Competitive? Moi?

Winnie and I battled a deluge to get to the first meeting of our mother's group this morning.

Until today I thought those people who covered their expensive prams in clear plastic covers were being silly and over-protectve and possibly suffocating their young. But after walking a kilometre in the heaviest rain we've had for two years while trying to hold an umbrella over the open front of the pram so Winnie didn't drown and getting completely soaked myself, I kinda get it.

I also see why there is a baby shop right next to the Early Childhood Centre. Canny move that.

And I'm extremely grateful that they could sell me one of those stupid covers so that next time it rains I can struggle to push the pram while holding the umbrella over my own head. Of course it probably won't rain like that until Winnie's in school now...

Anyway, it felt strange to walk into a room full of sleep-deprived anxious new mothers and realise I was the most obviously bedraggled.

These groups are meant to make you realise you're not alone. That's great but I walked away worried that I wasn't doing about ten things right. Apparently we're meant to spend every waking moment staring into our babies' eyes and show them toys they're too young to see and talk to them all the time, even reading to them if possible. One woman said she read New Idea to her baby and the nurese said that was all right. I was too shy to admit that this week Winnie and I have been reading Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins. Or at least I've been reading the few bits to her that don't involve horny older men trying to get into bed with adolescent girls. Or taking psychotropic drugs. Or just plain silliness.

It's slow going (because I'm reading five pages at a sitting) but I'm enjoying it for it's show-offy pyrotechnic language and flights of fancy connecting odd things like Peruvian indians to the prophecies of Fatima and gun running to post-impressionist art. Robbins uses similar conspiracy theories and covoluted plots as Pynchon and Phillip K Dick in this book but it seems more lighthearted and less ponderous than their work. Could just be me though.