Questions meme

[j4]

Amazingly, Imogen slept for long enough that I was able to do this meme. From monkeyhands:

1. You're currently in the new-baby zone; if it was a gameshow there would be complaints about cruelty to the contestants. But which bits of being a mum are you looking forward to in the future? You can answer giving a period of time, e.g. "When she's 7" or giving a type of experience, e.g. "Family holidays", or you can give a big long ramble.

To be honest I'm looking forward to pretty much all of it from the point where she starts being able to communicate back meaningfully. Well, obviously I'm not exactly looking forward to the bits where she gets ill, or the bits where she (inevitably) tells me she hates me... but it's all basically helping her figure out how the world works one step at a time (and probably learning a lot myself about how I think the world works, in the process), and I reckon that's an awesome thing to be doing. There are glimpses of it already -- watching her learn to focus on us, react to our voices, smile at us; hearing her make new gurgly noises (including some that already sound like she's trying to talk), watching her fierce concentration as she tries to grab a toy that's dangling in front of her -- but they're only glimpses; at the moment she still spends the vast majority of the time sleeping (which is adorable but not that interesting), feeding (which is still fairly emotionally fraught though getting physically slightly easier), or crying (which is at best a bit tiresome and at worst absolutely heartrending). To be honest I was never particularly looking forward to having a baby, but to having a child.

So, yeah, I'm looking forward to all of it! Not that I think I'll be very good at any of it* but there are so many interesting things in store.

Trying to be a bit more specific, I think the first significant milestone I'm looking forward to right now is being able to start giving her solid food -- partly because it will take away some of the strain and guilt of struggling with breastfeeding, and partly because food is tasty & interesting & fun & I want to share it with her (and it's cute watching babies cover themselves in food). :-) After that**, walking and talking! Both enormously exciting!

* This isn't just automatic self-deprecation but based on the observation that I don't seem to be very good with other people's children. On the other hand it's VERY VERY DIFFERENT dealing with other people's children (in my limited experience), so, hey, maybe it will be OK.

** OK, it's possible that she might be talking before solids, as someone (who I trust not to be exaggerating) told me just the other day that their daughter started talking at four months ... but I suspect it's quite unlikely.

2. I've worked out two ways that someone with your hair type (straight, very long) can do evening glamour without risking burns from heated appliances. Do you give a shit? Do you think you'll ever give a shit?

:-) In principle I think "Yeah! It'd be great to be able to do 'evening glamour'! In fact it'd be great just to try a different hairstyle for the first time in 20 years!" but in practice I can't imagine when I'll next be likely to go to the sort of event where "evening glamour" is called for (well, at the moment it's a bit hard to imagine going to things where the dress code is anything other than "milk-stained with a faint scent of wee", but even assuming we've got past that, I was never much of a one of glamour anyway). I have always wished I could do fancy braids and stuff (as that seems like a good way to get interesting hairstyles without heated appliances or hairspray) but since I've never yet succeeded in even doing a French plait it seems quite unlikely that I'll ever have the time/energy to get good at it.

3. Why don't you like chicklit, when you like reading all sorts of other rubbish? (Not trying to point some imaginary hypocrisy, just asking why that is.)

For the benefit of other readers I should confess that the "all sorts of other rubbish" accusation is probably justified given that I've just read shedloads of Tanya Huff novels which are all about gay sex vampires, sex demons, zombies (not sex zombies thank goodness), ghosts, vampire zombies, zombie ghosts, etc. HOWEVER I borrowed them from my mum so that doesn't really count! Ha! ... HOWEVER, anybody whose shelves are as full of "Wizard Japes for the Lower Fifth" (etc etc) as mine are has absolutely no claim to literary high ground, so, yeah.

Anyway, chicklit. I don't dislike it on principle or anything, I've just not yet read any that I've really liked (as far as I can remember). I'm sure there is lots of good chicklit out there. My instinct is to say "well it's all about makeup and makeovers and fashion and stuff, and that's not very relevant/interesting to me", but that doesn't feel like a very convincing reason not to like it; after all, I've managed to read and enjoy all sorts of other stuff whose ostensible subject matter isn't anything to do with me. I mean, for example, my father's ghost has never told me to avenge his death by killing my uncle. That sort of thing.

To be honest though I think it's just not what I'd go for first (the chicklit, not avenging my father's ghost): given infinite time I'd be willing to read more or less everything; without infinite time, there are other things further ahead in the queue.

Tell you what, lend me some chicklit that you'd recommend (not Shopaholic because I did try that & didn't like it, can't remember why because it was years ago now but I remember that it annoyed me) & I'll give it a go.

4. Do you think you'll get a pet in the foreseeable future?

Hrm, dunno. addedentry would really like a cat; I do like cats, but I don't like any of the stuff that goes with owning cats (scratched floors/furniture, everything being covered in hair and/or wee, catfood all over the floor, getting woken at 5 a.m. by scratching, having to deal with the litter tray) and I really don't want to start dealing with any of that stuff while we've got a baby/toddler crawling around as well. Also, pets end up being expensive, and I'd rather spend the money on us and our child.

On the other hand, blah blah teaching children the meaning of responsibility/death etc etc, and I suspect if she really wants a pet when she's old enough to do her share of looking after it, if it's something normal like a gerbil or a rabbit (rather than something specialist like a tarantula or a lizard) we will probably say yes in the end.

