His First Day,

I was originally going to title this The Empty Pram, but thankfully it occurred to me that that might scare a few people into thinking something awful had happened and it's not that. This blog doesn't need a trigger warning or anything, past the usual it's  my own personal account of parenting and I realise that some people may not want to read that for their own reasons. And I get that.

Last week my son went for his taster session at nursery where I stayed with him and I think I knew it was going to be a bit difficult, but not quite how difficult I would find it. My son's a happy kid and he's really smiley and sociable. I love it, most of the time, but it does make it hard when it feels as though he doesn't miss me. Before he was born people would tell me how they love boys because little boys are affectionate and warm and they love their mums. My son is affectionate and he is warm, but the times where he just wants his mum... I'm less convinced of that one and sometimes it makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong. Or doing everything wrong. He goes to nursery or to baby classes and he gets into playing with the other children or playing with the toys and he's off and away until he needs a nappy change, a bottle or until he falls and bumps his head. I know I should be really grateful for that, because it's a level of independence not all children his age have and it frees me up to do other things, but it comes with it's own difficulties.

Today was his first visit to nursery where I dropped him off, told them how his day has been going and then walked out. Thankfully it wasn't at the same time as drop off with the other parents so it's not like I had to experience other children crying as they were detached from their parent and my son not even noticing me leave, but it was still hard, and because of how close the nursery is to home I refuse to drive, even though there was a spot of rain, so I walked him there in his pram... which meant I had to push the pram home again without him in it, and that was the part that made me the most sad. In the past just under a year I've pushed him around in three different prams - don't judge me, it's a whole thing - (actually, it's four prams, but one of them was a borrow whilst at my mother in law's house because he needed a sleep and God knows he won't sleep anywhere but his pram or his cot and even the pram is questionable these day) and they all have their pitfalls and their good points, but nothing has felt emotionally harder than pushing the pram back to our house empty because when we're out with the pram, I talk to him. I point things out to him, I tell him what we're going to do, I ask him what he fancies from the shop if we're in the fruit and veggies aisle or the baby aisle, and it's not like I expect him to talk back to me yet, or tell me what he wants, but he smiles at me and giggles or plays and it's like an affirmation that I'm doing something right, because otherwise he couldn't be so happy, could he?

The route to his nursery and back is the same route we take walking the dog or going to the park, or going to the local shop or the hairdresser or a myriad of other places we go to in the pram. It's the same route we walk when we go and get the cars from the garage (because even though it's a long walk, it beats moving car seats around and I know walking is good for me and fresh air is good for him. On the way back I wanted to be chattering away to him about what we had to do - dropping off parcels, possibly going to the park for a go on the slide (nope, too wet, another day) or bemoan the fact that I still can't put my hands on the rain cover for the pram and how I should have brought one of the others to keep him dry, but my little buddy wasn't there for me to chat to, and when he comes home, he can't tell me about all the toys he's played with or the other children he's played with or anything, because he's not up to words yet, just the sweetest babbling that I know is him trying to form words and maybe trying to talk to me, or just tell me to please give him five minutes of peace because all I do is chatter to him or play him music. 

Inevitably, nursery isn't a choice for us, as it's not for most people. Whilst both sets of our parents want to help out with looking after him and we both want to look at staggering our hours so he's spending less time in nursery than some children have to - partly because when we're working from home the only commute is getting him to nursery and back - there are still a lot of hours where we're working to be covered and it's not like we can choose to just give up our jobs for the next few years so we can be at home with him. Would we want to? Absolutely, but that doesn't make it possible, so I guess I just need to thank my lucky stars that he is such a happy and social kid, that he does well with the nursery practitioners and other children and that he's having a good time even when I'm not with him, even if it means I know I'm not there for moments like his first steps or his first words. 

Dear DVLA,

I decided I was going to wait until I calmed down to write this, but now I realise I wasn't angry or upset, I'm just annoyed. 

Now, I am in the lucky position of having got married when off on my maternity leave and the reason I say lucky is because at least all the silly crap that I have to do like re-registering my son's birth - still not over it, still think it's stupid - can be done pretty easily because I have plenty of time off to do admin tasks. The only problem is I, of course, need to cart my poor little lad around with me whilst doing them and he can be bored as hell.

