Olympic Fail

I have to say, I'm really not fussed with the big hoopla that is going to be the London Olympics, 2012.  I might check in on the opening ceremony and the odd high profile event where we are in with a shot at gold. But other than that, I have to confess that I couldn't give two hoots.  It's not that I don't like sport either (tennis and football are my favourites), but aside from the fast track events, the Olympics has never really floated my boat.  I don't understand why people get so excited about what to me is a borefest of sports that you never hear anything from at any other time - and for very good reason.  I am also going to be watching from behind the palms of my hands, maybe even from behind the sofa when they let Boris (our esteemed London Mayor) loose on proceedings.    The whole world will be watching, for goodness sake...

However, watching Boris spout nonsense will be nothing compared to the shame I will feel when Team GB is forced to present to the world athletes that have previously been given lifetime bans.  Theoretically, I like to believe that everyone deserves a second chance in life.  But I do believe there should be a few exceptions, representing one's country at a national level being one of those.  Doesn't matter if it's playing for the national football team, competing in the Tour de France or at the Olympics.  Once you have cheated, that should be it.  You know the consequences and you accept the punishment when you are caught.

Which is why I found the ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport - overturning the British Olympic Association's Lifetime ban policy - extremely disappointing.  After all, what does it say to our children when they hear that cheats do not necessarily always get their comeuppance?  It's bad enough that they see footballers diving all over the football pitch, getting rewarded penalties and causing their fellow professionals to get sent off.  But now in what is supposed to be the purest sporting event in the world, cheats can once again prosper.  Dwayne Chambers and David Millar may indeed represent Team GB once more, and if they win gold - how hollow will that victory feel?

These are fairly depressing times, what with austerity and the nagging feeling that society's moral standards are on the decline.  Dull as I personally may find much of the actual sport, I would still like to feel that the Olympics stands for what is still good and pure in the world.  That is still about hopes and dreams and people triumphing, sometimes against all odds.  The Olympics is still a symbol of the world coming together - a light that never goes out.  So why sully its legacy?  Even if other nations choose to allow those who have let down their country and fellow athletes to compete again, why should the British Olympic Association, who still wishes to honour fair play, be forced to go against its principles?

First Love

Do you remember your first love? I do. I was 5 years old and he was the cutesy boy in our class. And I got to 'go out' with him!  Actually, I'm not even sure what being boyfriend and girlfriend meant at that age.  I vaguely remember that a play date or two was involved and I'm pretty sure he once tried to kiss me on the cheek while I was wearing just a leotard (scandal!) but other than that I'm guessing it was just a case of:

I'm your boyfriend and you're my girlfriend, let's hold hands!


*Giggle* Okay.


5 year old was a pretty young age, or so I thought. But like everything these days, the kids are now doing it younger.  When I got to my childminder's the other day to pick up Babyzoid, her little pal M was in tow as usual.  Apparently they run around together like Bonnie and Clyde causing a bit of mayhem, though occasionally deferring to Babyzoid's other great friend there, the female E.  E is the major ringleader of this little crew, but Babyzoid and M (and yes, I'm using initials only 'cause I'm paranoid I'll be breaking some moral code!) can certainly stand up for themselves I'm told.  Once we're home I always ask my little lady if she's had a nice day and if she saw her friends E, I and C.  She says yes, repeats their names, and for the past months or so always adds "and M, M there too".  Hmmm.

Then the other day I saw it with my own eyes.  4 children sat on a little indoor picnic table eating snacks, 2 on each side - Babyzoid sat so close to M I couldn't be entirely sure she wasn't sat on his knee - looking at him with complete and utter adoration.  Childminder confirmed that they are pretty much inseparable - my 2 year old daughter and her slightly older boyfriend.  He even saw her to the door as we left and shouted "Bye bye Babyzoid, see you on Monday" Cocky little bugger or perfect gentleman? I can't quite decide.

Upon telling her father this on his return from work, Daddyzoid looked disapproving for a few seconds then told her she was to forget boys for a good twenty years or so and focus on her studies - at which point, no word of a lie, she walked over to her blackboard abacus easel and counted the beads one through to ten.  Such a Daddy's girl, and one who definitely knows how to wrap the boys around her little finger.  I'm not sure where she gets it from...

