Seven surprises about breastfeeding an older baby


I feel privileged to be breasteeding my ten-month-old. It shouldn't be a surprise as it was for the health visitor who visited us a couple of weeks ago. After all breastfeeding, particularly if your baby is under a year, is nothing if not normal. Read more

Wearing an older baby: woven wrap vs soft structured carrier


While I know people who've worn their babies in stretchy wraps all the way into toddlerhood, I packed mine in when Talitha hit six months. Her weight by then made the fabric uncomfortably bunch up around my shoulders and the more mobile she became Read more

The breastfeeding father


I've just had my first Mother's Day and, funnily enough, it's made me think about fathers. Laurence Talitha bought me La Leche League membership. The LLL is an international charity for breastfeeding mothers and I've just begun going to its Bristol branch meetings. The Read more

Don't label my parenting: struggling with "attachment parenting"


I've recently become uncomfortable with the term "attachment parenting". It's tricky because it very much describes what we're trying to do. Though we do have a routine, we watch our baby and not the clock. We refuse to rush her independence. We respond to Read more

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Love me, Liebster, because I’m ill

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Our life is a Circus | 8 Comments

The thing I always forget about being ill is that it’s bloody boring. This is even more so when you’re pregnant because you’re likely to get sick more often and whatever you catch will be more extreme and hang around longer than is generally acceptable.

It’s not just that little tasks become gargantuous and your body effectively slows you down, as if the parasite you’re carrying weren’t doing enough of that already.

Last night, I couldn’t even think. A shame, because I was looking forward to writing but even more so because I’d planned to continue my recent domestic streak by finishing the hoovering, mopping, dishes and dinner all before Laurence got home. I don’t know – maybe I wanted a medal or something.

What ended up happening is that none of the above got done and he came home from a work fundraiser to find me in bed and still dressed. He was endlessly amused that I didn’t remember getting there. My only explanation was: “I was downstairs watching TV and then I ended up here.” It was a chippy night for him.

Anyhow, this cold narrows the chances of me thinking up anything particularly thought-provoking or vaguely humorous to say here today so I thought I’d just accept the accolades of others instead. The lovely Liz Dawes at Multum in Parvo extended the Liebster Blog award to me about two weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to thank her for it and pass it on but it just hasn’t really happened, mainly because I’m a brilliant procrastinator. In fact, I’m surprised no one’s awarded me anything for being that just yet.

Liz said: “One of my favourite blogs at the moment is http://circusqueen.co.uk/ written by the very talented Adele Jarrett-Kerr. A journey through her pregnancy, but so much more. She is a pithy and wry talent, who makes me laugh and ponder and want to keep reading. And I love the design of her blog too – different, quirky and very compelling. Just like the author I suspect.” Today, that’s like chicken soup to my soul. And now that I’ve said that, I really want chicken soup but there’s no one here to get some for me. Alas.

Back on track. I’m supposed to do the following with this award:
1. Create blog post about accepting, with Liebster logo.
2. Link back to person who has nominated me, and happily accept their praises.
3. Nominate 3-5 of my fav blogs, that maybe not everyone in the blogosphere will have tripped over but that are nonetheless FAB, and tell them they’ve been nominated.

Well, to tell the truth if Liz hadn’t already been the one to nominate me, I probably would have nominated her! But here are my three:

Stories of Georgous written by Li-Ling who grew up in Malaysia but is now raising her daughter Georgia in the UK. She speaks eloquently of the contrasts between the cultures and parenting styles, often sharing the funny or startling profound things that Georgia says. You don’t have to be from an Asian background (or even be a parent!) to find something extraordinarily human in her writing.

Yoruba Girl Dancing interrogates issues of race and gender while taking the time for lighter matters, like over handsome cartoon characters. Bim Adewumni is a freelance writer who lives in London and writes with boldness and, often, more than her fair share of wit.

I’ll honestly be surprised if Her Melness Speaks hasn’t already received this award. I’m compelled to nominate her nonetheless. Melinda Sealy Fargo often makes me laugh out loud at my computer screen when I’m reading her stylish and straight-down-the-line blog. She’s a woman who knows what she thinks and the funniest way to express it. She’s got an opinion on everything from sex to grammar and is particularly interested in “The Gibberish Generation” – her term for teenagers – mainly because she’s parent to four of them.

