A Woman's Work is Never Done

I understand that now. Now that I have a baby. It would be impossible to count the number of times I have to put down what I've started, as Megan unexpectedly wakes up after a shorter than usual nap, or when she suddenly misses me in the other room. The house is full of unfinished jobs. Piles of dirty laundry, yet to be washed. Baskets of clean laundry, yet to be hung on the line. Dirty dishes; an overflowing compost caddy; squashed strawberries on the floor under Meg's highchair; clothes waiting to be photographed and put on eBay. Upstairs there is further chaos. Papers strewn across the floor in the bedroom, waiting to be filed. Toys littering the landing. Nappies and nappy inserts, jumbled in a heap. A random pair of green overalls.

Outside, there are jobs which will never truly be completed. The cardboard amassing in the pole barn must be torn up and layered with the grass cuttings in the compost bin. I am trying to get it done before more boxes are added to the stack, but who am I kidding? It's like trying to race the sun. My (slightly OCD) need for a ticked box, and a task fulfilled is being somewhat challenged. I am trying to roll with it, trying to learn a freedom and flexibility. It's not easy, but I am enjoying the slow process of giving up what appears to be a very linear mindset.

Today I re-cut the edges of one of last year's vegetable beds, took out the grass roots which had been threatening to engulf the soil in a sea of green and then planted out the beetroot seedlings. Even without digging over the bed (I took out what few weeds there were), it was still quite hard work. Another thing to have to do every year, to every bed (we looked into making raised beds, but so far it seems too expensive at about £30 per bed. We'll have to try to source much cheaper wood than we had in mind).

Our lawn is a jungle, with long grass more than a foot tall. I almost lost Meggie in the grass today (not really, I just said that for effect).

Nine months old, and almost ready to play at getting lost in the foliage.

A woman's work is never done. I looked it up here.
It says: Prov. Housework and raising children are jobs that have no end.

I think I need to work on acquiring a love for things which never end. Things which are half finished. Things which are on-going. Things which do not tick the boxes.

May 2011 Smallholding Update

Well. Bloody hell, this baby lark is really getting out of hand. You see, I used to have spare time in which I could do things (including writing blog posts), but now my only spare hours are the last two before I go to bed, by which time exhaustion has rendered me completely useless.

And a lack of photographic evidence makes me feel like any update would be less than complete... But I have decided not to worry about this (that is, if you don't mind too much) - damn it! - I shall plough on, illuminating and illustrating with words alone if necessary. Onwards!

It has been a good month on the smallholding, with many achievements and changes for the better. In no particular order:

Energy: We had the guys from Llani Solar come to install our PV (photo-voltaic) and solar hot water panels behind the house - ironically the day they arrived was the day the weather broke, and since then the sun has been mostly hiding behind a cloud. Nevertheless, our water has been hot, and we have been able to observe our electricity meter at a standstill thanks to being able to use the energy we are producing ourselves. Phil and my dad have been preparing one of the sheds for the wood boiler, which will hopefully be installed later this summer.

The Vegetable Garden: My mum has been an absolute hero and deserves a medal, or at least a very large cake. She has taken on the horribly dull (but necessary) job of going over all of the potato-beds-to-be (newly created this spring by my dad) with a fine tooth comb and extracting all of the evil buttercup roots, as well as the demonic docks and endless nasty weeds. She has very kindly (and completely selflessly) allowed me to waft along, whenever I fancy (OK, whenever Meg spares me half an hour) and do quick, interesting things, things like planting out the squash, or sowing spinach; things which have an immediate feelgood factor, things which tick boxes and which are extremely satisfying. Thus we have mulched the onions with our year-old kitchen compost, planted out red oak-leaf lettuce, thinned the parsnips, planted out four varieties of dwarf beans (or are they French? I don't know, I'll have to ask them) - one of which is especially for saving as a dried bean and is a gorgeous rich brown colour with hints of gold. It's great to see the plants starting to really thrive in these warm, wet conditions. We have all sorts of things in the ground including some asparagus crowns from a friend (thanks, Tall Paul!), beetroot, broad beans, lettuce, onions, potatoes, squash (including Marina de Chioggia from Tom - thanks Tom!), kale, purple sprouting broccoli, parsnip, rainbow chard...

