When it comes to violence committed in the name of Allah, the choice of words aren't universal. Britain has settled on "terrorism" and "threats to national security", maybe for historic reasons.

In Germany, the word used to describe perpetrators of such violence is "Islamisten", islamists. Immediately I objected to the term, because it seems to suggest that being a follower of Islam makes you a violent person who may commit such crimes. Granted, the -ist ending does add a negative connotation to the word Islam, so Islam as such isn't necessarily considered a violent faith even by the use of the word. Yet this very ending may taint the word Islam itself giving it a negative connotation over time. It feels wrong.

Why not use the term "terrorist" I naively asked (as if I liked it any better). I was told that "terrorist" could apply to anyone and wasn't specific enough. After all, we're talking about a specific type of terrorism. I understand that explanation, but I still think the German term is anything but politically correct, nevermind respectful, to a religious community. It seems to offend and tear people apart rather than bring them together.

I'd love to hear from Germans, anglophones, and particularly Muslims what they think. 

You know where the comment box is.

Phew. I've done it, the first run after getting pregnant (I didn't run when pregnant because I was paranoid that the baby could fall out...). My legs are screaming, my eyes burn, it brought me to the edge of an asthma attack (but I know that exercise induced ones are harmless and don't even need inhaler action) but oh how good it felt to run through the light Scottish rain along the Cart. Bring on those long summer days when jogging after Cubling's bedtime is an option even for a woman running on her own.

Now, I wonder if I can do the Women's 10 K in May...
I must be slightly mad.

Right in time for granddad R's 70th birthday party tonight, Cubling decided to finally give crawling a miss and go for the two legged forward motion. Very suddenly she just left mummy to walk to daddy, 4 steps taken. We then took her to a piece of grassland and lo and behold she walked for 17 steps! (and we even caught it on video...)

70 years, 13 months, 3 days and 17 steps are today's magic numbers.

My baby is now officially a toddler.

One of the greatest coincidences when I got pregnant was that a good friend of mine, who also lives close by, got pregnant at the same time (Our due dates were just 4 days apart, in the end, our children are almost 4 weeks apart), and my sister in law was just 11 weeks ahead of me. I found it fascinating how our experiences were similar and also very different. When struggling with breast feeding, I also found fabulous support in a group of new mummies and their babies - a group of 12 or so. We met at the Millbrae community clinic breast feeding drop, decided on the initiative of one midwife there to meet a second time each week privately, and a year on, and we still meet up regularly. Our babies are now between 14 and 10 months. The other day, the talk with one of the "Millbrae mummies" came to birth experiences. It was a diversion because we were really discussing post natal depression. My new friend said how it's only natural to go back to it a year on. To be honest, I've never really stopped thinking about it, but it made me aware that there's still a lot going on in my head which I haven't blogged about and which may be fodder for thought for those expecting a baby or having had one.

One of the main peculiarities of my perspective is that I passionately wanted to avoid a c-section and give birth as naturally as possible. Not in a tree hugging kind of way, at all. No, it was about being very scared of abdominal surgery, and lots of little things that go with it. Maybe it's worth going into this a bit more, after all it's cesaerean awareness week.

I was born by c-section. My mother had developed pre-eclamsia, which went undiagnosed for a long time. By the time she was admitted to hospital, she was severely ill and there was fear for both our lives. Induction was attempted, but I don't know how that went in those days, the description I remember was rolling her down stairs in a wheelchair. How that would help a woman who was well before her due date I don't know. Anyway, my mother was very ill with liver damage, had to stay in hospital for 4 weeks after surgery, couldn't breast feed and was advised not to have any more children. Hence I'm an only child. I always felt that she hadn't properly experienced birth and that she couldn't tell me anything about giving birth. I also developed a serious fear of childbirth, which I carried right into my own pregnancy. It was so serious that for much of my life I didn't want to have children at all - but of course as you get older you realise the stupidity of such an argument.

