Podcast 7

Not unlike our home – at one time a reasonably orderly place of grown-up farmhouse chic, I rather fancy – the Bad Farmer’s Wife blog is quickly becoming usurped by the arrival of Baby Daisy.

I also rather fancied that I was blossoming into a considerably better Farmer’s Daughter’s Mum than Farmer’s Wife until, that is, I started preparing for round two of Daisy’s immunisations last week.

The first round had not gone well, for either of us, so the night before the appointment I Googled for tips on how to minimise the horrifying anguish that comes from presenting your daughter’s delightfully chubby thighs for those nasty, but of course necessary, injections.

I clicked on a link to a podcast by parenting doyenne Dr Miriam Stoppard (Podcast 7), who calmly reassured me that feeling anxious and guilty is perfectly natural before cautioning that I should nevertheless hide this from my child..uh-oh.

Last time, sitting in the baby clinic waiting room I became so traumatised by the screams from the adjoining immunisation room that I was on the verge of tears before Daisy and I were even called. By the time the perfectly pleasant nurses stuck my beautiful bub in each thigh while she sat happily oblivious on my lap, I was in floods.

Daisy screamed and screamed while I cried, desperately trying to comfort her. The nurses passed me a wad of tissues and ushered me back to the waiting room where poor Daisy (and I) sobbed our little hearts out; the health visitors and other Mums looked on, collectively murmuring, ‘oh dear’. Eventually, we both calmed down thanks to a warm drink and a nap – Daisy rather than me.

A month on, it was hardly surprising that the immunisation nurses remembered us, or possibly just me, only too well. But with Podcast 7 fresh in my mind, I kept smiling and talking to Daisy and when the dreaded moment came, took her over to the mirror to distract her. It worked, albeit briefly, but generally I think we both did a lot better.

Strapping a relatively calm Daisy into her car seat back in the waiting room, I heard one of the health visitors comment on the beautiful red hair of another Mum’s daughter. ‘No mother wants a ginger baby,’ the young Mum replied, completely dead-pan.

She was right, I thought. Motherhood’s not easy but at least I didn’t have a ginger baby.