Foot

Dad gets to grips with his son

I am proud to introduce you to the newest member of our family.

Finn made his debut in the world on 5 January via my stomach, successfully evading a scalpel, suction hose and over-enthusiastic anesthesiologist.

Finn at roughly three hours old

Despite watching the ‘Mutant Babies’ DVD, I wasn’t prepared for the dubious first impression. Fin looked a bit like E.T. mated with a frog. In my defense, it didn’t help that he was blue and covered in goo. Judging by his outraged roars, Finn was equally unimpressed with us.

During the months he spent camped out in my uterus, I had formed an impression of what my child would be like. Finn was completely different; yet within 24 hours I couldn’t imagine any alternative to his reality.

Bugaboo

Finn at two days old, dressed in driving gears for his first car-trip

I always thought Andrew’s genes would spank mine into submission and I was right. Finn has huge, dark blue eyes which I’m pretty sure will eventually be brown; fat little cheeks; and a wide mouth. I’m also grateful he inherited Andrew’s nose, rather than my prominent proboscis. However, since he wees and/or poops on me during every change, all indications suggest he has his mother’s sense of humour.

He also takes after his father in temperament. So far, Finn has been a total joy – placid and laid-back. Some people have been kind enough to suggest this is due to my parenting skills, but since said skills are largely limited to not getting his head stuck in drains, I’m pretty sure it’s mostly his personality.

He also smells delicious.

The last few weeks have been a blur, time blending into itself. I couldn’t tell you whether it’s morning or evening, and I have – at best – a one in seven chance of identifying what day of the week it is.

I’m not sure how someone who weighs less than 3kg and sleeps so much has had such a profound effect on our lives, yet everything has changed utterly. The other day I was straightening my hair and thought, “What is the point of this? I mean . . . just . . . WHAT is the POINT?” (The self-doubt may have been due to doing my hair while loading the washing machine between spoonfuls of muesli.)

Also, I can’t believe how much laundry Finn generates. I normally run a load during the red-eye feed at 03:00hrs.

But mainly, I love my son with a ferocity and compulsion to hold him safe, for which I was completely unprepared. I would totally kill for my child if serving double-life for manslaughter weren’t ultimately detrimental to his upbringing. My feelings are so intense I am often required to under-compensate with lame jokes like how I previously thought it impossible to love somebody with a hairline that started at his eyebrows.

I’m delighted motherhood has added new depths to my shallowness.

Although the first couple of weeks have been fairly brutal, I can honestly say I’ve cherished every moment.

Well.

Most moments.

Not so much the time, early in the morning, when Finn cried and in my sleep-deprived state I thought Andrew had picked him up and handed him to me but I couldn’t find him. Andrew woke me as I plucked desperately at the bedclothes, wailing “MY BABY! MY BABY! WHERE’S MY BAAABYYY?”

There are also plenty of occasions I’m in tears, usually after I’ve been mean to my mum (who’s doing a first-class job keeping house) or because I’m exhausted. But mainly when I look down at my son and cry because I am so incredibly, unbelievably fortunate and lucky enough to know it.

Little frog

Just before we set off for Christchurch to collect the parents, Husband broke the vacuum cleaner when he threw it down the stairs (he said he didn’t mean to, but I’m not sure what outcome he expected from balancing it on a top step and then tugging vigorously on the power cord. Alternatively, he has yet to master the concept of gravity). I put in an emergency call and Her Goatiness hoovered the place while we were gone. I suspect she might also have mopped the bathroom floor.

We borrowed The Outlaws’ Audi Q8 for the trip to Christchurch (Her Goatiness cleaned and washed the car before we picked it up).

(My mother in law makes it REALLY difficult to bitch about her.)

The previous week, I’d bought two foam mattresses on Trademe for collection in Christchurch.

“Niamhie, how are we going to fit your parents’ luggage in the car along with two foam mattresses?” asked Andrew.

“They’re FOAM!” I explained. “Bendy. We can FOLD them. Wedge the bags on top.”

However, when Andrew maneuvered the mattresses into the boot of the car, I couldn’t see out the rear view mirror.

Unfortunately – shortly after the mattress purchase – I’d also bought a baby change table.

“It’s a big car!” I said. “Huge! You’re telling me we can’t fit two single extremely bendy foam mattresses, a change table, my parents’ bags, their golf clubs, a box of baby stuff and my parents in the boot?”

“Pretty much.”

“We could bring the trailer-”

“No.”

“Well, on your head be it.”

I can’t believe he let me win the argument with such a cliché. I don’t even know what it MEANS – or, for that matter, what Andrew’s head has to do with arranging foam.

