Wednesday, March 28, 2007

So, I'm Crap With Babies....

Hmm, that was a less than reassuring evening. Mark rang me at about half six to see if I could babysit that evening for our friends' 14 month old whilst they went to see 300 (too gory for me-I have a very low gore threshold!). I have never been alone with anyone who qualifies as a baby (or even a child, except when I was one obviously) for more than 5 minutes. It scares me. But, obviously, I need to get over that fear, so I said yes. We have babysat for Leon before, although it was the two of us, which makes things easier. And he is lovely, ridiculously cute (I am worried about the precedent he has set for cute babies amongst people we know...). He's actually the first baby that I've had any real contact with, except when I was really young. His dad has been mates with Mark for years, and they had a similar situation to ours (getting knocked up after knowing each other for about 5 minutes), which is kind of useful for us a the moment. So anyway, it was only for a few hours whilst they went to see the film, and he'd be asleep for most of it anyway, so it was all good.

We went round about half seven, and although he was supposed to be in bed he wasn't having any of it, so he came down and played with us all for a bit, and was being absolutely perfect and cute. Then the time came for them to go, and he waved bye bye to his dad, and to Mark, and to his mum, but once he kind of figured out that they were all going and it was just him and me, the not very exciting, least familiar one, he started crying. And would not stop. Oh my god, it was gutwrenching. He was screaming like I was torturing him, when in reality I was hugging him and rocking him and patting him and trying to be soothing. It was so hard to figure out what would calm him down, I was actually pleading with him to tell me what the matter was (err, yeah, he's 14 months..) and practically crying myself. He wouldn't drink the bottle of milk they left for him, his nappy was fine (although i had to change it before I found this out, and that upset him even more), and every time we went vaguely near his cot he screamed and screamed. We eventually manage to calm down a bit, and pulling funny faces made him smile a little, and I even read a book, but 90% of the time between them leaving and him falling asleep, he was hysterical. In retrospect, he was just overtired, and about 30 secs of back rubbing after I put him in his cot he was out like a light, but I just didn't pick up on that quick enough, and was kind of put off by the fact that he screamed blue murder if we went near it.

So yeah, it was absolutely not reassuring. I have absolutely no experience with babies, and I don't think I have much natural ability with them either. To be honest, I never cooed over them, always avoided holding them (Leon was the first baby I ever held, about 7 months ago), and I just don't know how to deal with them, especially when they are so upset. It's so so hard to hear them scream like you are pulling out their toenails out when you are doing all you can to make it better. How the hell do you cope with that when it's your own? I am scared.

Anyway, once he got to sleep I did all their washing up because I felt like I had to make up for traumatising their kid. I like washing up, it's soothing. I am weird. Oh, but I did have to keep running upstairs to check that he was still breathing. I am a bit worried about how I'm gonna cope with this whole motherhood thing you know...

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Unmotivated and heavy...

So, once again my attempts to blog have trailed off miserably within 4 posts. It's weird, I always think it would be great to write a post, start composing it in my head, but then when I sit down at the computer all I can do is read message boards and other people's blogs. I'm definitely a wallflower when it comes to the internet, but never mind. We've had internet (and a load of fancy TV channels woo) in the house for a couple of weeks now, so I really have no excuse. Maybe I will get my arse in gear from now on, although I doubt it. Things have been going pretty well overall, and I am happy and excited and healthy, but oh so tired. And I seem to be constantly doing stuff, but not getting anything done... Can't believe it's only about 7 weeks till my due date (although I think she will be late, but my midwife won't put the date back grr). It's so exciting, but oh so scary! I'm lucky though, things have been going better than I could ever have hoped for in terms of cohabiting and our relationship in general-in fact we are disgustingly loved up, and it's rather nice if I do say so myself. Seeing how excited he is makes me feel better if I ever get any worries or doubts, and to be honest it's all turned out rather perfectly (so far, of course it is early days but all indications are good). I am a very very lucky lady.

Babe is still doing well, I had to have another scan this morning unfortunately, after being scared shitless once again over the last few days by the lack of movement from the little one. All seems well, she's just bashing my placenta (that damn placenta!), and I have trouble feeling it, which is very annoying as I never quite relax. She's still a girl (!), now 4 scans have said that so if she comes out with added extras it will be beyond surprising. And she's head down, and has been for a good four weeks, so hopefully she will continue to like it that way! I'm reading shit loads of positive birthing books, my (lovely) doula has leant me Ina May's Guide to Childbirth (which I have ordered from Amazon but is taking forever to come through and i need sooner rather than later), plus some other great volumes about empowering birth. We've got the go ahead for a homebirth so far, and I'm very confident that that is what I want, and Mark is definitely on my side although he has had some worries. We started National Childbirth Trust classes last week, have another tomorrow morning, which is lots of fun! They are really good (so much better than the so called 'Active Birth' class at the hospital which basically said 'move around a bit and then we'll give you an epidural'). We are hilariously out of place amongst the couples there, who are all in their thirties, married and have successful careers. It's quite funny. But the classes are great, especially for M as they have loads of information for men and it means he doesn't have to read quite as many girly books!
Gonna go and do something productive now...perhaps. We are decorating the bathroom and it's nearly done, just needs a second coat on the upper half, but i have been banned from the scary looking stepladder so will have to wait until Mark has an actual day off to finish it. I could, however, finish painting the side of the bath. Or make the cushion covers I've been meaning to do since we moved in. Or sort baby clothes. Or bake some bread. Or start the essays I absolutely have to get done pretty damn soon. Or perhaps I'll just carry on reading message boards and blogs...