctor programmes to know that cannulas are tricky beasts. I made the mistake of mentioning this to my midwife. "So long as you don't take nine attempts to do it," I quipped. "Oh no," she replied. " I'll just have one go, and if I can't get it in, I'll get someone else to have a go."
The midwife had a go. She didn't manage it. She brought a second midwife to have a go. She couldn't do it either. At this point I looked something like a failed suicide attempt.
So they called on Dr Duffy. Dr Duffy was Welsh. And - to give him his due, he got the cannula in first time. But it hurt. A lot. And he put it in my forearm, which was a really stupid place to put it. And did I mention it hurt? So much so that I might have threatened to punch him. "Oh," said Dr Duffy, "the last person who did that is still paying me compensation of £5 per month."
This interested me. £5 a month? I shouldn't have opened my mouth. "That sounds totally worth it," I said.
"Yeah," said Dr Duffy, "but look at me, a six foot Welsh hard man. I think I can take you."
And that, dear readers, is how a nine-and-a-half month pregnant woman ended up being threatened by NHS staff. I will be writing a letter shortly demanding my £5 per month.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Labour of love
This story has a happy ending. SPOILER ALERT - we have a child. A lovely little girl who is - as far as you can ever know - healthy and happy. And we are delighted.
The process of obtaining said child isn't quite as straightforward. Over the next few Plogs, I'm going to share with you, dear Ploggers, The Truth About Giving Birth. Oh, also, I had two hours' sleep last night, so if you're feeling pedantic, feel free to correct grammar errors. I would in you're position. (See what I did there? It actually physically hurts a bit to leave that error there. Ugh.)
At nine days overdue, last Wednesday TheBloke (TM) and I toddled off to the hospital to have the labour induced. I had been doing everything to get the labour started. Every old wives' tale you could imagine. Eating more pineapple than I wanted, drinking pineapple juice, bouncing up and down on a gym ball, going for a long walk, drinking raspberry leaf tea... the other suggestions involved a) sex and b) blowjobs as apparently there are enzymes in ejaculate that get labour started. I think "b" was definitely suggested by a man. Oh, also hot curries, but I'm not a fan of spicy food, and think that actually, hot curries are more unpleasant to my palate than option b (Hello Mum and Dad. Sorry.)
None of it worked. So we arrived at the maternity unit at 9 p.m. to be induced. They hooked me to a monitor to measure the baby's heart rate... and told me to my surprise I was already in labour. The machine had a handy little function to tell them when I was contracting - and apparently I was contracting at 100% strength every ten minutes or so. This was something of a surprise, as I couldn't feel it. Well, I could feel a slight tightness. But I wouldn't have noticed it unless they pointed it out.
It was round about this point that two midwives fingered me. One of them thought she felt a polyp. I don't know what a polyp is, but the second midwife disagreed with her and said I was polyp-free. Polyp is a funny word and I shall definitely be using it in Hangman the next time I play. One midwife was called to help out another patient as she was feeling my cervix. "Hang on," said the midwife. "I'm elbow-deep in clunge here."
OK, she didn't, but it would have been funny if she did. In the meantime TheBloke (TM)'s little eyes lit up, as two (admittedly quite attractive female midwives) took it in turns to fondle me, one of them even stroking my leg.
"Look at this," said Hot Midwife 2. "Her contractions are at 100%! Do you really not feel that?" she asked me.
"Not really," I said.
"Wow," she said. "You must just have a really high pain threshhold."
"No she doesn't," said TheBloke (TM), thus in just three words making himself sound like someone who beats his wife.
I felt smug. Contracting and not even feeling it? This labour was going to be a piece of piss.
"We won't induce you as you're contracting at the moment - we'll give you 12 hours and see how you get on naturally," said Hot Midwife 1.
On the ward that night, I got a measly five hours' sleep - or as I now call it, "That amazing night when I got a whole five hours' sleep."
Things change. Stay tuned for Part Two...
The process of obtaining said child isn't quite as straightforward. Over the next few Plogs, I'm going to share with you, dear Ploggers, The Truth About Giving Birth. Oh, also, I had two hours' sleep last night, so if you're feeling pedantic, feel free to correct grammar errors. I would in you're position. (See what I did there? It actually physically hurts a bit to leave that error there. Ugh.)
At nine days overdue, last Wednesday TheBloke (TM) and I toddled off to the hospital to have the labour induced. I had been doing everything to get the labour started. Every old wives' tale you could imagine. Eating more pineapple than I wanted, drinking pineapple juice, bouncing up and down on a gym ball, going for a long walk, drinking raspberry leaf tea... the other suggestions involved a) sex and b) blowjobs as apparently there are enzymes in ejaculate that get labour started. I think "b" was definitely suggested by a man. Oh, also hot curries, but I'm not a fan of spicy food, and think that actually, hot curries are more unpleasant to my palate than option b (Hello Mum and Dad. Sorry.)
None of it worked. So we arrived at the maternity unit at 9 p.m. to be induced. They hooked me to a monitor to measure the baby's heart rate... and told me to my surprise I was already in labour. The machine had a handy little function to tell them when I was contracting - and apparently I was contracting at 100% strength every ten minutes or so. This was something of a surprise, as I couldn't feel it. Well, I could feel a slight tightness. But I wouldn't have noticed it unless they pointed it out.
It was round about this point that two midwives fingered me. One of them thought she felt a polyp. I don't know what a polyp is, but the second midwife disagreed with her and said I was polyp-free. Polyp is a funny word and I shall definitely be using it in Hangman the next time I play. One midwife was called to help out another patient as she was feeling my cervix. "Hang on," said the midwife. "I'm elbow-deep in clunge here."
OK, she didn't, but it would have been funny if she did. In the meantime TheBloke (TM)'s little eyes lit up, as two (admittedly quite attractive female midwives) took it in turns to fondle me, one of them even stroking my leg.
"Look at this," said Hot Midwife 2. "Her contractions are at 100%! Do you really not feel that?" she asked me.
"Not really," I said.
"Wow," she said. "You must just have a really high pain threshhold."
"No she doesn't," said TheBloke (TM), thus in just three words making himself sound like someone who beats his wife.
I felt smug. Contracting and not even feeling it? This labour was going to be a piece of piss.
"We won't induce you as you're contracting at the moment - we'll give you 12 hours and see how you get on naturally," said Hot Midwife 1.
