Let's all just end this madness now

Just come back from a visit to the health visitor where, in typical fashion, Piglet did an enormous wee on the baby weighing scales and I was told off for not taking vitamin supplements, despite the fact that (as I protested to the health visitor) they have been repeatedly shown to be useless.  Better just get used to the fact that whatever I do, there is always going to be someone judging my parenting decisions.

And speaking of judging, what is one to make of this?

Yes apparently, according to that bastion of the British high street, Poundland, these are the two vocations open to babies.  Pink-clad jockey, if you are a girl, and superhero, if you are a boy.  There are, of course, many problems with this.  Firstly, I have seen many pink-clad jockeys during my less productive Saturday afternoons spent channel hopping through Channel 4 racing, and few, if any, were women.  Secondly, superheroes clearly don't exist.  However, these points are unimportant (although more female jockeys please.  Given that women are generally smaller than men, is it not odd that horse-racing is mostly the domain of really tiny men?)  Bearing in mind the fact that encouraging a girl to ride a horse is significantly less bad than encouraging her to be a princess, I now give you that other bastion of the British high street, Wilkinson's (I know, I know, but when I say "British high street" I more specifically mean Wembley High Road, where the most upmarket establishment is a shop called Bland's that sells a curious mixture of cheap-looking prams and cots that actually aren't that cheap, ladies' underwear and hideous meringue ballgowns.  Because what everyone in Wembley needs is a hideous meringue ballgown to wear down the pub of a Friday night).

So this is a snapshot of the girls' toys section in Wilkinson's.  Now it goes without saying that the idea that there needs to be separate sections for boys' and girls' toys is itself abhorrent, but let's ignore this for a moment so we can look in more detail at what Wilko deem to be acceptable toys for young impressionable girls.  So let's see: we have a Barbie in a pink dress, a pink tutu outfit, a pink KITCHEN and a-yes, it really is-a PINK BABY CARRIER.  The boys' section is not shown here as I was too boiling with rage to linger in the aisles, but suffice to say it included police officer and fire brigade hats.

Yes ladies, the message here is clear.  Boys do the real jobs, like fighting fires and catching criminals, while the girls stay in the kitchen looking after the children.

The most ridiculous thing is that not only have things not moved on since I was a wee lass flicking through the toy pages of the Peter Craig catalogue lusting after a pink Barbie house and an A La Carte Kitchen, but they have got worse.  At least the A La Carte Kitchen wasn't pink!  And there were gender neutral toys available, such as the legendary Teddy Ruxpin.  Now admittedly I wasn't allowed any of the three toys mentioned above as they were all too expensive, but I do have photographic proof that for my second birthday, some progressive soul gifted me with a toy carpet sweeper.  Because, like, being a girl and all, all I could aspire to was a piece of already-obsolete equipment for cleaning a house, but AT LEAST IT WASN'T PINK!  End this madness now please!

For my part, I purchased both the bibs in the first picture, as at least then Piglet will know it's OK to be a boy who likes pink, right?

Yet Again I Impress the NHS with my Great Knowledge of Medical Matters

Just taken Piglet for his BCG vaccination.

I don't think this was as entertaining for Piglet as it was for me, as he screamed blue murder throughout the experience.  However, it was necessary, warned the nurse, as TB is "everywhere."

"Ah," she said, leafing through Piglet's red book, "you have just moved here."

"Well, not moved exactly.  I stayed with my mum for the birth, so Piglet was born in Bristol."

"Hmmpphh" said the nurse, continuing to look through the red book, "anyone would think it was a different country.  These books are all different!  Everyone does their own thing, every borough, every county.  Even in East London the red books are different!"

"Are they?  Sorry."  Yet again I have inconvenienced the NHS with my rudeness as not remaining in the same village from cradle to grave like an eighteenth century peasant.

"So," the nurse continued.  "How old is he?  Why hasn't he had a BCG vaccination yet?"

"They don't do them in Bristol."

"Ah, it is because they are posh!  They think it doesn't affect them, but I tell you, TB is EVERYWHERE!"