I’d been looking for a Childcare brand change table on Trademe for some time. The starting bid was only $10; however, the auction closed two days after our trip to Christchurch so I opted to buy now at $40 after checking we could pick it up on the Monday.

There was a box of crap on the doorstep of the given address and a decapitated garden gnome in the entranceway corner. When the trader opened the door, I had to fight an overwhelming urge to bolt back to the car screaming, “CONTAMINATED ZONE!” and seal all the doors.

Really, I should learn to trust my intuition.

The house was littered with junk: overturned chairs, broken speakers, shredded boxes of Special K, dead animals. Well, I didn’t see any carcasses, but I wouldn’t have been AT ALL SURPRISED.

The trader was a young woman who was perfectly pleasant and indeed, I thought, rather lovely – apart from exhibiting a gigantic gaping gulch of committed bum crack. She was also wearing a sinister woolen beanie that failed to conceal the fact that her hair needed an urgent appointment with a bottle of shampoo – or a sodium hydroxide based cleaning agent.

Then she brought out the change table.

She excavated it from under an unidentifiable swatch of crusty material and other assorted landfill.

It was absolutely, unbelievably, skin-clawingly filthy. I mean, it couldn’t have been any dirtier had it been stored in a bat cave and Philip Roth wrote a novel about it.

This was probably when I should have made some socially acceptable excuse e.g. “Sorry, I didn’t realize it was made of, er, plastic”, instead of the truth i.e. “I can’t- it’s just- I mean- ew- words- not coming,” then returned the $40 to my back pocket instead of handing it over.

“Oh, I suppose I should maybe have wiped it with a cloth,” she said as Andrew dismantled the table in the drive.

More appropriately, she should MAYBE have water-blasted it.

Back in the car, “I want to wash my hands,” said Andrew, holding the steering wheel as if afraid his fingers might stick to it. “I don’t think this was one of your better Trademe purchases, Niamhie.”

“I know,” I winced. “But I’ll scrub it down and it’ll probably clean up fine-”

“Did you see her teeth?” he asked with a delicate shudder.

“No- what about her teeth?”

“Gak!”

“Oh no! If I’d noticed her teeth, I’d NEVER have gone through with it!”

It was just as well the airline left a portion of the parents’ luggage in Sydney – a box containing two pictures and a little wooden chair my father made for me when I was a child. As it was, Mum and I sat in the back of the car with suitcases stacked between us.

Back at home, when Andrew brought the change table up from the car, I noticed one of the wheels was broken and the lower tray inexpertly glued in one corner – neither of which were mentioned in the Trademe description. Perhaps I could have got over that with some aromatherapy and deep relaxation techniques, but my feelings only intensified after an hour spent scouring the change table in the bath, then disinfecting it, then disinfecting the bath, then burning my clothes and disinfecting myself.

Had the trader lived nearby, I wouldn’t even have attempted to clean the table. I would have towed it back down the road, dumped it in her front garden, and asked for my money back from within the confines of a sealed hazmat suit.

“You didn’t!” breathed Andrew in horror, his social sense of etiquette completely violated, when I told him I’d rung her and negotiated a refund of $20.

“I bloody did,” I said, grimly. “That table was a disgrace- I would be pure MORTIFIED to sell something in that sort of condition (mainly in case someone like me blogged about it, but)- her Trademe listing stated, ‘in good condition, and clean’- which was a total misrepresentation- she must have been fucking HALLUCINATING at the time- hey- anyway- YOU’RE the one storming around griping about how we got ripped off-”

“Yes, but, the time to do something about it would have been when we picked it up-”

“Well, I didn’t notice you thumping the roof of the Audi complaining about the state of it-”

“You realize this poor woman is probably on the dole-”

“That’s no excuse for living in a tip! If she cleared out all the crap in her front room and put in some grass and kept a fucking SHEEP, it would be about a hundred times cleaner not to mention more hygienic-”

“She’s probably a single mother on the dole, and you roll up in your Audi Q8-”

“It’s not my- whose bloody side are you on anyway-”

“With your little high-heels and your hair-”

“What the-”

“And quibble about $20! She probably won’t be able to feed her son for a week-”

“THAT’S NO EXCUSE! SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN PAYING ME TO DISPOSE OF THE THING! IT’S THE PRINCIPLE OF IT!”

In return, I would take his surname.

Well, it wasn’t written into the marriage vows – and anyway, Andrew only wore his wedding ring for 3 months. ALSO, my ulterior motive for the request was the expectation that the band would become an extension of his finger. In the event he was involved in a terrible accident resulting in severe arm trauma and his left hand swelling alarmingly, he’d fight off the doctor advancing with motorised cutters, deliriously screaming, “Get away from my ring! You’re not having it!”

