PFB - A reality.

PFB. Precious First Born. Statistics show* that around 90% of mothers suffer from believing such ridiculous notions as sugar making children explode into a trillion pieces, dust being as radioactive as krytponite is to superman and of course, who can forget the mother-in-law's plans to not just eat your baby, but serve him as a centre piece, complete with apple in mouth at her next WI meeting.
Contrary to some belief, PFB is not about favouritism of your first born child as the Daily Mail suggest but rather a state of mind which overtakes, no, consumes your every waking moment, and if you've got it really bad those precious few you sleep for too.
It is talked about worldwide with mothers so utterly convinced that they are NOT PFB that even the most innocent 'Is Quentin your first?' can make them flip and react terribly violently, of course, this is after they have covered Quentin's eyes and ears and dressed in a space suit whilst gargling dettol just incase they come into any contact with germs whilst scrapping.
Who are you to tell all about PFBisms I hear you ask, well, not only was i a fully fledged ember of PFBANON, I have well and truly Got Over It. MY proof? Less than 15 minutes ago I was sharing a chinese take-away with not just my partner, our eight year old and four year old, but our 16 month old son. PFB mothers everywhere are gasping in horror, swallowing valium by the handful and calling the Social Services on me.
But guess what...IT WON'T HARM HIM (unless he eats it every day for a month).

GET A GRIP YOU LOONS.

Unless you live in the outback or are Rwandan Missionaries there really is no need for a bug net to cover your baby's moses basket. There really isn't, and, come to think of it, you don't need a moses basket, a swinging crib, a cot, a cot bed and a bed for one child. Orphanages survive on less. Seriously.
Babygros are made for babies to wear all day. Sure, if they vomit all over it, get a clean one but Little Jemima really Does Not Need 8 pretty little dresses, with matching tights and nappy knickers, a day.
A buggy is not doing your baby any favours by having suspension and being in the same boakworthy blossom pink as her coat.
Babies cannot read, and you are the only one, yes, The. Only. One that thinks t-shirts saying 'I love my mummy and daddy' are just soooo cute.
If you don't know how to cook aubergine and sweet potato chances are you don't actually eat it so why not stick to carrot and swede? Annabel Karmel may be the Queen of Purees but they're, like, totally last season darrrrrling. It's all about carrot sticks and broccoli florets.
Your baby is NOT forward because you get them to do something earlier than they are expected. Pouring spoonfuls of pureed mush down their throat is not the same as them being so grown up that they are eating 'early'.
Mother-in-laws, there is a whole other post waiting to be written about this but, for now, just listen. Take her help, everything she ever offers to do, let her do it. It will stand you in good stead once you've got over the PFB crap and are desperate for a sitter she'll be so used to having them there will be no question. If you're really clever, you'll teach them "Granny" as their first word.
Teletubbies, In the Night Garden and Fimbles are sent from heaven, truly, they are not over-commercial tat that will fry the brains of the dear child, but fabulous TV that can work alongside you like the best au pair in loco parentis, that is of course if you dare to put the baby down anywhere, I mean, it's been a whole fifteen minutes since you disinfected everywhere.
Grizzling and whinging for a few minutes will not result in a life-time of therapy however calling them Tinkerbell-Trixibella-Lulabelle-Boo may do, espcially if her birth certificate reads Sarah Amelia Smith.
Oh, and just incase you haven't quite got the gist of PFBisms, look at this. IT explains it better than I ever could PFB eat your heart out .

Dirt, mess, fun, laughter and tears, it's what Perfect Childhoods are made out of.


*I asked ten of my mates and nine agreed.

Baby, I'm Bored

These really get ON MY TITS. OK, so you want to alert the emergency servies that you have a ickle babba in your car should the worst happen. However, I am sure that your average fireman won;t be looking for the diamond-shaped yellow thing, they will probably be looking for, erm, trapped people.

These signs are just an excuse, in my opinion, to say "LOOK, SUCKERS, I AM FERTILE" or "I HAD SEX AT LEAST ONCE IN THE LAST YEAR". I think I might market one saying "SMUG TWAT ON BOARD"

It's like all of those baby toys folk buy to "Keep baby amused on long journeys". Erm, well mine used to pass out within 3 revolutions of the wheels. They never had any toys in the car to keep them amused and I would have been hacked off if I had spent my hard earned child benefit on some Lamaze crap that they would have looked at once disdainfully and then passed out as soon as the car moved off the drive.

