Tall Boy

Erm, I've been holding off blogging about the Boy because it's probably going to sound awfully smug. Also, I'm worried it may jinx things.

But I'm wondering if the fates have decreed that since we've had such an awful time of it for the past couple of years, we've gotten a fairly easy baby. The only times he really gets upset is if he's hungry and I'm in a situation where I can't feed him straight away, or if he's got a dirty nappy. Or if something hurts him - like an injection - or if he's looking at a very bright light (unusual, but it happened a couple of times on public transport). But it's generally straightforward to anticipate his needs or deal with them if he's unhappy. At least, so far.

I've found breastfeeding fairly easy too. There were days at the start where I was doing really long feeds, and every so often the Boy seems to need to crank up my supply. This means I get a day of doing nothing else but feed (the more he feeds, the more I produce). This does get quite trying and I'm always relieved when those days are over, although I think infertility has made this a fairly small thing to take in my stride. But, the vast majority of the time, it's been straightforward.

I'd expected a breastfed baby to be smaller than a formula fed one, and expected to have the occasional worry about weight. Instead, the Boy is a bit of a bruiser. He's bang on average for weight - so above average for a breastfed baby - and well above average for his height. In fact, he's about to outgrow some clothes that are sized for 6-9 month old babies. I thought the clothes might just be cut small, but I took him along to a baby group for the first time today and he really is bigger than some much older babies.

Also, he's never had problems with taking a bottle. I felt awful when he had to be formula fed after being born because his blood sugar was low. But, on the plus side, he's never been freaked out about having milk from a rubber teat. This means I can occasionally express and go out - I don't do this a lot, but we have had two trips to eat out and one to the cinema since he was born although he goes through the expressed milk really quickly and starts bellowing equally fast if there isn't milk to hand when he's hungry, so I need to leave a lot with whichever relative is babysitting!)

Developmentally, he's been doing well. I mean, I'm not claiming he's a child genius and some websites say he should already be rolling, which he definitely isn't. But we'll get there. Even in the past week, he's made different sounds, has learned to grab, and has got much more interested in different toys as well as the trees in the park and other children. He started making odd shouty noises at the baby next to him at the baby group, which is the first time he's attempted to interact with someone who wasn't making an effort to play with him!

Sleep wise, we're doing good. He sleeps from half past nine in the evening until between half four and half five in the morning. I get up and feed him and he immediately conks out - it's quite funny sometimes! Then he gets up properly at around half past seven in the morning. So he's not sleeping through yet, but between us, we can live with his sleep pattern. And it certainly beats getting up every two or three hours to feed. His instinct seems to be to eat lots in the evening so he's totally full - he apparently doesn't drop off if there's even just a tiny little bit of space in his stomach.

I'm sure it won't always be plain sailing. Watching him kick in his bouncy seat, you can see there's a lot of energy zooming around his little body that we're going to have to find other outlets for very soon.

Perversely, I also worry about him when he sleeps for long periods, or that he may be too big for his age. But I think that's probably normal for first time parents, too.

I also worry that the moment I hit 'publish' he will turn into a milk refusing insomniac, will begin teething, or have some other sort of drama.

I hope I don't sound too smug or boastful about it all... in fact, it's twenty to eleven and he's just uncharacteristically woken up!

Northern soul

I would like to live in Sweden
When my work is done
Where the snow lies thick and even
'Neath the midnight sun

The Divine Comedy, Sweden

As well as Disney having more of an influence in our lives, the Boy seems to have resulted in us buying stuff from Sweden. The Swedes seem to have something of a reputation for producing high quality, well designed but affordable baby stuff. Which, as we shall see, is not always entirely deserved.

Although, we love the Baby Bjorn carrier we got. It's made the Boy much more transportable. It's one of our favourite bits of kit, particularly with the carrier cover. Apart from being endlessly useful, it makes him look like a little hooded hobbit. Later, he will get bigger and face outwards on the sling, and the hood also turns round to look like... a niqab. I can't wait.

Then there's the flip side. Fucking Naty Nappies. We got a big bag of them on special offer. They were cheap, but also because the package promised they were eco friendly, well designed and all those other admirable Scando attributes. They even had Swedish flags on the packet.

