Mule in training

The Noble Child may or may not have swallowed some tiny hair clips today. She got into the pack, which had at least six left, and I found only three nearby. She had one in her mouth, which I managed to fish out. I can only assume that she got at least one or two down her. Eh. I’m not worried. But some other people seem to think I should be. The few people I told about it earlier were all “Oh mah gawd! I would just DIE if that happened to my child. Shouldn’t you take her to the emergency room? Oh mah GAWD, I would be freaking out!”

The answer, in a nutshell: umm, no. Unless the hair clips magically open up and then (even more magically) close themselves on a crucial part of the intestine that results in immediate death by poopulation (my own word there, thank you. thank you very much), I’m not going to get myself worked up into a Mommy Frenzy over something as stupid as her swallowing a miniature barrette. I have bigger fish to fry.

Besides, if she can swallow and pass a barrette with no trouble, we can move onto Phase II of the Baby As Drug Smuggler plan. Mmmwahahahahahahahaha!

And she’s off

It’s official. The Noble Child is walking. She’ll be smoking and getting acne before I know it.

Sleep and Sun

Aaaaggghhh! It appears that Amelia is perhaps moving from having two naps (one about 2 hours after she wakes up and another in the late afternoon, around 3.30 or 4) to one late-morning or lunchtime nap. The past few days she hasn’t wanted to go down at her usual time and even when she is rubbing her eyes a bit, screams and refuses to lay down. She’s still great at going to bed at night, but the naps have always been more of a struggle. Not to mention the fact that if she moves to one nap, I will have only one window of time in which to write (both for Londonist and this blog), do chores, make phone calls, send emails and have a shower. I can forget having time to exercise during naptime now too! That plus shower would take up my entire ‘window’ and I have to do my writing and take care of the flat and carry on with the house hunting first. Blah. I know I’ll adjust but I don’t wanna. It’s so unfair that I can’t whine anymore and I have to be the adult.

At least it’s a gorgeous day and was all weekend as well. We spent yesterday out in Paul’s parents’ garden, having a bbq and lazing around on a blanket in the shade, reading the Sunday papers and playing with Amelia.

Thanks to my parents for the gorgeous outfits they sent for Amelia. I adore the little skirts and tops, they’ll be perfect for summer. Check out her first piece of jewelry too, that little silver charm bracelet hanging from her wrist. That was a gift from her godfather, Tim, for her birthday. Baby’s first bling!

I’m loving that it feels like summer. I broke out the summer suitcase yesterday and got out my sleeveless tops, skirts and sandals. Hurrah! I love long flowy skirts in summer. So comfortable. Good timing too since my jeans are falling apart and I can’t get a new pair for awhile. I actually felt hot yesterday and had to get out of the sun. My fair skin in the heat is like parchment paper near an open flame so I have to be really careful or I burn horribly. I don’t dig on sunbathing much. I like to think of myself as ‘pale and unusual’ when I stand next to my tanned friends. It also makes me feel better to imagine them as giant leather handbags when they get older and the brown spots on their faces and arms look disgusting. It’s the only way I get through the summer with all the ‘ooh, your legs are blinding me’ comments.

Dang it. I thought she’d finally drifted off to sleep but not a chance. She’s babbling away in her cot and still refusing sleep. Guess she’s going to have to come into the bathroom with me while I shower and then I’ll have to write my Londonist stuff when she finally graces me with some peace and quiet. Sigh.

Happy Monday! Enjoy the sunshine if ya’ got it.

One

The Noble Child is one year old today. Hooray! She’ still in one piece, despite the perfume-eating, head-bumping, split-lips, chokes-on-crackers mishaps and no one has threatened to call social services. We done good, Cleetus!

