Month / July 2011
NFPtweetup social and getting back to work
On Thursday, I had a day that felt pretty much like I had never had a baby. Okay, it began with dropping the littleun off at nursery, and I did pick her up and say a quick goodbye, but I spent the morning doing grown up things like, erm, cleaning house. Then I headed into the office to do some catching up, and was answering email queries within five minutes of stepping through the door.
I then headed over to the NFPtweetup social with my manager, Jacqui, but we didn’t end up being all that sociable, at least for the first couple of hours! Though I got to chat babies with the wonderful Rachel, Jacqui and I spent most of the time talking about work… and it was brilliant! We were bouncing around a few ideas, talking about things that have changed in the last year, talking about how we could develop one thing or another. Nothing concrete and certainly nothing I could talk about here, but it just generated this exciting atmosphere of Things To Be Done. And it made me go from happy to be going back to work to itching to get started. I was all set to start brainstorming some ideas for Monday today, but had to remind myself to enjoy my weekend and spend my last few free days soaking up as many Ramona cuddles as possible!
And those cuddles are wonderful. I will miss them. But I know from that swell of positivity and surge of determination that work is exactly where I’m meant to be.
Having said a quick hello to the lovely Steve Bridger and got a chance to meet my husband’s newest colleague, Rochelle, I then got a delicious dinner bought for me at Moshi Moshi (my first visit; quite pricey but excellent – I recommend the soft shell crab).
Thank heaven for grandparents who agree to put a squirmy little baby to bed. And thank heaven for squirmy little babies who start the next morning by giving you a just-beginning-to-be-toothy smile and a hug that melts hearts at fifty paces.
Okay, working world. Make some room: I’m ba-ack!
Why I haven’t written an analysis of Google+
In the swirling social media maelstrom, new products, especially from the likes of Google – remember Wave? Launched with fireworks and died like a damp squib -cause a lot of excitement. And busy professionals do need to sometimes make snap judgements about whether these things are going to be worth investing time in.
However, sometimes I think people are driven more by the desire to write the ten-ways-google-plus-will-help-you-make-10-million-dollars-of-sales/donations-OMG article than to actually give the new platform or product a chance.
The thing is, it’s not brands that are going to make or break these things. They are not being built, primarily, for us to use professionally (although Google is planning a professional platform, which should be interesting). The proof of the pudding will not be whether we think on first acquaintance, with just a few hesitant conversations going on, we can build as vibrant communities here as we have on Facebook or Twitter.
Suddenly the fact that communities have a very different character depending on the platform gets forgotten. We try to apply what we’ve learned from Facebook because ‘it’s a bit like Facebook’. We try to apply what we’ve learned from Twitter because ‘there are Twitter-like elements’. We forget we have to learn some new things from Google+, if it succeeds, because it is Google+, and not anything else. Sure, tribal human behaviours online are pretty similar wherever you go, but the specific ways they manifest themselves take on quite astonishingly different flavours on different channels. Google+ will have its own.
My first approach to a new tool or platform is always, always to approach it on a personal level, as myself, and learn its etiquette, syntax and possibilities. I have to have this knowledge of this as an ordinary user if I have a hope in hell of understanding it and using it effectively as a marketing professional. Customer services breakdowns and crises happen when brands forget to be human. The basics of marketing stay pretty much the same online and off, but each individual interaction needs to be appropriately tailored.
So, while I’ve read an article or two musing on interesting points of development, I’ve deliberately shelved any premature analyses for later, and held fire on making any. Of course I have ideas about how this might go, but I like to give these things a chance to breathe and grow.
In the meantime, I’m building circles.
Settling a child into nursery: the heartbreaking stage
So, as I mentioned in my last post, I’m back at work soon. And I’m all sorts of nervous and excited about this, and rather glad that my line of work is the kind of thing that is a) quite easy to stay involved in as it’s all online and b) quite easy to stay involved with if you’re a blogging, tweeting, possibly-Google-plussing community addict, which you obviously are if you do my job.
The thing about going back to work is that childcare has to be worked out. Three days a week Ramona will be with grandparents, with whom she’s already happy and comfortable and has been left a few times to get used to the idea. But I also wanted her to go to nursery. Not because I’m itching to spend hundreds of pounds every month (and it is, at this end of the country certainly, a phenomenal though understandable fee), but because otherwise she doesn’t see very many other children.* I also think it can’t hurt to get used to the general routine. Astonishingly, school is just three years away, and becoming accustomed to the coming and going of large groups of kids with various tall people dotted about telling you what to do is no bad thing.
So, we started the process. We were lucky enough to find a nursery we loved on the second attempt (sorry, I won’t be sharing which as it’s just plain creepy to have the interwebs know where your child is spending her days). It’s well-resourced, cheerful and full of really lovely staff who exhibit a natural and boundless affection for their variously dribbling, snotty, wibbling and pooing charges. Lots of hugs and kisses, plenty of toys, books (Ramona’s current Reason for Being is to turn pages in board books) and good food. What else could anyone want? In fact, sign me up. I’ll even go to the loo myself.