Furry Fiends: How To Get Rid of Mice

Mice are the cutest little creatures, all tiny and twitchy-nosed - and the way they do that standing on their hind legs while they eat with their little hands, adorable! Adorable that is if they're in a cage.  Not so much when they're in your home, which is where we found a family a couple of weeks ago.  Hanging out, in my kitchen, helping themselves to the dried food stuffs! Little critters.  It's not helped by the fact that I have an open pantry with an air brick on the back wall.  Definite point of entry potential, indeed that is what I am assuming seeing as there were droppings directly below it.  In my pantry! Ugh!

The irony is that I had cleaned it out the previous week.  It had all been scrubbed and the floorspace cleared.  I had even thrown out all the out of date spices (Cinnamon, end date July 2008!) and discarded all the pointless stuff I knew I was never going to use (Miso soup sachets anyone?) So I was beyond mortified that they chose post-spring clean to move their incontinent little butts into my home - or perhaps mice have standards too and my overstuffed pantry didn't cut it.

To be honest the pantry droppings wasn't what gave my little lodger's presence away.  My husband was away on a course one night, my daughter in bed - just me and the glow of the laptop.  I suddenly became paranoid.  I looked down and there it was, on my carpet, just looking at me.  Looking at me with its little beady eyes and nose a-twitching.  Now I've seen mice before, we live two gardens away from the local woods and common and our last cat used to bring them in for sport, evil little sod.  Indeed I caught many of them in a tub and freed them just outside the garden  (stupidly - run little mouse, run!).  After all, they didn't ask to be in my house.  They were brought in by a huge predator who had every intention of killing them.  This mouse, it had made the choice.  It was fair game.

So what did I do? I calmly went to the kitchen, found an old snap trap I'd never used and loaded it with peanut butter.  It couldn't resist - I came down to a body the next morning.

Now I'm usually all for the humane treatment of all creatures, but it quickly became apparent that this wasn't a lone interloper.  And when you have a 2 year old dropping food on the floor then eating it again, you need to act fast.  We've all heard of Weil's disease, or we certainly have once we've Googled Help! Mice in my house!  Weil's is a nasty disease carried by rodents where symptoms include severe headaches, red eyes, muscle pains, fatigue, nausea and a temperature of 39c or above.  The worst cases can result in hemorrhaging internally and from the eyes and mouth.  Indeed the death of an Olympic rower who ingested contaminated water a couple of years ago highlighted how contracting the disease can be fatal.  A mother's worse nightmare.

We're all familiar with the raisin-like droppings that alert you to the unwanted presence, but what a lot of people don't realise is that mice have no bladder control.  Wherever they have walked, they will have weed, constantly dribbling as they scamper.  Nice.

If you have seen the droppings then you can assume that the mouse is very happy in your house.  It likes living with you and it has found plenty of food to keep it in clover.  Mice don't need a lot either, they can survive on crumbs and go quite a while without eating.  They can go out and catch the sun on a lovely spring day, then come back inside to whatever nook they have commandeered for their nest.  And as they say, if you have one mouse, you are very likely to have more.

So what to do?

There are several methods of dealing with mice including the following:

• Snap trap
• Humane mousetraps that capture and don't kill
• Poison
• Glue boards/sticky traps
• Sonic noise-maker
• Professional exterminators/council pest control

Whichever method you use has advantages and drawbacks, aside from the glue boards are arguably the most inhumane method as it usually results in the mouse dying a slow painful death from either starvation or distress.  I found the old fashioned baited snap trap to be highly effective and caught six over 3 days with two in one trap.  To use this method effectively you need to keep on top of the traps as they catch the mice.  If the remaining mice keep seeing their relatives dying in traps, they likely will learn to avoid.  Experts suggest using more traps than you think you need as you need to catch them all and quickly.  The traps can be re-used if you're not too squeamish.

Poison is another popular choice as it kills the mouse but doesn't mangle or bash its head in.  You do have to be prepared for the fact that the mice may die in your walls or skirting boards and there may be an unpleasant odour for a few days.  I questioned the council about this and the lovely man who came out told me that this is actually quite rare and very short-lived if it does happen.  It certainly shouldn't discourage the use of poisoned bait as it is highly effective at killing mice quickly, he said.  He also advised me that the poison found in the shops is the same strength as that used by council pest control, so unless you have a major infestation a tub of cheap bait should more than do the trick - unless it's rats you have then you would need tons of the stuff!