Maybe Swedish babies have differently shaped bums, but Naty have been involved in many incendiary nappy incidents in our household. Poo leaking out the sides, up the back. They just don't fit, and any eco-friendliness is negated by having to do more loads of washing. And the special offer was buy one get one free, so we've got endless numbers of the bastard things to get through. We've started alternating them with another, less leaky brand, and my heart sinks whenever I go through to the change mat and there's a Naty at the top of the pile.

From the good, to the bad, to the ugly. The other big Swedish brand for all things child-related is, of course, IKEA.

The thing is, I've never liked IKEA and, although everyone seems to get their nursery furniture there, we didn't. I like the idea of it, but then, like any sort of home improvement store, I go and then lose interest within about five minutes. I'm just not that interested in house-y stuff and IKEA goes on and on and on, and not even the furniture with names like WNKSTIN or FINJOPOKR is enough to make it tolerable. The thought of wheeling the Boy around one for the afternoon makes my heart sink, even with the allure of the gingerbread houses, meatballs and the novelty ice molds.

I've never been to Sweden, although I'd like to. I always associated with hiking trails, attractive locals, open sandwiches and... that's about it. But now, thanks to parenthood, I also know that it is populated by blond people striding around with their babies in carriers with poo leaking out the sides. We will wait until the Boy is potty trained before we visit.

Gender specific

I did a course in feminist literature at Uni. It was all a bit bonkers and I did it because one of my friends was and I had to fill in a bit of my timetable somehow. The woman that ran it was awfully po-faced and we had all big crushing lectures about the patriarchy and the male canon of literature and so forth. My favourite moment was when, at the end of one of the tutorials, one of the mature students started talking about her problems with finding a nursery. The lecturer said,

"Yes, well, I know what you mean. I've got a little girl - " and then she frowned and interrupted herself.

"Oh dear! I called her a little girl. That's so gender specific of me."

Oh dear.

Anyway, I had read that women who have gone through IVF and infertility become more fixated with a fantasy child, and pick one gender or the other that they want, and then build up from there.

My personal experience is the opposite. I got a bit funny about planning either way, partly out of gratitude I was going to have any child, but also because it felt like jinxing it. A lot of people I know found out the gender at scans but didn't tell anyone, or made a big thing out of the reveal. I resolutely did not want to know. After all the previous losses, you get paranoid about anything that might make another one more difficult.

Anyway, I'm actually not that keen on the whole pink for a girl, blue for a boy thing - although we seem to have vast amounts of blue clothing anyway, mostly given to us. I did find it a bit odd that there's so little unisex baby clothing out there, and even one very gender neutral thing I picked, with a safari print on it, had a label that specified it was for boys. I do have a "Mummy's little boy" vest somewhere, but it gives me the boak. Possibly just as much as a "Daddy's little princess" dress would.

It still feels a bit strange, sometimes. It's good having a baby, of any shape or form, without starting to attach conditions to it. It's very hard not to attach any conditions, though. I'll be happy if any child of mine grows up to be happy, and enjoy reading and travel, and are prepared to stand up against injustices. Those surely aren't bad things to want, regardless of whether you've had a boy or girl.

I think it's a bit different if you've had a late loss and know the gender of the baby that's died. That must be an awful thing to work through.

Rather less sympathetically, I know there are people that want to find out because they have a baby of one flavour and want one of the other. A very irritating colleague, when I was 38 weeks pregnant, told me a big long story about how he had two boys already and wanted a girl, then his wife found out she was having another boy but it was a happy ending, because they were both okay about it really. I think he expected that made him look admirable. I think it made him look like an arsehole, but was too polite to say.

But, for me, although the Boy is the Boy, he might as well be called the Baby. Gender doesn't make much difference at the moment. Although he does do very loud farts.

Associating farts with masculinity? How very gender specific of me.

You've got my eyes

Ages ago, I read an article in the Guardian written about clinical errors when transferring or creating embryos.

Of course, this planted the idea in my head that the clinics we used could have mixed up our eggs, sperm or embryos, particularly as we had to cart embryos between clinics (that is a very long story, and it was a very odd day).

So, I think more than most new parents, I seize on any suggestion that the Boy looks, or doesn't look like, my husband or I.

