Bring us some figgy pudding...

For the first time in years I am gutted that Christmas is over. Celebrating with a two year old has brought back the magic of my own childhood Christmases. To cheer myself up I have been insisting that we all eat elaborate breakfasts every morning, mainly consisting of Christmas pudding, chocolate truffles and smoked salmon. Tom and Betty are being very patient.

Although Betty is still perhaps too young to fully appreciate and understand the magic, there were still many things that made this Christmas unique and special. She got excited and squealed ‘DADDY!’ every time we drove past the huge blow-up Santa outside the local garden centre. Whenever anyone phoned, instead of saying ‘Merry Christmas’, she would shout ‘Christmas tree’ at the telephone. She perfected ‘Away in a Manger’ and heartily sang it as she ate her chocolate from the advent calendar (which is sorely missed - we have since had a few chocolate-related tantrums, where through her tears she calls for the aid of her uncle, who is currently her favourite person ever).

When we took Betty to see Santa, she coyly flirted with the 15 year old spotty teenager dressed up as an elf who handed her a jelly baby and balloon and then ushered her into Santa’s grotto. In the grotto, whilst Santa said: ‘Hello my friend, are you hoping to receive lots of lovely crayons for Christmas?’ in a fake deep and husky voice, Betty just sighed and kept a safe distance, only moving in closer to humour him and take her present. She then did a quick about-turn before going off in pursuit of the elf.

Christmas day itself was lovely - at least, once all the toys I had lovingly bought and made for my darling daughter had been removed from sight. Betty was immediately put off her stocking when she spotted the head of the soft toy I had made for her sticking out of the top. She was also a little confused when it transpired that there had been a complete breakdown in communication between family members over presents, and she received three wooden toy ovens… one from me, one from her granddad, and one from her uncle. I had also bought Betty a very expensive life-sized crying/giggling/wetting/eating/ sleeping baby doll, which Tom told me that under no circumstances was I allowed to give to her. It automatically cried whenever there was a noise, and could only be silenced if someone sang to it. Tom was worried that Betty would have to get up in the middle of the night to get the ‘monstrous thing’ back to sleep. I ignored Tom’s pleas to give the doll to the child of someone we didn’t like very much, and on Christmas morning I left it sitting in the mini-pushchair belonging to her existing doll, Cupcake. Betty calmly but promptly removed the imposter and placed Cupcake back in her rightful place. Tom and Betty did a high-five while I sang to the doll to stop her crying (all good practice for a few months down the line).

Perhaps the high point for me was the Christmas pudding. For years I have been the only person in my whole family to actually enjoy the bloody things, so I was delighted when Betty helped me polish off a pudding meant for four people. That girl makes me so proud.

Betty goes large

I am very excited to announce that I have been offered a book deal, based on the material on this blog.

Publication of my book is planned for summer 2009.

Look who's talking

I took Betty to an activity morning earlier today, where they had a singing and dancing session, lots of unusual toys and instruments, and various things to jump on and climb through.

Betty spent most of the morning chasing the boys (ignoring the girls) and giving them big snotty kisses on the lips. I spent most of the morning being grilled by a scary mother (SM), who I had previously met at Betty’s swimming classes last year. She was asking me how many words Betty can say and whether or not she is putting words together yet. I explained to SM that Betty says ‘Da Da’ quite a lot, and apart from teasing us with the odd one-offs such as ‘tractor, fish, windmill, melon, biscuit, goodbye’ etc, that is about as far as things have got. I told her that I wasn’t worried, and that Betty has her own mind and would speak when she is good and ready and not when we tell her to.

SM went on to tell me that her ‘little prince’ can say almost anything, and in two languages what’s more, and is now putting 3 or 4 words together. She told me that this was almost certainly because she had religiously read books to her child daily ever since he was born, and also that she ‘takes the time’ to talk to him regularly. She then gave me a sympathetic look, shook her head and tutted. I wasn’t sure if she was tutting at me for being a bad mother for not reading or talking to my daughter (which, just for the record, I do, and always have done, ALL THE TIME), or at Betty for not being as advanced as SM’s little multi-lingual genius.

My great aunt regularly asks me whether or not I am actively teaching Betty to talk. And when Betty and I are in her company, she takes matters into her own hands and will spend hours with Betty saying loudly and clearly: ‘This is a BALL BALL BALL. This is a CAT CAT CAT.’ Betty reacts in much the same way as she does with me and Tom, and raises her eyebrows, sighs, and demands to be let into the fridge so that she can play with some tomatoes.

Having desperately tried, but failed, to join in Betty’s game of kicking three balls simultaneously around the room, I noticed that SM was still hot my heels, and was coming at me with a conversation about potty training. I informed her that Betty is not potty-trained, but does enjoy sitting the doorstop on the potty and making a ‘psshhh’ing sound. SM looked disturbed at this, and then told me in great detail about how she had taken a week off work to potty train her 20 month old child. ‘Admittedly it was chaos’ she said, ‘there was poo and wee all over the house for the first 3 days, and then I gave up.’ She told me that she plans to take another week off work in September and try it all again.

There was a scary look in her eyes, and so I left her with her potty thoughts, and went off to join Betty for a hand-clapping session.

Singing in the rain

On Sunday it was my turn for a lie-in. And while Tom was getting it in the neck from Betty downstairs because he had offered her the wrong spoon to eat her porridge with, I was enjoying a peaceful Chocolate Orange breakfast in bed, and trying to decide on a plan for the day.

Half an hour later, Betty was armed with her bucket and spade, Tom with his book, and I with my four beach bags, and we optimistically headed for the seaside. I insisted that we cheerfully sing ‘oh I do like to be beside the seaside’ all the way there, whilst the rain thrashed down, and Betty threw raisins at the back of my head, laughed, and then got upset because I wouldn’t pick them up and give them back to her.

After a two-hour journey, we arrived starving and grumpy. We sought out some fish and chips, and being intent on doing the traditional British thing, I insisted we eat them on the beach. We huddled together behind the beach wall to shelter from the wind and rain and tried to eat them as quickly as possible, while being assaulted by seagulls. Betty excitedly squealed ‘BIR BIR BIR,’ whenever one swooped, whilst I completely freaked out and screamed: ‘They’re going to get us.’ I have a serious seagull phobia.

Meanwhile, Tom was hurriedly trying to eat his huge haddock which I had already given him a hard time about spending our last five quid on – there were no cash-points around and I had wanted to buy Betty something, anything, from the tacky beach shop. All the while I was trying to take photos of us all eating our chips together. I had a go at Tom for pulling an ugly face in every single photo. “I’m trying to eat my bloody haddock,” he hollered back, and with that he ordered me and Betty down to the sea so that he could finish his fish in peace.

It was Betty’s first proper paddle in the sea. I rolled her little dungarees up, put her down onto the sand and off she charged into the water. I was so caught up with taking photos of her that I wasn’t being very attentive and before I knew it she had decided to sit down, but seemingly not bothered by the freezing cold temperature, she was having a wonderful time splashing around. She then got up, and with her giant water-bomb of a nappy causing no apparent hindrance, she started running through the water, giggling and squealing. It was a truly magical scene – just like in the films.

Then Tom rocked up and I tried to get him to take photos of Betty and me holding hands and skipping through the waves, but he seemed more interested in taking photos of a jellyfish. So I grabbed the camera, balanced it on a rock, put it on self-timer and then chased Betty across the beach, hoping that we would be in the shot when the camera went off. Tom was half out of shot in the background, slightly embarrassed, prodding the jellyfish with a stick. I retrieved the camera to have a look at the photo and although both Betty and I were in the shot I was dismayed to see a fat haggard-looking dollop (me) running in a very ungainly manner. These days I am genuinely shocked when I look at photos of myself. I seem to be suffering from a serious case of delusion. 


