Piglet is asleep and I have just managed to snatch a few moments to afford myself the liberty of painting my toenails.
I now look, with my lurid red toenails, like a woman who never wears anything but trousers and a woolly hiking fleece, who has suddenly put on a dress for the first time in ten years, to the astonishment of all her friends and colleagues: in other words, out of place. And clearly I should be sleeping. I mean, last night Piglet barely slept a wink. He just kept waking up, wailing and reaching for the boob, coming off, rolling over and then starting the whole process over again an infinite number of times, until the sun was literally coming up and I couldn't bear to look at the time, knowing that it was bound to be ten minutes before the alarm was due to go off.
The weird thing is, I'm not remotely bothered.
In the past, when circumstances conspired to make me lose large chunks of sleep, either by long flights or long nights drinking inadvisable alcohol/energy drink combinations, I was like a crazed wild animal, attacking anything and anyone who stood in the way of a nice comfy bed. But now, even when the alarm goes off and I have to drag my barely living carcass out of bed and make breakfast, heaving the still sleeping Piglet into his Bumbo seat as he bleats in protest and remonstrates with me about my being the Worst Mother Ever by flailing his arms up and down angrily, I am strangely calm and serene, when any other mortal being-or even nearby inanimate object-who behaved this way would have me praying for their imminent violent death. I blame breastfeeding for turning me into this weirdly placid creature. It must be the hormones. Either that or motherhood has turned me into Martin Luther King, but without the bravery. I am fearful of anything and everything that might cause harm to Piglet. Except random bits of stale toast on the carpet. Or the mouthfuls of toilet roll he insists on eating (one has to pick one's battles, otherwise I will shortly turn into my mother, yelling "NO!" and launching herself across the room every other nanosecond to rescue Piglet from the nearest plug socket or library book).
And so it is that at the shocking time of 9.45pm I find myself still awake and wondering whether I should be putting some sleep in the Great Sleep Bank that regrettably doesn't exist (if only I had been able to stock up on sleep during pregnancy. God knows I tried), or whether I should be making the most of these precious few moments of baby-free time to paint my fingernails as well. Or like, change the world or something. Or write a novel and become brilliant at making my own clothes and baking prize-winning cakes. Or start a multi-million pound business importing cherry-blossom flavoured alcopops from Japan. You know, all those things you think would be great to do while the baby's asleep.
Or perhaps they would be better done at 4am, when he wakes up.
Monday, 29 June 2015
Monday, 22 June 2015
Catching a Train with a Baby
It seems that it is becoming increasingly impossible to write this blog. Piglet is either awake, in which case he is trying to grab the laptop and/or one of the many other things he is Not Allowed to Touch (TV remote, plug socket, anything that isn't one of his toys or my collection of books and DVDs, which I have long since sacrificed at the altar of Anything For A Quiet Life) and then shrieking, going all rigid and flinging himself around when they are taken away from him; or he is asleep, and I cannot leave him in case he wakes up and rolls off the bed.
He is, it goes without saying, never happy with anything, unless it involves ripping books to shreds and eating them, dragging my mobile phone along the floor while I am trying to speak to my mother on it, or physically attacking the television. He is currently doing the latter. I'm pretty sure all the guidelines for How to Bring Up an Emotionally Secure and Intellectually Stimulated Youngster say no TV before the age of two, but as my mother would say, it never did me any harm. At least I don't think it did. For all I know every single fault in my personality could be directly traced back to time spent watching Playschool in 1982.
Over the weekend I took Piglet to Bristol. Until now, I had never felt any desire to own a car and drive around in it, but after several journeys to Bristol and back on the train, the prospect of several hours driving down the M4 are beginning to look extremely appealing. This is because I would then not have to endure any of the following:
Piglet doing a poo on the train.
The dreaded journey down the escalator at Paddington with the pushchair (yesterday I was bold enough to ask a member of TfL staff for help, and practically got shouted at for my trouble-"I'M ON MY OWN HERE!" I thought I was going to be lynched by angry commuters after being held single-handedly responsible for the next tube workers' strike).
