How to be a yummy mummy

As I put the finishing touches on my outfit to go out a few weeks ago, I thought, "yes, I could pass for a yummy mummy".  Then I thought, "wait, why do I aspire to yummy-mummyness?"  Dumb question you're thinking - but isn't it like aspiring to be a slapper?  Depends on your definition of yummy mummy.  There are seven official definitions of "yummy mummy" in Urban Dictionary.  To summarise:

To be a "yummy mummy" you must be:

·        young (generally under 30) - if you're over 30 and aspire to the characteristics below you're probably a MILF (we'll come to MILFs in a moment)

·        sexually attractive (the definitions do not specify to whom)

·        interested in looking good ("Yummy mummies usually wear trendy clothes, have great hairstyles and always look fabulous." and "Yummy mummies disguise bleary eyes with Gucci sunglasses and recommend pregnancy to female friends as a fabulous way to detox.")

·        overall just a lovely person ("A yummy mummy does not judge other mothers, but shows kindness, compassion and cares for others.")

And my personal favourite:

"A 'Yummy Mummy' is basically a MILF, but the term yummy mummy is vastly used by male geeks and female fatties."

That brings us to the term MILF (do NOT google this term at work).  I'll leave it to you to find it on Urban Dictionary if you haven't heard of it.  MILF.  It even sounds a bit creepy, like a speech impediment.  And describing someone as one - sorry to point this out but hasn't someone already done that?

I am reading Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom" at the moment - his take on MILFs made me smile:

"Joey directed a smile of pure oppression at the ceiling.  There had always been something not quite right about his interactions with Carol.  She was what the prep-school boys on his hall and the fraternity brothers ... were wont to call a MILF (an acronym that, in Joey's opinion, sounded faintly cretinous for its omission of the T for "to")."

You get the picture straight away right?  I picture someone like Petal, played by Cate Blanchett in The Shipping News. 

It is telling, I think, that the Urban Dictionary contains only one (unintelligible) definition of "supermom" and no definition of "supermum" (though "supermurgatroid" is in there).  I think I'd rather be a supermum than a yummy mummy or a MILF.  My definition of supermum is as follows:

A “supermum”:

·        is usually showered and dressed by lunchtime

·        may or may not be able to whip up a batch of peanut-butter cookies while her LO is sleeping

·        aspires to do at least one load of washing in a day, but doesn't beat herself up if that doesn't happen

·        feels great about motherhood, most of the time

·        is not afraid to get down on the carpet and PLAY, even if the vacuuming hasn’t been done in a while

·        is someone you'd describe as supermurgatroid.

Now this is a label I aspire to.  I'll be entering it into the Urban Dictionary as soon as I've had a shower and whipped up a batch of peanut butter cookies.

An unseemly preoccupation with size

We are, as a society, preoccupied with size.  Particularly the size of newborn babies.  I find myself answering the question before it's even asked - you just know it's coming.

Grandad's reaction: "wow, over 9 pounds!  I caught a trout that big once."

[source]

As if hauling in a 9 pound trout was equivalent to 27 hours of labour.

And a friend: "just think, that's about 9 blocks of butter!"

All I could think was that I was glad babies don't have so many corners and scratchy wrapping.

At every turn, (it seemed almost daily in those first weeks), Milkbaby is weighed and measured, his growth carefully recorded in his book and plotted on a graph.  Yesterday he had another such weigh-in.

But why all this measuring and weighing?  Does it serve any real medical purpose?

Having done a little research, I'd like to record here, for posterity, that size does not matter.  It's growth that counts.

The Motherhood Archipelago

It's like a forced labour camp, this motherhood business.  

Solzhenitsyn's classic, "The Gulag Archipelago", is a three volume description of life in a Soviet labour camp (I can only claim to have read the first volume).  An archipelago is a chain or cluster of islands (notice a theme?).  According to Wikipedia, the word Archipelago (in The Gulag Archipelago) compares the system of labor camps (gulags) spread across the Soviet Union with a vast "chain of islands", known only to those who were fated to visit them.  The Motherhood Archipelago is very similar - a vast chain of islands known only to the inhabitants fated to live on them, upon which various forms of torture take place.  Sleep deprivation is the usual method of torture in the motherhood gulags, followed closely by being regularly doused in bodily substances, dancing/jiggling on one spot while holding a heavy weight in your arms, having your hair pulled, eyes poked and cheeks and neck skin pulled.  It is worth noting that the forms and severity of torture vary according to the age of the torturers and the other inhabitants of the island.

