Ten things that still surprise me

1. Being a mother is a constant source of surprise.  This tiny new person so dependent on me and so delighted by my presence in the world.
2. Newfound competence. Those evenings when I make a balanced tasty meal, sweep the floor and carry out bath-time with song and cheer, I am filled with bemusement. I’m not so bad at this after all.
3. Ongoing incompetence. When I can’t think of anything to make but pasta, the house is a dizzying swirl of disorder and I snap at the baby, I’m surprised I’m not better at this by now.
4. A stable relationship. I somehow never thought that would happen to me.
5. Getting older. Doors closing. The realisation that the decisions I have made have set me on a path which I will follow for the rest of my life.
6. Why people would ever EVER tell a new mother that “it doesn’t get any easier”. That is a cruel lie and I would have thrown myself in the river if I hadn’t believed the other voices.
7. Childbirth. I see mothers, looking so nonchalant and devil-may-care, particularly those with numerous progeny, and think my word, you went through that extraordinary experience too. We survived. Incredible.
8.  How different men and women are. I didn’t believe in all that innate gender role crap before, but reality is striking.
9. That I’m an expat. I always thought I would go back to England, I never wanted to be a foreigner in a foreign land.
10. That we have wood heating, compost toilets and grow our own veg. I’m closer to the tepee dwelling, cabbage noshing eco-warrior that my brother once forecast than I had anticipated. 

Ten benefits to central heating

1. You don’t have to run down the corridor, breathless with cold, from the kitchen to the bathroom.
2. You can get up at 6 o’clock in the morning without a will of iron.
3. Getting undressed to wash is not a teeth clattering ordeal.
4. Getting out of the shower doesn’t feel like your skin is being peeled off by ice demons.
5. You relax, rather than frown, as you enter the house.
6. You don’t have to remember to light another heater 20 minutes before you change room.
7. You don’t have one warm cheek and one cold.
8. You can stand and admire the boiler. Hear its roar.
9. Guests don’t shiver.
10. It’s warm! Gloriously so.

In case it is not apparent, central heating is a new luxury for our house, lit but 3 days ago. The novelty and excitement will wear off, so I take this opportunity to relish the joy and privilege that it is to be warm.

Ten unexpected joys

1. Deer. Rainy afternoon and reluctant start to walk, but enthusiasm whipped up by crunching leaves and the dog’s mad gratitude. Two hazy shapes in the meadow were quickly joined by two more, closer, leaping from the path ahead into the field. A rare treat to see deer before the dog, so a glimpse of a fifth had me beaming through the raindrops. The hound then hurtled back and forth, mad on the fresh scent, as her discrete onlookers watched her calmly from a distance, unruffled by their evidently incompetent canine pursuer.
2. The little lass started saying “Dad”. After a day's amusing, challenging, singing, feeding, bathing, cuddling and generally being her slave, it can seem like a fairly bitter irony that she grins and shouts Dad. But ho hum, "Mum" will come.  
3. The migrating geese over the house reminded me that a goose says ‘honk’, vital information for my farmyard narrations. 
4. I found an old and beautiful Mercedes Prima typewriter at the junk shop. It works! Makes me want to write poetry. My deep and abiding respect for anyone who can type a neat document on one of those things. If you haven't, you should try.
5. The women at the crèche positively gushed about what a good time the lass had had – perhaps her first real smiles as they played together? They were pleased as punch to see her progress, and me to see their involvement.
6. Getting down off the bed training. If placed close to the edge, back to the descent, she has cottoned on to the backwards shuffle and slow slide to the floor. Pride and elation all round. Put her in the middle of the bed, however, and she is all at sea, backcrawling a few paces, then sitting up to look, and finally tumbling headfirst off the bed into my arms. Again, it will come.
7. A white owl swooped over the car as we drove into the yard last night, its partner screeching from behind the house.  I often used to see a white owl in Sam’s wood, and took it as a good omen.
8. Going to the market reminded me how friendly and delightful people are.
9. The baby fixed the mouse pad on my laptop. It had been broken these last 4 years, and one rambling clamber had it working again.
10. Dance class this morning. Eva was positively rapt, gazing at the dancer (who is delightful and graceful) with wonder, clutching her hands as she drank in every movement and scuttling after her whenever I let go. A bit of audience participation when she crawled into the middle of the dance floor and swayed around in delight as the dancer swirled around her.  

Ten Smiles

I never knew how precious a smile could be, until I feared that my baby never would or could. According to the books, babies start smiling back from around 6-8 weeks, but it didn't happen that way for us. We still don't fully know why, although I have my theories. What is true is that I now appreciate every gurgle and every grin as I never would have had we not lived through all that waiting. And even if she has still yet to laugh out loud, I trust that one day she will. I believe in my delightful little girl.