When I got pregnant, I was still very fearful of childbirth. I tackled this with gettting right into hypnobirthing because its approach looked at the element of fear and how fear augments the experience of pain. The problem with it was that I'm not a very suggestible person and I knew that hypnosis didn't work quite so well for me as I'd hoped. It did provide me with an opportunity to learn about and confront my fears and learn a lot about giving birth. I was obsessed with childbirth in those months, and to a certain extent, I still am. There is a sense in my mind that it's the primal experience for any woman, that a woman is somehow not complete without having experienced it. I'm not saying this is the case for everyone, or that a woman who does not have children has missed out on something, just that this is the way I feel about myself. I would not have felt complete as a woman without having given birth. Hypnobirthing also advocates homebirths but after much thought and having seen the birth pool at my local maternity unit, I decided that I couldn't have a more comfy room than that at home.

I didn't want a c-section because I wanted to experience giving birth. I didn't want an epidural because the thought of a needle going into my spine gives me the creeps, and because I learned that epidurals often lead to slow labour and c-section rates go up. I was also still very scared of abdominal surgery, and being awake during it. I think I could somehow accept a c-section under general anaesthesia, but with just a spinal block? Even the thought of being awake during surgery makes me feel faint (you see, I faint very easily) and go all white in the face. I was sure I didn't want and wouldn't have a c-section.

Then my sister in law, who had also embarked on a hypnobirthing course, had an emergency c-section due to "failure to progress" 12 weeks before I gave birth. Realising that really things may not go to plan, I tried to prepare myself for having to accept a c-section. When I went into labour, I was determined to do as best as possible to avoid it, but that it wouldn't be the end of the world if things turned out differently. My midwife read and discussed my birth plan and assured me she would support me in any way possible.

32 hours into labour and after 3 hours in second stage (without that infamous urge to push - I kept waiting for it to make an appearance), the obstetrician took over and presented me with a consent form for c-section/forceps depending on outcome of an examination in theatre. I screamed. I shouted abuse at him (poor fellow, he was clearly slightly unsure of how to react). My hand shook. I couldn't get myself to sign it. In spite of my utter exhaustion and pain I've never experienced fear in such a raw state. I felt cheated (after labouring so hard for so long and having made it so far), but above all I felt fear beyond words of being cut open and  having a needle stuck in my back. The fear was so overwhelming, words fail me to describe how I felt. It took the obstetrician (who was utterly confused by my extreme reaction) a lengthy chat first with my beloved and then with me to calm me down and get me to sign that form. It was one of the most difficult moments in my life. I really didn't want to sign the form but I did. Between there and theatre, I pushed like mad (and like I should have before) and managed to cheat the knife, if not the needle in my spine (that was another story of severe fear and extreme behaviour - but it really didn't hurt and admittedly I did like the sudden end of all the pain). But even now I feel that I didn't fully experience giving birth. Yes, I experienced labour and certainly wasn't shortchanged there, but I did not feel my baby emerge. I did not get to hold her for more than 5 seconds after birth and had to wait a full half hour to see her again, panicking where she was and if she was alright.

Initially, all of this didn't matter. All that mattered was that Cubling was there, safe and sound, and everything else was a minor quibble. I was also simply glad that above all, it didn't come to the c-section. But now there's a nagging feeling that I wish there had been a way of avoiding spinal block and forceps. I still stare at the MCFD acronym on my hospital card. I still wonder if there was anything I could have done to avoid an instrumental delivery. If hypnobirthing, which teaches to bear down rather than to actively push, actually was partly to blame for the failure to progress in second stage (I had asked the midwife not to coach me to push - and I wonder if I had progressed better if she had). If I shouldn't have ruled out an epidural because it might have given me a break and the strength to push after an exhausting first stage.

Maybe I'm just slightly obsessed with it all. Certainly my fellow new mums don't seem too bothered by it all, whatever their birth experience. Or maybe they don't share it because it's too personal. Yet when Cubling was screaming with colic (or whatever) for hours and I read Sheila Kitzinger's "Understanding your Crying Baby" I realised how important the way you feel about giving birth can be for both mum and baby. And I didn't feel good about it. Accepting that made me have a (or rather ten thanks to postnatal hormone overdrive) very good cathartic cry and magically, Cubling allowed me to comfort her more and more.

Of course there are so many things that matter much more, but birth matters too, that can't be ignored.