Since that situation never came to pass, it seems pretty clear to me it constitutes a breach of said agreement rendering it null and void.

However, over eight years after the happy day when we yoked ourselves to each other till death or a misunderstanding involving a transsexual called Clarabelle and secret offshore bank account do us part, I applied for a new passport.

In fairness, I always intended to change my name. One reason I didn’t was because Andrew and I thought we might be able to engage in dodgy tax fraud that somehow turns out to be legal if I were still Shaw (in retrospect, I’m not sure how we envisioned that working). Another is I never got around to it. And finally, I wasn’t gestating a crotchfruit. If The Asset weren’t imminent early in the New Year, I would have waited until my passport expired in August 2012 before I became Niamh Meister-Leifburger or whatever Andrew’s surname is. I suppose I should really look that up.

Last time I renewed my passport, all that was required was a call to the Irish Consulate asking them to make out a passport in the name of Niamh Shaw, thanks a million.

THINGS HAVE INDEED CHANGED.

Three months ago, upon my request, the Consulate General of Ireland sent me a passport application form. I knew it was for an Irish passport because, hilariously, it included an information pamphlet on how NOT to take a passport photo, with pictures of random people wearing clown noses and sticking their faces up against windows etc.

To issue a passport in my married name, I had to submit our original marriage certificate (The Consulate General of Ireland evidently doesn’t trust Notary Publics) – and my original birth certificate to verify my maiden name. If I wanted my original documents returned – along with the new passport – I had to include a self-addressed sign-on-delivery courier bag. Rather makes you wonder what the $160 fee was for – for which the only accepted payment was a bankers’ cheque.

The passport photos – four according to the application form, although the supplementary documentation stated two – had to be confirmed as a true likeness of the applicant by an authority figure, e.g. a policeman or, you know, librarian.

I have no idea what the big deal is about getting a passport. I mean, they’re not exactly rare. Pretty much everybody has one.

Anyhoo. It took a while to put the application together. Andrew took some photos and I selected the image which looked least like I was contemplating assassinating John Key. After spending an hour on MS Paint arranging it in a collage, I took it to the pharmacy to get it printed.

Then I went to the police station.

“I’m looking for someone with the appropriate authority,” I announced at reception, spreading the forms across the counter.

“Well,” said the personable Jason, “you’ve come to the right place, ma’am.”

He was required to write the application form’s unique reference number on the back of two of the passport photos, and sign them.

“Do you have a black pen?” I asked. “Because it says on the form you need to use a black pen. Oh, and if you can find a pair of scissors- no, wait. I have some here in my bag.”

“What else do you have in the bag?” he asked, suspiciously eyeing me snipping up photos.

“Nothing I wish to disclose, thanks.”

Jason got so carried away by the power vested in him that he signed all nine of my passport photos.

“Don’t want you coming back,” he said.

“Oh, come on. Are you trying to tell me I’m the dodgiest character you’ve seen all week?”

“Don’t know. You might have a bomb strapped to your waist.”

“No, no; it’s a foetus I swear.”

Policemen are MUCH more fun than Customs Officials. Except, I suppose, when they’re trying to get you to breathe into the nozzle.

Off I went to NZ Post to mail the application – which was where/when I found I’d forgotten my original passport.

Back at home, Andrew pointed out another problem.

I’m not even sure how to coherently relate this. Ok, so. Look. *sigh!* You see. On the form was a box for my signature. And I kind of panicked and put the wrong one. Well obviously it was my signature – I mean, I wrote it – only it didn’t look like it usually does. It’s like I had a fleeting personality change halfway through signing, resulting in a squirmy bit in the middle. I think I was intimidated by the stringent instruction to keep within the lines of the box, which was WAY too small to adequately express my personality.

In any case, after I had written my signature – outside the box, with a wobble in the middle – I realized it was supposed to have been witnessed by an authority figure.

So before going to the police station, I Tippexed it out.

It almost looked like I hadn’t touched it at all.

Jason hadn’t noticed anyway.

But THEN I got home and made the mistake of saying to Andrew, “Do you think it matters my signature’s blue?”

And he said, “No, but the TIPPEX MIGHT BE A PROBLEM.”

Seriously, I don’t know why I bother talking to him. It always ends in tears.

Since you can’t download the application form off the Internet, I sent off to the Consulate General of Ireland for another. Then I printed more passport photos and returned to the police.

I wasn’t looking forward to explaining The Tippex Affair to Jason – or persuading him I wasn’t stalking him. Apart from exceptional circumstances I’m not really into that and anyway, to be honest, I prefer firemen.

Thankfully Jason was off giving out speeding tickets, so I got Angela. She was evidently more clued in than Jason since she actually asked to see my ID. Although I’m glad I didn’t get her the first time around, because no doubt Angela would have detected Tippex.