1. This was her first unequivocal smile. There were hovers and quivers of something like happiness on her face from around 4 months, but never the real thing. Five months old, for her papa back in February. It was a breakthrough for our hope levels, even if all my best tickles and daft faces didn't win me a smile for a good many more weeks and months.





2. Holiday in Brittany in May, so around 7 months. Aunty Mary nearly passed out blowing raspberries, but with a guttural gurgle, Eva began to smile, so it was all worth it.




3. And she warmed into it that week, this smile was for Granny.

Perhaps I was peering at her with too much anxiety and questioning in my face. Trying to make her smile, make her happy, became a challenge and it was hard not to feel her deadpan response to my attempts as a failure. But a baby will never smile because you want them to, only because they want to.




4.  Back to the UK in June. Even at home in France, her smiles were becoming more frequent, maybe once or twice a week. What brought them on was changeable, erratic, which kept me on my toes.

5. She was so incredibly proud of herself for standing up unaided, at around 8 months. Surprised and delighted, also, by the rapturous response she could elicit from her enthusiastic audience.

6. She has long been fascinated by her Papy, watching him with rapt attention whenever he comes round. For the first few months, he would try and identify if she could see, moving a hand in front of her face, anxious at her lack of response. When reassured she was not blind, he became keen to win a smile. She grins at him all the time now.



7. After her bath again. The water on her skin seemed to wake her up to the world around.

8.  This was on my birthday in July. She got very excited about standing up again. The best present possible to see her so excited and happy.

She also peed all over me, I guess she knew it was a special day.

9. At 9 and a half months, she got her glasses and the following day, she saw me and smiled for the first time. This photo was taken a few days later. Getting her glasses was definitely a turning point, even if that very special shared smile was not repeated for another few weeks.

As she became happier and I became happier, I stopped feeling like I was asking or expecting something from her all the time. We both relaxed. I had feared she would never ever look at my face, and then she did. At around 3-4 months, she developed a muscle spasm problem in her legs, which started talk of cerebral palsy, and I feared she would never walk. She is not far from walking already, at 13 months.  I feared she would never smile, then she did. I think fear, anxiety, worry and guilt are fairly commonplace emotions as a parent, but I wish now I had allowed myself more space for hope in all that fear.

10. Eva smiles all the time now. At music, the dog, me, her papa, a new toy, a silly face, a familiar voice on the phone, tickles, a surprise and sometimes for no reason at all that I can decipher.  

Funnily enough, I'm smiling a lot more too :o)

Ten new things my baby has learnt

1. Saying mum, dada, ohyea, aka, ata, om, and various related noises. She also can make strange noises in her throat that make her sound a bit like a dolphin. Trying to imitate these gives me insight into her difficulties in imitating my language sounds. 
2. Clapping preliminaries. She brings both hands together with extreme effort and concentration, sometimes missing, sometimes colliding, always to an uproar of parental applause. 
3. Putting small things in her mouth. She has yet to fully master the thumb-index grip, but a cube of bread/cheese/carrot now reaches her mouth in about 40% of attempts - a 40% improvement from 3 weeks ago. 
4. Chewing. A month ago small lumps had her retching. Yesterday she munched her way through a chicken dinner with no more than appreciative mmmmms and aaaaaaaaaaahs. Just as well, as the mixer has broken down. 
5. Opening doors. Her papa thought that door opening and closing would be a hilarious game to play with her. I would have liked her to stay a little lower on the learning curve to be honest, but what can you do. 
6. Kissing. She makes loud squelchy kissing noises in response to others'. This makes me extremely happy.
7. Ignoring "no" is hilarious. So any time I wish to stop her doing something "No, don't play with the compost bin, the dirty nappies, the hot oven..." she redoubles efforts to do just that, grinning like a coyote. I'm all for learning the hard way, but as she likes to hang off the oven handle and kiss the glass on the door, I'm anxious the experience could involve a trip to casualty and permanent scars. Barricading dangers with chairs is my current response, but I'm open to all effective solutions. 
8. Traversing. From chair, to armchair, to cupboard, without sitting down. The crab-style gait of the crawler. 
9. Not to fall off the bed. She lies down flat on the edge and reaches down, but doesn't keel over. Yet to learn to turn and lower herself, but still an important step. Not that I'd be willing to test it over long periods. 
10. To smile for the camera. For a long time, she would adopt her most gormless face when she saw it, but now she shrieks with excitement. She is often a blur, but usually a happy blur. 

Ten top tips for stacking wood

As an aside, I am an amateur in the world of wood stacking, but think these gems gleaned in the first hours and days of the art are nonetheless useful.

