She said …

her new words keep on coming … tonight, after a particularly nasty run in with teething and alot of gumming of a drinking beaker and then blissfully contented jelly eating, tonight she sat and played in her pyjamas not having had much to eat as solid food seemed to make her gums hurt … and just before she fell asleep she crawled across her little bed and said, “jelly mmmmmmmmm”. Then she smiled, then she stuck my  little finger in between her poor sore gums and bit down hard and said something that sounded like “tooth”. I yelped, she grinned, crawled off and went to sleep.

I love my girl … I so wish she could be like some other small people and get all her teeth in a big rush, hers seem to be taking months to creep out, one by one.

So … now we know, an early evening trip to the swings, and then bedtime spoonful of jelly fresh from the fridge help the pain go away and make a small person happy.

The jelly helped with my sore throat as well (oh the joy of a summer cold) .. but. I couldn’t fit onto the small person swings!

Too old for us …

The whole issue of my age as relating to be a mother has never really bothered me, it is a miracle that I have Hope in my world and that both of us are healthy, happy and having such a wonderful time getting to know each other and day to day life runs smoothly.

I don’t think of myself as an ‘old mother’, simply as a mother, and as such I strive to be the best mother I can be. That’s it really nothing more complex just doing my best for an amazing little girl and doing all I can to ensure that she has a secure and happy life. I think that’s as much as any mother can do and generally what most mothers, old, young or inbetween aim for.

I was asked a few weeks ago to do an interview for a parenting magazine, via a writer, not just any old journalist but a very established and wonderful author. The piece wasn’t about age or parenting, but about writing, it was to feature me talking about this blog and what I do and don’t talk about and what it may mean to Hope in later life. I was one of, I think, 3 or 4 case studies.

I wanted to ‘do it’ properly as I was proud to have been asked to be involved so spent about a third of one of my precious ‘work days’ (when Hope is with her lovely child minder and I try to cram in everything from paperwork to washing to work to writing to charity work to local volunteering to thank you letters and mending broken toys or holes in clothes) … that day I set about answering all the emailed questions in as much detail as I felt was appropriate and forwarded it to the author. She was delighted and thanked me and said she’d let me know if the magazine needed photography or if they had any further questions.

A couple of days later after she’d thanked me publicly on Twitter along with a delightful and very well known TV psychologist and another case study, the writer sent me an email saying that she’d been contacted by the magazine, “to say that I can’t use your case study in my piece, as you are ‘older than the demographic’ of the magazine. They need mums aged 27-37.”  She went on to thank me again and apologise for the wasted time I’d spent.

I have no issue whatsoever with the writer, she will have had to research and interview a new case study which will have taken time, and had (as a busy mother) spent time on the piece, just as I had …  she is hugely professional, widely respected, funny and someone I admire enormously and have done radio appearances with both locally and nationally in the past year on motherhood and older mothers.

What I have huge HUGE issue with … as a Mother and with a Baby (small clue there as to the title of the magazine), that my story, which wasn’t an age related piece, wasn’t  perceived as relevant to their readership as I am seen as  too old. I bought that magazine when I was pregnant, and eagerly looked through all the top tips and articles, adverts and stories … I wish I hadn’t now.

Every interview I have done, I have been asked if I have had anyone be odd with me or respond negatively towards me due to the fact that I am an older mother … my truthful answer has always been, “no”. I did once have someone ask if I was Hope’s nanny (in South Kensington in London) and that amused me hugely, as if anyone would employ a scruffy person like me to be a nanny, but other than that, no, nothing. Hope’s godmother was asked if a present she was buying for Hope was for her “granddaughter”, which infuriated her and amused me no end (she is younger and far more beautiful and unlined than I) … but, no, no other odd experiences and certainly nothing negative. Until now.

