January 2002

She took her last dose of antibiotics this morning, and I’m certainly glad to be finished with that task. She really took exception to them, although I don’t think it was the taste she objected to. Yesterday afternoon I was trying to wrestle a dose into her, and although she wanted to yell to express her outrage, she’d figured out that it would give me the opportunity to squirt some medicine into her, so she was trying to yell with her lips closed. She’d make this kind of “MMMMMMNNNNPPPHHH” sound and then turn her head to one side to draw in a lungful of air. It was pretty cute…

Adam and I went out for dinner last night while Dave sat with Nova. Enjoyed a nice three-course meal — goat’s cheese and rocket, sea bream on a bed of spinach, ginger-pear crumble — and a bottle of chenin blanc and discussed our planned visit to Canada.

We’re going to go to Kelowna in February. The three of us will travel out together, but Adam will return a week earlier than Nova and me. I’m glad I won’t be flying solo with the baby both ways, and I’ll some experience of travelling with her at this age, before I have to manage on my own.

In Oliver’s case that was definitely breastfeeding — he’s a first-rate eater. Nova played contentedly on the floor and spat up her lunchtime peaches on their lovely white carpet (not the last spit to hit that carpet I’m afraid…) There’s such a difference between the two babies now, but six months is nothing, and it won’t be long before they are little playmates.

We started a game of Pictionary, and it was quite closely fought (although Doron and Antonia were enjoying the kind of mindmelding communication where he would draw two small circles and she’d shout out “typewriter!” and be right…)

Nova was introducing a new level of complexity by moving the marker pieces, chewing cards to a pulp, threatening to swallow pencils, etc., but it was Oliver who brought the game to a halt with one loud “feed me” cry. We called it a draw (yuk, yuk)…

She was wearing her little pink party dress (from Beulah’s decorator Tony) with pink tights, pale blue T-strap shoes (Jules and Mary), and her black velvet coat (Jin-sun and John), and she looked pretty cute. It’s a transformation when we put her in a dress — she becomes such a little girl.

I put her down on her blanket in the corner of the drawing room, and she demonstrated her moves to an expert crowd of grandparents — three point turns, rolls, rocking on hands and knees, and was inspired by her audience to try a few little crawling steps.

She was on great form, and went the whole four hours without grizzling (or napping). It’s great to have her fighting fit again — in fact she’s the healthiest of the three of us at the moment.

Dave and I did the cooking while Adam settled Nova for the evening. We had smoked mackerel paté and oatcakes, regular and vegetarian haggis with neeps and tatties, and a lemon surprise pudding with raspberries for dessert.

I’d printed out “Address to a Haggis”, and we passed it round the table with each person reading a few lines, but little Joe proved so amazingly good at rendering Burns’ language into something understandable that we let him recite the whole thing. Maybe it was because he had no expectations of what the words “should” say or mean, but he was streets better than the rest of us.

We carried on until about midnight. Nova slept until about 3am, so we were able to get a little bit of sleep before we had to wrestle her nighttime antibiotics into her.

Actually, it doesn’t make much difference — within about five minutes it is pointing every which way and sticking out over her ears. I think her hair is pretty fine even by baby standards, and there still isn’t very much of it. In a baby photo of me about at about this age, my mom was able to put my hair up in a little pony tail.

The Whittington is currently embroiled in a scandal over how they treated an elderly patient who was admitted to A&E. It happened on Sunday, when Nova was already in the children’s ward, but given the state of affairs on Saturday I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s not that the staff aren’t professional and caring — they are — but they are overworked, under-resourced, and frequently don’t speak English as a first language.

There was an incident with an elderly woman when we were there. She was disoriented when she arrived, but over the morning and afternoon got feeling better and wanted to have her clothes back. The level of miscommunication between her and the nurse was farcical but also alarming. The nurse was trying to assess whether she was still confused and asked her where she lived. “Down the road in Nag’s Head.” The nurse had clearly never heard of it, and seemed to doubt there was such a place. The woman got her way in the end, but it took a real struggle. It makes you wonder how those people who can’t stand up for themselves must fare…

We tried couscous today, which wasn’t a big hit, and she had her apple raw and grated instead of stewed. I’m supposed to be moving her on from smooth purées, but she’s not that keen… I’ve been trying to give her some live yogurt as well, which the paediatrition recommended to counteract the effect of the antibiotics, but if she’s swallowed a teaspoon I’d be surprised.

