Bonkers Read online

  I am not too scared to talk about poo. It is now commonplace in my everyday life and on some days (the really bad ones) it has become part of my everyday wardrobe – the random smudge on the cuff of my sleeve, the odd streak on the side of my jeans, and most disgustingly a smear across my top lip. So my friend, the truth of the matter is, poo – and its bezzies, puke and snot – are going to be a big part of your life, the mother of all introductions being the first poo you have after giving birth.

  Fear not, unlike most experiences of childbirth, the actual reality of having a post-baby poo is nowhere near as bad as the thought of it. Despite thinking the midwife needs either a punch in the face or muzzling when she encourages you to push as hard as you can, the truth is, the woman is right. You can, and it is not as painful as you fear. The only thing you may feel is a twinge of embarrassment when you remember that you cried about taking a dump!

  Any chance of a silver lining? I hear you ask. Just remind yourself that you will at least be able to sympathise with your distraught child when they have to do the same during potty training. However (unfortunately, for them) they will be being filmed in front of an encouraging audience and sat on a piece of brightly coloured plastic. Somehow, your predicament now seems a lot less barbaric.

  LEAVING HOSPITAL FOR THE FIRST TIME

  Run for your lives, before ‘they’ change their minds.

  You’ve actually gone and done it. You’ve fooled, I mean convinced them into allowing you to leave the hospital, the safe and cosy domain where you are cocooned away from the big bad world of parenthood. They actually think you are grown-up enough to look after a baby.

  ‘It worked! They think we are responsible enough to take her home!’

  The first incredulous words I said to my husband after being told we could leave the hospital with our tiny human.

  ‘They believed us, they think we are grown up enough to take care of her.’

  We could take her home. They were letting us take her home. Had these fools gone mad?!?

  Leaving the bubble of the hospital, no matter how long or short your stay, feels a bit like breaking the law. You are leaving the building with a precious item in tow, hoping to God you don’t drop them in front of the gathering onlookers and feeling that at any minute an alarm is going to get triggered as the hospital staff realise you’re leaving with the baby and that they’ve made a terrible mistake.

  Despite the baby being yours and despite loving this new little being with all your heart, you still can’t grasp the fact they have been crazy enough to let you home without a chaperone. Don’t they need to call our parents or bosses for references?

  No alarm is triggered and no strong arm of the hospital security stands in your way. Instead you find yourselves stepping out of those revolving doors, with your precious little one bundled up in way too many clothes, three hats, oversized mittens and under a dozen blankets (despite it being mid-June and 25˚C), and you grinning like Cheshire cats on speed. A grin that slowly dissipates into a hysterical grimace with each step away from the bosom of the professionals as you realise that, holy hell, the rest is now over to you. Every decision. Every moment. Every day. Forever.

  Are you freaking out yet? I know I was!

  As the road of their tiny lives flashes before your eyes, so does the panic and you find your feet heading back to the hospital doors.

  Don’t worry … Seriously! You have got this!

  Take a deep breath, keep putting one foot in front of the other, and be sure to capture the moment so you can look back proudly in several months’ time at the new parents, with their terrified grins, looking more like Bambi on ice rather than the veteran and awesome parents you have now become.

  ‘WHAT DO WE DO WITH IT WHEN WE GET IT HOME?’

  Home safely? Check! Still breathing? Check! Nappy changed? Check! Still breathing? Check! Fed? Check! Still breathing? Check!

  OK, so, what the hell do we do next?

  Something happens as you take that drive home from the hospital with your new tiny human on board. As the hospital slowly disappears into the distance, so does any information you have learnt about how to keep this new tiny human alive and happy. You may have listened intently, feeling you are leaving as a fount of new baby knowledge, but the moment you hear the clunk of the car seat, a secondary clunk follows. That secondary clunk is the sound of your brain tipping over and dispelling any baby info you’ve learnt out of your ear and onto the pavement. Unfortunately, you and your partner are too busy debating over whether or not the straps of the car seat are pulled tightly enough to realise. Instead, you take your virgin voyage home under a sunny cloud of optimism, whilst your brain is sat curb side screaming;

  ‘Wait, you fools! You’re gonna need me!!!’.