I fully appreciate that the majority of new mothers in the UK are younger, but there are hundreds of thousands of women who have children above the age of 37 and, importantly, there are hundreds of older women who want to have children and who are pondering embarking on IVF, adoption, surrogacy, donor journeys and just perhaps, reading the odd story about an older mother who was fortunate and blessed enough to have a little girl, might just give them some hope too. The Government health advisory service in the UK, NICE, recently changed their guidelines to say that NHS trusts might consider offering free IVF to childless couples where the woman is up to aged 39, and another study said there had been a 300% increase in the number of women over 40 becoming mothers since the 1990′s.

As a mother I was deeply offended by this slight. I discussed it with other women (from ages 20 – 86) and mothers in my playgroup, with strangers and friends and the unanimous conclusion seems to be that this approach to not including ‘older mothers’ in their magazine, is an absurd idea, it makes no business sense as they are missing out of a segment of the market and it is also ageist and exclusive, and I’d go as far as to say judgemental.

It has always been the media that has tried to put an angle into the idea of older mothers (apparently career obsessives who selfishly want their bank accounts full and their life experiences over before they have children – couldn’t be more wrong in my case … I coped with death, miscarriage, difficult life circumstances and major loss of income before I was lucky enough to get pregnant and subsequently give birth to my miraculous daughter), and again, I understand that it is easy to stereotype … just as ‘young mothers’ are often and wrongly vilified as irresponsible scroungers with no morales … BUT what I didn’t expect was, for a magazine dedicated to the Mother and her Baby (are you getting the title of the publication yet?), to snub a mother with a baby because of her age. Don’t they realise this kind of behaviour is making their magazine less appealing to about 1/5 of mothers (those of us who have babies older than their demographic?). I may be wrong, and I’m not a magazine publishing expert, but I find it hard to believe that someone wouldn’t read the magazine, or would stop buying it because occasionally there was a piece in it featuring an older mother… am I ranting now? It feels a bit like it … but I really am cross…. ageist, discriminatory, shortsighted, insulting all come to mind. Don’t they realise that there are even celebrities having children into their 40s? Not just freaky weirdos like me … beautiful BBC TV presenter Kate Silverton had her daughter Clemency a month or so before Hope was born … she was 41, her journey had been long and arduous and her successful delivery was something to celebrate, I wonder if she too was excluded on account of her age.

I did wonder (generously and fleetingly), if the magazine didn’t want to include me because it believes in educating younger women about issues around fertility and how it declines after 35 and dramatically over 40, and they don’t want to raise hopes or make people feel complacently that IVF is always the fall back … but it isn’t that, it is purely that I don’t fit their demographic. I wish more of the media would raise awareness of the potential pain and angst that leaving having a child can lead to… and how fertility declines, I think that is a key message we should be spreading. Infertility is a condition that many many couples have to face.

So … it would appear that there is a gap in the market for a publication for older mothers and older mothers to be, I am also thinking that there may be a gap in the market for an intelligent magazine for mothers-to-be generally that isn’t divisive and that celebrates all motherhood. Sadly it seems that Mother and Baby isn’t that publication (ooops it slipped out) … and if the year on year increase in women having children older carries on then, perhaps there will be a gap in the market at some point where their ageist magazine (with its year on year decrease in both bought and read copies) once sat. The American ‘What To Expect?’ organisation invited me to write for them, I don’t know, but I’d imagine that they also have a much younger average readership … they are certainly more open to all mothers than this English publication.

I’ve just had a look at their figures, circulation has decreased dramatically over the last year (from 2011 – 2012), and their quoted demographics have over 35% of their readership as over the age of 35 (with something like 15% being over 45) … I wonder how they would feel knowing that they are not included in the publication due to their age.

They claim to be,  ”the magazine that connects modern mums.We’re proud and delighted to offer our readers a trusted support network from the UK’s number one parenting brand with a 55-year heritage.This means providing practical solutions to all their parenting concerns, offering emotional reassurance from experts and other mums, and celebrating the excitement of starting a family.”

Clearly they are not into sharing all mother’s excitement at starting a family, or particularly in tune with ‘modern mums’. ONS stats now saying 1 in 5 mothers giving birth last year were older mothers, ie over 35… maybe the editor doesn’t realise their magazine is in decline and the print media industry generally needs all the support it can have. Perhaps if they featured more on older mothers they would be expanding their readership rather than loosing it.

