Clothing crisis

.......or, reasons why I need to blog (part 2)

 

There's an old adage, which goes something like this:

You get pregnant with your first child. Beautiful maternity outfits are bought in a rush, the same week you get that positive test result. You don these clothes the instant you gain a millimeter around the middle (or after that first jumbo 'eating for two' pizza takeaway).

With the second child, maternity garb doesn't have quite the same allure. You hold out for as long as you can, before accepting that your normal clothes make you look like a beer-bellied lout in a skinny girl's t-shirt. So you finally start wearing the outfits from your first pregnancy. Because, of course, you won't be in them for that long. So there's no point in buying anything new....

For any subsequent children, your maternity clothes ARE your normal clothes.


 Apologies to whoever wrote the original version of this wisdom. I would have credited you, but you're a victim of your own success. What you wrote is so true that thousands of people decided to share and retweet your words. Your name got lost in the chat-osphere; please don't sue.


You are correct in what you say. But, to every mother (whatever the number of children), there comes a day when you need to move on from maternity clothes.

That day is a tough one.


Here is what you will find*:

• gone are the days of leisurely shopping trips. In their place, you will find yourself grabbing desperately at the mismatching garments flanking the path to H&M's childrenswear department. And then you will buy without even trying them on. There's just no damn time for such luxuries.

• if you do manage to purchase anything half-stylish, you will have forgotten how to wear it. Your brain won't process the fact that you need to put something on underneath a thigh-length, wraparound dress. So, on your first ever night out to a wine bar with yummy mummy friends, you will stand up and flash your (hairy) gusset at the people sitting opposite you.

• after childbirth, you will wait and wait and wait before buying new things to wear. You are not that fat version of your former self. The muffin top above your caesarean scar will disappear in a month or so. What's the point in splashing out on decent clothes, if you're going to be back to your 'normal' weight in a few weeks?

• When your clothes are - quite literally - in rags and tatters, you will admit defeat and buy a couple of items, three sizes bigger than the 'real you'. The 'you' that will emerge in a month or two, when all the baby weight is gone.

• This will go on for the next year and a half. You will then finally ditch the maternity clothes, and realise your entire wardrobe consists of two black vest tops (with deodorant marks under the armpits), a dry-clean only woollen winter skirt you bought for those 'special occasions' (it's summer), and pair of too-tight jeggings purchased in a moment of optimism. 

 So....what to wear this weekend? What will YOU be wearing?


* if you are anything like me, that is.


For reasons why I need to blog (part 1), click here.

And if you like this, please pop over and 'like' my facebook page. Thank you!





Picture By Keeonb2012 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I'm going to BritMums Live!

This post's for all you bloggers out there.......

In just under a week, I'll be heading up to Clerkenwell to meet a load of the parents I've been chatting with online since last November.

Weird....I feel like I know so much about you, but we've never set eyes on each other.

So here are the answers to some questions set by BritMums, which might help you get to know me better. Or, when we finally meet, they might make the 'real' me seem even more unlike this online Nell. Who can tell which way it's going to go?

I'm excited at the prospect of finding out.....

 Name: Nell Heshram (that's a lie. I'm not telling you my real name, in case you turn out to be the undercover dignity police. I don't want any former or future employers reading my graphic descriptions of toddler poo).

Blog: the Pigeon Pair and Me

Twitter ID: @NellHeshram

Height: 5ft 4. And a half. That half is VERY important.

Hair: Blonde. I'd like to say naturally, but sadly it's been mousy brown ever since I was four.

Eyes: are you going to be getting that close? Oooh, missus....

Is this your first blogging conference?
Yes. I'm new to this heady world of online personal disclosure. And loving it.

Are you attending both days?
Yup. And hopefully the second day won't be spent in a hangover fug from the night before....

What are you most looking forward to at BritMums Live 2013?
Seeing everyone for the first time. I've been told so much about you all.

What are you wearing?
In my dreams, I'll be sporting the comfy yet classy outfit I'll manage to pick up between now and then. In reality, it will most probably be a bobbly jumper snatched from the top of the linen basket. With a snot stain on the shoulder.

What do you hope to gain from BritMums Live 2013?
LOADSAMONEY!!!....no, really, I don't have any prior expectations. I just want to have fun, and learn some new stuff.

Tell us one thing about you that not everyone knows
Where to start? I once danced with John Prescott. And I went for Sunday lunch at the house of Alex James (from Blur). I was so starstruck during both these encounters, that I was mute for the entire time. Completely characterless. So don't go asking them about me; they won't have a clue who you're talking about (even if you gave them my real name....)