As ever, if in doubt, call it teething.
Screaming at night like a banshee for hours and then be all smiles as soon as brought into a room with the lights on? Teething. Nappy rash? Teething. Trying out how loud you can utter "ataaa" all day long? Teething.

Cubling can now stand for a decent amount of time, enough to clap her hands in delight at this feat. Occasionally, she has even managed to stand up without any support, which looks very much impossible to me. Somehow, she can do it. It's really quite impressive because usually her cruising looks like she's had a couple of pints too many and is trying to stumble home, collapsing regularly in the attempt. Then, suddenly, she has the body control and balance to put her feet in just the right alignment and distance from one another, bend her legs, balance her upper body and... up she goes. Of course we haven't been able to ban it on photo or video, so proof is still outstanding.

Today we decided to give Calderglen Country Park a try. It's near East Kilbride, which is relatively quick to get to from the south side of Glasgow, particularly from our end. The park boasts nature trails and I'm sure they are lovely but this time we stuck to the children's zoo (and tea rooms). Mainly because they boast a snake, and Cubling just loves imitating a snake (and I'm not sure she actually knows what a snake is...). The zoo wasn't really a zoo, more like some cages outside, a few aquariums and terrariums inside. Definitely enough to keep a child happy, and not too much to get boring. Cubling loved the hens and guinea pigs, and was quite taken with the monkeys as well. As for the snake, well, it was kind of wearing camouflage and not moving an awful lot. All my mad pointing "Look! There's a snake! A snaaake! What noise does the snake make? Ssssss! Look! There!" etc repeat ad nauseaum, didn't quite get her to identify the curled up something as an animal different from the log of the same colour.

Right, must work hard on that first year film now. I decided to buy Adobe Premiere Elements after giving in on Windows Movie Maker. So far, it's been easy to use, if slow in loading. It better give me good results, considering it's price. We shall see...

We're still dealing with liquid eruptions either side of the digestive system - not all the time, and some food does stay in (yay, she's eating after two weeks of dieting) at least for some time. In between, it was a trip to the doctor's, after the childminder had seen enough of the bottom eruptions. It seems the doctor didn't quite see the problem, Cubling presented her cheerful and social side, waving to all the people in the waiting room and generally enjoying the outing. Emergency? This child doesn't look like an emergency.

Strangely, the diagnosis was not a tummy bug but tonsilitis. Possibly coupled with teething. Mumsy is confused. I thought I could tell the tonsils from the anus. Plus, as someone who had more than her share of tonsilitiseseses, I know how painful it is, and I clearly don't see a baby in pain. What do I know, antibiotics she got yet again. I'm not pleased.

Mustn't moan. On the good side, Cubling is having fun kissing everyone, with big open mouth and slivery kisses. She's also found her own nose and can imitate a snake with delight. And her ever pointy finger now has joined forces with a new uh uh sound which tells us "I want that there, gimme it or you'll get your eardrums burst with my very special Cubling scream". If we react in time, our eardrums stay whole. Other than that I have to admit that I have a very clever girl. She knows a lot of words and can tell a zebra from an elephant, a duck from a teddy and a cup from an octopus. In two languages. This is quite entertaining because there are some differences between languages, and I've entered the competition of trying to make her catch up with anything she can understand in English but not German. She's learning so quickly that we're doing well on the ketchup game.

Swimming lessons have been postponed as I don't want to cause half of Glasgow to become best pals with their toilets.

Oh, and I'm on holiday for over two weeks! yay!

Oh shame. My diagnosing powers have left me. Cubling has been so under the weather with teething recently that I have developed a tendency to blame everything on those molars, until I felt a strange, sudden and all encompassing wetness emanating from her bottom and covering all the way to her toes. A wetness with a colour. And a smell.

Oh. my.

She's got her first and proper tummy bug. Not too surprising really as we had a 24 hour thing on Tuesday/Wednesday (nicely coinciding with a severe teething night from 11pm to 4am which meant that I couldn't just sleep and hope to feel less rotten on waking, I was awake and suffering and being entertained by unconsolable crying). So now she's got it. Poor soul, she's been really not herself lately, whether it's teething or the runs. At least I can rest assured that her hunger strike is nothing personal. The ironies of motherhood - how dare I be relieved that she isn't eating because she's poorly?

