April 2007

April 30, 2007

Another rotten night of sneezing and coughing. I spent half of it dozing against pillows with Lyra upright in my arms, which was the only way to stop her coughing and choking. She’s having trouble feeding as she can’t breathe, and when she does, half the milk runs down my sides.

Checking the baby book, I happened to read the section on “cot death” that came between “colds” and “coughs”:

After the first month of life, more babies under six months old die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) than from illnesses and accidents put together… All cot deaths are unexpected deaths but not all unexpected deaths are cot deaths… When a baby is put to bed healthy, or with a mild “cold” which has just been pronounced unimportant by a doctor, and is subsequently found dead, investigations sometimes reveal a previously unsuspected condition — such as congenital heart or kidney disorder or a fulminating infection — which has proved fatal. Such an unexpected death is tragic and shocking but it is not a cot death…

Not very reassuring… I made an appointment for Lyra at the GP’s that morning. The GP was sympathetic if not overly concerned, but felt better for getting her chest listened to, what with Nova’s history pneumonia. She also told me what to look out for and when I should come back, and gave me a prescription for saline nose drops.

I managed to settle Lyra in the late morning, and got a couple of hours sleep myself. I have to say that Lyra’s been a real trouper throughout her illness. It’s heartbreaking when she gives me her gummy little smile with her streaming eyes and runny red nose.

When Simonia arrived, I took the opportunity to pop out to Muswell Hill. It was so nice to be out on my own, pootling about in the shops. We’ve been having this gorgeous spring weather, and some days I don’t even leave the house…

I picked up Nova’s next piano book – she’s finished Primer A – and got her a special music bag to carry it in as a reward. Nova was thrilled with it, and said to me, “When I saw that music bag it made me think about how much I love you.”

Watched the first half of Dodge City with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Can’t get enough of westerns at the moment. I hadn’t realised how much Kevin Kline has borrowed from Errol Flynn. I’d like to read his biography sometime, sounds like he lived quite the life, and it’s interesting that he died in Vancouver of all the unlikely places.

April 29, 2007

I had a difficult night with Lyra. Her cold has worsened, and she sneezed and sneezed, trying fruitlessly to clear her little nose. Whenever I settled her in the cot she made dreadful gasping sounds. I ended up settling her to sleep propped against my legs. Once she was fully asleep I was able to put her in the bassinet. Adam left me to have a bit of a lie in – if you count sharing your bed with three small children jockeying for position a lie in…

After breakfast, I headed back to the shopping area for take three, reinforced by Nova, Bella, Adam and Lyra in the sling. Bella led the way – I should have had her with me yesterday. With Mary for her mum, she’s already a seasoned shopper.

I picked up all the stuff I failed to get yesterday, and also bought Nova some new sandals, as her toes were hanging over the end of the pair she’d inherited from Ruby last year.

Mary made this amazing dish for lunch: a bed of couscous, with a layer of roasted vegetables, topped by chunks of goat’s cheese, a scattering of rocket, and a dressing of harissa paste, lemon juice and olive oil. I’ll definitely be repeating that one at home.

Popped in on the elder Birkby’s (Julian’s parents) for a coffee. They’ve relocated to a little cottage a couple of streets away. They’re a lovely old pair, who doddered about inefficiently producing cups of lukewarm coffee while Lyra shrieked like a car alarm. I took her into the sitting room to see if breastfeeding would soothe her, with Jules’ mother flapping around trying to be helpful, even offering me “something to read” like Miss Prothero in A Child’s Christmas in Wales, “who said the right thing, always”. She has such a feathery little voice that I could scarcely hear what she was saying, though I think it was something about a boating holiday on the Elbe. I felt like I was in some kind of farce…

I signalled discreetly to Adam that it was “TIME TO GO!!!“ and we said our goodbyes and headed back to pack the car. Much better journey this time – we were home in an hour and a quarter.

April 28, 2007

Another broken night…
Poor little Lyra has a cold, and was coughing and sputtering in her cot all night long. She and I are both exhausted… Set off for Jules and Mary’s about 9:30am. The traffic on the North Circular seemed unusually heavy, and it turned out there’d been an accident and it was closed at the junction we needed. Forty minutes later, we more or less passed our house again, this time heading for the M1.

Traffic on the M25 was no great shakes either, and it took us two and a half hours to get to Bury. (The journey included a highly illegal, moving motorway breastfeed, but I would have decapitated any traffic cop who dared to give us grief about it.)

It’s the first time we’ve seen Jules and Mary’s new house. They’ve purchased his parent’s house in the centre of Bury, a five-story, seven-bedroomed, Georgian terrace, and spent the last eight months completely redoing it. They’ve only been living in it a few weeks, so there are still things to do, but it is looking great.

After a nice lunch, I thought I’d leave fractious Lyra with her dad for a bit and take advantage of being in the centre of town to do a quick bit of shopping for things I can’t get in Highgate Village: hair detangler, another muffin tin, another changing mat for Lyra etc.

