Today, we have been conducting a Very Important Experiment. We have decided to try to find an answer to this question: is there ANY filling this child????
Methodology was as follows: give her lots of food, and don't say no when she tries to steal ours.
I think we may have an answer. And that answer, you may be utterly unsurprised to learn, is NO.
Seriously, The Baby must have an extra stomach somewhere where she puts all this stuff. I'm pretty sure she's eaten nearly as much as I have today. She has eaten: a bowl of Rice Crispies, about a quarter of my toasted muffin, 15 grapes, 2 breadsticks, chicken with pesto (there were meant to be some peas involved there too, but she has decided they are no longer something she wants anything to do with), a banana, all the crusts from my sandwich, half a cherry tart, 3 rice cakes, a massive bowl of meatballs, vegetables and rice, and a fromage frais. And then she started picking at stray bits of rice around her highchair tray. Oh, and then another grape.
And now we're just waiting to find out whether she's going to be up all night with a bad tummy, or she's eaten herself into a stupor. The wee hours of the morning will tell.....
Thursday, 14 October 2010
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Are You On Drugs Or What?
... was the question asked of me and several of my fellow child-saddled friends, when we were having a discussion about something I had been watching on TV. Not on normal-person TV, on kiddie TV. After thinking about it, I realised that it was a perfectly reasonable question to ask. So, for all of you who are not in the happy position of not having to sit in front of this stuff, here is a quick guide to some of The Baby's favourite programmes...
- Handy Manny - Latino handyman who can fix or build anything. ANYTHING. Good thing too, as he is the only tradesman of any description in his whole town. Is the object of a passionate and enduring crush from Kelly, who owns the hardware store. She keeps the store stocked with all manner of random shit, just in case Manny needs it, in the hope that one day he will turn around and realise that she will always have what he needs, and will marry her and have lots of bilingual babies. Too bad for Kelly, as he appears to be in love with his magic tools. Not a euphemism.
- Waybuloo - big-faced creatures called Piplings play pika and do yogo with cheebies in a magical land called Waybuloo. I could translate this for you, but it wouldn't really make that much more sense.
- In The Night Garden - this is very like the stories my dad used to make up for me when I was little. If he had taken acid and then fallen on his head. The characters include: Iggle Piggle - giant blue thing that looks like David Cameron. Upsy Daisy - mad bint with demented hair, who spends a disproportionate amount of her time snogging Iggle Piggle' Makka Pakka - thing that looks like a very pale poo, that is a bit OCD about cleaning stones. The Pontipines - weird little family with billions of kids that live in a big house and talk funny. Clearly immigrant scum.
- Mr Tumble - slightly creepy-looking guy who uses sign language and has an clown alter-ego. Inexplicably charming to most children and adults. Why don't I get it?
- Special Agent Oso - children all over the world (supposedly, but they all seem to be American) are abandoned by their parents to do age-inappropriate tasks, and are assisted in their endeavours by the world's stupidest green bear. Every task can be condensed into three special steps, whether it is opening a door, or building a nuclear bomb.
- The Imagination Movers - four blokes who dreamed of being rockstars, but are now reduced to jumping up and down in red and blue jumpsuits for the entertainment of small children. Make me want to throw rocks at them.
Monday, 4 October 2010
A Hard Day's Night..
.. and a hard day's day too, by the sound of it.
Any hopes I my have had that The Baby's new mattress would be the answer to all my sleep-deprived prayers were roundly squashed by last night's shenanigans. FYI Baby, 4am - not morning. I would really like her to sleep properly now. I've noticed that I don't so much have dark circles under my eyes as a purple face.
So it was with a weary mind, body and soul that I dragged my arse into work, where I spent most of the day mindlessly culling my boss's email instead of anything which required great amounts of energy, leaving Husband alone with the tiny demon. A very tired and grumpy little demon, who possibly has a sore throat, as, in Husband's words, she "sounds like a heron". I'm not sure I've ever heard a heron, to be honest, but she definitely isn't reaching her usual decibel levels. Received a phone call mid-afternoon that began with the words "What do you do when your baby's eaten mud?" and ended with "No, I told you to leave that alone!" and an abrupt hanging-up. See? Demon!