  Please try not to panic. This is all part of the new parent winging it, and soon enough you will come to realise that winging it is one of the key prerequisites to becoming a parent. Hell, you can even now buy cool sweatshirts that proudly proclaim just this. (BIG shout out to the awesome Selfish Mother Sweatshirts.)

  When you finally make it home (at a speed of 10 mph), you soon realise this: that even though you have lived in your house for a million years and made a trillion happy memories within its walls, when you enter your home with your new tiny human you are seeing it for the first time. The beautiful, must-have home accessories are now baby deathtraps, and the luxury cream Mongolian rug, which no one dare set foot on pre-baby, is now looking like the perfect play mat.

  I remember arriving home for the first time with our eldest tiny human and placing her on the kitchen island in her car seat. She was sleeping soundly, without a care in the world, whilst me and the hubby ran around like deranged nutbags trying to figure out where we should put the Moses basket, the change mat and whether or not we should wake her up to ‘show her around her new home’.

  Should we wake up our soundly sleeping newborn? What the hell were we thinking? And so the games began … We woke up our soundly sleeping newborn and then had to call it quits on the grand tour because she was now screaming for her milk and wondering why the hell she was not still soundly asleep. Those first days back at home with our new tiny human, everything felt so brand new. I would find myself wandering around her nursery, looking at all the clothes I had packed away in the drawers and all the baby gadgets we had spent months collecting and thinking, ‘Wow, they are no longer just things. They actually have a purpose and are going to be used by our daughter’. Such a crazy, surreal and lovely realisation that all the things that, pre-baby, were exciting things to tick off the list were now things that were going to be a part of our new normal life.

  I promise you, give it a week and everything will feel normal. You will be changing your tiny human’s pooey bum on the sofa, the Moses basket will be a permament fixture in whatever room you are in at the time and you will never, ever think it’s a good idea to wake a sleeping baby. Ever!

  THE FIRST TIME A STRANGER ASKS AFTER THE WELFARE OF YOUR FANNY

  When you imagined the moment you announced the birth of your child, did you ever imagine that after the standard query of name and weight, the burning question on people’s lips, would be asking about your fanny and how many stitches you had to endure? No? Funny, that – me neither.

  Two tiny humans in and I’m still baffled as to (a) why anyone would want to know this about their own fanny, let alone anyone else’s; and (b) how anyone is brave enough to ask about the state of someone else’s fanny in the first place?

  I’m curious about what people do with the information when they have managed to glean it from an unprepared and shocked to be talking about her fanny with a work colleague mum. Is there a new stitch and bitch trend going around on social media I don’t know about? Or are we all being entered into a who’s who of vaginas that are more patchwork quilt than fanny?

  I remember the first time my post-baby vagina was a topic of conversation. It was after the birth of my first tiny human and I was trying to get her to fee
d. A friend of a friend twice removed asked, ‘Soooooo, how is she feeding? Oh and more importantly how many stitches did you have?’.

  Bang! No messing. No skirting around the proverbial bush. Straight for the vagina jugular.

  My poor vagina winced at the memory of the whole thing as I answered, ‘Urgggh I’m not sure, I don’t really know’. To this day I still don’t know. In fact, I’m quite happy I don’t. Following the birth of my eldest, I was so out of it that they could have been sewing on an elephant’s trunk down here and I wouldn’t have cared less.

  That may have been the first time I got asked about the welfare of my nether regions, but it most certainly wasn’t the last. And it didn’t matter where I was or who was asking – apparently me and the state of my vagina was fair game and up for debate with a whole host of people, ranging from over-friendly acquaintances to people I’d never met before, all discussing my nether regions and how they were recovering like they were chatting about the weather. ‘Ooh, lovely day today, so pleased the sun is out, how’s your fanny?’

