Mother of Two

The radio silence has in all honesty been to avoid depressing posts like "it is the same temperature here as it is in England" and "Be Careful What You Wish For (our new apartment sucks)" but also because I am frankly bloody knackered being a mum of two. Oh for those first few months when I told everyone how much easier it was having Maggie than when I had Ethan - because I've been through the worst which is feeling like a bomb has gone off in your life and realising that actually you have NO life, added with hormones, parenting manuals etc etc etc etc etc. Yes, it logistically more challenging but I "am really enjoying having a baby".

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Of course this was when Paul was working from home, so always available if I needed him and Ethan was in nursery 3 mornings a week - 3 blissful mornings when I would lie around having skin to skin with my daughter, who didn't rise before 9:30am. Where I had my mum-friends round the corner, other friends over regularly, the occasional weekend at my mum's. Now we are far from home and it's only just kicking in for one small member of the Loy household, so I'm contending with not just the 4month sleep regression and accompanying growth spurt, being in essentially a foreign land, spending on average 8-10 hours a day on my own with two small children and the corresponding feelings of inadequacy and loss of my personality, but also a three year old who has had a bomb thrown into his life and finally realising he has no life.

He has left behind everyone and everything, parks that he knew, coffee shops where the owners knew his name and favourite cake, nursery which while could have been improved from our perspective and took him ages to settle into was still somewhere familiar, with friends he learnt songs and numbers with. It's probably compounded by us moving apartments to be closer to Paul's work while we find our own place to live, on top of 4 seperate immunisations to get him ready for pre-school, but Ethan's struggled somewhat this week. When asked by a friend today what he liked most in the park, his response was "People!" Clearly the sole socialisation with Mummy, Daddy and Baby Maggie is starting to bore him.

So, we're on operation "let's all be nice and gentle with each other"...no more naughty steps, instead we're getting a jar and some marbles and whenever he is good he gets a marble, when the jar is filled up he gets a present. I'm learning how to give him longer to respond to me and he is learning to (bloody well) respond. We're getting more cuddles and kisses than ever and working out which parks are the friendliest and give the best chance of a run around with nice children. It is exhausting! Who knew it would be so tiring to be nice to your own children?!

There is light at the end of the tunnel, but it won't be more than a mere shimmer until we have our own place, Ethan has a nursery to go to and there is some sort of idea of normality in our lives again. In the meantime we learn to be patient, and no matter how much baby weight I want to lose I will not be giving up alcohol anytime soon.

At least in the middle of it all are a boy and girl who make each other giggle like nothing else, he is gentle with her and she saves her best smiles for him, who entertain each other for long enough for me to grab a cup of tea and a shower, he gives her his tightest cuddles and she endures his rough handling with a grin. THIS is why I had two children.

Even if it does mean they are so in love with each other that I invariably have them both screaming blue murder at the same time. Oh the joys of being a mother of two...

First Impressions

We're nearly three weeks into our move to Los Angeles, we've seen a bit, met a few people, done one or two sights and buggered about doing not very much inbetween. The major thing I've found about LA is that, more than any other city I've been to, it is so vastly different from one area to another, from one street to another. Ok, so Hampstead is very different to Brixton, but it changes subtley from north to south across the river, and even though London has basically existed since the dawn of time compared to LA, and has the architecture to prove it, it all still feels underneath like the same city. Maybe that's just because I know it so well, but I think the same of Brighton, Bristol, Leeds, New York, Chicago, Madrid, Barcelona, Prague...

And NONE of the touristy photos you see of LA are accurate. At all. Santa Monica looks like boutiques when in fact it's massive roads then suddenly one pedestrianised street with much the same shops as Oxford Circus, and the beach is ten times wider and longer than any photos would have you believe.

Then there's Venice - which one second is million dollar homes and the next clear gangland territory, a weird mix of uber trendy and crack-selling corners, like setting The Wire in Shoreditch.

Last week, the midgets and I went downtown to scope out some disused buildings with a view to eventually attempt TD style work in the city of celluloid (oooh they're not going to know what's hit them!); my two are pretty used to being dragged around derelict building sites.

When you type "downtown LA" in Google, you come up with images like this

I don't know what kind of photoshopping was done on this but it wasn't the same downtown I was in. Maybe it was if you looked 180degrees up.

Downtown LA is odd - now I get down and dirty with the best of them, having grown up in Lagos, frequenting pubs in Holloway, going to school in Kentish Town, walking through St Paul's late at night, living in Streatham - but I was shocked at the state of most of the downtown populace. Maybe it's just indicative of the poor system of care in the US, because there is a major difference between the homeless and drunks of London (be clear, they are often two very different groups of people) and the plethora of people who ought to be being looked after in some kind of welfare institue in LA.

