Weight loss

What would you say if I told you that I've lost 50lb?

That’s what my weightwatchers calculator told me this morning. Obviously I’m pleased. It would be churlish not to be. But because I’m an ungrateful cow I have been faintly annoyed by some people’s reactions of late.

One family member, who shall remain nameless, said “Wow, your features are...almost normal!”.

Someone I hadn’t seen for a while was so overwhelmed yesterday, she kept asking me if I thought she should do it too (tough one, that) and made a point of saying “Bye, and CONGRATULATIONS!” very loudly in the swimming pool changing room.

The trouble is, dramatic reactions just make me think “Did I look that dreadful before?”. Because I don’t feel terribly different inside. It’s nice to fit into normal clothes, but there’s a faint sense of anticlimax. Which is silly, because it has been a long slog. I thought I’d been doing weightwatchers since late last summer, but it turns out it’s been 14 months.

It wasn’t too bad in the early days because you get extra points when breastfeeding. In fact, that’s why I carried on breastfeeding for a month longer than planned – because we were going on holiday to Cornwall and I wanted to be able to eat more...

10am

Help! Have just had a phonecall from nursery, which started with the awful words “Now don’t worry, but Logan’s had an accident”. He’s fallen over, hit his mouth on a table, and bitten his lip. Apparently it was bleeding and is now swollen, but they are adamant I shouldn’t collect him. They just needed authorisation for calpol. He is playing happily now. I ought to go. I want to go. But he’s bouncing back and I’ve asked for an update later. What should I do?

Vitamin D

Did you know that you’re meant to be giving your toddler a vitamin D supplement?

Neither did I. My friend mentioned it the other day, after advice from her paediatrician. Her boy Hugo could be Logie’s twin (both look worryingly like sons of Boris Johnson), although I’m afraid he is much better about sharing toys than Logie. Hugo had a lovely portrait done the other day (he also sits much stiller – maybe that explains the sharing), and I am thinking about photocopying it to save money.

Anyway, I’ve looked up vitamin D, and apparently the UK Chief Medical Officers wrote to GPs and other healthcare professionals a few months ago to remind them that all children aged 6 months-5 years should be given regular doses. Plus three other vulnerable groups – pregnant women, breastfeeding women and anyone over 65.

There’s some pretty convincing evidence that it can help prevent rickets, MS, diabetes, TB and cancer, to name just a few.

Shame this hasn’t got through to my health visitors then. None of them have ever mentioned it.

We went to see one the other day, after a muffled but vaguely accusatory voicemail telling us we had to. Because we had taken him to the marvellous walk-in clinic at Hammersmith Hospital ages ago, when he had such a bad vomiting bug he couldn’t even keep water down. And it turned out that he had a throat infection too. And that I am still amazing at parking, even in curved spaces in hospital carparks, even with a screaming toddler in the back seat.

Anyway, I had been wondering how much he weighed. My second disc disaster in my back within 6 months had given me a clue that he was getting a bit heavier.

We had one aborted attempted about a month ago. The health centre runs two sessions a week, and only one is on a day that I don’t (pretend to) work. It’s 12-1pm. Are there any children under 2 in the UK that aren’t meant to be either eating or sleeping at that time? Masses, I’m sure. So the first time, we got there at about 12:30. There were 62 people in the queue ahead of us. We went home.

This time, we were there at 11:59. Only a handful had beaten us. After 25 minutes not one of us had been called, and Logie had finished inspecting the contents of everybody’s handbag and buggy.

Eventually he was weighed (26lb – but he was a 10lb baby – see/understand earlier references to bad backs and getting really fat whilst pregnant) and we pootered through to the health visitor. She asked if we had any issues, and I said we’d been going through a patch of early waking, which was a slight bore. ‘What time?’ she asked. ‘5, 5:30’ I replied. She laughed.

LAUGHED.

Apparently so long as they’re asleep til 5am that’s fine. That’s normal. Apparently we should feel a bit silly for mentioning it. And we definitely shouldn’t feel hatred miffed that nearly all our friends’ toddlers (with a few notable, heartfelt exceptions) sleep til 7am or later.

But back to vitamin D. You may be interested to hear that the Food Standards Agency is considering an application for vitamin D-rich baker’s yeast to be allowed in the UK. Then I shan’t need to worry about vitamin drops, I’ll just include it in my weekly boulangerie output.

TIV - written 15th May

Under the weather


I feel gross. But I look the picture of health.

I have TIV – toddler induced virus. Runny nose? Tick. Sore throat? Tick. Cough? Splutter. Logan goes to nursery, so he picks up bugs like Harper Beckham attracts photographers. Though he could quite easily have got it by licking another child in the playground.

However, in preparation for a wedding on Friday, I had a spray tan yesterday. Given my prior winter paleness, it was quite dramatic. Every single person I have met since has tried to hide their double-take, and said “Gosh, you look so...well!”. By which they meant orange. I mean, my face is practically the same colour as my hair – quite a disturbing look.

Plus it looks especially out of place in this wretched, never-ending, pouring rain.

Hopefully it’ll go down a bit. Though my plan to go tightsless is looking over-optimistic anyway, thanks to the weather. And the fact that I am not married to a footballer.