But then I came home from work, to see The Baby crawling towards the door with a (slightly raspy) shriek of joy, and somehow it's all forgiven and forgotten. Granted, the joy only lasted for about 12 seconds, and then she was off playing with my electricity bill again. But it's funny how those little moments somehow see you through.
Any hopes I my have had that The Baby's new mattress would be the answer to all my sleep-deprived prayers were roundly squashed by last night's shenanigans. FYI Baby, 4am - not morning. I would really like her to sleep properly now. I've noticed that I don't so much have dark circles under my eyes as a purple face.
So it was with a weary mind, body and soul that I dragged my arse into work, where I spent most of the day mindlessly culling my boss's email instead of anything which required great amounts of energy, leaving Husband alone with the tiny demon. A very tired and grumpy little demon, who possibly has a sore throat, as, in Husband's words, she "sounds like a heron". I'm not sure I've ever heard a heron, to be honest, but she definitely isn't reaching her usual decibel levels. Received a phone call mid-afternoon that began with the words "What do you do when your baby's eaten mud?" and ended with "No, I told you to leave that alone!" and an abrupt hanging-up. See? Demon!
But then I came home from work, to see The Baby crawling towards the door with a (slightly raspy) shriek of joy, and somehow it's all forgiven and forgotten. Granted, the joy only lasted for about 12 seconds, and then she was off playing with my electricity bill again. But it's funny how those little moments somehow see you through.
Friday, 1 October 2010
Stuff, stuff and more stuff!
Like many other ladies born into our materialistic capitalist society, I am fond of a spot of shopping. When I was younger, it was all quite normal. I had staff discount at Topshop, and was not afraid to use it, and dedicated many years to trying to answer the question of whether one can really own too many handbags. Once I had my own home, however, it got a whole lot geekier. Kitchen gadgets! Ingenious storage solutions that you have to put together with allen keys! Soft soft furnishings! I thought that it didn't get much better than a trip to Ikea, perhaps followed by a read of the Lakeland catalogue.
And then I had a baby.
Now, everyone knows that babies require quite a lot of stuff. They need somewhere to sleep, something to be carted around in, stuff to wear, stuff to go on their bums, and all that jazz. But it is truly eye-opening to realise just how much stuff exists in the babysphere. A lot of it is truly brilliant, and I can't imagine how I got by without them, baby or no baby - muslin squares, baby wipes, and little plastic bowls (of which I now have so many scattered around the house with various things in them, that I sometimes can't find anything to serve The Baby her dinner in).
But the rest of it.... oh, my word. Even for a hardened gizmo-and-gadget-shopper like myself, it is quite, quite stunning. Any baby-related situation you can think of, and several million that you never would, you can be certain that someone has invented something to deal with it. Did you know that you can buy a baby-wipe warmer? I don;t have one of those. But here is a random selection of things that I do now own: a mini-food processor, a mini food-masher, a squeezy bulb thing to extract snot from tiny noses, a massive piece of fabric and mesh that fits over a pushchair to protect children from sun and insects, and a stripy material-and-strap portable highchair.
And the choices! The other day, I spent a long and very exciting evening trying to pick a new mattress for The Baby. I would not let Husband rest until he helped me pick between a pocket-sprung one, or one that was covered in bamboo (the wonder-fabric of the 21st century, apparently). I suspect that his actual thoughts on the matter may have been something along the lines of "Please leave me alone", but thankfully, he learned long ago that the quickest way to shut me up is to actually form and offer a valid opinion. In the end, I decided on the bamboo one, reasoning that I didn't have a fully pocket-sprung mattress until I was 28, so The Baby could live without one at 15 months old.
But it's quite ridiculous how excited I got about this. I don't think I've ever been so excited by a purchase ever. Not the Pierre Hardy for Gap platform sandals with 75% off. Not my honeymoon. Not either of my houses. To be fair, part of the excitement stems from the hope that this purchase might be the one that helps The Baby stay asleep for more than 3 hours at a time. But I reckon that most of it stems from the fact that I am a very, very sad individual.
And then I had a baby.
Now, everyone knows that babies require quite a lot of stuff. They need somewhere to sleep, something to be carted around in, stuff to wear, stuff to go on their bums, and all that jazz. But it is truly eye-opening to realise just how much stuff exists in the babysphere. A lot of it is truly brilliant, and I can't imagine how I got by without them, baby or no baby - muslin squares, baby wipes, and little plastic bowls (of which I now have so many scattered around the house with various things in them, that I sometimes can't find anything to serve The Baby her dinner in).