Just as the buildings alternate huge empty caverns epitomising the destruction of the American Dream and the collapse of the Global Economy, with high rise, glass fronted, trendy loft converted mega-bucks-towers, the people walking the streets of downtown LA are in expensive suits or rags. I don't often admit to being shocked, and lord knows Ethan has grown up in an area where a woman walks around with hundreds of heavy chains and padlocks round her neck, another in her seventies dresses up like a five year old raiding a drag queen's dressing up box and make up kit, and a lot of people with severe disabilities, predominantly learning or mental, are going about their daily lives with carers. But even he started to look a bit worried by the sheer number of people who looked like they desperately needed more help than a few quarters for a hostel, or a warmer jumper for the night or just a can of lager to keep their alcohol levels consistent.

Ten minutes drive up the freeway (which is MENTAL - they really do look like this)

is Echo Park. It is St Andrews in Bristol crossed with San Francisco crossed with Camden Town on a good day. Young and trendy with rough edges, second hand bookshops with adjoining cafes in which sit teenagers drawing on giant canvasses wearing peace sign glasses, a creative writing centre for children run by sci-fi fanatical volunteers, a farmers market held in a crumbling car park where $20 will buy you two weeks worth of food rather than 2mins, and a total jumble of houses perched on rocks and nestled into the hills which cause roller-coaster like roads throughout the area.

Then back to the wide streets and plazas hosting expensive yoga studios behind their grotty frontage of West LA. I'll save our adventures of Sunday brunches in Beverly Hills for another blog...

Playing with food

This is dinner the other night:

I'd walked 25minutes to the nearest Wholefoods in Brentwood, just to check out how organic posh nosh compares here to home and to bring back some treats for dinner. While the veg and fruit was EXTORTIONATE I managed to get 1lb of chicken for $4 (are American pounds different to our pounds cos that seems like a bloody bargain compared to the organic, grass fed, massaged and foot-rubbed chicken in sainsbos - put that in Jamie Oliver's pipe and smoke it). Of course I obliterated the saving by hitting the salad bar with its plethora of quinoa, edamame and sesame salads, wild rice, pecans and cranberry salads, chopped celery, red cabbage, carrots and feta cheese salads, crunchy broccoli covered in honey, tabbouleh, vine leaves, falafel - a veritable wet dream of a dinner for a vegetarian, real-nappy-using, meditating, sun-salutating, world saving yoga bunny. Which I am in my head but not in real life.

Home I come with my triumphs, good wholesome treats that taste amazing and make you feel worthy too, brilliant.

Paul has a stomach bug and requests nothing more exciting than the carton of plain chicken broth I'd bought with the intention of poaching aforementioned bargain chicken thighs (the man has the consitution of an elderly panda). Ethan loudly protests at eating anything other than a ham sandwich and apple (I talked him into adding dried banana bits to his plate). So we all sat down to totally different food and I got to scoff wholefoods lushness on my own for a few more days. Maggie will also reap the benefits.

Speaking of which, while waiting for Paul to pick me up from wholefoods (long gone are the days of scourning him for car overuse), a woman came dashing out asking if I was a "Nursing Mom" and pointing at Maggie (sleeping beautifully in the sling - see, there is a touch of hippy earth mother I'm still managing to live up to somewhere inbetween a triple espresso in the morning and a massive glass of wine the second my angels' heads hit their pillows). My erudite response "you mean breastfeeding?" resulted in a sigh and proferred free tea bag. Er...thanks. Apparently it increases milk production. Which I do NOT need. But was interesting because it added to something I've learnt about Californians and breast feeding this week.

They. Love. It.

For anyone who thinks the NHS pushes breast feeding a bit militantly - you should be here. Despite the fact that most hospitals have a c-section rate of 45%+ mainly down to ELCS because obstretricians just suggest it rather than any medical reason, that midwives aren't even called midwives, they are "midwife nurses" because woe betide they might be able to push women-led care in labour, that women are given on average 1hour to dilate 1cm and should you dare to frustrate the ticking watches you are swooped to theatre so the hospital can claim 10000x more money from your insurance company, and a whole other long list of anti-natural birth crap (disclaimer: according to Naomi Wolf at least), once a woman has actually GIVEN birth, she is encouraged to breastfeed so strongly to the point that if she is unable to rather than formula, the baby is often given someone else's breastmilk. Kid you not.

After starting this post protesting about my lack of hippy credentials, I should probably admit that I am a massive homebirthing-women-led-no-drugs-avoid-major-abdominal-surgery-keep-away-from-doctors labour. I mean, each to their own (in all honesty just give birth wherever you feel safest, will at least take some of the overwhelming fear and anxiety away), but personally I could never choose to go to a hospital unless it was medically neccessary for any reason, particularly for a non-medical process. My tuppence. But even I reckon the milk a nursing mother of a 14month old is probably not that suitable for a 14minute old baby. Hmmm, says she who sticks her fingers in her ears at the slightest mention that alcohol may go into the breastmilk.

Off my soapboax and back to my gojo berries, granola and organic fat free soy yoghurt breakfast.....namaste.