Yesterday, Daisy and I visited no fewer than five Post Offices, trying to guess which ones might be equipped to give me a tax disc.

After last year’s debacle, I was fairly keen to get it sorted out, but for some reason, our local Post Office, which does issue tax discs, was closed when we got there. The shop was open, but the Post Office bit at the back wasn’t. There was a small sign up saying it was due to unforeseen circumstances. I blamed Kevin, but he wasn’t that keen to take responsibility for other people’s unforeseen circumstances, for some reason.

So, having dragged Daisy all the way up there, notwithstanding her blatant unwellness (she’s had an unexplained high temperature for a couple of days, with accompanying tiredness and whinginess - she’s much better now than she was a few days ago, though), I was reduced to muttering about how it should be against the law to close a Post Office on the 27th of the month, and stomping home again.

We weren’t about to attempt another potentially fruitless walk, so after lunch we got in the car, and I tried to rack my brains to think of where the other local Post Offices might be. You know how it is, you use the one you use.

I knew there was one on Allerton Road, which is very close, so I drove up there, found an on-street parking space right outside, and got Daisy out of her car seat and onto her wrist-strap to go in. Big sign on the counter “No Car Tax”. No indication of where I could get the car taxed, and a long queue to stand in if I wanted to ask, so we got back in the car.

More brain racking.

That row of shops on Woolton Road, by the Halfway House, looks like the sort of place to have a Post Office. Let’s go look. Well, plausible it might have been, but there was no Post Office up there, so I thought some more, and decided that Aigburth Road might be my best bet. I drove around the park to the Lark Lane row of shops, and there was, indeed, a Post Office. I parked up a side street, got Daisy out of the car, put the wrist-strap on her, walked to the Post Office, and was met with another sign - again, it was inside, at the back, and again it said “No Car Tax”.

I was starting to get cross by this time.

I got back in the car, and headed back along Aigburth Road. I stumbled across another Post Office at Aigburth Vale (I’d never noticed it before, partly because it’s in the direction we never go in - if we were going that way, we wouldn’t pass through Aigburth Vale in the first place). I parked outside (at least I’ve had a fairly lucky day for parking spaces), went in, no sign. Hurrah. Also no queue, so I went up to the counter, had to repeat the phrase “tax my car” about four times before the woman appeared to understand what I wanted, and was told they didn’t do it.

Only the main Post Offices, apparently (though I don’t really understand the definition, since ours does it, and it’s as tiny as any of the others). Try Park Road or Garston.

I was facing Garston, so we went there.

I am never using another Post Office again. It was big and spacious, it had five counters, and when I was moaning at the woman behind the counter, she said that my local office is forever closing for no apparent reason, and I should use them first as last, for the future. I’m inclined to agree with her. “We never close,” she said, and whilst she didn’t quite mean that, I’m inclined to believe that they’re generally open when they’re supposed to be.

Five Post Offices in one day. It should have been a ten minute job, and it took us all day.

Am I the only person who has these problems?

Conversation yesterday, whilst walking back from the (closed) Post Office.

Daisy: (in tears) The cars are making me sad, Mummy.

Me: Why are the cars making you sad, darling?

Daisy: Because the black car is too black.

Those were the words of my obstetric consultant’s specialist registrar, yesterday, when I pointed out beyond all reasonable doubt that his dates for my pregnancy are wrong.

First he spent ten minutes explaining (complete with little diagrams on the back of a slip of paper) why the scan couldn’t possibly be wrong. Then he spent a couple of minutes explaining that whilst a woman can be expected to know when her last period was, it does not necessarily follow that she subsequently ovulated on the expected date. Then I pointed out that, whilst my ovulation date is not known for certain one cannot become pregnant before one has had sex. It’s elementary biology, coupled with elementary arithmetic. This baby cannot be due as early as their scan is insisting.

He opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish for a moment, then said, “No. You’re right. You can’t. Are you absolutely sure?” Absolutely. There were other factors. I know when was the first time that month. I can work it out.

