Author: Louisa Houghton

I’m exhausted just watching Will attempting to crawl. He’s worked out that it’s far preferable to practice on the bed where he won’t hurt his head if he bangs it down halfway through a bunny-hop.

He has also worked out which direction to go to reach Molly, and now makes a determined beeline for the folded-back duvet spot where she sleeps at the end of the bed. When in situ, Molly merely watches malevolently – willing him to reach her and face her wrath (I’ve so far managed to intervene before battle commences).

The alternative, if Molly isn’t there, is to keep going to the end of the bed, and start gnawing on the brass bedstead.

So we come to it at last – Will has started nursery. He went for an hour on Monday to start with, leaving me to mooch around Hungerford miserably, fingering the designer clothes in Jeanne Petite and trying to take my mind off the fact that I felt as though one of my limbs had been amputated. Will, of course, was absolutely fine, only crying a little when I first left (but was soon diverted by his new epi-pen that I’ve given the staff), and when I came to pick him up and he remembered that I’d left him in the first place.

Today’s the second ‘settling in’ day, where he’ll spend two hours over lunch. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’ll be the first time anyone has fed him lunch other than me. It’ll be the first time anyone else has cooked him lunch apart from me come to think of it. God.

I can’t come back to the house after I’ve dropped him off and I can’t sit in the carpark gibbering, so have procured one of Waitrose’s finest carrot cakes and am heading off to Amanda’s for tea and a chat in the hope it’ll help me come to terms with the fact that Will isn’t with me.

As Eddie says, it’s not so much the fact that he’s in nursery now, it’s a bigger change in the sense that this is the beginning of the end of an era and it’s going to take some time to adjust to.

Going to the pub with a baby is a very tricky business, but we haven’t been out for ages and so yesterday decided that a trip to The Plough for a couple of pints and a gossip was in order. Our timing was perfect, we were packed up and ready to go bang on 12.30 to coincide with Will’s nap so that he’d be fast asleep by the time we got there.

No chance.

After doing a long circuit through East Woodhay, Faccombe, Netherton, Vernham Dean and Ashmansworth, Will was still happily wittering away in the back to himself and time was ticking by. There were two possible options:

1) Leave William in the car and hope he’d drift off
2) Bring him in

Deciding there is a big difference between a baby and a labrador, we brought him in. It’s not something I’m usually in favour of, but sometimes there’s nothing else for it. As it was, we bumped into Jim, Cate, Clive and Charlie and a happy hour was spent wittering away over Dave’s sausage sandwiches, pickled eggs and pints of Village, while Will was thrilled to be part of the action and played on the floor with my car keys and a variety of beer mats.

Whoever said that maternity leave was an opportunity to relax over long, boozy lunches was LYING. Not only can I count the number of lunches I’ve had over the last 9 months on the fingers of one hand, but they are generally anything but relaxing.

Today’s attempt by Amanda and I came after Sing and Sign when we repaired to The Carnarvon for refreshment and light lunch. You could see the faces of the other customers fall as Evan and Will hove into view and proceeded to gibber, while they attempted to eat their meals in peace. As neither child had slept since breakfast, the noise (in Will’s case anyway) gradually escalated, reaching its peak just as our food arrived. Evan remained serene and silent; dummy firmly in gob. But God help Amanda if it fell out or was removed.

How the mighty are fallen. Only a few short months ago, I was a classic restaurant ‘tutter’ – heart sinking at the sight of harassed mothers and their ghastly, out of control offspring. Now I’m the knackered mother with shrieking brat, being given evils by all and sundry as I desperately try to woof my lunch and neck a quick chardonnay before making a break for freedom before the cries of my outraged child become unbearable to all and sundry.

Work looms, it’s dark in the mornings, the rain is hurling it down, my skin is turning pale blue and stodge is creeping isidiously into the diet….