However, when she went to stamp the back of my passport photo it rolled up into the stamp and, when she finally prised it out, my face was covered in blue ink.

The information pamphlet on how not to take a passport photo hadn’t mentioned anything about not having a blue face, so I licked it a bit and scrubbed it with a tissue from up Angela’s sleeve. I sent it off, even though I still looked like one of my recent ancestors was a full-blooded Smurf.

Two days later, the Consulate General of Ireland called to say our marriage certificate isn’t valid.

I’m not sure why this comes as a shock. Perhaps because I subscribe to the ‘I’m-pregnant-not-suffering-from-some-chronic-debilitating-disease-symptoms-of-which-include-acute-belching’ school of thought.

Inspired by my mum – who, when pregnant with me, played squash up to her eighth month (which, if you consider the number of times I must have violently head-butted her cervix, may serve to explain much) – and my obstetrician in Blenheim – who ran a triathlon at 36 weeks pregnant at the age of 42 (which, because she was my doctor, I prefer to think of as admirable rather than CERTIFIABLY NUTCRACKERS INSANE) – I imagined I’d still be rock-climbing and shark-wrestling well into my third trimester and practicing extreme karate-kicks with my midwife between contractions.

Therefore, I’m fairly sullen about squaring up to reality. This unhappy station includes having to adopt the recovery position for several hours after a round trip to Dunedin, and being incapable of trundling the dog around the Oamaru Public Gardens without collapsing onto every single park bench for the purpose of puffing.

The situation has been aggravated by my recent erratic sleep patterns. In our antenatal class, while the other prospective mothers complained about sleep deprivation, I merely smiled mysteriously (or more likely unbearably smugly). Because until recently, I slept like a hibernating bear with the chromosomes of Rip Van Winkle. (Did you know a tompion is a pellet of mud and saliva that a bear inserts up his anus before hibernating for the winter so that ants won’t crawl in? The word originates from the French ‘tampon’ and can also be used to describe a plug placed in a gun’s muzzle while not in use to keep out dust and moisture. In case you were wondering, neither application has anything whatsoever to do with my REM quality.)

I’m not sure when it started, but I find it just about impossible getting comfortable in bed. Lying on The Asset’s head used to work, but when I try that trick now he kicks my lungs into my oesophagus. It’s been hella hot in the last couple of weeks, which hasn’t helped. Also, my bladder’s holding capacity appears to have shrunk to that of a beetle, resulting in at least two nocturnal bathroom forays. Previously, I’d return from a bathroom run thinking, ‘Beh I’ll NEVER get back to sleep *huff*!’ and three seconds later I’d wake up in the morning. Now – perhaps in preparation for parenthood – I like to prove myself right.

I’ve also adopted a startling grunt. I emit this grim, guttural expectoration when I sit, stand, ascend stairs, pull weeds, throw Jed’s frisbee, open doors . . . in fact, any action other than lying in a perfectly still, prone position. I would grunt rolling over in bed, except that the action is beyond my current skill-range.

Anyhoo.

Yesterday Andrew and I had planned A Great Adventure.

To be accurate, I planned it and Killjoy Funsucker III failed to talk me out of it.

We drove south and turned west into Trotter’s Gorge where we stopped for a bush-walk. The sign in the carpark estimated the Loop Track at 1.5 hours. It didn’t mention most of it was uphill, which added a striking new depth of flavour to my grunt echoing joyfully around the woody hills.

Back at the carpark, we enjoyed our first swim of the summer in the nearby stream i.e. we crouched in three inches of water seeing who could shriek louder.

We carried on, stopping for a picnic just over Dansey’s Pass: soda bread with great slabs of cheddar cheese, date scones, apples and mince pies.

Last night, I slept like a dead squirrel.

Wild Rose House

Before the weekend, in what’s becoming a family ritual, Husband and I sat in our bay-window for a ten minute infusion of Vitamin D and caffeine and decided to review our short-term list.

Miraculously, it seemed to have tripled despite copious reallocation of items to the medium and long-term lists.

“Ok look,” I said, “could we maybe focus on one thing and just . . . finish it? Because I know we’ve been busy doing stuff, but it feels like we’re churning.”

So I suppose it’s my fault we agreed to swap the kitchen pantry and fridge over the weekend.

Now, you might think- but no. Before you prepare for that mental leap, you’re probably wondering why swapping the fridge with a cupboard even makes The List, never mind its top priority assignment.