After an hour of these beach frolics, I felt that it was only fair that Betty be relieved from her wet clothes and the three gallons of sea water she was carrying around in her nappy, and so we headed back to the car to sort her out. I was pretty annoyed with myself to find that in the four large beach bags that I had brought with us, I hadn’t put in a sensible spare change of clothes for Betty, or a spare nappy – only a pretty little summer dress, optimistically packed. But I remembered Betty’s nappy bag, which is normally wedged under the passenger seat and hasn’t seen the light of day for at least six months as Betty only ever poos in the comfort of her own home.

I found the bag and the only clothing I could find within was a t-shirt which had something intensely annoying like ‘Princess in training’ emblazoned across it, a pair of dodgy tan-coloured leggings and a badly knitted homemade cardigan, all of which had been shoved into this bag because I never thought we’d ever need to use them, and were now at least two sizes too small.

After cramming Betty into every item of clothing we could possibly find, including the dress, and squeezing her 20 month old bottom into a fusty size two nappy, we were ready to hit the windy cold streets of the bleak Welsh seaside town. As we walked along, with Betty in her pushchair, seemingly in fancy dress, loudly humming the theme tune to ‘In The Night Garden’ and waving a multi-coloured windmill that I had managed to buy for her from a £1 shop, Tom coolly remarked that he felt as if he was part of a carnival display.

Less than fifteen minutes later, we were back in the car and heading for home.

One down, four to go...

Tom has gone on a jolly to Abu Dhabi. He left yesterday morning, and whilst it is nice not having to nag him about being too noisy, untidy and smelly, both Betty and I are missing him.

Betty has been looking for him everywhere. I tried to explain to her that he has gone on a five-day piss-up with all his uni mates with the excuse of a friend’s wedding, and that he would not be found under his pillow or in his sock drawer. She gave me a very firm, slightly scary look, sighed and then said: ‘Da. Da. Da.’ Each ‘Da’ grew louder and shriller. Where ‘Da’ normally means anything and everything, I think that in this case the meaning was pretty clear.

In an attempt to keep Betty on side, I have been trying to keep her as active as possible so that she doesn’t have too long to contemplate Tom’s absence. If she were to decide that she is actually pretty annoyed about it, the next few days will be hell for me.

Yesterday morning, I cleaned the car, inside and out, whilst Betty joyfully bounced around on the seats and tried to drive the car away. She enjoyed it so much that I made a note to myself that playing in the car on the driveway will become a regular activity. Whilst cleaning, I found a half eaten chocolate digestive in the glove compartment, which I then flung over the hedge, only to be met with a: ‘Mmm thank you very much’ from the farmer on the other side. I was very embarrassed and tried to pretend that I wasn’t there, and that Betty had thrown it.

We had a painting session mid-morning, sort of. Despite the fact that when I asked Betty if she wanted to do some painting she said a resounding ‘YES’, she refused to do any painting whatsoever. This was after I had set it all up, squeezed all the paints out onto plates, wrapped her up in tea-towels, and laid newspaper everywhere. I then tried to use all the paint up myself by doing my own handprints and painting about 13 different pictures. Meanwhile, Betty didn’t want to get her hands dirty at all and so she reorganised the unused paint-brushes, and sighed a lot.

Early afternoon came, and we decorated her new playhouse in the garden. In doing so I happily discovered that Betty is just as happy with a framed photo of her beloved duck comforter (which I had hung on the wall) as she is with the real thing. This takes the pressure off me slightly as the real thing is on its last legs and I have been having sleepless nights about it recently. Once the house was decorated we then hosted a play-date in it for two of Betty’s lovely friends, Daniel and Molly, in the afternoon. They all had a great time pouring each other cups of tea and dismantling my arrangements. I was then out there at 11pm last night with the hoover and an extension lead, knowing full well that I wouldn’t sleep easy knowing that there were crisp and biscuit crumbs littering the carpeted floor.

Throughout the day we also managed to fit in a trip to the garage to see a man about a spark plug, read what felt like 300 books, and baked some fairy cakes. By 6.00pm Betty was practically begging me to put her to bed and when I tried to sing her usual bedtime song, she shook her head crossly and forcefully said: ‘Da. Da. Da,’ which in this case I think meant: ‘Please put me in my cot now and go away.’

I don’t sleep very well when Tom’s not here. Last night I just lay there, feeling petrified. All sorts of things were going through my mind… fires, burglars, murderers, mice in the playhouse, Betty waking up during a power-cut and me not being able to find her, me getting food poisoning and not being able to look after her. I finally fell asleep at 3am, whilst trying to plan back-to-back activities for Betty today, and having just received a text from Tom saying that he had arrived safely in Abu Dhabi.

Forbidden fruit

I went off to have supper with my mum last night, and so handed over Betty’s bed-time duties to Tom. When I left the house, Tom was busy poring over a pile of cookery books and concocting a gourmet meal for one, and Betty was busy chatting to some snails in the garden and trying to feed them sand.

I arrived home at about 10pm, and went into the kitchen, where Tom was despondently tucking into beans and toast. He looked sheepish, and frazzled, and said in very nervous and hushed tones, that it wasn’t the smoothest bed-time he had ever done – and that in fact it was ‘a bit of an ordeal’.

Apparently, Betty had taken a fistful of snails and red berries into the bath with her. Being the neurotic woman that I am, I have forbidden Betty from playing with these berries, for fear of them being poisonous, and both Tom and Betty know the rules. After much wrestling, Tom thought he had managed to get every piece of incriminating evidence from her - until he caught her quickly popping into her mouth a rogue berry, which, he later argued, ‘must have been hidden in the folds of her hand’. Tom then tried to show Betty who was boss and asked that she remove it from her mouth immediately and hand it over. And with that, Betty did a very elaborate cartoon swallow (just to labour the point that she rules), and then smirked triumphantly at Tom.

Not knowing for certain whether these berries were poisonous (although he was 99.9% sure they weren’t), and more importantly, not wanting to endure my wrath when I would inevitably find the berry in Betty’s poo the following morning, Tom panicked. He scooped a somewhat astonished Betty out of the bath, and charged downstairs to phone our landlord.
‘Betty was having her bath and swallowed a red berry from that tree in our garden – is it poisonous?’ Tom yelled down the phone at the landlord’s somewhat taken aback teenage son. The son then relayed what Tom had said to his mum and dad and Tom imagined that he could then hear the whole family laughing at him in the background. ‘Oh dear, is Elsie out this evening, Tom?” the landlord said. He then assured Tom that the berries were not poisonous, that in fact they were probably quite nutritious, and then enquired as to what Betty was doing with the berries in her bath. Tom was holding a naked, dripping wet, squealing-with-laughter, Betty, who was hitting him on the head with a plastic octopus, and so he abruptly thanked the landlord, put the phone down and rushed Betty back up to her bath.

At that point, it seems that Betty had grown tired of these shenanigans and once she was plonked back in the now-lukewarm bath she completely lost the plot. After angrily throwing a jug of water, a flannel and the plastic octopus at Tom, she then tried to precariously climb out, whilst demanding that he hand over the little pile of berries that he had left on the side. Being a glutton for punishment, and really not thinking very straight, he handed them over on the understanding that she play with them for five minutes before bed, and not eat them.

Tom and Betty then spent the next few hours locked in a battle of the berries, and when I returned home, Betty had only just gone to sleep. As a consequence of the little lady’s monkey business, Tom was eating beans on toast, instead of the elaborate salmon concoction that he had planned. He wasn’t consoled by the fact that I had had a very relaxing evening with my mum.

Café Betty

It started with a toy microwave oven (or fan oven as I prefer to call it), which I found at a car-boot sale a few weeks ago. At first, Betty was a little confused about what it was, having never seen one before (ahem), but now she is pretty au fait with its workings, and loves the thing.

I decided that a lone toy microwave sitting on a shelf in the kitchen, looked a little trashy, and didn’t help the organic and wholesome illusion I was trying to create. I have therefore slowly been adding to the shelf, the odd empty organic muesli box here, a slice of plastic chorizo there, to disguise it, and to create more fun for Betty of course. Betty, however, seems pretty insistent on just microwaving stones from the garden at the moment, and once they have been pretend-zapped, they then invariably end up in the washing machine and go through an unwitting wash cycle (perhaps her attempt to out-do Makka Pakka), which then leads to the electrician being called out.