Now I’ve been round the shopping area in Bury a few times, and it’s not that big a place, but I was so sleep deprived that I completely failed to find the street I was looking for. It didn’t help that Jules and Mary had given me contradictory directions (one based on going out the front door, the other on the back), or that streets were closed off for the Saturday market. I’d managed to leave my mobile phone behind, so was unable to call for help. Eventually, I thought I’d better turn back before I got too lost to find the house again.

Fortified with clearer directions and my phone, I set off again. However, by the time I got to Boots they were just locking the doors (extended shopping hours haven’t reached middle England it seems…)

We had a barbeque for dinner and a delicious pavlova for dessert. Sat up visiting for a couple of hours after the kids went down, though I was so tired my vision was blurring (unless that was the wine, or my smeary glasses…)

April 27, 2007

A lousy night’s sleep… awake at midnight, two, four, six and eight am… I had my “minor op” today. They had a little operating table set up in the nurses’ office. I lay back on the bed and rolled down my tracksuit bottoms. The nurse gave me a number of injections around the lesion — given the permanent numbness in my abdomen from the c-sections, it barely made a difference. I closed my eyes when the cutting started. I was surprised at how much cutting and tugging was involved in removing such a small thing, but the doctor said that she was “scooping it out” to ensure that she got it all. I felt a bit woozy and lightheaded, though that was probably exhaustion and not the local anaesthetic…

Apparently the lesion has its own blood vessel. There was a lot of “oozing” and I required three stitches, which will be taken out next Friday. I’m not to shower or bath for three days… shouldn’t be a problem…;-)

A couple of hours later, I set off for a farewell lunch at Fifteen, Jamie Oliver’s restaurant, for my original job share Susan. It was the old team from before we were swallowed by NICE, six of us in total. I had the mozzarella with pea/broad bean “smash”, a grilled mackerel with a fennel-orange salad, and the pannacotta with rhubarb compote.

Home in time to give Lyra her next feed, so I can freeze that 80ml I squeezed out this morning for another occasion…

April 26, 2007

Lyra was too sleepy to feed when I tried to wake her at midnight, so just left her to it. She woke me at 2:30, then not again until 7:45. Makes me wonder if I should forget about the midnight wakeup… Felt strange today — I think it’s from getting more than three hours continuous sleep…

Tonight was the first evening in a long time she hasn’t settled easily, and it took a couple of goes by each of us to get her down.

Ever since mum died, I’ve worn her engagement ring on my left hand. I never had an engagement ring, and it sits nicely with my wedding band. It used to give me a start when I’d notice it because it made my hand look so much like mums, but it doesn’t any more, it looks like mine…

April 25, 2007

Adam kept his word, and Nova’s lunch was packed, gym kit together (aside from missing red shorts) and a cup of coffee waited on my bedside table by the time he left. I stumbled through the rest of the morning routine, to Lyra’s howling accompaniment, until she suddenly fell asleep. I called Pasc and asked her to take Nova in so I didn’t have to shift Lyra from cot to pram.

First Jemima dropped by and then Pasc, which used up all of Lyra’s three-hour morning nap in coffee drinking and gossip. That was it for sleeping for the rest of the day… aside from a couple of brief dozes in her swing chair.

Pete came round to watch the Chelsea match with Adam. I did the two bedtimes, then joined them. Had a simple supper of soup, wine and cheese.

David and Denise had their baby today after a long induction, a little boy they’ve named Kael Fraser Horth. He’s 8lb 9oz with a mop of black hair, and a real little cutie:

April 24, 2007

Lyra had almost no sleep today. She was beside herself with tiredness by the end of the day. I don’t know what to do about it – sometimes a particular technique will work, and the next time it doesn’t. It’s very wearing, and I felt like downing a straight gin when I finally closed the door on her. Adam announced at 12:30am that he’d be leaving the house at 7am tomorrow morning, which was a bit of a shock… He promised to help by making lunch and getting Nova’s school stuff ready before he left, which will make things easier. Still no word from Dave…

April 23, 2007

Had a doctor’s appointment to look at the little lump on my tummy this morning. No one is sure what it is — it looks sort like a colourless mole. I’ve had it as long as I can remember, and for most of my life it’s just sat there doing nothing. However, in both pregnancies it seemed to grow a bit and would often bleed then scab over. At my post-natal check-up the doctor recommended getting it looked at by my GP. After a quick glance, the GP recommended having it removed in their “minor ops” clinic and sent to the lab. There’s a slot this Friday, so I’ll have it done then.

David’s wife Denise is being induced today… very exciting!

April 22, 2007

I was awakened at 7am by Martha, who’d heard Lyra’s snuffles through the baby monitor… They must have been pretty quiet not to have disturbed my sleep, but – to give her the benefit of the doubt – the monitor does seem to magnify the smallest sound. Drove to a park called Yew Tree Walk, an avenue of topiary, stretching hundreds of yards to a distant manor house. While the individual topiary were quite naff – often nothing more than a letter, date or wonky animal shape – the cumulative effect of them was oddly satisfying.