The Polytunnel: And again, my mother has been the workhorse, weeding and enriching the horrible soil (after my dad made some very nice looking raised beds), whilst allowing me to plant out the cucumbers and make little trellises for them, and put the basil in next to the tomatoes for companion planting, though I can't for the life of me remember what each one does for the other... We have only a couple of beds left to fill now, the rest being planted out with tomatoes, peppers, aubergine, sweetcorn, cucumbers, courgettes, white custard squash, coriander... The plants desperate to go in are melon, butternut squash, um... I thought there was something else too, but now my mind has gone blank...

Wild Food: We have been eating the purslane which grows abundantly beneath the apple trees - it makes a tasty salad, and I have heard rumours that it contains omega-3 fatty acids, and even that it is a super food - wow! - isn't pretty much every vegetable a super food?

Pests: There are slugs, millions of mini slugs, living at the edges of the beds, beneath the grass. Their tiny size makes them difficult to spot, so we have to actually seek them out, combing through the grass stems with our fingers, the scissors of death gleaming at the ready in the other hand... Something ate the tops off all of our carrots, and we are starting to feel cursed never to be able to grow a single carrot ourselves. Parsnips yes, carrots no. The cats have been using our newly dug beds as their personal toilet, scratching without heeding our tiny seedlings carefully planted out at precise distances from one another. There was a rat in my kitchen at the beginning of the month, but the rat traps must have scared it away, or perhaps one of the cats managed to corner it. The dock beetles have been turning the dock leaves to lace and laying their little orange eggs on any leaves they can find which do not yet resemble lace, which means that the rainbow chard is no longer its laid back self, and in fact has started to look rather paranoid...

Megan: My big girl cut her first tooth in the middle of the month, and we've had some difficult nights due to the discomfort of teething. Her mobility is increasing daily, she's fallen (gently, and without even noticing, it would seem) off the bed twice (I was only washing my hands very quickly after a nappy change!) and can't stop practising her crawl posture, not even when it's bedtime. She's definitely going to be crawling within the next couple of weeks... Oh dear, we'll need to get hold of a cot and stair gates, as well as shifting everything off the floor and raising it to higher (safe!) storage. Interesting times. Here's what we were up to last year at this time, if you're interested. I'd forgotten all about the epic heartburn I was experiencing, wow, isn't it amazing (and mysterious) how memory works :D

Meggie getting the feel for teeth, whilst working on her comedy routine.

Spring

It's been a very busy spring. We planted about 1700 of the 3000 trees before realising that there was a lot more clearing needed to be done before we could plant the remaining 1300. Also it turns out that the grant only requires that they all be planted by February next year, so we plan on getting them in in the autumn. Nothing like putting off a job, ha! Why do today what you can leave until tomorrow? Still, we've not been resting on our laurels, you know (whatever that means). There are plenty of other things to be getting on with.


New beds are being created in the vegetable garden, at great effort. The land is horribly compacted after being used for horses by the previous owners, it's as hard as rock and shot through with thick, parsnip-sized dock roots. Pernicious weeds such as buttercup must be removed. Meanwhile last year's beds are being given the once-over before this year's plants are put in. So far we have several beds of potatoes, white and red onions, parsnips, asparagus, peas, broad beans, beetroot, leaf beet, kale and lettuce.

We've done a good (mostly timely) job of sowing our seeds this year, and have managed to keep on top of pricking out and potting on. Last year's success stories were: potatoes, parsnip, beetroot, basil, cucumbers and courgettes. Surprise failures included: spinach, carrots, peppers, aubergines and leeks. You'd have thought that leeks would be happy anywhere in Wales, being the national vegetable, but apparently not.

I've been trying to juggle Meg and the smallholding projects, and have been feeling quite frustrated by my inability to give my full attention to either as thoroughly as I would like. Megan is flourishing though, so I mustn't feel guilty for sometimes calling "Hang on a minute," as I finish hanging the nappies out to dry, or putting her in the laundry basket in the garden whilst I do some weeding for half an hour!


