Sleeping, breathing and the pursuit of Starbucks....

DH assures me I’m ‘ready to calf’ which is culchy-speak for ‘childbirth is imminent’ and, bloodcurdling as that thought is, I’m just looking forward to a proper night's sleep.  My nights are currently a revolving door of bathroom-bed-bathroom-bed and my sleeping positions have been reduced to a choice of precisely one: the left side, since sleeping on my back feels like there is a baby seal crushing all my internal organs and sleeping on my right seems to bring about all the symptoms of a minor stroke.  And it's been several weeks since I've taken breathing for granted.

Yes, nature has cleverly conspired to ensure that the closing weeks of pregnancy are so utterly uncomfortable that the agonising and horrific ordeal ahead is seen as a blessed relief.

I am slightly concerned about giving birth here in the UAE though - just ordering a coffee can be trying at times - so the idea of trying to explain my wish for an epidural could prove to be challenging.  I have this reoccurring nightmare where I'm yelling for an epidural while a smiling Filipina nurse sing-songs ‘sorreee ma’am, it’s Ramadan, you can’t have any pain relief until the sun goes down’ like some demented character in a Stephen King novel.

I can’t help but feel that might actually happen.

At the very least I fully expect to be told the anaesthetist has left for the day and I'll have to wait until the next day, and do I want a Panadol...

I’m not making out that childbirth is always smooth going in Ireland either; I’ve had good and bad.  On the birth of boy-child number two I arrived at the hospital in the throes of labour to be told by the nurse that they had lost my records and did I mind answering a few questions.  So there I sat opposite a woman holding clipboard and pen as she went through my name, date of birth, address.....

-'When was your last period' she inquired.

-‘Seriously?' (clearly I have issues remembering this sort of detail at the best of times) '...ah nine months ago I reckon’ I sniggered....'OWWW!'

-‘But we need a date’ she insisted.  I hazarded a guess.

-‘Well, in that case you’re not due for another three weeks’ she said, ‘you’d best go home’.

Ten minutes later my waters broke and boy-child number two was with us within an hour; had I taken her advice I would have been in my living room in front of 'Who wants to be a millionaire' by the time I was at the point of pushing.

I’m due to attend a hospital in an area of Dubai optimistically called ‘Healthcare City’, which is basically a number of hospitals and clinics surrounding a parking lot.  

In the UAE, if they can give it a theme and grandly call it a ‘City’, they will.  We have ‘Academic city’ which is a college surrounded by sand as far as I can make out, ‘Motor City’ which is basically a car racing track (not sure why they need this...they have the roads don't they?) and here in RAK the 'RAK Media City' which is an office on a piece of wasteland outside the town which houses several people who have no idea what to do all day.

Mind you, the emirate of Umm al Quawain is called a city and I’ve seen towns in Mayo consisting of a sub-post office, pub and undertakers all-in-one which have more life in them.  But they like to think big here so it’s not so much what you see but what you will see in the future that inspires them when naming things.

But it’s Ramadan once again and that throws up the same challenges as it did for the last two years.  It’s not politically correct to be negative about Ramadan here since there is a certain quarter of expat who insist we stifle any grumbles or grouses about what are, in my view, the undeniable inconveniences associated with it. If you complain you are being, at best, ethnocentric and culturally ignorant, at worse committing a hate crime and are therefore a small-minded, bigoted-racist who should be escorted to the nearest border and never be allowed to return.  

It has been argued that 1.5 billion believers can’t be wrong, but then I have little faith in the wisdom of crowds: just look at some of the winners of Pop Idol.  Besides, I find Ramadan and it’s application a little too arbitrary for my liking.  A group of guys with beards study some lunar cycles and decide its Ramadan and suddenly, although you can still buy a Burger King meal at the mall,  you have to eat it in your car as sitting inside Burger King has over-night become as unthinkable as walking around with your knickers on your head.  And why is it you can’t  have a coffee in Starbucks but you can at the Hilton?  The only difference I see is the price, but then maybe that’s the point.

Also, if you must only fast during daylight hours, what’s to stop you going to the South Pole where you might only have one hour's daylight a day and doing your fast there?  Not much of a challenge is it, an episode of House and your done!

But we shall struggle on and make the most of it and next time I post there should be one more flight to pay for next time we decide to go on holiday.  Bring on the agony, I need a proper night's sleep!

Nesting, hoarding and why you should neglect your children...

So we’re into the home stretch thank goodness. And with the end in sight it is normal for the heavily pregnant female to resort to ‘nesting’, an instinctual phenomena characterised by sudden spurts of cleaning and organising of her habitat in preparation for the new arrival. This manifestation is an early indication that labour is imminent.

I have my own personally adapted version of this phenomenon. I call it ‘hoarding’ and it is characterised by the frantic buying of clothes that I can wear on the other side. I’ve been trawling the Boden sale all week filling my virtual trolly with gorgeous items that will hopefully goad me into actually fitting into them as soon as possible. 

And last week I made a special trip to the Dubai Outlet mall with the pretense of treating the children to an hours play in the creche.  In reality I was on a mission to buy something gorgeous in Monsoon. It was disappointing to be honest but I still managed to leave the store with a gorgeous silk top. After hugging it for a bit I reluctantly hung it in the wardrobe, label dangling forlornly, where it will have to stay for another couple of months.  But it's a comfort just knowing it’s there.

It’s irrational I know, but I am in horror of being that rounded, milky, new mother wearing shapeless squishy tops in a look that says ‘I don’t matter…I’m comitted 100% to being a new mother for the next 6 months and I have resigned myself to wearing ugly crimes of fashion until society tells me I can start thinking about my appearance again’.