Thirteen years ago the six of us went on holiday to Wales, for an extended weekend of debauchery interspersed with the occasional bracing walk. No kids of course, and none of us were married. At one point, we posed for a group photo of the three couples snogging in a bus shelter:

We had a go at recreating the photo – here’s Nova’s best effort:

Adam and I treated everyone to a pub lunch at The Olive Branch, a local gastropub with terrific food. Lyra and the other five kids were pretty well behaved, although it’s always a triumph of wills to enjoy, or even attempt, occasions like that.

We made good time back to London, aside from an unscheduled emergency breastfeed in a layby. Pat and Patty were waiting in the drive when we got in, but insisted they hadn’t been there long. After a short visit, I whizzed around sorting out my two girls, and managed to get them both down by 8:30.

We got another takeaway (courtesy of Finning) from Kiplings and sat around yakking over curry and beers until 11pm.

April 21, 2007

Hangovers are a great equaliser – I felt relatively sprightly compared to all those latenightniks…;-) After a cooked breakfast, everyone headed off for a country walk. I stayed behind with Lyra, reading then snoozing while she napped. Although a walk would have been nice, it was actually was the most indulgent way of spending my time, enjoying some peace and quiet.

One thing about group holidays is they allow you to specialise. I did next to no childcare all day – no kiddie meals, no supervised play, no settling inevitable disputes – but happily did the lion’s share of the washing up.

Each couple was responsible for one course of Adam’s birthday dinner. Pete and Liana did tapas style starters, Michaela and Ben cooked a beautiful salmon tart, and I made rhubarb crumble ice cream. Everyone was a bit subdued after last night, and I wasn’t the first to turn in when I called it a night at 12am.

April 20, 2007

I’m not feeling so great this morning, surprise, surprise… Pasc called to rehash the evening – apparently everyone thought I was on great form last night… We needed to get ready for our weekend away in Lincolnshire, which was the last thing I felt like doing. Adam and I got off to a bad start when he inadvertently heated up the new breast milk I’d expressed and planned to freeze.

I just about ripped his head off. I’m not sure why I reacted so strongly – aside from the exhaustion and headache I mean… Perhaps because breastmilk is practically a part of my body, is so hardwon (squeezed out teaspoon by precious teaspoon), and is vital nourishment for my newborn baby? I can’t think of an equivalent male effort. Maybe running on a treadmill, collecting each drop of sweat, and using it to water a plant essential to the baby’s life…

Matters weren’t helped when Adam told me to “stop doing nothing and help get us ready for the weekend away”. I childishly snatched up the various packing and shopping lists I’d written (“you won’t need these then!”), plonked a grizzling Lyra under her gym, and stormed off to the flat to sulk…

Once grudging peace was restored, Adam headed off to Waitrose. I cooked soup for tonight’s dinner, made the elements for my rhubarb crumble ice cream, packed for myself and the girls, and did enough housework so the house wouldn’t be a tip when we arrived home to greet Pat and Patty.

Amazingly, we set off only a half hour later than planned. Traffic was terrible, and Lyra screamed relentlessly until I clambered into the back seat and cuddled her asleep…

We were the first to arrive, but by 9:30 everyone was present and accounted for and the six(!) little girls were settled in bed. We sat around drinking wine and eating fine cheeses from Neal’s Yard that Adam had bought earlier in the week, and it seemed worth all the hassle of getting there. I lasted until about 11pm, though the others carried on until 2am…

April 19, 2007

Mum and dad’s 45th anniversary today… I did some expressing this morning in preparation for my night out with the girls. Got a good 100ml without too much effort. It occurred to me that people are so divorced from where milk comes from that it is quite weird to be confronted with a cup of it you’ve produced yourself. It wouldn’t seem all that much stranger to be squeezing out lemonade or cups of tea like some human drinks dispenser.

Lyra was very cooperative with the naps today, and I was able to give her a good feed at 5:30 before heading off to the West End. It was Pasc’s 40th birthday celebrations. We started with champagne and nibbles at the bar on top of the National Portrait Gallery, which has a fabulous view over Trafalgar Square and south to Big Ben.

There were ten of us in total, and I knew all except two. (Although Pasc is such an incorrigible gossip that I am party to the most intimate details of all her friends’ lives, as they no doubt are to mine. It makes it a bit surreal to be sitting across from them exchanging chitchat with a woman you’ve just met, when you know her husband is screwing his research assistant, for example.) People kept saying how great I was looking, though they are hardly going to say otherwise: “My god, you’ve really let yourself go since getting pregnant. Your ass is enormous!”

We eventually moved on to Kettner’s for some food and more wine. I was getting a bit tipsy by this point and had to rein myself in and switch to the water. It was great to be out having fun and feeling good. Seems like a long time…

April 18, 2007

Lyra didn’t sleep more than two hours the whole day, and that was in twenty minute installments… I’ll have a good day with her and think I’ve cracked it, but she’ll be back to her sleepless ways the next. She’s generally pretty good about sleeping at night, but the days are a complete crap shoot.