Because of my slightly obsessive nature, Betty now has her own fully functional, fully equipped café in our kitchen, with the microwave being centre stage. At some point yesterday I got the idea in my head, which escalated and got totally out of control, and so I got my mum to come over and play with Betty whilst I spent three hours creating a masterpiece.

I had to rearrange our kitchen furniture, remove all of Tom’s cookery books (luckily there was enough space for mine to stay), and donate a lot of our own kitchen utensils and pans in order to accommodate and kit out Betty’s new establishment. I set the main part of the café up on the windowsill, which is quite large and (almost) the right height for Betty. I nailed a little blackboard to one side of the window with ‘Today’s Specials’ and on the other side I put a personalised café sign, together with various pictures of food that the café sells.

I hung a little apron on a hook next to the chopping board with a courgette on it, and placed some asparagus in a saucepan on a pretend hob I had painted. I made some bunting to go across the window, and got Tom to make some fitted shelving to run along the back of the window.

I was so unbelievably thrilled with my creation and couldn’t wait to unveil it to the proprietor, Betty Button. Betty was also pretty delighted when presented with my handiwork. Not so much for the fact that she had her very own café, but because half the kitchen, that was previously out of reach and mostly forbidden, was suddenly there on a plate for her. And she had a great time.

In fact, she has got so into the whole thing, she has opened branches of her café all over the house. And no sooner have I collected everything up when her back is turned, and put it back to where it should be, all neatly arranged, she is back again to dismantle it. I console myself with the fact that when she goes to bed I can play with it and do it my way.

Last night, as Tom and I were watching Big Brother, I murmured something to him about having to get a little cookery book to go in Betty’s café. Tom turned to me, with a very serious, and slightly perturbed looked on his face, and said: ‘Betty’s café? or Elsie’s café?’ Then, just as he was drifting off to sleep, he dreamily said: ‘I hope Betty is going to start serving lattes soon.’

Trial run

Tom and I are avid campers and we have been desperate to take Betty camping. However I do have genuine concerns about this. Campsites are generally lovely, but their shower-blocks generally are not – they are pretty grim - with other people’s hair and bodily fluids caked all over the floors and walls. I have been having all sorts of unsavory visions of taking Betty for a shower after a lovely sunny sandy day on the beach. I have been worrying about whether or not she would stand still for me whilst I wash her, or whether she would scream and yell and demand that she sit down in the ‘dirt’ and start playing with other people’s dirty hair-bands and grimy cracked bars of old soap.

In addition to this, I have agonized over the sleeping arrangements. Do we put her in the same compartment as us? This would be a real squeeze, and if she sees us, or more to the point, if she hears Tom snoring, she will refuse to sleep. I have tried to imagine what I would do with an angry and loud Betty, in the middle of the night, in the confines of a busy campsite. Or do we put her in a separate compartment (which would be a good 10 metres away from our compartment)? In this case I would lie awake all night worrying that someone might come and snatch her.

When my dad suggested us doing a trial-run and pitching our tent in the garden of his holiday cottage in the welsh mountains, I was thrilled and totally up for it. The cottage does not have any creature comforts such as running water or electricity, and so it was almost like proper camping. In fact, our tent is probably bigger, with more mod cons, than the cottage. This ridiculous-sized tent was purchased to accommodate Queen Betty and all her luggage – and is exactly the type I used to sneer at in campsites, pre-Betty. In fact, I am ashamed to admit that in the past, I may even have referred to big tent owners as ‘chavs’.

Tom did a grand job of pitching the tent, with the help of our darling girl, who sat in the middle of the un-erected tent, refusing to let go of all the pegs, and doing a mighty job of tangling up the guy ropes. All the while, I watched on, basking in the sun, sipping cider and telling Tom how I might do it better. It has to be said, the usually unfazed Tom was a little bit prickly and short-tempered by the time the tent was finally up.

Unfortunately, at this point, it had already gone way past Betty’s bedtime. In an attempt to try to keep some sense of normal routine, I boiled a kettle of stream water and poured it into a saucepan, dipped Betty’s hands and feet into it, and explained to her that this was her bath-time. She humoured me, and went along with it, but I could tell that she wasn’t impressed.
We then put her to bed in the west-wing of the tent, where she giggled raucously for about 20 minutes, whilst punching the sides of the tent, and then went off to sleep, and stayed asleep for the next 12 hours. As did Tom.

I, however, lay awake all night, freezing cold (as I had selflessly given Betty all the available blankets), and was terrified that our daughter might wake at any moment. I wondered what I would do with her in the pitch black, with no torch, and only oil lamps in the cottage which I didn’t know how to ignite. I also had grave concerns that a wolf or a bear might come along, if I did dare to drop-off, and savage us all.

Child genius

Before Betty came along I used to get really fed up with listening to parents droning on and on about how advanced their children were for their age. I would endure endless, boring, and frankly unimpressive stories about what their little poppets had been up to. It used to make me laugh, as every parent seemed to do it. ‘Gosh,’ I used to say to them. ‘We really do live in a world full of child geniuses.’

When it comes to my little Betty, though, it really is a different story. She, of course, is unbelievably clever beyond her years. Below is a picture that she has just drawn to demonstrate this.



She did this completely on her own, with absolutely no guidance from me. The colours, the composition, perspective, texture and tone: all were her own inspiration. The deep reds, oranges and yellows used in this drawing create a very warm and loving atmosphere. In the middle of this wondrous backdrop, a black sculpture sits predominantly in the picture signifying, I would argue, her understanding of the world today. The ¬[p0 b’ [sorry, Betty just typed that with her foot] sculpture is positioned close to the picture plane, allowing the viewer to almost experience that understanding; the intense and jumbled background combines with the sculpture’s proximity to the picture plane, to create tangible depth in the picture. The tonal range is wide, with a strong contrast between the dark sculpture and the warm background.

To sum up – although such a summary is clearly an impertinence when dealing with art of this order of sT40ub [sorry again, Betty just commandeered the keyboard with her toy traffic light] …order of subtlety, I was saying – it is abundantly clear that the piece not only challenges established notions of representative art; what we are dealing with seems to me nothing short of a revolution in form and style. Various private collectors have contacted me with a view to purchase. Needless to say, the work is not for sale.

In your Clarks, get set, go!

I took Betty into town last Thursday to buy her first shoes. We breezed into Clarks and I proudly announced to the sales assistant (who looked about 12) that my very clever daughter was now walking, half expecting some kind of applause. The 12 year old (who was only slightly bigger than Betty) didn’t applaud, but kindly asked me to put Betty on my lap so that she could measure her feet. ‘Ha ha,’ I thought, ‘You say it like this measuring lark is going to be a doddle’. Sure enough, Betty curled her little foot up into a very impressive ball, making it impossible to do anything with it.

This charade went on for about five minutes, and in this time Betty managed to ruffle up the 12 year old’s hair, chew on a nearby flashing trainer, and fling the measuring machine over her head. Eventually, and just before I was about to give up and go home, my darling daughter gave in and let us get the measurements.

With feet measured, we then went on to discuss whether proper shoes would be appropriate or whether Betty should start with cruising shoes. I insisted that she was ready for proper shoes and so we put them on her to see how she fared. Betty refused to stand up in them and just went crawling off around the shop, leaving a whole array of display shoes in her wake.

The assistant then looked at me as though I was deluded and had made the whole ‘walking’ thing up, and said: ‘I think perhaps your daughter should start with cruising shoes.’ I reluctantly gave in, feeling a bit irritated. No sooner had this exchange taken place, Betty took matters into her own hands, and being there for her mum when it counts, she jumped to her feet, shoes still on, and literally started running confidently round and round the shop, with me excitedly running behind her, trying to avoid the flying footwear, and saying: ‘You’re such a good girl!’ while she dismantled the shop.

