It’s been a while. A long while, actually. It’s amazing how busy looking after two little humans (and one big human) can keep you. But now that Orla has started going to nursery two days a week, it’s time for me to try to get some of myself back. I’ve started working again, I’ve joined a gym, and I’ve finally started writing the book that I’ve been trying to find time to write for years. And hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze the odd blog post in now and again….
I’ll keep it short and sweet, as my two Orla-free days seem to fly by so I haven’t got much time. Since I last posted, we’ve moved house, Poppy’s lost seven teeth, I’ve finally got divorced after a five-year separation (hurrah!), Poppy’s turned six, Orla’s turned one, I’ve changed (roughly) seven million nappies, we’ve been to Ireland twice, have had a household full of illness all winter (which included pneumonia), have wiped about three litres of snot from Orla’s nose, and we’ve had three fairies move into Poppy’s bedroom, which, believe me, is a stressful business.
Poppy’s new year’s resolution is to learn to ride her bike, Orla’s is to learn to walk (according to Poppy), and Paddy’s is to learn to drive. Mine is to learn how to juggle everything I have to do without drowning. I’ll keep you posted on our progress…wish us luck!
It’s only taken me almost seven weeks, but here it is, my baby announcement. Orla arrived on St Patrick’s Day, much to the utter delight of her Irish daddy. In the end, she was born four weeks early after I began bleeding again and showed signs of early labour. My C-section was classed as an emergency, though – thanks to the fact I’d eaten two slices of toast that morning – I actually had several hours to get my head around the fact I would be meeting my daughter that day. Despite the fact she was going to be premature, I was relieved the consultant took the decision to deliver her when she did. My hospital stay had become pretty tough, particularly that week as Poppy had picked up a sickness bug and was crying down the phone to me, begging me to go home to her. Every part of me wanted to up and leave so I could be with my little girl, but I knew that would be a stupid thing to do. And of course, she couldn’t come up to the hospital to visit me either as we couldn’t risk the spread of infection. It broke my heart.
So it was with nervous excitement that me and Paddy laughed and joked away the hours waiting in the labour ward for the operation I’d spent weeks and weeks worrying about. We met the team who were going to be performing my surgery, who tried their best to convince me that, basically, they had got this. Just before we left for the operating theatre, The Proclaimers and The Pogues came on the radio in the labour suite, as if to confirm Orla’s Scottish and Irishness.
At that point, my nerves really got the better of me, and as I sat on the hospital bed in the floodlit theatre, with Paddy kitted out in ridiculous ill-fitting hospital scrubs, it felt like the set of a film, not something that was happening to me. My entire body began to shake, and I remember being asked if my heart rate was always that high, thinking ‘do I really need to answer that?!’ We were encouraged to put on some music, so a rather bizarre conversation about indie music and Bluetooth connection ensued as the anaesthetist inserted a spinal into my back, pointing out the microscopic mistake her predecessor had made just over five years ago when I was giving birth to Poppy, which meant my epidural didn’t work. I remember thinking she was amazing to be able to spot that, and I felt safe in her hands.
The operation itself was pretty straight forward. I lay there chatting to Paddy about the amazing spa weekend he was obligated to buy me for going through all this, while LCD Soundsystem, Father John Misty and Metronomy provided the soundtrack (Orla was pulled out to Metronomy’s The Look). I didn’t really know for sure that they had started until the midwife announced our baby would be here in five minutes or so. There was some almighty tugging inside my stomach, there was some much-welcomed crying as she was pulled out of her home of eight months, and there she was. At five minutes past seven, Orla finally entered our world.
So, Poppy finally got her wish – a baby in my tummy. Which explains my blogging absence over the past little while. I’ve been absent from many aspects of life recently – I’d forgotten just how exhausting being pregnant is. I’d forgotten a lot about pregnancy actually. I guess your memory wipes itself a little bit, erasing all the horrible parts so that you’re not put off ever reproducing again.
At 16 weeks, I’m starting to feel it fluttering around inside, and that’s the part of pregnancy that your memory keeps. That stage of feeling the first signs of life growing inside of you is the best feeling in the world.
I remember feeling Poppy’s first tiny kicks, but it’s sometimes now hard to imagine she was ever just the image on a scan. And now she’s holding a scan picture of her little brother or sister, desperate to be able to feel those kicks with her own hand.
