Haircut and chocolate

Saturday morning was brightened by a delivery of 70% chocolate from Hotel Chocolat, courtesy of mouse262, whom I don't even know. Thank you. The kindness of strangers knows no bounds. It's lots of little batons, which I have been eating in the mornings so's not to keep Emer up all night.

At some point - two points, actually - we cut my hair. First Rob stood behind me and chopped a straightish line off, then I decided it wasn't short enough yet but I was too tired to do it again, and the next morning Rob cut it shorter. I washed it. It's fine. It's roughly straight if I brush it all back, takes much less time to brush in the mornings, can still be tied back, etc. It can't quite be worn down, because it falls forwards, and I hate hair in my face, but it's a great time saving over what I had before.

With any luck, my hair is also not pregnant any more and I can stop gunging up hairbrushes. Yeurgh.

It's shorter than it's been since I was seven. It only just passes my shoulders.

Housework fairies and spurious dinner

Last week the inimitable flybabydizzy came and cleaned our house. And talked to us. And played scrabble with us. The house looked like the housework fairies had come in the night and transformed it, especially the kitchen. Now they're gone, and with me post-section, they're not coming back. It's all I can do to end the day with the three of us fed and not covered in our own excretions. Or each other's, come to that; I got copiously peed on yesterday.

Also yesterday, Rob and I had a weird conversation on IM.

ailbhe: Unless you've moved the oats, I can't reach the slow cooker, you know
rob: I didn't know that
ailbhe: It's a big stretch
ailbhe: I can't do big stretches
rob: I could come home and tip it in in half an hour - I forgot to bring my lunch so could pick it up then
ailbhe: Hee, that would be helpful
rob: ok, I'll do that. It'll only be a flying visit mind you
ailbhe: Or I could do it in a saucepan, but then what about your lunch?
rob: I'll take it back here
ailbhe: No, I mean f you dn't come home I can do dinne rin a pan
ailbhe: but you have no lunch
rob: If I don't come home I'll have to buy something

So he came home, filled the slow cooker with the prepped dinner, hung out the laundry, kissed everyone, picked up his lunch, and left.

It wasn't until the potatoes were almost done and it was about serving time that we realised the slow cooker had been off all that time. So we invoked the microwave, which was... ok.

I really need to move stuff so I can reach everything in the kitchen again. Being out of action causes all kinds of chaos.

Hospital food

While I was in hospital, I had to make sure to eat no dairy products and no soya. This is because I have an intolerance to these foods which manifests as a really upset stomach, and I'd just had gastroenteritis followed by abdominal surgery. Not upsetting my innards further seemed only sensible.

I was in recovery over the official lunch period, so I first encountered a problem when I went up to the ward and they said they'd bring me something to eat because I'd missed it. I explained; they said "Did you tell anyone?"

Yes, I told everyone before I arrived in to hospital. "No, did you tell anyone up here?"

No, I just got here. It's in my notes. "You'll have to see the dietician."

Fine.

Meanwhile, they found me some cream crackers and some bourbon creams and a cup of black tea. Luckily I remembered these problems from when I was in with Linnea when she stopped breathing at 11 weeks, and from when I was in for perineal repair when Linnea was 8 months, so we had already planned for my mother to bring me food later.

The dietician arrived with the week's menus. She and I looked at them. She didn't know what was in any of the dishes. She didn't think the kitchen could produce dairy-free versions of most things, either. So, based on what I had already eaten in the hospital canteen when I was in for antenatal appointments around lunchtime, I told her which dishes did and did not make me ill.

That's right, the patient who was out of post-op recovery less than two hours told the dietician which hospital meals did and did not contain dairy.

So based on that we chose a menu. She offered to have something special and light cooked for me that evening, since I had just had surgery and most of the women would eat something light the day of surgery. She asked me for suggestions. "Pasta in a tomato-based sauce?" I couldn't see how that could be difficult.

Rob and my mother brought me fruit, biscuits, and cereal bars. And a carton of rice milk.

That night I got a miniscule portion of overcooked pasta in some kind of goo. It strongly resembled the toddler ready-meals one can buy to microwave, in fact - the ones Linnea rejected from age 16 months on, which was fine since we mainly got them for travelling when she was 15 months.