Now, that ensures they will never feature me or ask me to write for them … and that is something that, frankly doesn’t bother me. I am happy working with mainstream national newspapers, with the Cambridge News, with the BBC and with wonderful international websites (with more than 9,900 subscribers) like Mothering in the Middle and What to Expect.

Might I suggest, that if you, or a friend of yours is pregnant that you think twice about the publication you buy … and you might like to know that Club Penguin magazine and Kerrang both outsell Mother and Baby, and that the Saga magazine circulation is almost 500,000 copies more than Mother and Baby magazine each month and something that I’d not heard of before (but we have already established that I know nothing), called Emma’s Diary has a readership / subscription of over 400,000 … they appear to be only an online publication … it is this kind of property that will be the way of the future, and not ‘modern’ magazines like Mother and Baby.

BritMums, NetMums, MumsNet … these networks are where the ‘modern mum’ hangs out, they are growing… and will leave the geriatric inflexible dinosaurs like M&P far behind.

OK, I’m climbing off my soapbox now … time to take my false teeth out, put on my slippers and have a nice up of Horlicks.

Too old…. pah.

Confession from a bad mother

Last night, my girl wasn’t feeling too bright, she didn’t want her supper and had a bit of a temperature, so we had a bath together and then she went to bed early… an hour later, I crept in to check on her and felt she was very warm and clamy so took off her little (sheet thin) blanket and undid teh top button of her pyjamas so I could feel how hot she was … she woke up and probably would have gone back to sleep but I thought I’d take her temperature as she did feel hot and I was concerned it might be a recurrence of the UTI she had a few weeks ago.

The under arm thermometer must have been cold to touch and it woke her right up … she got (understandably) very cross with me but a little cuddle and some milky helped calm her down. Temperature of 39 1/2 degrees … I called the nursing station in A&E where we’d had to go a few weeks back to ask whether I should take her in or what to do, they said to give her some brufen and see if that helped … I did, with the mouth syringe … she went bonkers. We had some more milky and another cuddle, and then, maybe it was the sugar (I think there is sugar in the suspension) she started rampaging around the bed, picking up her teddy and throwing it about, then standing up in her cot and banging the sides, and then just standing staring at me rubbing her eyes and sucking on her pyjama sleeve. We had a kind of stale mate like that for about an hour and then she got very cross, I was so concerned to not disturb her grandmother that I picked her back up out of the cot and gave her some paracetamol … another hour passed and she stood on my bed banging the headboard and shouting “Row Row Row Boat”, and then had some more milky and then just did standing up practise … every time I tried to get her to settle she went bonkers and arched her back and howled and thrashed around.

About 3.45am she lashed out when I tried to give her a hug and scratched me, and here is where the confession comes in, and then, I swore … not at her specifically but in her general direction and not bad bad swearing but not what a mother should do in the night to calm a fractious over tired infant. She looked at me and said, “Marmi” and then cried again … I felt terrible … an hour later she finally went to sleep … about an hour before it was time to get up.

I will not become one of those women that swears at their children, I loathe that and I struggle with the lack of control … and there I was, ‘fishwife’ mummy in the middle of the night.

She’s right as rain today, just tired but happy enough playing with two little friends … I have a headache, my eyes are throbbing and I feel shivery with tiredness … and I feel sad that I snapped at my girl …

if this is the start of her terrible twos then I need to get with it and find some zen with which to deal with her feisty confidence and mischief … I’m sure there will be far harder things to cope with than singing and standing practise (oh and mountaineering over me and back) from 12.30 til almost 5am…. oh and she did well in the end and stood unaided for long enough to applaud herself.

Bad mother me … sigh … I hope we both sleep better tonight!

I must remain calm

I must remain calm

I must not become ‘shouting at your child’ kind of mother or paranoid ‘my child is sick’ kind of mother

I must remain calm

bloody hell I’m knackared

aaaggghhhhhh see now it’s becoming compulsive.

