Baby-led weaning

As many of you will know, we have been using baby-led weaning with Eleanor, and we used it with Rosemary, too, a few years ago. Back then, it was really quite a new idea (though, in actuality, quite an old one, of course) and many, many people thought we were mad, strange, or endangering our child. Some people still think this, but it has certainly become more widespread and understood and lots more parents are using this method.

If you don’t know what baby-led weaning is, very basically, it’s starting with finger food rather than purees, it’s letting the baby decide (to an extent, obviously) what they want to eat, it’s taking a step back and chilling out about the whole eating process, and it’s about eating together, rather than spoon-feeding your baby, then eating later. Oh yes, and it’s about mess. Lots of it.

That photo doesn’t really show the mess to its full extent. Hmm. Here’s a top after a dinner of pasta and tomato sauce:

 

I’d take a photo of the floor after a meal, but fortunately we have a very useful cleaning machine:

I would advise anyone embarking on baby-led weaning to get one. (And you might also want to check out this morning’s post about a new laundry product – unless you’ve got some secret stain-removal formula up your sleeve.)

There are supposed to be a bunch of benefits to baby-led weaning, from reducing the likelihood of allergies, producing children who are more adventurous with food and providing excellent practice in fine-motor skills (picking up peas is quite a challenge, you know). I can’t really answer to all these in any scientific way, but I can say that Rosemary doesn’t have any allergies (so far, of course), we think she’s incredibly fussy with food, but when we compare her with many of her peers it turns out she has a very wide-ranging palate, and Eleanor certainly developed the pincer grip very early. The biggest benefits to us, though, have been the ability to eat as a family, not having to spend huge amounts of time pureeing, making going out very easy (the baby just eats what you’re eating – pretty much) and saving a bit on dog food – oh, and the pure joy of watching our two girls discover and explore food, enjoying (almost) every single moment of it as they do so.

If you’re thinking about going down the baby-led weaning route, we would highly recommend it (and will tell anyone who asks this – and many people who don’t ask, too). There are a few websites (http://babyledweaning.com/, http://baby-led.com/) out there you can read and a search will bring up a bunch of people blogging about their adventures in baby-led weaning. There’s also a book, Baby-led Weaning: Helping Your Baby to Love Good Food by Gill Rapley and Tracey Murkett. I haven’t read it, but it’s written by the woman (an ex-health visitor and Deputy Programme Director of Unicef Baby Friendly Initiative) who came up with the idea, and I know lots of people who have read it and highly recommend it.

A few tips for starting off and moving on

We started with fruit (e.g. mango and pear), steamed vegetables (e.g. carrot, brocolli and potato), roasted vegetables (e.g. courgette, pepper, carrot, roasted for about 15 minutes in extra virgin olive oil) – all of them cut into roughly adult-finger-sized pieces. For most things, keep the skin on, as they can get a grip on the skin, and they suck the flesh of the non-skin sides. For bananas, use the splitting into three trick (push your finger into the top centre of a banana and it will split into three lengthwise), because cutting them up makes them too slippery. Most of these were things that we were eating anyway, or we adjusted the menu to include them – we almost never cook something just for the baby.

Toast is great at this age. Get some unsalted butter in (we use Lurpak Spreadable Unsalted, but there are plenty of others) and provide soldiers of toast with butter, cream cheese, goats cheese, hummus, guacamole, pear and apple spread (we get this from the healthfood shop, and it’s just concentrated pear and apple, with nothing added, though Eleanor has now had ordinary jam), etc. Crumpets are very good, too – cut into three lengthwise for ease of gripping.

You can gradually add more things in, such as pasta (fusilli works well, and spaghetti is brilliant, though one of the messiest meals) with a sauce (cheese sauce went down well with both of ours, as did a tomato-based sauce), meat (Eleanor is very fond of steak, sausages are easy for them to hold, though avoid the highly-processed stuff that will be full of salt), chunks of cheese.

As they get older, as well, you can give them food on a spoon, such as yoghurt and porridge (though both of these they can feed themselves using their hands) – they’ll usually want to take control of the spoon themselves, which does lead to lots of mess. You’ll want to gradually offer a spoon now and again, to introduce them to cutlery, anyway, though I must admit Rosemary does still enjoy using her fingers. We’ve recently started putting Eleanor’s food on a plate or bowl, as well. She’ll usually take the food off it for a bit, but after a while she’ll turn it upside down or try to throw it on the floor (melamine or wood is definitely advised, rather than bone china) – before that the food just got plonked on the tray of her high chair (which luckily is removable).