I don’t want the whiff of victimhood around me and so instead go to great lengths to prove ‘I’m fine, I've only had a baby for goodness sake!'  Besides, I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that women in Vietnam give birth in paddy fields, then strap the baby to themselves and go back to work (I’m not strictly sure about this actually, but it sounds like something they might do).

I take it too far. On the birth of number 4, which coincided inconveniently with Christmas, I bumped into a friend in the Monsoon sale.  I was three days post-partum and looking wild-eyed and manic and ever so slightly deathly pale as I trawled through the party dress rack (my favourite) trying my best not to faint.

-‘Are you OK?’ she enquired, peering at my stomach ‘my god, you’ve had the baby….when?’

-‘Three days ago’ I whimpered.

-‘Good god woman, what on earth are you doing here?’

-‘It’s the Monsoon sale’ I protested weakly ’I couldn’t rest knowing it had started…I left the baby with dh’ I explained, beginning to feel I really ought to sit down.

I now see that I was probably a little over-enthusiastic in my pursuit of normalcy and should probably have cut myself a little slack. I shall try to be kinder to myself this time….although a dress from Monsoon is actually my idea of being kind to myself.

Anyhow, for now I shall confine my activities to amassing my post-partum wardrobe, both virtually and by shuffling around the mall like some oversized bag lady.  And nesting will continue to elude me since it exists in the realm of the unecessary when you have a maid service three times a week  ( I do live in the middle east after all where nobody does anything for themselves).

Free range kids

I was listening to that New York mother who wrote that book ‘Free Range Kids’ on the radio the other day and I have to say, I love what she’s doing.

Her theory is that our children are so over-protected that we are raising a generation who will grow up lacking the tools to actually take risks or think laterally or with imagination. Worse, we’re depriving them of a proper childhood while simultaneously making parenthood a hellish, guilty and anxt-ridden experience for ourselves.

The proponant of the theory, Lenore Skanazy, caused uproar when she wrote in her New York column of how she let her 9 year old son make his way home alone from Bloomingdales in New York city where they live. She gave him 20 dollars along with instructions as to how to get home, and then let him off to figure it out himself.

The response has been outrage by critics and parents alike, labelling her the worst mother in America among other equally hysterical names.  She does, thank god, have a large following and a blogsite where brave parents share their free range parenting stories, and has even highlighted a radical new movement 'the kids walk to school programe' which encourages children to (gasp) walk to school themselves!

Of course I support all this wholeheartedly, what she’s doing makes complete sense to my slummy mummy sensibilities and philosophy.

My nine year old daughter is smart, cynical and inciteful but I’m doing her no favours if I never allow her to walk to the mall without me. It’s a ten minute walk through a compound with security guards, across a road where a security guard is posted, and yet she’s never done it (and I shall tactfully side-step the whole issue of 45 degree heat being reason enough not to walk anywhere right now). This isn't because I object to her making that trip, but because she has no friends to go with her.

When I’ve mentioned to other mothers about allowing her to walk to the shops alone, I’ve been met with much head shaking and comments such as ‘Oh I wouldn’t take that risk’ which is precisely the problem. We know in all probability that nothing bad will happen, but as long as there is that doubt, and worse, the chance that if something DOES happen we, and everyone else around us, will point the accusative finger, we’re not going to take that chance. And so we keep them at home under our watchful eye or drive them to the mall ourselves.

But it starts earlier. Having coffee with someone who insists on checking to see what the kids are doing upstairs every 5 minutes is an exercise in frustration and futility. Trying to recapture the dying threads of a conversation every time she returns to the room, coffee long cold ‘what were we saying?' leaves me wanting to pour aforementioned coffee over her head and beg her never to call again. And inevitably these same mothers will have those kids that must interupt the conversation every three minutes to tell mummy something inciteful like ‘mummy, I know about the life-cycle of a frog…let me tell you’ (bugger off kid and tell someone who cares…I want to hear the end of this story).

Now when I was a kid, interupting an adults conversation was tantemount to self- inflicted infanticide (is there a word for that?)…you just didn’t do it.

I used to have a friend who would stop the conversation every time her three year old boy came running into the room crying hysterically (which was every two minutes).  Grabbing him in panic she'd urge him to ‘use your words darling…remember your words?…tell mummy what terrible thing happened’ as my three year old son would stand guility by, waiting for the inevitable and collective accusative glare once his latest offence had been revealed.  I wanted to yell at her -'LOOK, obviously my kid hit your kid...much like your kid hit my kid two minutes ago.  The difference is that my kid can't be bothered to tell me since he'll get zero reaction from me!! Now, can we move on???'

And there is a 1,000% more chance that the children will cover the wall in lipstick or felt tip pen than meet an horrific and untimely death if left to their own devices for 20 minutes unsupervised. When I was a kid we genuinely got involved in some very dangerous and dodgy things during the long summer days when we disapeared from the house at 9am, not returning till dusk when hunger called, but amazingly we lived to tell the tale.

I have a friend who phoned one lazy Sunday afternoon for a chat.

-‘What are you doing?’ She asked.

-‘Oh we’re watching a movie’ I replied.

-‘Oh,which one?’

-‘You know that one about the paedophile…Kevin Bacon..yeah that one’

-‘But where are the children?’ she enquired, voice filling with alarm.

-‘Playing….in and out of the garden…why?’

-‘You can’t mean you’re watching that with them there? Oh my god!!’

