5
Jul
2010
The post about what to give when you’re not giving flowers
For the love of god, NO.
There are only so many flowers a person needs. Honestly. And this goes for sick people, as well as new mothers. Firstly, who has fourteen vases in the right shape and colour for fourteen different bunches? Secondly, who has fourteen mantelpieces to put them on? And thirdly, umm, who needs that many flowers? But who has the time to think of clever and thoughtful yet awesome value presents for people these days? What with full on jobs or full on children or full on both, you need some help. And they don’t call me Helpful Harriet for nothing. Actually, no one calls me Helpful Harriet but I am hoping if I use it enough, it will catch on. So here are some suggestions. Some of them might also be useful for someone who is coping with an illness, a bereavement, a break-up or a general rough time. You are welcome.
The gift of time
20
Jun
2010
Recovering from the ‘other kind’ of birth
It does not take this many openings - I swear.
I am a small-time c-section veteran, having got two babies up and out ‘through the sun roof’. Not on my own you understand – there were a few doctors and nurses, but basically I am tough and brave. As an obsessive planner, the second time round when I knew I was having another one, I did some serious research. I also bought a lot of unnecessary gear and freaked out a lot. Even if you’re planning the most natural of natural births, stuff happens sometimes and it always pays to freak out in advance. Oh wait – is that right? Anyway, based on absolutely no medical experience whatsoever (although I have watched a LOT of Gray’s Anatomy which is pretty much the same thing), here are my personal top tips for recovering from a c-section:
6
Jun
2010
Sophie – baby’s first status symbol? And our very first giveaway.
This is her. Skinny, Parisian and chic.
I don’t know if it has hit other parts of the world yet, but here in Europe if you don’t own Sophie, you may as well stay home – or stay hidden underneath the sun protector in your buggy or other baby anti-humiliation techniques. There is no way you could face life in the sandpit without knowing that you had Sophie waiting for you at home. Yes my friends – it’s not about highchairs or cots or even your designer buggy – if you don’t own Sophie La Giraffe, you are nobody.
Furthermore, if you don’t buy your baby one immediately, you are probably sentencing your child to a lifetime of lunches alone and dodgy denim choices (I have no memories like this to relate to, only ever having been seen wearing cool, up to the minute, always in fashion jeans. Cough denim hotpants cough).
But why? Why this French phenomenon? There are fifty five million different squeezy toys for babies (I counted), what makes Soph different? I’ll hazard a few (dodgy) guesses….
- She is French. Probably Parisian. And female. All Parisian women are skinny, chic, classic and colour coordinated. So is Sophie.
1
Jun
2010
And somewhere along the line I fell in love
ALERT: TOTALLY SOPPY POST COMING UP. AVERT EYES IF NECESSARY
So you know how all those movies and TV shows and chicklit books describe the moment you meet your baby and you fall instantly in love? Completely and utterly, beside yourself immediately, in love? If you don’t know those books and TV shows and movies then good on you, you probably spend your time reading worthy, didactic tomes about apartheid in South Africa and tutoring the underprivileged (which begs the question about why you are reading this blog, but we’ll take anyone).
Anyway, you know that instant love feeling? Well, nope. Not me.
When number one came along, sure I felt protective. He was also very cute (massive head notwithstanding) and I was keen to look after him the best I possibly could. We spent hours marvelling at the fact that we had MADE THAT LIMB. I know, the first people EVER to create life – I know how clever we are. But overwhelming, tear inducing love at first sight? Nope. Am I weird?
17
May
2010
Gina Ford – the case FOR.
Do not set one of those up in your back garden to burn books. This would be weird.
Oh my god, my pulse is racing, my heart is beating faster and I can hear Jacqui yelling from Madrid. It’s that time. Time for the post I have been thinking about since we started the blog. The Dame Gina Ford post.
If you’ve had a child in the past ten odd years in the UK or Australia, you’d have to be a bit lacking in eyes and/or ears to have missed one of her books on the parenting bookshelves, seen referenece to her methods on the internet or heard mention of her routines from other parents. The most popular book is The Very Contented Baby, but there are various follow-ups including The Contented Baby with Toddler.
At the outset, I need to divulge something that might already be obvious – I love Gina. There, I’ve said it. It’s out there. Let the stabbings commence and the bags full of poo start arriving on our doorstep, but it is true – her methods have worked like an incredible charm for our family and Gina (or The Big G (TBG) as we prefer to call her) rules the child routine roost around at our pad.
3
May
2010
By popular demand – THE BABY LIST. Essentials and almost essentials to buy.
This is like a picture of me at the dentist. I know - bad hair day.
Ages ago I wrote a post about baby things I had bought that I had wasted money on. I made a rash promise to post my spreadsheet of things that you SHOULD buy. Four months later I am coming good with my promise. I know. I’m reliable like that. You should hear my promises to my dentist – they are nothing short of inspiring and involve trips to hygienists, dental floss and 45 degree brushing angles.
