The Public Badge of Good Motherhood: What’s so great about it anyway?

Picture the scene.  You are in a cafe.  Your toddler, having just had a floor-hugging, rigid back arching, high-decibel screaming meltdown over not being able to push his own buggy into the centre of the cafe and then spend the next twenty minutes using it to bash tables, and the legs of anyone who happens…

Come On Eileen

Yes I have a new website. That is not the most exciting thing to have happened today, however, as today was also the day that I bought my first pair of dungarees. Well, the first that were for me as opposed to Piglet.  At least since the brief flourishing of a random children’s clothes shop…

What is this nap time of which you speak?

I haven’t written on here recently as I have been spending most of my life wandering around Wembley in a dead-eyed haze, pushing a pram containing a wide-eyed and alert Piglet, who sits staring at me blankly as I plead with him to take a nap. He does actually need a nap.  He has all…

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…

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…

New Sport of Ostentatious Breastfeeding Makes Wembley Debut

And so for a bit of ostentatious breastfeeding. Well not at the moment.  At the moment I am watching X Factor on mute so as not to wake Piglet from his slumbers.  Michael Buble is either singing or talking to someone who may or may not be Nelly Furtado.  Without the benefit of sound, they both…

Life: Entirely Governed by Piglet’s Naps or Lack Thereof

Piglet is currently forgoing his afternoon nap in favour of lying in the baby gym chewing his favourite hanging plastic ring.  He is concentrating very hard. OK he just started screaming for no apparent reason.  Just removed him from the baby gym and sat him in his bouncy chair, where he is violently shaking a…

The Maternal Guilt Starts Here

Well actually it started three months ago, when the wee one was born.  And there is never a moment when you are truly safe.  There’s always something waiting round the corner that could be going wrong.  A case in point being the one illustrated below. On Friday I was happily bleating down the phone to…

Why Middle Aged Women Should Rule the World

For the last two days I have managed to get Piglet to bed at *around* the 9pm mark.  This is an immeasurable improvement on midnight, which was his previous bedtime.  It may in fact now be the case that Piglet will grow into a creature of reasonable nocturnal habits, and will not be staying up…

The Kindness of Strangers.

Why is it that every time I go out, no matter how many times I have fed Piglet (and no matter how many times he has tried to escape from the Hide-the-Boob Tent), and even if I have fed him immediately before leaving wherever I am, by the time he gets on the train home…