Friends old and new

These are our lovely NCT friends, whom we met at ante natal classes. At the time we were heavily pregnant first time mothers with nervous husbands. Now look at us! Having that little group of friends, in the same part of London, all going through similar trials & joys of a little baby has been great. Me & Zoe miss them all and are jealous the babies are all going swimming together now without us (hello ladies & babies!!!).

As far as I know there is no similar organisation here in the US, nor are there facilities comparable to Sure Start centres. In Boston Isis Maternity is a company that has centres in and around the city that sell baby equipment and run classes and groups for expectant and new mothers. It seemed like the ideal place to meet some new Bostonian friends and babies of a similar age to Zoe, much like our NCT group.

On Tuesday we had our first "Next Steps" mom & baby class. At first I was a bit concerned as the course materials (!) were 38 pages long (!!), and included song lyrics for nursery rhymes I had never heard of. I was kind of hoping the sessions would pan out like an NCT meet up, which tends to involve a lot of coffee and moaning about in-laws. However, they seemed from the materials to focus on developmental milestones and doing perplexing activities with the babies like tripod sitting (?) and parallel play (??).

In fact, after some parachute play (which was actually AWESOME & Zoe just loved it) and some singing (or in my case miming), there was an introductory discussion about how our lives had changed after having our babies, what we enjoyed & found hard, and our experiences in general.

One thing that I found interesting/alarming was the US attitude to maternity leave and returning to work. Apparently it varies from state to state but, in short, if you get 3 months off you are extremely lucky (and don't imagine for a second you'll get paid for it either). In fact, many women go back to work after just 6 weeks. That's right, 6 weeks.

Now after 6 weeks I still had trouble getting up & down the stairs, let alone felt able to leave my tiny baby in daycare and go back to the office*. And you can throw in the fact that most mothers here breastfeed (nursing), which means they spend much of their free time whilst not caring for their baby, or indeed working, milking themselves so that their baby has enough to eat whilst they are out at work all day. I still find it hard to put it into words how I feel about that, suffice to say that the word BARBARISM springs to mind. The only alternative I guess is to quit your job, if you can afford to do so.

Anyway, I discovered the things that worry and charm new mums are universal and mainly centre around sleep (or lack thereof) and your baby's ability to hold their head up. Although now I understand why each meeting has to have a structure and a topic, because these girls cannot afford to waste time sitting around gossiping all day; they have to get back to work, breastpumps in hand like the superwomen they are!

In the UK we are lucky we have a bit more time to spend with our little treasures. I am lucky I have had the time to spend entire afternoons hanging out in cafes across north west London doing not a great deal other than making new friends and drinking an eyepopping amount of coffee. Hopefully now I will be doing a bit of that here in Boston too (albeit to a background of pumping).

*Although I suspect my boss would think this an excellent plan. ONLY JOKING THEO.

The family supermarket

It was pouring with rain today, again. Enough with the rain already! We had to take a taxi to the Prudential Center, and even then the taxi aquaplaned across Storrow Drive and the shopping mall was leaking in several places.

Whilst we were there I visited Shaw's supermarket, which I must say has now overtaken Whole Foods as my favourite supermarket. As well as having a tank full of unfortunate lobsters in the fish section, it also has a "foods of the world" department where exotic fare from around the globe is on offer. Check out the British & Irish section. Tempting, non?



Because, when you're away from home, OF COURSE all you want to eat is tinned treacle pudding, picallili and Ambrosia creamed rice?! I have never eaten any of these things in my entire life! Although I am very pleased to have found somewhere I can get Barry's Tea and so surprise Eamon with a taste of Ireland. And also pick up the odd lobster....

Everyone should have crabs

Poor Eamon had work to do this weekend, so he took his newest trainee into the office with him to help him with the proof reading. She received a mixed appraisal; whilst her attention to detail needs some work, her general demeanour and team work were highly praised.