Of course motherhood is actually nothing like being in a gulag, and in fact most of the time it is pleasant and rewarding.  However, as I thought while hanging the washing on the line in a gale-force nor'wester, "it ain't no picnic".

I know many people who operate under the misapprehension that all mothers do all day is lounge around, drink cups of herbal tea and have playdates.  This post started out with the aim of dispelling that notion, though it's now gotten somewhat longer.

Solzhenitsyn's other novel, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" describes a day in the life of an ordinary prisoner of a gulag.  I thought it would be interesting to document my day.  Read on for the gory detail, but if you can't be bothered, here's the summarised version:

• start time: 5.30am
• lounging time: 0 minutes
• cups of tea drunk: 1/2 cup of coffee with breakfast
• playdates: 1
• loads of washing done: 2
• nappies changed: 5
• loaves of bread baked: 1 
• meals made: 3
• bills paid: 4
• end time: 9pm

The detailed version:
5.30am Milkbaby wakes, feed Milkbaby, change nappy in the dark (is that poo?), attempt to put baby back to bed
6am Give up on sleep and bring Milkbaby into bed for more food and entertainment
7-8am Make breakfast for Milkbaby (mango and rice if you please), shovel own breakfast into mouth
8-8.30 Clean up mess in kitchen, shower, dress, make bed
8.30-9am Put a load of washing on and attempt a few other one-handed tasks while carrying He-who-will-not-be-ignored around the house
9ish Put Milkbaby to bed (not as easy as it sounds but I won't bore you with the detail)
9-10.30 Call bank to quibble over credit card bill, pay bills, hang washing on line in gale-force northwesterly, put on another load of washing - nappies this time (yes, this involves touching poos and wees)
10.30-11 Milkbaby wakes from nap, change nappy and commence daily wrestling match otherwise known as 'getting baby dressed'
11-11.20 Put a loaf of bread on and make muesli while defrosting baby food sans microwave and keeping an eye on baby playing
11.20 Feed baby, then feed baby some more (kumara, mmmm)
11.45 Get ready to go out, field phonecall (almost dropping old fashioned phone on baby in the process)
12-3.30 Take Milkbaby to Playcentre for SPACE
3.30-4.30 Fix snack for Milkbaby, supervise snack eating, put muesli and bread away (secretly admire own domesticity), supervise a solid session of jolly jumping, change nappy, retrieve washing from the line/lawn/neighbour's garden
4.30-5.30 Feed Milkbaby, then feed avocado to Milkbaby, then bathe Avocado-covered Baby, feed Milkbaby again
6pm Milkbaby sleeps
6-6.30 Clean carnage, think about dinner
6.30 Milkbaby wakes
6.30-6.45 More feeding, comforting baby, Milkbaby sleeps
7-9 Clean carnage and cook dinner, eat, clean up, fold laundry.
9 Retire for a spot of blogging
9.45 Predict that eyes will be shut before head hits pillow.

You can't call in sick

"hi, it's me, is the boss there?"

"hi boss, it's me.  Yeah look, I'm not coming in to work today... yeah I've got a cold, I think I'll just stay in bed and sleep it off.  I'll try and come in tomorrow."

"No, nothing due today, you'll barely miss me."

[source]

NOT!

As I groggily climbed back into bed after a midnight feed, I thought momentarily, "I'll have to call in sick tomorrow."  I then realised that I had no one to call in to - and that I certainly could not call in sick or take a rest from the relentlessness of motherhood.

Nothing that Vitamin C and a couple of panadols won't fix.

Swimming lessons here we come!

6 months down, 25 years to go

You spend most of your pregnancy thinking the labour's going to be the hardest bit.  As my cousin said to me after Milkbaby was born: "no one tells you before you have a baby that giving birth is the easy bit, or that progress is managing to shower before lunchtime.  Hang in there."  At two weeks post partum this was so close to the truth I had to have a little cry.

In terms of breastfeeding, everyone says the second night's the hardest.  Then there are lots of people who say the first six weeks are the hardest.  And a few who say it's the first three months that are the hardest.  And another bunch who'll claim that the first six months are the hardest.  It's all true.  

