Always back up your hard drive

This is the first sentence I have written on my new (well new to me) laptop, with a newly installed version of Word. It feels kind of alien, like putting on someone else’s jeans. The contour of someone else’s bum doesn’t quite fit mine but I have no choice because otherwise I’d be naked from the waist down.

I had total hard drive failure this week on my old netbook. I am desperately trying not to blame Son Two who dropped it immediately before it broke, as I’ve had a lot of “that was YOUR fault” from Son One lately and I don’t like it. Not blaming is easy when Son Two has broken Son One’s homemade “chocolate machine” not so easy when it’s a computer with your whole life on it. Luckily, thanks to great friends, I have been able to replace the computer and the software pretty easily. But the rest of it, a years worth of photographs, two years worth of writing and my entire life, well, it’s all gone and can’t be replaced. Ha, how ironic at a time when I was just getting over the feeling of losing everything, I go and actually lose everything. But even if I was a blaming sort, I would only have myself to scold, for not backing up my hard drive.

It never used to be like this. When I was growing up I had an electric typewriter the size of a block of flats that I would merrily clank away on. And an exercise book, covered in old wrapping paper, in which to record all my ramblings when I didn’t have a reinforced desk handy to hold the typewriter. Cameras were something you got out of the cupboard at special occasions, and you either had 24 or 36 pictures (depending on how flush you were feeling at the time of buying the film) available on your camera. The last photograph on the film (sometimes the last five) was always of your dad’s car or your mum’s sideboard, because you couldn’t wait to take the film down to Boots and get it developed. Finally the big day would arrive and you would hand over your little slip of paper and be rewarded with a bulging envelope filled with promise.

Some people would rip open the envelope before they’d even paid for them, they didn’t mind someone looking over their shoulder to get a glimpse of their holiday snaps while queuing to buy paracetemol and corn plasters. But I was more of a take it home, sit down and savour it kind of girl. The excitement involved in getting a film back from Boots was just like getting a birthday present with a big pink bow on it, the experience was one to be relished.

More often than not I was disappointed. The one photo of us six girls, heads locked together in friendship, all of us smiling happily on our way out for the best night of our lives, was always a wash out. Foundation tide marks exaggerated by the flash, eyes caught halfway between blinking and open, and my brother’s fingers popping up behind us unnoticed, making a V sign over someone’s head. At the time it was devastating, but it was a moment to remember and would go in the album despite its flaws.

These days we take hundreds, thousands of pictures even and we save them all on our computers. How many of us even have them printed anymore? I have (well, had) thousands and thousands of photographs saved on that computer, never printed because going through all of the rubbish (does whitening toothpaste really work?  - before and after pics, a photo of the funny lump on my back - taken for a closer look, and a million copies of the same pose, just trying to get one where everyone has their eyes open and is looking at the camera and smiling) was just too hard and too time consuming. Now there is no limit on the number of pictures we can take, we don’t have to ration them. And because of that the good stuff gets lost in the crap.

I am not sad about losing the close up pictures of my before and after White Glo experience, and I can do without the funny lump on my back which turned out to be my bra rubbing. But Son One opening his fifth birthday presents? And Son Two’s first hair cut? I would do anything to get them back. Take it from me, always, always back up your hard drive.

Breastfeeding while sitting on the loo

My lovely cousin has just given birth to her second baby, and I couldn’t be more delighted for her. So in her honour, I thought I would post this piece that I wrote a couple of years ago, soon after the birth of son number two. Congratulations Cous, welcome to the stress zone! xxx