I bought the shoes, then I strapped on her reigns an let her walk out into the big wide world – the high street – for the very first time. This was a truly memorable moment, watching my baby’s face light up as this whole new world opened up before her. She tottered along, looking all around her, and her main focus wasn’t all the shops with their brightly coloured window displays and their inviting open doors, but all the MacDonald’s burger wrappers, cigarette butts, and bird shit that littered the pavement.

When I had grown weary of grabbing these unsavoury items out of Betty’s little mitts before she could shovel them into her mouth, and when Betty’s little legs were obviously getting tired and becoming wobbly (making her closely resemble a puppet on a string), I swooped her up and tried to put her into her pushchair. Full-blown screaming and kicking ensued, until I gave in, when I realised Betty was stronger than me both in mind and in bodily strength, and I let her walk again, all the way back to the car, with me trying to control a litter-eating, drunken Betty and steer an awkward pushchair at the same time.

The war of the ducks

As I watch Betty and her duck get closer by the day, I become increasingly panicked. She loves that duck, and I actually do believe that if she had to choose between me and that duck, the duck would win hands down. Tom against the duck would be a harder one to predict. However, I’m not sure how much more constant chewing and sucking a duck can withstand, and I fear that his demise may be imminent.

For the last month I have been logging onto eBay every day and scouring the site for look-a-like ducks. Tom says that this shows that I don’t have enough to do with my time. Tom doesn’t realise the seriousness of the situation. Even the postman is in the know, and each time he knocks on the door, clutching a parcel and needing a signature, he chuckles and says: ‘Another duck for the little ‘un then?’ And each time, I laugh nervously, then hurriedly open the package, before the postman has even made it to the garden gate. I either laugh or cry, depending on what mood I’m in, at the horror of ducks that I see before me. Our house is now full of random, singing, dancing, talking, quacking, wiggling duck nightmares, none of which compare in any way to the original.

I have been on the phone to the H&M (which is where the duck was naively purchased) customer services in Sweden several times, spouting off duck product codes to them and pleading with them to start making them again, or demanding that they search their warehouse for a leftover rogue duck that may have escaped before making it to the shop floor. I have even thought about asking them to put up posters in their shop window saying ‘Have you seen this duck? - if so please contact … etc’. The best that Hennes could offer was a dog made from the same material, and of a similar weight. In desperation I bought this stuffed puppy, held it in front of Betty and made quacking noises. Betty remained unmoved, though perhaps slightly angry.

In a last ditch attempt to keep my daughter sweet, and myself sane, I decided to try to make a copy of the duck myself. I spent hours sourcing materials that closely matched, and then got to work on my sewing machine. After about five attempts and some odd-looking fleecy matter, I finally managed to produce something that loosely resembled the real thing.

The following morning I casually left the fake on the window sill to see how Betty would react. At first glance, and from a distance, she got very excited and I think was tricked into thinking that it was the real thing. When I handed it to her saying: ‘Look, it’s your duck,’ she inspected it for about half a second and then callously threw it as far away from her as possible. And as if that wasn’t enough, she then proceeded to run her Wheely Bug backwards and forwards over it.

Duck hit

Throughout my pregnancy I pranced around the place saying: ‘Look at me, I’m pregnant, aren’t I clever, look at my bump, isn’t it great’. I enjoyed every single second of it, and felt very special and unique.

I loved all aspects of it; getting excited about my first bout of morning sickness and telling everyone at work, kidding myself into thinking I had cravings for peaches, following every development from week five (a prawn) to week 16 (a grapefruit) to week 37 (a baby), hearing the fast little heartbeat at antenatal appointments, having to get a whole new wardrobe, feeling the baby kicking and somersaulting, and buying all the baby equipment and ticking items off on my carefully devised Excel spreadsheet as I went. During the whole nine months, I don’t think it ever really dawned on me that at the end of the ever-expanding bump and uncontrollable hype (from me), there would be an actual baby. A real-life Betty Button.

When I was about six months pregnant, Tom and I went to stay with friends in London, and as soon as we arrived I headed straight for H&M, as I knew from several pre-pregnancy day-dream wanderings around the department (feeling very self-conscious with my flat stomach and small boobs) that they had a brilliant maternity section. Whilst there, I wandered over into the baby section, and spent ages trying to decide on a soft toy to go in our baby’s cot. To this day, buying the said duck is a moment I remember vividly. I felt odd and silly about it, like I was completely deluded for even contemplating buying a toy for my bump. What would a bump want with a toy duck? Buying the cuddly toy felt far more personal, and a much bigger deal than buying something practical like a cot or nipple cream.

A year and a half later, this duck is looking very bedraggled, but is Betty’s most treasured possession. Amongst her many cuddly toys, she has singled out the duck as her comforter and friend. She cannot go to sleep without sucking on its now very grey wings and squishing the smelly damp thing into her face. If it has been washed, I have to give it back to her wet. She drags it around with her and won’t put it down for a second. If she does put it down, she keeps one beady little eye on it at all times.

Almost every time I look at Betty and her duck together, so smitten, it reminds me of all those strange feelings I had that day standing in H&M, not really having any idea what I was doing, and not realising how real everything actually was. I can now appreciate that buying a toy duck for my baby-to-be was a pretty logical thing to do.

It’s just a shame she doesn’t feel the same way about her very expensive, four foot wide, rainbow coloured, all singing, all dancing, inflatable lion.

Christmas cheer

Becoming a mum has brought out the earthy, wholesome person in me, which I didn’t know existed until now. I never cared much for roasting chestnuts; or making nativity scenes and wreaths with materials only found in the wood; or making my own mince pies and mulled wine; or making homemade soft toys and Nigella’s ‘euphoric’ chutney as presents for everyone; or buying a traditional chocolate-less advent calendar from Oxfam; or learning the grown-up version of We Three Kings; or making fairy-light chandeliers out of two circular knicker driers.

This year, however, I have become the ultimate, obsessive, and slightly manic earth-mother extraordinaire, or so I would like to think. As well as doing all of the above, and more, I plan to march Betty and Tom off to church on Christmas morning, with Betty donning her little elf outfit, which I made for her to wear for the front of our Christmas card this year.

Perhaps I am over-compensating, as last Christmas went by in such a blur because Betty was only five weeks old, hence I was knackered and busy coming to terms with all the emotional and physical challenges that a new baby throws at you. And Betty was busy still feeling annoyed about being born, and having no qualms in telling us so. On top of this, I was also trying to reconcile myself with the fact that it was Christmas and I couldn’t even get pissed on rancid drinks such as Baileys and Sherry and smoke my uncle’s cigars, make a complete tit of myself, and pass out before I’d even got to watch Eastenders.

In my mind, this is Betty’s first proper Christmas, and now that she is a delightful, non-crying, solid food-eating, gorgeous little girl, I am going all out to make it the best, most homely, and jolliest Christmas ever. It will be such a joy for us to have a Betty sitting at the table with us, providing all the entertainment, and devouring her Christmas lunch whole-heartedly. And sharing in all the Christmas cheer over the festive period – the presents, the long walks up mountains, the much anticipated arrival of all grannies and grandpas, my sherry-induced purple face, the obligatory viewing of Mary Poppins (accompanied by my slurred rendition of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, sung backwards), the Eastenders Christmas special, Trivial Pursuits (which inevitably always ends in my tears), all of which leads to the demise of any earth-motherness. Betty will marvel in it all, and Tom will be nowhere to be found, probably cowering in some dark corner hugging a whisky bottle.

Toilet taunt

Betty has recently been allowed to explore new territory, namely, the bathroom. I would never allow her into the bathroom before (apart from when she was safely contained by the bath) as I didn't want her sniffing around the loo brush, nappy bin, loo, and putting them all in her eager and inquisitive little mouth, or playing with the contents like she inevitably would.

