Day 111 - Under Pressure

Yesterday, I put on a black wash. Went into the bedroom, grabbed everything black I could find and shoved it into the machine and went out whilst it did its thing. When we got back I unloaded it and drapped the clothes artfully from the giant crystal chandeliers* and the door to the servant's quarters** and the like.

Sometime later, I was playing on my 'puter when I heard a plantive cry of disappointment from the other room.

'Oh no!'

I went through to find K___ looking at one of her tops and appearing rather less than impressed. The top in question was just two weeks old. It had come from Monsoon in Truro, Cornwall and K___ really liked it because it was pretty and it would remain pretty long into the pregnancy. Around the neck of the black top there are loads of sequins. Picking it up, I could see the sequins were marked. I ran a nail over one and a tiny fragment of brown came away from the silver of the sequin.

'It's okay, it'll come off,' I said, holding up a fingernail with a fleck of brown on it.
'It's supposed to be bronze,' said K___ with (I think it's fair to say) a little disdain.

Given that I was the one who'd put the wash on, K___ was blaming me. To be fair to me, I had put the top in to a wash at the correct temperature. Admittedly not on purpose. Everything I own washes at the same temperature, so I only use one setting. It just happened to be the right one, but it still got knackered.

I need to be extra careful what I say now, because I've actually invited K___ to become a participant on this blog and she can now edit anything she doesn't agree with or just delete everything and replace it with the four-letter word she feels best describes me, but by her own admission, K___ was in a grump with me. In fact, she's still in a grump with me now. I'm going to stop the soap opera aspect here (largely to save my own feelings, I freely admit). The thing is, K___ needs to realise that I only ruined her new and very pretty top for the sake of the baby ***.

Up until now, the received wisdom has been that stress is bad for babies. Research from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, suggests that a small amount of stress can lead to more advanced mental and motor development at the age of two. Arguably more importantly, the team failed to see any negative effects associated with children of moderately stressed mothers.

It may be that the stress produces hormones that make organs develop more, or it maybe that some stress is useful in today's hectic world. It's not clear, but the effects are pretty conclusive, apparently. The true irony, of course, is that many women have probably been stressing about whether their stress will affect their babies. Now they can rest easy. Of course, better not relax too much - some stress is good for your baby. However, just because I've said some stress is good, I don't want anyone to think this is a green light to go and play merry hell with your partners, m'kay? Just trying to stay on the cusp of the stressed/not stressed interface should be enough to drive anyone barmy...

* we don't really have crystal chandeliers.
** or servant's quarters. Did you guess?
*** again, not true. It was an accident and I really wish I hadn't done it, even if it does give me an entry for the blog.