Still tired...

There is a photo of me on Christmas day two years ago, just four days after we were allowed home from hospital with our new daughter, and in it I look absolutely and completely shattered. I feel so sorry for the me of that day whenever I see the photo that I usually burst into tears, not least because I know that as the days and weeks went on after that photo, and though that photo looks like I was at the bottom of the tiredness well, I got even more tired.

It's no surprise I was tired of course. I'd had nine months of interrupted sleep during pregnancy thanks to a baby using my bladder as a trampoline, followed by six nights in hospital without more than 45 minutes sleep in a row, then a few days at home with our slightly poorly baby where any sleep we did have was interrupted by, you know, checking she was breathing and all those crazy new parent things you do. And that's before we start on the normal newborn waking every few hours thing.

Nearly two years later, and though I have had quite a few (though not enough) extended periods of sleep since then, I am sure I still feel the effects of that sleepless beginning. It's only recently, in arguments or negotiations or when making an excuse or working out whether I can bothered to do something, that I realise I can't really point to that time two years ago and say 'don't you know I'm exhausted, I have just given birth and now have a newborn.' My newborn is nearly two. At some point I am going to have to get over it, and move on.

Lots of people don't move on from things though. I know plenty of adults who blame their behaviour as a grown up on something that happened in childhood, or what they do in their current relationship on how they were treated in a previous relationship. Experiences can explain why we are who we are, but they can't always be used as an excuse. After all, should a ninety year old be able to treat someone badly and have everyone excuse this because 'they had a difficult childhood'. At some point we have to say, 'get over it.'

So I have decided - between now and the arrival of baby number two in a few months time, when once again I demand allowances be made for pregnancy, birth and newborn exhaustion, any unreasonable behaviour on my part is not because I am tired (though believe me, I am) or dealing with a young child (though I am doing this too), but just because I am being unreasonable. Ha - there are no excuses, so anyone at the receiving end may have to take me seriously. Turns out it's empowering this being unreasonable with no excuse thing. So now it's your turn to get over it.

Your absolute and utter best

I've just read Beth Gutcheon's Still Missing, having heard a few months ago Rachel Johnson discuss it on Radio 4's A Good Read presented by Harriett Gilbert which I came across by chance when I turned the radio on while driving.

It's a terrifying book focusing on a mother's torment when a child goes missing without a trace (in fact it was turned into the film Without a trace). The mother, Susan Selky, enters a kind of living death in which she must live in order to have the faith that her son is alive, but while he is missing she has effectively died inside. I read it very quickly, desperate to find out whether he is alive, to find out whether the mother might enter the world of the living again. It's ever so gripping, and of course made me think once again of the McCanns and the Needhams and the parents of other missing children.

But it's not just reading the book that made me think. Harriett taught me journalism at City University when I was a postgraduate and I've not seen her for a couple of years. I love it when I happen upon her on the radio, partly because she is a great presenter and was a great teacher, and partly because she has a lovely radio voice - learned, sexy, thoughtful, firm. It's a pleasure listening to her. And when I do hear her voice I often remember her saying to me a few years ago, kindly I think, about one or other article or book I had written, that she wondered when it was I was actually going to try my best at something. See, producing a book was not enough. I should, I think she was saying, produce the best possible book I can produce, write the best possible articles, think the hardest possible thoughts.

And you know what, though I doubt it's the answer Harriett was necessarily looking for, I've finally found something I really do try my utter best at. Yeah it's the kind of answer that might make you want to gag, but it's true anyway. I do try my best at being a parent, because I desperately want my daughter to be happy and kind and the type of person people want to know and for her to make the world a little better and to be inspiring and interesting and interested. It's not a special attribute - I believe (nearly) all parents share this. It's why Still Missing is so powerful, why we can read it and really feel for Susan Selky, and understand that she is both dead inside but must also stay alive. For there are loads of things that we should try our best at, and I intend to do so the next article, the next blogpost, the next book, really I do. But there is only one thing that really really matters, and it turns out I try my best at that without even having to think about it.

I got my copy of Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon second hand on Amazon but have since found out it is currently published by the lovely Persephone books whose website says: "Persephone prints mainly neglected fiction and non-fiction by women, for women and about women. The titles are chosen to appeal to busy women who rarely have time to spend in ever-larger bookshops and who would like to have access to a list of books designed to be neither too literary nor too commercial." www.persephonebooks.co.uk

Egg tattoos

I don't like tattoos. It's a blanket dislike (though I'm sure yours is lovely or discreet or I'd change my mind if I saw it.)

Now I've done a few things I know my parents wouldn't approve of, though usually taking to heart their advice that while I shouldn't need their approval I also shouldn't do anything I am afraid for them to know about. It's sound advice I shall be passing on to my daughter, and that I pass on to my students when I overhear them worrying about their parents finding out they are a smoker or wanting them to enter a particular profession - do not do anything you are afraid to admit, but not feel you need approval.

And perhaps because I know how much my parents hate tattoos, and how upset they would be if I were to have one, for me it falls into the afraid to admit category.

What's more, now I have a baby, a baby with perfect skin and beautiful hair and magical eyes, the idea or her doing anything to change this, be it make up, piercings, a tattoo, even a haircut, is hugely upsetting, though something I will of course have to get over.

All of which is a very convoluted way of saying that I have never ever considered getting a tattoo. Not even a dolphin jumping over my ankle. Not even a suitably ethnic symbol on my shoulder. Not even a celtic design on the small of my back. But nevertheless I absolutely adore this use of the temporary tattoo for Easter.

(Read about them on The Fabulous Mom's Guide

Just say no (no)

There is a school of parenting thought where the parents don't use the word 'no' to their children. I found out about it when I overheard another parent at my daughter's nursery ask the staff whether they used the word. The staff were a little taken aback. I could see that they wanted to give the mother then answer she wanted, but that they were also thinking of the many many times a day they say it. "We only use it when it's necessary," one of them finally offered. 