Due to a bad bout of PMT, which quite often turns me into a cleanliness-crazed mentalist (amongst other, less savoury things), I blitzed the upstairs bathroom, through and through, with every cleaning product I could lay my hands on in Sainsbury’s. I removed the loo brush and holder, bought a Betty-proof nappy bin, and scrubbed the loo until it gleamed and smelt of roses. I then instructed Tom to only ever use the downstairs loo, as this one was now out-of-bounds (to him anyway).

Usually, whilst I am getting Betty’s bath ready, Tom plays with her in her bedroom, and gets her undressed and ready for the bath. However, Tom was in London for meetings the other night, and so, whilst the bath was running, I left the bathroom door open to see what Betty would do. She has been champing at the bit for months, trying to get into the bathroom, and spotted her chance immediately. She was off like a whippet to investigate this whole new, pretty horrible, world of lime-coloured, albeit clean, porcelain fixtures.

My goodness me, the wait was certainly worth it. Betty marvelled at her reflection in the full-length mirror, excitedly waving, pointing and chatting at herself. She then started to try to pull her reflection’s hair, which is when I knew it was time to show her other points of interest, before she ended up in a punch-up with herself. She then stood at the side of the bath, and watched in awe as the bath filled up, and delighted in putting her hands under the running tap. It was magical to watch.

Aside from appearing to Betty to be a great (perhaps even greater than her dad for once) mum for letting her into the bathroom, I had an ulterior motive – to start, probably very naively and prematurely, getting her acquainted with Mr Shanks. I have this notion (again, probably naively) that Betty will be an absolute dream to potty train. I base this on the fact that when she does a poo in her nappy, she often crawls off under the table in the sitting room to do it – a bit like a cat – very neat and tidy.

She began her acquaintance with the loo by licking the lid, all the way around, and even though I was 100% sure that it was probably now cleaner than the tray of her highchair, I couldn’t handle it, and my greater-than-daddy-ness rapidly disappeared when I promptly removed her from the bathroom, and shut the door tightly.

Curry fantasy

I was a little perplexed this morning when I went into Betty's room, as it smelt just like our room does the morning after Tom has been on the curry and beer.

When I picked Betty out of her cot, she let out her mandatory, very energetic, morning greeting, and I was almost knocked down by her rather unpleasant, garlic breath. It felt far too grown-up and horrible to be the breath of a one year old, and I just couldn’t think where it might have come from.

We have had our suspicions that Betty is a woodland creature (she closely resembled one when she was a few weeks old) and that at night she sneaks off to the woods behind our house and plays with the squirrels and rabbits. Perhaps last night was ‘curry night’ in the woods?

I felt happy and satisfied with this explanation of magical fantasy - I love the idea of Betty playing and eating with her woodland friends. However, when I mentioned the whole garlic/wood thing to Tom, he ruined it all and told me that it was him that had been feeding her garlic yesterday, not her furry friends.

Necklace charade

Now that I am not breastfeeding, and am now the un-proud owner of a pair of fried eggs, I very rarely get a chance to cuddle Betty anymore - though not for want of trying. When I am carrying her from the car to the house, or from the highchair to the floor, I try to prolong it for as long as possible, but she just gets impatient and starts growling and trying to catapult herself out of my desperate cuddling arms.

I have observed over the last few months that, like most babies, she is obsessed with items of jewellery. If a friend comes round wearing a necklace, it is the first thing Betty notices. She will sit there quietly, like butter wouldn’t melt, observing and eyeing up her prey, and then she will sidle up to whoever it is (it doesn’t matter who, it could be a necklace-wearing monster for all she cares) and pretend that she is being affectionate by appearing to give them a cuddle. That person then goes all gooey and cooey over my devious daughter, at which point, Betty goes in for the kill - the necklace. I have watched her carry out this act time and time again.

So, armed with this knowledge, and so intense was my longing to have a nice long cuddle with my darling daughter, I devised a cunning plan - an act of deception.

I never normally wear necklaces, but I still have quite an impressive collection of dodgy 80’s classics from my former life, and so decided to start wearing a different necklace each day. The first two days were relatively successful and went something like this:

I would put on my necklace of choice first thing in the morning, woo Tom with it, and then march merrily into Betty's room. She wouldn’t immediately spot the necklace and so I would say: ‘Look sweetheart, Mummy is wearing a pretty necklace today, doesn’t she look lovely?’ Betty would eye the necklace suspiciously with a look of distaste on her little face, but eventually would hold up her arms. I would pick her up and she would semi-enthusiastically go for the necklace. I would give her a pretend telling off and say: ‘No Betty, you're not allowed to play with mummy's necklace.’ (The mind games I put the poor girl through…) I would then get a lovely long(ish) cuddle, whilst she played with the necklace, slobbered all over my neck, and tried to strangle me.

By the third morning, Betty had outsmarted me and was not interested in the whole necklace charade whatsoever. I was very disappointed, not only because I wasn't getting the cuddles, but I still had at least five more necklace shockers to unleash on her, and was actually secretly quite enjoying wearing them.

Who ate all the tarts?

Betty thoroughly enjoyed her birthday knees-up on Sunday. She spent most of the time high-speed crawling around the room sneakily swiping jam tarts and fairy cakes from everyone's plates and shoveling them into her mouth like she hadn't eaten for a year. As well as stealing cakes, she also plucked a dummy right out of the mouth of a sleeping baby, which she callously discarded when she realised it wasn't edible.

Betty delighted in the big pink and red balloons, and the wrapping paper, and the candle on top of her birthday cake, and playing pass-the-parcel, and all the attention. She was very graceful and didn't mind the other babies playing with all her toys and trashing her playroom. She even turned a blind eye when a couple of pieces of her building blocks fell out of a toddler's pocket as he was picked up by his mum to leave. The mother looked mortified; the toddler looked gutted.

We had a champagne toast after we sung Happy Birthday, but unfortunately (or fortunately for me and Tom) everyone was either driving, teetotal, or underage, so after everyone had left, we went round knocking back all the untouched glasses of champers scattered around the room. My great aunt, our only remaining guest, watched on and gave me a pitiful look.

Everyone seemed to have a jolly old time though, and several mums were very complimentary. One mum even openly admitted that she was going to copy some of my ideas for her son’s impending first birthday. I looked at her modestly and said: ‘I’ve never had to organise a children’s party before, and had no idea what I was doing, do you really think it was OK?

Party preps

How many sleepless nights, panic attacks and hot sweats can a party for a one-year-old cause? Hundreds, if you are ridiculous like me. Tom tells me I need to get a grip. I tell him he is treading on very dangerous territory and if he doesn’t shut up he can organise the bloody party himself. With a baffled look, Tom says: ‘OK, how hard can it be?’

The last time I felt like this was when I was organising our wedding - writing guests lists, designing invites, going on diets, deciding on menus and music, buying pretty dresses, presents, balloons etc. I admit that comparing the organisation of a wedding to that of a first birthday party does seem a little over the top – and as Tom says, maybe I have got things slightly out of perspective.

I have been imagining that Betty and her one year old friends are going to get upset if they don’t like the prizes they are given. Tom gives me a reality check and says they will only be interested in eating the wrapping paper and pulling each other’s hair, and won’t give two hoots about the toys… ‘As lovely as they are,’ he adds.

I bought a pack of modelling balloons, and then phoned Betty’s godfather and asked if he would be the children’s entertainer for the day. He told me that he had never attempted making poodles and dinosaurs out of balloons before and was a little worried about it. I reassured him by saying that there were some instructions on the packet and that if he arrived early he could practice beforehand. Tom pointed out that as Betty and her friends are all fairly young, it wouldn’t really matter if they were given the balloons unmodelled, or even uninflated.

I am using the wedding cake stand that Tom and I made for our wedding, and plan to have different types of cake on each layer – chocolate cornflake cakes, jam tarts, flapjacks, fairy cakes, brownies, butter biscuit hearts, and I have recruited all members of my family and friends to make them, as of course, everything must be homemade. Having said that, I did buy a little Smarties chocolate cake that fits neatly on the top layer. The other night, after a couple of glasses of wine, it looked very tempting perched there on top of the stand, and I threatened to eat it, but Tom put me on a guilt trip and told me that this was the start of a slippery slope. At that point, thankfully unknown to Tom, I had already eaten a giant bag of Dolly Mixtures that were supposed to have gone on top of the fairy cakes.