A man walking past while I was breastfeeding Piglet and remarking "aww how sweet," followed by "you're making me hungry now!"
A full scale battle with the pushchair involving several passers by, trying to fold it down and squeeze it into a luggage rack before abandoning the whole idea and leaving it in the buffet car to act as a makeshift table for yokels drinking cider out of cans.
Well, at least it gives me something to write about.
He is, it goes without saying, never happy with anything, unless it involves ripping books to shreds and eating them, dragging my mobile phone along the floor while I am trying to speak to my mother on it, or physically attacking the television. He is currently doing the latter. I'm pretty sure all the guidelines for How to Bring Up an Emotionally Secure and Intellectually Stimulated Youngster say no TV before the age of two, but as my mother would say, it never did me any harm. At least I don't think it did. For all I know every single fault in my personality could be directly traced back to time spent watching Playschool in 1982.
Over the weekend I took Piglet to Bristol. Until now, I had never felt any desire to own a car and drive around in it, but after several journeys to Bristol and back on the train, the prospect of several hours driving down the M4 are beginning to look extremely appealing. This is because I would then not have to endure any of the following:
Piglet doing a poo on the train.
The dreaded journey down the escalator at Paddington with the pushchair (yesterday I was bold enough to ask a member of TfL staff for help, and practically got shouted at for my trouble-"I'M ON MY OWN HERE!" I thought I was going to be lynched by angry commuters after being held single-handedly responsible for the next tube workers' strike).
A man walking past while I was breastfeeding Piglet and remarking "aww how sweet," followed by "you're making me hungry now!"
A full scale battle with the pushchair involving several passers by, trying to fold it down and squeeze it into a luggage rack before abandoning the whole idea and leaving it in the buffet car to act as a makeshift table for yokels drinking cider out of cans.
Well, at least it gives me something to write about.
Wednesday, 17 June 2015
These are my peeps
Sleep.
If I went to bed Right Now, I might get the full eight hours, time spent waking up to soothe a fretful Piglet aside.
But I am not going to go to sleep right now, because I am writing this. And the glow of the computer screen is going to adjust my hormone levels, apparently, so that everything goes out of sync and I end up wide awake and wired as one of the Happy Mondays at the Hacienda in 1989, unable to sleep for three weeks.
And this is what it has been like every night since I last wrote on here, and that is why I never do. Sleep wins out every time.
On Saturday Piglet went to his first birthday party. Not his own, obvs, as he is only ten and a half months. The venue was a thing called a baby cafe. In Islington. We don't have such things in Wembley, as no one would be so shamelessly middle class as to actually name their business a baby cafe, instead of something much more sensible, like a soft play centre, or Cafe Nero, even if it ends up as the former due to the preponderance therein of both babies and coffee.
Anyway, you can imagine what it was like walking into this baby cafe.
In short, it was a peculiarly upper middle class version of Hell.
There were women in Thai fishermen's pants of baggy denim with elasticated waists; there were bespectacled middle class men strapping on special trainers designed specifically so that feet don't slide off the pedals whilst cycling (doubtless with the baby being pulled along behind in one of those little baby-tents): there was eggs benedict being eaten; there were flat whites being drunk out of glass cups with no handles (rather precariously, given the surroundings, clientele and overall theme); there was a selection of tasteful wooden toys strewn across the floor, and with few exceptions, every parent in there, I am delighted to report, at least looked older than me.*
It was like walking in a dazed and confused state out of a mine in which you had been working for the last twenty five years as a pit pony and suddenly seeing the sun, blinking around for a second wondering what had hit you, and then deciding it was all rubbish and going blind.
These are now my peeps, I found myself thinking in wonderment. THESE ARE MY PEEPS. I am one of THEM.