In my experience, it's often necessary. When my daughter goes to touch an electricity socket for example, or tries to eat a crayon. When she attempts to empty the kitchen bin or thinks 5am is morning. 

I looked up the not saying no idea, or the 'No No' as I have started to think of it. Try to find an alternative to 'no', one book urged, suggesting that a toddler be distracted by a toy or an alternative activity instead. That way, it said, you can try to prevent your toddler entering the stage where they always say no. 

Now call me old fashioned but I want my toddler to both hear and use the word no. I do not want to give her extra time to be electrocuted while I think of something as exciting as a plug to play with. I do not have the wherewithal to simultaneously find something fun for her to do with one hand while preventing her from running across the road with the other. And when she is faced with situations where she is offered a choice, you know - sweets from a paedophile, drugs from a big kid at nursery, a drink with spirulina in it, I hope she also says no, as firmly and confidently as possible. 

Take a fox, a chicken and some corn...

You know that puzzle where you have to get a fox, a chicken and some corn across the water without any being eaten in a boat that will only take you and one other at a time? That is precisely what getting out of the house with a baby is like. You need to get the baby in the buggy or car with the nappy bag and anything else you need without leaving anything outside unattended and with only two hands to carry things.

I used to like what I think ware called logic puzzles, where you are given a grid and some key facts and have to rule out and rule in combinations to find out who did what with whom. Having a baby is like that too. You have some facts and some possible answers and have to go from there. For example, the baby liked weetabix and apple yesterday but today only likes porridge and clementine. What will she like tomorrow? The answer of course is banana. Why? Because nothing about babies is logical, stupid.

I always thought such puzzles were just a way to keep teenagers quiet on flights. I never realised they were really a way of socialising us so we'd be ready for parenthood. If I had I would have tried to complete them, rather than throw them away in a fit of pique whenever I got something wrong.

Being project manager

I saw Naomi Stadlen, author of What Mothers Do: Especially When it Looks Like Nothing speak recently at the wonderful Big Green Bookshop. She led a discussion, based on her new book How Mothers Love: and how Relationships are Born, on whether mothering is different to fathering, or whether they can both fit in to the catch-all title of parenting. And I've been thinking about this since then and why it is that mothering is different.

I don't think it is because of the tingly nipples when the baby cries or the supersonic hearing that means I am the one who wakes up at the slightest snuffle in the middle of the night or the acual carrying the baby inside you, though all of that is incredibly important of course. I think the thing about being a mother, as opposed to being a father, is, in the words of The Apprentice, you are 'project manager'.

Perhaps this is nothing to do with gender and everything to do with it being the woman who tends to be at home most, in the first year at least, but it does mean that even if tasks can be shared the task of knowing what is going on isn't. Because it's not about who changes how many nappies or who empties the bin or who gets up in the night, it's about someone needing to have a whole picture view. I know how much my daughter has eaten, because if she has several not hungry days in a row then perhaps she is ill. I know if she has taken her medicine and whether we need to get the prescription refilled. I know when she last did a poo, and whether there is anything to worry about there. It's not just bodily functions. I also know whether she is growing out of her clothes and needs new ones, whether she has enough blankets and whether her feet need measuring.

This isn't a complaint - I want to be the one who knows these things - but it goes some way to explaining why it is that the job can never be properly shared, and perhaps why it shouldn't be. After all, knowing all of this takes up a lot of brain power. For two of us to do this may be a waste of those precious cells. But there has to be someone with the whole picture, and that person is usually the mother.

Related post: These books saved my life

It's not just parents who should be interested in parenting

I'm back in the freelance market again after my maternity leave and, yawn yawn cliche cliche, I pitched an article to the family section of a newspaper. I liked the pitch - all about the rise of parent bloggers, but got a swift rejection from the editor. They try, the editor told me, to avoid articles about parenting, because the section is about family, not about parenting, and that they want articles that people can relate to whether or not they have young children.

Fair enough - they can publish whatever they want to publish - but I am quite surprised that they think parenting is only of interest to people actually doing it at that moment. Sure, the colour of your child's poo or their weaning habits may only be of interest to you and your partner, and perhaps an involved grandparent, but the wider issues of parenting go much further than this.

After all, who gets the blame if there are riots? Parents. Who is responsible for ensuring teenagers eat, drink and fornicate sensibly? Parents. Who needs to encourage children to ensure they get the skills necessary to contribute to society, economically and socially? Parents of course. Parenting isn't a niche issue - it impacts on us all, and I don't believe that only people going through it at the moment have views on it. I enjoyed reading about parenting when I was a child, when I was a childless 20-something and now. I imagine I will in the future.

"What we are looking for are stories from the other end of the spectrum, when families are grown up and the really interesting things in life have happened to them," the editor wrote back to me. And I am interested in these things too, but that's because I am interested in all types of human relationships. I am not old, but I am interested in stories about that part of life too. I am not adopted, but I find stories about adoption fascinating. I have discovered no deep dark secrets that I am willing to share, there are no famous people in my family, I think I know about all my siblings, no one has hidden any treasure and, luckily, there have been no great disasters. But I want to read about all of these things when other people write about them.

It's not to say my article should have been commissioned. Freelancers know that for every commission you get you also get twenty rejections. Indeed that is the job of an editor. And the joy of blogging, I am finding, is that you can write what you want without having to persuade anyone else to see merit in it in order to have it published. But I do resent the suggestion that being a parent and having young children is only interesting to those going through it at the time. I do believe it takes a village to raise a child, and I expect everyone in that village to be interested in how it is done, just as I am interested in their lives, whatever stage they are at.

Harumph.