On the ward that night, I got a measly five hours' sleep - or as I now call it, "That amazing night when I got a whole five hours' sleep."
Things change. Stay tuned for Part Two...
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Pissed off
So the baby is now eight days late. This is unfortunate, as both TheBloke (TM) and I pride punctuality as an important personality trait. Let's just say our daughter is not making a good first impression. We will bring it up accordingly at her quarterly performance review.
Anyway, today I got to have my, "Oh shit, you're more than a week late" appointment at Whipps Cross Hospital. This may not be exactly what they call it, but the sentiment is the same. Last week I had my, "Oh dear, you're a day late" appointment, which involved the midwife fingering me in what was apparently a medical procedure called a "sweep", but what was actually more like a late night at the Curzon Cinema in Loughborough. Rubber gloves, lube, severe discomfort, and no telephone call the next day.
So the appointment today, like every other appointment I've had so far, has required a urine test. Fine. I can plan in advance, drink some fluid, produce wee on demand. Excellent. And in my past, I am sure - nay certain, that urine sample tubs have looked something like this:
These are fine. Nice and wide and spacious at the top, allowing us ladies to cover the entire urine-producing area with the bottle and fill up the little tub with our golden delight. So far, so good. Yet I have noticed a worrying trend over the last few months. Ever since I got pregnant, the urine sample bottles have changed to look like this:
Notice anything? Pretty small opening, hey? Well, no matter, surely? Well actually, yes. A bit of a matter. As it happens, I can no longer see my own foo-foo area, and haven't been able to for several months. This means it's mostly guesswork where exactly the wee-wee will come out. Guesswork that has to be proved by trial and error - starting and stopping, if you will, until the right location is happened upon. And - brilliantly - it's not actually possible to do this, without ending up with the pregnancy symptom I like to describe technically as "pissy hands". In order to find the right position, you literally have to piss all over your own hands. Lovely.
So, in addition to acid reflux, chronic backache, piles, carpal tunnel syndrome, acne, spotty boobs, achy hips, random itchy rashes, constipation, diarrhoea, labyrinthitis, vomiting and being a massive fat whale, pregnant women also have to put up with pissy hands because the NHS refuses to order slightly larger beakers.
Well not today, ladies and gentlemen. Today I took a stand for all pregnant women. On finally getting to the front desk, and being handed the above tiny beaker, I loudly and proudly stated for all to hear, "No! I am eight days overdue and I will not tolerate any more pissy hands! Please provide me with a receptacle large enough to cover my urogenital area! I am completely unable to observe my urine flow as my tummy is too big and I am sick of pissing over my own fingers!"
Well, it worked. Kind of. In the end I was handed a polystyrene drinks cup and told I could decant. Like a fine wine. I will not miss being pregnant.
Anyway, today I got to have my, "Oh shit, you're more than a week late" appointment at Whipps Cross Hospital. This may not be exactly what they call it, but the sentiment is the same. Last week I had my, "Oh dear, you're a day late" appointment, which involved the midwife fingering me in what was apparently a medical procedure called a "sweep", but what was actually more like a late night at the Curzon Cinema in Loughborough. Rubber gloves, lube, severe discomfort, and no telephone call the next day.
So the appointment today, like every other appointment I've had so far, has required a urine test. Fine. I can plan in advance, drink some fluid, produce wee on demand. Excellent. And in my past, I am sure - nay certain, that urine sample tubs have looked something like this:
Notice anything? Pretty small opening, hey? Well, no matter, surely? Well actually, yes. A bit of a matter. As it happens, I can no longer see my own foo-foo area, and haven't been able to for several months. This means it's mostly guesswork where exactly the wee-wee will come out. Guesswork that has to be proved by trial and error - starting and stopping, if you will, until the right location is happened upon. And - brilliantly - it's not actually possible to do this, without ending up with the pregnancy symptom I like to describe technically as "pissy hands". In order to find the right position, you literally have to piss all over your own hands. Lovely.So, in addition to acid reflux, chronic backache, piles, carpal tunnel syndrome, acne, spotty boobs, achy hips, random itchy rashes, constipation, diarrhoea, labyrinthitis, vomiting and being a massive fat whale, pregnant women also have to put up with pissy hands because the NHS refuses to order slightly larger beakers.
Well not today, ladies and gentlemen. Today I took a stand for all pregnant women. On finally getting to the front desk, and being handed the above tiny beaker, I loudly and proudly stated for all to hear, "No! I am eight days overdue and I will not tolerate any more pissy hands! Please provide me with a receptacle large enough to cover my urogenital area! I am completely unable to observe my urine flow as my tummy is too big and I am sick of pissing over my own fingers!"
Well, it worked. Kind of. In the end I was handed a polystyrene drinks cup and told I could decant. Like a fine wine. I will not miss being pregnant.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Vile Kyle
Generally my view is that maternity leave would be a lot more enjoyable if I wasn't heavily pregnant. Slow waddling (usually to the bathroom or kitchen) is pretty much the highlight of a day for me, and daytime TV has become a regular fixture in each day's schedule. Yes, I was supposed to be using this time to write a novel. Let's just say it's in progress. If "in progress" means I haven't even thought about starting it. Still, I expect I'll have lots and lots of time once the baby gets here.
Now, accidentally, I found myself watching an episode of The Jeremy Kyle Show. For international readers, or those who have day jobs, Jeremy Kyle is a bit like a British Jerry Springer - but a lot more unpleasant. Rather than "take care of yourself, and each other", he actively harangues his guests, who are all from the lowest possible social strata, and most of them seem to have mild special needs. And acne.
I'm currently watching an episode called "Stop trying to turn my sister into a prostitute", and last week's was, "I'm here to prove that I'm not sleeping with my partner's daughter".
Almost all of the guests have had a truly horrific upbringing - usually in and out of care, drugs or alcohol involved, very often a history of abuse. And they've poured themselves into their best lycra chav suit for the day to come on the show. They almost always have to do a lie-detector test, which seems to be the default way of settling arguments.
Jeremy Kyle himself acts as the middle-class voice of reason, shouting at the guests, "You disgust me! You're lying! People like you make me sick!"
There is genuinely a social class of people believing that "going on The Jeremy Kyle Show" is the best - nay - the only way of solving their problems. There is a premium-rate phone number provided at the end of each episode so that you too can apply to be patronised by a prick for the nation's entertainment.
