Good day, bad day

Until becoming a mother I never had strong feelings about days of the week. But recently I noticed that I love Saturdays. It is one day of the week that Clive can spend entirely with us. Instead of gobbling down the usual small bowl of cereal with yoghurt I can relax and prolong the breakfast experience by also having full English breakfast with eggs, bacon, sausages and toast (usually cooked by Clive) and two cups of tea, since I know that there is someone else to pick up Cat from the swing-chair or play-gym when she gets bored. And we always plan to do something fun together during the day. Three weeks ago we visited Debi & Mark for lunch and almost ended up staying for dinner as it was extremely difficult to leave their cosy flat and interesting adult conversation. Two weeks ago we travelled to the Canary Warf to have very late (by my awake at 5-6 am current standards) breakfast with Margo & Rob. I was totally impressed by Rob’s fantastic breakfast, which among lots of other things included fried aubergine (eggplant). I love aubergines & if a restaurant menu has a dish with it you can be sure I’ll order it. Besides for the first time in my life I got to try pouched eggs. Yes, it is true I never had pouched egg before – Clive struggled to believe me. And last Saturday we had our first barbeque of 2007. It coincided with St Patrick’s day, so Cat got to admire Guinness beer cans – the girl has taste. I love BBQs – I think they promote relaxed atmosphere and it is so effortless to cook enough food for everyone and to have plenty of leftovers.

On the other hand I learned to dislike Mondays. Lately every Monday I notice myself having to quash the irrational irritation and the stubborn rebellion against the small things. During the two short weekend days I don’t exactly loose all my new ‘mother’ skills of peeling banana with one hand, of figuring out Cat’s needs, of keeping her entertained for 2-3 hour stretches (I have to confess that I count breastfeeding and nappy changing as part of my amusing-awake-baby repertoire), of getting her to nap in her cot twice (I usually give up the struggle* in the late afternoon and let her have her third nap in the sling), of getting us outside between her naps, of getting my own things done around her schedule and moods, etc. But somehow I get used to having a choice of passing the baby to someone else, of when and what to do with her or by myself for myself, and I also forget how tiring and difficult the whole day of easy babycaring tasks can be. In the last year or two I accepted that I always rebel against new before accepting it, however I didn’t think that I’ll have to do it on the weekly bases. Understanding the problem is part of solving it and therefore by mid/end of Monday I get back to my “work” mood of: Cat and I had good 15 minutes, an hour, a day and if we didn’t, well there is going to be next stretch of 15 minutes, another hour, next day to try to achieve mutual contentment.

* She actually napped reasonably well in her cot all three times today, so I feel a bit bad about calling it a struggle. My excuse is that last week I really struggled to get her to sleep during the day, but I think I’ll leave that for another post.