There are no books I must read before I die

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Books | 10 Comments

We’ve been massively sorting out the house (and the garden, thanks to my in-laws) this weekend. It’s about time, I suppose, considering that we moved in a month and a half ago and once the baby’s here (nine weeks to the due date now), it will probably be a while before we care about where those picture frames should hang.

Also, we’re hoping for a mass invasion this Saturday with friends coming over for the event we have dubbed The JK BabyBash. No doubt, I’ll tell you more about that later as much excitement surrounds it and I’ll be getting well into it once this stupid cold is gone.

So, um, yes. My mind is wandering. Fever does that. I was saying that we were tidying the house. Well, that’s meant I’ve found all the bags of stuff we’ve been planning to take to the charity shop or the library for…literally years. Including these:

I recently wrote in a guest post that will appear on Tasha Goddard’s blog WAHM-BAM later this week for her Book Week that Laurence has a penchant for hoarding books while I’m very much a read ‘em and donate ‘em kinda gal. If it’s good, it’s worth sharing, I say. These, however, are his books.

I have an ongoing battle in my mind over what I should read and what I do. It’s probably a hang up from my days as an English Literature undergrad.

By the time I was on to my Masters, I was rather comfortable with my new philosophy that although “experts” will expound on what you must read before you die, life really is too short to be reading things that you downright don’t enjoy.

It’s like my in-laws insisting on watching every one of the Coen Brothers’ films, knowing full-well that they probably won’t enjoy them because they never do (except True Grit. This is the one Coen Brothers’ film they like).

I’m a hedonist when it comes to reading. Irvine Welsh is a genius, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean I feel compelled to read his work and certainly not to re-read it. I forced my way through Ecstasy past rape, bestiality, necrophilia and beyond and felt more than a little sick, which is likely what you’re meant to experience. I also gave Porno a go but soon trailed off, wondering why I was bothering to do this to myself. It’s sadistic.

Laurence agrees he likely won’t read them again so off they go to the library today to some other reader who’ll get more out of it than I.

That said, I have begun reading Crime and Punishment again, having used to describe it as a punishment in itself for those who struggled through it. Yes, this Lit graduate is a smidge Philistine.

One of my housemates in my second year at university forced her way through it so I gave it a quick go. But I had too much on my mind at the time and a reading list that was already daunting so after a few chapters, I put it aside with: “Ah well.”

But since Mama – and more suggested that I should make the most of reading in response to my post about things I should do before the baby comes, I looked through our shelves and thought, I’ll give you another go.

So far, I don’t understand what was blocking me with this book. I’ll let you know how it goes.

In the meantime, I’m curious to know whether there’s anything you wouldn’t read. Or whether you think that we should at least attempt to read everything touted as “valuable” that’s out there?

Should I leave Facebook?

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Film and Television | 22 Comments

This is a question I’ve been asking myself ever since I joined Facebook as a university student. Five or so years later, I’m still asking it. Here’s why:

1. I will one day value my privacy
I’ve not been overly hung up on the privacy issues so far, though having had a read around, I can see that what doesn’t bother me so much now may haunt me later when I’m older, wiser and generally more politically and technologically clued-up. This could be why I prefer the minimalism of Twitter and the malleability of my WordPress blog. I would just say, though, that I am really bothered by the ‘messages’ not being private. Facebook has access to them, while giving you the illusion that they are as confidential as email. They’re really not.

2. The Facebook me isn’t the real me but friends think it is
What really bothers me is the way Facebook threatens to change my relationships. Acquaintances look at my profile, flick through my pictures and check out my friends list, and feel that they are getting to know me. Something about Facebook gives the illusion of identity, that what you present there is something ‘true’ about yourself. But it’s not. It’s a performance. It’s a distraction.

3. We’re not getting to know each other
And because of this, I feel the keeping in touch thing is negated. I’ve not minded – mostly – being put back in touch with old acquaintances. But if Facebook masks the false, presenting it as true, we’re not really getting to know each other. You can know facts about me – I got married a couple of years ago, I’m having a baby, I live in Bristol – but how do any of these dry pieces of information create intimacy between us?