1. Make sure the cross-built end stacks, which will be the bookends to your wood stack, are stable. This may be slow and laborious, but it is essential that they don’t fall down.
2. Hob nail boots are a good idea, if you don’t want your feet to be crushed by a falling log.
3. Hob nail boots that are three sizes too big are impractical and dangerous as they impede your rapid retreat in the face of the aforementioned falling log. Trying to paint your own boots red and gold, then not being able to wear them because the red paint won’t dry, is an absurd situation. Especially if you then have to borrow someone else’s boots, whose feet are three sizes bigger than yours.
4. Make sure you clear the small branches away as you go, leaving your getaway path clear. Logs fall faster than you might think, and stumbling backwards over a litter of twiggy obstacles is hazardous. All the more so in size 9 hob-nail wellies.
5. If you can lift the smaller branches high up, do so. Put the biggest heaviest logs at the bottom, so you don’t have to lift them far. This seems obvious, but I personally didn’t think of it soon enough.
6. A well constructed log pile can be a thing of great beauty and an aesthetic achievement. My own attempt is neither of the above, but I aspire to greater mastery of the skills involved.  Stand back, observe, respect the lines.
7. As with all heavy lifting, bend your knees as you lift, otherwise your back will pagger within minutes.
8. As with childbirth, the effort is lessened if you breathe out through your mouth (a silent whistle) as you force. It’s easier, better for your pelvic floor and gives you a pleasing yogic feeling. You look a bit daft, but you probably won’t have spectators.
9. Avoid having spectators. Wood stacking is hard work and all passersby should either take off their jacket and help, or else make a complimentary comment and move along. Exceptions can and should be made for under-threes.
10. Set yourself small targets. Looking at the 10 ton pile of higgledy piggledy logs that you have to stack singlehandedly will only get you down. Particularly if you have a maximum of 40 minutes, 2 or 3 times a week, available for wood stacking. And a one year old. I’d like to say that 10 tons is a gross exaggeration, but alas, it is not. 

Ten things my one year old doesn't like

1. Water in her eyes at bathtime. 
2. Being held down. To the extent that she becomes a writhing, screeching banshee whenever constrained. I conjectured to the paediatrician that this is due to deep seated memories of the painful intravenal injections she had as a tiny baby (for a suspected urinary infection), but she replied that most one year olds are screaming dervishes if you try to stop them wriggling. 
3. The sound of the washing machine on full spin. Her face creases with unhappiness and her cries are heartbreakingly plaintive. The sound is insupportable, even from a distance. All intervening doors must be shut, or else turn the thing off altogether. 
4. Growing teeth. 
5. Any new foodstuff. Her face screws up in comic disgust, for about 3 seconds, then she wants more. Only after 3 spoonfuls does she definitively eat or refuse.
6. Having her spoon confiscated. Even if it's on very reasonable grounds. Example exchange: Hand spoon to baby. Baby throws it immediately to floor, looking after it in amazement. Baby shouts because spoon no longer in hand. Mother picks up spoon, hands to baby. (Repeat 5, 10, 15 times). Mother (exasperated): "Right, I'm keeping your spoon". Baby (enraged): "Waa etc". 
7. Keeping still. Especially for getting dressed. When I'm feeling cheerful and resilient, this becomes a good natured exchange, with tickling, singing, laughing and deft action dressing. When I'm tired, irritable, fed up, it's a long and drawn out battle, often escalating into pleas to the divine forces to intervene and strike her motionless. 
8. Being woken up. I think we are all with her there. 
9. Other babies crying. She looks on with dismay and incomprehension. Morning drop off at creche can be tricky if other tinys are carrying on with the "Mamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" scenario. Thankfully, she very rarely cries when I leave her. The odd times it has happened, it feels like your heart is being torn out as you walk away. 
10. Other babies holding on. Example: She and another tiny are standing holding onto a chair for support. She will side-step up to the other one, and push their hands off. If they can, they stand. If they can't, they fall. I don't know what this may mean about her character, but I'm not convinced it's good. 

Ten creatures I have seen in or from the house

1. A buzzard. On an absurdly lightweight young oak tree opposite the front door, that trembled when it swooped away (day before yesterday). 
2. Stink bugs (or pentatomoidea). They are gathered in clumps in the shutters of the windows, keeping close to the house's warmth. They make an almighty racket when they fly, like the drone of a helicopter. One landed on my head in the night recently and since then, I am less forgiving of their presence inside the house. I haven't smelt their stink yet, although am yet to deliberately provoke one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentatomoidea 
3. Green lacewings. I really like these ethereal creatures, like tiny dragons. There are dozens of them on the ceilings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysopidae
4. Ladybirds. Last week there was a ladybird party on my bedroom outside windowsill - common or garden red with black spots, black with red spots, yellow with black and black with yellow spots. How pleasingly cosmopolitan I thought to myself.
5. Red squirrels. On the garden wall, in the trees above the river. I wonder if they are ever afraid of heights, whether you get squirrel daredevils and cowards. 
6. Dormice. I believe the European ones are bigger than the English ones. This blighter was about 8-10 cm long, scampering along the roof struts in the attic. We hear them sometimes at night, throwing a walnut down from the box and rolling it away to be enjoyed in a safe corner. 
7. Bats. They occasionally sleep on the insides of the shutters. Apparently we should put turpentine on the wood to keep them away, but for now we quite enjoy the vampiresque surprise they bring. 
8. Swallows. A chattering row of enthusiastic gossips are in residence on the phone wire outside the bedroom window all summer. I regretted their departure when we were inundated with mosquitoes in September. 
9. Lizards. Dozens of them. The pleasure of seeing them has yet to wear thin, despite their numbers. "Regarde, un lézard!!"...again. 
10. Other birds which I cannot identify. I know they are not starlings or sparrows, nor kingfishers nor blackbirds. But I don't know their name yet. Oh yes, I did see a woodpecker pecking from the kitchen window. They peck very loud you know. 