 

Nice at the circus

Being a parent to one child is like owning a pet. Having any more is akin to keeping a zoo.

A friend passed this wisdom on to me while I was pregnant with Gwen (our second child). I scoffed at first, not least because the person was childless. Looking after a baby was comparable with caring for a hamster or a chihuahua?? Did the individual who dreamed up that little saying appreciate, in any sense, the work that went into looking after a tiny person? The hours spent shushing a writhing blob that, for some inexplicable reason, is screaming as though it were being squished by the Stay Puft  marshmallow man. That was nothing like following around an animal, armed with a pooper scooper, or making sure good behaviour was rewarded with a juicy bone.

Sadly, when Gwen made an appearance, I found out the hard news. My friend had been right.

The times I spent just looking after Austin were, in retrospect, the Tamagotchi days. Now, from morning till night, I felt as though I was scrambling round, chasing beeps and jabbing buttons on many members of a new robot army. Who, on a daily basis, would rebel, mutiny, desert and malfunction.

The addition of one extra child had seemed to multiply my workload by three, four times.

It's become easier. Not least because, with Gwen toddling and Austin well clear of the terrible twos, I can now take them along to the same play session, and they often both have a good time. I can sometimes even snatch a cup of tea in relative peace. Or a few mouthfuls, at least.

Still, it doesn't happen by chance. The little beasts need taming, with toys and activities geared to both their needs. As luck would have it, we've recently gone along to a couple of events put on by Tea Dance for Little People, whose distinct brand of organised anarchy has managed to hold my pigeon pair captive in a cocoon of carnival and spectacle.

In the interests of full disclosure, I need to say that the kind people at TDLP gave us free entry to All in One Friday, the weekly East Dulwich shindig they run jointly with Tippee Toes, in exchange for a review. But, to be honest, I probably would have written about it even if they hadn't given me a freebie (and I have done already on this blog). I'm a big fan.

This particular All in One Friday was perfect for containing my zoo's worth of little animals. Each week has a theme, and this time it was circus skills. 

You might not think it possible to teach juggling, stilt walking and hula-hooping to the under-5s. And, technically speaking, it's not. But give them a demo of the more traditional use of these props, then let the little monkeys create some fun for themselves? Bingo. They're held. The result is bean-bags on heads, hula-hoop hopscotch, and lots of Mums entertaining themselves by wavering around uncertainly on the tamest of stilts.





















For those children more inclined towards the playgroup staples, there was a small but well-stocked soft play area - including a mini ball-pool and a bouncy castle - and a corner for babies, with songs, rhymes, floaty scarves and bubbles. The added value of All-in-One Fridays, though, is the entertainment. The two hours are interspersed with stories, games and crafty activities (making circus batons, in this case). Which is perfect for keeping the older kids happy while the little ones chug around on plastic vehicles.

It was while I was at another All in One Friday, a couple of months ago, that I experienced one of my first moments of calm, happiness, and peace with our decision to have more than one child. Austin was careering about on the bouncy castle; Gwen was sitting on its edge, watching her big brother, and giggling with glee. No fighting; no tears at opposite ends of the room; just pure fun. This could be easy.

The sentiment only lasted for five minutes, until Austin started wrestling with another boy. But I'm grateful to Tea Dance for Little People and Tippee Toes for helping me find that teeny window of joy.

Postscript: another TDLP performance we went to recently was Spring Into Summer, at Stratford Circus. The run's finished now, but do keep an eye out for future events. This was magnificent. Think goggles and bicarb, wriggly journeys through small spaces, time machines, and an exploding egg. Here's a photo as a teaser (and we DID pay for this one, for the record).

Silent Sunday

Home is the heart of online activism

In yesterday's Observer, an article discussed how online networks are helping usher in a new wave of feminist activism. Thanks to the tweeting efforts of three women, the #FBrape campaign has forced Facebook to take down images glorifying violence against women. UK Feminista are using the internet to tackle pornography and the objectification of women's bodies. And web-based commentators like Caitlin Moran and Laurie Penny add fresh, strong voices to the mix, to challenge and redefine the old feminist debates.

The piece brought together some key figures who are successfully battling injustices that stem from misogyny, or society in general. But it left out one major way the internet can improve the lot of women.

It does this by making public the lives we lead at home.

Many of us parents blog and tweet from the heart, about the places we live, our kids, and the mundane trivia of our lives. We write about the sort of everyday tasks, like laundry and feeding children, that Gaby Hinsliff, in her book Half a Wife, calls 'wife work'. We use the internet to publish our personal takes on homemaking in the 21st century. And, in re-writing the narratives of those who stay at home to look after a family, or who juggle childcare with paid work, we are re-casting the domestic experience into a new mould.