I am that woman in the fisherman pants, who just wants to be comfortable whilst lugging a baby around in an organic sling (in my case, they were Topshop leggings. I do have a shred of dignity).
I am that man on the bike with the baby-tent, regaling a nearby collection of mothers with the triumphant words "I bet you're all wondering what THESE SHOES are for, aren't you?"
I am the one who replied "I already know. I used to be really into cycling." And then, with a sigh, "used to," as though life as we know it is now over for all of us.
I am definitely all the women still breastfeeding children old enough to go to secondary school.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is my life. These are my peeps.
*This does not mean they were. I am of the opinion that I look about seventeen. The mirror suggests otherwise, and that somewhat alarmingly I may in fact have inherited my father's terrifyingly accelerated rate of ageing, but I'm pretty sure it's lying.
Wednesday, 27 May 2015
The Middle Way
And so another trip to the Baby Weighing Clinic draws to a close.
A trip in which I received a literal pat on the back from the health visitor for maintaining Piglet's centile, no less.
And then a metaphorical slap on the wrist for admitting that I sometimes (OK, maybe every day) feed him Organix baby fruit purees as desserts.
I can only imagine what the reaction would have been if I had said I gave him a tub of Ben and Jerry's. WHICH I DON'T, BY THE WAY. What sort of mother do you think I am?
First it was "don't you make them yourself?" as though buying a ready made puree was the comestible equivalent of popping a fag in the baby's mouth "just so he could join in with the grown ups." Oh sorry, I forgot, we are all supposed to be Surrendered Mothers now. I am supposed to be carrying Piglet on my back in an organic woven sling while I go out to tend the fields, whilst simultaneously teaching him how to count to ten in Mandarin and contorting myself into a yoga pose, before returning home for a nutritious meal of self-grown quinoa and organic goji berries.
Then it was "he shouldn't be eating purees now. It's time he fed himself." This despite the fact that I had already pointed out that he ate the same food as me for his main course. Like, real actual food. Yesterday we had CURRY for Christ's sake. And he feeds himself said curry, WITH HIS FINGERS. In fact, he wouldn't even accept a spoon until last month, and the only reason he's having any purees at all if because I'm so excited that he suddenly appears not only to like them, but to open his little mouth like a baby bird in the way that every other baby I have ever heard of has been doing since the age of six months. FINALLY.
The Buddha once said that the best way was the Middle Way, which would presumably mean that the best way of going about things is somewhere between Surrendered Mother and My Mother, who advocates jars of baby food at every opportunity, because "it never did you any harm," and because it's the best way to preserve the carpets. The again, the Buddha also abandoned his own wife and baby so that he could go and sit under a tree in the lotus position for seven years, so he's no Penelope Leach himself. One simply cannot win.
Anyway, I came home and pureed an entire punnet of apricots. At least I made them myself.
A trip in which I received a literal pat on the back from the health visitor for maintaining Piglet's centile, no less.
And then a metaphorical slap on the wrist for admitting that I sometimes (OK, maybe every day) feed him Organix baby fruit purees as desserts.
I can only imagine what the reaction would have been if I had said I gave him a tub of Ben and Jerry's. WHICH I DON'T, BY THE WAY. What sort of mother do you think I am?
First it was "don't you make them yourself?" as though buying a ready made puree was the comestible equivalent of popping a fag in the baby's mouth "just so he could join in with the grown ups." Oh sorry, I forgot, we are all supposed to be Surrendered Mothers now. I am supposed to be carrying Piglet on my back in an organic woven sling while I go out to tend the fields, whilst simultaneously teaching him how to count to ten in Mandarin and contorting myself into a yoga pose, before returning home for a nutritious meal of self-grown quinoa and organic goji berries.
Then it was "he shouldn't be eating purees now. It's time he fed himself." This despite the fact that I had already pointed out that he ate the same food as me for his main course. Like, real actual food. Yesterday we had CURRY for Christ's sake. And he feeds himself said curry, WITH HIS FINGERS. In fact, he wouldn't even accept a spoon until last month, and the only reason he's having any purees at all if because I'm so excited that he suddenly appears not only to like them, but to open his little mouth like a baby bird in the way that every other baby I have ever heard of has been doing since the age of six months. FINALLY.