One of the most frustrating things about weaning is that the advice seems to be so contradictory. For example, one source says you can give wheat products at six months, another says not to even think about it for 15 months. The health visitor says I should be giving her cheese, while my baby recipe book says no dairy except yogurt until nine months.

I’m sure moms these days are bombarded with far more guidelines and restrictions than in our mother’s day. I seem to recall my friend Mary saying that when she took Bella to Greece to visit family, her mom fed Bella feta cheese and olives and all sorts of things that would likely have horrified the health visitor, and Bella was none the worse for it.

The odd thing is that she doesn’t really seem to mind the taste. It’s more having something injected into her mouth that bothers her. At least she took a bit of solid food at lunch time. I don’t like to think of her having nothing but mucus and medicine and a bit of breast milk in her stomach.

After listening to her chest the doctor said, “I think you’d better take her to see the duty paediatrition — it might be a patch of pneumonia.” He gave us a letter to present at A&E, and we headed straight to the hospital. We didn’t wait five minutes before she was being seen. They were concerned at the low level of oxygen in her blood and her climbing temperature, so she was given a tiny little oxygen mask (which she took great exception to) and some paracetemol.

Normal service was resumed at this point, and we waited a few hours for the doctor, a couple more for her chest x-ray, another hour for blood tests, and an hour and a half for the senior paediatrition to assess whether she should be admitted. Because the x-ray and blood tests suggested bacterial pneumonia, they decided to administer intraveneous antibiotics.

It was about 5:30 by the time she was settled in the children’s ward and given her first dose of antibiotics through a drip in her hand. There were four other children in our room: Fatima and Abdul, who both had severe cerebral palsy; Chloe, a four-month-old baby with septicaemia and pneumonia; and a little five-year-old diabetic boy who had eaten some sweets and taken ill.

Everyone but Abdul had a parent staying over with them, and at 10:30pm they brought around folding cots. It was surprisingly comfortable and I would have had no trouble sleeping on it had Nova been able to get any rest. She managed a couple of short naps, but I guess she was feeling too sick to sleep for long. The noise and lights wouldn’t have helped, and it seemed that on the few occasions she did manage to settle, the nurse would be round to take her temperature, and put the alligator clip on her toe that measured her oxygen levels.

For whatever reason, she just wouldn’t sleep. I spent hours rocking and singing to her, wandering the halls when her crying got too loud, nursing her, all to no avail. (I’m sure I would have driven the other parents insane with my endless rounds of “Let the Rest of the World Go By” if they hadn’t already been driving me crazy with their symphony of snoring.)

At 3:00am I tried feeding her some formula and a bit of rusk, in case she was feeling hungry, but she wasn’t interested. The nurse offered to take her for a bit so I could get some rest, and I left Nova sitting perkily at the reception desk in her nappy and crashed out on my cot. She woke me at 4:45 (“I just put her down 20 minutes ago!” said the nurse) and that was it for the night’s rest.

At 7am the nurse came round with her final dose of antibiotics. Nova reacted violently, arching her back and shrieking long afterwards, but she seemed to exhaust herself, and managed to sleep for over two hours. (I’d called Adam at 6:30am, asking him to come back so that I could have a break, and needless to say by the time he arrived at 7:45am she was sleeping peacefully in her cot.)

The paediatrition made his rounds at about 11am, and after reviewing Nova’s chart, discharged her with a 10 day course of oral antibiotics. Chloe wasn’t as lucky — she needed to spend a few more days on intraveneous antibiotics to combat the septicaemia, and needs an operation on her kidneys. The little diabetic boy was discharged as well (although there was an unexplained spike in his blood sugar levels, until it was discovered that he’d made himself a jam sandwich at the breakfast bar when his dad was off the ward!)

Anyway, we were home by 1:30pm. After a couple of false starts, Nova slept from 4pm to 6:30am this morning, aside from a few quick wakings to feed. Likely the best thing for her, and definitely the best thing for us…

The accommodation got cleaner, the food improved, my salary (and the bills) got bigger, the relationships more serious, but it wasn’t until I stopped avoiding pregnancy and had Nova that anything really changed. Self-centeredness became Nova-centeredness. Babies need so much from you, and you give it without a thought.