Anyway, back to Logan. Nursery is great, don’t get me wrong. His trigonometry is coming along nicely, and I think he’ll be ready for the junior world champs in badminton at this rate. But when you’re 1, TIV is as contagious as a bout of saying “uh oh” at nursery. Apparently once one child says it, it takes about 5 minutes for the chorus around the room to fade.

Tips for treating TIV? Sinusitis spray for the nose – unbungs it like nothing else, and yes I know that’s probably medically inadvisable. Gargle with soluble aspirin for the throat – remarkably effective. And make sure you save your worst coughs for when your husband is around, to demonstrate that yours is much worse than his but you are being much braver.

Unfortunately none of these remedies can help the afflicted toddler. The best thing to do with him is to take him to nursery.  

ECT - more about this blog's title

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/13/what-is-having-ect-like

Bad back - written 2nd May

Notes from my sick bed


Actually I’m not exactly sick – more broken. I have done my back again. Which sounds like the sort of thing we all do at one point or another, with varying degrees of fortitude. Until I casually throw in phrases like ‘slipped disc’ or ‘nerve damage’. Then watch the sympathyometer creep up.

Anyway, sick bed sounds rather glamorous, as if I am being terribly brave, battling some disease whilst watching my Victorian sisters play hopscotch outside, and ideally getting worryingly wonderfully thin. As it happens, today was weightwatchers morning, and I lost 2.4lb. Well high fives all round! (If I could move.) That’s serious progress for someone who has lost an average 0.17lb a week for almost a year.

So the pain is god awful, and I am being typically unbrave about it. Lots of sharp intakes of breath, whimpers, sad faces. Though none of them put on – it is, did I mention, absofrigginglutely excruciating. I can’t walk, sitting is out, lying isn’t brilliant, and transitioning between any of them makes those closest to me in distance consider calling 999.

I think you’ve got the picture now. The only remotely good thing is the painkillers – should that have been ‘are’? Forgive me, I’m in a fug. This fug is partly induced by some tiny round pills that are a controlled substance. I know this because of the disastrous outing to Boots – well, all three of the local pharmacies in Acton – last time the disc prolapsed, and I limped along with the prescription from the private surgeon. Which wasn’t on the right colour form, because colour coding is crucial when it comes to foiling anyone trying to fraudulently obtain controlled substances in broad daylight from high street chemists. Surprisingly, I was less than understanding about this at the time. I may have cried. I may have rung the surgeon’s secretary and used my cross voice.

But this time, I made sure to get them from the private pharmacy downstairs at the London Bridge Hospital (yes, a jolly long way from Acton) before it closed at 6:30pm. And I look forward to taking them as much as my toddler does his yoghurt. Probably more. Thought he does get an actual jet of saliva squirting out of his mouth. I get a slight thrill from referring to them as ‘oxys’, because that’s what the substance-abusing mentor cop in Southland called them when he checked himself into rehab. Did you watch Southland? You should’ve. It was really good. And not just because it was made by the creators of ER, the best television programme ever made, where I go when I want to feel safe.

Normally, I wouldn’t be quite as genuinely annoyed about having done my back in, and having to lie down, take drugs and watch telly for six days. But I left my job last week. So I have no meetings to avoid, no frissons of ‘I’m home, it’s a weekday, I don’t have to get dressed’, no vast amounts of sleep to catch up on. Unfortunately, I had rather a nice week planned. On Monday, my mother was going to have the boy and I was going to Bicester Village to accidentally buy a dress to wear to weddings (you can never deliberately set out to buy anything at Bicester – it will jinx it). I mean, of all indulgences, can you think of anything better? (Oh crap, I was meant to buy my husband’s anniversary present there too. Help.) Mooching about, having a prolonged coffee over a magazine if it got too taxing, knowing in my heart I was going to buy that lace dress online anyway from such an uncool high street shop I am ashamed to type it. On a MONDAY.

Yeah well, woe is me. It is now Wednesday, and after two straight days of solo self-pity, I have a friend with small people coming to visit this morning, my dad for lunch (he’s doing the Dukan, I have to remain horizontal – it won’t be one of our famous lunches then) and an MRI in the afternoon. Manic.

I am very sad about my boy though. Even though he’s only spent one extra day at nursery so far, because I can’t pick him up, I am missing him awfully. I want to squidge him, crush him into me, blow raspberries on his fat bits. Though it’s quite nice being able to bark warning orders at my husband so he has to intervene with the annoying slash dangerous stuff – peeling paint off our bedroom windows and eating it, trying to top his battery up with my blackberry charger via his mouth, inspecting a fork a bit too closely ie actually touching his eye with it. The husband deserves a man of the match mention here, by the way. He has been a trouper. Each morning he gets all three of us dressed. Cooks in the evenings. Haemorrhages cash from his wallet to pay the cleaner, my taxi to London Bridge and back, etc. Really, it turns out I picked rather well. I feel pretty bad about that anniversary present.

The boy is delicious too. I know I go on about his hair, but it is especially great at the moment. It is totally his USP, that’s why I get in first with it. Because whenever I show someone a picture, they go “great hair”. Seeing as I can’t rough and tumble with him at the mo, I am trying harder to do some of that learning stuff. We’ve been trying ‘Logie, where’s your nose?’ but it usually only results in him replying with a beaming smile and doing the downward dog. Which is good enough for me.