So, er, "maybe".

5. How do you think computer use has changed the way you think and behave generally? ('Not at all' is an acceptable answer, of course.)

Blimey. It's hard to say, because I've been using computers in one way or another for literally as long as I can remember (my parents got the Apple ][ when I was about 2 years old), so I don't really know how I might have thought/behaved without that. It's an interesting question though; can I come back to it when I've thought about it a bit more?

Comments

[j4.livejournal.com]

feel like I spend my whole life preparing food and cleaning up at the mo. - and forget going out at mealtimes!

Well at the moment I'm breastfeeding and bottle-feeding and expressing at every feed (ie about 6 times a day), so going out at all is difficult ('mealtimes' no more so than anything else, I suppose) because a) breastfeeding in public is difficult[*], b) I am too ashamed (and scared of getting lectured by militant lactivists about the evils of formula[**]) to bottle-feed in public, and c) if I don't do any of the feeding in public I barely have time to eat inbetween feeds let alone go out for meals.

So I guess solids at least won't be any worse. :-/

[*] not because I'm shy about people seeing my boobs or anything but because I find it so awkward anyway that I can only really reliably get it to work if I have a chair at the right height etc. which kind of limits my options.

[**] if I didn't feel so miserable about the whole thing I'd be a bit more confident about just telling people to mind their own business, but at the moment I would either punch them or burst into tears, & neither is good.

nappy changes are quickly becoming a nightmare

Because he wriggles away? Or because the poo is worse? (Or both?)

chewing is good prep for talking as strengthens the muscles in the mouth

Oh, that makes sense, hadn't thought of that. OTOH Imogen seems quite happy to chew my finger even without any teeth. Or indeed to chew more sensitive areas. >_

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

Hadn't realised that you were doing the nightmare breastfeeding/bottle-feeding/expressing combo. I admit I tried that for a couple of days and quickly gave up as realised that I couldn't do it and stay sane, if that's any consolation. I even decided top-ups of formula were too much work so we just replaced first one feed and later two with a bottle of formula. Understand about the logistics of feeding in public - didn't have quite the same problem, but had a phase when Owen's feeding behaviour wasn't what I deemed publicly acceptable! Though I did persevere with doing it at baby groups to get me out of the house. Once they feed less frequently, it does get easier in terms of getting out and about.

Whenever I put Owen on his changing mat, he now instantly rolls onto his front. I normally end up turning him over at least ten times per nappy change, though I'm gradually getting better at finding ways to keep him on his back both physically and via distraction. Thankfully the poo is easier to deal with now but we do have 2-3 dirty nappies a day as opposed to one every 2-3 days like we did before.

Just to warn you, when you get to that stage, the baby led weaning crowd tend to make a big deal about how easy it is compared with traditional weaning, but I'm not convinced. Both have their pros and cons and some babies also take it to it more easily than others. I'm definitely glad that we are doing blw but it has been hard work planning and preparing meals, though I'm more in the swing of it now, and I've been lucky in that Owen has no problems actually eating stuff and never gagged too much. He's also pretty tidy eating things like banana now.

[tla]

So er I am very interested in any further BLW field report you might want to give - I have made a few tentative steps that way with my six-month-old, just giving her bits of food to play with while I eat, but wonder at what point the effort should be kicking in, basically.

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

Just given you access to my LJ so you can read my latest post on the subject.

I've gradually worked my way up gradually with our 7-month old. We started with just lunch and fruit and veg, then I started adding toast fingers with various things on them, and have now started occasionally making more of effort with things like scrambled egg and thing I have made in advance (e.g. a couple of days this week he had some courgette and mozzarella balls from the River Cottage Baby and Toddler Recipe book). I roast a bunch of veg at the weekend as a standby and he has yoghurt or fromage frais for dessert on spoons that I hand him. We added in breakfast and tea at some point. Tea is just a couple of rice cakes at the moment. Breakfast is usually banana or other fruit followed by cereal of some description, currently shredded wheat.

I think it's a balance between working out what you can cope with but going at with enough gusto that they do actually get used to the whole idea of eating.

[j4.livejournal.com]

I admit I tried that for a couple of days and quickly gave up as realised that I couldn't do it and stay sane, if that's any consolation.

Well I've been doing it for 11 weeks now but I'm not sure I'm exactly a poster-girl for "staying sane"...

The nappy changes sound like a pain. Something fun to look forward to... :-} (Imogen can already roll on to her side, so I'm guessing I don't have long before she starts making nappy changes more interesting!)

the baby led weaning crowd tend to make a big deal about how easy it is compared with traditional weaning, but I'm not convinced

Yeah, I don't really believe them, because they tend to be the same people who say that breastfeeding is easy. On the other hand traditional weaning (assuming you mean the "puree everything into a homogenous gloop, measure it out in clinical doses & attempt to spoon it into a wailing baby" method) sounds difficult too... basically I don't think there's an easy option!

Sounds like you're doing really well though, & I'm amazed at your River Cottage baby cooking -- I rarely have the energy to make that sort of effort with cooking even for people who are unlikely to just throw it all on the floor! :-}

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

Spending half an hour cooking at the weekend isn't anywhere as impressive as expressing for eleven weeks!

Tho kit is worth trying a little bit of both forms ofvweaning to see which you both prefer.