Ten weeks and four days

I must admit, I still don't feel like someone's mum. Walking round the park with Alice, I look at the other women with their buggies and think of them as Mothers, whereas I'm just somebody who happens to be pushing a baby. I'm just acting the part of 'mum', and even then I'm just the understudy, it's not my JOB or anything.

In fact I'm only just starting to emerge from thinking that Alice represents some sort of exam in which I'm being graded on how successfully I can keep her fed, clean and quiet while remembering to sterilise enough bottles, make up enough formula and wash enough nappies to prevent chaos descending. With bonus points if I can manage to have a shower, get dressed and eat three meals a day at vaguely normal intervals. All of which carries the assumption that it's a finite project and when I've completed it, I will be returning Alice to wherever she so miraculously came from. But as the practical tasks become more automatic and less time consuming, it's gradually dawning on me that she's a person, rather than some sort of Tamigotchi-style challenge. She's not going anywhere. And I AM a mother. And suddenly things are much more scary, and much more wonderful.