Given the number of people who get married each year and the number of people who then change their names as a result of that marriage, and I'm also going to add in that given how this disproportionately affects women (there's nothing political in that or anything, it's just the truth), you would think that changing things like your documents to have the 'correct' name wouldn't be so difficult. So, the DVLA would have an online form where you can provide the change of address details, digital copies of your marriage certificate and just send over your old license, right? WRONG!

If you are changing your name post marriage, you have to get a form from the Post Office - it might not even be your local one because your local branch might be too small to deal with these types of forms, even though all they do is hand them out... - and then send it with your marriage certificate (no certified copies allowed!) and your old license to the DVLA and they will get back to you with a changed license. I believe it is similar for a passport.

I understand that these things are official documents and that appropriate checks need to be done, but it's crazy to me that it takes this much effort, especially as the majority of people will be navigating this whilst also working. It seems insane that it's not easier, given that hundreds of people get married every day, and it's not uncommon to want to share a surname with your spouse and your children. It's enough that you have to go through the motions of changing your name with every company you have previously interacted with, and it's a long old process, without making it overly complicated to get your ID changed so the rest can follow.

Who Designs Baby Changing Rooms,

Because I have a bone to pick with them.

I've been in a whole pile of different baby changing and family rooms over the past nearly a year and whilst there are some which aren't great because the amenities are broken, there are a lot which aren't great from the start. Whether it's the fact it's a building which was built before people had babies - yes, that is a joke - or in the time when children were neither seen nor heard and mother's were just expected to stay at home with youngsters, or it's just bad planning, most of these rooms were not planned by the people who use them or were intended to use them, because otherwise they would have been designed with a lot more sense. 

There's things like safety straps. The number of times I've seen changing mats with them or without them are probably pretty even and I get that, because if you have one, does it make you less vigilant about preventing falls because mentally you think that's what the strap is there for, but when babies get older or turn into toddlers then they get very wiggly, wriggly and darn right devious, which means they get a knack for getting out of such things and sometimes that is a lot quicker than you assume that they will. But without a strap you have absolutely no back up and if you have to cross the room to wash your hands or dry your hands, you either need to put the child on the floor (God, no), back in whatever they are being carried in (which if you are just carrying them, then good luck to you) or... risk it for the least length of time you can in order to wash your hands? (Obviously that's also not a good option.)

There is a debate over whether family rooms should include a toilet, because of potty training, but my issue with that is that it almost encourages abuse of the room when lines in other bathrooms are long, but I have genuinely seen (on social media) conversations where mum's say they will pee in the sink and encourage their kids to do the same if there's not a sink in there. Taking aside that that is gross from a drainage point of view, it's also gross in terms of leaving that for cleaners, because splashing is a thing. I also think having a toilet is important in case of reusable nappies, because you can flush the liners which have the worst of the nappy contents in, rather than having to either bin it (when you're not likely to carry nappy bags because they're plastic) or take it home in the nappy.

Sometimes it's as simple as the bin being miles away from the changing table, because who doesn't need a hike in the middle of a nappy change?, the dryer being the opposite side of the room to sink, no hand soap, the pedal on the bin not working or something else and it just makes life difficult. Add to that the fact that the doors never swing both ways and are rarely assisted doors, so entering or exiting is always a struggle, and some of the rooms are not big enough for even the smallest pram to be in. And then my biggest pet peeve, changing facilities are lumped in with a disabled access toilet. 

If it were as simple as there were changing places toilets everywhere and the changing facilities were a part of that facility, so there was a bed or plinth or table or whatever big enough for all changing needs, I would slightly say fair enough, but it's not. Changing places bathrooms are few and far between. It's not even about ensuring disabled parents are able to access changing facilities because mats are most often mounted where it would be impossible for a non ambulatory wheelchair user to use them, with little or no support for ambulatory wheelchair users and still too low for "able" parents to be able to comfortable use them.

I'm not saying that every changing mat should be height adjustable (wouldn't that be amazing) or that everywhere should revamp every room to move sinks and toilets and changing mats to all be on wall or anything, but a shelf to put your bag down so you can get at supplies would be amazing - not every nappy bag is built to be used from a hook! - bins working and being in logical places and having somewhere safe to put baby down so you can actually wash your hands (getting Sudocrem out from under long nails is absolutely no joke) and potentially one of those vending machines with emergency bits in, because everyone has done the thing of walking out of the house with something that they need and there's not always a well placed supermarket... (and even if you're in a supermarket, wrapping the baby up in a muslin toga or similar whilst you make a mad dash to the nappy aisle is one of my worst nightmares...) And all this is without even getting into the idea that having a parenting room should include somewhere to breastfeed or pump without taking the facility offline for everyone else for up to half an hour at a time.