I took her for a spin round Waterlow Park in her pram, thinking that might send her to sleep, but her little gimlet eyes bored into me unblinkingly the whole time. At least I got some fresh air and exercise…

According to Nova, if  “Michali doesn’t marry Etta, he’s going to marry me! So now I almost have a boyfriend!” She told me that kids need to decide who they are going to marry when they are little, although “some kids wait until they are nine or ten.” Bless…

So the flat purchase has fallen through… The property market has been going mad the last few months, and the woman we were buying from has decided to put it back on the market to get a higher price for it. Very annoying, and illegal in more civilised countries (such as Scotland)…

We had a fraught meeting with her and the realtor this afternoon where she tried to justify her actions. She kept stressing that she could have lied to us but she didn’t because she’s a decent person. Like we should thank her for stabbing us in the face instead of the back.

April 17, 2007

Wheeled Lyra down to the clinic to get her weighed by the health visitor. She’s now 11lb 9oz, which maintains her on the 91% line, and they seemed satisfied with that. The health visitor asked me the usual post-natal depression questions. I don’t know if they think I’m a particular risk, or if they’ve been trained to ask them to all new mums.

When she said, “Do you sometimes wake up in the middle of the night for no reason?” I burst out laughing. What a ridiculous question to ask a new mum – chance would be a fine thing!

April 16, 2007

I had my six-week postnatal doctor’s appointment this morning to check that I’d recovered properly from the c-section. Apparently my scar is “a thing of beauty”. If dissolvable stitches are so superior to the fishing line kind, why don’t they always use them? Or perhaps it’s Dr Tischner’s needlework they are all raving over?Popped into the bank and did some grocery shopping on the way home. Adam was hanging about with Lyra, who was more than ready for her mid-morning feed.

In the afternoon, Adam headed off to referee Sid’s football party in Highgate Woods. Nova went along to be a playmate for Fay, and as it was a gorgeous sunny afternoon, I walked down with Lyra in the pram to join them. It was one of those happy days when Lyra was sleeping on schedule, like something out of a baby manual, and motherhood seemed like a walk in the park…

April 15, 2007

It was take two on the zoo plan this morning. This time we got there ten minutes before it opened. There was still a long line out front, but once you’re through the turnstiles, it’s a huge space that can absorb hordes of people. We headed to the “Into Africa” section first, where we were wowed by the red river pigs, okapi, and giraffes who were pulling down tree branches with their muscular black tongues.

There’s a new rainforest exhibit with a large open area in the centre. There were loads of pygmy marmosets running about, occasionally hopping the barrier to scurry across the walkway we stood on.

After checking out the new gorilla enclosure and the komodo dragons, we ate our picnic lunch, then made our way back to where we’d parked, via the giftshop of course… It’s impressive the way that zoos have turned their image around in the last ten years or so. When I first moved to London, the zoo was in serious decline. It was seen as a deeply un-PC anachronism that was unlikely to last into the 21 century. They’ve successfully rebranded themselves to be all about conservation, education and breeding programmes, and there are mile long queues on the weekends.

April 14, 2007

Had my manager Louise round for lunch. Adam did the grocery shopping before he and Nova went off to register Lyra at the Town Hall. I was hoping Lyra would have a nap, but there was no cooperation on that front.

I pretty much assembled the salad niçoise one handed, with Lyra slung over my should, but even so I pretty much had it together by the time Lou arrived. It was great to see her but it sure made me realise how far removed from work I am at the moment. I had to struggle to picture a couple of the colleagues she referred to…

Lyra had no sleep the entire morning and was getting pretty crabby. Adam walked Lou up to the bus stop with Lyra in the pram, then spent a couple of hours out with her. I tidied up from lunch, then had a manic hoovering session – stairs, furniture, everything. Very satisfying, as the carpets have been getting pretty manky.

Nova and I took a blanket onto the back lawn and had a “sunbathe” as she calls it. She brought along her Easter chocolate and a few toys and books so “we won’t get bored.” When Adam returned, he rolled Lyra out onto the patio where she slept another hour.

Nova noticed Anne through their back window, and reported that she was having a nap. “I know she’s not dead because people only die in hospital,” she informed me. She provided regular reports on how Anne still hadn’t moved, but “I’m pretty sure she’s not dead,” to the point where I thought I’d have to go and check myself, when Nova finally observed some movement.

Nova’s been asking a lot of questions about death, and told me what the difference between dying and killing was today – “killing is when you have an accident”. She has no idea that people sometimes kill one other, “only in an accident” she corrected me, and I didn’t have the heart to disabuse her.

