Reading List, originally uploaded by _Embarr_.

Continuing the salvage of brain cells, I spent some of my lovely book vouchers today. Combining some old, some borrowed & some new , I have prepared a stack of books for myself to read over the next few weeks. I may even stretch to mini reviews of each one as I finish. My intention is to read them from the top down as pictured.

Hazy Boardwalk View, originally uploaded by _Embarr_.

A teeny tiny boast here. Almost all of the photos I upload to Flickr are under a Creative Commons licence. I like the idea of someone happening on my shots and liking them enough to use them. So it is that for the second year running, a photo of mine (above) has been included in an online travel guide. This one appears in the Schmap Ireland Guide under Lakes, Rivers & Beaches. I’m no David Bailey but I am a little bit proud.

 

Cappuccino at The Bald Barista, originally uploaded by _Embarr_.

Due to a sick baby and the accompanying sleepless nights, I am capable of only little blog posts until my brain wakes up again.

Coffee Lovers

Last Saturday, set free thanks to willing babysitters, I found myself looking for a really decent coffee and on the recommendations of Mr Embarr, we headed for The Bald Barista on Aungier Street, just opposite the Dublin Business School. Run by Buzz, who is bald and a barista, he blends his own coffee to suit the Irish palate. It seems we like a smooth, chocolatey taste. I have to say my cappuccino was one of the finest I’ve had in a long time. I had it with a Lava Cake, a little chocolate pudding which was pure heaven. They provide lots of papers and even a Far Side Gallery book. Great food, great coffee & very friendly staff, if you love coffee, you’ll love this place.

The Big Beef

We followed this by a trip to BóBós diner on Wexford Street where we grappled with massive gourmet burgers & buckets of chips. A half pound burger is a challenge at the best of times but even moreso with a belly full of Lava Cake. I didn’t manage to finish but it was very good indeed. Chips were seasoned with rosemary salt and were perfectly crispy. Some lovely nostalgic little touches too - TK Red Lemonade is offered as a drink with ice cream wafer sandwiches and coke floats for afters. My advice - go to the Bald Barista afterwards and don’t have breakfast!

Let me first give a disclaimer that I adore being a mammy, I love my little man and I wouldn’t trade my life now for a second BUT I need to return to at least a little bit of my pre-Mammy state.

Forget drink & drugs, nothing eats brain cells faster than pregnancy and motherhood. . I picture my brain as being full of Numskulls all dressed like creepy adult babies crawling around, munching on my brain cells. Despite my dedicated use of Nintendo DS Brain Training and getting a consistent brain age of 20, I still put cheese in the freezer, forget important dates and regularly lock myself out of the house.

What is worse than my clumsy, forgetful state is the waning of my usual interests. I flick through the music channels completely clueless as to who anyone is. I haven’t managed to read more than a few pages of a book recently without falling asleep under it. The last time I went to the cinema, it was in the middle of the day and the only thing on was Enchanted. I admit, I thoroughly enjoyed it but I would have preferred a choice. The last DVD I watched involved the riveting story of the day the Pinky Ponk got stuck in a tree. Edge of the seat stuff.

So commences Operation Brain Reclaim. Armed with lovely book vouchers (thank you, Daragh) I have a list of books that I want to read. I have just signed up for both a Yoga class and a Pilates class as I have a body to reclaim too. I am busily planning a trip to Berlin which will involve brushing up a bit on my rusty German. Also in the planning is a trip away *shock* without the little man.

In Blogland, Fústar and Sinéad Gleeson have launched their excellent joint horror story writing/live discussion book club extravaganza. I’ve just printed off the first ghost story for review and I’m stupidly excited about the whole thing.

Full service may never be restored but I am open to all suggestions for further brain expansion.

Today has been an emotional day. At 5.04pm on this day one year ago I looked down and exclaimed “It’s a baby!”. No points for observation then! My son was born and a new part of me was born.

I have such vivid memories of that day.I remember the exact shape of the gnarled tree outside the labour ward window that I kept my focus on. I remember how he looked in those first seconds - purple, bloody and cross. I remember the first taste of hot buttery toast when he was half an hour old. His contented little face as he breastfed for the first time. I remember being alone with him for the first time and staring at him through his little glass box and feeling that I’d known him forever and yet at the same time, I didn’t know him at all.

This year has been hard at times but delivered the biggest rewards I’ve ever known. From his first smile to his first tooth, his first time to sit up to his first time to walk along the couch - every step has been fascinating.

I look at him today with his big toothy grin (all 6 of them!), his curious face and his beautiful blue eyes and I feel very proud. Of him and of me. I think I finally have this mothering lark down now.

We have so much to look forward to and so much to learn from each other. I can’t wait to see where the adventure leads us. Just for today though, I am content to look back and remember how we got here.

