Over the past few days, I’ve finally started to accept that in two weeks time, I shall be joining the great unwashed of London and returning to work. I’ll be bitching about people releasing bodily functions in my vicinity, spending a fortune in Pret a Manger once again, and having to listen to that lunatic at Oxford Circus yell into his microphone “Are you a sinner or a winner?” every frigging day. I’ll be returning to internal meeting central, a political hotbed, and impromptu Michael Jackson performances. In a very odd way I’m actually looking forward to it, I just wish I could get the sickening feeling out of my stomach that I get every time I look at the bambino and imagine not seeing her cheeky face all day long. Christmas and New Year are traditionally times of change, so as well as returning to work (BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!), I have also started to accept that I need to give up that one last breast feed. I actually loved still breastfeeding her in the morning but recently she’s taken to making my nipples feel like they’ve been rubbed on a cheese grater. Much as I love the closeness, it was convenient to be able to stick her on the boob and lean back against the pillows in a half asleep fog, but she’s killing those sleepy feeds by trying to take my nipple half way across the room with her when she decides that she just HAS to know what her dad is doing. Suddenly venturing down to the cold kitchen for a few minutes seems like a more favourable prospect…

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One of the first things people say to you when you have a baby is to start looking for childcare. They don’t tell you that childbirth actually really, really hurts, or that you never do quite return to your minimal farting self, but they do advise that you start making the rounds of childminders and nurseries as soon as you’re mobile again.

Now I know that I’ve been mobile since about six weeks after the birth of the bambino but I only started looking for childcare last week. She’s just over six months old….and I return to work in just over 4 weeks… Aaaaaaaghhh! Being totally truthful, I figured that if I didn’t look for a childminder, returning to work wouldn’t seem real, and I could pretend that my maternity leave went on forever. Who knew I would enjoy being at home so much?

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Recently there has been a lot of discussion in the press about the pressure that women feel to be perfect (Gosh there’s a revelation) and at the time when I read it I didn’t attribute these fears to myself. After all, right now when I look around I see the Sunday papers that we still haven’t finished reading, my toast crusts from this morning on the plate beside me, a pile of post to sort through, the bambino’s breakfast stuff to wash up, the laundry to put away, the washing I need to put in the washing machine, packing for our trip in a couple of days, and numerous boxes of stuff that still need to be sorted through and unpacked due to our recent house renovations. AND I’m typing this in my pyjamas and it’s after midday…

This is hardly the home of a domestic goddess, more like a domestic catastrophe… I don’t think that I want to be perfect (If I do I’m seriously failing at it) but I recall some days recently where I felt like I could jump on a table and scream my head off like a banshee out of frustration at my never-ending to do list, and I wonder if instead of trying to be perfect, am I trying to be superwoman and cram everything in?

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I realised a couple of months ago that pregnancy and childbirth had killed off all sense of shame when I found myself standing half naked in the nurses office at my doctors surgery, having an accidental game of hot potato with my diaghram as we both howled with laughter. I’d gone there for a demonstration on how to use it and as she explained how to apply spermicidal cream and insert it (yeah I apologise if you’re eating whilst reading this), I felt myself grow hot and queasy, as it all seemed so complex. “You’ll have to try putting it in yourself and then I’ll check to see if you have it in correctly” she said and catching my panic stricken face she added “Sorry, you have to. I won’t be at your house to come and help you when you want to have sex….” That’s a shame….I thought….

Slippery little suckers doesn’t even begin to describe these cap things that are supposed to stop you from creating babies. Trust me…the palaver of trying to put the thing in is contraception in itself…. As I tried to hold onto it with fierce concentration, it shot across the room as if it had been launched by a canon…

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I remember going into the tube station and cacking myself over a gang of ‘youths’ because I had brushed against one of the girls accidentally and she had chosen to cuss me all the way to the platform. It’s a measure of how scared I was that I didn’t tell her what she could go and do with herself. Now I’m scared of a different type of gang and they’re at least fifteen years older, breasts full of milk, or brandishing bottles of formula, with a sprog on their arm. Groups of mothers or ‘Mummy Gangs.’