I have visions of it chasing us down Wembley High Road.  It must be a miracle we haven't already got it.  We are probably literally surrounded by it every day, despite the fact that the NHS website says you have to be in "close contact" with a sufferer to be infected.

The nurse then launched into a potted history of vaccinations, taking in the discovery of penicillin, the pitfalls of international air travel and the Western colonisation of Africa.  She also reassures me that vaccinations are preventative medicines, not attempts to infect Piglet with anything.  I nod knowingly throughout this and assure her that I am aware of all this.

So there are people in the world who think the NHS vaccination programme is a huge government conspiracy to infect babies with once-prevalent terrible diseases??????

"Ah," says the nurse, "you must work in NHS!"

This is not the first time in the course of my child-rearing experience that someone has said this.  I know what tuberculosis is.  I've read Victorian novels.  I know that when someone coughs and their cheeks look a bit rosy they'll be dead from consumption by the next chapter.  I also have a modicum of education.  I even did the History of Medicine paper in my GCSE History, it's not difficult.  Do people exist in the world who don't know these things?  Am I so unusual in having a minimal level of knowledge about infectious diseases that only people who are actual doctors and nurses can match my peerless expertise?

I fear for the future of the world if this is the case.  It is starting to make sense to me why all NHS leaflets appear to have been written for a five year old (although my all-time favourite is still one produced by the Miscarriage Association: "Miscarriage does not happen just because the baby is a boy."  Let's imagine that it did for a second.  Think of the logical conclusion here).

Anyway, Piglet is now comfortably sleeping off his traumatic experience at the hands of the nurse and I, so I am going to take this opportunity to cook myself some brunch, and maybe train as a doctor, since I am clearly more than qualified for the role.

DOES THIS CHILD HAVE A PARENT?

It is 9pm and Piglet is asleep in his bouncy chair.

I am pretty sure that this is VERY BAD, as apparently babies are not supposed to sleep in their bouncy chairs.  Especially without the little seat belt attached to strap them in; the little seatbelt that Piglet has recently discovered and now regularly tries to eat.  However, for the last few nights, Piglet has (finally!) been going to sleep at the very reasonable time of 8.30pm (HALLELUJAH), with the result that Mummy is now in a quandary.  Do I join him in the bedroom at 8.30pm so I can keep an eye on him, or do I put him in his bouncy chair in the living room for a bit, so that if he wakes up I can immediately rock him back to sleep?  I have cautiously chosen the latter for now, on the assumption that should this happy routine continue, I will start putting him in his cot earlier.  Trouble is, I cannot now move Piglet to the cot while he is asleep, as then when he wakes he will freak out and start screaming, as he will not know how he got there, so now I have to wait for him to wake naturally so that I can move him into the cot while he's awake.  This is according to the oft-quoted Golden Rule of Baby Sleep: put them down in their cots drowsy but awake. Only then will they learn to go to sleep on their own in their cot, and only then will you be liberated from the potential future scenario of a child who wants to be rocked to sleep, preferably in your arms, and then sleep in your bed for ever and ever until they finally leave home at the age of forty five.

AHA!  He has just woken up and I have placed him in his cot.  I am no longer the cruel, neglectful mother making her child sleep in a bouncy chair instead of a proper bed like a properly cared for child.

Anyway, went to see the health visitor today.  I was given the usual large-print leaflets about what the local children's centre is for (special groups for fathers and male carers; how to live a healthy lifestyle).  I was disappointed, having settled Piglet to sleep and sat down with a nice cup of tea to read these rather hefty tomes, that they took mere seconds to read, as consisted of mostly pictures and a few massive words.  I know the NHS means well and is to be commended for trying to help people out, but not sure why it is automatically assumed that all men are feckless, irresponsible and unable or unwilling to spend any time with any children who may be related to them, and that as I have had a baby, I must have never heard of fruit or vegetables and be buying my groceries at Chicken Cottage.  Not to mention the fact that most of this literature seems to be written for someone with a reading age of five.  Then the health visitor (who also meant well) remarked about how happy Piglet must be to see his father every day and I had to say he didn't have one, thus unintentionally perpetuating the unfortunate stereotype of feckless babyfathers.  Also had to fill in a questionnaire which asked me how I felt about being a parent ('fantastic") and whether I was experiencing domestic violence ("no").  I'm not sure that many people with answers that varied greatly from those I gave would be willing to say so on a questionnaire, but as I said, they mean well.  And after all I don't particularly want them coming round to my house to check for domestic violence because they might notice that I haven't cleaned the kitchen.