The humane traps are a lovely option in theory, but again you are going to need several to catch a whole family as they are likely to become wary.  This has the obvious disadvantage of being extremely expensive as the models I saw in a hardware retailer were around the £10 mark, though I'm told you can find them cheaper.  You also have to be prepared to drive them at least 10 miles away from your home as they are known to have found their way back into homes from as far as 5 miles away (I'm assuming a marking method must have been used here else how do they know?).

I know very little about sonic noise makers other than that every review I've ever seen for them has deemed them ineffective - and believe me, I read a LOT of reviews the night of the furry face-off.



Prevention

Of course prevention is always better than cure and shoring up any points of entry with metal grills or steel wool is a good idea.  Apparently the critters really hate the smell of mint too.  I have certainly become more rigorous about using the vacuum cleaner.  Not that I didn't use it a few times a week in the living room anyway, but all the corners?  Bah.  Now I'm a little bit obsessive.  Same with mopping the kitchen floor, at least twice a week until I'm over the trauma, and a good do-over with my new carpet shampooer.   The cleaning OCD will no doubt wear off at some point soon, but making sure that there is no food around must remain a priority.  Six is hardly an infestation, but it still makes one feel decidedly slummy.

Have you ever had mice?  How did you get rid of the problem?  

Why People Hate Bloggers

Blogging, what is the point?  Why do we bother? Isn't it just our mums and sisters who read them?  Two friends have this week said to me that they're really not sure about the point of all this blogging lark.  Both know about this modest little blog here, yet both are mystified as to why the likes of me bother.  Indeed during a lovely light lunch provided by my friend, she politely enquired:

Friend: Seriously though, who reads them?


Me: Other bloggers mainly.


Friend: No one else?


Me: Um. Not really.


Friend: Riiiight.

And so I find myself in a strange position - that of being a  (casual) blogger of sorts yet sort of agreeing with the naysayers.  There are posts all over the Internet detailing how pointless and crap blogging is, and indeed many blogs are.  There are some terrible blogs out there and yes, during certain periods I'd include my own in that.  I've told some fairly amusing mummy anecdotes; I've written some non-mummy articles I'm actually rather proud of; but I've also written a lot of crap.

So my blog then - a crap in progress.  Why do I do it? What do I hope to gain?  Not a lot really.  I just enjoy it.  I did stick a Google Adsense code on there once.  Made about £3.00 before I removed it again (I never got my £3, damn you Google!)

After the initial honeymoon period, I did at times find myself sucked into the situation of being so desperate to post that I'd save a meme to give myself a break one day.  I'm pretty sure that one week the majority of my posts were tags or memes or linkies. Definitely the kind of practise that gives a blogger a bad name.  But why?  I mean, what is a linky even for? Don't get me wrong, some of them are fun and they can inspire some good material, especially during times of the dreaded bloggers block.  But let's not pretend - they are principally a means of encouraging people to help drive traffic back to the originators blog.  People then leave comments on all the linky entrants (yes, really) in the hope that the traffic will rub off on them and they will get more views.  And what do views make?!?  High blog rankings!


Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media wrote a cool, if a little mean, post called I hate bloggers, my favourite quote being [bloggers are] some of the most whiny, annoying and vapid people on the planet.  (Don't hold back, Lisa!)  Most people applauded the view, particularly Social Media professionals whose ranks this Business graduate/educator is in marathon-style training to join (but not til paduan is ready, Master).  They scoff at the bottom feeder bloggers who dare to think of themselves as Social Media experts or even mere practitioners.  Total snobbery, but they do have a point.  Social media experts most of us are not, even though some of the bloggers-turned-entrepreneurs sell themselves as such.  Indeed I joined one of these entrepreneur courses once.  Utter crap if I'm honest, though I'm looking at this with hindsight.  There are a number of folk out there who have built a business on nothing other than telling other people how to build a business.  And they charge steep monthly membership fee to give you access to content that is a watered-down version of what you can find free elsewhere on the Internet if you look hard enough.  Indeed you can find much of the content in Dummy's Guide to Starting a Business.

