Type when the baby sleeps

A lot of people say "sleep when the baby sleeps" and obviously this makes sense because Zaphod - while he does sleep for maybe 16 hours a day - needs a lot of attention when he's awake, so the time for me to nap is clearly when he's sleeping.

Motherhood is quite lovely, and not necessarily sleeplessly tiring (so far) just a bit of a full-on job when it comes to 24-7. I had a long chat with a friend tonight who was telling me that with her first baby she was overcome by the change in her life, and what to do, and what it meant and what she would do next.

I feel a little of that, but mostly I feel like, how great is it to not have 400 emails a day and voicemail and text messages and three different phoneslines 120 people can try and reach you on. My office phone is unplugged (with a message to email my assistant). Hardly anyone calls my home phone and that's ok (people seem to think I'm so delicate they should text D (husband) rather than communicate with me, and I don't mind that. This morning I listened to the fives messages on my mobile phone and they'd been there since Monday and it didn't matter. Five in a week - I used to have like ten in a day.

Perhaps I will turn into that famous rockstar who could only be reached by faxing his mother.

Basically - and so far - looking after Zaphod is a complete holiday compared to working, only with extra crying. And lovely cuddles.

And suddenly, I feel like I have a lot to say. Surely most of it will have been said before - but perhaps not with my unique wit and individual take on the universe/NW6 - but like the best books, I guess I'm writing for one (me). Although I won't mind at all if you enjoy it.

So now, I'm typing when the baby sleeps.

So, Monday I went to see Malcolm Gladwell. This isn't my movie (although I have an equally poor one of the balagan of getting 2000 people into the Lyceum, but hey what's the point of the internet if we can't all share?), but let's just say Malcolm was disappointing.

First, as you know, I'm 5 weeks post-partum, so it could be hormones. But I went with A, who's children are much more grown-up and he was disappointed, too. Apart from the huge effort a (new) parent has to make to go out (D came home early to look after Zaphod, my whole day was out of sync, I never had time to eat etc), I quite enjoyed going on the tube and thinking I don't have to look after Zaphod for a coupla hours. I don't think this makes me a bad mother, it was just an interesting experience. I think I enjoy my freedom more now I don't really have it, but hey, hindsight's a wonderful thing.

The audience was People Like Us. The only people who didn't have crackberries had Moleskin notebooks (we had one on either side of us) and everyone looked like they were in some urban, intellectual tribe.

Malcolm kept us waiting 30 minutes. It was supposed to be a 90 minute show at 1745 (with another at 2000), and I'm guessing that he was late, although the announcements said there were problems getting people into the theatre. The Lyceum, ferchrissakes, I mean, they do the Lion King twice nightly, they should know from audiences. Clearly Malcolm was delayed, and it was incredibly disappointing that he cut the show short by 30 minutes, just kinda ending mid-flow with "thank you and goodnight".

Maybe you should never meet your heroes. He didn't really maximise the opportunity - it was just a chapter from his new book (which he exhorted us to buy, and I did), and while it was lovely to see him live, he looks quite like he does on YouTube and there was no Q&A and I was left thinking... you just did it for the money/marketing, right?

Perchance I have increased expectations now going out is so much bigger a deal.

Malcolm, next time you should come over to my house.

I'd like to say I read loads of books before Zaphod arrived, preparing myself for parenthood, but for whatever reason, I couldn't think past the "come into hospital now" moment.

However, I would have liked to read (an extremely short) book that said:

get your washing machine serviced: you'll do more washing than you ever imagined

stock your freezer with healthy food, otherwise you'll really only have time to eat junk

line up all the DVDs you want to watch while you're feeding baby, it'll be a lot of time

be prepared to think that going to the post office with Zaphod is like a whole big deal: everything will take longer, lower your expectations

take your nipple cream into hospital with you

stock up on Oliva soap, which is great for getting baby-shit out of your baby's clothes

practice a lot using your pram/buggy before the baby arrives: you need to practice and also, the buggy needs to practice being not so stiff

buy your changing bag before the baby arrives

take dried apricots with you to hospital - they help with the post-partum constipation (apparently...) (I like the M&S ones)

be prepared to be totally amazed and overwhelmed by how incredible your personal baby is

... more, I'm sure....