Anyway, I digress. I know that interesting dentistry anecdotes is a post in itself but baby stuff I promised and baby stuff you shall have. There are many many things to buy when you are having a baby. And many many shops and online stores from which to buy these essentials. I say essentials. In actual fact, apart from a cot, a pram and some clothes, you’d be hard pressed to say anything was truly essential. But we are what we are. Well, actually, I am what I am. You may well be a far more worthy and green type person who buys the minimum, recycles stuff, freecycles it back into the community and is generally a better, kinder and more annoying person than me. If you are, can I suggest you stop reading? I think you will not enjoy my list of essentials.
26
Mar
2010
When good yoga goes bad
very close likeness of my yoga teacher. possibly her sister.
UPDATE: I know this is an old one but Jac is on holiday this week so I’m re-posting one of my favourites that she wrote! Cheers, Kate
If you’re not already a Yoga or Pilates devotee, there is a very good chance that on falling pregnant you’ll be encouraged to start attending a Yoga or Pilates class especially for the impregnated. Finding the right class for you can be pretty challenging and let me just say, possibly, as my recent experience demonstrated, a little bit frightening.
Finding a new yoga teacher in Madrid has not been an easy task. After sifting through several tie die themed yoga websites and brochures, I found a fairly modern looking studio and booked in for my first set of classes. Despite the shiny, new exterior of the yoga studio, the teacher turned out to be the kind of crystal, purple cardigan wearing, yoga stereotype I had been trying to avoid. The classes were just not what I was after. I wanted to work out, and this class was a lot closer to mediation than exercise.
17
Feb
2010
Private Cord Blood Banking
When we fell pregnant with N all our friends told us to get on to cord blood banking. Debate ensued as to which of the private cord banks were the best. Private cord banks are big here. There are seven operating in Spain, and their marketing is evidently effective. At no time did anyone address whether banking your cord blood with a private bank was the right thing to do. So confident were they of the need for private cord blood banking that one can see how expecting parents come to assume that cord blood banking is a given obligation. It almost feels un-parent like to be questioning the benefits of committing to anything that might benefit your child in future. ‘How could we not invest in something that may one day save our child’s life?’ you ask yourselves. This line of thinking is encouraged directly (or indirectly via your peers) by the well executed and powerful marketing messages of private banks. Private cord blood banking is a very expensive programme with questionable benefits. You need to go beyond the marketing material to make your decision.
22
Dec
2009
The dad’s role in pregnancy.
a pathetic attempt to appeal to the males
I wrote a whole post about Christmas traditions. Then the Captain told me he was over Christmas. And my traditions. Hmm, thought maybe the rest of the world was too (yes, I am aware that not EVERYONE in the world is reading our blog – more fool them) and I am all about pleasing the readers. One of his friends had some helpful suggestions about how I could improve the male readership of this blog. The key one was introducing sports coverage – specifically, blow by blow accounts of any event where England is playing Australia. Probably not going to happen today, but you’ll know when I start cutting and pasting the BBC sports coverage that things have got dire.
In the meantime – how about some thoughts on the male role in pregnancy? There are any number of books on the topic and hundreds of articles written every year. Most of them focus on loving support. It’s true, loving supportiveness is good, but there are some more specific steps you can take to ensure you remain the father of your unborn child. So here are Kate’s top tips on how you can be the best pregnancy person ever:
20
Dec
2009
Things I have wasted money on
If you ask my husband — most of my wardrobe, half the bathroom cabinet, all of my top drawer, the spice cupboard, the bottom three shelves of the bookshelf and everything in my half of the CD rack — falls into this category. But for the purposes of this post I will keep it to Items I Have Bought for Children or Childbearing Purposes. Also known as Things Kate’s Friends Should Have Told Her.
7
Dec
2009
Some thoughts on the world going mad about children.
I should start this post by saying that I love my children. Even the annoying one. No really, I do. They are funny and cute and entertaining and relatively well behaved. My life changed when I had them and although I still sometimes mourn the loss of my old life, for the most part my life has changed for the better. And I suppose they have become my anchor (not in a weighing me down til I drown way, as in a nice kind of centre of my world way – yes, probably a bad analogy in retrospect) but it doesn’t mean that they have taken over my life.
