14th October - Things they just don't warn you about...

Now I knew that baby nappies (or more specifically, the contents of them) were not pleasant things.

I was never under any illusion about that -right from the first tarry poo that we discovered in his little newborn pants (they warn you about that one - and my word, they are right to...it's a shocker. Truly Hammer horror style.) They even give you a little sheet, with lots of photos of what your newborn baby's poop will look like throughout the first few weeks. It's a conversation I never thought I'd have with my husband; peering keenly into Danny's nappy whilst commenting that 'my word, we'd entered the peanut butter stage earlier than anticipated.'

However, they don't tell you about teething poos. I had no idea that teething could affect the contents of his nappy quite so drastically. Put it like this. We use non-disposibles. Normally, I can flick the contents deftly down the toilet and have done with it. Not so with these VILE teething poos. Oh no. I have to get reams and reams of bog roll and scrape the sod off - getting it all under my nails at the same time, whilst trying to balance the nappy precariously on the top of the cistern. And desperately wishing I had a free hand to pinch my nostrils shut, so they weren't exposed to the hideous aromas wafting upwards into them.

Plus he seems to do about twenty a day at the moment. Hence my nails have been cut extremely short.

Which leads me on to compile a list of things they don't tell you about being a mum - right from the word go. Read it and weep.

1) Some babies don't actually need much sleep. Danny, of course, being one of them. The books all gaily promise you 18 hours a day to begin with. Hmm. Try 10, if that. Hence a very tired pair of parents.

2) Some babies don't actually like food. Again, yes, Danny was one of them. Cue pureed brocolli hitting the wall, and mother in floods of tears, banging her fists in despondency over the kitchen sink. Annabel Karmel cheerfully narrates how 'baby will love sweet potatoes, butternut squash and sweetcorn'. One word for you, Karmel. Liar.

3) Some babies don't like wearing clothes. We have the same ritual every day, of Danny squarking and shrieking and writhing around as though we were trying to kill him, simply because we were attempting to get a t shirt over his head. See also - wearing nappies. The amount of time Danny has been wriggling like a maniac, then body slammed with all his might into a poo, splattering it all over the change mat and himself. Ugh.

4) Children's tv programmes are hideous. They don't warn you about this one. Good god they are awful. Seriously, if you want to feel like a character from 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' in one half hour - watch In The Night Garden. Surely designed to make one feel as though their brain is slowly being sucked out through their ears. Narrated by Derek Jacobi no less. Jacobi, you corporate whore.
Danny can't get enough of it though. He bounces so hard in front of In The Night Garden and flaps his arms so frantically that he almost takes off. I wouldn't actually be surprised one day to see him suddenly launch off like a bird and go flying round the room before roosting on top of the bookshelf to watch it from there.

5) Not to mention all the things they don't tell you about pregnancy. Don't even get me started. Health visitors and doctors owe it to us all to tell us these vitally important things, so that gullible morons such as myself are prepared for the onslaught.

Awww...I'm only kidding. He's a little star really...

7th Oct - Mad mad toddling boy.

DB is finally offically a toddler. He has finally twigged that his legs and little eager feet are more than capable of not only suspending him above the floor, but of racing him along it. In the space of a fortnight, he's gone from Mr Tentative, wobbling delicately from foot to foot before tumbling over backwards and connecting his buttocks with the floor with an audible smack, to Mr Cocky-Boots, raring along the floor, his little feet spinning around as fast as Fred Flintstone's in the opening sequence of the cartoon (you know, when he's propelling his car along) - arms splayed out in excitement, cackling with sheer hilarity before colliding with the next inanimate object.

It is extremely funny to watch. Though perhaps not so funny when Mr Cocky Boots gets too over confident, trips over his trouser leg (why are all baby's trousers too long in the leg, before suddenly being far too short? One of life's mysteries.) and wellies his chubby chin into a chair. Or, as was the case yesterday, smacks his forehead into the floor. Or, when colliding with something, chomps down hard on his lip, causing it to bleed. Then, when D's wails reach a fairly deafening crescendo, it ceases to be funny at all. Poor little love. The lessons to be learned in the process of growing up.

But he is enormously good fun at the moment. Watching him trying to speak is just classic. We've got the very excitable 'yeah', complete with vigorous head nodding and waving, when you offer him something he fancies. Eg - 'D, would you like some yoghurt?' Reply - 'YEAH!' and head nodding so frantically that he nearly falls out of his high chair.