But now that Milkbaby has reached that magic 6-month milestone, I'd like to put my own milestone out there: the first twenty-five years are the hardest - I'm sure it gets easier after that.  I'll let you know in 24 and a half years if I was right.

Strange conversation #1: Advice well meant

When you're pregnant, all sorts of people give you well meaning advice.  As I mentioned in my last post, I think it's probably a taboo of the secret society of parenthood for older males to give unsolicited advice about breastfeeding to the uninitiated (and especially if you're a stranger - or just strange).

I was browsing the pregnancy books in an op-shop in a small town, when I noticed a short, older man browsing the books near me.  He sidled up to me and started asking the usual questions (when are you due? do you know what you're having? etc).  He then started talking about breastfeeding, saying that it was obviously the most healthy and natural way to feed a baby.  I nodded and smiled, agreeing that yes I was planning to breastfeed.  This is where the conversation should have ended, and I could have gotten back to browsing the preggy books.  But no, the man launched into graphically describing how best to get a baby to latch, his hands fondling the breasts of his jacket while he talked.  

Old guy: "before a feed, you express a bit of milk, then rub it around the areola [picture his hands demonstrating that action], and maybe even put a little bit of milk on baby's lips - baby will be able to smell the milk and will be really interested in feeding.  Then when baby's mouth is wide open, you just pop baby onto your nipple."  [more demonstrating]

Me: "uh-huh" [red-faced and wildly looking around the shop for my husband].

Old guy: "I bet you're wondering how I know so much about breastfeeding."

Me: "erm, yes I guess I am actually"

Old guy: "I am a student of medicine, among other things, and I've learnt all about breastfeeding"

Me: "Really?  Well, thanks very much for that information - very useful.  I'd better go - oh there's my husband - it looks like he's wanting to get going."  [finally spotted DH - here that stands for Damn Husband - engrossed in checking out the kitchenware, oblivious to my need for rescue and not looking at all interested in leaving the shop]

I took my leave of the man with a friendly smile.  There are just some things you shouldn't talk to strangers about, even if you're a student of medicine and are very learned in such matters.

Secret society of parenthood

Becoming a parent is like entering a secret society.

Before initiation, other parents are strangely excited for you.  Truthfully, I always found all the excitement and congratulations a bit unnatural - like they wanted some company in the hell that they're going (or have gone) through.  Sometimes I got the distinct impression that the excitement was all an act - to your face they're saying "congratulations - when are you due?" and behind your back, they're muttering "ha, suckers".

After initiation, I have become one of those parents - a member of the secret society of parenthood.  While I now know that the excitement is not a farce (I am excited for you, really), I do have to admit to thinking smugly "ha, they have absolutely NO idea of what they're in for".

There actually was a secret parent society ("keeping kids clueless for 382 years"), though it now appears to be defunct.  I think it's probably gone underground.

You know you're a new member of the secret society of parenthood when:

• you freely exchange knowing/friendly smiles with other parents/people carrying babies
• you can identify the brand of their frontpack or buggy from 50 feet (or you surreptitiously try to spot its brand if you haven't seen it before)
• you'd describe yourself as an expert on carseats and cloth nappies
• you have no qualms about starting up a conversation with other parents in an elevator
• you find yourself giving unsolicited maternity bra advice to the uninitiated
• you happily talk about bodily functions and substances (mostly baby poop) to anyone who looks vaguely interested (and even those who don't)
• you've gone to work with baby puke on your shoulder (and no one's mentioned it)
• you can belt out at least three children's songs loudly enough to last the car ride home (and you know that Twinkle Twinkle will get you from the bottom of the hill to your house)
• things that would normally have embarrassed you (ie, all of the above) now don't faze you in the least.

Those who have been members of the secret society for a longer period will be familiar with all of the above, but for most, the novelty has worn off.  Older members of the society are generally wiser in most parenting matters, though some have a habit of giving outdated advice to newer members.  There are also some taboos - in particular, older male members of the society should refrain from giving unsolicited advice about breastfeeding to the uninitiated (more on this later).

Secret societies often have their own language and jargon, and this one is no exception - especially if you're an internet-trawling parent.  Acronyms like DD, DS, DH (darling daughter, darling son, darling/damn husband), LO (little one), EBF (exclusively breastfed), FF (formula fed) are littered throughout facebook pages and forums.  It takes a while but eventually you master the jargon, perhaps enough to have a sensible conversation - once you're not so sleep deprived.