Breakfast the following morning, a nice junior midwife spent ages trying to find out what was in the cereals. They arrive on the ward decanted into unlabelled boxes, you see, and she couldn't find anyone who knew where the boxes were to read the ingredients from. She also couldn't remember the list of thigns I told her to look for - whey, casein, soya, soy flour, skim milk powder, milk, butter, yoghurt, cream, cheese, etc. She settled for bran flakes in the end, ebcause they were 100% something or other. I had my own rice milk on them. At least it was food.

Lunch was either nasty dry fish without sauce (a block of fish, some potatoes, and some kind of veg) or salty pork ghoulish. Dinner was, er, the other one of those.

Next day I still couldn't get out of bed to eat, due to a killer headache, but the nurse or midwife or whoever it was didn't believe me, so I had to wait until Rob got there to get my breakfast. He brought me muesli from home. Fab. Lunch was a baked potato so vile that Linnea refused to eat it, even though she was thrilled by the idea of eating in hospital. Dinner was more dry, nasty fish, with potatoes and veg.

Reader, I had that same fish three times. For all I know it was vat-grown and as they hacked off a lump it grew back. It was served with horrible new potatoes (really, they did something to new potatoes to make them really unpleasant) and very very boiled veg.

I ate. I know that food is necessary to recover from having holes hacked in one. I ate everything that I could choke down. The only meals I didn't eat all of were the baked potato and the final lunch, which was yet more blasted fish and since I was going home in 30 minutes I decided to skip it in favour of eating almost anything else.

Next time I shall go in to hospital with a little recipe book, or possibly a camp stove.

Still, last time I was in hospital to have a baby the food was worse.

I am the greatest, I am the greatest

Self and Linnea walked to the library with Emer in the buggy. Went to baby clinic, had them both weighed (can't have one without the other), got the Health Visitor to look at Linnea's scalp but she had no advice other than "take her to a doctor". Right. Since we were in the library we had to go into the book part and Linnea looked at books, chose one Mog book. I collected a biog of Wilde I had on order. Chatted to the lovely asst librarian. Put Emer in hugabub and Linnea in pram and walked home.

Group of mums and children stopped to admire (a) toes (b) hugabub. V. impressed.

I walked to and from the library with buggy and two kids, 5 weeks after the section. I'm tired, but I did not overdo it, really, much, and my incisions hardly hurt at all.

Go me!

Plus, I look fabulous

I have some great red trousers I bought from Shakti in the arcade in town for the honeymoon, but it turned out that my waist was too small to wear them then. Now I'm up to 34" they fit beautifully. The have mirrors and trimmed ankles and all sorts. Very entertaining to wear. The zip is up the back though, like a skirt - weird.

And my pre-pregnancy shoes fit again! I can close my DM Mary Janes! And my tie-dyed socks! I am fab! Yippee!

No more chocolate

I've just eaten the last bit. I think it makes Emer cranky and pukey, so I'm cutting it out for a week. Tomorrow will be Day One of No Chocolate. After that I'll know whether I can have it in moderation or maximation. If I have as many kids as I hope to, I'll end up with a shortlist of foods that reads "gluten free pasta; vegan vitamin pills" and that will be it. Yeesh.

Still, it gives us more motivation to cook high-sugar high-calorie snackfoods. Banana cake is on the list again, this time with either self-raising flour or adequate baking powder. If it works, I shall post the recipe again.

Need more homemade cake recipes. Cakes which can be eaten in one hand as one jiggles around the room singing "Jumping up and down on the big [colour] tractor" to the toddler, patting the baby on the bum between bites. No dairy, no soy, preferably "Method: Put in magimix and whirr. Transfer to loaf tin. Put in oven and bake." Anything more complicated than that is beyond us at present.

Tomorrow we're having roast chicken for dinner. "Put in oven and bake. Dismember. Snarf."

Comparative parenting: weight

Emer: 39w + 5w = 44w: 4.620 kg / 10lb 3oz

Linnea: 41w1d + 2w5d= 43w6d: 4.920 kg / 10lb 11oz

Conclusion: Emer is in fact smaller, but not bloody much!