Lansoprozole MUPS 7.5mg dissolved in water, once a day
Domperidone 2.3ml three times a day
Co-Amoxiclav antibiotics 5ml twice a day until PEG operation (possibly to be replaced with a long term antibiotic post-operation)
Fluoxetine inhaler, one puff twice a day
4 x 100ml bolus feeds of Paediasure (1 calorie per ml) with a 10ml flush of sterile or cooled boiled water (10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm) each taking half an hour. Before each feed, the tube needs aspirating and the pH checking.
10 hour continous feed at night of Paediasure Plus (1.5ml calorie per ml) of 400ml at 40ml per hour. Flush in the morning (around 6am).
In one sense it is not too different from our old routine:
Baby gets up.
Baby gets me up.
Baby has bottle. Baby gets bored of bottle. Baby slowly has bottle over morning including lansoprozole sneaked in feed.
Baby has lunch.....etc
Baby goes to bed (fingers crossed).
Except it feels very different. For a start, there is a little machine which beeps at me. There is an awful lot of handwashing. Although the level of washing and sterilising is not too different, it feels different. Things are more regimented. There is a slightly draining feeling that I am a doing little too much jumping around fiddling with medical equipment rather than "mummying".
I know it is the first day.
I know it is bound to be tiring after a fortnight of emotional stress.
I know all this.
I know it is worth it.
I know it could be far far more complicated or stressful.
But I miss the simplicity of the old times.
I am so grateful for the input of talented consultants who give a fig about making my daughter better not just not their profession or for her well being but mine also. I am so glad that at last someone has put their foot down and said that is enough frequenting of a&e. This is getting too silly and draining the quality of life for you both and should kickstart development sluggishness or address things better in terms of firming things up for the future.
It's just, without wanting to sound too much of a moany-guts, that I am sad it has to be this way. I am sad for my baby that she has lost so much babyish innocence and experienced so much so soon. I am sad for me that my first precious child differs so much from the promised ideal.
I must admit today I was a little taken aback today.
I was speaking to a woman about a genuine housing issue, which we agreed on and then she came out with:
"You know, every time I come and look through your window it looks really messy and you seem very chaotic. Are you coping?"
I felt instantly hot.
And a bit like my mum had caught me doing something I shouldn't have.
Then I felt cross.
Is it not bad manners to go deliberately looking though people's windows when it is otherwise avoided?
Was she actually trying to help or was she being a nosey bat? Previous experiences with her and other residents experiences with her very much point to the latter. However innocent until proved guilty. Maybe.
"Is your Health Visitor helping?"
I gabbled some things and bade a quick goodbye, shutting my front door and smarting. I didn't need to look: I knew my front room was a mess. I have always been messy and struggled to stay on top of tidying up. Recently has been extra hard, as I have just felt my bones so heavy with exhuastion that it makes me feel a little ill. I'm really not deliberately slovenly but maybe I could try a bit harder. The trouble is, in the daytime as soon as I put something away, Wriggles will empty an entire box, and at night, all I can do is collapse. The one time I did try to have a proper evening blitz, Mrs Downstairs complained about the noise. Am I just making excuses for what has got out of control?
Ultimately, I know that I will tidy it spick and span by hook or by crook, whether by putting Wriggles in a high sided box or by irritating Mrs Downstairs. I will because it really is a mess. At the moment, the Wriggles friendly bits are not too bad (excepting all toys she has strewn about and untides as i go tidying) but even I won't let it get to the state where it is hazardous for her. But 'my' bits, are a little shameful. So naturally I am here writing about it rather than tidying. I do care. Sort of. But also, quite a lot of me doesn't.
Am I coping? Yes, I would say I am. Coping. That is all. I wouldn't say I am doing much more because clearly, I have things to get on top of before I can rise to the next level of whatever comes after coping. I know that I am not not-coping because not-coping is horrendous. Not-coping means not even noticing mess or not caring about anything. Not-coping means barely being able to move. Not-coping means not speaking to anyone but Wriggles or barely leaving the house. Not-coping means panic attacks and horrible thoughts coming thick and fast. So I am coping. I am able to keep not-coping at bay and get through the day. There is a start, a middle and a finish. Not-coping eclipses all time. My coping might look like someone else's not-coping, but I know for me, that is enough. After a much better time recently, I know I have taken a bit of a stumble suddenly again. But I know also I will pick myself up sooner or later. And that is coping: knowing there is not just a tomorrow but a day after that too.
