Who is even allowed to use the birth centre?

Just returned from a quick excursion to the toilet to find Piglet slumped in his bouncy chair, hanging off the end.  Perhaps the time has come to start strapping him in (what's that sound?  The sound of social services being called at the fact that I have so far failed to do this).  Either that or I am going to have to start taking him with me to the toilet.  Last night he cried when I left him in his cot in the bedroom while I went to clean my teeth, and I had to take him into the bathroom with me and lie him on a towel on the floor to keep him quiet.  I may never have a moment to myself again.

Anyway, today we have been to the library, so that Piglet got to have an excursion in the pram so that he could go to sleep; and we went swimming.  There was a nap required before the latter as well, and as Piglet did not seem to want to nap in the bouncy chair, or go anywhere near the bouncy chair, crying every time I tried to put him in, and thinks his cot is a receptacle for bicycling his legs around and giggling, we had to leave half an hour early for swimming, and sit in the "London Designer Outlet" (sorry, that still cannot be written without the use of inverted commas) for ages so that we could get a good nap in beforehand.  Luckily, it paid off and Piglet was surprisingly cheerful throughout swimming, managing to crack no less than three smiles.  As usual he behaved impeccably, which made me feel better about having to sit through the following poolside Competitive Mother conversation that took place beforehand.

"My labour was really quick-just six hours."

"Really?  Mine was three hours."

"Mine too."

I HATE YOU.  I HATE YOU ALL.  Perhaps I should just dive into the very shallow pool head first and kill myself now as I am obviously a failure as a mother and as a woman in general.  One of the women even said she gave birth in the birth centre.  The BIRTH CENTRE.  I thought giving birth in there was banned.  Isn't it just there to make women feel better and make sure that the species doesn't die out by making us all think that maybe there's a remote possibility that giving birth is just going to be a matter of bouncing on a beach ball a couple of times, playing some whalesong and sitting in a paddling pool grunting?  One of the women from my antenatal class was banned from using the birth centre just because she'd visited the hospital a few times during her pregnancy worried that she wasn't feeling the baby move enough, even though there was nothing wrong, and even though the birth centre is like, in an actual hospital.  WHO IS EVEN ALLOWED TO USE THE BIRTH CENTRE?

Piglet is gazing at me forlornly from his baby gym, sucking his thumb.  The look on his face says "yes you are a rubbish mother.  You are not even fit to call yourself a woman.  Because of that caesarean, I am now traumatised for life like it says in your hypnobirthing book.  And it's ALL YOUR FAULT."

And if that wasn't bad enough, due to my rubbishness as mothering, he then banged his head on the lockers in the changing rooms, mercifully not enough to do himself an injury, but enough to make him howl for long enough that all the other mothers considered calling social services.  And then I accidentally poked him in the eye whilst trying to soothe him.  ARGH.

He later did a projectile wee into that very same eye while I was changing his nappy later in the day, which I imagine must sting a bit, but as we were at home and minus an audience, that didn't even register a whimper.

The Public Badge of Good Motherhood has now been confiscated.

My Thoughts on Baby Fashion, and Other Matters

Love maternity leave.  So far today I have been mostly doing online quizzes ("which wife of Henry VIII are you?" I got Katherine Howard.  I always get her, which I presume means I am dead and wandering around Hampton Court Palace at night, sans head).

I also invented a drinking game to be played whilst watching Escape to the Country.  It is well good.  Get this:
Wood burner/exposed beams=1 finger
En suite/kitchen island=2 fingers
Sea view/added holiday let=3 fingers
They buy one of the properties=you down your drink

So a productive day then.  Good job I wasn't actually playing the game described above today for real as by the time they got to the mystery house I would have been hammered.

Actually I did do a couple of productive things.  Discovered an ancient Next gift card in my purse so went to purchase Piglet some clothes; two T-shirts (one of which was a Rolling Stones T-shirt-Piglet's second.  Bizarre as they are old enough to be his great-great-great-grandfathers) and two sleepsuits, to be precise.  The latter raises two questions:  firstly why are all babygros marketed as sleepsuits when everyone I know dresses their babies in them ALL THE TIME, as is only right and proper for a four month old, and secondly why are the only trousers one can buy for the under-twos little baby jeans?  Why would a baby want to wear jeans?  Why does anyone wear jeans?  Are we all just herd animals like cows who can't even be in the same field as one who's lying down without all of them doing it? For the record here are my thoughts on baby fashion:

Things babies should not wear:
Little baby jeans (they are not adults.  Not that adults should all wear jeans either.  At least not all the time.  Have some imagination).
Little baby Converse (see "little baby jeans" above.  Plus, they can't walk so what's the point?)
Things with slogans like "I'm a naughty boy and I like football and cars," or "I'm a nice little girl and I like fairies and glitter and my greatest ambition in life is to marry a handsome prince."
Hairbands (if they don't have any hair.  Never seen the point, unless it's to let passers by know that yes, this baby is definitely a girl.  In which case I still don't see the point).