However, I think the savage criticisms of all things blog completely miss the point.  I would guess that most of the bloggers that I read - those who don't write for Mashable, LifeHacker or Social Media Explorer that is - don't do it because they think they are going to be the next celebrity blogging maven.  Nor do many do it because they seriously think they're going to be the next frustrated author to be offered a book deal, though so what if they do actually think that?  We're all allowed to dream (not that this is my dream).  Does anyone really have any right to be so sniffy? We all have to start somewhere and why not use blogging to hone those rusty skills that may one day gleam?

I think that many simply want to be entertained and to entertain others.  Take much maligned mum-bloggers (not me! *cough* errrrr what's that in your URL, Beadzoid?) What can be a very isolating experience can be made bearable by finding there is a like-minded community out there.  To have people read what you create and to truly connect with those you might never meet in real life.  It all has value.  And the Internet is a big enough place to accommodate a bit of warm and fuzzy.  Plus, Social Media Experts, are parent/lifestyle/culture bloggers not a fantastic marketing tool to be utilised when planning cheap outreach campaigns for your clients?  Just as long as they know who the real professionals are, of course.


But thinking that you are going to get rich from your little blog - the likelihood is it's never going to happen.  Indeed the New York Times online wrote a particularly scathing (and lazy, if I might dare to criticise) article back in 2009 stating that blog start-ups have a higher failure rate than restaurants.  The bloggers they profiled were pretty hopeless cases, but in terms of a reality check it's pretty spot on.  Many do lie abandoned after less than a year as the reality fails to live up to the dream.

Some blogs however are not devised to make the fortune of the author - they have loftier, more altruistic ambitions - blogging for social good.  It's not the overarching aim of this blog, but anyone who's been here before will know that I have done plenty of awareness raising for my cause of choice.   I'm proud of what I have done.  But again, a friend of mine involved in the same cause expressed caused me to think.  What good does it actually do if you are preaching to the converted?  Awareness raising to those already aware?  And is it a case of diminishing returns if you keep on blogging about it?  Won't people get fed up?  Quite possibly and I guess there's a fine line to tread unless you are a niche blog specifically dealing with that subject matter.  But more than that there has to be substance behind the writing.  What do you do to further your cause other than merely blogging about it? Are you campaigning to effect change?  Are you getting in amongst the people who's plight you highlight offering actual physical aid?  Chris Mosler did this when she went to Mozambique with Save the Children and I think she pretty much single-handedly inspired an entire community to see what they could do to help last year's worthy campaign drive.

So bloggers can do some good and are far from the whiny vapid wannabes ridiculed by some of the digital marketing profession.  Salt of the earth many, and I couldn't in all conscience belittle the route I have taken on my own journey to wherever it is I'm going, though I maintain I have no real ambitions for this blog other than for people to read it and comment accordingly (oh the elusive comments...).  The same goes for others.  There is no shame in running an online journal, nor is there any harm in having a dream.  But a little bit of realism is the best antidote to crushing disappointment when all's said and done.

What do you think?  Why do you blog?  Or are you a blogless reader?
What do you hope to achieve by blogging?  Are you disillusioned?  Have you ever tried any entrepreneurial courses aimed at bloggers?  Or have you landed here accidentally and really really hate bloggers too?

Facebook: Are you irritating your friends?

Why do people do it?  We've all been tempted and might have even succumbed to temptation in varying degrees.  That's right, posting a status that you have (or should have) thought better of.

It's easy to think bad things.  Someone hurts us or pisses us off and while we don't want to directly confront that person, we think 'ooh I could just post >>insert feisty cyber-bullet here<< on Facebook' as revenge.  A means of letting this person know that they have committed a crime most heinous.  Hopefully the red mist clears from your eyes just before you click post and you shudder as you imagine the desolate post-apocalyptic landscape following the war you very nearly caused.  What, you've never been tempted? Then you madam/good sir are more saintly a being than I (probably applies to most of my readers).

But if you have never even been tempted, not even a teensy weensy little bit to fire off a passive-aggressive missive at the object of your ire, then we all know people who have.  Tell me there aren't at least 100 million people round the world collectively rolling their eyes as they check out their news feeds and find that so and so is at it again.  Something along the lines of:


F**k you and the horse you rode in on!