The Buddha once said that the best way was the Middle Way, which would presumably mean that the best way of going about things is somewhere between Surrendered Mother and My Mother, who advocates jars of baby food at every opportunity, because "it never did you any harm," and because it's the best way to preserve the carpets. The again, the Buddha also abandoned his own wife and baby so that he could go and sit under a tree in the lotus position for seven years, so he's no Penelope Leach himself. One simply cannot win.
Anyway, I came home and pureed an entire punnet of apricots. At least I made them myself.
Tuesday, 5 May 2015
I appear to have accidentally told someone I hate being a parent.* I am going to Hell in a Handcart.
Sorry. I just really wanted to use the phrase "going to hell in a handcart." It is surely the best thing anyone has ever said, ever. I mean, THE IMAGES.
Anyway, back to the point, I am talking about how, as a parent, you become endlessly obsessed with how good or otherwise a parent you appear to others.
Comments like "ooh you've got your figure back OK then" suddenly turn into conclusive proof of one's motherly virtue, rather than the result of random chance and genetic good fortune; but on the flip side, any recognition of such on the part of self, such as my sheer unbridled joy at being able to fit into an American Apparel bodycon dress three weeks after the birth, are swiftly turned into evidence for the prosecution at the trial of Worst Mother Ever; defendant: Me ("HOW THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO FEED HIM IN THAT????")
Today I left work at 3.30pm, such as has become the custom, and was happily bounding along towards the train station with a sleeping Piglet in his pram, when I bumped into someone from work. Now the only polite things to say to me at the train station are: a) "Well done! I heard you can now pick up that pushchair WITH THE BABY IN IT and carry it up an entire flight of stairs! You are surely the world's most accomplished mother. And a seasoned traveller of the London Underground, at that! You are a LEGEND in these parts!" and b) "Would you like a hand getting that pushchair up the steps?" However, given that this was somebody from work who I don't know all that well, the conversation was far more likely to take a turn along the lines of, (*peers into pram, feigning interest*) "Ooh what a cute baby. Are you enjoying being back at work?"
The only acceptable answer to the above question, of course, is no.
It is sometimes acceptable to admit that it is rather nice to have the pleasure of conversing with actual adults once in a while, and that it is still a pleasing novelty to be getting dressed in the morning into something other than a pair of ill-fitting and tragically see-through Primark leggings, but let's face it, if I turned around and answered that I was LOVING being back at work and pursuing my career like a wanton career-bitch superwoman in a shoulder-padded power suit, I would almost certainly be cast out forever from the motherly fold.
And so it was that I decided to sit on the fence and answer, "well, er, it's OK."
"Ha! That means NO!" cackled Person From Work, as she walked off.
It was at that point that I realised that she had not actually asked me how I was finding being back at work, but how I was finding "it" in general.
So maybe by "it" she meant, like, MOTHERHOOD.
OH MY GOD I HAVE BASICALLY JUST TOLD THIS WOMAN THAT I HATE BEING A MOTHER. I am surely now damned for eternity to burn in the deepest pit of Hell.
No matter how many times I tried to console myself with the true fact that it does not matter even one jot what someone from work thinks about my suitability or lack thereof to be a Holy Mother, I couldn't escape the image of other, more experienced mothers at work laughing and pointing behind my back about how they knew all along that I wasn't cut out to be a parent, much like I imagined my own mother did when she told me that she hadn't expected me to be a good mother as I was too concerned with "Going Out And Getting Dressed Up." In clothing from American Apparel, no less. THE SHAME!
I am now going to have to track down this woman at work tomorrow and do some sort of penance for my accidental apparent lack of glowing motherliness.
