Number Two

This is not a post about poo. It could be though, I seem to have become, in the last 13 months, some sort of poo expert. A poospert maybe? I always swore I wouldn't be one of those mothers who discussed their offspring's erm, outputs, as casually in company as what was on TV last night, but it's almost as if once the baby arrives, the ability to talk about it in all sorts of social situations is aquired by osmosis, and before you know it you're sitting on the sofa in your boss's office talking about having to cut off a vest because the nappy leaked and poo reached your son's neck.

I think as a cloth nappy user I am probably faced with rather more poo than I would be if I just had to remove a dirty nappy, wrap it and put it in the bin. Flicking the disposable liners into the loo isn't hard work, believe me we'd be in Pampers if it were, but I baulk at putting fully formed toddler poo in my washing machine, and sometimes the liner shifts or just doesn't quite hold it all in, meaning I have to get a bit nearer than perhaps I would like to! Still, it's a fascinating insight into the human digestive system. Recognising what's gone in and how it's come out, only possible because lots of things seem not to touch the side. A friend swears she once found a whole grape in her son's nappy. Not squashed, not just the skin but as if it had been picked from the bunch and placed there. Once that would have disgusted me, but now it's become an anecdote I tell to anyone within earshot. That poo osmosis again!

Anyway, I said this was not a post about poo and in my anxiety not to talk about it I seem to have talked about nothing else!

Actually number two refers to our plans for (eeeek!) a second baby. I'd always assumed I'd like a two year age gap, the difference between my sister and I. I don't know why this seems so appealing, for a number of years we did nothing but pull each others hair and steal each others toys, but still my husband and I have discussed 'thinking about it' after Christmas. I'm not sure I'm ready for a second baby, how could I love anything, anyone as much as I love T? I'd have to give birth again. I'm still breastfeeding, would T have given up by then, would I end up tandem feeding? Can you even get pregnant whilst breastfeeding (I know the answer to this question is yes by the way, I just don't know how it might affect my fertility). Can I cope with more sleepless nights? OK, T doesn't sleep through, but still, a toddler waking in the night is very different to a newborn waking every 2 hours to feed for 45 minutes! But I'd love another year of maternity leave, and have lots of beautifully folded tiny baby clothes, worn just once or twice in most cases, just crying out for a new owner. Thinking about it is taking up more and more of my time, it's always at the back of my mind, that longing for the 'my secret' feeling which came from carrying a tiny bundle of cells, nuzzling in and growing and changing in the first few weeks of pregnancy.

How you go about getting pregnant when you share your bed with a wakeful toddler though I have no idea.