I also wonder why it is, when it is automatically assumed in the literature that your first language is not English and that you may even be an asylum seeker, that when it comes to getting anything done or having a conversation with an actual human, everything is so impossibly complicated that if you were an asylum seeker who didn't speak a word of English, you would probably end up sitting in the waiting room all day wondering what was going on; that is if you could even find the entrance to the clinic.  When I got there the entrance was deserted and the door didn't appear to be working, so I had to wait for someone to come out so that I could actually get in, and when I managed to find the receptionist and ask where we needed to go for our appointment with the health visitor, she looked at me as though I was Oliver Twist proffering an empty bowl of gruel at the workhouse master, asking for some more, and gave me what turned out to be completely inaccurate directions.  When I finally asked another receptionist where I needed to go (shortly after the same receptionist had shouted across the crowded waiting room "DOES THIS CHILD HAVE A PARENT?" at the top of her voice because a small boy-mercifully not Piglet, who was sleeping peacefully in his perambulator-was fiddling with the blood pressure machine) she too seemed to assume by her tone that I was incapable any kind of rational thought, rather than was just someone who happened not to have visited the health centre before and so could hardly be expected to be on familiar terms with the layout, and told me that I had to go to a completely different waiting area.

Once we managed to get inside and actually see the health visitor, fortunately Piglet was on his best behaviour and seemed to enjoy basking naked in the bowl of the baby weighing scales.  In fact he is loving being naked in general at the moment, and it is getting to be quite a struggle to change his nappy, as he cannot stop kicking his legs around at a ridiculous pace every time they have a modicum of freedom.  I do hope he's not going to start taking his clothes off and running around naked in public.  I don't think I could stand the humiliation of the receptionist at the health centre hollering "DOES THIS CHILD HAVE A PARENT?' at me.

I'd have to blame the proverbial feckless and irresponsible babyfather.

Surrendered Mother

Piglet is sleeping blissfully in his bouncy chair following his 16 week jabs.

Blissful sleeps seem to be increasingly rare these days.  Most sleeps are preceded by hours of fretfulness where he screams for ages until Mummy finds the exact position which he has chosen to fall asleep in that day, and he finally conks out.  I have lost count this week of how many times I have had to remove him from cafes and restaurants before we get chased out with torches by childfree twentysomething hipsters.  One suggestion this weekend from a thoughtful waiter was "Do you want some whisky for him?"  Er, no but maybe for me.

Even today at the doctor's, I had to pace up and down the waiting room like a 1950s father-to-be until a screaming Piglet finally fell asleep and a woman in the waiting room helpfully informed me that my "daughter" was now asleep in my arms (LOVING the fact that everyone thinks Piglet is a girl btw.  My   policy of trying to dress him in gender neutral clothes-i.e. girls' leggings and fluffy coats in the style of East 17 in the Stay Another Day video-as much as possible is clearly paying off.  Kanye wears womenswear all the time you know.  It's what all the fashion pack are doing.  OH GOD I JUST COMPARED MY CHILD TO KANYE WEST.  LORD HAVE MERCY).

OK I'm back.  Piglet just screwed up his face into an almighty cry in the style of an X Factor contestant warbling the highest notes of a Mariah Carey song and I had to pick him up and intermittently walk him around the room for about seven hundred years whilst watching Miracle Babies on Channel 5 and weeping into the nearest muslin cloth (which was very close by-one can never be far from a muslin) and thanking the universe that I did not have a premature baby.