From there, I told him that the midwife who took the first scan didn’t believe they would change my dates, since hers were less than five days out, and the scan is, in her words “only accurate to within five days” for dating a pregnancy. I have enough experience of the Liverpool Women’s Hospital to be able to say that most of the staff know about the thing they do in great detail, and guess at every other element of everyone else’s job with wild inaccuracy - I’m used to that, and I wasn’t that surprised to discover that the woman concerned was wrong. Nevertheless, my worst case scenario, here, is that at term +6 I could go into spontaneous labour, and be refused access to the midwife-led unit, and/or a home birth, because my notes insist that I am at term +11, and therefore perceived to be high risk.

To be fair, I think my wee man was convinced, from that point. He has never, apparently, in all his career, changed a woman’s due date, though, and had no idea how to go about it. He said woolly things about how the hospital believes in flexibility and negotiation with patients regarding care (and I think they really believe it’s true, oddly enough), and suggested that my best route forward was to leave the dates the same, but write the manager of the midwife-led unit requesting confirmation that I could be admitted there even if I was beyond their post-dates cut-off. I shook my head as definitely as a could. I have been through this process already. The patients, unlike most of the staff, get exposed to the entire procedure from start to finish, and know what the rules are. I was pretty sure that at term +10 I became a Delivery Suite case, with no discussion. He didn’t believe me.

Fine, I said, I’ll write. What’s her name?

He didn’t know, so he went to find a midwife to find out for him. She, when she joined us, was very helpful. She rang the MLU to confirm the name of the boss up there (it’s recently changed, apparently) and was writing it down on a piece of paper for me when she asked, casually, “What’s it about?” I told her, and she looked up with a very definite look on her face, and said, “No. They won’t do it. They’re not allowed.”

“I tried to tell him that, but he wouldn’t believe me,” I pointed out.

“Really?!” demanded the little registrar man, with wide eyes. “No flexibility, no discussion?!”

He actually made the midwife find the policy documents on the intranet system before he was quite prepared to take her word for it (though that makes him sound like he was nasty about it, and he wasn’t at all. I rather liked him. He just didn’t know what he was talking about, and couldn’t believe how wrong his assumptions had been).

So, we got two documents on screen, one saying that you can’t go to the MLU after term +10 (ie, 41 weeks and 3 days pregnant), and the other saying you can’t get support for a home birth, either.

I really, really don’t want to deliver on the Delivery Suite unless someone can suggest that there’s an actual problem with my actual body and the baby inside it, rather than just waving their stats and policies about, so then we had to rethink.

Our agreed approach, now, is that I shall write to my consultant himself, laying out the maths in words of one syllable, and requesting that he arrange for my notes to be amended. The registrar chap asked me not to mention his name, but I think he was joking… Anyway, he seemed to think that it would a) get the attention of the only person with the authority to change my notes so substantially, and b) put my case in writing in my notes, for future reference, rather than relying on his documenting of our conversation. I can see the merit in that, so that’s what I’ll do.

Has this really never come up? Really? There is simply no procedure for saying “The scan was wrong”.

The two of them seemed to believe that my consultant, more than most of them, will see the common sense angle, and happily make the change. That, of course, remains to be seen. Still, it’s an avenue. All is not yet lost.

The other point is, this baby may not be late at all. Daisy was born at 42+2, which is well into the period of them being nervous about it, but nothing was ever said to suggest that it was a problem. They checked my “liquor volume”, it was fine, she showed no signs of distress, and she was perfectly healthy when she was born. Second children are, statistically, likely to be much earlier, but even if this one is a week earlier, by my dates, I would have crossed the threshold by theirs. I really want this sorted out before it happens.

Of course, knowing my luck, I’ll fight and fight and finally get my dates changed, then go into labour at 37+6, by the new dates, and be denied all the same things for being too early. C’est la vie…

See, I am a good mother. There was paint.

I’ve noticed a thing.

When I was a child, the received wisdom of the time was that it was much better to get your traditional childhood illnesses before you were about eleven, because lots of them (I’m thinking of mumps and chicken pox, particularly) were much worse if you got them when you were older.

At some point, that wisdom has been replaced by the belief that it’s better still to get them before you’re five, because you don’t want to miss a fortnight of school for them. Erm, is it me, or are children under five particularly vulnerable to all kinds of things, and best protected as far as is humanly possible from as much disease as possible?