The blogosphere is rife with candid, irreverent takes on day-to-day occurrences, from feeling socially awkward at playgroups, to clearing up the endless poo of a potty training child. Ok, a few websites do devote themselves to helping women re-create the domestic vision of the 1950s: the perfectly coiffured housewife, greeting her husband from work, with a plate of delicately flavoured risotto in one hand, and three gleaming, well-behaved children arranged adorably by her side. But there are many, many more bloggers who undermine this myth of household harmony through humour, self-parody, or just plain old honesty.

We see its broadcast media equivalent in the comedy of Sarah Millican and Miranda Hart, who is frequently shown getting caught with her knickers on display, just when Mr Wonderful is passing by. These women would much rather have fun with their friends than don a fancy frock. The same goes for us bloggers. We could be sexy, if we tried hard enough. But life throws so much at us, that the effort it takes to maintain the ideal of femininity portrayed in glossy magazines, far outweighs the benefits. Why spend an hour making yourself look gorgeous, when the baby is likely to barf into your cleavage just before you head out the door?

Better just to accept that everyday normality lies closer to the grim truths of post-baby life. Parts of your body that were previously reserved for carnal pleasure, will give you so much pain you will wish they'd just drop off. At some point in your day, you are likely to have shit on your floor, on your hands, or even - worst case scenario - on your face or hair. This will go on for years. You will cry. A lot. And, through all this, you are expected to do the most important job of your life: raise happy, well-adjusted children.

It is better to accept all this. Then blog about it. And laugh away the tears, while reading posts by others who feel exactly the same.

And, for those women whose experiences are far from ordinary, online networking can - quite literally - be life-saving. In bringing into the open their struggles with poverty, or post natal depression, some bloggers give voice to issues that previously remained private, behind closed doors. As one parent says in this Independent article on friendship among mothers, "I hadn't realised I would be on my own all day." Modern parenting is, more often than not, a solitary pursuit and without online social networks, many women's plights would be buried far away from the public gaze.

Instead, blogging forces people to see the ugly side of domestic life. And to give help where it's needed, or credit where it's due. Last week, the media gave a lot of attention to A Girl Called Jack, and her efforts to feed herself and her child despite only having £10 a week to spend. Food Banks became a hot political topic because Jack needed to use one to survive, and then told the world her story. So parent blogs, as well as revealing the day-to-day details of parenting, can also make people sit up and listen, and act as agents for change.

I'm not saying that blogging about cooking and cleaning, tears and tantrums is a feminist act. But it gets women's voices out there. Our lives are beautiful and fulfilling. They can also be grim and ugly. The power of the internet lies in allowing these lives to be seen.

And once seen, it's difficult for them to be forgotten.

A round of a claw - month two, May 2013

Regular readers of this blog will have come across last month's Round of a claw, the first of its kind and my attempt to capture highlights of Austin and Gwen's growing-up time.

Round of a claw* is the indulgent memoirs of a proud parent, because....well, that's what I am. There's no hiding it. They may drive me to the brink of insanity at times, but my Pigeon Pair are a couple of good 'uns.  So anyone of a cynical persuasion can click away now. In these monthly posts, I'm blogging like nobody's watching; to try and stop myself from forgetting these precious days.

So, on to May. This month saw a handful of water-based firsts.

Austin set the bar, at the beginning of the month, by taking a head-long tumble into the local river, while trying to retrieve his fishing net.

So, we decided it was time for swimming lessons. And the next two milestones of the month involved a trip to the local fleapit leisure centre (about to be demolished and replaced by a shiny new version). The lockers look as though they could be prised open with a plastic spoon, so I didn't dare take my new camera along to snap Austin during his debut dip without Mum, and Gwen at her first pool swim EVER. Which she spent clinging to me like a tubby-tummed octopus. With only four tentacles.

Despite chlorine-stung eyes and shivering limbs, the three of us had a marvellous afternoon. And on the way home, we refueled with chips.

The next set of achievements this month are linguistic, and chiefly Gwen's. She's started parroting a lot of  single-syllable words, and it's interesting to note which ones she chooses to adopt as part of her daily repertoire. I was pleased that 'yay!' was one of her earliest words. But then, so was 'cake'. A glut of sugary treats and merriment in our household. 

Slightly more baffling is her pronunciation of milk: 'gock'. Austin used exactly the same word. He hasn't said 'gock' for years though, so why is it that both our children have ended up using a word for the white stuff that sounds nothing like 'milk'? A word that, as far as I'm aware, no other children use? Perhaps the Daddy D or I have a speech impediment that neither of us have noticed.