As they get older, they’ll be able to pick up small bits of food, such as peas, beans, diced vegetables, rice, and so on. Eleanor now eats what we’re having and we tailor the meals much less often to her. Examples of meals/foods she’s had recently include risotto, minestrone soup (just the bits, not the liquid), creamy leeky tagliatelle, tortilla (both the Spanish omelette kind and the Mexican kind, in the form of a quesedilla), eggs chips and beans, chocolate cake, Cheerios, noodles, porridge, yoghurt, sushi, lamb, steak, cauliflower cheese with mashed potato, and so on and so on.

 

If you’re thinking about baby-led weaning, but aren’t sure, feel free to ask questions in the comments. If you’re on Twitter, there’s a #blw hashtag, where people will answer your questions.

Did you use or are you using baby-led weaning? Was it successful? Do you like the puree route? Have you done it both ways?

Review: Boost Your Wash

So, as some of you may know we’re doing baby-led weaning with Eleanor, as we did with Rosemary (incidentally, it seems I haven’t done a post about that, so I will rectify that very soon). Anyway who’s done baby-led weaning, will know that, while it is absolutely fantastic, it’s also really, really, really messy. So, when Aaron from Publicasity contacted me to ask if I wanted to try it out, I really did jump at the chance (in fact, I did actually do a little jump and squee at the possibility of something that could get the food stains out of Eleanor’s clothes – sad, very sad).

I’ve tried Ariel Activelift, I’ve tried Vanish, I’ve tried the two combined, along with various other detergents (sadly, my environmental consciousness does not go far enough to try the ecological ones, having grown up using them and wearing very stained clothes – though maybe they work better these days?). Nothing seems to work very well. The only thing that does much good is soaking the clothes in (diluted, obviously) bleach (which isn’t much use for the coloured clothes) and, well, if you know me at all, you will know that I really can’t be  bothered with that much hassle (or, perhaps more importantly, I do not have the time).

So, I tried this new one out – it’s supposed to remove odours and has antibacterial agents in it too (not overly keen on antibacterial agents, I have to say, but I’ll live it with it) – and, blimey, it’s really good. It didn’t get rid of everything. The very dried in pasta sauce stain was still there, though considerably faded. But it did get rid of much more than anything else. Raspberry stains, dried-in food stains of varying origins that have been there for a few months now (actually, even some that have been there for a few years, on Rosemary’s old clothes). Some of Eleanor’s white clothes look white again. And, as an added bonus, it got rid of some sweat stains on some shirts and ingrained grey dirt on some shirt collars. It didn’t get rid of the purple paint on one of Rosemary’s dresses.

All in all, I would definitely recommend it for stain removal. Having only been using it for about a week, I can’t say whether it has any adverse effects. I’ll probably dig out the stained clothes in each colour and do a separate wash of them, as I don’t want to be using an antibacterial agent too much, but will definitely be using it and buying another bottle when this one runs out.

Do you have any tips/products for getting food (and other) stains out of clothes? If you use baby-led weaning, do you find it as messy? 

Disclosure: I was given a free sample of the product, but nothing else.

The Gallery: A memory

Well, I thought it’s about time I joined in with The Gallery and this week’s prompt is a particularly nice one, I think, because that’s what photographs usually are for me – memories. Of course, they can’t replace actual memories, but they can usually jog them and remind us of a place, a person, a feeling, or just who we were once upon a time.

This is me, many many moons ago:

Rosemary is just about to start school, which will hopefully be a wonderfully exciting and fascinating adventure for her. And I really believe she is going to love school, as long as they can challenge her enough. They weren’t able to challenge me enough, which is why, at the age of seven, I swapped the schoolroom for the kitchen. This is me in my home school. This is where I spent my mornings soaking up knowledge. Delving into the wonders of algebra and symmetry, finding out about the Egyptians and the Greeks, drawing pictures of plants and birds, doing science with candles and jars of water, learning French from a secondary school textbook, learning Esperanto from a correspondence course. This is also where I would eat my lunch of diced up lettuce, cucumber, tomato (from the garden/allotment), cottage cheese and crushed up prawn cocktail crisps, while listening to The Archers. This is where I learnt to sew, to macrame, to knit (none of which really stuck, sadly) and wrote limericks and stories and illustrated books, while listening to the Afternoon Play. For me, this was a place of wonder, far more satisfying than the one I had left. I hope that Rosemary finds her wonder at her new school, but if she doesn’t we’ll make sure she gets it somehow, somewhere, whether at another school, at home or somewhere as yet unthought of.

Party Bags

It’s Rosemary’s fourth birthday on Thursday. That is, of course, a post in itself and maybe I’ll write it on Thursday, at some point. But this post is all about party bags.