But it goes beyond the endless round of feeding, cleaning, and entertaining. I can’ t pop to the shops, see a movie, go for a run, or even put on a load of laundry without factoring her in. I didn’t expect it to be otherwise, but it takes getting used to.

Tripping down the stairs while carrying Nova, I didn’t instinctively put my hands out to break the fall but landed with a crash on my knees so as not to drop her. Watching in shock as the Twin Towers crumbled, I babbled and played (distractedly) with Nova on my lap so that she wouldn’t feel alarmed. Holding a sick and sobbing Nova in my arms I didn’t cry myself (which I felt like doing), but feigned competence, made a diagnosis and administered medicine (getting only a small amount in her eye…)

But I think it’s more than just an act. Flying to Edinburgh with Nova, I resolved not to act scared if the plane hit turbulence, to avoid upsetting her. In the end, I was so focussed on her that I couldn’t even have told you if the flight was bumpy.

Unsurprisingly, food isn’t high on her agenda. She’s pretty much renounced solids — I’ve been offering her cool fruit purées, and she might take a few spoonfuls, but she really isn’t interested. Fortunately she’s still breastfeeding okay, so I’m sure she’s getting all the nourishment she needs. She’s a bit more cheerful today, which is a welcome development.

Doron and Antonia’s baby now has a name — Oliver Max Garfunkel. By all accounts he’s thriving, but with Nova so poorly I haven’t been able to go see him.

I took her to the doctor this morning, and he supported our suspicions. “Have you discovered Calpol?” he asked (baby liquid paracetemol). I had given her a dose last night, and it finally helped her get to sleep when nothing else seemed to. She had another dose this afternoon, and fell asleep in my arms within minutes.

Had our monthly visit to the health visitor this afternoon. Nova weighed in at a hefty 18 pounds 12 ounces, which is the most she’s gained in a month. She’s back on the 75th percentile after languishing on the 50th for the past few months. No wonder my back has been playing up!

• sitting up for more than 5 seconds without toppling over
• doing a pushup and then not knowing what to do from there
• moving things from hand to hand
• picking tiny bits of lint and such off the floor and putting them in her mouth
• saying “hiya” (or the equivalent sound at any rate)…
  

We had the most godawful afternoon with the car. With a long list of shopping to do, errands to run for Doron and Antonia, and three guests coming for dinner, the car chose not to start. It turned over a few times and then the battery just died. It took an hour of trying before we managed to jumpstart it, but eventually we set off for Waitrose.

We were just turning off the A1, a major six-lane highway, when the car died again. Adam tried frantically to restart it, but it wouldn’t catch. I had to get out and push the damn thing to the side of the intersection. We called the AA, and amazingly they were with us in about 15 (very long) minutes.

The guy was excellent, and in addition to restarting the car, he adjusted the mix and the idle speed. He said we needed a new battery, ad so we followed him halfway across north London to a motor supply store to buy one, which he installed on the spot.

At least Nova slept through the whole ordeal, the little star. We got home about four hours later than planned, took the bus to the hospital to meet our new nephew, then rushed home to settle Nova for the night and prepare a Japanese dinner for five, and proceeded to have a terrific evening that stretched well into the wee hours.

I’m completely unable to get Nova in or out of her cot, so if she falls asleep breastfeeding, that’s where she stays. And I thought the tendonitis was a hassle… On the positive side, I think it’s muscular not spinal, and it does seem to be getting better.

January 10, 2002
I had my first visit to Clown Town yesterday, a commercial play area for kids. Alyssa and Jamie had been before, and she’s been keen to go with us. It is in a light industrial building off the North Circular. There is a huge climbing frame, slides, ball pools and a padded area for the little ones to crawl about. T

he café sold an array of junk food, soft drinks, and slurpies, so there were loads of kids tearing about high on sugar and additives, screaming their heads off. Everyone seemed to have to most awful chest colds, and given the grubbiness of the surfaces, I wasn’t all that keen to put Nova down.

Most of the moms were about fifteen years younger than us and looked to be at their wit’s end. (I’m sure if smoking were allowed the place would have been thick with smoke…) I put Nova down in the “babies only” enclosure, and within minutes she had attracted a couple of three-year-old girls, who surrounded her and were stroking her face and arms. (I don’t know what it is about three-year-olds and babies…) She seemed to enjoy the attention — I think she likes to see faces that are more her size.