I am lucky that Tom brings me back down to earth every so often. He keeps reminding me that if I am this worried about Betty’s first birthday party, what am I going to be like in the lead up to subsequent parties when she is old enough to start bossing me around and having tantrums if I don’t get the colour of the icing on her cake quite right, or she doesn’t like the outfit I am wearing, or she demands that I lose weight?

Betty’s party is one week away, and I think that everything is in order. I have made a big banner fashioned out of an old sheet which says ‘Happy Birthday Betty’, and instead of the dreaded party bags, I have made personalized gingerbread hearts, which I will hang from branches. I have also tried to make our house look a little tidier. I asked Tom if he would mind if I started decorating the house with balloons and banners. Tom said that would be weird and he didn’t think he could live in a child’s party for an entire week.

Beached Betty

Betty, Tom and I have recently spent a week in Tenby. On the afternoon that we arrived, I excitedly threw Betty into the pushchair and went charging down to the beach, whilst Tom was finding somewhere to park the car. I practically ran down the concrete slip-way leading to the beach, building up momentum as I went, and went whizzing off across the sand towards the sea, Betty squawking like a baby dinosaur all the way.

We got to the water's edge and watched the waves, and I pointed out Caldey Island, and told Betty how it was a very special place to me, as, coming from a Catholic family, it is where we used to stay as guests of the monks every Easter. I am in no way Catholic, but I did have great aunts/uncles who were nuns and monks. I went into a dreamy daze, and felt myself relaxing, breathing in the sea air, and feeling nostalgic and safe. Betty humoured me for a while, and smiled at the waves, and Caldey Island, but pretty soon she started sighing and giving me that ‘I’m bored with this malarkey’ look. So I turned the pushchair round and started heading back towards the café, which was on the edge of the beach.

Once we had gone across the hard wet sand and reached the dry sand we got stuck, and still had a good 25 metres to go. I frantically pushed, but the wheels just dug into the sand further and further. It wouldn't have been so bad, but there were lots of people watching me, who had also witnessed me thoughtlessly running onto the sand in the first place. I pushed, and struggled, and puffed, and sweated, and all with a false grin on my face so that people might be fooled into thinking that I was enjoying myself, and that I wasn't really stuck at all.

Betty started to fret, so I gave her a breadstick to try and keep her happy until we made it off the sand. Betty wolfed it down in record time, just leaving a tiny crumb that she decided she wanted to play with. Of course, she kept dropping this bloody crumb and each time, unless I found it really quickly in amongst her chewed holey blanket (that I had lovingly knitted for her when I was pregnant), she would have a massive tantrum. She kept this going for a good few minutes, but then unfortunately she decided to eat the crumb, and then got very upset because it was no longer there to play with.

At that moment, a big hairy tattooed bloke approached me and asked me if I needed help getting off the beach. For some weird, stupid reason I refused his help and told him I was fine. He gave me a slightly amused look and then walked away and sat back down next to his family, and they all continued to stare at me. I gave them a big smile and wave, and at the same time I noticed that they had a toddler sitting in the sand, drinking, what looked remarkably like tea from a bottle.

I bent down next to Betty and pretended to point out some seagulls to her, biding my time, and trying to work out a way out of this embarrassing situation, whilst at the same time trying to get over the whole 'toddler drinking tea' thing. I discreetly got my mobile out and tried phoning Tom, with the intention of telling him to get down here right away and rescue us, but his phone was turned off. I started to blame him for the whole situation.

Eventually I figured out that I should pull the pushchair backwards. This was slow work but eventually I got us off the sand, to the applause of the ‘tea’ family, and made it to the café. I was too stressed out to actually go into the café though, and instead I ran back to the holiday cottage, through the streets of Tenby, with an angry Betty, who had still not forgotten about her beloved crumb.

Checkout chat-up

I was at the checkout in the supermarket with my weekly shop, throwing stuff into bags, and being a bit grumpy. The checkout boy was trying to chat to me throughout. “So, how are you doing today sweetheart?” he said. Feeling a bit flustered about being called ‘sweetheart’ by a boy less than half my age, I replied: ‘Fine’, while I clumsily tried to open another carrier bag. ‘Here, let me help you out with that darling,’ he said. While he was opening the bag for me, he then said: ‘So what are you up to tonight then sweetheart? Are you going down Night-Owls?’ This is a local nightclub for the under 18s. ‘My god, does this boy think I am the same age as him, or is he taking the piss?’ I thought. I could feel my face burning - I have no idea why, normally I can hold my own with teenagers. I think I was a little taken aback that I was seemingly being chatted up by a spotty faced, gangly boy, something I haven’t experienced for years. It certainly felt very odd, as I now have a Betty, and am a mum, and do mumsy things, and certainly don’t go to bloody Night-Owls.

I ignored his question and carried on packing, although at this point I was hastily throwing it all straight into the trolley. But the boy wasn’t giving up and asked me again: ‘What are you up to tonight?’

And so without taking any pauses whatsoever, I blurted: ‘I am cooking a huge roast chicken with all the trimmings and we are going to eat it at 5pm so that our baby daughter can join us and we can all eat together which will be the first time and so it is a very special occasion and it is a very significant step because she will be eating what we are eating which means she is growing up which is sad but also happy and she is such a wonderful baby and she is nine months old and I am a mum and I am married and I am 33 years old and we are all looking forward to our big roast chicken.’

The boy stared at me for a second, and then held up a pack of two tiny organic chicken breasts that he happened to be scanning at that moment, and said: ‘What? A huge roast chicken with this?’ Hats off, he was still persisting, even after that mental barrage of information I just gave him. ‘No, I have a whole chicken at home, actually,” I said. I could tell he didn’t believe me though, and he just smirked.

It was all true though. I did have a big chicken at home. We invited my mum and my brother round to share in the excitement of this special occasion, and we all ate together with Betty. We had champagne with our meal, to celebrate our little baby growing up, and me seemingly still looking like a 16 year old.

Bingo wing waves

Betty’s uncle was making aeroplane noises and flying her spoon through the air when he was feeding her the other day, and she got very angry and upset about it. In an attempt to cheer her up again, he started waving at her. To the amazement of Tom and me, she waved back at him. This was Betty’s very first wave. She then just waved and waved, and didn’t stop waving all day long. She waved at her daddy, at her toys, at the window, at the floor, at her toast, at the postman, she even managed a little wave at her toy penguin, whilst screaming in teething pain, in the middle of the night. This almost broke my heart - what a trooper.

When I wave at my darling daughter, instead of waving back at me, she becomes transfixed with my ‘bingo wing’ underarm flab wobbling around. She just stares at it, perplexed. Obviously the underside of my arm flapping around must be far more eye-catching than my hand manically moving around in front of her face.

My nine-month old baby has given me a complex. I have now started daily arm exercises using baked bean tins, in an attempt to tone up, and get Betty waving back at me.

Breastpad farce

Tom’s friend popped over yesterday to tell us he is going to France for two weeks and would we keep an eye on his house and feed the cats. I was standing in the garden, happily chatting to him, and pretending I knew where Marseille was, when I happened to look down and there at my feet, lay a large bright white disc-shaped object. OH MY GOD - a breastpad, MY breastpad, which had obviously just fallen from ME. I didn't know what to do. I tried to keep him looking straight at me by talking about whatever came into my head, so that he wouldn't look down.

It worked for a while, although, by the look on his face, you would have thought I was reciting a train timetable backwards to him. His attention then waned and then the inevitable happened... he looked down, and clocked the breastpad. We both stared at it in silence for a while, and then he picked it up and handed it back to me! I took it, scrunched it up and put it into my pocket. At least I didn't try to put it back in my bra I suppose.