FFS. Why do I even bother? 

Would it be too much to ask for people to text me once or twice a week? 

Let's see who actually reads my statuses!  Comment to show me you care.


There is a term for these kinds of statuses, most of which fall into the passive-aggressive camp - and that be vaguebooking, defined in the Urban Dictionary as:

An intentionally vague Facebook status update, that prompts friends to ask what's going on, or is possibly a cry for help.

Okay, so that last one was perhaps not so much vaguebooking but a bit of good old fashioned NOTICE ME! attention seeking.  Let's face it, we all have times where we feel a wee bit peeved or under-appreciated, but letting these demonic insecurities loose on a social network is never a good idea.  I guarantee you it will never have the desired effect.  Okay, some may rally and politely ask "what's wrong, love?" but for every kindly soul ready with the virtual tea and sympathy (or the chance to stick the boot in to the object of your rage) there will be another 10-20 people hovering over the unfriend button thinking that they have enough drama in their lives without you adding to it.

So passive aggression, vaguebooking, whatever you want to call it, unless you want to see your friends list mysteriously shrinking - RESIST!

Care to share good examples of vaguebooking or offer further nuggets of advice on social network etiquette? Or perhaps you have a guilty confession to make? :)

I heart... Captain Picard!

Women: Do You Really Want to Have the Conversation?

It's time to stop pretending.

Photo credit: Detrenz

A nice person I might be (I hope), but I'm really bloody opinionated.  About all manner of things.  And yes, I'm a bit of a feminist, truth be told.  Feminism has been a bit of a dirty word over the last decade.  Following the travesty that were the Girl Power and Ladette movements (movement perhaps being too strong a term) there seemed to be a bit of a shrinking away from women being prepared to call themselves feminists.  I felt it too, and not because I didn't wholeheartedly agree with the principles that our founding mothers Emmeline Pankhurst and co espoused.  More that I didn't like what was being done in the guise of the women's movement.

The beer-swilling falling out of clubs antics of the ladettes; the trashy dressing up like a drag queen in the name of embracing one's sexuality; the pointless arguing that all women were capable of doing some of the most physical jobs in our society; and of course the women who rose to the top in the greed-fuelled 80s by shunning their feminine side and being more of an enemy to women than the men of the day (step forward Mrs. Thatcher).

The glass ceiling was never going to get smashed to smithereens as we decided we needed to be the rare exceptions who would succeed in what was always going to be a man's world.  Perhaps the ceiling has been used in the same way the Snow White's evil Queen used her mirror - to reflect on how fabulous and successful one has become in comparison to our sisters.  It does force one to consider that perhaps we have become our own worst enemies over the last few decades.

Ashley Judd made some very interesting points in her article for the Daily Beast following speculation that she'd had cosmetic surgery after a round of publicity appearances.  As she had been so publicly attacked for her appearance Ashley decided she wanted to draw attention to the fact that the current 'conversation' about women's appearance and bodies was being conducted in a misogynistic framework.  While I wouldn't say this is a completely new viewpoint, the strong tone and willingness to address it directly shocked media and celebrity watchers alike.  If you read the article Ashley argues her case in an extremely eloquent and erudite manner, whether or not you agree with what she says.  Yet accusations of shrill ranting and indeed outright lying were levelled at her in response.

All that aside, the part that interested me most was not the fact that she highlighted the framework of commentary as a male construct partially designed to subjugate, but that she claims we women are complicit.  Could it be that as much as we claim to hate how our bodies are scrutinised, we are just as guilty as the men?

Let us consider the supermarket magazine industry.  The likes of Look and Grazia claim to value women as strong, intelligent creatures to be celebrated.  They write articles on the plight of women in war-torn countries to raise awareness, they say, of suffering and persecution.  Yet the cover is nearly always concerned with the latest gossip in the lives of its favoured celebrity women.  More often than not Angelina or Jennifer will feature as they pick apart, sorry analyse, these ladies love lives and weight with fervour.  And we lap it up.  Magazine sales always rise when the favoured love triangle is centre-place and judging by comments on forums and news site comment threads people love nothing more than to comment on how Angelina has become too skinny, or Jen too old looking (those are some of the less hostile accusations).  And it is us women who are the offenders perhaps 99% of the time.  It seems Ms Judd has a point.