The main reason was that the only available space for the fridge was in the kitchen entranceway. Not only did this block much of our precious sunlight into the living room, but you had to walk around the fridge to get into the kitchen. Although ideal for hiding behind in the event a masked terrorist crashed through the door spraying automatic machine-gun fire, we figured the likelihood of that occurring in Oamaru was negligible.

From the living room: the fridge in the kitchen entrance. The microwave normally sits on top of the fridge

A secondary – even quinary – barely-even-qualifying-as-a-consideration, was Andrew’s irrational hostility towards my eclectic collection of fridge magnets on proud display. These include plaques printed with Hallmark sentiments, furry picture frames, various animals, and my magnetic poetry arranged in crude rather than creative expression.

I hope that addresses your question.

NOW you might think this operation – the swapping of pantry and fridge – sounds straightforward. And I grant you: on the surface, it does.

However, there were complications. The pantry was as deep as the fridge so Andrew had to saw it in half lengthways to justify the swap. It was also fitted – which suggested the wall behind the pantry was unpainted. As it turned out, the alcove housing the pantry was not even lined with plasterboard.

Naturally, the fridge was about 1cm wider than the pantry and wouldn’t quite fit into the vacated slot. Andrew suggested making room by ripping out the thin cupboard next to the oven, but I jealously covet all storage space. In any case, where else am I going to put my sandwich tray in the shape of a pig? However, Andrew reckoned he could saw a centimeter off the bench/cupboard on the far side of the oven and shove the entire arrangement across.

Yet another issue was an inconvenient absence of power point(s) adjacent to the pantry alcove into which we could plug the fridge. Andrew proposed putting in a power point, and – since he was feeling all electrical – he’d add another couple of sockets to the main bench area. And sure, while he was at it, he’d move the light switch.

I’d like to point out here that the location of the light switch – in the middle of the wall beneath the overhead cupboards – didn’t bother me. I’ve always considered myself quite fussy – secretly prided myself on it, to be honest – but in certain areas I’m pedestrianly low-maintenance. Granted, it took me a while to actually FIND the light switch but when I did, I just thought, “Oh right, THAT’S where it is”. Then I accepted it. Adjusted. I mean to say: it’s a LIGHT SWITCH. As long as it a) works; and b) remains pleasingly simple to operate, I’m happy as.

But when he saw it Andrew said, “Who’d put a light switch there? Stupid. That’s going to annoy me.”

He became borderline obsessive. Whenever he was required to operate it, he’d announce: “This light switch really annoys me”.

It got to the stage where he’d go, “This light switch-”

And I’d say, “Wait! Let me guess. It annoys you?”

“It REALLY annoys me. I’m not sure you fully grasp quite how annoying it is-”

“OH I’M STARTING TO GAIN SOME APPRECIATION OF THAT.”

In summary, he decided to move the switch to where grand design intended light switches to be: beside the entrance.

Essentially rewiring the entire kitchen necessitated knocking a few holes in the wall – which had to be boarded up and/or plastered, sanded and painted.

Kitchen wall after Andrew attacked it and poked experimentally at electrical wires

“You know, there’s no point buying paint to touch up a few holes,” said Andrew. “We might as well do the whole kitchen while we’re at it.”

In fact, painting the kitchen was another task on our short-list, since it was a shade that would most aptly be titled ‘Green Goblin’s ghastly revenge’. If the photos don’t communicate the pure grisliness of it, you’ll have to take my word that it gave off a nuclear energy.

Study of dust and debris

That, in a nutshell, was our mission for the weekend.

Have I forgotten anything?

I don’t think so.

“Sounds like more than two days’ work,” I said dubiously.

“Nah. We’ll have it finished by Saturday night,” Andrew confidently predicted.

At our antenatal appointment Thursday morning, I told our midwife: “He’s making me paint the kitchen this weekend.”

“Well, take it easy,” said Jen. “And no climbing ladders.”

“We don’t have a ladder,” said Andrew. “She’ll have to stand on a box.”

“I didn’t think pregnant women were supposed to paint?” I said, hopefully.

“You’ll be fine,” said Jen. “Just make sure the area is well ventilated.”

I can’t understand how my midwife has no problem with my snorting toxic fumes, yet tells me off for wearing high-heels.

(I suspect it’s because she wears crushed velvet and Birkenstocks. Also, I think she’s a Wiccan.)

(And while I’m on the topic, I find it COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE that my midwife is the ONLY care provider who has given out to me for wearing heels during my pregnancy.)

It took most of the weekend to shift bench tops and rewire, patch, plaster and sand the kitchen. Between us we sugar-soaped the walls; then cut-in and rollered – twice. We also managed to paint the bay-window seat (three coats) and I sugar-soaped and painted the bathroom edges.

We’ve ticked two items off the short-list.