When Gwen wants to be picked up, she raises her arms to us and says 'quack'. It's difficult to fathom why she's equated the noise a duck makes with asking for a cuddle. Perhaps it's because 'quack' was one of the first words she learnt to produce on cue ('Gwen, what noise does a duck make?'), and our responses were uniformly warm and tactile. Whatever the case, we're finding this baby verbal tic so adorable that we're breaking the fundamental rule of child speech development: don't correct a child; rather, say the right word when they use the wrong one. Instead, we've started calling cuddles, and being picked up, 'Quack'. Hopefully we'll manage to get this new definition into the 2033 version of the Oxford English Dictionary, in time for Gwen's 21st birthday.

There's been a lot about Gwen this month. Before we turn back to Austin, here's a picture of her showing off another of her accomplishments: going downstairs backwards. Since she mastered the skill this month, she's frequently been doing it just to show off, uttering the word 'dowmmm' at every step.

And here is our grown-up little man, helping to clear up the garden. This month has seen Austin, on several occasions, managing to stop Gwen from crying, when my own attempts failed. Our little empathetic bruiser-boy seems to be developing, month by month, into a tender-hearted young chap.

A Maytime round of a claw to you and your chatty little sister.

*'A round of a claw' is what Austin has learnt to call a round of applause. For its origin, see last month's edition.


This month, I'm joining not one, but THREE linkies. Ha! I WILL make you read my doting blatherings about how wonderful my children are.

First up it's Vic Welton's PoCoLo; then Jaime Oliver's Magic Moments; and finally (but not leastly), Actually Mummy's Wot so Funee. Go check them out.

Food for thought

The moment I became a parent saw the start of years of indenture. Servitude to cries for food, and to a pair of rumbly tums.

Mealtimes are the cornerstones of our day. On weekdays, at 11.30 promptly, I begin frantic efforts to coax and wheedle enough carbs, protein and vitamins into Austin so that, when he arrives at pre-school an hour later, he's sufficiently fuelled to avoid a hunger-induced meltdown when I collect him at the end of the day.

I'm getting used to not monitoring my own food intake. As I'm not breastfeeding now, it doesn't matter if I don't consume enough omega 3, amino acids and beta carotenoids to keep me AND Gwen healthy. But instead, I'm watching her like a hawk. She throws 80% of her salmon onto the floor at tea time? Then it's sardines on toast for lunch the next day.

I know I'm not alone in this angst about childhood nutrition. And in having, at the back of my mind, constant thoughts about the kids' food, and what the next meal will consist of. There are hundreds of blog posts and chat forums dedicated to discussing the pros and cons of different foodstuffs, and the various ways of getting them inside the little darlings.

Baby-led weaning? Purees or finger foods? Organic or vitamin-fortified? These kinds of questions can become an obsession. One that we're lucky to be able to indulge, here in the West. Safe among groups of other parents who have enough money and know-how to keep all our children fit and well-nourished.

We are lucky because, for 165 million children across the world, malnourishment prevents the development and learning that many of us take for granted.

Here are some words from Nyaguol, mother of six from South Sudan. They put my day-to-day food thoughts well into perspective.

"My mind runs mad thinking about what my children are going to eat today and what they'll eat tomorrow because I have nowhere to go and get food for my children. I can't go very far to find work because it's not safe, and I'm worried that I might be killed while I'm collecting firewood....If I get food in the evening my children will eat and go to school the next day. But if there's no food they'll stay at home. I won't force them to go to school because I know they'll be too weak to study....We often spend four days a week not having any food....sometimes I cry because all I can give them is leaves from the trees."

Save the Children released a new report today, Food for Thought. It contains some sad, if unsurprising statistics, based on the truths that we parents know instinctively. You give your children decent food, they get a better start in life. According to Save the Children's report, malnourished children score 7% lower in maths tests and are 19% less likely to be able to read at the age of 8.

 

Malnourishment exists anywhere there is poverty. The poorest 40% are 2.8 times more likely to suffer the long-term effects of malnutrition than the richest 10%. And 38% of children from the least developed countries have had their growth stunted by malnutrition. That is a truly shocking figure: over a third of the population, unable to thrive as they should, because they don't have enough of the right food.

Save the Children are holding a rally in London on June 8, the Big IF, to call on G8 leaders to take action against hunger. To find out more, or to sign the online petition, visit their website.

And BritMums will be hosting a #foodforthought Twitter chat today, Tuesday 28 May, from 1-2pm. Click here to find out more. I'll be there. Please come along and share your thoughts.



Nyaguol's words, and the pictures, were provided by Save the Children.