Suffice to say, she’s over the moon with the news, and – on occasion – is even cutting me a bit of slack when I don’t feel like chasing her in the park or lifting her up the stairs.
To watch the video of her initial reaction to the baby news, visit http://www.facebook.com/writeonmumblog. Her complete and utter disbelief is just the sweetest.
It’s hard to believe this is Poppy’s fourth week of being “a big schoolgirl” (a phrase I am using very frequently in a futile bid to get her to actually act like one). The weeks have flown by, and I’m pleased to report that at this stage, she is absolutely loving it. She skips off with her class quite happily every morning, following the teacher she already idolises, and chatting with her newfound friends. You should see the grin on her face on the days she’s first in line in the mornings. Those are the days the teacher will hold her hand during the walk to the classroom. Those are the days she is Queen Bee.
“Losing” her to school has been nowhere near as traumatic as I thought it would be. I spent so long fearing the unknown, dreading her first day, and just generally overthinking the life out of it all, that by the time it actually came round, I was almost over the whole thing already.
It was a gorgeous sunny day, and the walk to school was just a sea of tiny children in red cardigans and jumpers, all greeting each other along the way, looking pristine and far too small to be wearing school uniform. As I kissed her goodbye and held her tight in the playground, I was glad of the sunshine and the fact it meant I could wear sunglasses, as I shed a few secret tears before releasing my grip and setting her free. But she gave me the strength not to be sad. Her whole face was beaming, and she was oozing happiness and excitement. How could I be sad when she was so ecstatic about this new chapter in her life?
Shedding a sneaky tear.
And, to be honest, having peace to have a coffee and eat my full Scottish breakfast outside – yep, it was THAT warm – in a nearby cafe with my boyfriend and brother afterwards quickly took away any remaining doubts I had.
The past couple of months have pretty much been non-stop. In fact, there was a point when I hadn’t spent a weekend at home for about 6 weeks. We had Thailand, then Stone Roses in Dublin (I left Poppy with my parents for that one, much to her disgust), London, then London again, then Dumfries to stay with gran and granddad, then Ireland for a wedding…..and we have just returned from our most recent weekend away in the Highlands.
So, I’m officially hanging up my holiday hat for the year and getting back to business. Poppy has started school (will post about that later) so our lives will now be dictated by term times and her social calendar.
In the absence of frequent blogging during the course of these adventures, I’m copping out and posting a series of photos instead to illustrate the past couple of months.
The hair braids that took as long to take out as they did to get in.Kata Beach, Phuket.The waterpark that got her through the vaccinations.A lifetime dream come true – finally got to see The Stone Roses.Bowie in Brixton.Another trip to London, another boat trip along the Thames….Toasting marshmallows in Dumfries.T-shirt friends.Scrubbing up.This is going to end up costing me big-time….Checking out an Iron Age crannog.
As I watched Poppy proudly connecting the “number monkeys” together, surrounded by her soon-to-be new classmates, I suddenly realised that I just have to let go. The beaming smile on her face during her first classroom visit said it all: she is beyond excited about starting school, and more than ready for all the learning challenges awaiting her.
I’d always given a little sneer at those mums who cried when their “babies” went to “big school”. I thought they were a bit pathetic, if I’m honest. I mean, it’s not as if they didn’t know it was going to happen. “Oh how is my baby going to school?” they’d post on Facebook. Well, because they’re four or five, and the law states that they have to – d’oh. But man are my chickens coming home to roost. Every time I go into what will be her primary school come August, I well up. Every time I think about her starting school, I literally have to fight the tears from my eyes. I bought her school uniform last week and got her to try it on…..you can imagine how that went.
I don’t ask myself “how” this has happened. For me, Poppy’s four years in this world have had a dramatic impact. They haven’t passed with the blink of an eye. They have been tough. In all honesty, they have been the hardest four years of my life. Bringing up a child is not easy. And bringing up a child on your own is certainly no picnic. I know a lot of my friends complain about their husbands being useless a lot of the time, but just having someone – just physically having someone – there to take the strain for an hour before bedtime, or half an hour in the morning so you can shower in peace, is better than nothing. And let’s not even mention weekends. So, yeah, I’m probably more aware than most of every passing month and year that got us where we are today.