However, I doubted I could rely on hunger to remind me of our first ante-natal class three weeks ago, so I made an entry in my diary along with a note the day before; and set two reminders on my phone supplemented with alarms.

OF COURSE I forgot. Early that afternoon, I brought the dog for a walk along Kakanui Beach and, after he swallowed most of the sea, some starfish and a piece of driftwood, Jed’s arse was a danger-zone. I didn’t want to drive back to Oamaru immediately in case he pebble-dashed the interior of the car, so I sat a while on the tailgate waiting for Jed to get it out of his system. I was reading an article on the importance of mulching and I’m not sure what nature of mental leap made me think, ‘THE ANTE-NATAL CLASS FUUUCK!’

I flung Jed and his volatile backside in the boot and stormed back into town. As I charged into the house, I roared up the stairs to Andrew, “The thingy! Class! The ante-natal class! It’s today! In fifteen minutes!” Whereupon we wasted a large portion of that time bumping into each other and swearing, until I leaped into the shower.

By 17:55, I was standing by the door waiting for Andrew, who was putting away some screwdrivers. Or whatever.

(In fact, we haven’t missed any of the classes so far – although not for want of trying.)

Naturally, we were the last couple to arrive, which meant we got the hard chairs. The other attendees were arrayed on an eclectic selection of furniture: a leaning lazy-boy, a sagging sofa, two pouffes with backs, and a number of hard chairs with no arms. The walls were decorated with some laminated posters depicting cross-sections of pregnant torsos and/or gimungous mammaries. While the prospective mothers sat around expectantly, the men sat and fidgeted and avoided eye-contact – or looking at the pictures.

I was immediately distracted by two plates of biscuits on the table – which basically meant I couldn’t concentrate on anything said during the first hour of the session.

I can only consider myself lucky, judging by the material presented in the remaining classes (six so far). Although I’m about twice as old as every other prospective mother there, I’m invariably the one slumped in her chair giggling helplessly whenever the instructor says ‘vagina’.

During a debrief the morning after the first class, still vaguely traumatised, I said to Andrew, “So we spend our entire lives trying to avoid saying the words ‘nipple’, ‘breast’, ‘penis’ or ‘perineum’ in polite company, and suddenly the conversation gets all pelvis-centric . . . and we’re expected not to laugh?

“Well, yes.”

“Oh my god, I am WAY too immature to have a baby.”

“Um-”

“So be honest: when the instructor lay on her back on the floor with her legs in the air like Invasion of the Giant Alien Beetles, did you not choke back a chortle?”

“Not especially. No!”

“I see. How about when she drew two dots on the whiteboard and said, ‘This is the vagina and this is the anus’. Seriously: are you trying to tell me you didn’t feel even remotely like sniggering?”

“Ok, maybe just a little bit.”

Here’s the thing: when I drop the word ‘vagina’ into a conversation I’m aiming to shock – which, you’ll no doubt agree, is understandable; even worthy in select circumstances – but when Sandra the instructor does it she’s in ABSOLUTE EARNEST.

Frankly, it’s freaky.

Also, just plain wrong.

Sometimes Sandra kicks off the class by asking, “Right! Who’s been practicing their perineal massage?” and, while I’m busy trying to hide under my chair, some of the girls actually RAISE THEIR HANDS.

I should be marginally more resolute after being subjected to a barrage of horrifying birthing videos featuring a plethora of fanny flaps. Particularly noteworthy was the very first video, with footage of a woman’s waters breaking. The slow-mo was a nice touch.

By far the most disgusting, appalling birthing video was that featuring the mother with hairy armpits. I mean: if you know you’re going to be on camera, surely you’d make an effort to shave your pits? At times it was hard to tell which was her head, the baby’s head or her armpits. There’s simply no excuse for that degree of hirsute.

As far as I’m concerned, whoever goes on about the beauty and miracle of birth has obviously not observed one: the mucous, the sweat, the blood, the throbbing neck-veins, the labouring women trying to rip their husbands’ heads off with their bare hands.

Actually, I don’t see why I have to be pre-informed in graphic detail about what’s going on down there. It’s not as if I’ll SEE it; and anyway, I’ll be preoccupied wondering how to rip Andrew’s head off with my bare hands. And I hardly need persuading via visual evidence that pushing a fully-formed human being out the vaj will likely sting a bit.

Just to mix it up, Sandra showed us a video that wasn’t called ‘Mutant Babies’, but could have been. Instead, it was titled ‘What Newborns Look Like’. Bless her, the new mother made every effort to look thrilled with her purple, mustachioed baby, but she was obviously dejected. There followed a gallery of newborns with giant gentalia, cone-heads, bruised foreheads, rampant zits, club feet, and one that looked like Mussolini.