Tonight when Nova was helping me get Lyra into her pyjamas, I mentioned that she’d spit up on her teeshirt. “Is ‘spit up’ a real word or a Canadian word?” Nova asked suspiciously. She’s very conscious of the difference in our accents and vocabulary at the moment. One of the games we play is I’ll say a “Canadian” word like “sidewalk”, and Nova will tell me what the English call it, ie, “pavement”.

April 13, 2007

Nova told us she would like a pet this morning at breakfast. We had a silly conversation about all the inappropriate pets we could get – wolf, giraffe, wasp, crocodile, etc – before agreeing that a rabbit or hamster would likely be best. “Or maybe a fly?” Nova suggested.

It got me thinking of the menagerie we grew up with. Lots of cats, fish, assorted rodents… At various times, we had gerbils, rats, a guinea pig, hamsters, and a chinchilla, often overlapping with one another. The gerbils lived in a cage on top of the oven, where they overbred and gnawed each other’s tails off. The rats (Socrates and Templeton) bunked in my brothers’ room. The chinchilla, Chunger, who slept with me, would escape nightly from its cage and ricochet about my bedroom like a demented pinball, gnawing on my swimming trophies and leaving almond-shaped pellets of poop on every surface.

The guinea pig Anna Maria, was such an unsuitable pet, squealing like a stuck pig whenever we tried to pick her up, that she didn’t last long. Jake the hamster came to an unfortunate end. Discovered lifeless in his cage on a hot summer’s afternoon, we immediately whisked him off and buried him with full funeral rites in the considerable pet cemetery next to the playhouse. Years later I read somewhere that when hamsters overheat they protect themselves by falling into a sort of coma…

The woman we are buying the flat from has turned around and asked for another £5K… We declined, but she’s got us over a barrel, given the money already spent on solicitor’s fees, surveys, architect etc. I suspect she’s going to renege completely on the deal, which would be a piss off…

I called health visitor to discuss Lyra’s non-sleeping. She agreed with my approach of trying to stretch the time between feeds to three hours, which will give me a chance to recharge my milk supply. I agreed to bring her in for a weighing on Tuesday, where no doubt they’ll find she’s dropped another line on their stupid chart.

Baked simnel cakes with Nova this afternoon. We decorated the tops with a glacé cherry half and flaked almonds for flower petals. The cherries deep sixed in the baking, leaving an odd little ring on almond flakes on top, but they taste good…

I got a phone call from Wade this afternoon, who was coping effortlessly with two kids (four and nine months) for the day while Gale was at work…

Made hoisin pork and rice for dinner. “This is much chewier than normal pork, mum,” Nova told me, “I’ll be chewing it all night!” “Well, that’ll save me doing your bedtime at any rate.” I said, “And if you aren’t done by morning you can have it for breakfast.” “This is one of your kiddings, isn’t it mummy?” Nova giggled uncertainly.

April 12, 2007

I had a terrible night with Lyra…
She did her usual good sleep in the evening, but from 3am she barely slept at all. It’s very exhausting – you’re tired enough anyway even when things go well… The poor little mite couldn’t seem to get to sleep all day either, which creates a punishing cycle. Because I’m exhausted my milk supply drops, because she can’t sleep Lyra wants to feed… She keeps having little snacks of milk (not enough to knock her out), then drops to sleep for twenty minutes before waking up hungry and dissatisfied.

April 11, 2007

Happy birthday Aaron! And Marni and Ruby…
Well, Lyra slept seven hours last night, from 9 until 4am. So either I had more milk than I thought, or more likely her exhaustion overrode her hunger pains… It messed up my promise to Nova that she could sleep in my bed (something she likes to do when Adam is away). After feeding Lyra, I shepherded Nova in, settled Lyra again, an even snatched another couple of hour’s sleep.

At 7:30 I called Adam, waking him up in his private, quiet hotel room, lucky man… As suspected, he had had a nice restaurant meal last night while I was grazing on cold leftovers in front of the fridge.

I walked Nova to the Mallinson Centre with Lyra in the pram. I didn’t have to repeat the journey – Beulah picked her up and took her to Marni’s 3rd birthday party.

A typical sleepless day with little Lyra. I finally settled her for a two and a half hour nap mid-afternoon. I should have slept myself, but there are always things to get done…

One thing I’ve got into the habit of is watching westerns I’ve recorded while I breastfeed. They are a good daytime choice – mindless, easily digested in small segments, and the bright colours make them easy to watch in our sun soaked living room.