She was genuinely freaked out and as I hung up the phone I wondered was it really that terrible. They were too small to understand what the story was about, and it wasn’t as if he was actively paedophillic in the movie, so what was the problem? Besides, they weren’t even watching the movie!

Mind you, she is the type of mother who will sit in the back of the car with the baby when her husband is driving. My god, but what the hell is that about? When we were kids we stood in the back of the car, no doubt playing with sharp objects while mother smoked ten cigarettes in the front of the car with the windows closed!! Judging by todays standards, I’m amazed any of us made it to our teens.

With child-rearing, I strongly (and some would say conveniently) believe that a healthy neglect is vital if you wish to produce useful and resourceful members of society for the future.  Children that can't fight their own battles or amuse themselves for ten minutes without mummy getting down on the floor to help them finger paint won't be much use in a crisis.  Plus, it makes parenting a whole lot easier and cheaper if you can say 'go upstairs and make a tent kids' without having to buy the special tent-making kit from the Early Learning Centre or do anything more than supply the sheet.  Plus you get to finish a conversation and drink your coffee while it's still hot. 

Everyone's a winner.

Frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails........

'Are you sure you want to know?’ asked the German doctor as I stared up at the squirming, leaping form on the screen in front of me.

‘Yes, god yes please yes’ I begged, thinking pleasantly of the gorgeous pink, frilled things I’d spotted in Carter's baby shop the day before.

The four children sat silently wrestling each other in the corner, squashed into two armchairs, watching the show. Occasionally there would be a muffled giggle as someone would whisper ‘I see its butt!’

I started to daydream- ‘I’ll call her Delilah….or Jezebel’ I mused, ‘and she can share a bedroom with nine year old girl…it will be perfect….all pink and sage toile de jouey I think…’

‘I see a little penis’ said the German laconically, jolting me in to reality.

I fell silent for a moment, confused and disoriented. I had been absolutely certain this child was female, the pregnancy to date having been a carbon copy of my first.

‘Oh!’ I quickly adjusted myself, brightening, ‘lovely, another boy… hey! another brother kids!’

My daughter started to silently sob in the corner and the boys, unmoved by this news, continued to wrestle each other.

I love my sons. They are a joy; loving, gentle and devoted to me without agenda or complexity. But four!! It just feels a tad, well, excessive!

When I imagined motherhood as a young woman, I pictured myself with a gaggle of little girls, dressed up in pink tutus (me included) in a fairy tent with wands, wings and ballet slippers. We would wear matching fabrics from Joules and go for high tea with cream cakes and hot chocolate. They would fall in love with all the same books I adored as a little girl such as ‘Ballet shoes’ and ‘The twins at St. Clares' and would be fanatical about ballet and musical theatre.

Their bedroom would be a shrine to all things girly, decorated in a palette of pinks with white painted furniture and lace canopies.

To date we've had a bug theme, cowboy theme, superhero theme (several) and currently on general transport theme (cars, trains..that sort of thing). And my daughter isn't much better. Apparently at school the worst thing you can be is a girlie-girl so pink is OUT as is anything remotely feminine.

Oh I've been short changed, and that's for sure! DH, of course is in his element and revels in taking them to the cinema to see the latest Marvel blockbuster and regularly arrives home from work bearing the latest PS3 games 'for the kids' (this is a man so bad at gifts and surprises that on the day of my birthday every year, following months of heavy hints and blatant comments such as 'I want a pink laptop for my birthday', he'll phone me from the mall, on his lunch break, to ask 'so, what is it you wanted?')

So motherhood has given me the insider track on super heroes and action figures and well, boys in general. They're simple creatures, like their fully grown counterparts. And they play in a totally different way to girls - it can only be described as, well, autistic, and mainly involves playing with the same toy/stone/piece of plastic for hours on end, running it up walls and along floors with accompanying noises. It's bizarre but easily accommodated.

When I discovered my second child was to be a boy, I wondered how I could possibly love him. My daughter was so pink, perfect and delicious that I struggled with the idea of how I could love any other child, regardless of gender.

When he was born he was red, scrawny and yelling and I couldn’t help but recall the pink, plump calmness of my newly born daughter 20 months earlier as she lay staring up at me, wide-eyed and beautiful.

I think it's fair to say I went through a sort of crisis for his first few months, dressing him in her caste offs and generally not accepting that he was male. On many occasions I was asked ‘what is her name’ by passers-by as they stared down at the plump little boy dressed head to toe in pink.

But I adjusted and by the time boy-child number two arrived, I had realised how much easier these beings were to care for.

As boy-child number three was born I was honestly overjoyed at the appearance of yet another little man. He is loveable and delightful and to be honest, his gender is secondary to his gregarious personality.

But this time it just felt like it was time for another female, if for nothing else but to balance out all that testosterone at home.

But it must be said I am tired of this pregnancy at this stage, it's much too long particularly when you expand at such an alarming rate. The other day I was in a changing room trying on a dress which I wouldn't even glance at in peace time. As I wrestled the thing over my head, three-year-old, who was crammed into the booth with me, eyed my tummy and enquired 'are you going to upsplode mummy?' to which I replied gravely, 'Yes, darling, I rather think I am'.

Our showtime channels have been cancelled and we don’t know who to phone to get them back so we’ve been watching a lot of Oprah lately. Last night we watched open-mouthed at the story of the women in America who starved her four boys over the course of several years. It was heart-rending to watch how they suffered and I couldn’t help but wonder how you could possibly do that to your children. Obviously, nurturing instincts and basic decency aside, how on earth would you keep them quiet? I think its fair to say the only reason my children are fed regularly is because they start fighting when they’re hungry; particularly in the car.