A year ago today we went on our first walk around Queen's Park after Cubling's birth. We did the same today. It was as sunny, a much easier walk for me, last year's nesting swans are still there with their offspring but no new nest. We visited the creepy crawlies in the glasshouse and Cubling adored the real life lizards, frogs, parrots and turtles. Then she was the queen (or rather the princess as she was much younger than any of the other children) of the softplay area, making new toddler friends, clambering about confidently among all the older kids running around her. Trying out reactions to taking other children's toys. Sometimes such pride overcomes me when I see her taking such confident initiative to play with other children. I think I can see how her mind works, she goes for what's on her mind, but then happily observes the reaction she creates, takes it all in, and stores it away. No crying on her part, no worries or insisting, just testing and observation. And she ended up playing with some of the much older children, just like that.

Oh, this is exciting. I've been tagged. I don't even know what that means, although I've heard a lot about it. Like one of these magic words that bloggers throw about and me no understand. But maybe it isn't actually so complicated? Let's hope, because my brain is mince after a mad week at work during the day, and a mad week at home during the night. I'm going to sing hallelujah once the fourth molar (i.e. tooth number 12) has made an appearance let me tell you. Interestingly, a big bash on the eyebrow at bed time seems to have improved Cubling's sleep, although I wouldn't recommend to try this in your home as it looks ugly. I hope the social won't be after me... Just for the record, that bash was self induced by escape attempts from the changing table, resulting in a trip followed by forehead bash onto the edge. Anyway. Where was I? Ah, tagged. me.
So here it goes, thanks to zooarchaeologist (phew, there's testing my spelling abilities in the middle of the night)

1. Pick up the nearest book of 123 (or more) pages.
That's a challenge. There are about 123 books equidistant from me. Except for the one I'm currently (and have been for the past year and a half) reading, which is in the car (where I read it when Cubling decides to have a nap in the car seat and I'm too scared of either waking her or someone stealing her to make my way into the house). Now that one is Zadie Smith "White Teeth", but there's no way I'm going out to get it for number 2 and 3, so instead I shall pick... Rachel Seiffert "The Dark Room". Which I hope to read next.

2. Open the book to page 123 and find the 5th sentence.
If no one wants Mutti's money now, Lore doesn't know how she can make Mutti's jewellery last.

3. Post the next 3 sentences.
She is furious, frightened. A cart comes towards her on he road, the farmer raises his hat. Behind him sit people with bundles. The young man in the black suit is among them, legs dangling from the back of the cart.
(oh dear, that sounds like a cheerful book, maybe I'll read another book next...)

4. Tag 5 people.
Not sure how that works, but looking at how some bloggers do it I think it involves just listing people? And hope they read this? Because how would they know they've been tagged? Well then, while I don't think they necessarily read my blog, I currently read their blogs frequently, so I hereby declare croila, good enough mum, a midwife's muse, mother at large and you'll take an eye out tagged.

Oi! Here's some campaigning stuff. Look at the poster in the attachment, isn't it nice. Better even, look at this website and send a letter to Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary. Why? Well, in 1991 the UK signed and ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. So far so good.

However, they decided that although this convention says that the rights apply to all children, this would not be so in the UK, where children subject to immigration control have lesser rights. This means that the UK can pass legislation without considering children's rights if the legislation affects children without leave to remain in the UK. That would be asylum seeking children, trafficked children, unaccompanied children. This is why asylum seeking children can be indefinitely detained without having committed a crime or having legal recourse to challenge such detention. This is why Glasgow City Council can operate a separate admissions system for pre 5 services and only offer free nursery places to children of asylum seekers who are 4 years (rather than the statutory entitlement of nursery education for ALL 3 and 4 year olds). This is why the UK can deport children whose parents have committed a crime, even though the children haven't. And so on.

At present, there's a consultation out (closes 25th April) which asks if this reservation should be removed. So you can find the question easily - it's question 16 in the consultation document.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says that all children have the same rights. Full stop. No exceptions. This UK reservation is big time unfair, so let's tell the Home Secretary and "Children's Champion" at the Home Office what they should have known for years. Let's just get rid of this reservation.