I'm pretty sure that the Duchess of Cambridge doesn't have this problem. And I bet she never has to carry a pushchair up a flight of stairs either.
*I don't really hate being a parent by the way. It's great, honestly.
Anyway, back to the point, I am talking about how, as a parent, you become endlessly obsessed with how good or otherwise a parent you appear to others.
Comments like "ooh you've got your figure back OK then" suddenly turn into conclusive proof of one's motherly virtue, rather than the result of random chance and genetic good fortune; but on the flip side, any recognition of such on the part of self, such as my sheer unbridled joy at being able to fit into an American Apparel bodycon dress three weeks after the birth, are swiftly turned into evidence for the prosecution at the trial of Worst Mother Ever; defendant: Me ("HOW THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO FEED HIM IN THAT????")
Today I left work at 3.30pm, such as has become the custom, and was happily bounding along towards the train station with a sleeping Piglet in his pram, when I bumped into someone from work. Now the only polite things to say to me at the train station are: a) "Well done! I heard you can now pick up that pushchair WITH THE BABY IN IT and carry it up an entire flight of stairs! You are surely the world's most accomplished mother. And a seasoned traveller of the London Underground, at that! You are a LEGEND in these parts!" and b) "Would you like a hand getting that pushchair up the steps?" However, given that this was somebody from work who I don't know all that well, the conversation was far more likely to take a turn along the lines of, (*peers into pram, feigning interest*) "Ooh what a cute baby. Are you enjoying being back at work?"
The only acceptable answer to the above question, of course, is no.
It is sometimes acceptable to admit that it is rather nice to have the pleasure of conversing with actual adults once in a while, and that it is still a pleasing novelty to be getting dressed in the morning into something other than a pair of ill-fitting and tragically see-through Primark leggings, but let's face it, if I turned around and answered that I was LOVING being back at work and pursuing my career like a wanton career-bitch superwoman in a shoulder-padded power suit, I would almost certainly be cast out forever from the motherly fold.
And so it was that I decided to sit on the fence and answer, "well, er, it's OK."
"Ha! That means NO!" cackled Person From Work, as she walked off.
It was at that point that I realised that she had not actually asked me how I was finding being back at work, but how I was finding "it" in general.
So maybe by "it" she meant, like, MOTHERHOOD.
OH MY GOD I HAVE BASICALLY JUST TOLD THIS WOMAN THAT I HATE BEING A MOTHER. I am surely now damned for eternity to burn in the deepest pit of Hell.
No matter how many times I tried to console myself with the true fact that it does not matter even one jot what someone from work thinks about my suitability or lack thereof to be a Holy Mother, I couldn't escape the image of other, more experienced mothers at work laughing and pointing behind my back about how they knew all along that I wasn't cut out to be a parent, much like I imagined my own mother did when she told me that she hadn't expected me to be a good mother as I was too concerned with "Going Out And Getting Dressed Up." In clothing from American Apparel, no less. THE SHAME!
I am now going to have to track down this woman at work tomorrow and do some sort of penance for my accidental apparent lack of glowing motherliness.
I'm pretty sure that the Duchess of Cambridge doesn't have this problem. And I bet she never has to carry a pushchair up a flight of stairs either.
*I don't really hate being a parent by the way. It's great, honestly.
Sunday, 26 April 2015
Breastfeeding + Work = Nightmare
Well, it had to end sometime. I am now back to work.
This is not as hideous as it could be, but it is like, JOKES trying to pump milk at work. So far I have combed all the staff toilets looking for plug sockets "just on the off-chance," commandeered an office at lunchtime which then turned out to have a huge window looking out onto a building site, not to mention the students knocking at the door looking for the office's usual occupant; left various parts of the breast pump in the dishwasher and, most ridiculously of all, temporarily lost a crucial part of the pump, a piece of plastic tubing. The latter led to a wild goose chase around every Currys and Maplin in the vicinity hollering at baffled teenage shop assistants about how I needed a replacement breast pump tube and did they stock them in here?