"He's getting ginger hair! You've got a ginge!" said my brother in law. There's only one member of my family who had ginger hair, an alcoholic uncle who died estranged from everyone else. Which at least reminds me that genetics aren't everything.

But then -

"He looks so like your husband in that photo." said one of my friends. Phew.

My father in law has confused the issue by insisting to us that the Boy has similar ears to his mother, and then telling my husband's sister that actually, his ears are nothing like his granny's. For some reason, the ears are of particular interest to my father in law. Even though even I can see nothing remarkable about the Boy's ears.

Ultimately, it is all really silly - I don't honestly believe that the Boy is not ours. People see what they want to see. No-one from one side of the family says he looks like anyone from the other, they all see themselves or someone closely related to them.

Babies look like babies. I did warn the midwife that if he came out a different colour then there probably had been some mistake somewhere along the line. But, even if he had come out bright green with purple polka dots, I don't think I would have complained!

Travelling and arriving

We're packing up what seems like the entire flat to take the Boy on holiday. You'd think we were crossing the Antarctic, but we're self catering about 2 hours drive away, around where I spent many happy childhood holidays.

This got me thinking about other holidays I had when I was little. I think the holidays we had close to home were probably the best. Because out of the more distant holidays, the main things I can remember is the car journeys.

We didn't go abroad, or stay in a hotel, until I was 13. All our holidays were spent in a caravan in Scotland, England, Wales or - after the Troubles calmed and family finances increased - Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. We drove everywhere.

First, we would get the caravan ready. As well as actually packing the thing, Dad had to get it ready to move. This took an age - checking the wheels, lifting the stays (I think they're called stays, anyway!), pushing it out our garden, hooking it up to the car and checking the lights. Then, after what seemed like eons, we would all get told to get in and we would roll off down the little lane at the back of our house, and out into the world.

On the way to wherever we were going, we would stop for a packed lunch. This was usually about when the excitement would dampen slightly. My parents were enormously enthusiastic about getting the jack out, securing the caravan and using the little kitchen to boil water so they could have tea. This also seemed to take ages. And we would always stop on a layby on whatever busy dual carriageway we were on to do this. I remember sitting in the caravan drinking chicken Cuppa Soup, hating the way the flimsy walls shook whenever an enormous lorry roared past. I don't know why we couldn't have just used a hot water flask like normal, sane people.

Another feature of lunches were Mum's sandwiches. They were, to be fair, pretty horrible. There was usually ham, and nearly always a lot of margarine and coleslaw. The sandwiches were usually squashed in cling film and hot. After a couple of hundred miles, the filling looked a bit like sick.

Vomit was a literal as well as metaphorical feature of these drives. I used to get horribly car sick. The fastest route to the motorway south was along a winding hill road. This usually set me off fairly quickly. Then the coleslaw and margarine sandwiches would make an unwelcome reappearance about half an hour after lunchtime. My poor mother tried everything - elastic bracelets with pressure points, boiled sweets, car games to distract me - and nothing, nothing would stop the puking. It wasn't all bad though - I vividly remember throwing up a chocolate and raisin Yorkie bar, and enjoying getting another taste of the chocolate. Eugh.

Thinking about it, I was probably not a good travelling companion. I remember a holiday around Yorkshire where I'd bought The Simpsons' album - which was probably hated by parents everywhere and certainly and vocally hated by my sister - and insisted on listening to it in the car, repeatedly. Later on, the radio was used for either BBC news programmes or a particularly crappy pop music station. My parents must have been enormously relieved when I bought a Walkman.

On the other hand, I liked boats and had no problems with sea sickness. I loved going to the Scottish islands, and the novelty of driving on and off the ferries, and exploring the vessel. Although my sister told me that the white water stirred up in the wake of the vessel was actually jellyfish who were out to get me, which I think of even now whenever I'm on a large boat.

There are actually relatively few bits of the holidays I remember otherwise - just fragments. The awful moment when the doors closed on the Tube leaving me and my parents in the train and my 10 year old sister on the platform and the panicked rush around the underground to get back to her, playing in Appleby where it always seemed to be sunny, the campsite at Chertsey and the warning signs about bathing in the Thames, going to Whipsnade Safari Park and being more interested in the really big conkers than the animals, breaking my arm near Sherwood Forest, going fishing on Lough Key, making a sandcastle on the beach in Dorset and meeting a friendly little boy who told me he was adopted. The holidays mostly seemed sunny, and I didn't particularly mind not going to more exotic places.

