Today I rediscovered my hatred for acronyms. What can I say, it's been a slow morning.
The thing is, it's either just me and I'm some sort of drooling half-wit, or not every Sheila who finds themselves up t'duff and wanders blithely onto the internet to: a) check out what she's in for over the next nine months b) watch repeats of One Born Every Minute in wide-eyed terror c) find out if the irrepressible urge to vomit out of your nose and eat your body weight in Jaffa Cakes whilst baking one's bun is normal - knows what the jiggery pokery an LO, DH, EBF or FTM** is.
Some of you will appreciate immediately what I'm waffling about. For those that don't or have a strange fancy for feeling like an ignoramus, just take a peek at any baby or mum website and scroll through the forums. Yep, you feel like a right berk now eh? Join the club ladycakes.
It may be that because I was very lucky and became pregnant pretty easily with Boo, I didn't spend an awful lot of time trawling the web like some, understandably hoping to find others to support or advise them in their plight to conceive a desperately wanted wee one. Therefore, all of this forum phrasiness is new and bewildering to me (as is text speak. It seems odd that people exclaim LOL after revealing that their hamster has just died).
Had I perhaps integrated myself into mummy networking earlier I would be up to speed by now and know that EBF means Exclusively Breast Fed and not Eaten Before Friday (which would of course cause all manner of confusion and outrage when proudly announcing on Mumsnet that one's wickle cherub will be EBF. *Oh hello Child Services. Nope, no way, I am categorically NOT a cannibal*).
But, hey ho, I didn't. And now I feel like I'm an outsider, licking the windows of an exclusive club full of clever mumsies who have all the answers and just keep giving me the finger and giggling conspiratorially behind their perfectly manicured hands from inside the warm and cosy forum *sniffle, sobs gently*.
A fairly traumatic pregnancy, which involved me inflating like a bouncy castle at a school fête with Oedema and blood pressure that could have seen me spontaneously combust at any moment, invoked me to wander online one bloated afternoon to see if anyone else was equally as sumo-sized and sympathetic.
It was at this fairly low point that I first came face to face with bubba forum fat chewers and alas, became so befuddled by their acronyms and abbreviations that I felt like crying big fat tears down my big fat face. The pairing of these bastard initials with my ever thickening brain fog compelled me to log-off feeling hugely bewildered, mightily fed-up and not even the smidgiest widgiest bit wiser.
Apparently, all other knocked-up women were able to abbreviate to such an extent that they were clearly in possession and full control of all their shiny brain cells and probably moonlighting for NASA (another acronym, it's a freakin' conspiracy I tell you) during their pregnancies. Yet, even if they were suffering the same symptoms as me, I'd never have been able to decode their empathies anyway. Sigh, if only they made dunce hats big enough for my mahoosive swollen noggin, I thought.
I closed the laptop six months into my pregnancy, vowed never ever ever to go back onto another forum and went back to moaning quietly to myself, marooned on the sofa like Shamu waiting for Greenpeace to roll me back into the sea, whilst all the time trying not to reach a level of excitement above catatonia in case I might explode.
But I couldn't stay away could I? No I couldn't...
So today I find myself browsing a site that shall remain nameless (*cough* BabyCentre *cough*) looking for a reason as to why my Boo sways from side to side like a bored horse when he's mooching about the floor on his belly and why, no matter how many toys with buttons, bells and whistles I buy him, the little toad only wants to jam either the dog's tail or remote controls into his mouth. My TV is now permanently set to wide-screen which means I only get to see half of The Only Way Is Essex and frankly, that simply won't do.
Nothing has changed. It's the same bunch of women I encountered when I was prego except that they have now dropped their dribblers and, with their new role as a mumkin, have made up a whole new bunch of acroyms that make me want to slap them round the face with a pooey nappy.
In short, after about an hour of searching and thanks to the excessive use of these acronyms, I still have no idea whether my Boo is actually Seabiscuit's love child or if anyone else's pup is so disgusted by their mother's television viewing habits that they deliberately reprogramme the chuffing thing. Thanks ladies, yeah thanks alot.
It is an altogether exhausting, giddying, rewarding but exhausting job being a parent, do you really need to make our jobs any harder and make us feel like any more inadequate by writing in acronyms that, unless you have a degree in Smug Mummydom, make absolutely no pigging sense? No you do not. Naughty step for you all I think.
To all you forum regulars, if you're reading this, in the name of sisterhood (oooh hellooo, I'm Emmeline Pankhurst!) from me and all other mums who would be overjoyed to share in your pearls of parental wisdom and comforted by reading that there's someone else out there with a baby who has an inexplicable appetite for dog arse and electrical items, please heed this little request: even if it takes you an extra 30 seconds, just type the words **Little One, Dear Husband, Exclusively Breast Fed and First Time Mum and the like, in their full glory. That's it. Piece o' cake. Simples.
Mummyhood might feel like an utterly special and exclusive club but remember it's open to new members every day - so come on chicas, dish out the baby Blue Peter badges (they should SO make those by the way), splurge on some characters and don't leave us floundering, wondering WTF!? (Tee hee!) - being a mum is tough enough.
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