And then there are the practicals. During the first class, Sandra lectured us on the importance of pelvic floor exercises, demonstrating the pressure a baby’s head exerts on the perineum with a sack of salt. Then she had us all practice pelvic floor exercises. Thankfully, she didn’t check to see we were doing it right. I was very proud of Andrew who really put his back passage into the exercise – I could actually see him clenching. Also, his gums turned white.

Thank goodness there are only two more classes to go – I just- I don’t think I can take much more

Now, you might think: WHO NEEDS AN EXCUSE? If you’re not preoccupied thinking NOM NOM NOM.

Indeed, it’s a valid question. But it seemed clear to me that justifying decadence on this epic scale required an Occasion.

Finally Her Goatiness asked me to bake a cake.

Actually, she asked me to stop off at the supermarket and pick up one of the generic sponge cakes that taste like reconstituted carpet and look like an Easter Bunny threw up on it.

However, she asked early enough that I could tell she really wanted me to make one. Also, it was a special occasion: the day after Old Tom’s birthday.

Generally speaking, the anniversary of Old Tom’s debut appearance would constitute The Occasion, except that The Outlaws forgot. When Old Tom called around to have Happy Birthday sung tunelessly to him, Agent of Death was down the milking shed and Her Goatiness wouldn’t let Old Tom watch Worst Teenage Bodies on telly because she wanted to see Downton Abbey.

In the scheme of things, the Guilt Cake is more important than the Birthday Cake. As well as the message, ‘We’re pleased you’re still alive’, it must also convey an apology with some degree of sincerity. As far as I was concerned, the only way to salvage Old Tom’s relationship with The Outlaws was via home baking.

(Also I’m not about to eat supermarket cake.)

Until recently, I’ve been a fan of the one-bowl school of baking. In fact, I’ve never understood why you can’t just fling the ingredients directly into the tin and bung it straight in the oven. But lately, I’ve been foraying into frosting: cinnamon tea cakes with toasted coconut topping, sponge cakes with jam and cream, miracles with chocolate icing and a cherry on top.

I evicted the spiders from the cake pans and preheated the oven and beat eggs and sifted and folded. I think you can estimate how the final product will taste from how much you want to lick the batter. In the case of the coffee cloud cake, I nearly got my head stuck in the mixing bowl and was picking batter out of my hair for the next two days.

The cakes smelled glorious. They looked even better. After they cooled, I leveled the tops, stacked them and slathered the whole with icing.

Coffee cloud cake - optimal profile

I pressed toasted walnuts into the side and cherishingly transferred the cake to a plate. It was only then that I spotted the leftover cake on the cooker hob, and realized . . . I’d forgotten the third layer. It was supposed to be a three-layer cake.

It was just as well, because not only had I run out of icing, but . . . well . . . from certain angles . . . the cake . . . it featured something of an aggressive LEAN. No matter how much I prodded and swore at it, the top layer slumped drunkenly off to one side.

Stop that cake! It's getting away!

However, valuable lessons were learned from the experience.

And without the coffee cloud cake, there might never have been the udder cake.

Last week I was tasked with making a birthday cake for Her Goatiness. The spec was a cake descriptive of a goat’s udder.

Nobody said it had to be three-dimensional, but Her Goatiness is notoriously hard to please. There was high likelihood of her spurning a two-dimensional cake and refusing to blow out the candles.

Andrew obsessively tracked the progress of the cake assembly with a kind of morbid fascination. Given my mother-in-law’s partiality for pus, I was keen to garnish the teats with yellow icing but Andrew said, “Niamhie, you can’t make a cake with MASTITIS.”

No vision.

It took me most of the morning to make a plain 20cm square butter cake and two 20cm round chocolate sponge cakes. I took a break for lunch.

“How’s it going?” asked Andrew. “Have you looked at pictures of goat’s udders?”

“Pictures!” I snorted. “I don’t need PICTURES. Don’t you think I’ve seen enough fucking goat’s udders to know what they look like?”

“Hmm,” said Husband reflectively. “Ok. How many teats do they have?”

“FOUR OF COURSE!” I shouted. “What sort of fucking question is- I’m not some nuffnuff, you know!”

Although obviously an awkward and disagreeable conversation, I was ultimately pleased it occurred. A little disagreement adds spice to a relationship. It fostered greater understanding between us. Also, Her Goatiness’ udder cake would otherwise have sported four teats instead of.

Er.

Two.

As per the standard configuration.

Thereafter, I consulted pictures on Google images and drew an elevation of the udder before starting the sponge-carving.