I had my last postnatal group yesterday and I admit that aside from willing myself to leave the house every Monday morning instead of staying home and listening to the builder bring my house to its knees…the experience of sitting with a room full of women who all conceived around the same time as me, wasn’t too horrific. There were no racist comments, nobody told me that my child weighs as much as she does because black people have heavier bones…and there wasn’t the constant intense discussions about who is doing what and being made to feel like I was at rehab. But don’t think for one minute that I managed to escape the madness of being around mothers…

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I recently read an article about a new parenting ‘fad’ where babies don’t wear nappies and instead are held over a toilet or bowl when the parent senses that the baby is ready to relieve themselves because they believe it’s cruel that babies have to sit in their own waste. Are these people on crack?! They are babies! They have no control over their bodily functions! What’s next? A new fad where you don’t use sanitary ware when you have your period?! I don’t bloody think so! Anyway…I digress….

Ask my work colleagues, I am a moan when it comes to the total misuse of toilets (don’t get me started ladies who hover) and I have been accused of having a sense of smell comparable with a sniffer dog on a drug haul, so you can imagine how nervous I felt about the prospect of changing shedloads of nappies. When my daughter was born, for the first few days we kept commenting about this lovely ‘biscuity’ smell that she had. It wasn’t Jaffa Cakes or Waitrose Caramel Shortcake…and more Marks and Spencers Giant Handmake Cookies…

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When I was single people were always asking “Why are you still single?” as if I knew the magical answer to why I drew in assclowns from all over. I always thought that once I got a boyfriend that I would be free of inane questions but if people aren’t asking “So when are you guys getting married?” they are quick out the gate to ask when we’ll be giving our daughter a brother or sister.

Now let’s put things into perspective. Tomorrow it’ll be five months since the little minx needed two strong tugs to get her out of the cosy confines of my womb. That’s five MONTHS, not five frickin years! Where is the fire? We’ve been living in our house the same amount of time and we’ve only just started the renovation so you can be pretty sure that reproducing or getting married hasn’t been at the top of our agenda. Have people nothing better to do than ask silly questions? But most importantly, what type of response do they want?

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“What are you doing?” asked the boyf at 10.30pm last Friday night. “Cleaning the bathroom….” I hollered back. No I haven’t got a sudden penchant for housework but scrubbing the entire bathroom seemed to be the only way I could tune out my daughters screams whilst he tried to soothe her. I had been tempted to go downstairs and watch my recording of Ugly Betty but much like sex, it’s difficult to lose yourself in the moment if you have someone screeching the place down in the background. Babies…they can kill your libido stone dead AND your ability to watch TV comfortably…

As it goes, we recognise that we’re fortunate to have had our “Worst Night Ever” ™ with her almost five months after she has arrived but why does my daughter have to have a cold, be a diva, and in the meantime I’ve suffered hideous engorgement and a diminished milk supply and all in the matter of three days?

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I attended my first postnatal group at my surgery yesterday and I must admit to feeling a little trepidation. Before my NCT experience, I would have been excited at the prospect of meeting new people and sharing experiences, but instead I felt wary. If motherhood has taught me anything it’s that it’s not easy being mothers together.

I arrived almost ten minutes late because my daughter did a poo just before we walked out the door with her perfect timing… As I took my seat in the incredibly hot room, I felt everyone checking me out and inwardly groaned at the thought of at least eighteen more years of this.

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I’ve long held the opinion that we live in a nanny state where if we’re not careful, the government will monitor our every movement like in Enemy of the State. However since becoming a mother, ‘nanny state’ has taken on a whole new meaning. When you have a child you court the opinion of your parents, extended family, your NCT group, colleagues, neighbours, that woman behind the till in Waitrose, health visitors, midwives, your GP, the man at the train station, the crazy guy that shouts along to his iPod at the bus stop… You get the idea…

I’ve recently taken the decision to start weaning the bambino and slipping her a bottle of formula most days, and by God, the opinion floodgates have opened! The Department of Health recommends exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months but not only do they forget that every baby is different, but that this time period has varied over the years to as little as 12 weeks for weaning (Mine is almost 18 weeks). I appreciate that some babies have allergies etc but many women wean before 6 months and the earth is still turning…

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