I suppose, in the era of cheap flights and expensive petrol, we're unlikely to do long driving holidays with the Boy - partly because I'm not as brave as my parents! For better or worse, it's much easier for us to get a cheap flight abroad than drive to the south of England or get a boat to Orkneys or the Isle of Man. I might make the Boy some margarine and coleslaw sandwiches though, just so he's not missing out.

Disneyfication

It started before he was born.

I picked up a set of baby dungarees with Tigger on them from a charity shop.

Just after he was born, we got some 101 Dalmatians clothes. Some Pooh and Friends decorations too.

I'm not immune from it myself - I got a copy of Fantasia, figuring the Boy could hear the music if nothing else, and an Eeyore rattle. (Actually, Fantasia is a bit dull - I think back when it was made, the audiences were blown away by the animations, and now we expect a bit more from the plot).

And so the influence of Walt Disney on the Boy's life has begun. We had a couple of Disney films before he was born - Pirates and that sort of thing. But since he was born it seems to have opened the floodgates to our house filling up with the Mouse and all his works.

I actually don't mind some Disney stuff - I loved Beauty and the Beast, Toy Story, Aladdin, and the Lion King. And Robin Hood, and Sword in the Stone. Actually, I quite like most Disney animations.

I suppose I have three main objections to Disney. The first is that it's everywhere. There is no choice. You must submit to your house being filled up with Disney merchandise. Nowhere on Earth is safe. Mali had a post about the dominance of American culture, and it starts with Disney.

The other is that the Boy will go through a phase of wanting to go to a Disney theme park. I am just not very keen on the idea. We may go to Legoland as a compromise - which is probably no less corporate or crowded or expensive. But Lego is cooler, and my husband wants to go there.

My final objection is that I hate Mickey Mouse. He's a squeaky voiced, wet little shit. He doesn't do anything, for Christ's sake, apart from fucking up with some brooms and getting a row from his boss. How he's ended up being the symbol of a global empire is anyone's guess.

But, as I said, we are stuck with it. I'll enjoy showing him the films. And we'll definitely need to read the originals of Winnie the Pooh, 101 Dalmatians and any other books, so  he grows up knowing that Disney did not author every popular children's tale in the last fifty years. 

Bibliophile

Assorted public agencies are always running initiatives to turn kids into good, worthwhile citizens, and targeting parents to encourage them to bring up their children well.

These are sometimes rather hopeless and depressing. For example, there's a poster in the local doctors' surgery aimed at reducing violence. It starts by encouraging parents to speak to their small children and maybe give them a hug sometimes. The fact that people wouldn't do this anyway is awful; that some unit somewhere has decided it can be tackled with a poster is almost as bad.

Anyway, more cheerfully, I got some stuff from one of the better initiatives yesterday. It encourages you to read to your children. You get a magazine about reading (rather bizarrely, this featured an interview with a daytime TV presenter rather than someone you'd associate with reading!), but, more usefully, three books to start you off.

Two of them are ok, but we particularly loved Babies. It's got a mirror at the back - the Boy smiled when he saw himself for the first time - and it finishes up with the line that the baby the reader loves best in all the world is the baby in the mirror. It made me go all sniffly!

Anyway, there's the library for most books - but I want to build up a collection of classic children's books for me to read for the Boy when he's old enough.

So far, the list includes:

The Hungry Caterpillar
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Hobbit
The Dangerous Book for Boys (I keep wanting to steal my nephew's copy)
Assorted Enid Blyton (although my husband says he didn't like these as they were all about posh kids!)
Harry Potter
The Eagle of the Ninth and other Rosemary Sutcliffe books
Roald Dahl - I particularly loved George's Marvellous Medicine (who doesn't like making up potions when they're a kid?)
Truckers, Diggers and Wings

And when he's a bit older, Dragonlance, the Lord of the Rings, the Hunger Games, and the Discworld novels.

That's a fairly short list and I'm sure there are loads I've missed. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I also loved the Tamora Pierce Lioness books at the Mallory Tower books as a kid, but I'm not sure the Boy will dig them. On the plus side, we're probably spared him being into Twilight.