Later, still feeling mortified, Tom tried to make me feel better. He said: ‘Don't worry I doubt he even knew what it was... he probably thought it was a circular tissue or something.’ ‘Really?’ I said, hopefully. Then Tom started laughing uncontrollably and said it was the funniest thing he'd heard for a long time. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and so I quickly drank a pint of cider, whilst Tom went off to phone his friend.

Anniversary antics

It was our second wedding anniversary on Monday. I got a little cross with Tom because he couldn't remember whether we had been married for two or three years. I secretly couldn't remember either. To celebrate, we went to our favourite restaurant about 15 miles away, last Saturday night. It is the furthest we had travelled away from home without Betty since she was born.

We arrived at the restaurant and were taken to our table, where I tried to explain to the Polish waitress that my mobile phone didn't have a signal and if the restaurant phone rang it might be my mum wanting to speak to me about my daughter who is teething and might wake up needing me. The waitress smiled and said 'Of course' and walked off. The next thing I knew the waitress had come back with an extra chair for my mum and some toothpicks. I was too hungry to get into it further and so I just thanked her and asked for a large glass of wine. Tom laughed and told me that it would teach me to relax a bit.

We enjoyed our food, although, my scallops on a bed of sweet potato puree was little disturbing, as I have spent the last couple of months up to my ears in sweet potato purée.

During our meal I got a bit excitable and accidentally got really pissed. I was really enjoying myself and behaving in a very juvenile manner to wind Tom up, just like the old days. I was saying things like 'Oh my god, did you really go to school with Prince William?' really loudly. Tom laughed, and then cried at the incredibleness of the pork belly he was eating. Emotions were running high for both of us - it was a very poignant evening, in lots of ways.

I went to the loo and on my way there I saw a group of teenagers through the window having a cigarette outside. On my way back from the loo I made my way outside, walked up to the teenagers and asked if I could join them for a bit. I told them that I had a beautiful baby, and that I was a bit drunk. They didn't reply and just stood there looking awkward and swigging from a cider bottle. Eventually the girl handed me a cigarette, and feeling rebellious I took a drag. We then stood there in silence, me feeling completely sick from the tobacco, and them still swigging cider. To break the silence, I asked them if I could tell them a joke, but they continued to ignore me. I skulked back inside, feeling very silly. I'd forgotten for a moment that I wasn't actually a teenager myself anymore. The poor kids must have been really freaked out by a fat, thirty-something, very uncool, joke-telling woman approaching them on a Saturday night.

When I returned to the table, Tom was being quizzed by the Polish waitress about why my mum hadn’t turned up. Tom said ‘At home with baby’ and did the rocking baby motion with his arms. The woman looked utterly confused.

We finished our meal with a mountain of Welsh cheeses, and chocolate puddings, which we ate next to the big open log fire, holding hands, and talking about the amazingness of Betty Button.

Fish chowder trickery

I have been whipping up all sorts of culinary delights for Betty recently. Amongst other things, Betty has dined on chicken casserole, beef stew, and fish with carrot and orange, in the last week. And for these recipes I have been sourcing the best possible ingredients for my precious darling daughter. I have visited the local butcher to purchase one small organic chicken fillet, the fishmonger to purchase one small fillet of cod, and the greengrocer to purchase one small organic apple. I think I have built up quite a reputation in the local town in the last few days. Not only because of my miniature purchases but also my fussiness - each shop assistant has suffered a grilling from me about where exactly their produce has come from and how the chicken/fish/apple tree was treated. A recent cashflow crisis has meant that while Betty has been dining on fresh, seasonal, organic food, Tom and I have been dining on pot noodles.

Yesterday while I was feeding Betty her fish, carrot and orange purée, it was so delicious, I found myself feeding myself every other spoonful – one for me, one for Betty. It started off as a game to encourage Betty to eat it. However, Betty didn’t need any encouragement to eat it. I was just being a mean, selfish mummy and depriving my baby of her daily nutritional requirements, for my own enjoyment. About half way through, poor Betty dared to look away for one moment and I said: ‘Oop have you had enough sweetheart?’ before quickly shovelling the rest into my gob. When Betty realised that there was no more food she burst into tears. She, unsurprisingly, was still hungry. So I had to very quickly whip up something else to fill the hole.

Later on, as there was a little bit of cod left over in the fridge, I decided to make an ‘adult’ version (by adding salt) of this baby purée and serve it up for mine and Tom’s supper. I had to slightly improvise and use marmalade instead of an orange, but I felt very chuffed with myself for my creativity. When it was ready, Tom came to the table and asked what it was. I couldn’t really tell him that it was a baby purée and so I told him it was ‘fish chowder’. He said it looked delicious and started tucking in. He commented that it tasted ‘very fruity’. I proudly told him it was marmalade. He took about two more spoonfuls and then politely told me that he just couldn’t eat it, and that it wasn’t one of my ‘finer kitchen moments’ and would I mind if he made himself a bacon sandwich instead. I defensively told him that Betty had loved it earlier. He then said: ‘Have you just tried to feed me baby purée?’ I proudly said ‘yes’.

Later, when I was talking to my mum on the phone, I mentioned that I had made the fish, carrot and orange purée for me and Tom, because I thought it was delicious and also because there had been a spare bit of cod left in the fridge. She patiently explained to me that Betty should be starting to eat what we eat, and not the other way round.

Mummy Monster

I have only just discovered that there is real competitiveness and judgment amongst mums, about what your baby’s name is, how your baby sleeps, eats, crawls, walks, poos, looks, interacts etc. I have spent the last 6 months in a blissful little bubble of naïveté. Ever since this bubble burst, and I have realised that everything I say about Betty, there are often judgments or comparisons being made, I have become hyper-sensitive to it, and haven’t been able to relax when talking to other parents I have never met before. I have been too scared to engage in any kind of conversation which is even remotely baby-related, for fear of appearing smug, or defensive.

This fear started after a liaison I had with another mother at the village hall playgroup last Wednesday, which almost pushed me over the edge and made me want to runs for the hills…

Betty and I enter the village hall at 9.15am. Betty is wearing her little khaki combat trousers and a red and white striped top. We go and sit next to a lady who introduces herself as Sandra, and her eight-month-old baby Jade. First off, Sandra asks me what my baby is called. I tell her that her name is Betty. ‘BETTY’ she bellows in total shock. She then thinks for a few seconds (she obviously can’t bring herself to lie and say that she likes the name) and says: ‘Well as long as YOU like the name that’s all that matters.’ I feel like telling her that Trevor (worst driver in the world) almost got clobbered by my husband a few weeks ago for handing him an article from the Daily Mail showing the top 20 baby names of 2006 and said: ‘Here is some idea of what you SHOULD have called your daughter’. My husband was extremely offended, not only because he can’t stand the Daily Mail, but also because surely a name in the top 20 baby names of 2006 is a reason NOT to name your baby one of them. Instead I tell Sandra that Jade is now a very ‘popular’ name and that she won’t have any problems finding door plaques, mugs, pens, toothbrushes etc with her name on them. She looks chuffed about this and then gives Betty a sympathetic look, as if to say ‘poor little you’.

Sandra then goes on to ask me if I’d considered the bullying and picking-on that Betty will endure when she starts school because of her ‘unusual’ name, and have I prepared myself for the fact that Betty will end up hating me for giving her this name. To which I just smile, and tell her that I certainly hoped that Betty wouldn’t get picked on at school (by Jade probably), and that if she hates her name that much she could change it. I feel like telling her that we hoped to raise Betty in such a way that she will become a very creative, open-minded, and imaginative little girl who will hopefully love us for giving her an interesting and pretty name. But I keep my mouth shut.

