Life coaching for women

a sleepover

The boy came to stay the other night. It was the first time as, up to a few weeks ago, he was still having an early morning breastfeeed. I was very much looking forward to this important ‘first’, excited, yet with a few butterflies. I was also a little concerned as my partner was going to be out until early evening with an early start the next day and he needed a rested brain for a challenging presentation. Whereas normally he’d be up for pacing the floor, on this occasion the pressure was on to make sure he got a good night’s sleep.
The baby is a jolly little chap as a rule, but guess what, he was teething! Fab. Drooling for his country, big red apple of a right cheek and chewing like crazy on anything he could get in his mouth.

nifty nappy changing

Young sir has taken to doing acrobatics whilst having his nappy changed. For quite a while he’s preferred to stand whilst his mum attends to the business end. A bit tricky at first but she found that if she was fairly speedy and he was standing alongside his cot where she’d strategically placed a few toys a result could easily be achieved.
Recently however the whole thing has become a little more exciting. Now he doesn’t just roll over and get to his feet the second she lays him on the changing mat, he has taken to randomly sitting down in the middle of the process. Then standing up, then sitting down again. Without being too graphic, shall I just say it’s been rather messy. Not helped by his system having to get used to formula after having only had breast milk for 11 months.

baby led weaning - yum yum

The boy is doing ‘baby-led weaning’. i.e. no mush, just lumps of veg and fruit presented without fuss, as just an interesting thing to investigate, as soon as he could pick things up and with some degree of certainty guide them into his mouth. Duck to water, that’s my boy! In the past 5 months since he was introduced to carrot (steamed to perfection) he’s worked his way through broccoli (a particular favourite, to be eaten stem first, so that the floret looks like some kind of weird pacifier sticking out of his mouth), sweet potato, bananas (an entire plantation’s worth) tomatoes, cucumber, apples, pears, rice cakes, oatcakes, HOT CROSS BUNS! If you’d like to know more click here and there's lots more information, recipes and a support forum here.

big decision

In 1951 I was born at home - in those days around 50% of us were. By the time I had my third child at home (the first two were delivered in hospital) the rate had plummeted to 1%. Now it is gradually creeping up and is over 2% in many places in England and well over 3% in Wales.
The plan is for my grandson to be born in his mummy's bed at home - if this were to happen I think that, following back through his mother's maternal and paternal lines, none will have been born in hospital, which must be a bit of a rarity these days.
I've bought Nicky Wesson's Home Birth for my daughter to read. Fascinating stuff. And controversial of course. But that's the offspring of baby boomers for you. :)

a bargain

Back in the day we had prams and buggies - these days they have travel systems and strollers. I've commented before on the strange way that babies 'stuff' gets bigger and bigger, so am delighted that we've managed to find a 'travel system' that actually folds down quite small is only (!) 10 kg and can be both a pram and a pushchair.

Our 'about to pop' friend took my daughter and me on a fact-finding mission to Mothercare and Mamas and Papas. In fact she's already done the research and I know her well enough to be sure that whatever system she'd chosen would be the one that would suit M too. So, no surprises when we happened on the M & P's Pliko Pramette. It does the job beautifully, but is somewhat beyond the means of my grandson's mummy; in truth it's somewhat beyond the means of his granny. But where there's a will ...

a plethora of babies

By an extraordinary coincidence a majority of 'round robin' Christmas letters this year bore news of recently achieved or impending grandparenthood. And that's just for starters - this very day we've had news (and pics) of a beautiful little girl, born last night to a son of some very dear friends of ours, who have just pipped us to the post (hi P & A-M!). That's the second good friends to take delivery of a granddaughter in the past couple of weeks.
We hang out with quite a lot of people in their thirties and early forties and there are another 3 babies due from amongst their ranks over the next few months. Brilliant that my daughter is providing me with the perfect reason to be up close and personal engaging in lovely baby-centred conversations. It's been such a long time!

caught nappying

We have started to engage with the technology. Nappy technology that is.

Back in the day, one bought two dozen Harrington Gold Seal terry squares, and they did you for at least two babies. I augmented my supply with a fresh dozen on the arrival of the third child.

boys will be ...

When my son was a toddler (in the late 1970s and early 80s) in the circles to which I belonged the nature/nurture debate had swayed towards the belief that 'boy' traits were social constructs, and thus we encouraged our lads to be gentle, to play with dolls etc. They were perfectly happy to oblige (though I have to add that none of his peer group, boy or girl, was necessarily especially gentle). Now, I've noticed, we're moving back towards 'nature'. I certainly think that men and women may be wired differently, (but all men and all women? Not sure). All the same, I still find it hard when I see appalling behaviour being laughingly excused with a shrug and a wry 'boys! what can you do?'.

It's a boy!

We've known for about six weeks that my daughter's baby, due in April, is a wee boy. As is the way of these things (waiting for buses etc) I'm currently surrounded by pregnant women, aged 21 to 41,  and it is interesting to note those who do and those who don't want to know the sex of their offspring.

When I was producing my babies I would definitely have wanted to know had I had the option.  It would have saved months of obsessive speculation.

shock of the news

It took a while to get used to the idea when I found out I was going to be a grandmother.  My children haven't yet reached the stage where I felt a need to drop hints about 'getting on with it', so it  did come as a bit of a shock, my impending grandmotherhood. 
I mean an actual physical shock, a surge of some kind of chemical around my body that made my lips feel numb, and I forgot to breathe for a few seconds.  But then slowly, and with the need to show my daughter every kind of support, first of all I faked it and then (within minutes) I made it!  I am now utterly delighted and eager to welcome this new little person into our lives.