Rosemary is having a ‘Go Bananas Birthday’, which is what she has been asking for since the day after her third birthday. Go Bananas is the local soft-play place. A friend of hers had her party there recently and I was pretty impressed, having been dreading it for almost a year. The children run around and expend lots of energy for just over an hour, then they come upstairs and sit in one of the three party rooms (Rosemary chose the Woodlands room), where they get fed sandwiches and cake (I have to make the cake, by the way, which I have been told today has to be a Cinderella cake. Oh bugger.). No mess to clear up. No party games to organise. No entertainers to pay or bouncy castles to hire. Just hand over some dosh, bring a cake and let them do the rest. Fantastic.

They’ll even do the party bags for you, for a little extra. But I decided I wanted something a bit more special for the party bags. The vast majority of parties Rosemary’s been to (and there have been a fair few), the party bag has been emptied within five minutes of leaving the party and usually some of the things have been broken or lost already. What does make it home, inevitably ends up in the bin within a day or two. And the (usually plastic) bag also ends up in the bin.

Now, I’m a far cry from Karen at The Rubbish Diet (for whom I have a bucketload of admiration, by the way), but I do think about landfill and other environment issues and I didn’t want to spend money on a bunch of plastic tat that would just end up not rotting away in landfill somewhere (no offence to anyone who does go down this route – I have to say it was very tempting to just pay them to do this, as well as the rest of it).

So, I went on a search and also asked Twitter (as we do, these days, when we have a problem – hmm, must ask Twitter about the Cinderella cake) for something a bit different. And I found a few great companies, offering something more than the usual:

• Frog in the Field has a really good selection of party bag fillers, but what really caught my eye was the print your own party bags. I would have gone for this if Rosemary hadn’t seen a different option that she preferred. And I’ll almost certainly use it in the future. You can choose from a selection of images, or you can provide your own. I was going to create a flower motif, to tie in with Rosemary’s invitations that I made myself. But… this was not to be.
• My Funky Party also tempted me, in particular with the vintage style filled bags. I was put off, in my rather stuck-up, liberal fancy-pants way, by the separation into girls and boys, though this seems to be the case at pretty much all the outlets. I wanted gender neutral gifts, even though Rosemary would be very happy with everything pink and princess, there are boys coming to the party and, well, I hate pink and princess and gender stereotyping and so on and so on. But, the vintage bags are lovely.
• Ethical Kidz is what we went for in the end. The fillers were all wooden and good quality – and ethically sourced. And the bags Rosemary chose were the colour your own bags. We bought 19 plain fabric bags and two boxes of fabric crayons and Rosemary is decorating them herself. You can also buy bag and crayon sets that you can then use as both an activity and the party bag – i.e. the children colour their bags and then you put their gifts into it when it’s time to go home. I was very pleased with the service and they sent the package to my mum’s address at my request, as we would be away, and sent a personal email to tell us they had done so. The fillers are very good quality. We chose a stamp, with an ink pad, a (decorated) wooden peg, a spinning top and a yoyo. All in all it worked out to about £3.50 per child, which I was very happy with. It’s definitely more than the Go Bananas option, but I think it’s worth it and that these gifts won’t be clogging up the landfills (and, even if they do, they’ll degrade).

Both Frog in the Field and My Funky Party were suggested by Twitter pals and contacted me directly with suggestions, offers of help and answers to my many queries. I would definitely recommend them, as well as Ethical Kidz, which I found during my own searches.

Here’s a picture of one of the bags and its contents, though I’m afraid the quality isn’t brilliant, what with being taken with my phone in a dark kitchen:

Hopefully they’ll go down well and the children will get some use and fun out of the items.

What sort of party bags have you done, or do you manage to avoid them? What about parties themselves? Do you do them at home or hire somewhere? Do you have any tips on how to make a Cinderella cake, or shall I just buy the one she saw in Tesco? I’m good at baking cakes, but don’t have much experience in decorating them – especially when it comes to something fancy and more challenging than a few swirls of whipped cream, some strawberries and a packet of chocolate buttons!

Little Bundle of Laughs competition

Are you in London or able to get there next Tuesday night? Do you fancy a laugh? Huggies and Tommy’s have organised a night of stand-up comedy about becoming a parent, and sadly I can’t attend, due to my own little bundle not sleeping anywhere near through the night yet. Which is a big shame, as I really enjoy a bit of stand-up comedy, and miss my monthly comedy nights. So, Huggies have kindly said I can offer my two tickets up to one of my readers. If you fancy it, drop a comment down below and I’ll draw a winner at random next Sunday. The tickets will be left on the door for you, since it’s so close to the event already.

 

Good luck!

Taking a break

You might have noticed that I’ve been somewhat absent for a while. Only a few posts in a few months, rather than many every month. This has not been for lack of inspiration or a feeling ennui about blogging. It has nothing to do with too much or too little PR love… or hate.