Finished watching The Searchers with John Wayne this afternoon, which is an absolute masterpiece. John Wayne was a no-go area for me, but I’ve completely changed my mind about him. He’s an amazingly good actor and has so much screen presence. I’m a convert…

Adam got home from Scotland in the early evening. It was great to see him, but it all went pear shaped unfortunately. Lyra howled the minute he held her, he was arguing with Nova in ten minutes, and within twenty he’d fallen asleep on the couch, winding me up something chronic. So it wasn’t the happy homecoming I’d been anticipating…

April 10, 2007

Nova is doing a “multi-activity week” at the Mallinson Centre. I don’t think I could cope with having both her and Lyra home all day at the moment. Nova misses the interaction with other kids as well… Adam headed off to Edinburgh on business (he’s got some website work with the Royal Bank of Scotland) leaving me holding Lyra, “the amazing no-napping baby”. She wasn’t cranky or upset, she just refused to be put down. At all. As long as I held her, she smiled and gurgled away. So, lots of Harry Belafonte and rounds of the Lyra song. I’ve invented the tune, but the lyrics go like this:

Lyra, Lyra, Lyra, Lyra Fern
Little girl, the things you’re gonna learn*
(bridges you will burn, heads you’re gonna turn, men you’re gonna spurn etc)
Lyra, Lyra, Lyra
Lyra, Lyra, Lyra
Lyra, Lyra, Lyra, Lyra Fern

Lyra, Lyra, Lyra, Lyra Lou
Little girl, the things you’re gonna do*
( shit you’ll put me through, choices you will rue, etc)

Lyra, Lyra, Lyra, Lyra Lee
Little girl, the things you’re gonna see* etc

Lyra, Lyra, Lyra, Lyra Lie
Little girl, the things you’re gonna try*
(dresses you will buy, etc)

Lyra, Lyra, Lyra, Lyra Lo
Little girl, the places you will go*
(people you will know, ways in which you’ll grow, etc)

Repeat, improvising endlessly, ad nauseum…

Simonia took Lyra off in the pram when she went to pick up Nova. Apparently, she slept the whole half hour she was away and woke up the minute the pram crossed the threshold. By my reckoning, she’s slept about two hours all day…

Bedtime was a juggling act… I made a miscalculation, and optimistically started Lyra’s bedtime feed too soon. She determinedly guzzled down her milk while fixing me with that whale eye look, then wouldn’t settle. I headed upstairs for some one handed snacks and water hoping to replenish my milk supply, but it didn’t work. Her next feed produced only dry squeaking sucks and more baleful whale eye.

Finally, I plonked her in the cot, and went off to read to Nova and tuck her in. After another slightly more productive feeding session with Lyra, I finally settled her about 9pm. I expected she’d be calling for more in an hour, and was too tired to spend time making dinner. Zapped a cup of soup, nibbled cold leftovers from Easter lunch, and filched some chocolate eggs from Nova’s stash. No doubt Adam is dining at some flash Edinburgh establishment…:-(

April 9, 2007

Another gorgeous day – at least it looked that way through the window. Once outside, there was quite a sharp wind that cut straight through my spring cardie. Set off for London Zoo with a packed lunch, but half the UK seemed to have the same idea, and there was a line to get in stretching half way along Regents Park Road. We abandoned plan A and went to the playground in Primrose Hill instead. Nova had fun climbing and swinging, while I breastfed a cowering Lyra in the bitter wind and scalded my mouth on nasty, boiled coffee.

It occurred to me that only in England (or perhaps Siberia) would this be considered a nice day. Sure the sky was blueish, and the sun spread its rays parsimoniously over the ground, but it was still bloody cold. The wind carved away at you, and the minute a wisp of cloud obscured the sun, the temperature dropped ten degrees.

Ate our picnic on the grass, then let Nova have another go on the climbing frame before heading home. Lyra finally fell asleep (or did she slip into a hypothermic state?) I think the sleep deprivation got to me today – I’m definitely in “glass half empty” mode…

Stopped briefly in Hampstead where I dashed into Waterstones and bought birthday presents for Sid and Marni. Not sure if my choices were inspired or sleep deprived insanity, but I was out again in five minutes…

Lyra and I had a two-hour nap when we got home, “and then the world seemed none so bad”…

April 8, 2007

Last night before bed I laid out a little treasure hunt for Nova – a trail of little chocolate eggs and notes that led her to a large white chocolate and strawberry egg I stashed behind the couch. She’s having a hunt with Sid and Fay later this morning, but they generally tear around finding all the eggs while she bumbles along behind, checking the places they’ve just looked in case they’ve missed one… She was very excited about it, and rushed around following the clues. “Did you do this or did the Easter bunny?” she asked me afterward. “I didn’t do it – I’m doing the one in the garden later,” I lied. “I knew it was the Easter bunny!” she said.

I gave Nova some last-minute coaching before the garden hunt, advising her to watch where Sid and Fay went, and then go in a different direction. It seemed to pay off – at one point they counted up their haul to see how things were going, and it was: Sid – 5; Fay – 7; and Nova – 9! Result!! The natural order was soon restored in the trades that followed the hunt. Sid got all the gold eggs, and Fay made Nova swap her pink ones for green and blues.

Lunch was pretty good, and Pasc was spot on when she described the chocolate trifle as a posh version of black forest cake. Chocolate custard is pretty special though…

April 7, 2007

I had my first go at expressing milk with my hand pump today (“Are you putting milk in or taking it out?” Nova asked). I need to build up a little supply – and ideally remind Lyra about drinking from bottles – so I can go out to Pasc’s 40th birthday drinks night on the 19th and leave Adam to look after the girls. It went quite well at first. I produced 70ml in fifteen minutes of pumping, then topped that up to 100ml when Adam was over at Pete and Pasc’s with the girls.