4. We misunderstand each other
You might say that you learn more from the views we both express and that’s true but they’re often so fleeting (a throw away comment on a status update, for example) that they’re easily misinterpreted and I think we’re more likely to alienate each other than to draw closer to one another.

For instance, I’m a committed Christian. This fact runs through me in a way that Facebook’s fragmented approach would never help you make sense of. I also support gay rights, especially in Trinidad where equality laws still refuse to properly acknowledge sexual orientation. I know people who find it difficult to put the two together.

I’m unlikely to be able to say what needs to be said in any significant way on someone’s wall. Even notes don’t feel like they’re the right space for that. Arguments made in notes almost always come across to me as argument for argument’s sake as opposed to a real call for readers to engage. Commenters end up skimming and speaking to themselves.

5. It makes us lazy
We write a quick: “Hi, how are you?” on someone’s wall or comment on their picture and get away with believing that we’re staying in touch or keeping our friendship alive or whatever. Or even worse, we go through their wall posts and pictures, say nothing, and leave feeling like we’re up to date on their lives. Maybe we’re busy but if we pooled together the time we spend every day on Facebook, maybe we could save some time in an evening to write even one email or letter or give a phone call. Even a text message is more personal than writing on a wall.

This last point is what made me disable my wall and hide my photographs on Facebook last weekend. I’m tired of this false communication.

But isn’t blogging like that? Well, not for me, it isn’t. I didn’t primarily start writing Circus Queen so I could “keep in touch” though it is valuable in doing this, to some degree.

I started it because I needed two things: a writing project and a space to process thoughts about my pregnancy. I wanted it to be public because I value intellectual support and hoped that what I wrote might strike a chord with someone else.

My blog is, in fact, one of the few reasons I’d stay on Facebook. I know a lot of my friends read it by clicking links on my wall through to my blog. I thought starting a Circus Queen Facebook page would solve this by letting them see updates without me having to have a wall but Facebook won’t let me ‘suggest to friends’ (the option’s been broken since last year) so I’m frustrated on this front too.

Becoming a mother makes me even more suspicious of Facebook. I’m not sure how much of my life or my family’s life I want to share on the internet. I think I’d rather email photographs of the creature to my parents than point them to albums on Facebook.

I don’t know. I haven’t made my mind up about any of this. I may change my mind by the end of the week and my wall might be enabled again.

Have you thought about leaving? Why would you leave? Why would you stay?

Image: Steve Jurvetson

UPDATE: My pathetic protest has come to an end (for now) and I’ve reinstated my wall, etc. Hopefully the exercise has at least made me start thinking about what I do and don’t want to share. Also, I’ve just come across a great post examining Facebook’s overshare culture on Her Melness Speaks.

How do we live out love?

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Our life is a Circus | 8 Comments

Three young boys smiled up at the camera. Victoria Terminus, India, was their home and they chatted easily about life there: which children made their living begging, who picked up bottles for a few rupees and who scoured the rubbish for discarded coffee cups to lick. One boy was very matter of fact about having his leg beaten until it broke.

Every now and then, we were shown a child sleeping in the road frighteningly close to a passing truck or bodies strung out on drugs and covered in flies.

But most shocking to me was the boys’ laughter about which of them had been attacked for sex, often by random men. They were street children. They were easy prey. This was just another part of life. As the narrator said, and as was fairly obvious, they had no pity for themselves or for anyone else.

I’d gone along on a whim when an email asked for a STOP THE TRAFFIK supporter to exhibit literature on behalf of the organisation. Street children’s vulnerability makes them prime candidates for human trafficking. Poverty makes people vulnerable to exploitation.

The last time I did anything public for STOP THE TRAFFIK was a few years ago when a friend organised an anti-trafficking week at our university, getting societies to put on events to raise awareness of human trafficking issues and raise funds for the organisation’s work. Another friend and I put on a poetry night and I performed one of my songs at another society’s acoustic group.

We felt motivated, mobilised, part of something big. Our chocolate was Fairtrade. We were clued up on the “issues”.

But as the noise died down since, I feel like the bridge from the song I’d written became a self-fulfilling prophecy:

“Paralysed by the sense of not achieving what I said I would
Wishing I hadn’t made promises when I can’t
Or is it can’t?
Or is it won’t but should?”