My car is testament to this and can only be described as a rubbish tip. To open the door is to risk being buried under an avalanche of crisp wrappers and empty drinks cartons; DH, who pampers his car like a spinster pampers her cats, refuses to go anywhere near it. I'd like to take the advice of one of those nice parenting magazine which recommend colouring books and puzzles to keep the little'uns amused on a journey, but the reality is that drinks and snacks are the only way to stop them either jumping out of the moving vehicle or strangling each other on any given journey.

And its not just in the car. I use drinks and snacks as a pacifier for any number of eventualities whether I'm on the phone, typing an email, chatting with a friend or whatever it is, 'here, have this' is sure to make them go away and stop bothering me.


Customer service...again...

I know I’ve ranted about this on more than one occasion, but really I can’t not mention it. Again we went to buy school shoes for the children and again I requested that their feet be measured before trying on any shoes. Reasonable enough request considering the fact that children have an irritating tendency to get bigger.

However, the shop assistant, looking slightly put out at such an outrageous request, took my five year old over to the foot measuring thingie and placed his foot on the measuring board WITH HIS SHOE STILL ON!! I'll take a wild guess and say that the staff training at Centrepoint is confined to half a day's training on how to follow a customer around the shop in a most invasive and irritating manner without any training on how to actually assist.

That's shopping UAE style!

Lifestyle guru's have all the answers...

'Ooh ma'am you mustn't eat so much, you're too fat!' said the thoughtful  and sensitive Filipina behind the counter in 'Splash' after I had revealed that I was three months pregnant.  'You are so big!'

Quite. I knew this anyway, a glance in the mirror would've confirmed this assertion, but this comment left me in no doubt. This was further confirmed by the disasterous purchase of a 'pregnancy belt'.  For those who aren't in the know, these belts fit over your normal trousers, which can then be left unzipped, post-prandial style, and perfectly concealed beneath the belt.  The result should be a tailor-made type appearance as the trouser fit perfectly, all lumps and bumps hidden.

Unfortunately for me I never got to wear the belt as trying to get my favourite trousers up past my knees turned out to be more challenging than anticipated.

I’m only three months pregnant but within the space of 2 days I went from looking as if I'd eaten a rather substantial lunch to looking 5 months pregnant. Collecting the kids from school has become an exhausting affair of explanations and affirmations.

-‘yes, yes I am pregnant' I will smile.

-‘yep, yep, I know, where did that come from, ha ha?’ I chuckle.

Everywhere I go people are double-taking as I pass by. It’s not just the apparent sudden pregnancy, it’s the trail of four brawling children which adds to the head-shaking disbelief.

I often wonder at these women that we read about in classy publications such as ‘Chat’ and ‘Take a break’ who don’t know they’re pregnant until the baby appears on the bathroom floor. ‘I had no idea I was pregnant’ whines the headline above a photo of Destiny standing pasty-faced and disappointed  as she points to the floor of her bathroom.

Anyway, I promise myself and my readers that I won’t turn this blog into ‘secret diary of a dull pregnant woman who has nothing else to talk about but her dull pregnancy’. I don’t need to, Jules Oliver has already turned it into an art-form.

I’ve got nothing against Jules….after all she is expecting baby number four, so maximum respect to her; although having more than two children seems a tad less reckless when your husband is a multi-millionaire. Good luck to her, but please, no more pregnancy diaries… really, what is there to say other than ‘I feel sick, I miss lying on my stomach and I'm wearing something even my mother would think twice about’.


I must admit that some of these lifestyle books do appeal, despite the fact that everything in them is obvious and preachy. One of my current obsessions is the ‘Why French women don’t get fat’ series. For someone with as dysfunctional a relationship with food as I have, this approach makes a lot of sense to me. The idea that over-eating is encouraged by bulk-buying from hypermarkets is entirely logical. The French have known for decades that buying local, fresh and in-season produce is far better for you and leaves you less likely to binge.

I want to live in France...

I try to live by this principle but unfortunately the most enduring effect this has on my house is that there is never anything to eat in it. Fed up with dry crackers and 2 month old tangerines as a snack, my exasperated daughter the other day snapped ‘we’re NOT French mum, buy some food!’

It’s not meanness that keeps my cupboards bare, but like Oscar Wilde I can resist anything but temptation and so it's easier to leave all the fattening carb-ridden snacks on the supermarket shelves.

I used to take a much keener interest in cooking, but like many things (weekend lie-ins, pelvic floor muscles etc..) kids spoiled it for me. There's no bigger waste of time than spending a couple of hours cooking for your family only for them to rush in, eat in the space of 90 seconds and then disappear again leaving nothing but a food covered floor. And going to all that trouble for myself and DH just seems indulgent.

However, the other night, faced with the paltry offerings of the Showtime satellite network, myself and DH found ourselves watching 'The naked chef' on the telly. Of course, the first 20 minutes were spent guffawing and imitating Jamie's 'mockney' attempts at being a 'geezer'. However, we eventually fell silent as he started to work his genius on some pork chops and a roasted chicken. It was magic!

-'I'm hungry' complained DH, the beans on toast having obviously not been sufficient.

-'yeah, me too' I concurred.

I disappeared out the kitchen in search of snacks but all I could find were babybels 'lite' and some withered baby carrot batons.

I went to bed hungry but inspired and the next day found myself in Spinney's buying all the necessary ingredients for a pork chop taste sensation!

The chops (purchases from the special pork/satans-flesh counter in the supermarket) turned out OK.  DH, overjoyed at such a treat,  lavished praise every three bites, clearly hoping this might become a new feature in his life (For the record, it lasted precisely two nights).

