This is my current Facebook status. For those who have already been fooled by a status similar to this, you know it’s part of the latest Breast Cancer Awareness game. For the uninitiated, anyone who comments or likes my status then has to update their current status from one of seven random, awkward or randomly awkward status’ and so it continues. Brilliant campaign…. Although now my mind is racing as to who saw my status and thought “I’m never shaking her hand again!” but didn’t comment or like. They will never know it was a joke and privately – thats the worst part, forever question my personal hygiene standards. (…No comment necessary Husband) The best part at least will be the money and awareness raised for Cancer Research.
On the other (clean and sanitised) hand of the February tis Charity season spectrum is the Dettol Baby Blanket drive. Following in the footsteps of Rachel Stevens, oh yes, I was also asked to donate a blanket to the Dettol Baby Blanket Donation campaign. Each blanket donated will find new homes with families and babies who really need them, moreover for each baby blanket donated Dettol will donate £1 to the Sparks Children’s Charity.
Just like the Breast Cancer Awareness game, of course, no modern day charity campaign would be complete without a social media “presence“. The #sharethememories hashtag encourages parents to share special baby and blanket memories and photos on twitter et al before donating their blankets. Yes absolutely lovely idea! Yummy Mummy Alert etc.. But after eagerly donating one of little man’s blankets, why didn’t the relentless proud parent posting and hashtagging follow suit, yet I didn’t hesitate to choose one of the most embarrassing status to share with all my friends? Alas.. It seems that motherhood hasn’t quite straightened out my “quirky” sense of humour just yet.
This Friday is the last day to donate your old baby blankets to the Dettol Campaign.
I should probably state very clearly at the beginning of this blog I love being a mummy and how it has changed my life and of course my little one means EVERYTHING to me. Now that I have made that perfectly clear, lets cut to the chase..
Common to most Mums To Be, I savagely devoured every book, magasine, and website about pregnancy and parenting that I could lay my chubby little hand on. Even so, for the first few weeks I often found myself fretting whether something was “normal” and would end up spending hours trawling the internet for reassurance and relief. Was it just me or had those books censored out the “Not So Disney moments”?
So I’m defying the censors! Here are my top ten “Not So Disney” moment experiences, those random things that have kept me amused, confused and bemused over the past couple of weeks as a new mum.
Please feel free to add yours in the comments and reassure me I’m not alone 😉
1) The Circle of Life
Newly born babies do not look like they do on the TV. Oxytocin had blinded me to the white slime and blood splattered across Our Little One’s body BUT his head shape startled me. The distaughted conical shape of his head was concerning simply because no one else seemed to acknowledge it. Were they just being polite? No, they were just aware that this Not So Disney moment would pass and was part and parcel of birth. Unaware of how his fleeting looks would change, my main thought was that he was healthy, a mothers love is boundless. My son was this beautiful grey baby; covered in blood, white slime and slicked back hair covering his conical head and I loved him to pieces.
2) Shadow Land
Our Little One was born with a full head of black curly hair, fuzzy arms and legs and we watched (practically) his eye lashes grow within the first 24 hours…. But not one lash on his brow. This seems pretty insignificant but a 5 0’clock shadow over your first son’s eyes for the first couple of months is a slightly distracting sight.
3) Can you paint with all the colours of the wind?
Ante natal classes were brilliant for showing me how to wind my little one correctly, but never did they mention that- ahem- the wind would blow from Northern and Southern directions. Previously, it was inconceivable that such a loud noise could originate from something so cute and little. Although rather amusing (accept in public when suspicion naturally falls on me – and is almost 50% of the time misplaced), OLO’s gas became so excessive that I had to change my diet completly. Bizarrely it was all the healthy options that were the worse culperits.. greens, brocoli, onions, chick peas.. Yep Pizza O’clock.
4) The Bare Necessities
In the first couple of days of life bowel movements are one of the few obvious ways of telling whether a newborn is ‘thriving” or not and so naturally we were on instant nappy watch. Now the consistency, colour and range of baby poop is well documented but the regularity not so! Our Little One went for three days without passing, and I kept worrying until I hit the parenting forums and discovered that even up to four days is perfectly normal! Never had I imagined I’d become a nappy stalker, willing him to soil his nappy just so I was reassured that everything was working fine.
5) Friend Like Me
We spent a fair amount on time and molah decorating the nursery, buying all those eye catching educational toys and wall stickers. But OLO loves nothing more than staring at a blank wall, ceiling, window, shadow, the metal bracket that holds up the expensive educational toy etc. It must be pretty cool when EVERYTHING is a brand new hypnotising experience for you to explore, ok that’s a Disney moment, I can feel a song sequence brewing as I type.
6) By the Light of the Silvery Moon
Sleeping through the night is a myth. The Not So Disney truth is that “sleeping through the night” actually means sleeping for a period of 5-6 hours. Pre baby that would have been a sign of a good night out, now that’s considered a good night’s sleep. That said OLO has recently managed to “sleep through the night” and it did feel marvelous. How things have changed.
7) Let It Go
Planes fly low over head, pneumatic drills pound the pavement outside, Guy Falkes Night firework displays light up the night sky and still OLO will stay fast asleep. That is until I sneeze. OLO’s selective hearing is incredible, his timing comedic, although most of the time he is the only one who seems to be laughing 😉
8) Under the sea
The first night we laid OLO in his crib all I wanted to do was watch him sleep and listen to him breathe. If I had known that babies breathing patterns can include ten second pauses this experience may not have been so traumatic. Turns out after swimming about in a sac of water for nine months, baby lungs don’t have much on the job experience. For the first couple of weeks breathing regularity was more novelty than function.
9) A Whole New World
The first couple of weeks in OLO’s social calendar was fully booked. What with midwife, doctor, health visitor, and immunisation appointments; and friend and relative visits, OLO was very much the baby about town. However, the unDisney truth is newborn babies have their own plans and from the moment they are born they then become your plans. You cannot rush a newborn you will miss that 9 am doctors appointment and you will breastfeed your baby in a public place.
10) Hakuna Matata
For all his strange smells, sounds and eccentricities OLO makes my heart explode with joy, pride and love. The amount of love and happiness he has brought into my life is overwhelming! Never could I have known how amazing being a mother would feel. Ok – that is also a very Disney moment, but you knew this blog post had to have a happy ending 😉