Though my sore pelvic girdle doesn’t thank me for lugging a heavy backpack of STOP THE TRAFFIK leaflets across Bristol for the Unchosen film campaign, I am grateful for having been there. It reminded me of my responsibility toward others, locally and globally. It was a chance to be pushed out of paralysis.


STOP THE TRAFFIK

It’s made me continue to think about the things I want for the creature as she grows up. I want her to be informed about and sensitive to the suffering of others. And I want her to do something about it. This inevitably means her father and I need to think about what picture of humanity we’re giving her, what we show her is important. In short, what we do.

Little could beat the picture of humanity my mother gave me. I think of her decades dedicated to working with people from “disadvantaged” backgrounds, noticing their strength and simply trying to build relationships where they can take hold of their own power. Money has never been a motivating factor for her. Love has.

For my own life, I’m going back to the chorus of that song I wrote in twenty-one-year-old excitement:

“I still think silence is worse
Too many sounds across the earth compete to be heard
I still think there are things that we should all believe
Call it naïve but there’s little excuse for apathy.”

It’s very easy to think these issues through in abstract terms. I’m still trying to work out what it means in practice in my own life – how do I tangibly live out love in my context? It’ll be encouraging to hear what others are doing. How are you trying to live out love?

Images from the film Victoria Terminus, directed by Gerard Vandervegt and shown as part of Unchosen’s film campaign.

What only rotten apples could teach me

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Our life is a Circus | 4 Comments

I’m struggling to put the weekend into words. It’s been such a revelatory one that I don’t feel like I can move on to talking about anything, whether deep or inane until I write about this. So, instead of making this a week of silence at Circus Queen, I’ll try to explain it, to myself as much as to you, in objects.

This is Friday’s spoil. It’s a pencil eyeliner by Barry M that I hunted down. I always have to go to at least two stores to find it in black. But it’s so worth it, with skin as oily as mine.

I spent the day up to my armpits in serotonin. I hadn’t had a proper day out in a while. SPD has made walking reasonable distances something I always pay for later and as my work becomes increasingly doable from home, I’ve less incentive to leave the house.

But after a little fight with myself over whether to go to a possibly mythical women’s group meeting at my church or to clean the kitchen, I was out and about. It ended up being a day of socialising, writing, lunching and shopping which did me more good than I could have predicted.

Imagine this space covered in rotten apples. Everywhere. I should have take a before picture, I suppose. I’d been meaning to pick the apples up since we moved in a month and a half ago but there was always an excuse. Laurence and I finally did it on Saturday.

After the life-rush of Friday, I had a crash looking around the mess that was our house. I’m not a tidy person by nature. I don’t see the point in folding laundry. But for whatever reason, I’d let things get particularly out of control last week. Carpets needed to be hoovered, floors mopped, dishes done, boxes unpacked rather than lived out of.

It’s not that I feel ‘homemaking’ is my primary responsibility as the woman in our relationship. If anything, that’s probably why I’m not better at taking it in hand. When I was growing up, I saw too many men watching television while their wives rushed about making nice with broom and stove. I knew I didn’t want the same for myself. I also feel it’s important for both partners to take ownership of the home by being involved in caring for it.

At the same time, as the one who’s home most often and therefore has more opportunity to sort things out, I feel guilty when it all goes awry. Laurence doesn’t see it that way. He always reminds me that though he goes out to the office, a day spent writing in the spare room is equally work.

Still, as is often the way, I let my upset about my apparent ‘failure’ connect itself to much larger themes in my mind. Mothers are tidy, or at least clean, aren’t they? Will I be a good mother? You can see where this is going.

By the time it was lights out, I’d worked myself into a state of stress that carried well into the next day. It culminated in the fear, guilt and rage that left me paralysed on the garden porch.

I couldn’t tell Laurence what was wrong. I didn’t even understand it myself. I couldn’t talk to God. I had no words. So Laurence wisely left me alone and let me do the only thing I felt I could. Cry.

When the tears were gone, we got our garden gloves and together we picked up the apples. For the first time, I appreciated how we’ve come to know each other. We don’t really need to explain our frailer bits anymore.

I asked him last night if he ever feels like he lives with a child. It seems I crack at some point every other week. He said he likes feeling needed. I suggested he should start crying too so the roles could be reversed, at which he laughed and mock-cried.

