Trivia: income, napping and visitors. And motherhood.

I joined a survey-filling scheme lately and yestreday received four pounds in Luncheon vouchers. Easy money, say I. I just need to work out where will accept them, and make sure to eat there. If the Biscuit Tin at the Town Hall does, we're in luck.

Linnea is probably about to wake up - she's been asleep for almost two hours now. This is because I wanted to go to visit my friend and her new baby at about 2 pm.

I want to help! But there's nothing I can do to help, they are all sorted out and organised fine, apparently. It's silly to want in on it, it's nothing to do with me really, except as a concerned friend.

The other two women from the antenatal class called round this morning, which was nice. One baby was on the way to get her MMR jab. In theory I should be organising Linnea's, but I'm far too scared to do it without lots of research, and far too tired to do the research. Hey, what do you think I should do? And while I'm asking for advice, how about honey? Can she have flapjacks? Or are they too much like sweets? What else do I feel guilty about today - ah! Apple juice, about 150ml a day - good or bad? Justifiable? And toothbrushing; she has between 16 and 20 teeth (you reach in and count 'em before you call me unattentive, ya?) and should we insist on brushing them properly twice a day, or is it enough to see that the brush touches each tooth, and then just let her chew on it for a few minutes? She likes toothpaste. Am I overloading her system with fluoride? What about the blue colouring they put in the gel? And how do I get her to do outdoor play when it's 30C outside and there's no shade? When was the last day the TV was not turned on in this house? Does that make me a bad person? How do I make the PMS go away and chill out?

I'm a mother: I don't just believe three impossible things before breakfast, I feel guilty about them, too.

Hark, don't you?

Linnea woke up at about 5, and we pootled off to visit the new baby with Linnea barefoot in the hugabub, because I didn't have the cruelty or the energy to fight her into shoes and make her walk, or force her into the buggy.

The baby is doing great, and so's her mother. I am trying veyr hard not to be too pressurey about breastfeeding, while reiterating that actually, at less than two and a quarter days after birth, most babies aren't drinking ounces and ounces of breastmilk at a time and this isn't something to worry about. I've given a little latching help. I'm trying hard not to be "militant", whatever that is.

But then, I'm also sitting next to the newborn breastfeeding my walking, bouncing 16-month-old, so whatever- !

We walked home as the rain started. It was still too hot to eat, and then came lightning and thunder, and it was too hot and to loud to sleep. Linnea went down at about 10, in the end, when the thunder ended.

Now I know why she slept three hours in the middle of the day. Air pressure and heat. It was horrible at her normal bedtime. She is far cleverer than I am.