But the rest of it.... oh, my word. Even for a hardened gizmo-and-gadget-shopper like myself, it is quite, quite stunning. Any baby-related situation you can think of, and several million that you never would, you can be certain that someone has invented something to deal with it. Did you know that you can buy a baby-wipe warmer? I don;t have one of those. But here is a random selection of things that I do now own: a mini-food processor, a mini food-masher, a squeezy bulb thing to extract snot from tiny noses, a massive piece of fabric and mesh that fits over a pushchair to protect children from sun and insects, and a stripy material-and-strap portable highchair.
And the choices! The other day, I spent a long and very exciting evening trying to pick a new mattress for The Baby. I would not let Husband rest until he helped me pick between a pocket-sprung one, or one that was covered in bamboo (the wonder-fabric of the 21st century, apparently). I suspect that his actual thoughts on the matter may have been something along the lines of "Please leave me alone", but thankfully, he learned long ago that the quickest way to shut me up is to actually form and offer a valid opinion. In the end, I decided on the bamboo one, reasoning that I didn't have a fully pocket-sprung mattress until I was 28, so The Baby could live without one at 15 months old.
But it's quite ridiculous how excited I got about this. I don't think I've ever been so excited by a purchase ever. Not the Pierre Hardy for Gap platform sandals with 75% off. Not my honeymoon. Not either of my houses. To be fair, part of the excitement stems from the hope that this purchase might be the one that helps The Baby stay asleep for more than 3 hours at a time. But I reckon that most of it stems from the fact that I am a very, very sad individual.
Friday, 24 September 2010
I Am Not A Jar of Sauce...
... I do not need a label.
If you've read, well, anything lately, you may have noticed that writers, journalists and gurus of all types like to come up with funky new names for things. A couple of decades ago we had lots of nifty little acronyms (NIMBYs, YUPs, DINKYs and the like). Nowadays, we seem to have what I like to call the Grazianating of words. This refers to Grazia's (it may well be other magazines too, just this is the one I have a subscription for) constant concatenating (see what I did there, eh?) of words with other words to make new and ridiculous words, which they then use to describe whichever social phenomenon they're observing/inventing this week. You are not just eating less meat, you are a Flexitarian. You do not have a shopping problem, you are Fashorexic. They are not really tight, stretchy trousers, they are treggings. It really does my head in.
Anyway, the Grazia thing was really just a roundabout way of getting to my point (while getting to rant about something that annoys me), which is this: People are absolutely obsessed with putting labels on everything. Including, and perhaps especially, the way you bring up your child.
Now to be honest, this isn't something you tend to come across that much in real life. Most people, as long as you aren't feeding your baby beer and leaving them on the pavement while you pop in to Tesco, don't really concern themselves with what you do with your child, and assume that you're doing whatever works for you. Or at least they have the good sense to know that it's bad manners to harrass you about it. But step into the world of the internets, or the parenting section of a bookshop, and everything changes. Here you will find a vast array of people all champing at the bit to discuss parenting concepts and methods, to label their methods and yours, and to convince you that their way is the best one.
Baby-led, parent-led, Gina Ford, Baby Whisperer, Attachement Parenting, Continuum Concept - which one are you? It all unnerves me a great deal. I never knew you were meant to be able to describe your parenting choices with one snappy little term. I never knew you were meant to have one deeply-held, meticulously-researched and scientifically-supported philosophy that governed the choices you would make. To tell the truth, I'm not sure I've ever made anything that I would describe as a parenting choice. I do whatever it occurs to me to do at the time, with the short-term aim of getting her through the day without her coming to much physical harm or resorting to locking her in a cupboard, and the long-term aim of getting her through her childhood without making her hate me. It never occurred to me that I would need someone to tell me how to raise my daughter. It never occurred to me that someone COULD. If there was a book called "Tips for Bad Mammy and Husband on how to deal with The Baby", then maybe I'd consider it worth a look, but until then, no journalist, parenting guru, or self-proclaimed internet expert knows what we are or should be doing.