“Do I cry more now, since I’ve been pregnant?” I asked. He shrugged. “I don’t remember how much you used to cry,” he replied. It’s strange how time can make just about anything normal.

This is the jewelry board I’ve been meaning to put together for the past four years. An ex-boyfriend suggested I do this and I was instantly offended. Was he saying that I was messy? Well, I am, but was he saying it? Was he trying to change me?

It’s taken me all this time to get over my self-righteousness and stop procrastinating. But here it is, made with cardboard from the box something or other got delivered in and tacked to the inside of our wardrobe last night.

It’s a little thing, I know, but every pair (and lonely only) reminds me of someone I love and displaying them not only makes me more likely wear them but it feels like a small step of progress in the ‘taking care of life’ department. It’s a simple reminder that growth takes time.

Please excuse the bad photography. I’m not feeling particularly techie this morning.

The day I beat the twisty thing in my garden into submission

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Our life is a Circus | 8 Comments

There is a devil in my back garden. It stands there in the centre, taunting me, especially when the sun’s out. Its tentacles hang down all reproachful and that. But today I’ve made a small victory.

Laurence doesn’t get what the big deal is. He doesn’t understand why I have spent well over an hour of my life prodding it, staring at it, twisting it to try to work out how to get the metal demon to obey.

Well, this time he wasn’t around. So I had a fight with our airer or whatever it’s called. I’m partial to calling it the evil-umbrella-washing-line-twisty-thing. I tend to get physical with misbehaving household items when the “real adult” isn’t around. The sorry-looking smashed pieces of smoke alarm would tend to agree.

The washing was done and in the basket, smelling all fresh (I’ve recently discovered fabric softener and am a little obsessed) and I was about to take it upstairs when I noticed the glint of the sun on the twisty thing outside.

I can do this, I thought, After all, you don’t need a man to do it and what happens if, God forbid, there comes a time when Laurence isn’t able to do it and as a matter of fact he’s not around to do it now, so there. He’s probably more worried about the conversations I’d have with myself if he weren’t around at all.

I pulled, I pushed, I swore, I cajoled. The twisty thing would not become erect. I just want to hang my washing! I lifted it out of the earth and turned it upside down. It was surprisingly heavy and fell into the mud. I lifted it up, put it back in the earth and wiped the mud off.

Now it stood there reproachfully with all its tentacles messily tangled. Carefully I put them aright. Then I went inside to have a cup of tea and to calm the lemon chicken salad down. I went back outside, convinced that I would not take a hammer to it or – and this was more likely – hurt myself in its abuse.

I pulled again. As if it had never been a mystery, the twisty thing came alive. I pushed it with more force than my stomach muscles were happy with but it gave. It was a moment of triumph. I was even able to take it down and put it up again to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.

It’s a small victory, perhaps, but I’ll take them where I can.

PS: Yes, I know the garden’s a mess. Do not rain on my parade.

Consuming life instead of living it

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Our life is a Circus | 16 Comments

Last Sunday in church, someone described consumerism as a system in which we are valued based on what we can afford to buy. It wasn’t the focus of what he was talking about but that hit me so hard, I got my pen out and wrote it down. It articulated the trap I often get caught by.

For me it’s not really so much about buying things to match other people. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t often buy things and certainly not new things.

Most of my clothes come from charity shops. Apart from the buggy and the car seat everything we’ve bought for the baby so far has come from Freecycle, Gumtree and the NCT Nearly New Sale. Although I’ll occasionally buy books, I’m far more likely borrow from the library. We’re also all about the re-using around here.

None of this is some bizarre type of eco-thrift boast. If anything, these little efforts have successfully blinded me to the places where consumerism has its grip on me.

We’ve been talking through our finances recently and I often sigh over “When – if ever – will we be able to buy a house?”, “When will we be able to go to India?”, “Will we be able to afford ballet or football lessons for the creature?” and the list goes on.

But the question that trumps all of those is: “What will happen to my career?” Like so many of us who graduated in the last two or three years, the going’s not been easy. To be sure, I’ve been fortunate with a lot of the opportunities I’ve had but I hardly feel like my writing career is firmly established. And now, I’m getting ready to take a break!