About a month ago I realised that I was getting stressed again, and that there was a whole host of stressful things hanging over me, needing to be dealt with. My mum encouraged me to write a list (one of my favourite activities) and I focused on sorting stuff out over the course of a couple of weeks. It's amazing how much lighter I feel now, and how much more able I am to face oncoming tasks. A weight has been lifted. :D


And all is well :D

Megan and the Moon

A couple of days ago it snowed again, so once more we've been stuck on the smallholding. I'm unwilling to try walking the four miles to town with Megan in a sling - in case I slip on the ice and accidentally destroy her. To save us from cabin fever, Phil suggested we go on a little walk around the land this evening, and I persuaded him to wear Megan (he has really good grips on his boots!) which gave me a break from carrying the stone or so that she weighs (now when anyone tells me they've lost a stone, I am extremely impressed. Before Megan, I had no idea how heavy a stone was). We wrapped her up well in several layers, as well as leg warmers and a Peruvian hat with ear flaps, then attached a fleece blanket around her over the top of the sling. She looked like she was being carried in a royal chariot.

It was getting dark as we left the house and headed up the track, the remaining patches of snow shining out bright white in contrast to the dark wet patches. Megan was happy to be out in the air, and stopped her fretful teething for the duration. Then something strange happened. Phil noticed that Meg was staring at the darkening sky, a look of consternation on her face. We turned to see what it was that had caught her attention, and saw the moon. As you know, Megan loves light fittings, but her reaction to this - the most regal of all the natural light fittings supplied with the earth (save the sun, the Mother of all Light Fittings) - was not giggly and light-hearted. Instead she took the moon very seriously indeed, giving it her full attention. She was very calm and very focused. It seemed like an important moment in her life so far. It crossed my mind that this was the very first time she had seen the moon. How amazing to be witnessing all of these firsts. And somehow it is as though I am experiencing them for the first time too, by proxy, through Megan.

Still Snowed In

Meggie's first snow :D

No chance of outdoor work!

A view down the valley:

The trees are stark and beautiful.

My dad rescues the potatoes from the freezing cold shed:

The holly bush beside our house is bursting with berries:

We've got plenty of wood, and it's cosy inside :)

And Meg's got a very toasty pixie hat, ha ha...

Megan's Hands: Pics

Caught in the act!
(Note my slinky, sneaky, paparazzi approach!)

Are these fiddle-player's hands? That left hand falls naturally into a perfect bow-hold...

Creeping up without Megan noticing, I see her look of complete concentration:

Megan's left hand remains (as yet) undiscovered... How strange to be watching these developments taking place. Everything we (as adults) take for granted has to be learned, bit by bit. It wears me out just thinking about it.

Megan's Hands

Megan has found her hands. Well, her right hand anyway. She holds it up and stares at it in awe as though it were a creature from a distant planet. Meanwhile, her left hand is waiting in the wings. I can't wait to see her face when she finds two aliens - interacting!

This afternoon I tried to take a photo of her complete absorption in this strange, natural phenomena, but unfortunately she is very camera-aware, and any sign of a camera in her vicinity causes her to stop doing interesting things in favour of staring worriedly at the lens. I can't pretend that I am not to blame, I am. For the last month or so I have been showing her photos of herself (and little videos too) on the camera screen, so I think her self-consciousness comes from this. Silly Mummy! It's all my fault!

I have tried turning my back on her to get the camera ready, hoping she'll think I'm doing a boring (but important!) Mummy Thing and go back to her interesting hand. But every time I check on her by peeping over my shoulder, I find her looking back at me with a cynical expression, thinking So this is what Mummy does when she's out of the room, pretending to be busy. She stands somewhere, preferably facing a wall, and peers over her shoulder hoping no one is cottoning on to the fact that she's just hanging around suspiciously.

I shall endeavour to take a sneaky pic tomorrow.

Limiting Awake Times

Megan is eleven weeks old! And I can't believe that the last post I wrote about her was on the 15th October, wow, I am SO SLACK. A great deal has changed since then, and I feel that I have learned a lot (stuff I wish I'd known earlier) and we are all a lot happier because of it.

I was given a book called 'Baby Sense' which features a chart showing the maximum recommended times for each baby age group to stay awake. I was amazed to find that the 6-12 weeks baby should only be awake from between 60-80 minutes, before being helped to sleep. Wow, that's a very short period of time! But when I started implementing these rules, I found that Meg could send herself to sleep if I put her gently down on a fleece on the bed, covered her with a couple of blankets and then lay next to her. The dummy helps enormously with this too. It sounds funny to say it now, but I was really surprised to see her closing her eyes and drifting off, after all the hard work it had taken to get her to sleep previously. But previously I had had no idea about awake times, and she slept on the boob or was rocked and sung to sleep when she became hysterical. Basically, she was a fussy, screaming baby because she was always being stimulated until she was over-tired. The book explains that babies can't edit out the stimulation they are constantly receiving, unlike you or I, so they are overwhelmed by what they see, hear, smell, feel, etc., they can't even block out the feeling of their clothes against their skin.