Happy Birthday my darling. You are the making of me.

This time last year, I was sitting at my computer willing the girls on Magicmum to tell me that I was imagining things and that I wasn’t having a show and about to have a baby. It was four days before my due date and things were not meant to be happening this soon. I was tired from the previous night’s Blog Awards and my brother and Mr Embarr were in the baby’s room putting up flat pack furniture.

I decided to tell no-one and wandered about the house, unable to relax and wondering when I was going to get the house in order. I silently cursed those people who’d promised me that “practically everybody goes overdue on their first”.

I admit I was more scared than excited because I didn’t know what was ahead of me. Would it hurt? How long would it last? How on earth do you look after a baby? Two weeks previously I had a false alarm and had been preparing myself, at least materially, for a very early arrival so I did have a trial run of sorts but this was the real thing and I didn’t know what to do.

At the same time, I realised that I would have my very own little mini me in at least a day or so and that was very exciting indeed. After months of wondering what he would look like, how big he’d be, if he’d have hair, if he’d look like me or Mr Embarr, I was finally going to get my answer. As I had remained convinced throughout the pregnancy that my bump housed a little man, I was intrigued to see if my hunch was correct or if I was facing a major pink hued adjustment to images of my little one.

I was also looking forward to being able to see my feet again and to no longer needing to pack a bottle of Gaviscon wherever I went. Oh and to eating paté and brie again. I think, in my naïveté, I was waiting for things to go back to normal. Ha! Little did I know what was ahead of me this day a year ago.

Today is the last day that I can say “Oisín wasn’t in the world a year ago”. I can’t imagine life without him now and I don’t want to. I would love to go back and tell the scared and nervous me how wonderful things were going to be and how gorgeous her little man would be and that her experience of giving birth would be a happy one. And I’d tell her that things would never be normal again but that normal was over-rated and this was a far better place to be.

Oisín’s first snow!

Originally uploaded by _Embarr_

Well, his first proper snow anyway. We got to test out his new monster shaped rain poncho today as we ran from the bus into the house. It was all blizzardy as we were coming in and O was in fits of giggles as large flakes of snow landed on his nose. When we got in, he stood at the back door laughing at the snow and offering it a taste of his Liga.

Today is my second Mother’s Day. I was too recent a mother for my first one to have really formed an opinion about it all.

Today I got a much needed lie in (see blog awards post), a huge breakfast and some beautiful flowers. I felt very spoiled and quite amazed at my darling son’s expertise in card writing.

Oisín will be a year old in a few days. My first year as a mother has been one full of many opposing emotions and was a very steep learning curve. The tough stuff was tough but the rest was magical. I never knew I could feel so violently protective of something so small. Or feel so much love that it is sometimes overwhelming. Oisín is a fascinating little character full of curiosity and mischief. He is beautiful and he is mine. I am very proud to be his mother.

My own mother is an incredibly strong, loving and inspirational woman. She was unable to have her own children and adopted the three of us. She remains eternally grateful to the young women who passed the gift of motherhood to her. Since I became a mother, my respect and appreciation of her has greatly increased and the shared experience has brought us much closer.

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new - Rajneesh

This year’s awards were fantastic fun. A crowd of 400 descended upon the Alexander Hotel in Dublin for a night of cheering, dancing & mingling. Lots of people came dressed up for the occasion and everyone was in top form.

I got to meet Sinéad Gleeson (who scored a deserved hat trick for Best Art & Culture) properly and finally got to meet Feebee, who was blooming.

Free of the mammy shackles for the evening, myself and Mr Embarr made the most of the company and the groovy 80’s tunes at the after disco. Cheesy Footloose moves and intense air guitar poses were the order of the night.

Our baby free evening was made very special indeed by the awarding to Mr Embarr of a Special Recognition Award for his contribution to the world of blogging. From his ‘pesky kids’ style adventures on Tuppenceworth.ie to the giving a video voice to the electorate over on Vote Tube last year and many other fingers in pies along the way, he’s generated a lot of new ideas. While this can leave me somewhat of a computer widow at times, I am enormously proud of him especially since he juggled this with study and the arrival of a mini person into his life in the last year. I am also very happy with his other prize of a bottle of champers!

My other highlight of the night was the handing out of spot prizes of Manky Toys (complete with Certificates of Inauthenticity) courtesy of the blogging genius that is Fústar. I was given my own genuine Manky Toy in the shape of Puppy Squeezer. My joy was short-lived as he met his sticky demise in the hands of DOBlog (see picture) but I was honoured nonetheless.

Demise of the Manky DogOriginally uploaded by _Embarr_

A truly enjoyable night was had by all. Massive congratulations and thanks to Damien Mulley, who does Trojan work for these Awards. The man is a legend.