I applied for Maternity Allowance this week and it put me in a foul mood. At first, I couldn’t work out why. I know it’s necessary (I’m going to be bloody tired those first few months) and actually, I want to stop working for a bit because I want to concentrate my energies on the creature. For me, the consumerist trap isn’t about actual items I can buy so much as it is about commodifying my life. It’s about image. It’s about wanting to have it all – right now. It’s about consuming life rather than living it.

I can hear people saying that maybe I should have waited until I was older and more firmly established. But I hardly see how that’s the answer. Surely that would have only given me more time and ammunition to boost my consumerist obsession. The problem is buying into a false idea of how life is supposed to be. It isn’t not having enough money or a settled enough career.

Despite my worries about the future, I am just as convinced that this is the right time to welcome someone new into our family. While I fully respect the decision of those who do wait, and maybe I envy the things they’re able to afford that we won’t, I do think some things might be easier for us in not having waited.

Having a baby can be an unsettling thing. But then my life was pretty unsettled to begin with.

Image: Milena Mihaylova

Buying a pram: the moment of truth

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Our life is a Circus | 18 Comments

I woke up on Saturday raring to pick up our pram and car seat. I didn’t know how symbolic these objects were or that they’d freak us out.

My in-laws bought them for us a few weeks ago and had them delivered to the store so we could leave them in storage. That was never going to happen.

It was bit like the Saturday before last when I pleaded with Laurence as soon as his eyes opened: “Please can we get a kitten today. Please?” He said yes but the internet and newspapers let us down.

People of Bristol, have your cats stopped reproducing? Isn’t spring when all the baby animals are supposed to emerge? That’s what Bambi taught me.

At least the pram and car seat were a sure thing. Once Laurence realised the injustice of suggesting we collect them “tomorrow”, we were off to Mamas & Papas.

I had tried to approach pram shopping like my father would: methodically researching, making notes and comparing to produce a highly detailed list to choose from. He’s done this with anything remotely technical he’s ever bought me.

A few years ago when he offered to buy me a camera, I unwittingly let him down by quickly glancing through the options and replying seconds later: “Oh, I like that one. It’s little and pretty.” He tells everyone this story. I’m not sure if it’s my impatience or technical disinterest which amuses him more.

In the end, I produced a fairly thorough list but admitted to Laurence: “But I like this one because it’s pretty.” It was the Mamas and Papas Pliko Pramette – so feminine and classy while agreeing with our practical requirements. I don’t think I could have gotten more pleasure from choosing an evening gown.

The traitor had been looking behind my back. Which? gave the M&P Sola their vote and he was pretty sold on it. I had to agree, it looked a good match. We decided to be open-minded and went to the store.

My poor brother skulked in a corner with his HTC Desire while a sixteen-year-old demonstrated every single buggy in the joint that would do for a newborn. We got our heads around the Luna and the Sola, momentarily drooling over the Urbo.

As it turned out the Pliko Pramette actually did tick our boxes. It was parent-facing, converted between pushchair and pram, the right size for our trunk (alright, boot, you Brits) and folded up completely. We left satisfied. Laurence felt like he’d picked a car and I a handbag.

But after he assembled it, and demonstrated it to me, he gave me a crumpled look as if to say, “My God, we’re having a baby. What are we doing?”

I found it funny. It’s not as if I can successfully forget the reality. She’s constantly sitting there around my middle, sometimes sticking a foot up my ribs.

I had my turn last night when we closed up everything to head to bed. I stopped in the hallway to look at the little car seat that would hold the creature. I imagined her head laying back, her eyes closed in sleep and wee toes peeking out.

I looked at Laurence. This time three years ago, I was an undergrad writing a dissertation, longing for him to notice me. Now we’re married and having a baby.

The sight of the car seat made me dizzy. All this and I’m not even twenty-five yet.

When I told him about it, he said: “At last. It’s good to know I’m not the only one who’s scared.”

Thou shalt not wear a dressing gown in public

Posted on March 10, 2011 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Our life is a Circus | 6 Comments

When I mentioned the uni-boob scenario the other day, it was an attempt at being amusing. My mother read it and all she could think was: “Good grief, my child needs to be clothed!” She speedily got in touch, in her worried mother way – a way I shall soon learn, no doubt.