So what is it about women that sees us seemingly trying to knock each other down?  The evolution of how we got to this point is perhaps too complex to pin a definitive answer on why we do this.  Perhaps it is a combination of factors.  Rather like black people will always feel like they are having to fight lingering racist attitudes, perhaps we have it deep in our psyche that we are still second class citizens.  We tend to be more emotional than our male counterparts and sometimes try to deal with this in ways which might not be appropriate.  The commentary over women's bodies has been so all consuming in the media that we cannot help be affected by it.  We know it's not healthy to have our bones jutting out, but are we being truthful to ourselves when we say we love our curves?  And do we secretly feel resentment that the celebrity bodies we're supposed to find abhorrent make us look critically at our own bodies?  It is said that no one woman is 100% happy with how she looks.  In an ideal world we would simply accept this and turn our thoughts to matters of more significance.

But there seems to be something within that is always seeking to compare.  If the 10 commandments suggest it is a sin to covet thy neighbour's house, then surely coveting our friend or colleague's body is just as bad, especially when the feelings of inadequacy it inspires in us cause us to have nasty conversations or make accusations of cosmetic surgery or eating disorders.  Instead of dismissing Ashley Judd's considered opinion piece as a self-absorbed rant (middle-aged male Daily Mail columnist) perhaps we should have the conversation - and take a bloody hard look at ourselves in the process.

What do you think?

Ch-ch-changes: approaching a blog relaunch

So here I am, back in the blogging saddle.  I've enjoyed my time away as I've focused my energies on other things, but now has come the time to either relaunch, or lay to rest.  I'm choosing relaunch - indeed I did so in a sneaky fashion yesterday with a post I'd written some time ago.  And yes, this is sort of a blog post about blogging (feel free to run now).


Approaching a blog relaunch

Many aspects to approaching a blog relaunch are the same as when launching a brand new blog.  You need a strategy and you need a plan.  Considering the following will help you formulate this:

• What has your blog been about to date?
• Consider your writing style, otherwise known as finding your blogging voice  Have you established it already or is that part of the reason you feel you need to start over?  Be honest with yourself.
• Decide what you want to blog about.  Has this changed?  What are you passionate about?  Are you qualified to talk about this subject?  Do you have a unique angle?  
• Who will be your market and which community can you be a part of?  Will this be the same and will it bother you if you lose existing readers?
• What are your aims and what do you hope to achieve with the 'new' blog?
• Will your blog need a design makeover to symbolically herald the new direction?
• How are you going to engage with your readership, other than through your blog posts (think replying to comments, Twitter, Facebook, perhaps even the odd podcast?)  Have you been less effective in this area in the past?  If so, why?  Again, be honest.

I have thought about these points long and hard over the last few weeks.  My changes won't perhaps be as dramatic as they could perhaps be, but the following thoughts came out of the whole process:

When I started to blog I didn't have any intentions of becoming a 'mum-blogger'.  In fact many of the blogs that I enjoy (some written by mums, some not) are not overly concerned with motherhood, or if they are they tackle issues that have something to say about our society, culture or whatever.  Some blogs I visit simply because they give me a warm and fuzzy feeling like a mug of cocoa on a winters' night.  That is not to say I don't enjoy being on the fringes of the mothering community - I do.  It reminds me I'm not the only one often wringing my hands as the little one goes through another phase, each more trying than the last.  Most valuable!  So if not fully immersed in the mum blogosphere, then on the fringes I'm happy being.

Prematurity awareness

Although I have done lots of work on prematurity awareness and will continue to do so, my daughter is now coming up to 3 years old and has very few issues relating to her prematurity.  I do believe our journey has come to an end in that respect and indeed I wrote on the subject of moving on a little while ago.  Being mum to a premature child is of course part of who I am and is woven into the fabric of my very being.  But sympathy aside, I don't feel I have anything to offer parents who are currently going through the NICU journey as my experience slips further and further into the past.  I'm also not prepared to keep torturing myself with the memories, particularly as I have been so blessed to have come out the other side with a happy healthy child.