What Happened Last Week,

I'm writing this still sporting my wedding nails and really struggling, because instead of typing with the ti pop my finger like I am used to, I have to angle my fingers differently and use the pad of my finger so I don't either snap a nail, which is painful, or feel like I'm peeling the nail off of the nail bed, which is excruciating, so bare with. 

Is that the reason last week's blog schedule went out of the window? No, of course not.

So why did it?

Honestly, the last few weeks I have been struggling with what to say. 

Before the wedding happened I had all of these things I wanted to write about but without giving away all of the details of the big day, because several of my friends who attended read my blog. I did think I might post them in the post wedding era, but honestly, I didn't even want to write them anymore, let alone post them. And now, post wedding, I don't feel the need to write and share as much about it as I thought I might.

It's not even that it didn't go to plan - it did - or that there was loads of drama - there wasn't - but certain people have made me feel very watched in a bad way, and like they are try to pry into my life no matter what I do to prevent it, and it's uncomfortable. This blog has always been about being able to share what I want to, what I write and what I think in a way that's comfortable, but the truth is that the discomfort I have been feeling around those people and the sort of access they are trying to force into my life and my son's life is making writing this somewhat less comfortable and that is something I am truly devastated about. Trust me, I don't want to give this up, but withdrawing more from it might be on the cards because I just don't want those people having information about my family, because it seems to make them think they have some sort of access.

Maybe I'm just naive but I don't like relationships which are only one sided - where people only want to be involved with me or have a relationship when they want something, even if that is just an invite to my wedding, or when people try and pretend like we're close to get those things, or when their relationship with me is simply there to facilitate a relationship with my son. He is an exceptionally loving little boy, but if people think they can be mean or dismissive or rude to me and then still expect a relationship with my son, they must be from another planet, or you would think so. 

So yes, what to say, how much to say and whether to say anything has been very much on my mind the last few weeks and it's something I have been struggling with but I don't have a solution right now.

"Normal",

I might have written about this before, but it's something that really bugs me and continues to bug me this many months later, so here we go...

This isn't about being a "normal" person; that seems to have fallen by the wayside for a lot of people because there is an acceptance that "normal" doesn't exist because everyone is an individual. Cool. That's great.

So why do we still use the term "normal" when it comes to a birth?

Let's be honest, normal is used synonymously with vagina birth, despite the fact that there was outcry back in December that these number of births via C-section had risen so much that C-sections accounted for over 50% of births, to my memory. Even if these were the only two methods of birth possible, how does that make a spontaneous vaginal birth "normal"? 

"Normal" birth seems to refer to a spontaneous vaginal birth with no interventions needed, but instrumental assistance is needed in a percentage of births, induction is needed in a percentage of births, episiotomy is needed in a percentage of births.

Particularly when we interact with the NHS, the need for clarity and specificity seems to be lost behind this terminology that doesn't really have a whole lot of meaning, and doesn't give a lot of information, but rolls off the tongue. I've been on the receiving end of eye rolls and smirks because I question what they mean, but I don't know what they're asking me. Why is it so hard to say, was it a C-section or vaginal birth? if it was a C-section, do you know what category of C-section? Vaginal? Was intervention needed? Was medication required? Was it at home, a birth centre or a hospital? Did mum or baby need extra attention after the birth? 

What is beside the point, of course, is that this is all in my notes. And my son's notes. Why do I need to go over this information at every appointment or interaction with a doctor?

It's not a thing of making conversation, because using that word shuts down conversation about a person's birth experience. Saying a "normal" birth is like saying, if you followed a certain path, I know what your experience was. It's formulaic in a way that birth isn't. Some people are terrified of vagina birth because of the pain, because of the effort or because of the risk of bleeding or tearing. Some people are terrified of C-section because of the pain, or the recovery, because of the judgment of not being a real mum or not having experienced a real birth.

And maybe I am still just being sensitive because I haven't come to terms with the fact I had a C-section, or the parts that were done badly. Maybe I'm still mourning the birth I imagined or the birth I wanted, but that shouldn't detract from the fact that the language which is typically used by a lot of the NHS isn't working for the conversations we're trying to have. 