One 'lifestyle' author I've always steered well clear of is Gina Ford, the child-rearing guru and author of 'the contented baby'. Her methods have always left me feeling cold as she's famous for coining the phrase 'controlled crying', which basically means ignoring your baby when it cries but feeling you're being a good parent by doing so! 

Leaving your baby to cry is the devils work...

Besides, the idea of leaving your baby to cry in a controlled manner on the advice of a woman with no children has always sounded slightly oxymoronic to me!  It's like taking dieting advice from an obese woman, or having your hair coloured by a blind person!   Besides, how can a four month old baby possibly understand that you're leaving it to cry for it's own good and to avoid issues in later life?  If anything I would have thought it would have completely the opposite effect.  Abandonment issues.....anyone?

I realise my child-rearing methods, while highly effective as babies, will probably leave all four children seeing shrinks by the time they're 25, but at least I have children so I've earned my opinion, and I've NEVER left a small defenseless baby to cry in some misguided attempt at asserting authority early on.

I wonder what Ms Ford would have made of them the other day at my daughters school play... For once I had roped DH into coming along, which I knew would make my life much easier in the sense that two threats are better than one. As the play started we waited for my daughters grand entrance. Twenty minutes in no sign of her, 30 minutes, still in the wings. Forty minutes and nothing... in fact my daughter didn't appear until the very last scene (she had cleverly opted not to tell me this or I wouldn't have shown up until the last ten minutes).

It's not that I dislike school plays, I accept they are part of the parenting contract and are to be endured, but bringing small children along to these events inevitably create problems..

-'I see your bum bum' pipes up three year old.

-Shhhhhhhhh! 

-'I see your big bum bum' replies five year old.

-'I wanna sit on the step!' demands three year old.

-'No, sit down and be quiet' I hiss.

-'I wanna', he whines.

-'So do I' lisps five year old.

-'No, now both sit down and I'll give you a treat after wards if you're good' I bargain.

-'Can we go to the toy shop and get a Sonic toy?' asks five year old.

-'Yes, yes, later on... just please be quiet, people are looking at us' I beg,  feeling eyes boring into the back of my head.


-'But I wanna sit on the step with the kids' lisps five year old again.

-'Yeah...pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease??' they both beg.

-'Oh go on then'  I give in.

Off they toddled to the steps in the middle of the auditorium where several other smaller siblings were watching.  Of course this just made it worse because now they were out of my reach and I could no longer whisper death threats into their ears.

-'I see your willy' I hear from the steps.

-'You big bum bum' (this has pretty much been their entire repertoire for the past couple of years).

-'That mans an idiot!!'

-'Stupid idiot!'


The man closest to three year old was clearly growing more and more vexed with them...throwing furious glances at them every couple of minutes.

Since they were no longer near me I tried to pretend I didn't know who they were.

Finally nine year old daughter appeared on the stage (without her costume...she was supposed to be a fisherman but had left her costume in the art room and so was wearing a pink summer dress).

Three year old, overjoyed at her sudden appearance yelled her name at the top of his voice. The entire audience turned to look at him. So he did it again.

Luckily the play was almost over so we could escape. On the way out several parents thanked me for the side show entertainment, several threw withering looks. Well, you can't please all the people all of the time, and who knows, had I left them alone and crying as babies they might have sat quietly at my side throughout the performance.  Somehow I doubt it.

The link between fertility and abbattoirs....

I knew something was up when I got my clothes back from the laundry and there was a newborn baby outfit among them.  

A few weeks later I bought something in the chemist and the assistant threw a dozen baby’s bibs into the bag for free.  

From that moment on I knew my days were numbered and that Demeter, the Greek goddess of fertility would claim me sooner or later.

Yes dear reader, this mother of four is soon to become a mother of five.

Coming from a long line of very fertile women (my sister has 8 children), fertility for me is not so much a blessing as an affliction.  I realise this isn't a popular statement to make, coming from a generation of women who were told that they had choices, one of which was to postpone childbirth until their thirties only to find that nature had played a cruel trick, that the thirty-something doesn't conceive as easily as the twenty-something.  My heart goes out to women who struggle to conceive; it is frustrating, disheartening and utterly unfair.

However, there is a flip side to this which can be equally frustrating when a careless night out with too much champagne results in something a tad more permanent than a hangover!

So, here I am with baby number five in waiting.  After the initial few days of pure, knee-buckling shock, I’m starting to adjust to my fate.  Of course that’s providing it’s a girl.  Our catalogue can just about accommodate another female in the house.  A boy, on the other hand,  is totally out of the question and should I discover another male is on the way I'll be on the phone to Madonna quicker than you can say 'forget Malawi'.

I love that scene at the end of the movie,  ‘The story of us’, when Michelle Pfeifer and Bruce Willis decide, after a separation, to give their marriage another go; cue a series of touching flashbacks tracing their lives together.  It goes something like this-

Bruce (obviously wearing wig) meets Michelle in college; Bruce proposes to Michelle; fun scene painting their first house, together;  Michelle tells Bruce she’s pregnant;  birth of baby;  Michelle tells Bruce she’s pregnant again; another birth of baby; child comes into their bedroom and lisps ‘I’ve got chicken pots’ etc etc…

You get the idea.  The scene is accompanied by a swelling classical guitar piece and I sob everytime I see it, over-sentimentalising my history with DH.  