Although I may have been guilty of slightly exaggerating – I do tend to do that – I am genuinely grateful that she’s offered to buy me maternity clothes. I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that my vague hope that I could keep wearing my pre-baby clothes throughout my pregnancy was laughably unrealistic. This only works for women who wear oversized jumpers to begin with, I think. Looking at my wardrobe now, I’d never noticed before how waistline centric so many of my things are.

As I’ve said before, I’m not good at buying things for myself. I attach guilt to the prospect. But Mummy’s right, as mums often are. Even if it feels silly to buy things for the next few months, that’s a long time to wear pajama bottoms and a dressing gown.

This top was the first thing I outgrew and this picture was taken the weekend the creature was most likely conceived (you're welcome for 'too much info')

I do wonder if I’ve resisted buying maternity clothes for reasons beyond the state of our bank account. I’m shocked every time I look at myself in the mirror with my top off or rearrange my boobs into a comfortable position for sleep. Perhaps there is an element of denial at play here. Though I’m heavy and ill at ease, I do forget that I am pregnant from time to time. So maybe, when I look down, I’m expecting to see the body of the woman pictured above.

But there is something I like about being obviously pregnant. Even with my coat on, there is now no mistaking that I’m pregnant, whereas before I’d mention it and people would be surprised – as if we blow up overnight. It’s a public thing now. A public and private happiness.

Mompetition beats the competition with “Date Night”

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Our life is a Circus | Leave a comment

I tweeted about this video a while ago, hoping that followers would give it lots of views, because I think Valerie Stone Hawthorne’s blog The Mompetition (especially the videos) is a brilliantly humorous and affirming depiction of motherhood. And because the video itself was clever and made both Laurence and me laugh.

I’m so glad she won the Xtranormal February Contest with this entry. It also makes a great follow-up to yesterday’s post about facing the saga of going out while pregnant. We behold our future.

“You won’t be going to nightclubs after the baby’s born”

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Our life is a Circus | 13 Comments

One of the great paradoxes I’ve discovered in pregnancy is that while I’m supposed to be “making the most” of the time before the baby comes, I just don’t feel like it.

I’ve lost track of how many times someone’s told me “You won’t be going to nightclubs/parties/late night cinema after she’s born.”

Yeah? You seriously think I’m doing that now? SPD has made me kiss standing for long periods of time, let alone dancing, goodbye. I can’t drink – well, I do have the very occasional glass of wine but, really, I’ll likely sip cranberry juice while you down your pints of lager. By 11pm I’d rather curl up in bed with a book than stick around for the next band, thankyouverymuch.

The night out begins with me ransacking my wardrobe to find something that still fits over the epic mass of my breasts without smooshing them together in the horror that is uni-boob.

Five changes later, I’m livid at the lies my clothes are telling me. But this fit just yesterday, I swear! Skirts cease to cover my arse, tops now show off my burgeoning mid-rift, and nothing, nothing, nothing ever buttons up. By the time I’ve gone back to one of the two pairs of jeans that still fit and one of the three maternity tops my mum bought for me, I’m ready for a therapy session, not a trip down the pub.

Today is Pancake Day in Britain but Carnival Tuesday in Trinidad so in defiance, we're having saltfish for dinner

So, it was with uncertainty that I went with Laurence to London on Saturday for a friend’s 30th. Would it be crowded, would it be late, would I be pathetic? But I was determined to goandhaveagoodtime. And, actually, I did.

It started with getting on to a busy tube and being offered a seat pretty much right away. Then entering the pub and again, someone got up and volunteered their seat. Who knew a little human kindness could go such a long way? We loved catching up with friends and others left early enough for us not to feel like we were spoiling anything by heading off around 11.

I actually think I’m more likely to be up for getting out and about when the baby is in my arms instead of lodged above my sore pelvis. In fact, she’s got a ticket to her first festival this summer. I’ll let you know how that excursion goes.

At the end of Saturday’s night out, I looked at myself in the mirror. I’ve mentioned before that I can’t remember what it feels like not to be pregnant. I said to Laurence: “What if I never stop looking pregnant- even after the baby’s born?” He chuckled at my melodrama and said: “Well then, at least you’ll get a seat in the tube.”

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