My difficulty with her starting school is more a fear than an inability to understand how it’s come to this. Fear of the unknown, and fear of the known. Poppy is the sweetest, kindest, most good natured little girl I know – on a good day – and I worry so much that school will either change that, or take advantage of that. The thought of anyone picking on or hurting my little girl is unbearable. Last week she told me a little boy at nursery said she had fat legs and I’m not even going to admit what I wanted to say back to him. Instead, I told her that her legs weren’t fat, they were strong and healthy and why she was so fast at running. Afterwards she said: “I’m glad I told you mummy”, which just took my breath away. What I hope more than anything in the world is that she can always talk to me, and she can always tell me if anything is worrying or upsetting her. I guess that’s every mother’s wish.
After seeing her so happy and inspired during her classroom visit, I just have to accept that school is what she needs, and learning new things is what she craves. And even though it’s hard for me to “give her up” to the big wide world, I’ll just have to do my crying in secret and paint the biggest smile on my face when I wave her off on her first day at school.
A few years ago, my mum admitted she cried the whole two-hour car journey home after she and my dad deposited me at university in Edinburgh when I was just 17 years old. I mocked her ridiculousness. It’s true when they say some things you just can’t understand until you’re a mum yourself.
Saturday went pretty much as expected. The Lily soft toy bribe was a resounding success (score) and she was full of bravado all the way to the clinic. Part of me felt slightly optimistic about the appointment, while the other part laughed in the face of such ridiculous optimism.
The doctor seemed to spend an eternity talking us through the recommended vaccinations for Thailand, all the while I was aware Poppy was taking every bit of information in and getting more and more uneasy with every passing minute. Eventually he handed over control of the medical chair in his office and she was quite delighted at being able to move herself up and down like she was on some kind of fairground ride.
When we finally decided that we were all going to go for the rabies vaccination (she’s also scared of dogs, so this seemed like a no brainer), the doctor suddenly announced that this particular jab requires a course of three.
Our faces fell.
“You mean we have to come back again? Two more times?”
I could have cried.
And then it was time. I went first, which was probably a big mistake as I am not the best with needles myself and apparently my face gave off the opposite vibe to the picture of serenity I was trying to create for Poppy’s benefit.
By this point she was in the classic self-preservation/psychotic position, knees up to her chest, rocking back and forth.
“I don’t want to go to Thailand, I just want to go home!” she repeated over and over, tears starting to form.
My boyfriend was up next. His (genuine) lack of fear did nothing to alleviate the situation either. Her increasing panic progressed quickly from crying to screaming as she realised it was her turn next.
There was only one thing for it. I scooped her up, sat down with her on my knee, asked my boyfriend to help me pin her arm down to the table, and told the doctor to just stick the needle in her arm. She was screaming. And I mean screaming.
And then it was over.
“Did it go in my arm or in my leg?” she asked. *face palm*.
The doctor said that was the loudest screaming he’d heard all year. We paid a small fortune for the privilege and booked two further appointments.
Then we got Poppy her last bribe – an ice lolly – for being “so brave”, drove to her dad’s, kissed her goodbye, and went straight to the pub.
Well, The Day of the Holiday Vaccinations (as I fear it will be forever known) is almost upon us. I booked us into a private clinic to get them done so that we could get a Saturday appointment, meaning my boyfriend can be there to help me pin Poppy down.
There was mild panic earlier in the week when he reported that the Lily Bobtail soft toy requested by Poppy as her vaccination bribe – which she had spied on our trip to London – was no longer in Hamleys.
Our text conversation went like this:
Him: “May have to get Lily online.”
Me: “Oh no, are there none left?”
Him: “They had a tiny one called Floppy.”
Me: “Do you mean Flopsy?!”
Him: “Yep.”
Me: “Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail are Peter Rabbit’s sisters!”
Him: “Will try somewhere else tomorrow.”
Me: “Getting nervous now!”
Him: “About the jabs? Or about no Lily rabbit?”
Me: “No Lily.”
Him: “Who’s Lily then?!”
Me: “She’s Peter’s clever, brave friend!”
Him: “There’s no Lily rabbit?! I’m confused!”
With the prospect of having to go through this stressful scenario again, he took to Amazon and found one that would be delivered in time. It has just arrived and is almost the size of Poppy…..which she is either going to love, or is going to moan about because it’s not the same as the one she saw in Hamleys.
The giant Lily.
So I remain in my constant state of nervousness. Roll on 10.30am on Saturday when this will (hopefully) all be over….
Men. Apparently, you can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them. Personally, I disagree. I think the real saying should substitute the word ‘men’ for ‘children’. To me, that’s far closer to the truth.