So, I'm trying to work out why I hate this show so much. Partly it's a Roman Circus - throwing the stupids to the lions for the entertainment of other stupids. Partly it's the vileness of Jeremy himself and the unfair match of intellects - it's a bit like watching a lawyer callously pick apart an argument between toddlers.
But when I'm really honest, I think it might be jealousy. I think he might actually have the best job in the world - shouting at stupid people. For money. If only he also had a pointy stick he could poke them with, then I might actually go and apply to work on his show.
Now, accidentally, I found myself watching an episode of The Jeremy Kyle Show. For international readers, or those who have day jobs, Jeremy Kyle is a bit like a British Jerry Springer - but a lot more unpleasant. Rather than "take care of yourself, and each other", he actively harangues his guests, who are all from the lowest possible social strata, and most of them seem to have mild special needs. And acne.
I'm currently watching an episode called "Stop trying to turn my sister into a prostitute", and last week's was, "I'm here to prove that I'm not sleeping with my partner's daughter".
Almost all of the guests have had a truly horrific upbringing - usually in and out of care, drugs or alcohol involved, very often a history of abuse. And they've poured themselves into their best lycra chav suit for the day to come on the show. They almost always have to do a lie-detector test, which seems to be the default way of settling arguments.
Jeremy Kyle himself acts as the middle-class voice of reason, shouting at the guests, "You disgust me! You're lying! People like you make me sick!"
There is genuinely a social class of people believing that "going on The Jeremy Kyle Show" is the best - nay - the only way of solving their problems. There is a premium-rate phone number provided at the end of each episode so that you too can apply to be patronised by a prick for the nation's entertainment.
So, I'm trying to work out why I hate this show so much. Partly it's a Roman Circus - throwing the stupids to the lions for the entertainment of other stupids. Partly it's the vileness of Jeremy himself and the unfair match of intellects - it's a bit like watching a lawyer callously pick apart an argument between toddlers.
But when I'm really honest, I think it might be jealousy. I think he might actually have the best job in the world - shouting at stupid people. For money. If only he also had a pointy stick he could poke them with, then I might actually go and apply to work on his show.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Making a tit of myself
Being pregnant has opened up a whole new world of complaining for me. Not just about the myriad of minor niggles that come with the discomfort of having a giant beach ball shoved down your top, but with some of the strange idiosyncrasies that seem endemic to pregnancy.
Firstly - maternity clothes. It's a familiar niggle that the range of maternity wear - especially maternity office wear - is extremely limited. But even when you do find something you can just about wear to the office, guess what? Bet you can't. Maternity clothes have no pockets. None. Not a pocket. Because obviously, as soon as you're pregnant, you can't be trusted with car keys or loose change. You need to stay home, ideally in the kitchen, ideally barefoot. Ironically, I'm writing this in the kitchen, and I'm not wearing socks. But that's not the point.
Additionally, baby clothes, baby clothes often come with pockets. Pockets! For babies! Silly mummy can't be trusted with the car keys, but two-week old Chardonnay needs change for the parking meter.
Secondly, and I guess this isn't really as much of a complaint as a challenge... Apparently legally speaking you're allowed to breastfeed anywhere you want. And even more interestingly, it's actually illegal for anyone to ask you to go elsewhere to breastfeed. This is exciting to me, as it poses endless opportunities to irritate other people. Here is my current list of places I'm planning on breastfeeding:
Firstly - maternity clothes. It's a familiar niggle that the range of maternity wear - especially maternity office wear - is extremely limited. But even when you do find something you can just about wear to the office, guess what? Bet you can't. Maternity clothes have no pockets. None. Not a pocket. Because obviously, as soon as you're pregnant, you can't be trusted with car keys or loose change. You need to stay home, ideally in the kitchen, ideally barefoot. Ironically, I'm writing this in the kitchen, and I'm not wearing socks. But that's not the point.
Additionally, baby clothes, baby clothes often come with pockets. Pockets! For babies! Silly mummy can't be trusted with the car keys, but two-week old Chardonnay needs change for the parking meter.
Secondly, and I guess this isn't really as much of a complaint as a challenge... Apparently legally speaking you're allowed to breastfeed anywhere you want. And even more interestingly, it's actually illegal for anyone to ask you to go elsewhere to breastfeed. This is exciting to me, as it poses endless opportunities to irritate other people. Here is my current list of places I'm planning on breastfeeding:
- The Vatican
- MCC Enclosure at Lord's Cricket Ground
- Fundamentalist mosque (not sure where to find one of these. Might need to ask around)
Any other ideas gratefully received. (Baby due today. No sign yet. Bored.)
Sunday, September 02, 2012
Vision Express
A few weeks ago, TheBloke (TM) and I went to a weekend of NCT classes. For those of you who don't know, NCT is the National Childbirth Trust, and the idea of the classes is ostensibly to teach you everything you need to know about labour and looking after a baby. Really, the only reason I've ever heard people give for shelling out £250 for the classes is to meet other middle-class mums in the area, so you've got something to do during your maternity leave.
Anyway, on the hottest weekend of the year, we toddled off to a local library with no air conditioning and met seven other couples who are expecting a baby round about the same time as us.
I had heard several horror stories about NCT - from knitted vaginas showing how the baby comes out, through to being pressured not to have any pain relief during childbirth (the clue for me is in the term "pain relief" - relieving pain - what's not to like?). I'm happy to report that actually, there were no woolly foo-foos on display, and the tutor was very even-handed whilst describing the different types of drugs on offer. (ALL of them. I want ALL of them.)
However, there was one part of the day that didn't work for me so well. The tutor was talking about hypnobirthing, and specifically around visualisation. This is apparently where your partner talks to you about a happy place you've enjoyed together, and you focus on relaxing through the contractions. (I think this might be easier if I've had ALL of the drugs. ALL of them.)
So the tutor starts speaking:
"I'd like you all to close your eyes, relax and just let the pictures come into your heads. It's a lovely warm sunny day, and you're driving in the car. You pull your car up and park it by the side of the road, and take a path into open parkland. There are two paths, one leading into woods, and the other leading into the park. As it's a hot day, you decide to take the wooded pathway for some cool shade. Above you, birds sing and the scent of fresh grass is in the air."