When Do We Grow Out of IKEA Furniture,

I've spent too many days not writing so I'm trying to write this from my phone because I can't be bothered going downstairs to grab my laptop. If this damn app closes one more time though I might find the motivation that I need to go...

I know that IKEA is like marmite for a lot of people, but personally, I love the place, and the work they're doing at the moment to redesign their furniture to taken apart and moved instead of being kind of one and done is awesome.

There are a lot of people in the world who will look down on IKEA furniture, and I kind of get it, if you own a certain type of home, because if you get something like a cottage with a lot of character or a Victorian or other period property with a lot of period features, and you go and stick a whole pile of flat pack furniture in it, it's going to look kind of silly, but I've genuinely heard people talk about IKEA as though it's the furniture or when you're a student (which it works as) or in your 20s (which it is, because you can buy it, get it delivered or even take small items on the tube, and yes I have seen that) but it's almost as though when you're in your thirties you should have "grown out of" IKEA furniture and be looking at something "proper" which I think is pretty mad.

There are some things I would be kind of reluctant to buy from IKEA. I bought a sofa bed from them when I had a studio flat in London and I was gutted to get rid of it, but managed to sell it on to someone else in a similar position. I think if I tried to sleep on it in my 30s, especially for any length of time, I would be really struggling. I'm not completely in love with their sofas in general, but that might be because I'm fussy about sofas. I have short legs so need a low ish seat and for it to be a short ish seat, too, as super deep seats mean no back support for me, but I want quite a high back for the support and it means just having a cushion behind me to "solve" the seat depth issue doesn't really work. I also might buy a bed frame from IKEA (maybe) but I wouldn't buy a mattress from IKEA.

I think I'd be more likely to have "grown out of" IKEA because I can't manage putting the flat pack together myself anymore - because I do it myself as a point of pride - rather than going off of a lot of products. Had we not already got our son's cot when we had him, we would have been getting it from IKEA because most of their furniture just makes sense, and I don't think I would ever get a kitchen from anywhere else.

Any hey, look at that, I wrote a blog that wasn't about parenting or the wedding. Yay me.

Nailed It,

I've mentioned on here before that my nails were something that ruined the idea of engagement photos and that I wanted to try and get them sorted before the wedding, and I was really happy to have been able to do it. It was something I started about three months before the wedding, getting my nails done with BIAB to make them stronger and less easy to bite, and now I have to come to a decision on what to do next. Do I soak the BIAB off and probably end up going back to biting my nails within minutes of them coming off, or paint them at home and hope that I can keep them in half way decent condition, or is this my life right now? Do I just have to accept that I'm going to be going to get my nails done every few weeks for the foreseeable?

It's not that I don't love the girl that does my nails, because I do. She's brilliant, she does brilliant work and I enjoy going spending time in the salon, so much so that I even managed to convince myself to get my hair cut there before the wedding and then was super thrilled to have the hair dresser come to help me get ready the morning of my wedding, but it's not exactly cheap to get them done and with the fact that I'm still on maternity leave it's not the most important thing in the budget.

I would also say it's not like they're perfect. It's not that my nail artist does anything wrong, but BIABs are a gel which uses UV to set it, and I've read a few things about how prolonged UV exposure, even little and often over time, can cause skin aging and potentially skin cancers, which is obviously more than a little concerning. I've also had a few episodes of catching my nails in things, because they're a lot longer than I've ever been used to, or catching them when trying to do things like closing the door, catching them on the handle and feeling like I'm peeling them straight off of the nail bed, which honestly made me feel pretty sick. I know I could trim them down and this would be less of a problem, and now that the wedding is over I feel like I don't need them to be elegant and pretty, just neat, but other than those incidents, and the fact that typing is different on either my phone or my laptop, I've actually really enjoyed my nails being longer.

The only problem I have with my nails at the moment is how quickly I need to get them replaced, though I think that that is at least in part because of the number of nappy changes and bottles I am doing, because it means I'm constantly washing my hands, and that doesn't help nails, even gels, to last as long as they can do.

Honestly. I think I'm going to message my nail artist tomorrow, because the last thing I want is to end up back at the stage where I'm biting my nails until my finger hurt, but I think I will get them done shorter so that I can let my nail beds have a bit of a rest from the peeling sensation and also get back to typing like normal. A bit driver in that though is because I don't think I could paint my nails well by myself, even if they were as strong without the BIAB gel on them, but it does mean it will soon be time to say goodbye to my wedding nails, which is kind of sad.