So I am going to be returning to what this blog was when it first started and move away from producing content that is so heavily weighted towards prematurity - instead having bursts of awareness raising when appropriate.  My story has been told, it's where we can go from here in terms of improving the lot of the babies and parents who are or will in the future experience life on an NHS neonatal ward.  I will still be campaigning for that on a national level with Bliss and indeed be helping where I can at a more local level with Grace Research Fund, a Warwickshire charity who raise funds for specialist projects relating to the care of premature babies.

I also find that Twitter is an excellent platform to help promote organisations who are doing excellent work in the field, and I will continue to be involved in that sense.  In short, I'm not turning my back on premature babies but it can no longer be about my daughter and I.  This is a good thing as it means I have moved on and healed and I'm so glad to see that a few fellow bloggers I've shared the therapeutic journey with as we parallel blogged (parallel play for mummies!) are coming to the same conclusion (you know who you are!) and I'd like to assure others that moving on is possible.  Indeed it is essential for one's mental health.

As I move away from blogging about certain issues I have been trying to decide what my core market is. Try as I might I cannot seem to pigeon-hole my 'typical reader' and indeed any attempt to do so brings to mind that awful woman on The Apprentice a few years back who conjured up the vision of sad old Mavis glued to the shopping channel.  Perhaps I should persist in the good old-fashioned market analysis but I'm getting visions of lots of overlapping circles with various demographic and lifestyle labels and it's giving me a headache.


The grand design

So what do I aim to achieve with my blog? I still want an outlet to write about the things that are not part of the 'business-me' - a bit of respite from both work and the extremely hard job of being a mother.  Writing for the love of but looking outwards at the world, rather than dealing with whatever is happening in my life at a given moment.  More than anything I'd like to engage with people who read what I write and feel compelled to comment.  I enjoy dialogue and debate and haven't seen enough of it on this blog, due to it being regularly quite personal in nature, and if I'm honest, not always keeping tabs on comments as they came in.

So to that end I will be writing mainly opinion piece articles in a variety of different areas from now on as I try to hone my writing skills.  Think Sunday magazine (broadsheet NOT tabloid, darling).  People who regularly read my blog may not even notice a difference - it will after all still be my voice, but I feel the need to draw a line in the sand and symbolise a new approach.  I will be looking for guest-posts too, so if you think you can write something which will be a good fit, I would love to hear from you via my contact form.  I'm also now open to producing copy and doing the odd review - as long as it interests me and doesn't compromise my integrity of course :) And I'd love to receive some suggestions in the comments, so feel free to pop out from your lurking shadow and tell me what you think.

See you tomorrow!

A Rose By Any Other Name

They call me girl!

     They call me Stacey!

They call me her!

They call me Jane!

That's not my name!

That's not my name!

That's not my name!

That's not my NAME!

Any parent with a young child will be very firm that their will in regards to bringing up their children is to be followed, or else.  We all have our own parenting styles and if someone tries to intervene in matters involving our children's discipline, diet or otherwise, we are naturally aggrieved.  Our parenting, our rules, our time.

But what of the good old shortening of or giving a nickname before you're ready for it? Does this matter to you as a mum or a dad? Do you inwardly seethe or get annoyed when someone calls your child something other than the name you gave, especially when you ask them not to?  Do you say something in the hope that they will stop (rather than do it all the more to wind you up)?  Or do you just go with it, keeping in mind that line from Romeo and Juliet:


What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet...

My sister and I had names that people didn't want to call us when we were little - indeed we still have them. Nice names I think, I certainly quite like mine even though I don't normally share it on this blog.  Though I believe that the Googlemonster now insists on posting it whenever I reply to a comment.  Yeah, thanks Google with your cyber-universe takeover - wonder when the final frontier battle with Facebook will happen and we all get turned into cyborgs with a Blue and white F or a rainbow G stamped firmly on the middle of our foreheads.

My name is Christina, yet everyone would always get it wrong and call me Christine.  Now I have nothing against the name, but it isn't my name.  These days I also hate my name being shortened and I do cringe when anyone attempts to call me Chris, or heaven forbid, Tina (former deputy year head at school who hated me).  Indeed I usually correct them and oh so politely tell them that I prefer my full name and people are usually fine with that, as you'd expect.  My sister is called Diane, yet being born at the height of Di-mania (two days before the royal wedding, no less), Diana was what she got.  And yes, she hated it too.  So did our mum, in fact I'm pretty sure it really wound her up, especially when people would go on to ask "did you name her after 'Lady Di'?" as royalists my family most certainly are not.

