I'm drowning in a day-time TV soup of makeover shows and cookery programmes. The makeover shows make me feel fat and the cookery programmes are just making me fat. I've been so busy trying to claw my way out from underneath a mountain of poo-encrusted laundry, that I failed to notice when aliens came in the night and swapped my normal body for something much squidgier. I'm only 4 kilos over my other-lifetime weight, they just happen to be extremely wobbly kilos. And all evenly distributed around the area that I believe I used to refer to as a 'waist'. Sitting on the sofa learning how to make meringue isn't helping.
The real problem is that I have English TV, which is full of cookery programmes with promising titles like Baking Made Easy and Simple Suppers, as well as makeover shows like Hotter Than My Daughter. Mash and trash. I'm addicted. I have a vague idea that some pretty serious stuff is happening around the world right now, but I've fallen down the rabbit hole all the way to babyland, where the only things that matter are the number of oozing nappies I have to dispose of each day and which lip gloss is going to make me look skinny again. Weaning is in and the real world is out. Actually, this is the real world now - what a bizarre thought.
Of course, sometimes I venture out into the real real world (AKA outside), although I usually run into too many Corso Vercelli mums and end up getting all cross. They are the mums who haunt the streets near my house, mainly Corso Vercelli itself, and who have what I have baptised as Bulgari Babies. When you're pregnant you go through this whole my-bump's-bigger-than-your-bump business, ie: if you're the size of a combine harvester then your neighbour's daughter was the size of the hay barn. Then the baby's born and if you had 20 stitches then the woman in the bakery's sister gave birth to a herd of elephants and had to have her bottom sewn onto her head etc... Then, finally, you get pushchair envy. I swear there are women parading up and down Corso Vercelli with Ferarri pushchairs. There's a shop with a €135 Gucci babygrow in the window. It's plain white cotton. These women must all have teams of personal trainers, nannies, toe nail clippers and fake tan sprayers and are so irritatingly impecable that it makes me want to throw my baggy self under the number 16 tram.
Instead, I just hold my head high and push my second-hand mud-caked pushchair, wearing the only trousers that fit me since the alien body-swap. Like all mothers, especially new ones, I am safe in the knowledge that my baby is the most beautiful of all. Then I go home, wait for Isabel's nap time and watch Snog Marry Avoid with a plate of homemade muffins.
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Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
A good week
I haven't been posting this week because nothing's really been happening. That is, unless you count that yesterday I had a row in the street with an Eismann rep, I think I may have arthritis, I've bought a Kindle and for the last five days Isabel has been producing more poo than a cow pat factory.
The Eismann rep approached me while I was running late to the doctor's in the pouring rain, umbrella in one hand, shoving the pram with the other and the baby screaming like a child possessed. Not really the best moment to try to sell someone some frozen carrots. My feet and trousers were soaking wet because, by the way, the nearest pavement not full of pot holes is in Switzerland. Due to these extenuating circumstances, I may have sounded a teensy bit aggressive when I suggested to the rep that this might not be the best moment for her sales pitch. She came back with a very tart sounding Italian equivalent of 'ooooooooo, well excuuuuuuuse me, madam!'. Grrrrr. Those Eismann reps are out to get me. They were camped out on the street corner by my house for a couple of weeks until recently, but I managed to avoid them. The only people who are more annoying are those ones who ask you what the last book you read was.
On the subject of books, I'm a bit embarrassed about the Kindle. I did used to work in a book shop after all. And I love books more than Marmite and tea and toast put together. E-books aren't even that much cheaper. I may have lost my head a bit there. I've certainly lost a significant chunk from my bank account. Hmmm. I've since been ploughing through Amazon to find all the free downloadable books, which of course, aren't in a section labelled 'free books'. They're hidden among the other rather pricey books, cheeky devils.
Arthritis: I'm keeping a stiff upper lip about that. And stiff ankles, knees, wrists and fingers. Just kidding. I don't know if it's actually arthritis, I just know that it takes me longer to get up off the floor than it would Isabel's great-grandmother (hi Gran!) and that first thing in the morning I'm about as flexible as the Tin Man. That's why I was on my way to the doc's in the pouring rain yesterday.
There's nothing else been happening, except Isabel's remarkable poo producing capabilities which have shot right off the top of the merd-o-meter. Big G keeps telling me, however, that not everyone wants to hear about poo all the time so I won't go into details such as colour, consistency and smell. I'm dying to, but I think I'll just end it there.
By the smug look on her face, she's just done one right now. Trying to beat her own merd-o-meter record, the little minx.
Read more!
The Eismann rep approached me while I was running late to the doctor's in the pouring rain, umbrella in one hand, shoving the pram with the other and the baby screaming like a child possessed. Not really the best moment to try to sell someone some frozen carrots. My feet and trousers were soaking wet because, by the way, the nearest pavement not full of pot holes is in Switzerland. Due to these extenuating circumstances, I may have sounded a teensy bit aggressive when I suggested to the rep that this might not be the best moment for her sales pitch. She came back with a very tart sounding Italian equivalent of 'ooooooooo, well excuuuuuuuse me, madam!'. Grrrrr. Those Eismann reps are out to get me. They were camped out on the street corner by my house for a couple of weeks until recently, but I managed to avoid them. The only people who are more annoying are those ones who ask you what the last book you read was.
On the subject of books, I'm a bit embarrassed about the Kindle. I did used to work in a book shop after all. And I love books more than Marmite and tea and toast put together. E-books aren't even that much cheaper. I may have lost my head a bit there. I've certainly lost a significant chunk from my bank account. Hmmm. I've since been ploughing through Amazon to find all the free downloadable books, which of course, aren't in a section labelled 'free books'. They're hidden among the other rather pricey books, cheeky devils.
Arthritis: I'm keeping a stiff upper lip about that. And stiff ankles, knees, wrists and fingers. Just kidding. I don't know if it's actually arthritis, I just know that it takes me longer to get up off the floor than it would Isabel's great-grandmother (hi Gran!) and that first thing in the morning I'm about as flexible as the Tin Man. That's why I was on my way to the doc's in the pouring rain yesterday.
There's nothing else been happening, except Isabel's remarkable poo producing capabilities which have shot right off the top of the merd-o-meter. Big G keeps telling me, however, that not everyone wants to hear about poo all the time so I won't go into details such as colour, consistency and smell. I'm dying to, but I think I'll just end it there.
By the smug look on her face, she's just done one right now. Trying to beat her own merd-o-meter record, the little minx.
Read more!
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