I feel my heart rate go up. This is London. Where on earth have I left my car? Did I check the parking restrictions? Last time we parked where we shouldn't, the car was towed and we had to pay £260 to get it back. I had to go to Bromley-by-Bow car pound, which is like a run-down version of hell. Also, where was I driving back from? Won't people be worried about me if I just disappear when I'm expected home? Plus, I go most places by tube; if I'm driving, I've probably got a boot-load of groceries in the car; if it's a hot day, the frozen items will be ruined by the time I've got back.
My breathing increases. I'm really worried about that parking ticket. I can't focus on the tutor, who's saying something about the lovely cool woods, and lying down. LYING DOWN? How could I lie down at a moment like this? The car's being towed, the groceries are ruined, and as I've disappeared on my way home from work, there's probably a search team out looking for me.
"You can open your eyes," says the tutor. I need to go and get a drink; I feel stressed out and a bit faint.
I'm not sure visualisation is the best sort of relaxation for me.
Anyway, on the hottest weekend of the year, we toddled off to a local library with no air conditioning and met seven other couples who are expecting a baby round about the same time as us.
I had heard several horror stories about NCT - from knitted vaginas showing how the baby comes out, through to being pressured not to have any pain relief during childbirth (the clue for me is in the term "pain relief" - relieving pain - what's not to like?). I'm happy to report that actually, there were no woolly foo-foos on display, and the tutor was very even-handed whilst describing the different types of drugs on offer. (ALL of them. I want ALL of them.)
However, there was one part of the day that didn't work for me so well. The tutor was talking about hypnobirthing, and specifically around visualisation. This is apparently where your partner talks to you about a happy place you've enjoyed together, and you focus on relaxing through the contractions. (I think this might be easier if I've had ALL of the drugs. ALL of them.)
So the tutor starts speaking:
"I'd like you all to close your eyes, relax and just let the pictures come into your heads. It's a lovely warm sunny day, and you're driving in the car. You pull your car up and park it by the side of the road, and take a path into open parkland. There are two paths, one leading into woods, and the other leading into the park. As it's a hot day, you decide to take the wooded pathway for some cool shade. Above you, birds sing and the scent of fresh grass is in the air."
I feel my heart rate go up. This is London. Where on earth have I left my car? Did I check the parking restrictions? Last time we parked where we shouldn't, the car was towed and we had to pay £260 to get it back. I had to go to Bromley-by-Bow car pound, which is like a run-down version of hell. Also, where was I driving back from? Won't people be worried about me if I just disappear when I'm expected home? Plus, I go most places by tube; if I'm driving, I've probably got a boot-load of groceries in the car; if it's a hot day, the frozen items will be ruined by the time I've got back.
My breathing increases. I'm really worried about that parking ticket. I can't focus on the tutor, who's saying something about the lovely cool woods, and lying down. LYING DOWN? How could I lie down at a moment like this? The car's being towed, the groceries are ruined, and as I've disappeared on my way home from work, there's probably a search team out looking for me.
"You can open your eyes," says the tutor. I need to go and get a drink; I feel stressed out and a bit faint.
I'm not sure visualisation is the best sort of relaxation for me.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Earth has not anything to show more fair
This summer marks the end of a whole decade spent living and working in London. A decade. Ten years.
Here is my embarrassing list of London things that I have still not managed to do:
Here is my embarrassing list of London things that I have still not managed to do:
- Buckingham Palace. I've walked past it, but have never been arsed to go in. Same goes for the changing of the guard, and whatever other guff they get up to in there.
- Madam Tussauds. TheBloke (TM) has been here, and has all manner of hilarious photos of him peering down the Queen's cleavage and pinching J-Lo's arse. I've never seen the point. Though I would quite like a Kate Middleton waxwork for my living room. I would put a wick in her and light it, and enjoy her slowly melting and looking much less perfect as each evening went on. I digress.
- Kew Gardens. I drove past it once, but only because I was lost.
- St Paul's Cathedral. Walk past it a lot. Never quite wanted to stump up £16 or whatever it is these days to go and look round inside.
- Wembley Stadium. Don't like football, don't like loud music, and I think it's the wrong venue for comedy. 'Nuff said.
So, yes, there's a long-ish list of things in London I haven't yet done. And, of course, as Samuel Johnson said, "When a [wo]man is tired of London [s]he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."
This week has been my last week working in London for a while. I left work today to start my maternity leave. I now live outside Central London - still a comfortable commute in, but you wouldn't say we lived in "London proper" anymore. This week, fitting in friends and book clubs and various different commitments before I went away, I had the opportunity this week to revisit Bank and Liverpool Street - an area in which I worked for about five years.
I walked past the Gherkin, and recalled in my first ever City job, how two naughty colleagues, Cookie and Boothie, made me skip most of an afternoon's work to get drunk with them in a restaurant next door. The Gherkin was still under construction at the time. Still two of my closest London friends, we continue to go out for dinner regularly... and they are still very naughty. I smiled.
I walked past the Royal Exchange and remembered meeting friends there - a central meeting point - before going to the South Bank to watch an episode of Have I Got News For You? being taped. It seemed such a long time ago, but I looked up at the beautiful architecture, unchanged throughout the decade, and smiled.
I walked down Bishopsgate, remembering how I used to walk to work from an overpriced one-bedroom flat in Dalston each morning to save the 65p bus fare. (This was well before Dalston was trendy. I think the technical term the estate agents used was "vibrant", and the term the Daily Mail used was "Murder Mile".) I remember how I had a clip-on MP3 player to my mobile phone which held an astonishing 16 songs. I remembered how I'd always feel virtuous for the exercise - which would make me so hungry, I'd eat a bacon sandwich as soon as I'd arrived in the office, thus more than negating the 65p bus fare saving, plus ruling out any calories I might have burned from the exercise by a good 300%. I grinned at the memory.
I passed the Tesco Metro where on a Friday evening I'd sometimes buy myself a bunch of flowers, reduced for quick sale. And how I learned how difficult it was to get lily pollen out of pretty much anything. And smiled.
I jumped on the tube at Liverpool Street, and the train passed through Bethnal Green, where I lived for about six years. I remembered how my friend Erica and I would spend at least one night each weekend at the Backyard Comedy Club - sometimes getting so drunk we stepped in a cold bowl of our own vomit the next morning (OK, that was just me. Sorry). Sometimes just loving the comedy so much, and staying for the cheesy disco... which was the same songs in the same order each week, literally on a tape. Whenever I hear one of those songs on the radio nowadays, it still makes me smile.