We had a party yesterday to celebrate, with the grandparents and ‘god’parents (they’re not really godparents in the traditional sense of the word but what the heck else should I call them? I’m open to suggestions!). Everyone arrived just after 2pm and we had a drink and nibbled on a few snacks while Amelia was showered with gifts. She had a couple of crisps (potato chips) and got really mad when we tried to move the nuts and olives out of her reach. We ended up having to move the snack bowls into the kitchen because that was all she cared about — getting the food. The girl’s entire motivation to movement is led by her stomach. Not completely unlike her parents, really. There used to be days when the only thing that unsuctioned my ass from the sofa and the remote control/a good book/the laptop was the need to locate, buy and eat a meal. So, I can empathize.

At about 3 o’clock, we got my parents on the webcam so they could see Amelia eat her cake. I had wanted to bake one for her but I was stupid and didn’t go to buy the ingredients until the morning of the party. When I got to the store, they didn’t have cake mix OR frosting. What kind of backward, godforsaken hellhole of a country doesn’t have freakin’ cake mix or frosting?! I have never been so angered by a lack of something that, to my American self, should be so basic, so normal, so….THERE IN THE F’ING STORE!!! I must’ve sounded like a sailor three sheets to the wind on his weekend land pass, I was swearing up a storm and muttering and I think my eye even twitched and steam came out of my ears as I hopped from foot to foot, angrily knocking boxes around as I snarled and growled at anyone who dared suggest that a Victoria sponge cake would do.

After a fruitless hour of trying to locate the correct ingredients and a cake tin big enough to bake it in (another hopeless search), I had to admit defeat and buy a cake from the bakery. It was yummy but I’m still kind of upset that I didn’t bake it for her. I’m sure that, after a couple years of slaving away in the kitchen to make increasingly more creative cakes, I will be more than happy to pay someone to do that shit for me. But on the day, I was upset, because I wanted to bake my daughter’s cake and England was stopping me. Can I still blame post-partum hormones a year later?

Speaking of words ending in -partum, a more serious interlude now.

The first birthday of your first child is a special occasion, especially for the mother. I didn’t want to be one of those mothers who goes into minute detail about the birth every year and breaks out the pictures and videos (god forbid!) while sobbing into a handkerchief, but I couldn’t help but reflect on my daughter’s birth as the day wore on and I remembered at what stage of labour I was in at particular times. The birth didn’t go exactly as planned and I do have a couple of regrets about how things were handled, but I view it as not only the beginning of life for Amelia, but a rebirth of sorts for me. The magic that sparkled between us as we lay there, exhausted and bewildered, face to face, mother and daughter, is something I will never, ever forget. I looked into her eyes and felt her tiny hand grip mine and a feeling so fierce, so overwhelmingly powerful, overcame me that I had to swallow hard against it lest it filled my heart so deeply that it was pushed to the edges of its bodily confines. I didn’t know what the feeling was at the time. I know now that it was a lifetime of love and devotion, come to me at once. And for that, I couldn’t be more grateful.

Here’s what I wrote in her card:

Our dearest, sweetest Amelia, You are 1 year old today! Time flies by so quickly. It seems not long ago we were bringing you home from the hospital, so nervous and excited. We had no idea at the time how much joy you would bring into our lives. You have completed our family and our hearts. We love you more than you will ever know. May all of your birthdays be happy. All our love, Mama and Daddy xx

One. It isn’t the loneliest number after all.

Pictures of the party are on my Flickr badge in the top left corner.

That girl is poison

I spent my morning watching my child for signs of intoxication — staggering, inability to focus on objects, lethargy and the intense desire for pizza. Let me explain…

At about 10.30, The Noble Child woke up from her nap. We were already supposed to be at playgroup, as it’s her last week of going (it’s for 0-12 month babies and she’ll be 12 months on Monday) so I was in a hurry to finish getting ready. I plopped her down on my bedroom floor with a soft book and a few blocks and proceeded to dry my hair and gather our things together. She had her back to me just a few feet away, happily playing with her toys. Or so I thought.