AND AS FOR THOSE REAR VIEW MIRROR THINGS ESPECIALLY SO YOU CAN LOOK AT BABY WHILE DOING 90MPH ON THE M5 - KEEP YOUR BLOODY EYES ON THE ROAD, DAMN YOU. Your baby's head won't fall off or it won't grow a beard in the time that it takes you to drive from your house to Sainsbury's (where you will take toys for your baby to look at while pushing them around the supermarket, lest they get bored of the noise/lights/people watching).

And get that frigging sticker out of your car - NOW

People to shoot - part, er, 5

Bit of a C list one here: Alison King

"Who?" I hear you yawn.

An actress on Coronation Street apparently. She's lost TWO STONE five months after giving birth, in 3 months actually because she had a C section. Good god, she peaked at 10 st 11 lbs, so maybe a size 14, she probably wanted to shoot herself. (This is sarcasm for all you DM readers out there).

So there you go, all you lardy gutbuckets still struggling to shift the weight a year after the blessed event. All you lazy tossers needed was a personal trainer and you too could have been out of your size 14 "tents" by now.

Doesn't she look thrilled to be pregnant in that picture too...

Weird services only offered to first time parents

Babyplanners

Just one word.

WHY????

Once you have a baby no-one will judge you for working outside the home!

If you are a work outside the home mum (WOHM) please be aware of the following language and lifestyle guidelines:

- you don't leave your child/ren in the care of thoroughly checked out, vetted, qualified and trained paid professionals, you DUMP them, remember?

- Only your salary should be considered when looking at the overall childcare cost-benefit case. After all, you made the baby on your own didn't you? Your husband or partner's money is, quite rightly, all theirs, to spend as they wish

- Obviously, your life is incredibly easy with a nanny/cleaner/au pair in it so fgs, stop moaning woman - what do you want, a medal?

lawks what ever happened to handwashing as a method of infection control?

One MUST use alcohol rub instead

grumble grumble grumble

Today, I am mostly being curmudgeonly about everything

What has curmudgeon to do with motherhood? Shouldn't a mother be full of the joys of Spring, sniffing daffodils, perhaps, gambolling as lambs through meadows, laughing gaily at the day's trials and tribulations, dealing swiftly and deftly with disagreements (few and far between, surely?) and generally tripping merrily through life, her beautifully-behaved cherubs toddling along behind?

Sod that.

Motherhood is a fierce thing, not something to be lived as a giggle. The lioness protective instinct, trite and cliched though it is, kicks in as soon as the placenta's out. Yes, there's mirth along the way, but at the base of it all is the natural desire for one's children to succeed, not just as doctors (why is that thought of as a good job - surely you just see ill people all day?), but as decent human beings. And in this day and age, it'd be nice if they made it to their dotage free from stab wounds.

So, why am I curmudgeonly about it? Do I hate my children? No. I'm just sick of all the "extras" that, if an alien landed on Earth (you mean they're not already here, presenting ishoo-based chat shows?), they'd think were de rigueur for bringing up children.

So babies must have black and white mobiles (to stimulate their eyesight), they need a separate ickle plastic tub in which to bathe (the stinky blighters, flobbing around in their sleepsuits, niffing gently from the exertion of lying down and occasionally doing a bit of milky dribble) and they would probably never do anything without special toys made from brightly-coloured plastic to help them sit, walk and bounce about idly.

As for toddlers, they must attend lessons in running, hopping, jumping and crawling through tunnels and waving parachutes about (aka fleecing parents weekly for providing toddlers with the opportunity to do stuff they do anyway in a draughty church hall. Except maybe the parachutes). Oh, and toddlers have to attend nursery/not attend nursery/have a mum who works/have a mum who doesn't work/any other guilt-inducing load of stuff that's not actually relevant to your own situation that's just crammed into a newspaper because an editor had an awkward-shaped gap between the ads and/or stuffed into a book because some judgey, worthy person parenting expert thinks they have a point and wants to tell every other parent to follow exactly what they say for fear of Dire Consequences (usually involving sleep and rods for backs).