Ever expanding vocabulary

Hope has so many things to say now, most of them still tumble out of her in fluent, often intense, sometimes a bit cross but generally joyful Hopeish but she is now becoming bilingual and able to put a few of her own thoughts, needs and wants into English.

So many friends can’t recall what their children’s first words were so I’ve decided to make a note (when I get round to it) of what she’s saying … I love how some of the words are totally unexpected and other things that relate to her day to day life are still in Hopeish.

In the last few days she’s added the following words to her list

olives (said with a lisp whilst waving one on the top of her finger during supper)

fish (my necklace and her favourite food)

bumble bee (a picture in her book)

hat (well actually she said ‘at)

hair (whilst brushing it with a crayon)

meow

more

pasta pesto (only I seem to be able to understand this but I did hear it clearly!!)

broccoli (pronounced “brolly”)

blueberries (pronounced “oooobriesh”)

strawberry (“briesh”)

she now regularly says “thankyou” (I’m an old bag as you know and don’t like “ta”) and Please (“plis”)

no generally means yes but has started to mean NO

hallo (hello with a Norwegian accent after our recent trip to Oslo)

row row row means please sing Row Row Row

ra ra ra means please sing Do the Hokey Kokey

Baa Baa means Baa Baa Black Sheep

up a ba means up above and therefore please sing Twinkle Twinkle

UP means pick me up

gaan gaan means again

sssssss (said with finger to lips) followed by ‘op ‘op ‘op means sing Sleeping Bunnies

and I’m sure there are many more …

I love that she speaks with intonation … I mean it’s logical that she would depending on who is talking around her but the way she picked up the Norwegian accent (which is very close to Hopeish to be fair) and if I say, “Bear” in a slightly reprimanding or hurry up kind of a way to her father she immediately sits back and says it over and over and over with a huge grin … she also managed “Clare” in the same voice when her lovely Godmother was staying with us.

She uses, “ere is” emphasising the is for ‘where is she’ or ‘where is it’ and “ere is” for ‘There she is’ or ‘here she is’ when we play hide and seek or peekaboo.

I love hearing her say Marmi and Daddi … but hearing the new words come thick and fast delights me and also makes me want to eat a dictionary so that her vocabulary will be as wide as possible. We read a French picture book at bed time and she knows that dog is chien and barks in a “wooooooooof” way when you say either.

Where she hasn’t yet found the word she uses her hands … and often mimes Incy Wincy Spider when she is sitting playing.

Yup … absurdly proud Mummy … and in the face of all sorts of real world difficulties and hassles these magical words keep my heart joyful and me happy.

Inspiring? aching joints, grey roots and not that far off 50 … apparently so : )

I’ve had time to come down from the ceiling now after my nomination and subsequent (wonderful miraculous humbling and very exciting) shortlisting in the Inspire category of the Brilliance in Blogging awards.

I am so proud, and have been utterly overwhelmed at the response my shortlisting has had on friends and family and followers of the blog, also delighted by the support that the local Cambridge media have shown me in a ‘local girl does good’ kind of way. I was featured on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and in the Cambridge News and also again in the Cambridge News online … somehow the positive message that it is OK to be an older Mum seems to have touched people and this shortlisting supports that … us older mothers (well other than me) are not aged crones with withered breasts struggling to keep up with technology and fashion (yes I said apart from me), most of us are perfectly capable, loving, able mothers who (often) have more time for their children not because we don’t work or have saved a fortune, what I mean is we (maybe) do want to make more time for children and are less worried about going out without them, women who breastfeed, who sing ‘Dingle Dangle Scarecrow’ and ‘Baa Baa Blacksheep’ with absolute delight,  and who can and do lead inspiring exciting lives. We are mothers who like all mothers just strive to be the best mothers we can be. It is possible to be blissfully happy with a child ‘later in life’ and for that child to joyfully thrive (I know … you shouldn’t split infinitives but it’s been a long day) and succeed in life.

so so happy

I’ve been so touched by the messages I’ve received since I started writing my ramblings from older mothers, from would be older mothers, from those older women who wish they had become or dared to try to become older mothers all saying thank you for my inspiration. Actually, I’ve been flabbergasted and deeply moved that anything I write could touch anyone, but maybe that’s what it takes, one fool standing on a box, or rather sitting infront of one and saying that it is ok and it is possible and to wear their heart on their sleeve about their fears and concerns. One lady contacted me recently to say that her child had just been born and that reading my blog had given her the courage to go through with her journey at the point where she was about to give up, I’m so grateful that she told me that and that I have in some way been able to play a positive part in someone else’s life.