Unfortunately, my truth is rather less touching.  If I were to run a series of clips of DH’s reaction every time I announced there was another baby on the way, it would go something like this;-

2000       Me: ‘I’m pregnant’

   DH: 'Oh shit’

2002      Me: ‘Guess what.... I’m pregnant’

  DH: ‘Serious? Oh jaysus....'

2004      Me: ‘I’m pregnant again’

  DH: ‘Again?  Hahahaha....Ah for f*cks sake…serious? Ah shit!’

2006      Me: ‘I can’t believe it, I’m pregnant again’

  DH: ‘Ah jeez…no way….no way….ah shit’

2010      Me: (this time) ‘(sob) Oh my god, I’m pregnant’

  DH: Oh god, ah well, another one won't make any difference at this stage.......

This last response was uncharacteristically semi-positive since I was so distraught he was obliged to take the opposing viewpoint.

I don't mean to be hard on DH, he loves each and every one of them passionately, but I can't help but think that given the choice he'd much rather it was just the two of us again.  I think every man would admit to this if pushed on the subject.

The children’s responses have been varied.  Eight year old girl is very much looking forward to finally having a sister (I know, I know....I'll deal with that one later on). 

Seven year old boy wants to know if we can call it ‘Sonic’.  I said I’d think about it.

Five year old boy wants to know if it will be born with a sword.  I said I rather hope it won’t.

Three year old boy lifted up my top and said ‘is there a baby in your boobies mummy?’ (which given the impressive increase in size is a fair comment actually)

There are the positives of course.  Overnight I've become a one-woman detox-unit as the mere thought of alcohol makes me want to lie face down on a cool tiled floor and wait for the nausea to pass.  And as  DH indulges in his nightly tipple, I look on with contempt, pitying his pathetic enslavement to the bottle (I know from past experience that this aversion will last until exactly one minute after delivery whereupon I shall be yelling for the Champagne).

However, the negatives are several.  The sure knowledge that my girth will increase, regardless of what I eat or how many times I do sit-ups, is a soul-destroying surety.  And my criteria for a passable outfit will dwindle to what I can wrestle myself into, as opposed to whether it is attractive, suitable or appropriate.  During my first pregnancy, in my wisdom I decided to eschew maternity wear, reasoning that I would only be pregnant once and so it would be a waste of money anyhow.  A glowing example of false economy if ever there was one.

But the biggest issue for me is the impending childbirth itself.  An event as inevitable as death and as unavoidable as a photo of Posh in a copy of 'OK magazine'.  No matter which way you look at it, there is only one obstacle between my unborn child and this earth, and that is a hard truth to live with.

I'm not particularly squeamish, I rarely visit the doctor and consider myself fairly robust.  However, childbirth for me is akin to a slow, sadistic execution.  The best comparison I can come up with is that scene at the end of Braveheart when Mel Gibson is drawn and quartered in front of a baying crowd.  It's like that, but worse.  

And I know its a cliche, but I truly believe that were men to give birth the population would dwindle to a few hundred, half of whom would be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

And a tour of the delivery suite is as tempting as a guided tour of an abattoir.  I am not fooled by the plastic pot plants and peach walls, those places are barbaric.

As I approach the three month mark, I'm busy letting people know of my condition lest they think I've merely let myself go and can't be bothered to hold in my stomach.  Of course it's all downhill from now on but I shall sit tight, exploit the rare love being shown to my liver, and enjoy the ride. 

Planes and ageing brains

I've had bloggers block.  I think my brain atrophied and died slightly over the festive season from the massive consumption of alcoholic beverages I consumed.  It's not my fault; Ireland was so cold that anything more ambitious than sitting in front of the fire in a pub drinking hot whiskeys seemed sheer madness. 

My brain was further destroyed by the return trip from hell which featured an ill-advised stopover in Istanbul, something which I quickly told myself would be an experience when I saw the cost of the flights (half that of a direct flight).  The reality was something similar to childbirth in terms of the cyclical agony as the children ran the wrong way down the travelator in the departure lounge, over and over and over...

Predictably our plane was delayed,  and so as everyone gathered around the departures screen anxiously scanning it for updates, we started pushing our way to the priority boarding point to avail of our right to board first since we suffered the tragic affliction of 4 very lively children.  As the children, now thoroughly bored, rolled around on the floor, stopping occasionally to thump each other, a kindly greying gent approached my very cute three year old and patted him on the head 'go away athh hooole' he lisped, as the entire group looked on, furiously hoping they wouldn't be seated beside us.  Blushing I ushered three year old away but what can you say to that?  Like I said, childbirth.  Without the epidural.

The flight itself wasn't too bad, although a wriggling three year old wouldn't be my travelling companion of choice, not least because of his insistence on repeatedly flipping the table on the back of the seat in front of him up and down.  After the 89th time it just gets old and one grows tired of apologising to the person in front.  This tedium was only relieved by the appearance of a 'gift' from the airline to all the children on the flight.  This gift featured a plastic bag containing a mini Turkish Airways plane with stickers and an inflatable Turkish Airways plane.  The boys fell on these gifts enthusiastically although I had to clamp my hand over 5 year old boys mouth as he held up the inflatable plane and announced, loudly-

'mummy, I know how to blow up this plane!'

But age does take its toll on mind and body and I find myself becoming increasingly desperate to stop this slow march toward inevitable decrepitude and a slow painful death.