Take Saturday, for example. We attended the fifth birthday party of Poppy’s friend from nursery. Of course, she had a great time – who wouldn’t when you spend an hour bouncing on trampolines and then half an hour stuffing your face with sweets, crisps and cake? But sadly, it meant the rest of the day was an absolute write off, especially for me. It evaporated in a haze of sugar and E numbers, leaving behind only the remnants of a child who started out the day looking like a perfect party princess and ended it looking like the Tasmanian devil. Fortunately for me, I could see light at the end of the tunnel. Usually I’d have to just grin and bear it, and remember that come 7pm, that sauvignon blanc in the fridge would be very swiftly winging its way down my throat. But, on this particular day, I was dropping her off at her dad’s at 4pm, so I knew with a little bit of careful handling, I could survive this. I could get to 4pm and send her on her merry way to her dad’s (allowing her to eat some party bag loot en route because the resulting behaviour wasn’t going to be my problem) in time for a dinner and bedtime meltdown on his watch. Score.
The thing is, though, that despite the clock watching that afternoon, followed by the relief of being able to get ready for a night out without little hands grabbing my make-up and trying on high heels, I instantly missed her. It’s like that feeling when you think you’ve left your hair straighteners on and you’ve gone on holiday for a week….you have to stop yourself from turning back and checking because you know, deep down, it will be fine.
Nursing the hangover of all hangovers on Sunday didn’t help with my feeling of melancholy, combined with hanging out with friends and their children – one of whom is the same age as Poppy. And while I was glad I didn’t have to take a turn at toilet duty, or worry about making a healthy dinner when all I wanted to do was order in a Chinese and watch back-to-back episodes of Once Upon A Time, I just felt the sun had disappeared behind a cloud the whole time she was away.
Don’t get me wrong, most of the time I’m really grateful for the break from the relentless demands, and strops, and questions….but this time felt particularly hard.
When it was finally time to pick her up from nursery – after three sleeps away – I felt immediately like everything was right again. The sun had come back out, and I didn’t mind that she moaned about what I’d made her for dinner, or that we had to watch Elf even though it’s not Christmas, or even that she kept breaking wind and laughing about it like a maniac.
My sunshine.
So yeah, you can’t live with them sometimes, but they are impossible to live without.
In my job, I have witnessed some awful things. I have arrived on the scene just moments after a young girl was decapitated by a car in a hit-and-run. I have seen photos during an inquest of a father who hanged himself from a tree, and watched the utter heartbreak of his grieving family as they unwittingly looked at the same images. I have seen fear, squalor, depravity. I have interviewed murderers and had to be polite and professional on the phone to convicted sex offenders and paedophiles as they ranted about my newspaper’s coverage of their horrific actions. I have listened to a woman’s graphic account of years of child abuse at the hands of a family member. I have seen a dead body after a week lying undiscovered in the Water of Leith, bloated, discoloured, barely recognisable as the man he once was. I have drank tea in the home of a family who lost their beautiful ten-year-old boy to a hit-and-run driver in a stolen car trying to escape police capture.
Two of those things made me cry. I remember clearly the drive home through tears after watching the devastated family in front of me in the courtroom sobbing when the coroner – rather cruelly, in my opinion – showed them the photos they could never unsee. And I cried every night for a week after listening to the father of the young boy so tragically killed on his way home from school talk about the son he would never see again. I couldn’t get my head around how life could be so unfair, and also couldn’t begin to understand how the boy’s grieving family were capable of such immense courage and resilience. I still can’t let myself think about it too much.
Both those stories I covered relatively early on in my career. I didn’t grow less sympathetic as the years went on, but I did grow hardened to the fact that life can be horrendous at times and that bad things happen every single day. They just happen. As a journalist, you quickly develop a skin thick enough to allow you to deal with situations like the ones described above; to get involved in someone’s tragedy to the point where they open up to you and share their innermost grief and suffering, and then walk away and barely think of it ever again. You also develop a humour black enough to make light of the most devastating situations. I quickly got to the stage where I no longer cried about the things I’d witnessed in my job, and stopped taking everyone’s pain and anguish home with me.
But today I’m worried about an interview I have to carry out with a young mum who lost her newborn baby. Since having my own child, I struggle to deal with stories like this anymore. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain and there seem to be no words capable of describing it. Where the rookie reporter me would have felt great sympathy, I am now capable of that more powerful emotion of empathy.
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