I stuck the cakes together with jam to discourage independent roaming. Then, with input from Andrew’s gag-reflex, I made up a vat of revolting pink butter icing. From my experience with coffee cloud cake, I knew butter icing was tricky, collecting crumbs and preferring to stick to the spatula rather than the cake. Thankfully, I’d read an article which suggested dipping the spatula periodically in a jug of boiling water and thereby encouraging the icing to slide off.

It’s probably fair to say Her Goatiness had never seen a cake quite like it. Nor anybody else, for that matter.

Goat udder cake

Thus far, a woodburner has been an impossible, unattainable dream – much like owning a horse. I always wanted a horse so I could achieve that perfect accord between woman and beast. I mean, perfect accord with my dog basically equates to being permanently covered in slobber and earwax; whereas with a horse it’d be all gorgeous naturally highlighted hair and perfect, even, vaguely though not obscenely fluorescent teeth. And I haven’t even got onto the whips and leather boots and thighs that could crack a hazelnut with two decisive paces.

Anyway. I was naturally thrilled to finally have free access to a woodburner.

After a couple of days sitting around the living room admiring it, Husband and I decided to fire it up. Husband went to the shed and returned with a couple of logs and a stick.

“So . . . how do you do it?” I asked.

“Man. Make Fire!” said Husband confidently.

I had no reason to doubt him. After all, man’s ability to conflagrate is innate, like navigating by the stars or farting Bon Jovi melodies in the lower ranges. Humans have made fire since dinosaurs were the preferred mode of transport – and these days, we have matches.

Also, if Andrew were a superhero, his totally awesome superpowers (because I’m sure he’d have a selection rather than just the one) would DEFINITELY involve some combination of combustibles e.g. flame throwing, giant sparks, deadly fumes, and a backdraft that would make a random cross-section of spectators gasp in wonder. And the logo on his tight, shiny superhero costume would be fashioned of flames.

Duly, I waited to be impressed. Andrew stuffed some newspaper and the logs into the stove in a haphazard arrangement of what we subsequently learned is called ‘the teepee’ method.

Within seconds, an inferno blazed against the glass of the woodburner.

Minutes later, it was a heap of smouldering ash, rustling and collapsing on itself.

Undeterred – or perhaps more inspired by the cold snap – Husband adopted a new fire-starting technique. This involved lighting the kindling, then decisively flinging a gallon of diesel onto it.

Now, YOU KNOW I like to be supportive of my husband, but regrettably I couldn’t in good conscience endorse this methodology. I love the flirtatious, playful smell of diesel as much as the next person, but I’m pretty sure it’s not environmentally friendly and splashing flammable fluid around is hardly the sort of example we want to set our child.

Faced with the prospect of my dream fizzling out, I attempted to rekindle the dormant embers of information left over from Brownies. When that yielded no sparks, I read the Masport wood stove’s user manual cover to cover, and pretty much a degree course’s worth of Internet articles.

Look, if you can get a BA in Golf Course Management and Meteorology – which I’m convinced is only a short step up from predicting horoscopes – I’m sure there must be a degree in making fire. Here, if you have a spare week to kill and think you know everything about woodstoves, check out this site for instant disillusionment.

The most important thing I learned from my extensive research is the importance of using dry wood – which means we’re pretty much buggered, since I assume flash-drying wood with an oil heater rather defeats the purpose. Then I latched onto the theory that our grate was blocked with ash, so I cleaned it. ALL RIGHT I admit it: I made Andrew do it. This appeared to have little positive or even noticeable effect. In desperation, I became convinced that our flue (that’s modern terminology for a chimney) needed cleaning, but a call to the local chimney-sweep confirmed it had been serviced in April. So it may be blocked by a dead starling – but unlikely.

AND THEN I came across an ingenious, confounding proposal: the upside-down or ‘top-down’ method of fire-building. According to The Internet, the top-down fire lights every time; produces less smoke; and uses less wood than the traditional method in the same period. Furthermore, whereas the conventional fire requires constant maintenance, the top-down fire allegedly burns for 4-8 hours without attention.

Instead of starting with newspaper at the bottom and layering up with kindling, sticks and logs, the top-down fire involves packing the heaviest material on the bottom and piling lighter material on top, ending with newspaper. Then you stuff any gaps with conventional wisdom, and light it.

This is our version of a top-down fire. It didn't work but I had to give it a go because the newspaper knots at the top are called 'anna cracks' and how could any normal person possibly resist that?

After our first attempts at building a top-down fire failed I gave up because I have no resilience. But Andrew persevered with a modified version, which I call the ‘top-down-bottom-up-tee-hee-pee’ method. This is basically a small teepee arrangement atop two rows of closely stacked logs. Which appears to work a treat.

He’s really quite clever.

Or he might still be tossing a bucket of diesel on the kindling when I’m not looking.