When I was ready to pick her up, she turned to me and I looked at her in bewilderment. What was that white stuff all over her hands and face? What was that little tin she was holding? Aww, shit! In the tin was a solid perfume that I received for Mother’s Day, the kind you rub your finger over and then dab on your wrists or neck, or wherever. It must’ve fallen out of my handbag and onto the floor without me noticing. And, to be honest, I often let her play with my handbag and its contents because it keep her busy and I didn’t think anything in there could harm her.

I wasn’t actually sure if she had ingested any or not but I immediately wiped her hands and face off and cleaned up the chunks of perfume that were laying around. I thought ‘what the hell’ and dabbed a bit on my neck as well. Might as well try to salvage some! When I finally picked the cheeky little monkey up, I realised she smelled like a French whore. I mean, she smelled good, but I think if she had burped, an actual rose would’ve bloomed out of her mouth and dropped its fragrant petals at my feet.

I knew that eating perfume couldn’t be good but wasn’t sure if it would be considered poison and if I should worry or not. I took her to the playgroup anyway and thought I’d ask a health visitor while I was there. I casually walked into the office and asked if eating perfume is bad. They decided to phone Poison Control just to check, even though she hadn’t vomited and seemed fine. I felt quite nonchalant about the whole thing and wondered if that made me a bad mother. Some people would rush their precious angels to A&E if they so much as coughed when they were eating or bumped their heads on the floor. I’m a little less of a worry wart. When my sister was here visiting, she was holding Amelia and feeding her animal crackers when she turned red and couldn’t breathe. I calmly said “She’s choking”, took her from my sister’s arms, turned her over on her front, and gave her back a couple of whacks until she coughed up the soggy biscuit, and then carried on the conversation where we’d left off. So, I’m not an overly anxious parent.

But I felt really bad (okay, not really, but I have to say that) when a very serious-looking health visitor came over to me and said she’d spoken to Poison Control and they said that the toxic substance in perfume is ethanol (alcohol) and asked me if she’d been acting strangely, staggering, unable to focus, etc.. I had to bite my lip to keep from bursting out laughing and forced myself to think of puppies dying so that the mental image of my daughter, drunk off her ass at playgroup, didn’t give me away. I nodded a lot, with furrowed brow and just said ”no” to everything because she had been acting completely normally. I did make the joke about keeping an eye to make sure she didn’t order a pizza or go out for cigarettes and luckily the woman laughed. Whew! That could’ve gotten me a visit from CPS.

So now that it has been established that my nearly-1-year-old is, in fact, not drunk, I need a drink myself. Roll on 6pm!

If you’re gonna spew, spew in this

I was all set to write a long, serious, meaningful post today and apologise to my adoring fans for being so absent as of late. And then I fed my daughter an egg sandwich and Thursday officially ended before it began.

First she puked on my bed, down the side of my bed, and on the rug. This was about two minutes after I’d gotten out of the shower myself so I was clad only in my underwear with a towel perched haphazardly on my head. I rushed her to the bathtub and plopped her in it but she’s already finished hurling so I stripped her and hosed her down. New nappy and outfit, bed stripped and rug placed in washing machine and we were good to go. I strapped her into her high chair, placed her in front of the Mac, and let her bang away on the keyboard with the Alpha Baby program that she so dearly loves while I finished getting ready. She was so happy banging on the keyboard that I figured I’d vacuum quickly while she was off of the floor and occupied. Big mistake. I heard a cough and turned the vacuum off to listen and heard the unmistakable sound of vomit splattering on the floor. This time the vomit was mostly down her front, in her hair and in every nook and crevice on the safety straps of her high chair. Joy! Bath and outfit change number two follow.

In between bouts of puking she seemed pretty happy so she was fine playing on the kitchen floor with her tambourine while I cleaned the high chair and did the dishes. Vomit is really difficult to get out of ridged nylon straps! I started to make lunch for myself when I heard her stomach churn again. I was able to get her to the bathtub in time but the piteous way she looked at me, with tears in her eyes and a retch on her face, made me feel absolutely horrible. There is not much worse than seeing your child feel unwell and there’s nothing you can do for her. I rubbed her back and cuddled her, not caring if puke got on me too, and we cried together.