A lovely friend did artwork for our "Zaphod's arrived" cards, which double as the "thank you for nice gift to Zaphod" cards, and they've been sitting on our dining room table for three weeks.

So, even though I think no-one actually reads my blog anymore, if you do, and you sent a gift, we'll write to you and say thank you properly. One day.

You can take the Girl out of Cheadle, but you can never...

Lovelynotes are extremely important.

Here's a phrase I'd never given any thought to five weeks ago: "self-soothing."

I know that new babies don't always sleep, but I didn't realise that I was supposed to read like a hundred books about sleep-training and sleep habits and be able to discuss it knowledgably with other parents.

Also, there are some people who say "why are you whispering?" And I say, because Zaphod's sleeping (say, if I just went into his room to get something) and they say "do you expect to the whole world to stop because your baby's sleeping?" Well, no. THere'll still be police sirens and drunks on Kilburn High Road, but inside our house we can try and pretend it's night.

Once, I was friendly with this woman who (a) only wore her extremely long hair over one shoulder, hanging down over (I think) her right boob, and (b) she could properly sleep anywhere. It was like a party trick: she would sleep on top of someone else in a really loud room and be really really asleep.

Here's another thing: babies don't sleep as much as you think, but they cry a lot more than you imagined.

Here's a thing about having a baby that's very annoying.

Everyone seems to have an opinion. My cleaner? Thinks I should only take Zaphod out with a nappy over his face (I think she means muslin - apparently it's a continental European thing). XXX thinks I should seek out cranial osteopathy for Z now: best to start young. Some believe in dummies, some not. Some only believe in breast feeding.

And also, because I was (a) quite busy before Zaphod arrived, and (b) like many first time mothers, couldn't actually think past the bit where you call up in labour and the midwife says "you're six centimetres dilated, best to come in now (although with a planned c-section, they're more likely to say how's a week Tuesday) - I hadn't thought any about what I would do once Zaphod arrived.

I'd spent all my time planning The Labour and packing The Bag, and D and I had gone to NCT classes, and practiced our massage techniques (which is never a bad thing) and worked out exactly what kind of whale music we wanted as the soundtrack to Zaphod's birth (kidding), and I'd even planned to bake in the early stages of labour (not kidding), I guess because I thought it signified that I'm some kind of wholesome earth mother and also because I had some bananas rotting in the fruit bowl because I'd almost entirely gone off food.

Here are the things I didn't think about at all:

• routine or feed on demand?
  
• breast or formula (I mean, I wanted to breast feed, but I hadn't actually thought about it. Turns out it's not as easy as everyone says
  
• dummies
  
• how does the damn buggy work?
  
• when will I was my hair?
  
• how did I ever fit all that other stuff in?

There's some x-rated stuff, also, which I want to check with D before I type (he's sleeping right now, as he's doing the 3am). How's that for making you want to come back and read more...

Never have I been so ill-prepared for any project in my life. I mean, I'd done all the administrative stuff: kitted out the room, and begged-borrowed-stolen all the right equipment. In fact, my nesting (let me say that I can't currently find a good link to nesting that isn't some kind of SEO / PR tool regurgitated the same-old same-old) took the form of obsessive filing and tidying of my office. I kid you not when I tell you that I actually sent a photo of my paper filing system to some colleagues so they could find everything if I lost my marbles.

But I hadn't read a book about being a mum. I hadn't even read past the labour chapters in the birth and first-years books. In fact, I hadn't read a lot of books, even though loads of people lent us great ones, because I had data overload and too much email. And I certainly didn't have the mental space to think about what kind of parent I was going to be.

Er, point is, er, I've forgotten. Ah yes: other people have strong views. You're letting him stay up? (Like at 4.3 weeks it makes a difference?) Or taking him out with you? Or letting him cry/not cry?

These things are very personal. Once, a long long time ago, a relationship I was in ended badly/sadly and what I realised was, everyone who asked me how I was doing, wanted to know "who's fault" it was, who had "done the deed", and the advice they gave me, on reflection, was always a way of validating their choices. Like one friend, who'd been with her partner for 25 years, but had never had kids (his choice) told me very clearly to get back to together with X and have make-up sex so I could have a baby.

So people aren't always so bothered about you. Or your situation. What they're saying when they tell you what they think, is: isn't what I think right? Just do what I do and everything will be ok for me.