When people, other than very geuine people close to you who would help in an instant, ask the dreaded "are you coping?" question, I find it a little irritating. Mainly, because exactly what are they going to do if you say no, no I'm not?
Would they for instance, find me a partner?
Would they pay for a cleaner?
Would they give me an extra pair of hands?
Would they find me more hours in the day?
Would they be able to answer the eternal question, of why toddlers empty things?
Would they iron all my fears out straight?
Would they remove my scars of bad memories that don't go away?
Would they teach my daughter to eat?
Would they wave a magic wand?
Would they take some of my tasks off me so I had a little less?
Would they give me just half an hour to help?
No, they would not.
They would look a little bit uneasy, like my Health Visitor, and maybe pat my hand. And then they would go and think thank goodness it's not me.
So I'll just keep on coping until I'm better than just coping. And in the meantime, I might even finish the washing up.
If ever there was a day of getting out on the wrong side of bed, today was it. I only have one side of bed, but obviously today it was Wrong.
I had a rare lie-in until 08:20 (thanks Wriggles!) but awoke in grouch-mode and it got worse and worse. I intended to get ready early and go out before 10 to take Wriggles to soft play before lunch in the hope of tiring her out a bit so she might re-take up napping in the daytime and thus start sleeping a bit more normally at night times. Partly due to the rain and mostly due to my ineptitude, we weren't both ready until gone 11. Wriggles was driving me up the wall, only content to throw everything off my bookshelf constantly ad shriek at me if I dared correct her from reading books upside down (not a deliberate attempt to spoil fun: she can and has for months read them the 'right' way and now her upside-down-and-back-to-front method is very rough, breaks the spine of all the books and thus makes the pages likely to fall out. She has developed superhuman strength and can easily destroy a board book) or suggest that she could do something, anything, other than book flinging either with or without me. I discovered I had missed a series of payments on things so had to do some organising and grovelling which is never nice, and finally wrapped up a parcel to post to a dear friend who is having a baby shower this weekend, which I cannot afford to go to (WHY do airlines charge practically an adult fare for infants who will after all, only be sat on your lap with no luggage?). There wasn't a proper reason for getting cross, especially with Wriggles who after all was only being a toddler, but I found myself getting increasingly wound up and stressed with everything. The washing up pile haunted me, reminding me that I was rubbish at doing things when I knew I should and I felt tired and a bit overwhelmed by just life.
By the time we left, it was pouring down but I could not stand to stay inside. I know from prior experience, being couped up with a full of beans Wriggles in destroy mode is not a recipe for a happy day. We had a nice hour where we go some jobs done, called in on our recently retired childminder who was delighted to see the Wriggly one and had some lunch . Then the trouble brewed again as I tried to persuade the baggy-eyed and yawning child to have a nap. Just five minutes (or preferably twenty if you're asking). She looked sleepy. She has until very recently, had a hour or longer nap after lunch to recharge her batteries. This has suddenly turned into a battle meaning by 5pm she is a whining and exhausted child and bedtime is frankly a miracle when it eventually occurs. We walked around the park. We walked around the park again. We had some top-up milk. We walked around the park some more. In the rain. An hour later, with a very frayed temper I gave up.
It is very rare I am grumpy with Wriggles or tell her off seriously. I do employ "No!" at appropriate moments ("NO Wriggles do not turn the TV on or off/grab plug sockets/climb onto the toilet/throw your dinner on the floor") but partly I've never really had cause to tell her off and partly I'm terrible at it as I instantly feel terrible. I'm not talking about dodging discipline, but shouting for the sake of a bad or frazzled mood over something that doesn't warrant that level of reprimand. I know it was wrong to snap at her, but snap I did. What with working and managing everything on my own from baby things to finances to the sodding washing up (where, where does it come from!) when it gets to the end of the week, a hard week of sleep regression, a frustrating previous day at work, then to be honest I need Wriggles' nap as much as she does. Just to get fifteen minutes or so to me. Just to sit down without guilt and breathe a sigh of relief. Just to know that the whining will almost-probably be cut out later. Just to have a cup of coffee that is still hot. Just to stop being two parents rolled into one with eyes in the back of my head and enough patience to shame a saint, for a tiny tiny fraction of time. I was cross and I told her off. I'm not proud of it. At all. But it was that or burst into tears. Needless to say, it did nothing. With defeat and now over an hour lost, I gave up and chalked it up to my list of failings and headed into soft play. As I paid the entrance fee, I knew full well that she wouldn't last the two hours it gives you but by now we both needed somewhere neutral and shrieking friendly.