Clown Town seemed to be popular with kids, but it was a little hell on earth from my perspective. We stayed about a lifetime, then stopped off at Tescos before heading home, where I did a number on my back getting Nova out of her car seat that had me prostrate for the rest of the evening…

There were five other moms with babies aged from about six months to a year old. We stood in a circle in the shallow pool and put the babies through a series of movements: floating on the back, on the front, blowing bubbles (that didn’t happen), and going under water (Nova came up coughing and sputtering both times I tried this). We ended up guiding them around supported in rubber rings, and I managed to position Nova so that she was floating on her own on her back, and kicking her little legs. I wouldn’t say she was crazy about swimming, but she was her usual cheerful and cooperative self.

Unfortunately I strained my back when we were in Norfolk, and had a bugger of a time getting us both changed and dressed, as I couldn’t bend over to put her in the playpen while I got changed. It’s really been a problem these last few days, I’m just hoping it doesn’t get any worse, but it’s hard to see how it will get a chance to rest and heal… I’ve been surprised at how physically demanding pregnancy and new momhood has been. I was so accustomed to feeling fit and well!

I have to say that people were pretty helpful. I did lug her up and down a few flights of stairs, but most of the time someone helped by carrying the other end. Spent a very pleasant few hours at the museum, and especially enjoyed the collection of silver — there were the most amazing candlebra and epergnés, and a lovely collection of spoons shaped like leaves.

Unfortunately, Nova was in “no nap” mode, and grew increasingly tired and fractious in spite of various meals, drinks, nappy changes, back rubs etc. She finally nodded off against my shoulder while we were in the gift shop, and I spent a quiet half hour in the sculpture room with her sleeping on my lap while Michaela and Aphra checked out a last few exhibits. I was sat in front of a marble statue/gravemarker to Emily Georgiana, beloved wife and mother, who died aged 39 (no doubt in childbirth)…

We put Nova down shortly after they left, and were just sitting down to a nice bowl of pasta and glass of wine, when she set up a howl downstairs. Something was definitely bothering her, as she almost never wakes in the evening. She was really crying, and not that keen on eating.

We took her temperature, and if anything she was on the cool side. In the end we decided it was either teething or indigestion (cauliflower for dinner…) and gave her a bit of Calpol in case she was in pain. It took a good hour to settle her, and we had the same trouble when she woke again at 3am. Seemed alright in the morning though…

There was a bag of toys as well, with lots of great stuff. They have been so generous — someone commented the other day how well dressed Nova is, and a lot of the credit belongs to Mary. The car might have been full when we left London, but it was truly stuffed for the return journey. As I was unpacking the clothes, I mentioned that the little sleeveless black dress with black satin bow might be nice for Beulah’s forthcoming birthday party. “But it’s an afternoon event, darling!” said Adam.

Had a lovely meal once we’d got the girls settled for the night. The food is always great at their place, and with all the Christmas treats it really got quite decadent. Stayed up far too late indulging…

We went out for lunch en masse to St. Peter’s Brewery near Bungay. The restaurant was in a converted chapel, and was certainly the finest dining experience Nova has had. The two little girls were very good, and almost no trouble (although there was a heartstopping moment when Martha grabbed Adam’s pint and suspended it over the flagstone floor). The beer is justifiably famous, and the food was very nice, if a bit uninspired. Still I can hardly complain about the chance to eat out two days in a row!

Things started to unravel when Ian, Liana and I (the first team) got to the cinema to find that the first show we could get tickets for was the 3pm, not the 1:30 as planned. After a prolonged consultation with base station, the plan was modified and Adam stayed home with Nova (it didn’t seem right to ask someone who’d never met her to look after her all afternoon and do her evening routine). We went for lunch to fill the time, and added to the feeling of naughtiness by having a shot of vodka with our sandwich.

The film was awesome! It’s too bad Adam didn’t get to see it (although I don’t feel too sorry for him, as he has been to see four live Arsenal games this December, including one on Boxing Day). Back at the house, we refrained from discussing it once the second team returned, but it was a unanimous thumbs up. Pulled together an excellent Thai feast and saw in the New Year with a big bottle of champagne. Made it until about 2am before calling it a night.