I realised after outfit change number three that I had only one nappy left and no wipes. Ga-reat. I rang my mother-in-law who just happened to be at the store and she, saintly woman that she is, brought some over a little while later.

So all of my plans to spend the day writing have been dashed. Londonist? Sorry! Meaningful blog entry? Nada. But if I could, I would make it all better for her and I don’t care what I’d have to give up to get it. No more chocolate chip cookies, EVER? Done. No more cute wedges in the summer? No problem. No more large glasses of cabernet sauvign…Now, wait a minute. Some things are just worth throwing up for. Amelia will learn this sad lesson one day as she too chugs her large glass of wine too quickly and spends an entire day examining the contents of her stomach lining. So I think we can safely keep that one. But the others? They can go. I’d even give up pickles for her, and anyone who knows me is gasping right now and trying to pick their jaws up off the floor.

I never did learn another language but I’m becoming fluent in Mother’s Love. There, there baby. Sleep, my angel, sleep. Mama’s here.

Baby did a bad, bad thing

Amelia took her first, teeny tiny step yesterday. We were at a playgroup and I was chatting to a couple other mums, watching Miss Thang out of the corner of my eye, when I saw her pick up a plastic toy, stand up, and then look longingly at the baby’s head just out of her reach. She looked around for something to hold onto but only empty space flanked her. So, determined as ever, she hesitantly put a foot forward, and then the other one. Success! She grinned and just as I exclaimed “Oh my god, she just took a step! Yay!!!” and everyone’s heads swiveled round to see, she took the toy in her hand and began repeatedly bashing another baby’s head with it. When I told Paul about it he said “So we’ve figured out what her incitement to walk is — violence.”

Oh dear. What are we in for?

She also had what can only be described as her first temper tantrum the other day. She kept turning the tv on and off, on and off, and pushing on the screen. Since we are borrowing a friend’s tv right now while ours is being repaired, I had to be quite stern about her not touching it. A series of firm ‘NOs’ followed by picking her up and removing her from the area and distracting her with toys didn’t work and when I caught her going for the tv again I said in my Meanest Mommy voice “Amelia! No!” she looked at me with the widest eyes and stopped dead in her tracks. And then laid her head down upon the floor and began wailing. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes and laugh a bit before I scooped her up to comfort her. Oh, to be inside the head of a baby on the verge on toddlerdom. It must be like a Jackson Pollack painting in there: colorful, a bit crazy and all over the place.

The girl’s not even one yet and I’m thinking that shares in Prozac (for me) might be a good idea.

Another story up over at Londonist — btw, the guy in the picture? He looks eerily like my ex-boyfriend. Gulp.

Pillsbury Dough Mom

Amelia has taken to lifting up my shirt and poking my fat rolls. Then she laughs hysterically. Today she reared her little head, lifted up my shirt, and with all 12 of her teeth, bit one. And again, laughed hysterically.

Nine months of pregnancy, the last three of which were horrendously uncomfortable and painful, an 11-hour labour, two of which were spent trying to push her 9-lb self out of my body and which resulted in my hooha being sliced and diced by the butcher, I mean surgeon, and then weeks of breastfeeding so painful that I had to scream MOTHER!!!!!…and then bite my hand and cry to avoid finishing the word, and this is the thanks I get? I’ll have her know that my rolls were not quite so prominent before she came along and the dreaded ‘baby shelf’ of fat plopped itself permanently on my lower abdominal region.

Kids — they’re not here to boost our self esteem, that’s for sure.

Oh, it’s always better when we’re together

The kid’s got soul

When she was still in utero, TNC used to kick up a storm whenever a James Brown song came on. Now there is a commercial on tv that features “Sex Machine” and when she hears it, she starts bopping around and laughing.

I’m glad to see her exhibiting good taste in music already. Hopefully this means she won’t make me take her to boy band concerts when she’s nine.