Today at Canary Wharf - an area I've always held to be quite soulless, I looked up at the skyscrapers, and realised the sky was cloudless, the sun was shining, the breeze was blowing across the Thames as the new Shard went up in on the horizon and actually, I would miss this place too. I smiled as I remembered the Gherkin going up as I first moved to London and my first few years in the city I wondered when London would be finished, when would the endless cranes move away? Of course, the answer is never. London keeps building, London keeps changing. But it somehow never changes so far that it becomes something else. London is always London.
So, this is no Wordsworth, and my London - made up of retail outlets and skyscrapers, is less picturesque perhaps than Westminster Bridge. But you know what? In ten years, it's made me smile a lot. Thank you, London. And goodnight.
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Sill-iness
There are many joys of being a landlord. I will number them below:
1. Getting rent in on time.
Oh, that's it. Well, hey ho. There are several downsides though, and anyone who calls it "passive income" is a big fat liar pants. I have always loathed and detested dealing with Tower Hamlets Homes (my last letter of complaint to them actually used the phrase, "I seriously doubt that anyone in your department could organise a drinking session in a brewery", and their reply pretty much confirmed that, as they addressed it to "Miss Laurahmed Noon" and threatened to tow my car which hadn't been parked there for three years.)
Still, despite still being in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, a second flat we look after is managed by a different company - Poplar Harca. I can tell you're riveted by this. Stay with me.
Now, last week I made the mistake of contacting the tenants to organise a gas safety check. Yes, this is a legal obligation, but inevitably, whenever you contact tenants to give them some information, immediately they give you a list of nineteen things that have gone wrong with the flat since you last spoke to them a fortnight ago. So far, so exciting?
So this time, it's an ongoing problem with the seal around the window, which is letting in cold air. According to Poplar Harca's website, this is their issue as building owners to repair. According to the people on the end of the phone, this is now our issue as leaseholders. I still haven't worked out why.
Now, the main difference between Tower Hamlets Homes and Poplar Harca, as far as I can tell, is that Tower Hamlets Homes will only employ people:
a) whose grasp of English is insufficient to do anything other than smile and nod (not ideal for a phone-based job)
b) who have moderate learning difficulties
c) who do speak English, don't have learning difficulties, but are vile and obnoxious. Poplar Harca seems to employ lovely people who are actually fairly efficient. This makes me nervous. Surely this is too good to be true.
Still, whilst they do speak English, the accent was still something of an issue on the phone earlier today. Tower Hamlets, being a diverse area of London, has tens of accents and various languages spoken. But today my problem was with a Londoner.
Me: Yes, I think it's a problem with the window seal.
Her: Oh, we don't cover window sills.
Me: Not the sill, the seal.
Her: Oh, so you're saying it's not the sill, it's the sill?
Me: *Trying to think of a way to explain to her that the way she pronounces "sill" and "seal" are identical. Fails.* Erm, yes.
See, told you this would be an anecdote worth waiting for. Oh. Sorry.
1. Getting rent in on time.
Oh, that's it. Well, hey ho. There are several downsides though, and anyone who calls it "passive income" is a big fat liar pants. I have always loathed and detested dealing with Tower Hamlets Homes (my last letter of complaint to them actually used the phrase, "I seriously doubt that anyone in your department could organise a drinking session in a brewery", and their reply pretty much confirmed that, as they addressed it to "Miss Laurahmed Noon" and threatened to tow my car which hadn't been parked there for three years.)
Still, despite still being in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, a second flat we look after is managed by a different company - Poplar Harca. I can tell you're riveted by this. Stay with me.
Now, last week I made the mistake of contacting the tenants to organise a gas safety check. Yes, this is a legal obligation, but inevitably, whenever you contact tenants to give them some information, immediately they give you a list of nineteen things that have gone wrong with the flat since you last spoke to them a fortnight ago. So far, so exciting?
So this time, it's an ongoing problem with the seal around the window, which is letting in cold air. According to Poplar Harca's website, this is their issue as building owners to repair. According to the people on the end of the phone, this is now our issue as leaseholders. I still haven't worked out why.
Now, the main difference between Tower Hamlets Homes and Poplar Harca, as far as I can tell, is that Tower Hamlets Homes will only employ people:
a) whose grasp of English is insufficient to do anything other than smile and nod (not ideal for a phone-based job)
b) who have moderate learning difficulties
c) who do speak English, don't have learning difficulties, but are vile and obnoxious. Poplar Harca seems to employ lovely people who are actually fairly efficient. This makes me nervous. Surely this is too good to be true.
Still, whilst they do speak English, the accent was still something of an issue on the phone earlier today. Tower Hamlets, being a diverse area of London, has tens of accents and various languages spoken. But today my problem was with a Londoner.
Me: Yes, I think it's a problem with the window seal.
Her: Oh, we don't cover window sills.
Me: Not the sill, the seal.
Her: Oh, so you're saying it's not the sill, it's the sill?
Me: *Trying to think of a way to explain to her that the way she pronounces "sill" and "seal" are identical. Fails.* Erm, yes.
See, told you this would be an anecdote worth waiting for. Oh. Sorry.
Monday, August 06, 2012
Fun with phonics
So I'm a little bit in love with my new iPad.
One of my favourite things is the dictation software which allows me to update my blog without actually having to sit at Brighton tight. No, not "sit at Brighton tight", sit upright!
Sitting upright is something of a challenge at the moment, so anything that makes life easier is always much appreciated.
So yes, the software is not without limitations, but it still seems very much into my printer placement. Dammit feeds into my laziness. Nothing to do with my printer placement.
TheBloke (TM), being of a South African persuasion, has enjoyed trying out this software using his best Afrikaans accent. This mostly involves saying "arse cream" instead of ice cream. Fortunately the iPad is not so uncouth as to know the word arts. Arts dammit, ARSE! Ah, there we go.
Now a word from TheBloke (TM) in his native South African accent:
"Laura watched Sex and the City the movie this evening."