Luckily the tubing turned up just as I had given it up for lost and was on the verge of purchasing a new pump (I should probably add that the pump does not even belong to me), and I was so delighted that I nearly ran around the school holding it above my head in triumph.
Other than that, things have been fairly quiet. Piglet is always glad to see me when I pick him up at the end of the day; usually spending the entire journey home headbutting my chest and wailing. I'm sure what he actually sees when he looks at me is a giant boob full of forbidden milk, which to be honest is pretty much how I feel by the end of the day, especially if my one trusted pumping room has been hogged by the bloody careers advisor all day.
This is not as hideous as it could be, but it is like, JOKES trying to pump milk at work. So far I have combed all the staff toilets looking for plug sockets "just on the off-chance," commandeered an office at lunchtime which then turned out to have a huge window looking out onto a building site, not to mention the students knocking at the door looking for the office's usual occupant; left various parts of the breast pump in the dishwasher and, most ridiculously of all, temporarily lost a crucial part of the pump, a piece of plastic tubing. The latter led to a wild goose chase around every Currys and Maplin in the vicinity hollering at baffled teenage shop assistants about how I needed a replacement breast pump tube and did they stock them in here?
Luckily the tubing turned up just as I had given it up for lost and was on the verge of purchasing a new pump (I should probably add that the pump does not even belong to me), and I was so delighted that I nearly ran around the school holding it above my head in triumph.
Other than that, things have been fairly quiet. Piglet is always glad to see me when I pick him up at the end of the day; usually spending the entire journey home headbutting my chest and wailing. I'm sure what he actually sees when he looks at me is a giant boob full of forbidden milk, which to be honest is pretty much how I feel by the end of the day, especially if my one trusted pumping room has been hogged by the bloody careers advisor all day.
Wednesday, 25 March 2015
More Unsolicited Advice from the Good People of Wembley
So I regale you with yet another tale of how when you have a baby, everyone considers it their God-given right to tell you how to parent.
I had, as usual, carefully considered how Piglet and I were presenting ourselves to the world, in order to deflect any unwanted comments. Piglet was wearing his snowsuit, and despite the fact that it wasn't even that cold, I had also brought a blanket to cover him with, lest any well-intentioned individuals decide that I was a neglectful mother for not swaddling Piglet to within an inch of his life. As we were travelling by bus, I considered taking him out in the sling, so that we wouldn't be taking up space that may be required by a wheelchair user, or a person with more children than me, whilst also winning bonus points by carrying my baby, which according to the doctrines of attachment parenting is better for the child than being pushed in a pram, because they can like, hear your heartbeat and stuff. And also it's what people did in the olden times back on the savannah, innit. Then I decided against it, as surely if babywearing is indeed better for the child, it wouldn't result in said child yelling all the way to Ealing because the way Mummy is sitting on the bus is uncomfortable for him, and then being knackered and unable to sleep the whole time we are out as there is nowhere for him to lie down. So, like the selfish mother that I am, I took the pram.
This was all fine until the way home, when I was sitting contentedly on the bus with Piglet blissfully asleep, until a particularly loud party of schoolchildren walked past, and Piglet woke up. Like he always does when there is any hint of noise. After all, in the olden times back in the cave, he had to stay alert all the time just in case a sabre toothed tiger was hanging around, hoping for a bit of a nosh up. For a while, he was content to sit quietly, looking around (there were surprisingly no sabre toothed tigers on the 83 bus, just a mad bloke who kept caressing the pole with the bell on it) but as time went on, the traffic got worse and he started to get bored, the whingeing started.
"Don't worry," I told him reassuringly, "we'll soon be home."
Judging by the state of the traffic, this was at best an optimistic estimate, and at worst an outright lie, but Piglet had not yet descended into actual shouting, so surely the other passengers on the bus could put up with the occasional whimper.
And then the elderly man next to me turned to me and explained everything.
"He wants milk."