And older children - well, they must just have Everything They Want. Especially if it's trainers or Bratz dolls.

Anyway, it's late. I must trip merrily to slumber. I might have my favourite dream, the one where I have a cleaner, a chef, a nanny and the ability to pretend I do it all myself. Tra-la-la.

General scorn-pouring and manipulative babies

I think I need a volume control on my "Oh, for the love of all things HOLY" sigh, in case it offends someone.

Actually, I don't really think that, for the people who may be offended by my sighing are a) too thick-skinned to notice it and b) mental.

Recently (well, for the last half-decade or thereabouts, which is a short time where curmudgeonly sighing's concerned, let me tell you), this sigh has been directed at parents who tell me things about their new offspring. Some choice pearls include:

"He's SUCH a sociable baby, he really NEEDS the stimulation nursery will afford him" - about an 8 week old baby. I judge not when it comes to childcare, but fgs, make plausible excuses for it, not lunatic ones. An 8 week old baby isn't sociable. They might make eye contact and squeal a bit, but for heaven's sake, they'd do that at a black and white mobile (which, if you're the sort of parent who thinks 8 weeks olds need nursery to socialise them, you'll already own - see my first post if you're in need of more detail with regard to this purchase). They don't need bored nursery nurses who'd rather be fagging and nobbing to socialise with. As for the other babies, they haven't even worked out that they own their own hands at 8 weeks, so they're hardly likely to be swapping golfing anecdotes and inviting each other out for tea and cake at such a tender age, are they?

"Aw, she's crying because she thought she'd hurt you/broken your glasses" - no, she is three months old. She's crying because when she grabbed a handful of your cheek and squeezed hard, you let out an involuntary shriek and it scared the living wotsits out of her. She is not blessed with some sort of empathy beyond her years. This will be evident in just over two years' time when she takes great delight in pulling the handles off each one of your bone china teacups and grinding the cups themselves to a fine powder on your patio, then hunting out her baby brother for a spot of hair-pulling. As for your broken glasses, if it makes you feel better to believe that she has a concept of "your broken glasses", so be it. The fact she has no clue why you wear them and no idea that pulling one side of them so hard the arm snaps is not a good plan need not trouble you. If you believe that a little baby can have a moment's fleeting concern for your broken specs, you're probably out of reach of any scorn I could possibly be pouring.

But I reserve my most heartfelt sighing (and curmudgeonly lip-curling) for those parents who refer to their newborns as "manipulative". On what planet could a baby - who, let's face it, is a bundle of instincts and impulses - possibly be manipulative? Babies survive by crying for food. They can't order foie gras from birth, after all.

Useless crap- another offering.

The Beaba Babycook doesn't look too bad at first sight. It steams, blends, defrosts and reheats. How handy. Well it might be useful if you are making separate meals for baby I suppose.  And compact. 

Then you find out it's seventy quid. 

Pass me a saucepan.

Names you should NEVER EVER EVER use on a child. Get a kitten.

Zebedee
Bashe
Panda
Apple
Pixie
Princess
Audio Science (I kid you not)
Bluebell Madonna
Cruz
Romeo
Deizel
Fifi
Jermajesty
Pilot Inspektor
Satchel
Dusty Rainn
Dweezel
Moon unit
Kyd

People to shoot - part 4

There can be no argument - just read the second paragraph of this drivel - http://goop.com/newsletter/20

At least she hasn't written a book (yet)

Useless crap - an occasional series

Name and shame those companies that invent STUFF that we don't need and then try and persuade us that our baby will be deprived without their shitey products.

Exhibit A: The (I kid you not) baby wipe warmer

Because little precious's botty is too delicate for nasty cold wipes...

They're lying, I promise.

Picture the scene. You're 36 weeks pregnant. Prancing around in the newly painted nursery in your blooming marvellous dungarees. Feeling slightly tired, after all you've cunningly convinced everyone your being three times the weight of a baby elephant is all baby, nothing to do with the supposed craving for krispy kremes, in boxes of six. As you walk into your delightfully zen boudoir you spy your perfectly prepared hospital bags under the bay window. You've got three different cds in the bag, one for each stage of labour, complete with Holst's Mars, bringer of war for the crowning, you just haven't realised that suggestion from your mother-in-law was ironic.