And actually it did the trick. I chilled out and relaxed especially as Wriggles clambered over me. Seeing her cackling away to herself trying to climb the wrong way up the slide reminded me why I love her completely. I helped her perfect her clambering skill, which I suspect I may regret. It was rather hot in there, and as time passed Wriggles began to concern me slightly. She was getting very sweaty and clammy; I removed her t-shirt and clipped her face back. She was still very hot. In horror, I watched a bright rash spread across her arms and chest. It was very red and very spotty. Whether fever or heat rash it was hard to tell. Gradually it faded as I tried to cool her down and my bed time it is as if it had never been there. It is horrible moment though when your heart leaps into your mouth and panic is suddenly everywhere! We came home without even and had a cuddle that put the world, or at least mine, to right.
This week has been a little ray of bliss in terms of Wriggles' feeding. We have tried:
Mummy's sandwich
Mummy's cake
Strips of pitta bread
Wafers
A bit of buttered roll
A vegetarian sausage
...which have all gone down relatively well. I'm not talking huge amounts, but just tasting and Wriggles voluntarily putting them in her mouth is such an enormous step. I decided to bite the home cooking bullet today and make some sweet potato chips. To my amazement, as I deposited some on the highchair, Wriggles abandoned the strips of toast she was dribbling on and took one. And put it in her mouth. This was a beautiful moment; it was the first thing I have made she has touched*. Obviously I am delighted she now will try toast and sausages, but was giving up hope of ever being able to nourish her myself! Alright, I know it was just a bit of essentially fried potato. I imagine I could have possibly obtained some from the frozen aisle as the supermarket. But I cooked it.
It dawned on me that I am enjoying food times with Wriggles. For the last 14 months I have been very much trying to enjoy food times zen to a fine art, but enjoy it? No way. Would you enjoy your offerings refused for months and months? Every day, several times a day no matter what you do with it? Would you enjoy seeing your child make herself sick with distress because she caught sight of a spoon....no not her spoon, your spoon you intend to eat your yoghurt with? Would you enjoy finally revelling in her trust that fromage frais is actually yummy only to see her stomach contents cover the entire kitchen because of one little gag? No, thought not. Live with, yes. Accept, yes. Chill out about, very almost yes. Enjoy? No. But now, now Wriggles is trusting food enough to at least make sensory discovery and her own mind up and at best actually use her oral skills and digest it, now there is variety and her enthusiasm matches my own, now it is fun. Now if she just put on a little bit of weight so I couldn't play the xylophone on her ribs...!
Getting a bit cocky with the "climbing" malarky...
We have spent a fair amount of time hanging around in hospitals. They are tiring places. When we escape, people often expect us to be serene and well rested. Well, Wriggles might be but I am normally frazzled! Getting back into the swing of life can be a bit of a chore when you just want to curl up on the sofa. Luckily right now we are going through a good patch, after most of April being on the nasty and testing side.
Reasons why being in hospital is wearing:
1. They are normally either quite hot or freakishly cold. Assuming it is the former, then after a few days of smugly marching around in shorts and flipflops, you feel unnaturally sleepy due to oppressing heat and lack of fresh air. You feel permanently dozy and of course the minute you drop off, the doctors will finally start their rounds.
2. Well would YOU like being a zoo exhibit? Even if you are lucky enough to be in a cubicle, there are continually people charging in and out. Many for good reason but this doesn't make the utter lack of privacy any less infuriating. Like the above point, if you dare the lock the bathroom door to get dressed or go to the toilet, you will miss the one meeting of the day you have been waiting for. Just to enhance all zoo-like feelings, the nurses like to point all equipment with reading to face the corridor and nurses station. Although this is useful for them, it does mean that every bugger who so much as saunters past will goggle into your room.
3. Whoever got a good night's sleep a) on a camp bed b) without a proper duvet c) with people banging in and out every few hours to administer drugs and record observations? Who knew so many things could go beep?
4. If your child is connected to a series of beeping equipment, the likelihood is they are quite poorly. That is worrying for you. Even if you know they will be fine, it does not take away from the fact you are anxious, worried, scared and exhausted from all these. You might also be angry with you know, life. These intense feelings are energy sapping. And don't say relax. That is neither helpful nor possible.