Fucking thing works fine sometimes, doesn't it? Don't tell anyone. Anyway, it was a massive partnership. Not a partnership, acheiral of sheet. For fox sake, acheiral of sheets. A kind of shipped. A pile of shipped. Close enough.
iPad review of the film: A pile of shipped. For fox sake.
One of my favourite things is the dictation software which allows me to update my blog without actually having to sit at Brighton tight. No, not "sit at Brighton tight", sit upright!
Sitting upright is something of a challenge at the moment, so anything that makes life easier is always much appreciated.
So yes, the software is not without limitations, but it still seems very much into my printer placement. Dammit feeds into my laziness. Nothing to do with my printer placement.
TheBloke (TM), being of a South African persuasion, has enjoyed trying out this software using his best Afrikaans accent. This mostly involves saying "arse cream" instead of ice cream. Fortunately the iPad is not so uncouth as to know the word arts. Arts dammit, ARSE! Ah, there we go.
Now a word from TheBloke (TM) in his native South African accent:
"Laura watched Sex and the City the movie this evening."
Fucking thing works fine sometimes, doesn't it? Don't tell anyone. Anyway, it was a massive partnership. Not a partnership, acheiral of sheet. For fox sake, acheiral of sheets. A kind of shipped. A pile of shipped. Close enough.
iPad review of the film: A pile of shipped. For fox sake.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Where there's a Will...
Being grown-up is a funny thing. Most of the time, it's ace - you can go out on a school night, or watch your favourite programme on TV without having to tidy your bedroom or do your violin practice first. And if you don't like the vegetables for dinner - you don't have to eat them! Result!
But there are some parts of grown-up-ness which are a bit more bothersome. Not unpleasant as such, just time-consuming. Like reading the gas meter, comparing car insurance quotations or setting up council tax standing orders. Recently, for example, TheBloke (TM) and I had to get new Wills written. We hadn't bothered since we'd got married, but with a baby on the way, it made sense to get the admin in order.
So far, so admin.
I was a bit slack with mine. Whilst the Will company returned our paperwork within days, it was probably six weeks or so until I bothered to sign it and get it witnessed... and once I had, I left it on the table, to be filed at some point in the future. I am not good at filing things. Don't tell anyone. I might want a job as a secretary one day.
Anyway, a few days later was when I got really ill with labyrinthitis. Not ill enough to invoke the Will, thankfully, but ill enough that I had to spend a bit of time in hospital. TheBloke (TM) was very attentive throughout; I was admitted on the Friday evening - and after leaving at about 10 p.m. on Friday, he phoned me at 8.30 a.m. on Saturday to tell me he was on his way back to visit me, and did I want anything from home?
Now, not knowing I would successfully persuade a doctor to let me leave that very same day, I gave TheBloke (TM) a nice list of things I wanted, including my iPhone charger, my Blackberry charger (because clearly, keeping on top of office work was my top priority when I was still vomiting over nurses), a change of clothes, some lip balm, some snacks in case I ever managed to keep anything down, and so on. He dutifully made a list.
It was only when I got home, and a few days later, began to open my eyes again and focus on the world around me, I realised that in trying to find a suitable scrap of paper to write down my numerous requests, he'd made the list on the back of my Will.
Now of course, this isn't a problem - it's scribbled on the back of the Will, not within the body of the text itself, but it does raise the interesting question of if I kick the bucket, which poor solicitor is going to get the job of working out which beneficiary will receive my deodorant, and which one will get the Vicks Vapour Rub?
Or if I live a really, really long time, in 80 years' time, the solicitors might be trying to see if there was any hidden meaning in "Wotsits" and "iPhone charger", and I could spawn a treasure hunt of Masquerade proportions.
Either that, or someone will just think, "Bloody hell, she was clearly crap at filing. This paperwork's going to be a nightmare."
But there are some parts of grown-up-ness which are a bit more bothersome. Not unpleasant as such, just time-consuming. Like reading the gas meter, comparing car insurance quotations or setting up council tax standing orders. Recently, for example, TheBloke (TM) and I had to get new Wills written. We hadn't bothered since we'd got married, but with a baby on the way, it made sense to get the admin in order.
So far, so admin.
I was a bit slack with mine. Whilst the Will company returned our paperwork within days, it was probably six weeks or so until I bothered to sign it and get it witnessed... and once I had, I left it on the table, to be filed at some point in the future. I am not good at filing things. Don't tell anyone. I might want a job as a secretary one day.
Anyway, a few days later was when I got really ill with labyrinthitis. Not ill enough to invoke the Will, thankfully, but ill enough that I had to spend a bit of time in hospital. TheBloke (TM) was very attentive throughout; I was admitted on the Friday evening - and after leaving at about 10 p.m. on Friday, he phoned me at 8.30 a.m. on Saturday to tell me he was on his way back to visit me, and did I want anything from home?
Now, not knowing I would successfully persuade a doctor to let me leave that very same day, I gave TheBloke (TM) a nice list of things I wanted, including my iPhone charger, my Blackberry charger (because clearly, keeping on top of office work was my top priority when I was still vomiting over nurses), a change of clothes, some lip balm, some snacks in case I ever managed to keep anything down, and so on. He dutifully made a list.
Now of course, this isn't a problem - it's scribbled on the back of the Will, not within the body of the text itself, but it does raise the interesting question of if I kick the bucket, which poor solicitor is going to get the job of working out which beneficiary will receive my deodorant, and which one will get the Vicks Vapour Rub?
Or if I live a really, really long time, in 80 years' time, the solicitors might be trying to see if there was any hidden meaning in "Wotsits" and "iPhone charger", and I could spawn a treasure hunt of Masquerade proportions.
Either that, or someone will just think, "Bloody hell, she was clearly crap at filing. This paperwork's going to be a nightmare."
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Seventh Annual BBQ Extravaganza
Well, what an exciting weekend. This weekend was the much-anticipated SeABE, which as regular Ploggers will of course know, stands for the Seventh Annual BBQ Extravaganza. For seven whole years, Erica and I have been getting together for a summer BBQ. Over the years we have been joined by Dean, and TheBloke (TM), and, this year, making her first appearance, we welcomed Charlie, who added her own mark on the event, notably by grinning a lot and pointing at things she wanted. Also she slept 12 hours straight. She makes this baby thing look easy. Either that or her parents are drugging her. Just saying.