Nothing for it but to focus on drinking as much coffee as possible and keeping busy. Today I finally managed to get to pilates and ended up so relaxed I almost fell asleep. More coffee was clearly needed, so Will and I headed to Borders to meet Sam, Jude, Helen and Charlie. A large latte later and the world seemed a brighter place.

God, I can’t wait for the Blog entry that says Will is crawling. Let’s hope he cracks it before November 13th.

Funny that nine months of pregnancy felt like a lifetime, whereas the following nine months has gone by in the blink of an eye. I must stop myself counting the days, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of saying to yourself, ‘this is the last week I’ll spend with Will before nursery’; ‘only 5 weeks until I go back to work’….etc.

Life is good and there is so much to look forward to; Sing and Sign, Waterbabies, friends, family and all sorts of adventures we haven’t even dreamed of yet. Next on the list – lunch with Clive and Jenny, our arteries are hardening at the very thought!

Has it really been nearly a year since I first left work? I can’t believe time can fly by so quickly and it’s time to think about rejoining (what’s left of) the team at Vodafone. It’s hard to put into words how I feel about going back, because it’s very much a double-edged sword. On the one hand I love my job and all my friends at work, but on the other I don’t want to leave Will….

In my heart of hearts I know, and I’ve always known, that I could never be a stay-at-home mum. If I didn’t have work to go back to, and was looking at spending the next few years going to coffee mornings/gymborees/waterbabies etc, I’d be seriously depressed!

This week we went back to Little Sods to sort out the days he’ll go in, and I came away feeling very positive again and sure that I’ve made the right choice for Will. He is going to have so much fun playing with other children. On a roll, I even went to look at Bright Sparks, a nursery down the road in Heath End which has been recommended. It’s for children from 2, but has a waiting list so I thought better to have a look and put his name down if we liked it, than risk missing out later. It was a great place and the children were all dancing, playing, singing, dressing up – Will’s eyes were out on stalks! I’ve put him down for a place and then we can make a decision nearer the time about whether he goes there a couple of mornings a week as well as Little Sods.

All in all I’m getting my act together and trying to prepare (as much as anyone can) for the day when I go back. The real test will come in a week’s time when Will starts to go to the nursery for a couple of hours each week, gradually building up to a full day the week before I start work. The main thing, is that Will is happy and settled at nursery well in advance. It’s me who’s going to have to jump in the deep end.

…and he can.

How to describe my son? I was watching him today with all the other babies and I’ve come to the conclusion that William isn’t ‘into everything’ like other children. He’s happier to sit back and watch rather than getting stuck in.

He is very like Eddie in temperament, in the sense that while everyone else is fighting to be the top dog, Will is the sort of boy who’ll bide his time and then capture everyone’s attention surreptitiously and totally.

Will has an incredibly stubborn streak, if he doesn’t want to do something then God help him he won’t. I was trying to feed him supper tonight – Fish Mornay (or fish with vegetables and cheese sauce to the uninitiated) – and he was having NONE of it. He screamed, cried, blew rasberries, gagged, retched and choked, rather than ingest his supper. Until, that is, I produced his fromage frais for pudding. At which point all rebellion ceased and peace was restored. God help us if we have a fussy eater on our hands, although to be fair to Will he didn’t sleep at lunchtime (too busy teddy-wrestling) so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and put today’s hystrionics down to over-tiredness…

To say Will is beginning to assert his personality on the family would be an understatement. He is very much his own man, and increasingly happy to show it.

Judge or Houghton? Time will tell…..

Oh the joy of children….no sooner had Will perked up on Sunday morning, bright as a button and raring to go, did it occur to us that we were next in line to catch his bug. Eddie collapsed at 10.30 and spent the rest of the day in bed with the occasional dash to the loo. I made it as far as the 6.30pm bottle before having to put Will down and run for it.

We were in bed by 8.00pm comparing temeratures, we’ve got one of those gadgets that you stick in your ear – addictive (Eddie won by 0.1 degrees at 38). Feeling weak as a kitten this morning while Will bobs around the sitting room, wittering and trying to crawl. Still.