On your bedside is one of the many books explaining the routine you just MUST follow to ensure your baby is contented and slots into your life as easily as possible because we all know that there is very little we have to change in our lifestyle to have a baby with the right routine, non?

There is a sudden whoosh and you look at the ceiling expecting the water tank to have fallen, after all it is a period cottage, but no, it's your waters, 4 weeks before the bay is due. This isn't a coincidence, it's a warning, an omen, a sign of things to come. BABIES CANNOT TELL THE TIME. Yet at this early stage many do not take heed, they are still convinced the perfect family is just around the corner.

So you head off to the hospital where the midwife looks like Dave Grohl in the Tenacious D video and gruesomely snatches away your vision of the Perfect Birth, except she doesn't really, it's just reality kicking in. If you're lucky it won't haunt you forever and you won't find yourself talking about it on Internet forums in ten years time.

Either way you are in some form of pain whether you seemingly unnaturally expanded your fanjo to a thousand times its usual diameter or had your abdomen sliced open with a sharp knife. You vaguely remember something about wanting to apply slap before the first pictures but just don't have the energy, know why? You're becoming a mother.

Then almost a minute and a quarter after you've realised you now have to take this baby home you're strapping it into a car seat and are driving along the m40. Home to a place that feels like it does on the return from a holiday, not quite yours, but like you've been there before.

Putting down the car seat you realise you're not quite sure what to do next. If it were a kitten you'd put it in its bed or give it some toys, a puppy you might let out to the yard, but this squawking thing? hmm. Even a Jehovah's Witness has the doorstep as a place of its own but this tiny bundle doesn't fit into your plans, sleep? it's not bedtime, food? again not time for it, play? well, the hand-crafted wooden train set doesn't seem so perfect for Tarquin now he resembles a squished prune, just bigger, but it's ok, you'll muddle through until you finally collapse at 11pm just after the night feed and think you finally know what tired means, but you still don't. Not yet.

About 2am you're awoken by the most alien sounds you've ever heard. Disorientated you stumble out of bed wondering what it is then realise it's your child, your offspring, your heir but it's ONLY 2AM?!?!?!?!?! the book said every 4 hours, oh dilemma! what to do???

You could put it in the garden with the foxes, or shh and pat it for the next hour hoping it will go back to sleep, or even leave it for 15 minutes a time before going in to comfort it until it is allowed its feed, even though at the same time your whole body is screaming at you to feed it.

A fraught 45 minutes later you 'give in' and feed it, only to see it guzzle the milk and promptly fall asleep, on the breast, whoops. Calming down you are ok about it, it was only one variation, next time you'll stick to the rountine. Until baby wakes again, this time two hours later. Baby doesn't seem to want to stick to someone else's routine. Go figure.

Within about two weeks you look like Linda Blair on the set of her most famous movie and your brain is so fried you're sure when your baby first says 'Mamma' your head will spin, you'll projectile vomit guacamole and prematurely discuss oral sex and the after life.

The most torturous pain of all will be the baby groups. NCT being the worst of all. At least Surestart groups will be easy to hide amongst with the general conversation revolving around who drank the most vodka the soonest, if their baby has a tan and the 'lush' tees that asda are selling with motifs such as 'My muvva finks ur fit' on them. But NCT is a whole different dilemma. Someone, generally the mother with the Au Pair and largest disposable income, will have taken it upon herself to mark the gatherings out of ten, including categories for baking and general cleanliness. So even though you can no longer brush your hair without a call to your therapist you spend three days baking cupcakes and fall asleep at the hairdressers.

Then they arrive, in they come, babies in Vertbaudet, mothers looking like a personal friend of Johnny Boden. The conversation turns to sleep and they all try to out-do each other with Sickly-Sweet-Smug-Passive-Aggressive-Over-Competitive-Mother being last to add how her babies (she had twins just to make you feel more insecure) have slept right through since 3 days old.

Your husband later finds you in the shed, drinking neat gin, from a plant pot.

There is just one thing you must know.

THEY'RE LYING.

When your baby says feed me, feed it, when it says it's tired, put it to bed and if you want wine at 3pm, there is a bar opening somewhere in the world right now. So drink it, then lie, lie, lie and pretend your life is as perfect as they say theirs is.

It's all about survival.

How will I look after my baby's been born?