So now I'm starting to feel more in control of my life, and Meg is so much more content. She hardly ever has to cry anymore as I keep an eye on the clock with regards to awake time, and can see immediately when she starts to get hungry (always bearing in mind what time she last fed). I wish I'd known this earlier, but at least I know it now, and can share the information with all of my friends who have also recently become new mummies. :D

And here are some pics of Megan I took a couple of nights ago, the hat (made by a lovely friend of my mother) seems to bring out some very amusing expressions:




This little cardigan is a bit of an heirloom - my brother and I wore it when we were tiny too, and I think Meg looks quite dramatic:

Playtime!

From the baby forums I've been browsing, it would appear that every baby is different, and some babies are OK with sitting in a bouncy chair or lying in a moses baskets while mummy gets on with other things (some babies are easy, it seems!) - Megan, however is not OK with that (Megan is not easy). She likes to be held at all times, with one exception - she loves to play on her changing mat! Thank goodness there's somewhere I can put her down without causing epic dismay. However, the mat is not a place of relaxation for Megan, it's an active play centre where she repeatedly works herself up into a frenzy. Relaxation only really happens when she's asleep, and sometimes you have to work pretty hard to get her to close her eyes too. On the play mat (no longer a changing mat!) she exerts herself physically and vocally - it's the only place where she tests out all of her cute baby sounds - little coos and shouts of delight, a constant commentary on her surroundings - all the while thrashing her arms and legs around.

In this little video (sorry for the poor quality!) you can see some of her favourite things: Mr Bear is the fluffy brown teddy on the left, and her face lights up when she sees him (thanks Auntie Emma!); the strange-looking Whoozit (on the right) from Auntie Carole is an award-winning developmental toy which has many fun features including a rattle, mini mirror, squeaky sound and high contrast black and white concentric circles; and not visible in the video is the lovely homemade mobile from Auntie Kate which hangs above the mat and is the only thing which brings Meg back to a state of calm after she's thrashed and shouted herself into an unsettled froth.

Sleep vs. Desperate Lullabies

Wow, I can't believe that the time has passed so quickly, it feels like Megan is growing and changing before our eyes! Well, of course she is, but I had no idea things would happen so fast - I've barely had time to catch my breath since the birth, and already she's five weeks old...

It's true what they say about babies - that once you think you've got a routine you can rely on, they go and change it completely... To begin with Megan was sleeping for nice long periods of a minimum of one to three hours or so, and when I put her down, I knew I would have time to have a bath, or do the washing up or put the nappies in the washing machine, or whatever. Now she may sleep for four hours, or four minutes. Nothing is certain! And the same applies to the night feeds - she was sleeping two to three hours between each feed and going back to sleep on the breast, but now she tends to stay awake after her second or third feed - which means I find myself singing desperate lullabies to a wide-awake baby at around 5:30am every night/morning. It's not been so bad, I've had to resign myself to doing nothing other than Megan-related tasks (a decision which has reduced my feelings of frustration and anxiety no end), and I can't be annoyed with her when she's so cute and smiley and playful.

Megan Hunter May

Squiggles has a face! Squiggles has a name! Squiggles has taken over my life since she has emerged, blue and warrior-like from the watery depths of the womb! Introducing Megan Hunter May...

At 42 weeks and 5 days, we were persuaded (read mildly threatened) to go into Bronglais Hospital, Aberystwyth for an induction after two nights of contractions at home (which had disappointingly amounted to very little in the way of dilation of the cervix)...

I shall share something of that later, when I don't have to type one-handed with a weighty baby firmly attached to my left boob. But for now I just want to update you with some pictures of Megan, born at 7:23pm on 3rd September 2010, and weighing 8lbs 6oz (to the surprise of the midwives):


Phil cried real tears (probably of relief) when Megan arrived, and has fallen head over heels in love with her:


Every day Megan seems to get a little bit more interactive, and we see a little more of her cheeky personality:


Proud mum signing out :D