5. Recounting medical histories approximately 6532971 times in one admission really addles your brain to the point you are convinced you are wittering gibberish and must have made some of it up. If there are bad memories attached to said histories, it is quite probable you will struggle with confronting these on a daily, often more frequent basis.
6. Lack of nourishing food. I am yet to come across a parent who ever consumed their five a day whilst in hospital, without outside catering and a bottomless wallet. The main food groups for your duration are caffeine (plural), sugar, carbohydrates and whatever looks least congealed from the canteen or food trolley. You also loose track of meal times for yourself and either end up having dinner at 10pm after finally settling a poorly child to sleep and meeting the night shift before being able to briefly sneak out the ward or get to 10pm and fall asleep.
7. While your child naps (if they are able to) or is knocked out by drugs, a popular past time is reading. If you can read the 300 page intellectual book in your bag, you may come from another planet. Often the only reading matter available is out of date gossip magazines or children's books. Neither of these are horrendously problematic but do have a tendency to turn your brain to mush. After the last stay I had, I had re-read two Jacqueline Wilson stories and knew all the names of The Only Way Is Essex cast, which I have never before or after watched. I have not been able to concentrate since on a grown up book as my reading age and attention span has plummeted.
8. It is exhausting trying to cheer up a (justifiably) whining poorly child. They will require your undivided attention and total love. In return for reading and re-reading their favourite book about 400 times in an hour, they may share their virus or vomit down your last clean t-shirt. On rare occasions, they fall asleep on you rather sweetly.
9. Cabin fever is unavoidable. Paediatric wards are not babysitting services. If you would not leave an 18 month in her cot whilst you popped down to the supermarket, you cannot leave them here to go for a walk. Obviously if they are (fast) asleep or you can collar a play nurse, friend, partner, relative or gain permission then you can escape temporarily. Key word: temporarily. However, the over priced coffee shop downstairs never felt so liberating. You do feel like you have mislaid a limb though. The only solution I have found is to hum the Muppet Treasure Island 'Cabin Fever' song to lift spirits:
10. Worried relatives and friends expect constant updates to save them from worry. If you are unlucky, this can spark off unkind words when someone criticises you for leaving it over 12 hours or longer between something happening and you knowing. Managing family politics ontop of everything is not for the faint hearted. Telephone trees are ideal for stressful situations. So is compassion to yourself: right now, focus on the moment. Everything else can wait. Except sometimes it doesn't. If you are struggling, do ask for help. Fighting friends can fall over themselves to keep the small stuff ticking over if it helps. It doesn't make you any less brave to accept kindness.
I am eternally grateful to all medical staff and this is not intended as any form of criticism of the NHS or hospital protocol.
As silly as it may sound, I am afraid of letting go of the past. Despite the pain and disruption that neonatal and PICU have caused, I am scared of forgetting them and moving on. They are such an important part of our lives and whilst caused unimaginiable hurt, they also made me intensely grateful and changed the way I look at things now. They are so integral to Wriggles' journey and health, how can I just write the experiences off? How can I move on when they can loom so large?
They certainly aren't allowed to be ill when there is just one parent, an absence for 300 miles of family and your fall-back best friends are on holiday in London or Canada. Yesterday, I was caught utterly short by this predicament.
I have been exceptionally lucky and only be truly knocked out twice so far in my daughter's lifetime, but they are times I would really rather not repeat. When there is literally no one to step in, it is really tough. Not wanting to sound like a whinger, but surely if there was a benevolent force, single parents would be made immune to all bugs, viruses, lurgies and exhaustion at the pinnacle point of singledom?
My parents have come up to visit. It's lovely, it really is. And yet, I feel so weighed down by their "helpful" comments. It makes me feel like I'm doing it All Wrong.
Do you have any bleach? That [insert name of object] has seen better days.
Hand me a cloth, I just have to clean this/that/everything.
Don't you think it would be easier if you took rubbish out with carrier bags every day?
You don't want to be doing that.
I think it would better this way.
I'm doing my best, I want to scream. I know my home is a bit fuzzy round the edges, I know I could do better, I know I need to do some things differently, but I'm trying. I'm really really trying.