And that can be very annoying.

Also, while I'm back, I should say one thank-you.

D has been very worried that he killed my blog because I've hardly written anything since we got married. Not his fault, really.

So he's been gently encouraging me... finding a blog-this icon on my toolbar. Telling me that funny stories I say are so-bloggable. And, this morning, going to my PC to check the weather and finding blogger open to my account with that inviting white-space "create post" box. Waiting for me.

Thank you D. For being the most understanding husband I've ever had. For getting me, and all my mishegassen. For being funny and lovely and helping make us into a family.

And, never forgetting, all the hours of unpaid technical support. Once, I even got a text message that said "your support ticket is now closed. Thanks for choosing us."

Sleep when the baby sleeps

Sleep when the baby sleeps (everyone says)
Originally uploaded by sashinka-uk

So I've had a lovely week while D (husband/boyfriend/partner/in-house-technical-support) and Zaphod (not his real name, but hey this is the internet, we'd like him to have the possibility of some online privacy at sone point in the future) and I have been "being a family".

This mostly includes eating. Sleeping. Farting. Crying. Making us very happy. Oh, and Costbux.

I'm back, for real.

I know I say this periodically. But I really am.

The last few months have been.. mammoth. Aside from running my business (with my great team), and having a very annoying pregnany complication which meant I couldn't really walk, or could only walk in quite a lot of pain, and getting everything ready for The Baby (who turned into Zaphod) and having a lot of fun and games with my show at 36 weeks... let's just say, I didn't have a huge amount of spare bandwidth.

The strength of a blog, the thing that I think draws you in, is someone talking about their experiences (I realise this is not all blogs, but the kind I mostly like to read), and I remember when I first started blogging, there was a great.. Dutch I think blog that I used to read all the time. She was smart, funny, sassy (takes one...) and then suddenly she had a baby and the blog was all about nappies and sleep and suchlike and I didn't understand.

Like, a few months ago, a friend had a baby, and made this big palaver about coming over to visit me (I was already pregnant and not that mobile) and she was all, how wide is the gap at the side of your house? Will it fit the buggy? Where can I park? And I was all (not to her, obviously) get over it girlfriend. ALthough not exactly like that because I'm not from the Bronx. But I was thinking, what's the big deal, you're a smart resourceful person. Deal with it.

So am I (generally) and now I know exactly how she felt. So I've started a couple of companies, run big divisions of Plcs, travelled all over the world, negotiated deals with the toughest... and all of a sudden, I'm thinking, how will I get to Kilburn on the bus?

It's like a whole new life. And for Zaphod, it is. And for me and D it is, but on top of our old life. Less so for D - he has all the excitement/drama of parenthood, but gets to go to work in his old life, too. He just has to fit it all in, that's his challenge.

My challenge is that my old life is - temporarily at least - on hold. I'm not so much about email and phone calls and doing business and talking to customers. I know this because I got my Blackberry out of my bag yesterday because I was out and needed to get someone's phone number, and it had RUN OUT OF BATTERY. That has never happened to me. Before, my crackberry was my lifeline - incidentally, Jonny Freedland wrote a cute piece Tuesday about Barak and his - and I left it uncharged at my peril. Even on my honeymoon, I did check a few times because we were closing some deals and it didn't make sense to be out of reach.

Now I'm out of reach in oh-so-many-ways. First, because I had to have a c-section, I can't drive for another two weeks and my world is really small. It's kinda like the 1950s - I ask D to pick things up on his way home, and if I need to go anywhere, he has to drive.

I mean, I still have the same serious taxi habit I had throughout the pregnancy. Basically, the only way I could get around was door-to-door cabs, so my local taxi firm became my preferred provider and frankly I saw them more often than I saw my family. I think I must be their biggest customer, because even when there were bus strikes and crazy-taxi-needs, they always looked after me. In fact, I was thinking of getting them a seasonal gift, as they've been so nice, and chatting with one of their drivers Wednesday, asking about how religious they all were, he confirmed that "they don't really drink whisky". It might have to be a banana bread, then. Imagine the irony: a Jewish customer bringing a Muslim taxi company owner a banana cake for un-xmas. This is the same driver who told me that children are a gift from Allah.

Anyway, must go to Brent Cross. The joys of motherhood. Back, later.