So I guess there was some grounding.

Fast forward several years to when I was expecting Babyzoid.  We liked the name we would eventually give her, but we weren't definitely sure.  Part of us I think wanted to see if the name would suit her, as is perfectly normal.  But as anyone who has ever read this blog before will know she didn't look like any name we could have thought of.  She looked like a tiny, fragile bird-like little dot.  Certainly like no baby I had ever seen before.  I still thought she was beautiful and I loved her instantly, but we couldn't name her.  Not straight away.  Every time we tried, it just seemed wrong somehow as we weren't sure if she would live or die.  Of course I knew we would still need to give her a name, even if the worst happened.  But it certainly wasn't the most important thing in our minds.  Our longed-for daughter's life was in the balance and the survival of this frail little creature was all we could focus on.

Charlotte in the NICU

We came under a bit of pressure to name her, I don't even think the people doing so realised they were doing it but we stuck to our guns and named her when we were ready.  I was in a very strange place.  I'd come home without my baby who was miles away in another county up the M1.  I was handling everything extremely well so everyone thought, but inside I was a mess and I would spend half the return journey from Northampton General in tears at having to leave her, often listening to Cd's I'd being playing in the days before she arrived so suddenly at 13 weeks early.  Indeed on the way there I was always in such a hurry that one day I came quite close to having a collision with an articulated lorry as the lanes merged into one and I ran out of road.  I was desperate to see her, but it was a wake-up call as I knew I was no good to my daughter dead.

When you have a baby who is so ill they spend several weeks or months in the NICU you do not feel like a parent.  You make none of the decisions for them, you can do nothing physical for them in the first few days and control is completely taken out of your hands.  I was a mum in waiting, and that was so, so hard.  Arriving at the maternity wing and having to walk past 'proper' babies as they were being carried out in car seats by happy mums and dads, hoping that my baby might be stable enough so that I could hold her for 20 minutes and many times being told that today it wasn't going to happen.  Even now years later, seeing a 'normal birth' followed by a baby leaving hospital the same day sort of punches me in the gut in a way I can't explain, though of course I wouldn't wish the NICU experience on anyone.

Now I have had treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder arising from the awful birth, but even though I have laid that to rest, some scars will always remain.  The 72 days that I was waiting to become my daughter's mum is something that will stay with me always.  My husband and I now make all the decisions until she can start to make some for herself, something which has already started.  She's only 2 but often decides what she wants to wear ("Black dress today Daddy!") and will take matters into her own hands if we don't put the right DVD in.  She's strong-willed, just like her mummy and I have a feeling that what she says will go - right now I'm being nagged to run a bath and I very soon will comply.

Perhaps it is not such a big deal to other parents, but to me it is very important that people call my daughter by the name I have given her, not only because of what we've been through but because it's what I damned well want and I'm her mother!  The time may very well come for her to decide she wants to be called an abbreviated version of her name, and I will call her whatever she wants to be called (unless she's in trouble and deserves the full title, middle name and all!) but for now I disagree with Shakespeare when he suggests a rose would smell as sweet if it were called something else.  Our name's are part of identity and are important in how we view ourselves.  After all, that's why the Deed poll exists and why my mother, for one chooses to be known by her middle name.

I want my daughter to have a strong sense of self and one day we'll tell her all about where the inspiration for her pretty, feminine and traditional name came from.  Also, she knows her name now and I don't want anything confusing that.  So I will continue to reject all monikers, and I think that is my right.

So what do you think?  Do you agree that the parent's wishes be respected on this issue or do you think that it really is no big deal?

I know I'm on blogcation, but.... *wedding dress*

I might be on a blogcation at the moment, but how can a girl refuse a request to show off her wedding dress?  And the shoes... check out the Terry De Havilland Swarovski peep-toes.  And one can't resist throwing in a couple of Bridesmaid Babyzoid into the bargain.  So Looking for Blue Sky, here you go!

See you all in a few weeks.

All photos by The Photos of My Wedding