Sandra then starts eyeing Betty’s outfit. She asks me why ‘my baby’ (she can’t even bring herself to say ‘Betty’) isn’t wearing any shoes. I tell her that I don’t see the point as she is only 6 months old and can’t walk yet. I notice that Jade’s little podgy feet have been squeezed into some really uncomfortable-looking shiny red shoes and lacey pink socks. ‘They’re pretty little socks,’ I say to Jade. I am lying. Sandra then asks me why I have dressed Betty like a boy. I tell her that I didn’t realise I had. She says: ‘My advice is: always go for pink, then there is no mistaking that she is a girl’. I tell her that I would bear this in mind. I feel like telling her that if I’d wanted her advice I would have asked for it, and that I wouldn’t take advice off someone who dresses their baby like a bloody doll anyway. The conversation about baby clothes goes on and on. Sandra is appalled that I buy some of Betty’s clothes from supermarkets and car boot sales, and that they don’t all come from Mothercare. For my own amusement I ask her when she is getting Jade’s ears pierced. To which she proudly lifts up the pink furry flaps of Jade’s hat to reveal two little gold studs.

It is now 9.30am. I have just had 15 minutes of torture. In this time Sandra has also managed to fit in remarks about how Betty is not able to sit on her own yet, how Betty doesn’t smile much (Betty smiles all the time, just not at idiotic women), and how it would be better to start giving her formula instead of breastfeeding her now that she is six months. I am desperately trying to work out a polite way to get the hell out of there. Thinking on my feet (which I’m not very good at) I tell her that I am actually feeling quite tired (tired with her), and that I am going to go home. Sandra gives me a sympathetic look and says: ‘Ahh, the little ‘un not sleeping through the night yet?’

At this point I am worried that I am about to have a massive freak-out in the middle of the hall. I feel like saying: ‘Yes, Betty does sleep through the night actually, and has done for months, and no I don’t put holes into my baby’s ears and cause her unnecessary pain, and I would never buy one of those awful cheap plastic personalised door plaques (even if the name ‘Betty’ was on every single god damn one), and pink fluff… yuk yuk yuk, and plonking your 8 month old baby in front of those weird teletubbie characters for hours on end wrong wrong wrong, and yes I do still breastfeed my baby instead of giving her some disgusting artificial animal milk - surely HUMAN milk is best for a HUMAN baby, and Sainsbury do some very cute little baby clothes, without those ridiculous glittery slogans plastered all over them and that in fact most of Betty’s clothes come from Gap and H&M, and no Betty can’t sit up completely on her own yet, but she can feed herself with a spoon, which in my book is pretty advanced... BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH…’

But I just smile, and as calmly as I can, walk out of the hall, with my nervous waddling walk. Later, fuming, I realise that Sandra not only made me snap, but she has turned me into the most evil, judgmental and competitive mother EVER!

Surgery Pest

I went to see my long-suffering GP again today, who I am sure thinks I am slightly unhinged. I don’t know what pregnancy/birth/baby has done to me, but before any of this, I never ever saw a doctor, about anything. However, since then, I have frequented the surgery more times than I care to remember.

My relationship with the staff at the surgery (which includes GPs, midwives, nurses, receptionists, even other patients) began on the happiest day of my life, 31st March 2006.

I was standing in my classroom, during an open-day, chatting to a heavily pregnant parent about how broody I was feeling, when suddenly I went weak in the legs and felt dizzy. That was the moment, whilst the parent was telling me not to rush into it and enjoy being married, that I knew. I phoned Tom, and said: ‘I think we’ve bloody well done it, I think I’m pregnant!’ To which Tom replied: ‘I think you are too, in fact I knew from the moment of conception when you woke me up in the middle of the night and told me that you could see little animals in our bedroom dancing in the moonlight.’ He said he thought that was unusual behaviour, even for me, and realised something must be happening to me. I decided we would make an appointment with my GP the following morning, so that he could confirm whether we were right or not. I was too scared to pee on a stick in my own bathroom. For a reason I can’t really understand or explain, I needed to see a doctor.

The following morning, we arrived at the surgery half an hour early. Tom and I sat in the waiting room in silence, after I had barked at him and told him to shut up after he asked me why I hadn’t just peed on a stick. Eventually the doctor called me in. I asked Tom to stay in the waiting room because I was still feeling annoyed with him. I sat down opposite the doctor and started crying. ‘I think I might be pregnant,’ I wailed. He gave me a sympathetic look and said something like: ‘Oh dear, what makes you think that?’ ‘I am two days late and I saw dancing animals in my bedroom two weeks ago.’ He looked bemused and told me that I shouldn’t start fretting just yet. I quickly put him right and told him that it would be the most amazing thing in the world if I were pregnant. So he did a test and we sat there in silence for what seemed like hours waiting for the result. He eventually picked up the stick, examined it for a ridiculously long time, looked somewhat surprised, and gave me the best words I had ever heard: ‘Well...it is positive’. I started crying again, ran out into the waiting room, grabbed Tom, unable to speak, and hauled him into doctor’s consultation room. After a brief talk we left the surgery armed with leaflets, not before the doctor shook Tom by the hand and said: ‘Well done son’. This is the day that my beautiful relationship with the surgery started. I was four weeks pregnant.

From then on, I found myself at the surgery, probably fortnightly, bending some medical professional’s ear with all sorts of ridiculous, sometimes imaginary ailments… bump is too small; bump is too big; bump is wrong shape; bump not moving enough; Tom can’t hear baby heartbeat through toilet roll tube; I accidentally ate a prawn etc.

And there I was today, at the surgery, waiting for my appointment. Actually it was Betty’s appointment but I decided she didn’t need to be there so left her at home with Tom. The doctor came out and called for Betty. I jumped up and said ‘I’m not Betty, but I am here to discuss Betty.’ To which he cracked half a smile and ushered me in. He then listened patiently while I talked urgently about Betty’s constipation. He wearily informed me that there was nothing he could do without her actually being there, and kindly suggested that next time I should bring her along too. I agreed, and then asked him if he’d mind quickly looking at a blister on my foot.

When I got home I mentioned to Tom that the doctor was looking very tired and pale. Tom asked me how he had seemed before my appointment. I laughed, but Tom was looking serious.

Pear Palaver

I decided to try giving Betty puréed pear for breakfast today, instead of baby rice. The main reason for this decision, apart from wanting to make Betty’s food experience a little more exciting, is that Betty hasn't done a poo for 5 days, and so I thought that pear might help things along a bit. Betty's poos have been the bane of my life ever since she was born and I have probably spent about 50% of my entire wakeful time, thinking and worrying about them, and the other 50% talking about them.

Tom, Betty and I all went down to the kitchen at about 8.30am for a pear breakfast. It was the first time I had ever made a baby fruit purée but didn't think it should take longer than 10 minutes to whip up and feed my hungry and eager girl.

First of all I decided I had to disinfect the chopping board because I had read somewhere that wooden chopping boards have more bacteria on them than toilet seats. Then I had to fill and boil the kettle so that I was able to then immerse the chopping knife in boiling water to try to sterilise it. I then had to fill and boil the kettle again so that I could use the water to wash the vegetable steamer, which lives in a cupboard with some mice. I then filled and boiled the kettle again so that I could pour the water into the food mixer (which also lives in a cupboard with some mice). I then had to wash and peel two pears - I was just going to do one, but Tom said he couldn't bear to see me go to all this trouble just for one pear.

After chopping, steaming and puréeing the pears we were almost there. I spooned out some of the purée into Betty's bowl (which had just been sterilised by boiling water from the kettle) and placed it on the table. Then all three of us, all close to tears at this point, just sat silently and watched the tablespoon of pear in Betty's bowl, for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for it to cool down enough for Betty to eat it. I then had an awful feeling that Betty might reject the pear, but thankfully she didn’t, and in fact she absolutely loved it. The pear also had the desired effect, and Betty did a huge poo at 11am!

Who would have thought that preparing a pear puree (which only consists of pear) could turn into such a palaver? I swear I could have cooked a three-course gourmet restaurant-standard meal in the same time. As for making homemade purées every day (something I vowed to do as I pranced around being pregnant)… I have heard that the Hipp organic baby food from Sainsbury’s is very very good…