Apart from Eamon & Zoe's important corporate activities, it has been a fairly quiet weekend, notable only for our discovery of a tremendous restaurant called the Barking Crab. This is a seafood shack in the Seaport District, just across the water from the Financial District. It has PLASTIC BUCKETS FULL OF SHELLFISH! JUGS OF BEER! THE KILLERS ON THE SOUNDSYSTEM! I imagine that at some baby-free point it will be an ideal place to get extremely drunk. It was the first time I have ever ordered a whole lobster in a restaurant; somehow it seems a very decadent thing to do (and there is a frisson when the bill comes and you discover that today's market rate for lobster is the GDP of a small central American republic).

Come back Michael Fish, all is forgiven

Don't let any New Englander give you a hard time about the British weather; the climate here in Boston is ridiculous. Since we have arrived we have experienced snow, torrential rain, baking sunshine and gale force winds. Yesterday I was strolling along Boylston Street in a t-shirt; this morning it was snowing and this afternoon the sun has come out! How do you get dressed for weather this schizophrenic? And more to the point, how do you dress a tiny baby with no ability to regulate her body temperature?

To compound the problem I have no idea how to work the air conditioning unit. Although the British weather is frequently shit, at least we have gas central heating for when it's cold and windows that open when it's hot. And don't even get me started on the 1950's style twintub washing machine.....

You cannot be serious

This Christmas I dressed a 6 week old Zoe as a reindeer. I got some stick for it, but it was only one day and she did look pretty cute. Some new mums just like to theme their babies. For example, today at baby yoga I saw a 10 week old dressed in striped legwarmers, tracksuit top, pretend hi-tops and a tiny sweatband around her teeny head. RESPECT.

Is motherhood a form of oppression?

Is motherhood a form of oppression? - Times Online

I thought this article was very interesting. Whilst I don't agree with everything that Badinter says, much of it makes sense to me. I might return to the Theory of Mothering Including Returing to Work and Breastfeeding debate another time, particularly in light of what I have seen of the maternity arrangements here in the US. But right now I need to get my a** in gear and get the day started!

Sunny Weekend

This weekend it has been kicking the ass of 75 degrees farenheit here in Boston. That's a good bit over 20 degrees in normal. That's quite a difference from the diluvian weather of last weekend. To honour the occasion we ditched the bulky footmuff from the buggy, Zoe donned her snappy new sunhat, and we hit the Esplanade.




The fat Americans of British imaginings do not really exist here in Boston. None of their food appears to contain any fat or real sugar, and when they aren't watching sport they are jogging, cycling or engaging in some form of physical activity (see the bonkers yoga bunnies below; sore was the temptation to sneak up on the one on the left and tip her off the pontoon). Those bloody runners in particular are always clogging the pavements of Charles Street, curse them, and on Saturday the banks of the Charles were heaving with them.




We managed to escape from the runners and get a bite to eat at a lovely little Italian cafe on Charles Street, opposite De Luca's market (apparently Martin Scorsese was once seen there squeezing Leonardo di Caprio's avocados).





You'll see in the picture above a t-shirt that Eamon bought in Old Navy last weekend. I guess he just liked the look of it and thought it made him look cool, but it actually turns out it's the University of Michigan logo. We found out because people kept coming up to him all day saying "Go Blue!" (not "F*** you!", as originally thought), assuming he was a Wolverine. Given how seriously Bostonians take their sport, and their quasi-religious devotion to their local teams, it's surprising he didn't get thrown into the Charles River for his treasonous dress-sense.

Today it has been just as sunny but slightly cooler. We went to the North End via Quincy Market and lunch at "Sam's Cafe", a truly horrendous homage to the sitcom Cheers located next to the Food Hall. We then followed the Freedom Trail back through the North End, stopping off at various landmarks entirely meaningless to European-educated folk, such as Paul Revere's House and the Old North Church. The North End is a very cool neighbourhood, full of Italian eateries and Irish pubs, so we'll have to go back and explore a bit more (perhaps less history next time & more eating at somewhere that doesn't have signed photos of Ted Danson on the wall).

The North End is also home to the TD Garden, the home of the legendary Boston Celtics and the slightly less legendary Boston Bruins.



Outside the ground were several t-shirt peddlers, although this time Eamon decided not to buy one, for fear of not knowing who he might be insulting by wearing one. Boston really is a town where they wear their hearts on their sleeves.