Things babies should wear:
Babygros (let's face it, babies are the only humans who can successfully carry off a onesie.  We all know what happens when adults try it.  Except Snoop Dogg.  Because he is a legend).
Knitwear
Dungarees/lederhosen (something else that should not be attempted by anyone over the age of two).

Also today, we went swimming.  I had finally managed to get Piglet a little wetsuit-style wrap to wear in the water to keep him a little bit warmer as the last two weeks he let out a little cry when we first entered the water, and then spent the next half an hour shivering, before we finally got out of the pool and went into the changing rooms, only for his ever-sympathetic mother to cry out "Ooh he's REALLY cold!  Look at his little shrivelled testicles!"

This week was better, and the instructor even commented how chilled (as in easygoing, not cold) Piglet was, and asked if he was like that at home.  Sadly, he spends most of his time at home shouting at me, the naughty mummy who denied him a father, occasionally leaves him in the baby gym because she wants to watch Escape to the Country in relative peace, possibly playing the Escape to the Country drinking game albeit with a giant bar of Dairy Milk rather than hard liquor, and who is frankly inept at spotting his tiredness signs, meaning that every night is a pantomime where Piglet flails his arms and legs around and screams at me from his bouncy chair as I try to rock him to sleep, then I pick him up and carry him around the room for two hours while the voice of my mother warning of Piglet's inevitable future as an overindulged Augustus Gloop character echoes in my ears.

He is now asleep-unusually early for him, which probably means he's saving up his best screams for later; possibly around 4am-and I am watching Coronation Street on mute, which I have to say is a much improved way of watching it.

Argh he's stirring.  I have to start doing my warm-up exercises so that I can carry him around the room again.

The Facade of the Public Badge of Good Motherhood

Argh.  I have inadvertently trained Piglet to gaze blankly at the television as if in a hypnotic trance.

Unfortunately, this does not only happen during In the Night Garden.  This was not supposed to happen.  I was supposed to be an earth mother, all joss sticks and babywearing, giving birth blissfully  in a bathtub surrounded by candles and incense, then holding the baby aloft as if he was the future leader of a pack of lions in a Disney musical.  I was supposed to fill Piglet's days with classical music and brain-enhancing learning activities; he was supposed to be reading fluently by the time he turned one (there's still time...Not that he paid much attention to tonight's bedtime story, Flitter Flutter Butterfly).  He was not supposed to be wrenched out of me by a team of medical personnel in an operating theatre, following several hours of Mummy taking all the drugs the NHS could offer.  He was not supposed to be wheeled around in a pram for eternity because it has a shopping basket underneath which is just so damn convenient for carrying around all those spare nappies and the groceries.  And he was not supposed to be sat in front of the television like a zombie, silently taking in all that ITV can offer (reader, it wasn't even BBC4).  By the time he's three, he'll doubtless be asking Mummy why we can't track down his father using a DNA test and a lie detector on Jeremy Kyle.  

I have to admit, it is useful to be able to plonk Piglet in front of the television when Mummy needs to complete some pressing task, such as eating dinner, but isn't motherhood supposed to be about self-sacrifice?  If I was any sort of mother I would surely have relinquished all food and be living on a diet of pure maternal love, ready to abandon dinner and jump into action like a coiled spring at the first sign of baby whimpering.  If I was any sort of mother I would have gone to bed long ago, instead of still sitting here at 11.15pm with a glass of wine, desperate for a few extra minutes of self congratulation at getting Piglet to bed, before he wakes up again.

Still, I did manage to tick off one box of the middle class mother questionnaire today.  Piglet and I attended a swimming class.  OH YES.  And Piglet excelled himself by not crying AT ALL.

I should probably not crack open the champagne just yet.  After all, we have another four weeks of swimming classes for him to get hysterical and/or poo in the pool, leading to a mass evacuation (if you'll pardon the pun).  However, I will add that Piglet's angelic calm-baby performance occurred in front of one of the other ladies from my NCT class, who was also swimming with her baby, so at least I was able to enjoy the Public Badge of Good Motherhood for an hour or so.  Those fraught hours spent searching Westfield for a reusable baby swim nappy yesterday were put to good use.

At least I appear to be keeping up a charade of reasonable competence at this job in public, even if in private Piglet is spending (considerably) more than the recommended upper limit of half an hour per day on television watching (as decreed by a poster in Wembley Children's Centre).