And the winner of the Best Dressed Baby Award is....

It sounds like something out of the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party circa 1993, but it's official, I have the best dressed baby in Wembley.  Winner of the Elle Style Awards, Special Commendation from Anna Wintour, Vogue Baby of the Year.  Move over Blue Ivy, Prince George and North West.  Yes, the play worker at Baby Club (n.b. this is not a nightclub.  That would bring a whole new meaning to the phrase "nappy night") complimented Piglet on his outfit today with the words, "another lovely outfit this week!"  Yes ANOTHER.  See, Piglet is known throughout North West London for his baby chic.  Let us gloss over that incident with the poo in the dungarees. That was, like, MONTHS AGO.

As for myself, I have not been faring quite so well in the sartorial stakes.  For the second time in a row, we got up too late for me to have time to apply any make up before we left the house, so not only was I slap free-something that has become alarmingly commonplace in recent weeks-but the waistband of my maternity jeans (yes I am still wearing them) sits sufficiently low on the hips for me to have to continually hoist them up to avoid displaying my giant M&S mummy pants to the world.  Not that this was the biggest fashion faux pas at baby club today, as just as we were leaving there was a woman bending down to put her shoes on who was showing her entire bottom.  Imagine the furore if THAT happened in Claridges.

Speaking of which, I have been trying to express milk again, to no avail.  My euphoria upon discovery of the fact that hand expressing is a) possible and b) not the excruciatingly painful debacle I had expected it to be was tempered by the fact that the couple of drips I managed to squeeze out did not, as I had hoped, make much of an impact on the bottle.  One of my antenatal class said her sister had "only" been able to get out 70mls, which compared with my measly few drips, which didn't even register on the millilitre scale, must have been like Niagara Falls.  It now looks increasingly unlikely that I will ever be able to leave Piglet with anybody for longer than half an hour as I have read in baby books that if babies don't learn to take a bottle early on, they never will, and Piglet has never even seen a bottle.  He's going to be the breastfeeding equivalent of those old men in pubs who complain about the yoof of today drinking lager out of bottles instead of real ale from a hearty tankard hung above the bar with their name on it.

In other news, Piglet has discovered that if he flaps his arms about a bit whilst sitting in the washing up bowl (still currently too scared to put him in the giant baby bath, so he is having his baths in the washing up bowl.  The washing up, you will be relieved to hear, goes in the dishwasher) an interesting effect, commonly known as a splash, is created.  Mummy is now soaked to the skin.

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.