Surrendered Mother

Piglet is sleeping blissfully in his bouncy chair following his 16 week jabs.

Blissful sleeps seem to be increasingly rare these days.  Most sleeps are preceded by hours of fretfulness where he screams for ages until Mummy finds the exact position which he has chosen to fall asleep in that day, and he finally conks out.  I have lost count this week of how many times I have had to remove him from cafes and restaurants before we get chased out with torches by childfree twentysomething hipsters.  One suggestion this weekend from a thoughtful waiter was "Do you want some whisky for him?"  Er, no but maybe for me.

Even today at the doctor's, I had to pace up and down the waiting room like a 1950s father-to-be until a screaming Piglet finally fell asleep and a woman in the waiting room helpfully informed me that my "daughter" was now asleep in my arms (LOVING the fact that everyone thinks Piglet is a girl btw.  My   policy of trying to dress him in gender neutral clothes-i.e. girls' leggings and fluffy coats in the style of East 17 in the Stay Another Day video-as much as possible is clearly paying off.  Kanye wears womenswear all the time you know.  It's what all the fashion pack are doing.  OH GOD I JUST COMPARED MY CHILD TO KANYE WEST.  LORD HAVE MERCY).

OK I'm back.  Piglet just screwed up his face into an almighty cry in the style of an X Factor contestant warbling the highest notes of a Mariah Carey song and I had to pick him up and intermittently walk him around the room for about seven hundred years whilst watching Miracle Babies on Channel 5 and weeping into the nearest muslin cloth (which was very close by-one can never be far from a muslin) and thanking the universe that I did not have a premature baby.

Spoke to my mother on the phone last night and she suggested that "things will get easier once he's on solids."  And there was me dreading the mess all over the flat and the increasingly awful smell of Piglet's nappies, which are already flooding the kitchen with their heady aroma of digested breast milk. She practically suggested I should be putting him on solids now as "you were weaned by his age."  He's not even four months old for Christ's sake.  He doesn't have any teeth and can't co-ordinate his hand to his mouth sufficiently to suck his thumb except on rare occasions, so he's hardly ready for a three course cordon bleu meal.  Mother thinks Farley's rusks are the ideal weaning food, which I'm pretty sure goes against all advice about weaning that I have ever read, although it might be worth buying rusks just for me as from what I remember of my own toddler years they were a real delicacy.

In other news, I now officially no longer exist as an individual and am reduced to the role of carer for King Piglet.  Mother even asked me if I wanted a Christmas present for myself this year, or if I would be satisfied with just Piglet's presents.  Newsflash:  No I will not be satisfied with a new cot and a selection of onesies from Mothercare.  I DON'T FIT INTO ANY OF THEM.  In the end, I asked Mother if she would consider purchasing me an American Apparel voucher, to which her response was "oh, so you still want to shop there then?" implying that mothers are not allowed to shop at American Apparel as the clothes are "a bit clingy" (her words, not mine).  So basically Mother, what you are saying there is that I am now not only too old for American Apparel, but also too fat.  This was then followed by a comment about how the weight might come off when I finally stop breastfeeding.  So too fat then.  Thanks Mum.  On second thoughts, I might ask for a breast pump for Christmas, so yes, it looks like this year's presents will be baby-related.  I may as well just give up now and put out an announcement on Facebook that from now on I will be a Surrendered Mother.