Obviously the only way to deal with this decline is through a healthy diet, no alcohol, lots of exercise and positive thinking.  Personally I prefer over-priced miracle creams and moisturisers.   Although I must admit to being quite baffled by the huge variety of creams on the market.  What happens if you use a 'night cream' during the day for example?  Or 'hand cream' on your face? (I do both regularly)

And what are the seven signs of ageing?    They never tell you in the ads.  Could it be memory loss..(.lost keys, anyone)?  Or perhaps difficulty in straightening up when you stand up too quickly?  Maybe it's feeling invisible to the opposite sex (although the obvious formula to that is move to the Middle East where any woman, ugly or not, will most definitely be stared at with a curiosity usually adopted by your dentist or gynaecologist)?  Perhaps it's a gradual depression which descends slowly as it dawns on you that all your dreams have been unrealised and your life has been ultimately empty?  Or maybe it's wearing nylon-elastic-waisted pleated-skirts thus becoming an embarrassment to your family... or stress incontinence.  I could go on...

Another nuisance with the whole ageing process is the inability to drink more than half a bottle of wine without suffering from a hangover the next day.  I'm beginning to gravitate towards the whole never drinking again thing, as it seems the only sensible solution to these lost days spent quietly dying on the sofa.  Although, on the last day of our trip, we met with one of my oldest friends for a drink in our hotel.  I looked forward to a few swift ones while catching up.

During our hey day we shared a flat and my god could she drink.  Her favourite tipple for getting drunk was a pint of Smithwicks with a shot of whiskey thrown in to it.  She used to regularly fall into bed with a half eaten takeaway and a bottle of whiskey surrounded by dog ends and debris.  And vomiting in the street was no foreign country to her.  A sort of walking-talking real life version of Tracy Emmins 'unmade bed'.  She always made me feel pure and wholesome by comparison by virtue of the fact that she was so god damn unhealthy.  However,  to my dismay on this occasion she swept into the bar looking radiant with health and ordered a mineral water as myself and DH looked on open mouthed.

-'Don't you want a real drink?' I asked.

-'God no, I'm not drinking' she replied.  'Nobody I know drinks any more'

-'Really? Whoops!'  I gestured toward my half empty glass.

-'No' she continued, ’all my friends talk about now is running.  And community gardening, don't you know we're too old for this, have to start thinking about our health'

This was news to me.  Suddenly myself and DH felt as outdated and anachronistic as a pair of old drunks sitting at the back of the pub droning on about the 'good ol' days'.

DH got up to go to the bar and made a sly 'drink?' gesture as he passed.  I nodded guiltily.  But hey, it was the last day of our hols, we felt entitled, didn't we?

'I don't know how you do it to be honest, with four kids and all, since the baby I just can't keep awake long enough to drink' she observed.

She's not alone in these observations, practically everyone I know says the same.  Which makes me wonder if I'm hanging on by my broken fingernails to a youth which has passed.  Is it, in fact, time to hang up my dancing shoes, throw out the Chablis, and settle down to the task of being a grown up? 


Perhaps it is, but I resist with every fibre of my being and bristle at the 'I don't know how you...' speeches I so frequently encounter.

Here's my top 6 most hated 'I don't know how you's....'

-I don't know how you manage to read books, what with four kids and all  (why, did they remove my brain in the delivery room along with the child?)

-I don't know how you manage to email me regularly, I'm just soooo busy with my pregnancy/one child/school run' (I suspect there's time for Oprah and Dr. Phil)

-I don't know how you manage to go to classes and learn new things all the time (currently piano..and why do you have to stop learning new things after you leave school?  Assuming you live for 80 years, and you finished school at 18, that reasoning makes the assumption that you've learned everything you need to know in less than the first quarter of your life.  That's illogical )

-I don't know how you manage to go shopping and buy actual clothes (well frankly neither do I considering what's available in the shops these days, but you know, Boden DO deliver to the Middle East)

-I don't know how you can still go out to dinner, get drunk and end up in a night club (very occasionally, but still nice to bop around a dance floor believing I am THE disco queen)

-And my favourite 'I don't know how you can type at the computer with all those little ones pulling at the keyboard'  (err, well, I made a pact with the children from the start, 'I do what I'm doing, you do what you're doing' and never the twain unless they need feeding, changing, comforting....the result, quite independent and creative children who do not rely on me to entertain them...oh, and a huge amount of telly helps)

Anyway, as I recently pointed out to a friend after the 'I don't know how you do it ...' speech, 'I don't know what else I'm supposed to be doing'.  And that, dear reader, is the truth.

So anyway, it's a new year, new opportunities and lots of drama ahead methinks.  But that's for next time...

Notes from Dubai; love Karama , hate the metro...

Deep in old Dubai, across from Za'abeel park and far from the shining spires and glistening domes of Jumeirah, lies the crumbling and malodorous district of Karama.

But don't be put off by the smells and the broken pavements, because deep in the heart of this district lies an Aladdin's cave of decadence and desire; a cornucopia of treasures.  In short, a one-stop area of knock-off shops selling -- specifically -- replica designer handbags.

 I love handbags. And designer bags are even more loveable...

I'm not acquainted with the copyright laws here in the UAE, but I'm pretty sure there aren't any.  I know this because the Fairy liquid I bought recently only lasted a week.  And the Ben 10 figures purchased the other day -- so beloved by my three boys -- cost ten times more in Ireland.  'Ireland is a rip-off, look how cheap these are here' I told DH, until they fell apart and the paint peeled off.

However, when it comes to creating perfectly replicated handbags, boy do they know how to do it!

Last week I announced to DH that I urgently needed to visit Dubai to do some Christmas shopping (a sentence which just doesn't sound quite right when you're wearing flip flops and a pair of shorts);  I would be taking the credit card and would be back later.  DH, who was spending the weekend laying a lawn in the back garden, nodded and said 'well, who are you taking with you?'.