I've been really depressed the last six months or so. Some days, it is all I can do to make sure I eat. Or get up. Or move. Or talk to someone-anyone. I can care for Wriggles by the back of my hand but me? Me who? I'd stopped caring. Me just didn't feature. Anything outside of Wriggles directly simply didn't feature. I could barely sleep, feed or think. I had no concentration, no feelings about anything. No sense of pride, dignity, cleanliness. I did what I could and hid the rest. It was shit. I felt a failure. Don't you know how debilitating it is? It's not just a word or excuse, it's anything but flippant. It's a weight that drags you down.
I'm getting better now, I am. But it still lingers. And even on good days, I'm still making up time and tidying up from the mess, literal and metaphorical, I slid into. I'm still trying to claw back everything. I'm still trying to find an image other than fear of loosing my daughter and desperately trying to prove I'm capable.
That is why the washing up waits.
Don't you understand?
I struggled. I was ill and a mummy and working. I carried on even when I wanted to hide away. I did it on my own because I had too.
Giving my daughter a cuddle is a more important. For both of us. Possibly more me. She saves me and takes me back to life.
Please give me a break.
I know you care, I just need to learn how to myself again.
When Wriggles was about 7-nearly-8 months old, it finally dawned on me that it was probably not normal to feel how I did all the time. I did some research and read up on PND and other mental health issues and just wept and wept because it made me accept that I wasn't alone. That thousands of other women, and men, had experienced similar and had been able to do something about it. The relief was huge and when I spoke to my GP who understood, it felt as if a weight had been pulled from my shoulders, leaving me that bit more free to go on.
"Losing your marbles" is quite an apt expression I feel. For me, it did feel as if slowly pieces of me were rolling away, gathering speeding and disappearing into crevices and cracks in the floor. Tiny bubbles of worth, personality and reason, encased for safe-keeping in beautiful shiny glass, rolled off out of reach. They were slippery and looked as if they might be lost forever. Enough to mourn but as each one fledged, too tiny to bother to rescue.
Until, into the future, one day you stub your toe and come across a forgotten treasure. Tentatively you inspect it, running your fingers over the glossy shell and peer into the wispy colours inside. Preserved is part of you, returned after a journey of loss. Sometimes you might find several at once, sometimes just one and it is months before you even recall that there were others. I am beginning to feel as if I can account for most of my missing marbles and am slowly amassing the blighters and trying to find a Safe Place to put them where they will not roll off again.
When I was in the midst of depression, it felt as if I had lost all of myself, I was just a creature wading through day to day. My feelings were muffled, my thoughts worthless. I could function practically, but I felt alone with no one to hear me. I had lost my compassion to myself and my rationality that allowed me to deal with the everyday and my innermost thoughts. In the daytime, my daughter acted as my rock, weighing me back into life and stopping me from floating away. She bound me to life and made me want to 'get better' and find everything I thought I had lost. When she went to bed and wasn't physically with me, I would fall apart night after night. It's not easy admitting you need help, especially not as an adult with responsibilities. I felt I should know better or be able to give myself a good talking to, to snap back into reality. Oh, if things were that easy! And of course it wasn't that easy merely knowing who or what was my reason for trying to find the light again. I felt like a zombie caring for her some days and my heart continually lived in my mouth on the edge of a panic attack.
Wriggles is now 17 months old. I still feel anxious and exhausted, but I don't feel desperate. I have found an understanding, both with myself and with depression. It is no-one's fault. It is a thing, not a persona. It is thoughts, not reality. It is something that can go away and will go away.
It's ok to have a bad day everyone-everyone else does.
It's ok not to be perfect. Who have you met that is? Brilliant, yes. Perfect, no. Your mum was not perfect. Your nanny was not perfect. So why do you have to be?
A good family is not always two parents. It is a loving household.
A good home is not a big house (by the way, you will not live in a council flat forever)
Few people want to go to work.
Everyone has a tough time sometimes.
Tomorrow is a brand new day.
You live in a happy house.
You have a happy and contented and clever baby.
So you must be doing something right. That means that you can relax.
So much for resolutions; I was fifteen minutes late for work arriving with unbrushed hair and sneaking my toothbrush in my handbag to quickly do en-route. I thought things were supposed to get easier as baby got older! My "baby brain" seems to be disintegrating at an alarming rate.
As life plods on and Wriggles grows up there appear to be a wealth of things creeping out the woodwork that you either don't get told about or get brushed under the carpet very quickly.