The weirdest part of the weekend for me was seeing photos TheBloke (TM) had taken of us. I mean, I know I'm carrying a teeny bit of pregnancy weight, but I never get to see myself from side on. So it was a bit of a shock to see this.
I am a whale. Hey ho. Only another two months to go, and then I'm sure I'll snap straight back to my size 8s.
So we all ate meat, and bread and plastic cheese (no BBQ is complete without plastic cheese), much to TheBloke (TM)'s disgust; he is a firm believer in the South African braai where only "proper meat" - steaks and suchlike are allowed near the grill. Plastic cheese, pork sausages and especially burgers are an absolute no-no. I did notice though that this aesthetic predisposition didn't prevent him from cramming a burger (with plastic cheese) and four sausages into his big fat mouth.
The weather was OK - which is something of a miracle, given the deluge of rain we've had so far this year. And hopefully, all being well, there will be six of us next year at the EABE.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Symptomatic
So whilst I was off sick last week, as I slowly began to open my eyes again, like a newborn baby badger, I was able to focus on the TV for probably about 15 minutes at a time.
One of the shit daytime programmes I found myself half-watching was an American show called I didn't Know I was Pregnant. I found this programme incredible. Actually, genuinely incredible. These women claim they had no idea they were pregnant until they went into labour (or as we're in the USA, "labor".) I find this incredible because if I didn't know I was pregnant, I think I would honestly think I was dying.
Here are the symptoms I've had that I have translated into non-pregnant possible symptoms:
One of the shit daytime programmes I found myself half-watching was an American show called I didn't Know I was Pregnant. I found this programme incredible. Actually, genuinely incredible. These women claim they had no idea they were pregnant until they went into labour (or as we're in the USA, "labor".) I find this incredible because if I didn't know I was pregnant, I think I would honestly think I was dying.
Here are the symptoms I've had that I have translated into non-pregnant possible symptoms:
- Excessive tiredness / floppiness = leukaemia
- Random vomiting = stomach cancer
- Enhanced sense of smell = brain tumour
- Ever-worsening backache, spreading to different areas of my back = aggressive spine tumour
- Acid reflux = that pesky stomach cancer back again
- Squirty black poos from iron tablets = still that naughty stomach cancer
- Piles = bowel cancer
- Constipation = bowel cancer
- Sore hips = early-onset arthritis
- Dizziness / blocked ears / vomiting = brain tumour / stomach cancer
So basically I would assume I had but a few weeks to live. These US rednecks (let's be honest, there's barely an IQ point between any of them on the show) are clearly made of tougher stuff than me. "Gee, I thought it was bubbleguts", one of them drawled, before explaining that she thought the baby kicking her was a mild case of wind. I got simultaneously punched in the bladder and kicked in the ribs earlier today. Had I not known I was pregnant, I would have been convinced I'd picked up a South American parasite which was now the size of a large trout and eating my innards.
Then again, I could just be a hypochondriac.
Monday, July 09, 2012
Taxing the brain
So I'm late to the party on this one (see previous post), but I really wanted to write a little bit about the "scandal" a couple of weeks ago with Jimmy Carr being lambasted for paying not-very-much income tax, and his subsequent grovelling apology.
For readers outside of the UK, Jimmy Carr is one of the UK's most successful comedians, pretty left-wing, and earlier this year, lambasted a number of large companies for avoiding tax by keeping funds offshore. The scandal came about when it was made clear a few weeks ago that Jimmy himself was doing pretty much the same thing. David Cameron waded into the row and effectively said he thought Carr was a tosser. Or words to that effect.
This I do not understand. Jimmy Carr was exercising tax avoidance. For those of you in doubt, tax avoidance is what you and I do every time we open an ISA, offset business expenses against profits or buy a high-priced item deliberately a few days before VAT goes up. Tax avoidance is perfectly legal. Teams of clever accountants are there to work out how they can best legally avoid tax for their clients. This is what Jimmy Carr was doing. (Tax evasion is illegal. No-one has suggested Jimmy was doing this.) At the very worst, you could accuse him of hypocrisy, because he took the piss out of banks for doing the same thing earlier in the year.
So hypocrisy, yes. But avoiding tax - how many amongst us, given the option to a) pay a shitload of tax or b) perfectly legally not pay a shitload of tax, would choose option A.
I think I was one of the only people during the MPs' expenses scandal who just didn't see the scandal. OK, there were those of them who were claiming fraudulent expenses. And they were rightfully punished. But for those who had been told openly that they could claim for x, y and z, and then did... well, surely that's fair enough. It's the system that's broken, not the people operating within it. In a capitalist country, why do we expect people to have altruistic motives? We need to give clear rules, guidelines and laws.
And whilst we're on the topic, if banks and big companies are also exploiting these loopholes, then surely that shows they're doing the best they can to return funds to their stakeholders... within legal limits. (Exceptions go to Vodafone who basically does evade tax... and gets away with it.)
And for David Cameron to wade in on this when a) his own family made their fortune in tax havens and b) he's one of the few people in the country who could close the tax loopholes if he wanted to, was frankly ridiculous.
Rant over. Not very entertaining Plog, but admit it, it's true.
For readers outside of the UK, Jimmy Carr is one of the UK's most successful comedians, pretty left-wing, and earlier this year, lambasted a number of large companies for avoiding tax by keeping funds offshore. The scandal came about when it was made clear a few weeks ago that Jimmy himself was doing pretty much the same thing. David Cameron waded into the row and effectively said he thought Carr was a tosser. Or words to that effect.
This I do not understand. Jimmy Carr was exercising tax avoidance. For those of you in doubt, tax avoidance is what you and I do every time we open an ISA, offset business expenses against profits or buy a high-priced item deliberately a few days before VAT goes up. Tax avoidance is perfectly legal. Teams of clever accountants are there to work out how they can best legally avoid tax for their clients. This is what Jimmy Carr was doing. (Tax evasion is illegal. No-one has suggested Jimmy was doing this.) At the very worst, you could accuse him of hypocrisy, because he took the piss out of banks for doing the same thing earlier in the year.
So hypocrisy, yes. But avoiding tax - how many amongst us, given the option to a) pay a shitload of tax or b) perfectly legally not pay a shitload of tax, would choose option A.