Spoke to my mother on the phone last night and she suggested that "things will get easier once he's on solids."  And there was me dreading the mess all over the flat and the increasingly awful smell of Piglet's nappies, which are already flooding the kitchen with their heady aroma of digested breast milk. She practically suggested I should be putting him on solids now as "you were weaned by his age."  He's not even four months old for Christ's sake.  He doesn't have any teeth and can't co-ordinate his hand to his mouth sufficiently to suck his thumb except on rare occasions, so he's hardly ready for a three course cordon bleu meal.  Mother thinks Farley's rusks are the ideal weaning food, which I'm pretty sure goes against all advice about weaning that I have ever read, although it might be worth buying rusks just for me as from what I remember of my own toddler years they were a real delicacy.

In other news, I now officially no longer exist as an individual and am reduced to the role of carer for King Piglet.  Mother even asked me if I wanted a Christmas present for myself this year, or if I would be satisfied with just Piglet's presents.  Newsflash:  No I will not be satisfied with a new cot and a selection of onesies from Mothercare.  I DON'T FIT INTO ANY OF THEM.  In the end, I asked Mother if she would consider purchasing me an American Apparel voucher, to which her response was "oh, so you still want to shop there then?" implying that mothers are not allowed to shop at American Apparel as the clothes are "a bit clingy" (her words, not mine).  So basically Mother, what you are saying there is that I am now not only too old for American Apparel, but also too fat.  This was then followed by a comment about how the weight might come off when I finally stop breastfeeding.  So too fat then.  Thanks Mum.  On second thoughts, I might ask for a breast pump for Christmas, so yes, it looks like this year's presents will be baby-related.  I may as well just give up now and put out an announcement on Facebook that from now on I will be a Surrendered Mother.

How to avoid using dangerous substances such as Calpol

So I am trying to write this while Piglet naps on my chest (look at me!  Multi-tasking uber-mother!)

He had his first set of immunisations this morning.  This was relatively stress free.  Apparently some women are so distressed by the sight of a huge (relative to size of baby) needle being stuck in their baby's thigh that they cannot do the required job of holding baby down while the pain is inflicted and have to get their husbands to do it.

Not so with me.  Not that I have a husband anyway so I didn't have much choice.  To be honest, I did feel a bit sorry for Piglet as he screamed, looking at me with imploring eyes, as if pleading with Mummy to make it all better, which I obviously had no intention of doing.  Poor Piglet.  He doesn't know that now, because of Mummy's cruelty, he will probably not die of whooping cough, diphtheria or any of the other Victorian ailments he is now inoculated against.

He might get TB though.  At least that was what the nurse implied when she asked if he had had his BCG vaccination and I innocently said I was under the impression he didn't need one.  Apparently we are in a "high risk area."  I'd better not take him to any public places just in case someone breathes TB onto him.  Can you even get TB by being breathed on?  I don't know.  How did that nun in Call the Midwife get it?  I guess it was just floating around in the air in the 1950s.

Another reason I was practically drummed out of the surgery was that I admitted that I hadn't brought any spare nappies so Piglet would have to be weighed in his.  I wasn't sure which would make me look less of a neglectful mother; Piglet remaining in his nappy throughout, or taking off said wet nappy and then putting it back on.  I decided that the latter was just too cruel, which did not go down at all well with the nurse, who practically accused me of deliberately hiding my baby's lack of weight gain.  I mean, how much does a wet nappy weigh?  Quite a lot, admittedly, but certainly not enough to have Piglet slipping off the percentile scale entirely.  I mean, there wasn't even any poo in it.

Anyway, I am now trying to ward off the need for Calpol (recommended by every mother, ever, and indeed everyone who has ever even spoken to a mother, for preventing babies getting a fever after their vaccinations) by cuddling Piglet constantly and trying to keep him asleep for as long as possible, as the nurse also admonished me rather sternly when I, again in my innocence, asked if it would be OK to give Piglet Calpol if he developed any signs of a fever, saying that Calpol was not suitable for babies of his youth.  God, parenting is a minefield.

Hopefully I was able to ward off a call to social services by breastfeeding Piglet immediately after the jabs.  Surely that will win me some points the amount everyone bangs on about how great it is and how it should be done exclusively until the child is at least sixteen.