6
Dec
2009
Babymoons – essential pre-child experience, shameless marketing ploy or clever female trick to squeeze in another massage? Also – how the Sydney Morning Herald shamelessly stole my scoop.
naff swimming costumes TOTALLY optional on babymoon
So I have been planning for weeks to write about babymoons and how good they are. And then Rachel Browne from the Sydney Morning Herald COMPLETELY STOLE MY STORY. I suspect some sort of espionage – the SMH has probably been hacking into the back end of the onedayyoullthankme website trying to get the edge on us. Don’t blame them – we are fully on top of the key stories. Like babymoons. Anyway – Rachel talks about how ‘Along with the pram, bassinet, nappies and size 000 singlets, expectant parents are adding babymoons to the long list of must-have items before their newborn arrives.’ WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT MY OPENING PARAGRAPH WAS GOING TO SAY. Almost – except for the size 000 singlets. And I was going to say buggy, not pram. And had a much better use of alliteration. So basically I am a much better writer than Rachel Browne. Journalist, shmournalist – I have a pink blog. Plus, I tend to write in bullet points, which is commonly understood to be a much more innovative approach than say, paragraphs. Here are my top tips:
23
Nov
2009
More top tips before having a baby including great things to buy
This is not me interviewing my mates.
OK, further to yesterday’s top tips from my mates, here is the second part of my scientific research project…
What did you wish you had done in the early days?
- Travelled more when he was small! We didn’t take any weekend breaks which are so much easier before the wee one starts to want to move around.
- Taken more holidays – they are much easier to travel with when they are small.
- Written down the dates of her key milestones (crawling, sitting, walking) etc. I’ve already forgotten a lot of them.
- Printed off photos and started an album straight away, kept a record of milestones and videoed the first seven months as only got the camera out at 8 months.
- Had baby Panadol in the house after the first immunisation. Big mistake!
- Not wished the time away. I look back and wonder where the various stages have gone.
- Relaxed and gone with the flow! They are only tiny for such a short time so I wish I had felt that I didn’t have to be doing something all the time.
- Got more stuff in the freezer for post-baby.
22
Nov
2009
Top Tips before you become a parent. How to not freak out. Maybe.
Before I had my first baby I was FREAKING OUT. I am the opposite of the laid back type – I have a level of obsessive, spreadsheeting, Boy Scout type of preparedness that makes people nervous. Put it this way – I have a document that shows what I have bought every extended family member for Christmas and birthday since 2004. I have bought and wrapped all my Christmas presents for this year. I have to hide them from visitors so they don’t back out of our house in fear. Anyway, as you can imagine, the thought of motherhood led to a whole other level of groundwork – I wanted to be ready for every possible issue and situation. Yes, I am well aware of the ridiculousness of that – I even knew it at the time but COULD NOT STOP. So I asked all my far more experienced and knowledgeable friends to answer a few questions for me. Some of them were helpful, some of them made me want to cry. If I was looking for the definitive list of answers to parenting, all the questions showed was that for as many mothers I knew, there were as many opinions. For better or worse, here is part 1 of the results. Part 2 and 3 later in the week and sometime in the near future I will post THE baby buying spreadsheet – hold on to your hats.
9
Nov
2009
Pregnancy massages – or why there is discrimination in the world’s leading expert field.
I consider myself a bit of an expert on pregnancy massages. Not one of the world’s leading experts or anything. Although I would be more than willing to throw my hat in the ring for the role. Except if it involved being pregnant again. Which it probably would. Surely that’s discrimination or something? I should email the people in charge of giving out these World’s Leading Expert roles and point out my skill set – surely someone could run it up a flagpole for discussion? I’m very good at thinking outside the box and being strategic. ANYWAY.
The best pregnancy massages I ever had were at Body Freedom in Melbourne. Just a smallish salon but my god, do they know their fat-bellied women. Seriously good stuff. None of this hole in a table business – beautiful body length pillows and crisp white sheets on a comfy futon. I don’t know if she’s still there, but Jacqui has magic fingers and makes you feel all floppy and sleepy – the sign of a good massage for me (even though those World’s Leading Experts people don’t know a good thing when it emails them).
19
Oct
2009
I was a pregnant chicken
OK so in London they have these ‘Baby on Board’ badges that they will send you in the mail if you are preggers. The idea being you can make it obvious to anyone who is looking that you are in fact up the duff, and have not merely had a couple of hundred extra cheeseburgers. Having spent some significant amount of time studying women’s stomachs while sitting down and trying to work out whether I was about to cause enormous offence – and then feeling humiliated while someone more astute (courageous?) than me jumped up to offer their seat, I always thought it sounded like quite a sensible idea. That is, until mine arrived in the mail. I put it in my handbag and there it remained for the whole nine months.
9
Jun
2009
Looking freaky with 10 days to go
Sometimes I wonder what all the staring is about. Then I get a side view and I understand.
Official date is June 19, although could be any time now. Says the doctor. Who actually, as far as I can tell, has greater chance of forecasting the weather than arrival date.
I am running out of clothes and as you can see these ones are barely cutting it. Top will not take slightest growth and the pants are yoga pants. There’s no place to go after stretch fabrics. Except maybe indoor confinement and giant mumu.
So I hope baby arrives sooner rather than later.