After childbirth you will either look like this:





















or this:
























Depending on whether you:

- Are Tess Daly, someone else famous or a civilian
- Have a nanny, personal trainer, gym membership, private swimming pool or the use of Elton John's house
- eat pies and cakes mainly or egg white omelettes and vegetables
- love being a mummy so much you can't wait to complete your book on the subject to tell the rest of us where we've been going wrong all these years OR really would rather eat than face up to the reality that is the next few years without sleep, a break or much sex

People to shoot- part 3

1) Sheherazade Goldsmith

Babies don't rust....

.... so you don't have to drive round and round the supermarket looking for a Princess, er sorry parent and child parking spot. You can park anywhere, then carry your baby to the trolley. Even when it's raining.

Are you a Bunting Cupcake Mummy?

Take this test:

- do you sell twigs, Cath Kidston alike stuff or anything homemade and / or unprofitable?
- do you run a highly unprofitable but attractive looking business?
- did your husband or father bankroll the 'venture'?
- have you (or will you ever) appeared in Red or any other magazine under the headline "women doing it for themselves"?
- are you quite good looking? (but preferably in your forties)
- Is turnover in the first year under £30k?
- Do you own a pair of Hunters, a large farmhouse in the country and have one or more children?

If you answered yes to more than 2 of the above you may be a bunting cupcake mummy.

Smug Mummies - More people to shoot

Daisy Waugh
Rosie Millard
Minette Marin
Rachel Johnson

All you need to know about childbirth

It fucking hurts
Even if you go to The Portland, it still fucking hurts
Whichever way it comes out, it fucking hurts
2nd, 3rd, 4th and all subsequent times, it fucking hurts
whale music makes no difference whatsoever

How to spend more time on the internet than looking after your children

- Get a really big tv with lots of channels
- Be prepared to take the consequences later - 2 hours silence equates to roughly an hour of clearing up
- throw food at your children occasionally
- they don't notice when they watch the same thing on Cbeebies twice in one day (it's on a loop)
- Train them YOUNG, start with baby Einstein at about 5months old

The Labrador Method

Consider the following creature:

1. Boundless energy
2. Needs lots of exercise

3. Adores company and praise

4. Wees on the carpet if left to its own devices
5. Will try and eat anything it finds on the floor
6. Amazing ability to get into mischief very quickly

	or		?

This is the basic premise of my Labrador Method of Child Rearing © - train your toddler as you would your labrador puppy, for they are essentially the same creature. Be firm but loving; give them guidelines and boundaries; take them for plenty of walks; and keep anything fragile well out of reach. Don't feed them too many biscuits. Every now and then you may need to yell loudly when an interesting stick or smell has enraptured their attention. They will always appreciate a cuddle, and will probably want to sleep on your bed. Treat them well and they will love you unconditionally (although they may still pee on the carpet).

Anyone want to offer me a book deal? ;-)

I say, thanks awfully for asking me to contribute

I, Sir Norman Nimby, know a thing or two about this parenting lark. I have had two sprogs of my own - Edmund, who is 42, and Rupert, who is 47. I think the best thing one can so with one's offspring is to get them straight into a decent boarding school as soon after conception takes place as possible. It's bloody impossible to raise decent chaps by sending them to state day schools - they will mix with all sorts of roughians, and they might even start voting Labour in adulthood. This just won't do.


Boarding school is good for building the character - endless weeks away from home will harden even the soppiest of child and will stop all of this namby-pambyism that these modern parents seem to go in for nowadays. There is nothing like cold salty porridge in the mornings to strengthen the constitution. All these bloody people who pander to their children's whims - letting them win at everything, spoiling them with toys, letting them have everything they want, showing too much affection - has led to a generation of the laziest, most work-shy and self-important prigs one has ever known. This is leading to political apathy, or worse, people voting for Gordon Brown's bunch of ineffectuals, and must be stopped immediately. This country needs more good quality fags and people who are excellent at Fives, not more long-haired greasos who are always plugged into their iSods, or whatever they are called, listening to turgid music by untalented imbeciles and who think the world owes them a job.


Parents, I implore you! Get little Johnny or little Jemima into a top quality boarding school as soon as you can. Preferably before they start walking.

people to shoot

tess daley
jools oliver
mylene blardy klass