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Published: September 27th 2008
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Just over a week to go! The past nine months have been a long journey, taking in America, the U.K, Dubai and back to the U.K. again. Finally, it’s nearly time! I’ve been reading books entitled ‘I’m a Big Brother’ and ‘The New Baby’ to the Big Boy in earnest - and I think he actually may have a vague notion that something is afoot. He knows there’s a baby boy in my tummy (and thinks there’s a baby girl up top!)
Having ‘a date’ (Oct 7th) has made me somewhat complacent about packing my hospital bag. That’ll get done on the 6th - in fact, I’m far more laid-back about the whole thing this time. I’m just hoping that this time it isn’t a junior doctor performing the c-section. A vivid memory from my first experience on the operating table is the senior obstetrician saying to the knife-wielding junior doctor - in a really, really urgent voice - ‘NO, NO, under the bladder’.
While I’m counting the days and can’t wait to meet Ghengis, I guess I will miss being pregnant a little bit - but most of all, I’ll miss the look on my husband’s face whenever
I mentioned any kind of twinge while we were all in Dubai. I discovered that uttering ‘Ouch’ could send my husband - who’s used to planning flights across continents and was the mastermind behind the logistics of our international move - into a panic. ‘Oh no, I don’t have a plan for this,’ he’d reply nervously (admittedly, while we had been told about several good hospitals, we had no idea exactly where they were, and there was the small issue of no medical insurance for childbirth).
Happily, Ghengis had no intention of making an early appearance and so here we are - NHS tourists, back in deepest Surrey, waiting.....Since this might be my last blog for a little while, and as I’m not really doing very much at the moment other than attending hospital appointments, I thought I’d quickly put together a few reflections on what Big Boy has taught me so far about being a Mum - before two turn this place into a zoo!
Nursery school is A Very Good Thing Big Boy loves going to nursery school. Even if he hasn’t been that day, he tells me at night about his good day at nursery
school - to which I reply, ‘No, Max, you had lots of fun with Mummy all day today, remember?!’ With both of us such big fans of nursery school, you can imagine my dismay when I found out that getting Max a place at a nursery school in Dubai isn’t as straightforward as here. The influx of families with young children means there are waiting lists for the nurseries and schools - Max’s name is currently on the wait list for three centres, including the rather pompous-sounding Emirates British Nursery (actually, it’s very nice, and I have to admit that I can’t help wondering if the current banking crisis will mean a few nursery places might be freed up).
Turns out, though, this is nothing compared to getting your child into a good school in south London, where you either have to move house to be near a good state primary, or get your child’s name down at a private school while s/he’s still a foetus. With school Open Day season here and friends’ tots going off to ‘interviews’, my friend in Nappy Valley sent off for an application form, which she described as fairly straightforward, until it came
to the section in which you were asked to describe your child’s ‘hobbies…interests….musical instruments played and grades achieved’. Her Littleboy 1 is three and a quarter. How, she asked her husband, do we describe the hobbies of a three year old? “Hitting his little brother over the head?” he helpfully suggested. “Riding his scooter like a maniac around Clapham Common?” With at least 10 applications for each place, they began fantasizing about what they could write on the form to make him stand out. “His prowess at building Lego towers suggests a future Norman Foster....”. The form, she admits, is still sitting on her desk (read about what happened at the Open Day
here)
You’re never too young to get addicted It never occurred to me that computers might be A Bad Thing, until I heard about a mother who didn’t approve of young children using them all the time. I just assumed that computers were educational and didn’t make any link between the Big Boy’s requests to play games on the Thomas web site and a future Nintendo addiction. But, it did slowly dawn on me that the Big Boy’s computer habits may be a little excessive - perhaps even obsessive. He absolutely loves watching toy trains on YouTube.com - and while sat there glued to the screen (for long periods of time - I can’t even admit how long!), he’s totally mesmerised, won’t contemplate doing anything else, and throws a tantrum if forced to quit. Believe me, there are hours of footage of other people’s kids playing with toy trains on YouTube and it’s mind-numbing stuff! So am I trying to curb this addiction? Well, yes, I’m trying to limit it - but I’ve also tried teaching him to use the mouse himself so I don’t have to endure hours of home movies myself!
Bedtime will always be a battle The other night Big Boy made a bed for himself downstairs. He must have been thinking that, since bedtime is clearly an unavoidable fact of life, he could at least have a go at controlling where he’s made to sleep. So, down came all the sofa cushions and he had a go at fashioning a duvet out of a table cloth. In fact, his anti-bedtime tactics get more and more elaborate. Last night, he barricaded himself into a cage under the kitchen table. On realising that his latest scheme to avoid bed isn’t going to work, he deploys his next deterrent - procrastination. ‘WANT MILK’, ‘WANT BISCUIT’, ‘WANT EAT ICE CREAM UP TREE HOUSE’. It can take forever! Yet, this morning, he didn’t want to get up and, just like a teenager, actually went back to bed. ‘Max, no eat breakfast, stay in bed,’ he declared, and happily played under his duvet for at least half an hour - prompting me to wonder how on earth I’ll get him up for school, especially in Dubai, where things tend to start very early, and you can bet those will be the days he decides to lie in.
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Linda Storey
non-member comment
good luck!
Hope the birth goes well. I'll be thinking of you. Would love to pop in if it is possible when you're up for visitors. Loved the blog, Max certainly is a character! Take care and hopefully see you and the boys before you all move on to sunnier climes! x