I'm No Expert - a Blog on Motherhood and Life in General

Easter is coming up and I noticed a poster around town with a man covered in blood called Mysteria Paschalis or some such. It reminded me of when, at Easter time last year, K and I would regularly take the tram to preschool instead of driving, and the trams featured posters with Mary holding a very bloody sheet. Soon enough, my daughter started to get interested in them. Who was the woman with the dirty sheet? What was it on the sheet? Hmmm. I explained that she was Jesus' mother, and the sheet was covered in his blood as he'd been hurt. "Eh, it'll wash out," was her calm reply. On a different note, the kids are very into Mary Poppins. I've bought the latest enhanced DVD version and they watch it in two languages. S's favourite scene features the filthy chimney sweeps dancing on the roof tops. When Michael looked into the chimney and got covered in a thick blanket of soot, Szymus said "Look at all that clean soot on his face." Anyway, this lead...

Yesterday I was rolling around in bed, feeling absolutely drained from a gastro bug. My concerned son (aged 2 and 10 months), who had just been through all this with his sister the day before, pulled a chair up to the fridge to get me a bottle of water. "Here, drink this," he said, then, with a proud smile: "I saved your life."

If you have a baby in Poland EVERYONE will tell you to give it a dummy (or pacifier, binkie, whatever). EVERYONE. Because, at the end of the day, you can throw the dummy out and, after a few “restless” days and/or nights, your baby will be “weaned” and will grow up with a much smaller chance of dental problems. If you have an Australian guide book to raising babies, it will say not to give a dummy/pacifier/binkie, and list the bonuses of thumb sucking. It's your call. In my first pregnancy, when I followed the baby lists down to a T, I bought not one, but two different types of dummies just in case the baby had a preference. And she did. She preferred NOT to suck on any dummies at all. She hated them. She would spit them out. Yes, I tried many times. It’s not my damn fault!! And I was happy, because I remember sucking a dummy to the age where I could clearly give my grandmother instructions about not “washing” it in juice, but in water thanks. (Wasn’t I smart for my age? That’s...

Today I overheard Karolinka trying to cheer Szymus up about being born second: "When you're second you don't even have to go to hospital, you just pop straight out onto the bed. It's not important to be first."

Those of us who have or are expecting children have no doubt read a lot on their care, including general health/hygiene and safety issues. Some may seem far-fetching, some sensible but we don’t end up keeping to them as a rule for different reasons. I would like to share with you what I find essential and what is important to me as a mother. Breastfeeding My standpoint on this issue is clear from the breastfeeding piece I have included. I am 100% in favour of breastfeeding for the first 12 months with absolutely no extra bottles of formula if possible. I understand that everyone has their own approach and some women don’t have a choice, this is just my opinion. Home-cooked meals vs. shop-bought jars I cannot say I have never used them. They are convenient and my son, who had a very sensitive tummy, would have colic even after cooked apples, and would only tolerate shop-bought fruit. But do not tell me that these foods don’t contain anything fake! My husband works in the food in...

I just can't watch a movie these days without being a "mother". Sure, I will get into it and enjoy it and have a big laugh, but the mother in me always rears her head at some stage. Last night I obliged my husband and went to see a full-on action movie starring John Travolta - From Paris With Love. I have actually come to like action movies since getting together with O as, in the days we were dating, when we spent many an evening with his then teenage sons I - as the odd one out - never got much of a say and therefore action and thriller movies were all we watched, and I learned to enjoy them. O hates dramas and anything reminscent of real life. He has a tough job and recently lost his mother, so I figured that a mind-numbing action movie was probably the best idea for relaxation. The movie was good, really. And then they started shooting. I actually prefer that to fist fighting, because no one suffers too long. At one stage, one of the main characters got his face...

I mentioned in one of my introductory posts about starting up a section on funny things our children say. Of course I haven't been too good at jotting them down. Recently, I decided to see how much my 4.5 year old understands about having adult half-brothers. So in the bath I began to explain that they are Dad's sons from his first marriage and have a different mother. "Why don't they have their own father?" She asked, bewildered, "Has he gone to be with God?" I have decided to leave the topic for future discussion - LOL.