So there it is …

I have never been more broke, more tired first thing in the morning, more un-made up, less ironed (ok I’m lying about the ironing, I never did any anyway) and I have never been happier or felt more secure. Every penny matters in a way it never has before, I have Hope’s future to invest in and to help build a foundation for and I have the most remarkable little person in my world … and we are so very lucky to have so many incredible friends and the support of our wonderful family … and our virtual friends, the ones we’ve made here and elsewhere online who have supported us through this journey.

Hope and dreams (picture credit Paul Clarke (c) )

I looked up the word ‘inspire’ in an online dictionary …

/inˈspī(ə)r/

Verb Fill (someone) with the urge or ability to do or feel something, esp. to do something creative: “his enthusiasm inspired them”. Create (a feeling, esp. a positive one) in a person: “inspire confidence”.

… looking at the list of other shortlisted writers I am inspired by so many of them and overwhelmed by others … and I am so so proud and happy to be listed amongst them and to be able to be considered to ‘inspire’ others. My daughter inspires me … as do the many wonderful ‘older mothers’ who I’ve met… but in particular my own mother, herself an “older mum” inspires me … she and Hope are my inspiration as are Hope’s godparents.

If after looking at this list of writers you still want to vote for me and my Mush Brained Ramblings I’d be so so grateful.

I type publish on this post on the same date that two years ago an A grade 5 day old embryo was transferred into me … I never dared dream that day that I’d have a healthy wonderful daughter 10 months later let alone that I’d start a blog that would one day inspire people…. and by an utter miracle, 2 years on, here we are.

The Inspire (Category 5) Shortlist comprises the following wonderful blogs (and mine!). Voting closes at midnight at the end of Sunday 12th May.

A Year Without Supermarkets
Alexander Residence
Alice’s Studio
Anecdotes of a Manic Mum
Clarina’s Contemplations
Crazy with Twins
Downs Side Up
Edspire
Frugal Queen
Just Bring the Chocolate
Mummy from the Heart
Mush Brained Ramblings
Our Life with Leukaemia
The Oliver’s Madhouse
The Real Supermum
Thinly Spread

Thank you so much to the team at BritMums for holding these awards and giving me the chance to glow with gratitude and pride … I think I’ll implode with happiness if I get to the final 6 … and if I don’t I’ll just continue to glow with pride and be thrilled for the incredible bloggers that do … there are some superb stories being told in that line up.

To vote for Mush Brained Ramblings click on the BiBs button below and find us in category 5.

We’d really appreciate your vote for Mush Brained Ramblings in the ‘Inspire’ category

Right then, I have supper to make for a little girl and her grandmother who has been playing with her to give me time to write this.

Fingers crossed … and thankyou

A fashion faux pas?

I was having lunch with the yummiest mummy I know (12 years younger than me, slender, funny, beautiful, passionate, warm hearted, sorted, poised, elegant, 2 children, successful and with a meaningful career and flawless make up – yes – AND she’s a wonderful person) the other day and I got all excited because a girl came into the cafe where we were wearing something a bit floaty but mainly just very pretty with a flowery pattern, buttons, a collar, long sleeves and cuffs.

“Ohhh Annie”, I said, “don’t look behind you right now but when you can just turn casually in a nonchalant kind of a way and just look at the blouse the girl sitting behind us is wearing”. My excitement caused her to do the only uncool thing she’s ever almost done and she very nearly choked on her sparkling water and then said something along the lines of “you can’t say that”. “What?” I wondered … was being excited and too loud about something somebody else was wearing not a good thing to be?

“You can’t say blouse” “It’s top or shirt” “nobody says blouse any more”.