Well, at least he had got Piglet's gender right. This was an improvement from earlier in the day, when I had been in Boots buying mascara and the woman at the counter leaned over and said knowingly to Piglet, "you'll be wearing that before too long!" Not wanting to conform to gender stereotypes by protesting that he was actually a boy, I had nodded enthusiastically in agreement.
I explained to the man on the bus that Piglet was going to be fed when he got home, but I didn't really want to breastfeed him on the bus, and anyway, hunger was not the cause of his discontent on this occasion. Why I felt I had to justify myself to the entire cohort of the 83 bus I do not know, but I immediately assumed that the man thought that I must be starving my child.
Which he obviously did, as his next comment was, "he needs nipple. Somebody give him nipple."
SOMEBODY?
Emergency! Emergency! Piglet is showing a small amount of displeasure on public transport! The logical conclusion to this is that I am officially such a terrible specimen of mother and general human being that I need someone else to feed my starving baby as I am incapable of doing it myself by means of breast, bottle or solid food.
I had, as usual, carefully considered how Piglet and I were presenting ourselves to the world, in order to deflect any unwanted comments. Piglet was wearing his snowsuit, and despite the fact that it wasn't even that cold, I had also brought a blanket to cover him with, lest any well-intentioned individuals decide that I was a neglectful mother for not swaddling Piglet to within an inch of his life. As we were travelling by bus, I considered taking him out in the sling, so that we wouldn't be taking up space that may be required by a wheelchair user, or a person with more children than me, whilst also winning bonus points by carrying my baby, which according to the doctrines of attachment parenting is better for the child than being pushed in a pram, because they can like, hear your heartbeat and stuff. And also it's what people did in the olden times back on the savannah, innit. Then I decided against it, as surely if babywearing is indeed better for the child, it wouldn't result in said child yelling all the way to Ealing because the way Mummy is sitting on the bus is uncomfortable for him, and then being knackered and unable to sleep the whole time we are out as there is nowhere for him to lie down. So, like the selfish mother that I am, I took the pram.
This was all fine until the way home, when I was sitting contentedly on the bus with Piglet blissfully asleep, until a particularly loud party of schoolchildren walked past, and Piglet woke up. Like he always does when there is any hint of noise. After all, in the olden times back in the cave, he had to stay alert all the time just in case a sabre toothed tiger was hanging around, hoping for a bit of a nosh up. For a while, he was content to sit quietly, looking around (there were surprisingly no sabre toothed tigers on the 83 bus, just a mad bloke who kept caressing the pole with the bell on it) but as time went on, the traffic got worse and he started to get bored, the whingeing started.
"Don't worry," I told him reassuringly, "we'll soon be home."
Judging by the state of the traffic, this was at best an optimistic estimate, and at worst an outright lie, but Piglet had not yet descended into actual shouting, so surely the other passengers on the bus could put up with the occasional whimper.
And then the elderly man next to me turned to me and explained everything.
"He wants milk."
Well, at least he had got Piglet's gender right. This was an improvement from earlier in the day, when I had been in Boots buying mascara and the woman at the counter leaned over and said knowingly to Piglet, "you'll be wearing that before too long!" Not wanting to conform to gender stereotypes by protesting that he was actually a boy, I had nodded enthusiastically in agreement.
I explained to the man on the bus that Piglet was going to be fed when he got home, but I didn't really want to breastfeed him on the bus, and anyway, hunger was not the cause of his discontent on this occasion. Why I felt I had to justify myself to the entire cohort of the 83 bus I do not know, but I immediately assumed that the man thought that I must be starving my child.
Which he obviously did, as his next comment was, "he needs nipple. Somebody give him nipple."
SOMEBODY?
Emergency! Emergency! Piglet is showing a small amount of displeasure on public transport! The logical conclusion to this is that I am officially such a terrible specimen of mother and general human being that I need someone else to feed my starving baby as I am incapable of doing it myself by means of breast, bottle or solid food.
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