“I’m exhausted. I have never been so busy or worked so hard in my entire life.”  I said to a friend with a three year old and a five year old, only weeks after my first child came along. “Ah yes it SEBASTIAN DON’T DO THAT feels like that now, but I SAID NO SEBASTIAN believe me, it’s nothing compared to having 2 of them, and FLEUR HAVE YOU DONE A POO?... it does get worse SEBASTIAN I WILL NOT TELL YOU AGAIN as they get older.” She said wearily, quickly swiping Fleur’s bum with a babywipe and replacing her nappy. I did not, could not, believe things could get any more hectic than they already were, even thought it was staring me in the face with it’s disjointed conversation and sleepless wild eyed look. I was up all night, I seemed to have my tits out every second of every day (I had already inadvertently greeted the postman on a couple of occasions with an errant boob, so natural had the feeling become at having them out in the open) and in the minutes that were left over I still had to do cooking, cleaning, and what seemed like enough washing for ten babies. If I wasn’t feeding I was constantly re-dressing a baby who just couldn’t seem to stay clean let alone keep myself looking presentable. And what was with having to do the same thing at the same time every day? I had never had to live by a routine before.

When baby number one arrives it is like a grenade has gone off. Everything changes. People warn you of sleepless nights but in your blissful ignorance you thought that meant you would sleep less, not have some nights that are literally void of sleep. You suddenly discover that you can even survive for days on no actual sleep at all (with the help of cake, at the cost of your figure). The sore boobs, non-stop crying (your own and your childs), sticky poo that won’t come off and more bodily fluids than you ever knew existed... nothing is the same as it was before.

With baby number two in the oven you think it will be easy. You know what to expect, haven’t slept for two years, your boobs are already tough as old leather and you know where to buy the best cakes (all hope of ever making your own again has now been fully eradicated). No grenade this time. But suddenly… KABOOM! Baby number two arrives and all hell breaks loose.

I don’t know how people did it in the days before Cbeebies, washing machines, freezers and the mountains of oh-so-helpful baby and child manuals which promise to have your baby sleeping through the night at two days old and your older child tucking into gourmet foods at every meal time.

Just getting in and out of the car with two kids is a twenty minute mission. The older and now slightly mischievous one runs ahead while you chase after awkwardly carrying the baby in the car seat. While you are concentrating on getting the baby strapped into the car, the older and supposedly more responsible child is actually jumping into a massive puddle, soaking himself up to his waist. As he is three years old you no longer carry a spare set of clothes for him (a rookie mistake, I am now intent on carrying a spare set of clothing for everyone in the family up to the age of eighteen, my changing bag is now a family sized suitcase). So you get baby out of car (while shouting at son number one), and take everyone back to the house for full clothing change. But it’s not as simple as that, because pants have to be removed, we also have to sit on the potty, during which time baby nods off in his car seat. Back to car, put big boy in first so he can’t get to puddle. In the meantime it starts raining and baby number two is awakened from his slumber because he is being soaked by the down pour (and according to aforesaid baby manual if this slumber is disturbed you will pay for it forever more).

After the second (and even more so third, fourth and fifth so I hear) child, “multi-tasking” takes on a whole new meaning. The three minutes spent on the toilet after your morning coffee ties in perfectly with a breastfeed that has to be done before taking older child to pre-school and putting baby down for sleep. You have to grab any chance you get to answer those calls of nature. I wish I had a pound for every time I have said “Right I will just get this washing put away and then I’ll have a wee” and never actually got round to the second step of that sentence. Because in the two minutes it would normally take you to put that washing away one child has insisted they help and another has dirtied his nappy. While changing baby’s nappy the older child - who is supposedly helping - has pressed all the buttons on the washing machine, starting the programme off again. By the time you have sorted out the washing machine, disciplined the older child (while being teeth grittingly grateful for his attempts to help) and dealt with the half changed baby (who has now peed all over himself and the sofa after being left nappy-less) over an hour has passed, your five minute window has gone and you’re late starting the bedtime routine. It’s not childbirth that weakens women’s bladders, it’s because we never have time for a wee that we’ve all got stress incontinence.

If you’re considering having (or even expecting) baby number two, please don’t let me put you off. I’m now almost three years down the line from having my second, and you do learn to accept that you will never have a wee in peace. The stereo cries of “mummymummymummymummymummy” are just like tinnitus, irritating but you learn to live with it. But the moment when you hear one child say to the other: “You’re my best friend. Let’s snuggle up together” you know that having the second was well worth the hassle.