I think I was one of the only people during the MPs' expenses scandal who just didn't see the scandal. OK, there were those of them who were claiming fraudulent expenses. And they were rightfully punished. But for those who had been told openly that they could claim for x, y and z, and then did... well, surely that's fair enough. It's the system that's broken, not the people operating within it. In a capitalist country, why do we expect people to have altruistic motives? We need to give clear rules, guidelines and laws.
And whilst we're on the topic, if banks and big companies are also exploiting these loopholes, then surely that shows they're doing the best they can to return funds to their stakeholders... within legal limits. (Exceptions go to Vodafone who basically does evade tax... and gets away with it.)
And for David Cameron to wade in on this when a) his own family made their fortune in tax havens and b) he's one of the few people in the country who could close the tax loopholes if he wanted to, was frankly ridiculous.
Rant over. Not very entertaining Plog, but admit it, it's true.
Sunday, July 08, 2012
I'm so dizzy
So yes, it's been ages since I Plogged. But to be fair, it's only really been the last five days that I've been able to see straight enough to actually look at the screen.
Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you... labyrinthitis! Upon diagnosis, I did wonder if this might have been brought on by an excess of David Bowie and too many gnomes but it turns out, it's completely unrelated, and actually means that your clever, clever brain forgets which way is up, which way is down, and makes you fall over and vomit. A lot. It's nothing to do with being pregnant, but because vomiting a lot dehydrates you, I had to go to hospital. Joy.
High points of labyrinthitis:
- Finding out that if you vomit enough, you get to bring up some really interestingly-coloured bile. Think a bright neon yellow marker pen. Cool!
- Finding out that if the staff at Whipps Cross hospital tell you that they don't have a bed that you can lie down in until you are triaged, there's not much you can do... Until, that is, you decide to lie on the floor in the corridor, clutching your sick bowl and moaning, and then suddenly a whole room becomes available really quickly.
- Finding out how quickly dignity disappears. The best part of one night was having to press a buzzer to get someone to take me to the toilet; I had to hold onto my IV stand, sit on a bedpan, whilst vomit into another bedpan (and partly over an orderly), whilst said orderly watched me wee.
- Finding out that injections in your bottom really hurt.
- Getting a preview of a labour ward. If you're a certain amount pregnant, pretty much no matter what's wrong with you, you go to the maternity ward instead of A&E. Basically I spent a night inside a very personal episode of One Born Every Minute. I have decided, pretty finally, that childbirth, or a C-Section, both sound like not very good ideas. I am open to other suggestions.
It took ages to start feeling better, hence my absence. Even as I type this, I am still completely deaf in one ear and find crossing the road a lot more like Frogger than I used to. Especially the part where I have to jump on crocodiles' backs to cross a fast-flowing river.
Anyway, I'm back. Hello.
Monday, June 18, 2012
50 Shades of Shit
One of the downsides of a long-ish commute to work is that when you're in pain from backache, and sitting hurts more than anything else, the journey feels hellish.
As a result, I've been trying extra-hard to find Kindle books that totally absorb me for the journey, as I find it's a kind of hypnosis. Whilst it doesn't ease the pain completely, it stops me from focusing in on it. Unfortunately "worthy" books rarely distract me as much as the trashy ones. So for the last few weeks (with the exception of the fantastic Anne Tyler's new book The Beginner's Goodbye), I have been reading utter, utter guff on my journeys to and from work. This guff has included The Hunger Games and most recently, though I'm ashamed to say it, Fifty Shades of Grey.
Fifty Shades of Grey was recommended to my by a colleague who told me a) not to read it on the tube (the joys of a Kindle means no-one knows what you're reading) and b) that it was really, really good. Now, for those of you who have managed to avoid the hype so far, here is an outline of the book:
- University graduate meets hot multi-millionaire
- Multi-millionaire likes spanking university graduate
- His dark, tortured childhood is hinted at
- They go out in a private jet / helicopter / gilder a lot
- They do a bit more spanking, but nothing particularly shocking. Unless I'm just perverse.
So far, so pedestrian.
The Amazon reviews are glowing. Apparently it's a "deeply layered" story, which is "realistic" and "unputdownable". Well, the last one has been disproved at least, as I've launched the Kindle across the room twice in disgust, not at the "erotic" scenes, but at at the truly terrible writing.
In addition to the bullet points above, as far as I can tell, the following happens at least 20 times. Each.
As a result, I've been trying extra-hard to find Kindle books that totally absorb me for the journey, as I find it's a kind of hypnosis. Whilst it doesn't ease the pain completely, it stops me from focusing in on it. Unfortunately "worthy" books rarely distract me as much as the trashy ones. So for the last few weeks (with the exception of the fantastic Anne Tyler's new book The Beginner's Goodbye), I have been reading utter, utter guff on my journeys to and from work. This guff has included The Hunger Games and most recently, though I'm ashamed to say it, Fifty Shades of Grey.
Fifty Shades of Grey was recommended to my by a colleague who told me a) not to read it on the tube (the joys of a Kindle means no-one knows what you're reading) and b) that it was really, really good. Now, for those of you who have managed to avoid the hype so far, here is an outline of the book:
- University graduate meets hot multi-millionaire
- Multi-millionaire likes spanking university graduate
- His dark, tortured childhood is hinted at
- They go out in a private jet / helicopter / gilder a lot
- They do a bit more spanking, but nothing particularly shocking. Unless I'm just perverse.
So far, so pedestrian.
The Amazon reviews are glowing. Apparently it's a "deeply layered" story, which is "realistic" and "unputdownable". Well, the last one has been disproved at least, as I've launched the Kindle across the room twice in disgust, not at the "erotic" scenes, but at at the truly terrible writing.
In addition to the bullet points above, as far as I can tell, the following happens at least 20 times. Each.
- Ana says "Oh my". This one actually happens about a million times
- She bites her bottom lip. This girl is going to need surgery soon.
- She hears the tear of another foil packet. Perhaps he's telling you he's putting a condom on. If I know men, he's more likely to be opening a Pepperami.
- Ana speaks to her "inner goddess". Ana's inner goddess is a cunt. Fact.
- She rolls her eyes. She does this so often, I expect she might be having petits mals. She's probably epileptic.
- She is called "baby" by Christian. If any man called me baby once, let alone 20 times, I would fucking shoot him in the face. This might be why I'm not married to a multi-millionaire.
Anyway, give it a go. It's great. Anyone got any recommendations for a page-turner that isn't absolute shit?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)