But of course Ramona’s used to having mainly me around. The first few sessions, getting gradually longer, involved more and more crying, most of it solved by getting her engrossed in some books, or feeding her, although the last time the books only worked for a little while and she wouldn’t eat or drink milk. It was only on the last one that she actually clung to me and sobbed when we arrived – before that she’d smile at first and take a few minutes to realise I wasn’t there. On the advice of the nursery staff I’m basically going in, sitting her down, handing over her milk and buggering off; in their experience a drawn out goodbye only makes things worse.
It is, absolutely, heartbreaking (I sort of thank God she can’t say ‘mummy’ yet, because I think that would finish me off entirely). I know that she’ll get past it and that tears in the morning will become tears of wanting to stay there in the afternoon; after all, she doesn’t have a sandpit and water table and music area and whole crate full of phone-like toys etc at home. And all those things are, she will discover in due course, way more interesting than having me to poke every ten minutes. But I do wish I’d started this all earlier before separation anxiety had a chance to kick in (on her side – mine started before her head was all the way out), and I would have done if we hadn’t been away. But what’s done is done.
I try to make up for it with extra snuggly time – we spent ages cuddling in bed, her dozing and snorting on my chest, then beaming at me – but that only seems to make it worse for me.
The funny thing is, I have no doubts whatsoever about going back to work. I always wanted to and even after a break I can’t imagine not doing my job; it would be like not being me. So I’m not sitting here just to justify it to myself. Even if I was a SAHM, I’d send her to nursery for the socialisation and so that she can be taught by someone other than me.
Still, nothing teaches you to handle guilt like parenthood. Indeed, if you can get past the things you ‘should’ do during pregnancy, the things you ‘must’ do after the birth and the routines they ‘ought to’ follow thereafter, you will be TOTALLY INDESTRUCTABLE.
Women weakened by childbirth? Ha! I’ve never been tougher in my life.
*One of my friends has a daughter just five weeks older than Ramona. Every single time Ramona sees said mother and daughter coupling, she is having a bad day. The other child is frighteningly well-behaved and perfect. Mine – so cute, able, confident and lovely so much of the time – has a meltdown. And to make matters worse, when we see them as a family she is scared of the father’s voice. It basically means that among our closest friends at least one couple think our child is part-demon. This makes me sad, and also makes me think Ramona must, must, must be around other kids her age!
Back home, with a toothy baby, and back to work soon
I’m not, generally speaking, such a fan of writing bullet point posts. However, having been away for the best part of the month I feel like it’s a good way to get us all up to speed so that when I refer to things in later posts I can go “you know, I mentioned it in that bullet point list” rather than have an explanatory aside.
Or, I’m feeling a bit blogging lazy. Here goes.
- We (by which I mean my mother, with my dad, Ramona and me on board) drove to Greece and back. Ash joined us by plane for the bit in the middle. We went to Athens and Kefallonia. The drive had its high and low points (I’m planning posts on the practical elements for BitchBuzz), but overall it was worth it and we all enjoyed the sun and food!
- Ramona grew a tooth! It’s still working its way up, but now looks like a large grain of rice has settled on her gum. As if overnight, it solved a lot of her feeding problems and she’s now happily settled on finger foods with three milk feeds a day. Now to switch the milk to cups, which I’m hoping won’t be horrendous as she’s been using her cup independently to drink water since she was seven months.
- I just had to interrupt this as Ramona had somehow managed to get hold of a bottle of Bio-Oil, open it, and spill it all over herself.
- Books are her favourite thing ever. She loves Winnie the Pooh and the Trouble with Bees so much I can recite it from memory without the book and she grins at all her favourite bits before they happen. A book will keep her occupied longer than any toy.
- Oh, actually, Peekaboo is the best, best thing ever. And when I say “Ramona play Peekaboo!” she ducks down and pops up, giggling hysterically and mumbling “pah!” “bah!” or “ee-bah!”.
- I haven’t run in a month and feel thoroughly guilty. I’m also slightly amazed at how much weight I haven’t gained eating everything and hardly moving. Even in the sea I didn’t exactly do much swimming!
- And speaking of the sea, Ramona adored it. She cried for about half a minute the first time she went in from the shock of the cold water, but adjusted far more quickly than we did. The second time she just complained for a few seconds. The third and fourth time there wasn’t a peep, just excited leg kicking! After that she started to get a bit irritated by the ring she was in and if we’d had more time I’d have graduated her to arm bands. Time to start taking her swimming. I meant to ages ago, right from when she was born, really, but somehow it just didn’t happen.
- I’m back at work on 1st August, so I’m starting the process of getting Ramona settled into nursery this week (we have a mixture of nursery and grandparent care set up for her). I think she’ll be fine, but obviously it’s not so easy to detach myself, even if I am raring to get back to doing what I do. Being a community manager is basically aces, and I’ve missed it. I know that once I’m at work I’ll get so wrapped up in things it’ll be like I never went away, and there’s lots of people I’m looking forward to seeing. I’m just a bit bowled over by how quickly it’s all gone!
- So yes, my ‘baby’ is almost a year old and won’t be a baby for much longer! It’s both slightly sad and very exciting. I’m looking forward to first words, first steps (I don’t think that’s very far off) and lots of other brilliant firsts, but I’m also stunned that I’m months away from being mum to a toddler.
I think those are the highlights. And now, I’m off to another child’s first birthday party. Because that’s what parents do at weekends.
MOKUSKA 