Admittedly, there’s only really chicken pox left - Daisy’s been vaccinated against almost everything else. But really, why on earth would I want my toddler to be laid low with chicken pox at such a young age, if it could wait till she’s eight, and a bit more robust?

My theory is that it’s tied in with universal childcare. People always did console themselves with the statement “It’s better that they get it now…” What they haven’t quite noticed is that children get all these things in nursery at 18 months of age, now, and that there is a lower limit beyond which it’s not better. The only thing worse than a sick child is a sick baby - and even if it’s not serious, and won’t do them any long term harm, it’s a miserable thing to have to deal with, for both the child and the parent. And maybe, just maybe, the rare complications of chicken pox will hit this particular toddler when they’re still too vulnerable to handle it.

Since it turns out I have a parental philosophy.

I sometimes worry that some of the people in my life see me as a bit of a basket case. Not just a hormonal one, I mean. A scary, needy, over-protective, co-dependent mother type of basket case. The sort that Daisy should be protected from. I worry that people look at my decision to spend most of my time with my daughter, and think it’s unhealthy.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that sitting worrying about what these people think for any length of time probably is a bit unhealthy, but that point aside, I don’t think I’m a scary mother. I choose to spend most of my time with my daughter, because, as I mentioned a few days ago, I believe that children need parents. I believe that they need them pretty much 24/7 when they’re little, and that they need them a lot more than society necessarily realises when they’re older, and for rather longer into life, too. Besides, most of the time I like her. I miss her when she’s not there - largely because I’m genetically preprogrammed to want her where I can keep an eye on her. It’s not oppressive and unhealthy, it’s how the species has survived this long.

Compared with lots of other children her age, Daisy doesn’t do much ? not much that’s structured, anyway. Frankly, I don’t know how other people fit it all in. There are people who do some sort of toddler group every single day of the week, and sometimes more than one. Maybe those people spend half their lives at work, functioning at a pace of life I can only marvel at, and find it difficult to slow down on the days when they’re at home. Or maybe they have no strategies for keeping their children happy and occupied when they’re in the house. But we just don’t have a need for that. We go to one group a week, and fill the rest of the time with visits to people (sometimes people with children, sometimes people without) and errands ? the pace of life thing means that I wouldn’t normally choose to go anywhere else on the same day as I’ve been to the supermarket, for example. If we’ve no burning urge to leave the house for the sake of getting out, and nowhere in particular to go, why bother?

When we’re at home, we draw, read, play with play dough, watch CBeebies, do jigsaws, and engage in any number of imaginative games using dolls, prams, toys cars, dolls houses, toy kitchens, etc. She is reasonably good at the highly useful skill of playing by herself, but will happily include me if I’m amenable, and play with other children when she comes across them ? to the extent that they are able to play with other children at this age. Two and a half is a bit young for much more than playing alongside other children. Nevertheless, she is sociable, friendly, and coming on just fine, as far as I can see. The point is, she doesn’t seem to need constant exposure to other children, to be able to relate quite happily to other children.

As far as I am concerned, it’s not that I spend no time apart from her. For a start, she’s usually in bed a little after 7.30pm, and the evenings are my own. Kevin and I tend not to go out much, but mostly because we have nowhere in particular we want to go. We certainly don’t feel trapped in the house by Daisy’s existence, and we have a small stock of (usefully free) babysitters to call upon when we need them. We both occasionally go out alone, but not that often because, in a follow up to the Mother Likes To Be With Daughter shocker, is the Wife Enjoys Company of Husband expos?. In addition, Daisy goes out for tea at the house of some friends of ours once a week (and has done since she was a few months old), and every week I have to choose between housework, and playing on my computer, as the best way to take advantage of the opportunity. We both cope fine with being apart, but I happen to believe that she copes so well because it doesn’t happen too often. Her security is largely built on my presence, and the less I was there, the more she would hate my being gone.

I believe that children need parents. That I ended up as a full-time mum was something of a fluke of circumstances, but I can see now that it was so completely the right choice. Daisy needs me to be there. One day she won’t need it so much, but I don’t plan to dictate when that should be. We’ll know.