We've also got 'Daddy' which is very cute. I asked him today what we needed to take with us to go out on his trike. (the correct answer was HIS JACKET.) The answer given was a very enthusiastic 'daddy'. Aw bless. No sign of 'mummy' though, despite all my best efforts.

And, the two that really get me are 'yum yum' when eating food - bizarrely, even if he doesn't like it, and 'oh dear' when he drops something - he says it in such an old womanish way.

So, in short, life with D is great fun at present. Hard bloody work, yes. Exhausting, yes. (particularly when attempting to work and also attempting to renovate the house). But hugely good fun none the less.

1st October - The 10th Level

There is a little known fact about Hell, as envisaged by Dante in his famous 'Divine Comedy'. What is not widely acknowledged is that, when Dante created his masterpiece, he actually included a further section about the tenth level of Hell, which later got cut by his publishers for being too awful to put into literary form.

The publisher allowed the groteque images of people being chewed for eternity in Satan's big old gob, he permitted people roasting on spits and all the rest of it, he allowed Dante to depict levels for all sorts of sinners, with all sorts of ironic punishments- but he banned Dante from writing about the TENTH LEVEL.

The tenth level is still known to this day as the DIY level of Hell. It is a level reserved for those people foolish enough to invest in properties that require a lot of work. These people are then destined to be trapped forever in an endless cycle of painting, trimming, stripping, tweaking and so on and so on.

I had no knowledge of this obscure level of hell until I moved to this house.

Oh god I am sick of it. The last god knows how many evenings have been spent frantically painting the spare room, in preparation for the arrival of the carpet this afternoon. Mr Carpet Man, who looks a little like an aged and somewhat booze addled Barney Rubble, popped over on Monday of this week, and cheerily informed us that it was best to get the painting done before he showed up armed with a spanking new carpet.

We heartily agreed, and laughingly insisted that it wouldn't be a problem - after all, the walls had already been done, and it was only the skirting boards and the ceiling that needed completing.

Famous. Last. words.

Cue Monday evening. An evening spent with a tin of gloss paint and a dusty room. nobody bloody told us that when it says 'pure brilliant white' on a pot of special gloss paint, actually, what it means is that it is just a slightly misty see-through varnish. I happily slapped it on to the skirting, before twigging that actually, rather than the swan white finish I was hoping for, I was getting just a slightly shinier and milkier shade of plywood.

'Not to worry!' I cheerfully exclaimed. After all, I could just wait for it to dry, then paint over the top with a white base coat, before re-glossing. no problems at all.

Except of course, (as this is the 10th level of hell we are talking about here, complete with all manner of ironic punishments befitting the idiot novice renovater) the sodding matte paint wouldn't sit on the gloss surface and kept rolling off.
At this point, the sensible renovater would have sanded off the gloss and started over.
But in my defence, it was now getting on for 9 o clock and I was more concerned about getting to my waiting glass of wine downstairs. So I simply doggedly kept slapping on more and more paint until eventually it got the hint. Is the skirting board looking a bit...well...shit? Yes. In a word, yes. But I got past caring.

The next evening, we had the second ironic punishment awaiting us. The curse of the never-ending 'trying to get the edges neat'. The ceiling paint went on. 'Not to worry!' I exclaimed again, as I went over the edges a bit. 'I can just touch it up later.'
One touch up later, and I'd managed to reverse the problem, this time spreading wall paint over the ceiling.
'Not to worry!' I still doggedly chanted. 'I'll just have to touch it up again!'
After about five rounds of this, the cheerful demeanour was most definitely slipping, and instead of invisaging a glass of wine downstairs, visions of the whole bottle were swimming before my eyes. In the end, husband and I both unanimously agreed that yes, it looked a bit rubbish, but that we couldn't be arsed to continue with this tomfoolery. Then we retreated downstairs.

Then we had the hilarity of the door frame that just wouldn't stop dripping gloss everywhere. I say hilarity. It wasn't funny though. Not at all. Especially not funny when I knocked the tin over and sent gloss all over the floor. (lucky we opted for carpet, eh!)
It WAS however, quite funny, when other half went to pop the lid on the tin and ended up hitting it at a funny angle, caving the lid in, and submerging his hands into the remaining gloss paint. If you've ever worked with gloss (and I sincerely hope that you've not done anything bad enough in your lives to have to warrent such torture) you will know that it isn't like normal paint. It doesn't wash off. Instead, it sticks clingily to your skin for days afterwards and means that you keep getting glued to things like tea towels and clothing.
I did laugh, I must admit. But then, as further ironic punishment, I managed to slop loads all over my hands as well.

The carpet is due to arrive in two hours. Is the painting finished? Is it hell.