About half an hour after pumping, I got this stabbing pain in my right nipple. It felt as if it was being sliced with a knife. There were no lumps or hot spots, so I ruled out mastitis, but there was a completely white patch on the nipple that looked like it had been blanched.

A quick search on the web informed me that I was experiencing a vasospasm, where one of the blood vessels to the nipple gets compressed. The website described it as “excruciating, white knuckle, hair raising, cry-out-loud painful”, which wasn’t much of an exaggeration…

It is usually caused by the baby latching on incorrectly, and ironically, the recommended treatment is to express rather than breastfeed… Lyra’s next feed brought tears to my eyes, but she seemed to improve the situation. There was some pain after she’d finished, then it seemed to ease up…

We’re having the Franklyn’s for Easter lunch tomorrow, and I’ve found a kid-friendly Nigella Lawson menu that can be made ahead – baked chicken with sausages, potato gratin and a chocolate-cherry trifle. Once the girls were down, we got the chicken marinating, and prepared the gratin and trifle.

Adam had a bit of a disaster with the chocolate custard for the trifle – basically, he produced chocolate scrambled eggs – but it came out right the second time round. I assured him that Heston Blumenthal (the feted chef at The Fat Duck, which was voted the best restaurant in the world, and creator of dishes like snail porridge and bacon and egg ice cream) will likely be serving the very same thing to eager guests for £20 a plate. I packed it into ramekins, and plan to offer it to Nova as chocolate pudding…

April 6, 2007

The weather was glorious this morning, and we decided to go for a picnic on the Heath. I packed a lunch, made a flask of tea and found some toys for Nova and set off. We spread our blanket near the duck ponds and tucked into our sandwiches. Lyra had dozed off immediately, and barely woke all afternoon. Nova loved having both our undivided attention, and after an ice cream and some games – frisbee, skipping, catch – we shifted base to the Parliament Fields playground.

Caught the bus up West Hill. Adam took the girls home and I scouted round the village for dinner supplies. Most of the shops were closed but I managed to find sausages and potatoes, so we had that with steamed courgettes.

April 5, 2007

No sleep for Lyra today…
Nothing longer than half an hour at any rate…
She seems unsatisfied with my milk – she feeds irritably for ten or fifteen minutes then wrenches herself off, wriggles and worms, clunks her head against my shoulder, drifts off, settles in her cot for a few minutes before tossing herself awake and the cycle starts again…

I took her out in the pram this afternoon, as that often settles her. It doesn’t help in terms of getting anything done, but at least I’m out enjoying the sunshine and getting some exercise while she has her nap. I’d promised Nova we’d make chocolate chip cookies when she got home from Viva’s, but the deli was out of stock. They said their order was arriving in half an hour.

I decided to try the Tesco, then carried on to the deli on Archway Road, where I managed to jam the pram between the counter and the ice cream freezer. It’s such a drag using the pram in the village – all the shops are so tiny, with awkward stoops and stairs and narrow, crooked little aisles. We’ve been practising with the sling at home, and I plan to brave the village with it soon…

April 4, 2007

Dave came round for a visit this afternoon, and after lunch we took Lyra out for a walk in the pram. I spent quite a bit of time with Dave the year I was on maternity leave with Nova, and it reminded me of old times.

Stopped for a swift half of Guinness at the Prince of Wales. We sat at the little outdoor tables facing Pond Square, and Dave had no sooner returned with the drinks when Lyra woke up. Felt a bit self-conscious slugging back Guinness as I was breastfeeding, but the sort of people who drink on weekday afternoons are the sort to cast stones, or disparaging glances…

Came home via the “cake garage”, one of the few remaining traces of Highgate quirkiness. The independent petrol station on North Hill is slowly converting its little shop into a bakery, and has two big shelves filled with an enormous variety of artisan baked cakes next to the turtle wax and antifreeze. I bought a sticky toffee cake there last week that was delicious…

April 3, 2007

Our magnolia tree is in full bloom, and I enjoy seeing it appear like a great white ghost through the lifting darkness in the early hours. Nova is doing morning tennis lessons at the Highgate Tennis Club this week. She’s going with her friend Etta, and it seems to be going well. I’m keen for her to find a sport that she enjoys and is good at. Sports were a big part of my life, and I notice that I put more emphasis on them than the other parents in her class seem to.