Clearly as a youthful impeccably turned out (often in things I’d refer to as blouses) fashionista she knows what’s what in drapery dialogue but … “hang on”, I thought, “hang on … my mother wears blouses all the time … oh but she’s in her 80s … but isn’t my flowery top a blouse … oh no it’s a top … hmmmmm”

So I started on a survey of friends … starting with mother who of course said blouses exist and are women’s shirts with buttons … often short sleeved.

I asked a friend of 43, she said that to her a blouse was something wafty and baggy and a very specific item. I asked one of Hope’s godmothers (the glamorous one) she said that a blouse can have long or short sleeves and is a feminine shirt, less tailored and fitted … I asked a younger neighbour and a total stranger in the park, they both said, “oh no, it’s a top, a blouse is VERY old fashioned”, I asked a friend’s daughter in her teens … she looked at me as if I was mad and said, “a what?”

So … is it RIP the word blouse? Are we dumbing down the English language and loosing wonderful terms, blouse, jerkin, blouson, and so on just to be stuck with the all encompassing ‘top’ … I hate that and I so hope not … I am rubbish at describing things succinctly (yes I know you already know that), particularly clothing … and need a wide range of terms to give me some kind of idea what I’m talking about.

Did my gentle friend herald the death knell (one that everyone under the age of 40 has long since heard) for the word blouse?

Hope’s godmother was incensed and has decided to use the word ‘blouse’ more often and encourage her US friends to do the same … so, a vote for old fashioned, for non vintage but genuine “blouses” everywhere … and one for uncool and generally fairly dishevelled mothers (particularly those who, until it was used and everyone got in trouble for it on Comic Relief, had absolutely no idea what vajazzled meant).

I sit here typing this in my blue knitted tunic, I have several blouses to choose from tomorrow depending on the weather and whichever one I choose I shall wear it with pride.

Oh and by the way we were so busy discussing the matter that by the time she did turn round, the girl with the blue flowery blouse on had long since disappeared!!.

Right … off to choose which bustle to put under my kirtle, and to fish out my farthingale…. it’s my age you know.

Upwards and …

Hope stood by herself last week, by accident, but then on her 16 month birthday she did it deliberately, and not just once but time after time after time, and how it made her giggle as she kept on climbing over me, standing, letting go, wobbiling and then collapsing into a heap.

The sun was out in the garden and she was playing in the outdoor playpen my mother put us in as children, keeping herself busy with her stacking up toys, brushing her hair (hair is her latest word) with a purple shape puzzle piece and picking daisies. I went and lolled in the sun on the blanket next to the pen and looked up at her and there she was standing up looking out at me and reaching out with both hands. She was using the pen side to steady herself but was clearly delighted at her achievement.

I knelt up and held her hands, she sat down and chortled and then stood up again, pulling herself up on the wooden pen sides and then reaching out to take my hands and then sitting down again giggling.

After a few minutes I lifted her out and lay down next to her, she dozed for a few seconds and then spent an hour climbing over me and standing up, letting go, and then flopping to the floor. She laughed, she wrinkled her nose in glee and she chortled, I laughed with her until tears filled my eyes. Then she added having a bit of breastmilk into the equation, she’d climb over me, lift up my shirt, beam, have some milky, push back and stand up and then let go and make a delighted whooping sound before climbing over to the other side and doing it again and again and again. It was a very happy time, her precious Granby was there to share it and her father, I’m so glad … she pushed her fist down onto my tummy to propel herself upright and then lifted one hand in the air like some Olympic athlete celebrating as she crossed the finishing line and then raised the other … and then in fits of giggles collapsed and it all started again.

She did the same at the beach yesterday as she and I lolled in the sun together. Still no sign of walking, she delights in crawling everywhere or walking on all fours like a strange but happy crab …

Hope looks different this week, perhaps some of her baby fat (not that she had any really) has gone with the increase in activity, but she seems more of a little girl now than a baby. Her Granby wonders why we can’t see her growing… I think this week we have!

happy time practising standing on a sunny afternoon