I'm not saying that reading about child-rearing has no value. Many people I know have had their lives, or at least their sanity, saved by advice from a book, or from the internet. But I don't see why everyone has to have a parenting "style", or why we have to talk about "parenting" at all. To quote someone very wise and sensible (who I actually met on the internet, but don't hold that against her), "Parent is who you ARE, not what you do". Amen to that.
If you've read, well, anything lately, you may have noticed that writers, journalists and gurus of all types like to come up with funky new names for things. A couple of decades ago we had lots of nifty little acronyms (NIMBYs, YUPs, DINKYs and the like). Nowadays, we seem to have what I like to call the Grazianating of words. This refers to Grazia's (it may well be other magazines too, just this is the one I have a subscription for) constant concatenating (see what I did there, eh?) of words with other words to make new and ridiculous words, which they then use to describe whichever social phenomenon they're observing/inventing this week. You are not just eating less meat, you are a Flexitarian. You do not have a shopping problem, you are Fashorexic. They are not really tight, stretchy trousers, they are treggings. It really does my head in.
Anyway, the Grazia thing was really just a roundabout way of getting to my point (while getting to rant about something that annoys me), which is this: People are absolutely obsessed with putting labels on everything. Including, and perhaps especially, the way you bring up your child.
Now to be honest, this isn't something you tend to come across that much in real life. Most people, as long as you aren't feeding your baby beer and leaving them on the pavement while you pop in to Tesco, don't really concern themselves with what you do with your child, and assume that you're doing whatever works for you. Or at least they have the good sense to know that it's bad manners to harrass you about it. But step into the world of the internets, or the parenting section of a bookshop, and everything changes. Here you will find a vast array of people all champing at the bit to discuss parenting concepts and methods, to label their methods and yours, and to convince you that their way is the best one.
Baby-led, parent-led, Gina Ford, Baby Whisperer, Attachement Parenting, Continuum Concept - which one are you? It all unnerves me a great deal. I never knew you were meant to be able to describe your parenting choices with one snappy little term. I never knew you were meant to have one deeply-held, meticulously-researched and scientifically-supported philosophy that governed the choices you would make. To tell the truth, I'm not sure I've ever made anything that I would describe as a parenting choice. I do whatever it occurs to me to do at the time, with the short-term aim of getting her through the day without her coming to much physical harm or resorting to locking her in a cupboard, and the long-term aim of getting her through her childhood without making her hate me. It never occurred to me that I would need someone to tell me how to raise my daughter. It never occurred to me that someone COULD. If there was a book called "Tips for Bad Mammy and Husband on how to deal with The Baby", then maybe I'd consider it worth a look, but until then, no journalist, parenting guru, or self-proclaimed internet expert knows what we are or should be doing.
I'm not saying that reading about child-rearing has no value. Many people I know have had their lives, or at least their sanity, saved by advice from a book, or from the internet. But I don't see why everyone has to have a parenting "style", or why we have to talk about "parenting" at all. To quote someone very wise and sensible (who I actually met on the internet, but don't hold that against her), "Parent is who you ARE, not what you do". Amen to that.
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Proud!
If you have seen me today, or have read my facebook status, you will know that I am as proud as Mrs Proud from 1 Proud Street, Proudington. This is because.... The Baby did a wee in her potty! Ta da! I only bought the potty because it was £1 in Asda and is the same colour as my bathroom curtains, but I decided to sit her on it this morning when I was changing her nappy, and she promptly did a wee! It was very exciting. Who'd have thought that you could be so happy about someone urinating into a piece of plastic? So I have told just about everyone I have come into contact with today (thankfully not the man at the garage or the event producer from the BBC) about how proud I am of my big girl.
And then this evening she did a wee on the landing carpet. Ah well. Baby steps.
And then this evening she did a wee on the landing carpet. Ah well. Baby steps.
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Lost in Translation
The Baby has a new noise. It goes something like this: "Eyuhhh, eyuhhh, eyuhhh". I am not quite clear on its meaning. It may mean any of "I'm tired", "I'm bored", "I'm hungry", "But I WANT to play with that shiny, dangerous thing", "My teeth hurt", or "Mother, I cannot believe that you are so monumentally stupid that you cannot figure out what it is that I am having an issue about right now". Whichever it may be, it is highly unpleasant and I am quite, quite bored of it.
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