At Passover yesterday, Freddy told a story from his childhood about needing to kill a cat, and deciding that the only possible way to do it was to fling it off the roof of their apartment block. I was too distracted with Lyra to remember whether Tibbles actually plunged to her death, but it reminded me of situation we faced several years ago…

One evening, Adam and I were sitting in the living room when we heard an odd noise in the kitchen. We investigated, but found nothing. It happened again the next night, and the next. The following morning I discovered that the apples in the fruit bowl had been nibbled. Closer investigation revealed that some of the plastic bags in the bag drawer had been shredded into a sort of nest, and that our plastic Tupperware had been nibbled as well. I also found some little black droppings under the sink…

Assuming we had mice, I went off to the hardware store to buy one of those humane mouse traps. When I mentioned the size of the dropping I’d found, the salesclerk said, “You don’t have mice, you have a rat.”

Now strangely enough, they don’t do humane traps for rats…;-) Our options were a rat trap, rat poison, or a big piece of gluey cardboard that the rat would stick to. “What do you do once the rat is stuck?” I asked. “Kill it, of course” the guy said. I thought of fishing out a frenzied rat stuck to a piece of gluey paper from behind the bins (with the barbeque tongs?) and killing it somehow. Would we club it with a frying pan? Drown it in the sink? Stab it with the Sabatier knife? Garotte it with string? Fling it off the balcony? Just how do you kill a rat with your bare hands?

In the end, I opted for the rat trap – a great hunk of wood with a cruel spike protruding from the middle and a spring-loaded mechanism that looked like it could fell a fox, modestly named “The Nipper”. Following advice to bait it with chocolate, we stuck one of those big caramel centred Rolos on it, and slid it behind the kitchen bin. We hadn’t been in bed ten minutes when we heard a loud thunk. “Do you think that’s the trap?” “I hope so, otherwise it sounds like the rat is moving his furniture in,” Adam said.

Investigating first thing in the morning, Adam discovered a nearly decapitated rat in “The Nipper”. It was enormous – well over a foot from nose to the tip of its tail – and the thought of dealing with it alive and furious at being stuck to a piece of cardboard was unthinkable. Even disposing of the body required a bit of thought. In the end we wrapped it in a few plastic bags and dropped it in the dumpsters at East Finchley station. We also blocked up the waste water opening in the corner of the kitchen with tons of steel wool and that spray insulation foam that expands as it dries, and haven’t had a problem since.

April 2, 2007

We received three parcels today! One from Greg and Wendy (a counting book with finger puppet glove); one from Wade and Gale (lovely, cuddly embroidered blanket and little puppets for Nova and Lyra; and one from my friend Aggi in Holland with an enormous stuffed chicken.

I love the wrapping paper Wendy made…

Passover dinner with the Garfunkels this evening. Breastfed a restive Lyra through the interminable prayers. Nova read a passage of the service flawlessly – she didn’t even stumble on matzoh or leavened – wowing all the guests (Doron; Jeffrey and Jennifer; Henrietta) and doing us proud.

Adam and I took turns settling Lyra between the various courses: matzoh with haroseth (apple-walnut mix) and horseradish; hard boiled egg in salt water; chicken soup and kneidlach; braten with gravy and vegetables; chocolate mousse and raspberry jelly. Home about 11pm…

April 1, 2007

Little Lyra is one month old already!
While we’re still a long way from having any sort of a routine, she has become what the baby book calls “a settled baby”. I’m learning her preferences, how she likes to be handled, cuddled and settled.

I can already see why parents are so much less firm with the baby of the family. I feel like I’m doing it already. I’m far less anxious about “doing it right” this time round, and more inclined to go with my instincts. Also, Nova’s done the hard work of turning me from a self-centred individual into a self-sacrificing mum, so I don’t resent (or even notice) the demands on my time the way I did the first time.

But above all, I’m aware of how quickly this time will go past. Sitting there breastfeeding in the dark hours of the night, I find myself thinking, “These are the last months I’ll hold a tiny baby of mine in my arms like this.” I’ll blink my eyes and Lyra will be heading off to school with a book bag over her shoulder.

That’s what it feels like with Nova. She seems to have doubled in size since Lyra was born. One day she was my little girl, and the next half way to being a teenager…

Nova got the better of me today. We were having a pretend argument about who got to be Cinderella: “I’m Cinderella!” “No, I’m Cinderella! You can be Drusilla!” “No, I’ll be Cinderella, you can be that big dog Blodger.” “He’s called Bruno, Mum! Why don’t you be Lucifer the cat?” “Look, Nova, who does all the housework around here? I do. So I get to be Cinderella.” “I know,” said Nova, “We can both be Cinderella. You can be the Cinderella that stays at home and does housework, and I’ll be the Cinderella that goes to the ball and marries the handsome prince.” Out-maneuvered by a five-and-three-quarter-year-old…

The house whose backyard adjoins ours has been bought by a relatively famous film director (Chris Nolan – Memento, Insomnia, Batman: The Beginning). When Nova went out to play in the garden, we noticed that his three kids were also out in their garden. Adam bustled straight over and introduced himself to the mum, before popping Nova over the garden wall to play with their five-year-old girl, Flora. Apparently, they mostly live in California, but have taken the children out of pre-school for a few months while he does some work over here, and they’ve missed having other children to play with.