Water Birth Please!

Elizabeth King

Description

Why is it that having children affects our ability to speak proper English? What exactly is the "Wassat?" game? How can a seemingly harmless children's TV character give you a nosebleed? Water Birth Please is the Diary of a Mum muddling through each chaotic day with her gleefully troublesome toddler, Grace. Join them through a journey of pointless birth plans, disastrous diets, sleepless nights and social networking. A light hearted look at a little life based on original blog entries by the author. "Hail to the toddler! The stumbling, pointing, ga ga gaa-ing, smiling, gibbering, bashing, twirling, dribbling little person that rules our lives. Yes they scream and cry. Yes they throw wobblies. Yes, that little mouth will stay clamped tight when you are trying to insert wholesome food into it, and yet dog biscuits and wax crayons cannot be devoured fast enough. But MAN they don't half make you smile."

Sujets

• Humour

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 21 octobre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849897402
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page

WATER BIRTH PLEASE!




By
Elizabeth King




Publisher Information

Water birth please!
Published in 2011 by
Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

Copyright © Elizabeth King

The right of Elizabeth King to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.



January 1 st 2011

Happy New Year! I totally over-shopped for Christmas, with food in particular. It would be impossible to consume the amount of chocolate, chutneys, cheeses and Twiglets (mmmmm . . . Twiglets) that my husband and I bought between us over the festive season, and I wanted a healthy new start this year (again) damn it. Also, both of us and our little 1-year-old were wiped out by the very unpleasant tummy bug that seemed to be doing the rounds and ate next to nothing anyway. Upshot being: we are less than 24 hours into the New Year and I can already see the priority resolution of healthy eating slipping away from me. I have two chocolate oranges, half a box of Ferrero Rocher, a box of champagne truffles, two tubs of Twiglets (mmmmm . . . you get the idea) twelve tons of cheese and a multitude of things to dip, (and dips in which to dip them. ) I know what you’re thinking. I could just not eat them. But my head doesn’t really work like that - they need eating. It’s almost as if I need to go hell for leather, get them out the way, and THEN I can start my diet. Cause its health health health for me this year! Grace’s walking is getting better and better and she is constantly on the move, so that’s an awful lot of calories burned just following her and patching up the trail of destruction left behind. I must try to remember this positive slant to it when I try to sit down for five minutes to have a brew, and Grace thinks that this would be a good time to abandon the blocks she was sat quietly playing with, and toddle off into the kitchen to put all of the dogs’ biscuits into their water bowl. A current favourite pastime and apparently much more fun than anything Father Christmas brought.
So that’s it for my first entry this year, Diary. Short but sweet. I shall of course keep you posted with how the healthy eating’s going (when it starts!)
Now where did I put that chocolate orange . . .?




January 2 nd 2011

“ What Angel wakes me from my flowery bed?” . . . . . . is the quote I am sure that springs to most parents’ minds when their own little angel wakes them at ten to three in the morning screaming bloody murder and jumping furiously whilst clutching the end of the cot bed. Can someone please give me back my lovely daughter that sleeps through the night and take back the hysterical mess that’s had me awake since three? I don’t really understand why she’s started doing this. I stagger into the nursery, hair askew and bleary eyed, dutifully pick her up and change her nappy telling myself mentally over and over “NO cuddles. That’s what she wants. Can’t get into that habit. She needs to learn. Night time is for sleeping not cuddling”. Freshly changed and still screaming I pick her up to transfer her back to bed withOUT cuddling, when she pushes her head under my chin, wraps her warm little hand around my neck, thumb in and aaahhh . . . quiet. Ok, one five minute cuddle. That is IT then straight back into bed. After all it’ll probably help get her off again. Twenty minutes later when she finally sleeps in my arms I lay her gently back down. The eyes open. Bugger. I freeze anxiously; she’ll go back off again as long as she knows I’m here. She sucks her thumb and slowly drifts off again. I take a tentative side step, crab-like towards the door. No movement. So far so good. Another side step and PING she suddenly lifts her head and fixes her eyes on me. Again I freeze. It seems like an eternity as we eyeball each other until eventually, satisfied that I am still there with her, her eyes slowly close and the side stepping continues. I briefly wonder at the ridiculousness of inadvertently playing Grandma’s Footsteps with a 1-year-old in the middle of the night and manage to creep from the room and back into bed over an hour after she woke up. The lump next to me stirs briefly and a sleepy voice eminates from within the duvet somewhere “Do you need a hand?” I’m not answering that.
Twenty minutes later and the screams begin again. It’s a stale mate in the marital bed. We’re both awake. We both know the other is awake. We’re just hoping that the other one will get up first. It’s Stu. Yey! He goes in, lays her straight back down and gets back into bed. Just as I’m cursing him because she’s still crying and I’m thinking I’ll have to deal with it again, silence. Unbelievable! Oh well . . . I suppose it just means that Daddy is obviously better for night duties. Mwa ha ha ha ha (evil laugh.)
Re yesterday’s entry - half a tub of Twiglets and a chocolate orange down. . . COME ON!




January 14 th 2011

Grace has been uncharacteristically grouchy and clingy today. I’m back at work tomorrow after the Christmas holidays, I have a ton of stuff to get ready, and she knows it. It seems the only thing that can stop the whingeing, all be it temporarily, is if I burst spontaneously into song. This initially has a strange hypnotic effect on her - by which I mean she stops still and stares and me, then she’ll either decide the song is a hit (smile, stamp along and comply with whatever it is I’m trying to get her to do) or a miss (toddle off destroying things and continue to whine). As a result, my life today has been one long, really crap musical. Hits include “Please eat your breakfast” to the tune of Morning has Broken, “Mummy’s Ironing” - Eaton Rifles by The Jam, and “Don’t eat cotton wool, Grace” - Hi Ho Silver Lining. You get the idea. It’s been so hard to get anything done. I ended up cleaning the kitchen with her firmly attached, limpet-like to one leg. Every time I started to get frustrated with this I’d glance down to show her my displeasure but was greeted with that gorgeous little face, brow furrowed in anguish and big blue eyes searching mine - demanding to know why she’s having to grip my leg and is not in my arms. Eventually relenting I scoop her up and the furrowed brow melts into a happy, satisfied smile and she bashes happily on my chest “Ga Ga ga- ing” with pleasure. “What?” I ask her “What do you want Baby Girl?” A question I’ve no doubt that gets asked to toddlers and babies a million times a day the world over, even though we know there’ll be no response.