  I would just like to say: Forgive me, but just because I’ve pushed a tiny human out of it, does not mean I now want to discuss how my vagina looks or feels with anyone, let alone the daughter of my Aunty Mary’s neighbour, whom I haven’t seen since I was four and sitting in a bucket of water in the garden during a balmy British heatwave. I don’t want to be part of The Fanny Files. As far as I’m concerned, we have to lose all sense of inhibitions and privacy when giving birth and I am OK with this. However, I’m afraid I’m not OK with it when fully dressed and in the local shop getting a pint of milk. (Obviously, writing about it here doesn’t count. You aren’t going to tell anyone, right?)

  THE FIRST TIME YOU LEAVE YOUR TINY HUMAN

  Like ripping off a Band-Aid that has been plastered onto your skin for a day too long, leaving your baby with someone else for the first time is scary and cold sweat inducing as you wonder if you can actually go through with it. Then you feel ridiculous because of course you should be feeling grateful for a break and then you feel racked with guilt for being grateful for being away from your tiny human. And so the guilt merry-go-round commences. Roll up, roll up! Tickets please, all aboard!

  Whether you are leaving them for ten minutes or ten hours, whether they are aged ten days, ten months or ten years, the feelings of guilt and anxiety are palpable as you battle with your rational mind on one hand and your steroid-enhanced emotions on the other. One tells you nothing bad will happen and that a break will do you good, the other accuses you of abandoning your defenseless tiny human and being totally selfish. Even, if you do happen to be abandoning them with their adoring grandparents and not in a shopping basket on the side of the road, the result is the same.

  I remember the first time my husband and I left our eldest to go for a meal out together. She was a few months old. My parents were visiting us and I had psyched myself up that I was going to be OK leaving her and that I wasn’t a bad mum for doing so. We had booked into a lovely restaurant just a short walk away from home and I had got myself showered and dressed in something other than the maternity leggings and jumper that had become my staple outfit. I felt good. I was going to enjoy my night with my husband. However, every step I took away from the house I felt a knot tighten in my stomach. I started to feel anxious and couldn’t get over the physical effect that leaving her had on me. However, I also knew that having some time for just Jamie and myself was also important, and that since we were living in France these moments of child care were going to be few and far between, so we needed to take them whilst we could.

  I managed to get through the meal with only a few phone calls and texts back home – to be told that she was sleeping and everything was fine (obviously) – and when we got home a couple of hours later, she was still sleeping and everything was still fine (obviously). However, throughout the whole meal I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should be home looking after her rather than out enjoying a meal (which I had been looking forward to) and I started to feel guilty.

  It’s crazy, isn’t it, that as much as you are longing for a bit of ‘me-time’, the moment you actually get it you then beat yourself up for having it and long to be back with your tiny human. So go easy on yourself. Whether you are feeling confident about leaving them or not, it’s important to remember that you are also important. That there was a you before there was a them and that sometimes amongst the magic and mayhem of being a mum you need to feel like ‘you’ again. A bit of time to yourself can help you remember this.

  SLEEP DEPRIVATION – OH SLEEP, WHEN WILL YOU BE MINE ONCE MORE?

  Two additional and equally delightful elements of new motherhood I experienced were the ever so distressing facts that:

  1. I was never going to sleep again. Ever; and, when I finally did sleep,

  2. Mummy guilt would ensure that my shuteye was more panicked than peaceful.

  Let’s start with the whole sleep thing, shall we?

  I love my sleep. I love my bed. Pre-motherhood, 10 a.m. (on a weekend) was getting up early. I have even been known (mainly in my student days) to conduct whole days, including meals, from the comfort of my own glorious, sleep-inducing, comfy as hell, bed. Therefore, the whole not sleeping thing, which we all have to endure after becoming a mum, didn’t go down that well. In fact, it turned me into a sleep obsessive demon, lusting after anything that resembled a bit of shuteye. (I was not a pretty sight – ask my hubby.) Our first tiny human was quite good at the whole sleeping thing: she would go down for her naps easily and when we first brought her home she was waking up every four hours for a feed. However, my second tiny human was not so much of a fan of the whole napping, resting or sleeping thing in general – and that drove me to the edge of delirium. One week straight of her waking every hour, night and day, for a feed, not wanting to sleep anywhere but on me (for which my eighteen-month-old toddler then spent the majority of the day screaming at me) and let’s just say I was on the edge … the edge of wanting to sleep anywhere even if it meant crawling up my own areshole to grab forty winks. So on edge that I just had to write about it and share my hell with every other mum going through the same.