Oh I hate that question.

There is an unwritten rule that DH cannot, at any point, EVER, be left alone with four of them.  'OK, since you're laying the lawn, I'll take 5 year old boy (super annoying and sure to run on the new grass every 2 minutes) and 8 year old girl, (who becomes impossible when bored)'.

And so, our little trio headed off to Karama.  The mission was to buy Christmas presents for family and an early birthday present for myself.

The first shop we entered stocked an impressive selection of Mulberry, Juicy couture, Balenciaga and plenty more.  'We have more in the flat...you wanna come up and see?' invited the hirsute salesman with a lascivious smile. 'Err, no thanks, not today' I muttered as I beat a hasty retreat to the door.

The next shop was equally seductive.   The young, hip Lebanese salesman urged: 'you must come upstairs Miss, there is so much more...come, come..'  Swayed, I herded the children up the narrow staircase into a room with a ceiling so low I couldn't quite stand upright.

-'Oh coooool!' yelled five year old boy as he started rolling around and climbing into various alcoves and cubby-holes.

Before us were wave upon wave of beautifully made bags. 'Ooh I feel like Alice in Wonderland'  I giggled, to which a disembodied English voice replied, 'you haven't seen half of it yet'.  Rounding a corner into a corridor, I viewed the source of the comment - a middle aged gentleman with his wife, kneeling before a rack of Burberry goodies. 

At the end of this corridor was another door so small we were obliged to crouch to get through it.  In this room were more bags, wallets, suitcases.  'Come, come' urged the salesman as he disappeared -- white rabbit like -- through what can only be described as a trap door.  Tugging at my short skirt and wishing vehemently that I had worn trousers I grumbled 'this is ridiculous, what if there is a fire' as I clambered through the hole.   As I emerged into the room, I was silent for a second.

I was in handbag nirvana.

This room held the creme de la creme of handbags.  Mulberry, Mui Mui, Dolce & Gabbanna, Hermes, Chanel oh I could go on.  The Birkins were sublime; leather inside and out in a stunning array of colours.  Each bag was beautifully made, with perfectly replicated zips, fasteners, interiors and all (with some clever haggling) for not much more than the cost of a cheap, plastic copy from Next.

I was in handbag overload and needed air.  'Lets get out of here kids,' I panted -- my head reeling -- as we headed back through the labyrinthian path to the main shop.

I don't like choice.  Give me a choice out of two and I will dither for days  (I once had to choose between two boyfriends -- it took weeks of to-ing and fro-ing before I reached a decision).  But given the thousands of bags on offer my mind was in a spin; I was living in a Paris Hilton type hell.

-'I can't decide!!!' 

We went into every single shop along the parade until we stood, empty armed, outside the final shop. 'We have to get something in here!' I instructed the 8-year-old-girl. 'Make me buy something!!'

Feeling like Brangelina in an orphanage, I randomly plucked out half a dozen Juicy Couture bags for my nieces, before dithering before the Mulberry section for my own purchase.  'Red or green, red or green....'  I took the green bag over to the check out.

Juicy 

-'NO RED!' I yelped and quickly swapped them.

-'NO BOTH!...I'll give one to my sister in law!'  I grabbed back the green.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I handed over my credit card as if I were offering my wrists to be handcuffed, with the instruction, 'Just do it!' 

Mulberry 

We left Karama satiated and several hundred dirhams lighter, but oh what a place.  I am counting the hours until I can go and collect a little darling with my name on it...a pink leather Mulberry laptop case......Karama, I love you.

And the Metro...don't bother           

Returning to Dubai, we decided to follow the advice of 'Time out kids' and take the children on a memorable, magical and yet educational trip on the brand new shiny Dubai metro.

We boarded at the Mall of Emirates station, looking forward to a comfortable and spectacular journey through this amazing and burgeoning city.

It became quickly apparent that there weren't any seats available which meant we were obliged to stand in the central area, hanging on to various poles.  The almost-three-year-old disappeared into the crowd almost immediately, hotly pursued by DH.

Five-year-old-boy took one look at the man beside us and asked at the top of his voice 'why does that man look like a girl?' then threw himself to the ground and began snaking himself around the poles and fellow passengers legs yelling 'I'm Doctor Octopuss'.  Eight-year-old-girl whined 'this is rubbish, why couldn't we stay in the mall?' and seven-year-old-boy, anxious at the best of times, fretted that 'we should really go home now' as I was thrown violently against the door by the movement of the carriage.

DH reappeared with almost-three-year old, who began delightedly smacking an alarm button beside the doors.  A ticket inspector appeared and warned us 'don't let him do that ma'am, there is a fine of 2,000 dirham's'.  Myself and DH eyed each other and silently agreed that this wasn't quite what we'd had in mind and it was time to call it a day.

Silently we filed off the carriage at the first station available and made our way to the opposite platform where the return metro was waiting.

-'No sir, this is for women and children only' warned the guard as DH boarded the carriage.

-'What?? Are you kidding me?  Try and stop me' he blasted as he elbowed past the guard.  Inside another guard blocked the way.

-'Sir, this carriage is for women and children only...you may go on the next carriage down'

Defeated we stepped back onto the platform and boarded back onto the neighbouring carriage.  Arriving back at the mall some minutes later, we all heaved a sigh of relief.

Is it just us?  What made me think this would be fun?  Flying on a plane, where there is a telly and a guaranteed seat, is hell on earth, so why on earth would this be better?  Blast Time out kids and their sinister suggestions for a fun day out.  But a day in Karama....now that's a different story...