1. The birth of your child is the happiest day of your life
This is my personal bugbear as unfortunately Wriggles' birth was a very traumatic event for I think, both of us. It was one of the worst days of my life as I had no idea if my baby would survive let alone unscathed and according a midwife full of cheer, I was very lucky to still be there too. I gave birth alas with no medical assistance as it came very quickly and had to resuscitate my daughter prior to the arrival of the paramedics before being rushed to theatre myself. I only fleetingly saw her the day after, did not hold her for days and only got skin to skin at a month old. Some jolly day that birth was then.
2. Breast is Best
This is controversial, and I'm not actually disputing. It is best. I am convinced of that fact and stand in awe of mothers that breastfeed and express, whether for a day or a year or longer. It is a skill I never have had. What I do ever so slightly wish though is that formula was not referred to snidely by some people. As my child was premature, I don't regret (mostly) that she was fed on formula as it was a specific recipe designed to meet her needs she had missed out in utero. It also gave us the opportunity to take part in a medical trial, trialling a new formula for premature and low birth weight children which hopefully will make the road smoother for future parents. As a non-breastfeeder I can't comment on whether it was easier bottle feeding, but I suspect bar any physical pain and mastitis, feeding any very small 'want it noooooooooooow!' infant is very very very exhausting. Why do they want to feed excessively small amounts every fifteen minutes? Why 4am? Why?!
3. Mothers will instinctively know what their child wants and needs
Well, this is true I would say at about 6 months into it if you are lucky. Either that or I am incredibly unintuitive. Poor Wriggles. I found the early days like wading through a fog with a blindfold on, desperately fumbling with an unerring sense I might be doing it wrong and subjecting my poor child to misery. I doubt this was true, but it felt like everything was a stab in the dark and making a decision came down to a case of whittling things down. Every vomit seemed a damnation of my parenting ("Oh that'll be reflux!" trilled a GP only about eight long months later) and every exploding nappy up to the neck felt a punishment.
4. Cliches.
Most of the cliches are true and yet no one seems to appreciate it when you have had three minutes sleep for 4 weeks running, could pack a suitcase for a family of nineteen under your eyes and cannot remember the concept of matching socks let alone find any. Birth hurts but no one wants to hear after it happened, you love your child uncontrollably but people get bored after the ninth hour of you waxing lyrical about nappy contents and you do forget everything, not that your boss takes that as an excuse why you photocopied everything upside down... The worst one is exhaustion. Even that word does not sum up the real feeling of it when your limbs feel like a ton of bricks and if you admit it, you're likely to be met with a jolly "Oh it can't be that bad!". As you gravely grip a cup of super-strength coffee and dream of lie-ins (are they a myth?) the whole world appears to be tripping around on roses and yet you feel like death. Except you don't have time to.
5. Life is never the same
So this one isn't a myth. But you don't appreciate in until your life is upside down and doesn't appear to be re-turning anytime soon. In fact, it seems to have shifted to another orbit entirely without consulting you first. Once your newborn comes home with you, everything revolves around them, and rightly so. At 16 months, I have forgotten what life used to be like and it is only now I am beginning to think about reclaiming a tiny tiny bit of 'my' life back, far less doing anything about it yet. That might be next years new resolution. The practical details (no, I can't come to the pub at fifteen minutes short notice/take the baby to the restaurant and keep her quiet under the table/etc) and immense and overwhelming at time. Everything has to military precision otherwise it all falls apart, normally in public when favourite Mouse has got misplaced, you ran out of milk and your soup has been kindly upturned on your lap. I have a sneaking suspicion that my childless friends look on in wry humour, like I did I must admit, thinking that will never be me. I will have a perfect pink-cheeked baby who will quietly follow my instructions as we travel around going from coffee shop to quaint bistro... wake up! There are days when I really wonder what is worth what; is working work it, is trying to do a gazillion (I wish!) stimulating sessions worth it, it is really worth dredging around playgroup to playgroup to find one that doesn't make your toes crawl? (I did find two lovely groups for the record) As a singleton pre-child, you never imagine salvation to come kneeling in a draughty church community centre with hair sticking up and yesterdays food-stained cardigan still on and comparing notes on lack of sleep. But the flip side to this, is you never imagine the pure joy a gummy grin in the morning can bring, how a cuddle can pierce your heart and the privilege of watching a little person develop and become themselves in their own right. So apart from work, I haven't actually yet had a period of time apart from my daughter? Frankly I don't really mind yet. The hours I spend with her make up for it all. A little hand on my knee can miraculously melt away the frustration of the previous hour, like nothing else. Not even kitkats can do that...