  What I wrote went something like this;

  I’m SO Tired I Want to Crawl Up My Own Arse for a Nap

  I am so tired I want to crawl up my own arse and have a nap. Yes, not the first place that springs to everyone’s mind as a retreat of choice. However, I need somewhere, dark and uncrowded and, most importantly, somewhere no one (namely my tiny humans) would ever think I would be.

  Ladies, I give you my arsehole. The one place I will surely be safe from the screams and demands of a tiny toddler, the wails of a hungry newborn (who surely cannot STILL be hungry after being attached to my boob 24/7) and the forever growing washing pile and sticky-fingered windows I can no longer see out of, let alone summon up the energy to be arsed to wipe clean.

  Please someone, anyone, tell me when will this rational thought destroying and soul-sucking fatigue end?! When will there be a difference between night and day? When will I stop telling the time by how much my boobs resemble small heads wearing tiny brown hats? And when, oh when, will my bottom stop looking like a good place to stick my head up?!

  I want (no, screw that), I NEED to know that there is an end to this torture. That my life, currently made up of never-ending nights and fuzzy days, will at some point start to resemble something of my previous one. A life where 4 a.m. is not a lie-in. In fact, a life where 4 a.m. can go fuck itself completely unless it involves me dancing my arse off under neon lights after enjoying copious amounts of overpriced yet deliciously potent cocktails. That is the only way 4 a.m. should EVER exist in my consciousness.

  Please tell me this. How the hell am I supposed to be able to keep myself, let alone a tiny human alive and safe, if I don’t even have the energy to remember my own name, let alone the time of the last feed or where the hell I put the 2 a.m. nappy? I am sure the late night poo parcel will turn up eventually …
no doubt signalled by an overwhelming urge to retch as I catch an unexpected nose full of the eau de turd my little one has perfected.

  The life of a mum of a newborn and, let’s face it, of any sleep-depriving demon commonly known as our offspring, is one that stretches out before us in one continuous fug (aka fuzzy fog) of feeds, dirty nappies, swollen boobs, sterilising and pacing the hallway all whilst fighting murderous urges towards your snoring partner. Oh, if you just had the energy to weight down that pillow over his smugly sleeping face. (Oh yes, nothing quite like the 2 a.m., sleep-deprived rage of a new mum.)

  Lack of sleep, and lusting after a full unbroken four hours of it, consumes our every waking thought, which due to the nature of the bitch that is sleepless nights means we are consumed by it 24/7. We post about it on Facebook, discuss it on forums, resent those getting it and plead to anyone who will listen to share any pearls of wisdom on how to get our little ones to sleep for longer than two lousy hours at a time.

  Oh, the golden chalice of a four-hourly schedule. The joy of a 6.30 a.m. lie-in. The dare I say it (for fear it won’t ever happen) unadulterated pleasure of being able to get into bed knowing you will not have to be out of it for a blissful seven hours. When, oh when, will you be mine?

  I tell you when. ‘Who the fuck knows o’clock’ is when.

  In the meantime, peeps, you know where to find me …

  THE EVERY MUM GUIDE TO MUMMY GUILT

  (TO BE READ WHEN YOU NEED TO GIVE MUMMY GUILT A BIG KICK IN THE ARSE)

  We spend nine months trying to live like organic angels verging on born-again virgins, doing everything we can to grow a healthy tiny human. Buying into every miracle cream, vitamin and birthing class and book going. What keeps us committed through all the dry parties, the charcoaled steaks and inedible, non-runny eggs?