Ten things that surprise me about living in rural France

1. You can buy live maggots in the local supermarket
2. Snakes and lizards sunbathe in front of the house
3. Lizards’ tails come off when they are caught, and continue to wriggle and writhe wildly for some time, while the lizard itself slips away unscathed.
4. Frosts are a major ordeal
5. Wood fired heating is a way of life: chopping, cutting, splitting, moving, stacking, stoking, cleaning, dusting. Preparing wood is hard physical work, and warms you up. By the end of the day you are so exhausted you just want to go straight to bed, so no need to light the fire.
6. There is more happening than you expect
7. Swallows and bats make a noticeable difference to the number of biting insects.
8. The changing seasons bring different swathes of creepy crawlies into the house: spiders, stinky bugs, mosquitoes, chrysopes…
9. Harvest mites. I counted 139 bites on my body last month. Frosts have their advantages, killing them off until next season.
10. Mice come in when there is a storm brewing, made bold by excitement and nerves. 

Ten things that make my one year old daughter happy

1)     When I stick my tongue out at her
2)      When I hold her spoon in my mouth at mealtimes
3)      When she drums on the table, preferably with something loud
4)      When she knocks down towers of building blocks
5)      When she pulls paper off shelves and scrunches it up, bills are best
6)      When I take her socks off in a dramatic fashion
7)      When I drop her trousers on her face and shout "trousers"
8)      Pouring water on her back during bath time
9)      Swinging her round and throwing her in the air
10)   When she chews her toothbrush whilst watching me brush my teeth

As smiling took a very long time to come, anything that makes her obviously gleeful is marvellous, a real treasure. I savour every smile all the more for having wondered if she ever would or could smile.  

Ten things that are surprising about being a mother

1.  Cleaning up poo and sick is not a major ordeal
2.  Patience doesn’t come more naturally now than it did before childbirth
3.   I am still a person, just a person with a child. I’m not a different species
4.  Competence and effective time management sneak up on you
5.  I never stop believing that this time we’ve made a major breakthrough (be it sleeping, eating, saying mama…), only for it not to happen again for a fortnight
6.  I am no less slovenly than before, I just feel guiltier about it
7. Guilt in all walks of waking life
8.  How very different fathers are
9. My body doesn’t feel or even look very different to before
10. I pushed an 8lb 4oz person out through my fanny, and it wasn’t as bad as I expected

Ten Reasons to Write this Blog...

1. I like words, always have. I used to enjoy stringing them together to effect, but have fallen out of the habit of trying these last years. Perhaps I will fall back in. 
2. To avoid being grumpy. I'm becoming increasingly 'glass half empty' in my attitude to my life, and would like to pay more attention to the delicious details that could make me more joyful. 
3. I think diaries are a good thing, but have never managed to upkeep a diary beyond January 6th, despite my best intentions. Perhaps I'll be more assiduous with this new undertaking. 
4. Lists help me see sense and organise my thoughts and days. I won't be able to loose these lists down the back of the telephone table. I hope they will bring some more order to my mind.  
5. Having a baby, and the many coinciding happenings in my life, have created havoc in my habitual serenity. I am seeking new ways to re-anchor myself and feel like I'm still the same person. 
6. I live in the middle of nowhere, in the back of beyond. Forging links with the world outside my garden is necessary for my sanity. 
7. I am extremely lucky to live in a beautiful place, with a river at the end of my garden, fruit trees laden with produce, fresh air, birdsong, a handsome man who loves me, a beautiful baby girl. I need an outlet for waxing lyrical where I don't mind sounding whimsical and naive. 
8. I often see things I want to share with someone, like a wriggly lizard's tail with no lizard attached. The dog simply does not share my enthusiasm. Perhaps I can write those things here.
9. I like taking photographs, but don't take enough. Here is a place to put them. 
10. I think my mum will enjoy reading it.