It has been entirely down to work. Stupid, crazy, hideous amounts of work. This is one of the problems with working for yourself – for most people, at least, the work comes in waves. You have a generally placid sea, where you sail along with little effort, get most of your work done during the day and have just enough money to keep you afloat. Then you have the tempestuous weather, where you get almost no sleep at all, are constantly bailing out water trying to keep from sinking under the tsunami of work and have to strap yourself in for fear of falling over the edge. And then there’s the over-calm seas, where you have to get out the paddles to move at all, where you have the time and the energy to enjoy yourselves, but can’t reach the dry land where you can afford to do anything.

We have, of course, been in the tsunami. Hopefully, by the time we get back from France (we’re on holiday at the moment), it will be settling into some choppy, but steerable weather. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll manage to post more than once or twice a month. Even if it’s closer to the big storms, it should still be calmer for us, as we’ve built up a good bank of freelancers and have learnt that we can delegate a lot more than we thought we could. We’ve developed strategies and processes and should be able to much better weather any storms to come.

So, yes, we’re on holiday in France for a week. More than half way through the week and I really wish we were staying for two – or longer even. I'm only just getting to the point where I feel relaxed and wound down, but have now already started to worry about the work that we have to do on our return. And it’s Rosemary’s birthday next week, too, and things to do for that. Chris’ mum is staying behind for the week, so we will have on-tap childcare. But it’s still going to be busy and I absolutely need to ensure that there is no work to be done on her actual birthday.

So, I leave you (hopefully not for as long, this time) with my new motto: Taking a break. I might not be able to manage a week in France every month, but I can make sure we carve out some definite break time – family time at the weekend, couple time at least one evening a week, and me time at least one evening a week. Let’s see how long we can make it last.

So, tell me about you… Are you on holiday? Have you been feeling overwhelmed or overworked? Are you yearning for a work-life balance or a bit of me time? What would your new motto be?

Messy Play by Huggies® Wipes Blogger Challenge

Before I talk about Cybermummy, I need to tell you (very, very late) about the Huggies Messy Play Challenge. I’ve had these pictures for a while and been so stupidly busy with work that I haven’t had a chance to post them:

Eleanor’s main source of messy play these days is food, though with the lack of clean floors in our house at the moment, she’s also getting a lot of wipe action on our feet, every time we pick her up after she’s been crawling around! As we did with Rosemary, we are following the baby-led weaning (BLW) route. It is fantastic and has worked really well for both of them. But it is definitely not the cleanest way of learning how to eat. One of the catchphrases that goes with BLW is ‘Food is fun until you’re one’, because the babies continue to get all the nutrients they need from the breastmilk (adjusting their intake of milk according to how much or how little food they’re consuming). (I’m not sure how it works with formula-fed babies, though I imagine it’s fairly similar.) We had been using flannels to clean Eleanor up after meals, but she started getting quite spotty (probably because we weren’t cleaning the flannels frequently enough, of course), so we switched to wipes, which leads to less spotty cheeks (though not especially environmentally conscious!).

I’m afraid I’m one of those mums who tends to avoid messy play in the house as far as possible. Presented with the plea ‘Can I do some painting?’ I will do my utmost to find something else to do instead – often baking, which probably takes much more cleaning up. And gluing? No. If I have anything to do with it, she gets to do that maybe twice a year. (Fortunately, Chris is more up for messy play, providing the plastic sheet is out, she wears an apron and she only paints on the paper.) So, when there’s an opportunity for messy play at playgroup or the children’s centre, Rosemary laps it up. And I’m very happy to let her go for it, because someone else will be cleaning up the mess (if it’s at the children’s centre, that person might well be my sister, so sorry Eva!). And, yes, we make prodigious use of wipes to clean up paint, cake mixture, glue, felt-tip pen, mud… when she does get the chance to get messy.

What about you? Do you let your children loose with the paints and the mud pies whenever they want to? Do you limit it to other settings? Do you have some incredibly organised strategy that allows them to get messy without creating lots of cleaning up for you (please, please, please share your secret, if so)?

The next half an hour I don’t really have, I will be telling you all about our trip to London and my wonderful day at Cybermummy. (So, that will probably be just in time for next year’s conference, then!

If you fancy winning a Huggies goodie bag, why not take some pictures of your kids getting messy? The rules are below, but there are only a few days left to do it, I’m afraid, as the closing date is 14 July.

Messy Play by Huggies® Wipes Blogger Challenge

Inspired by some of the Huggies® mums recent posts, Huggies® Baby Wipes wants to see your photos of your little ones really getting messy. Child psychologist Janine Spencer says, “Giving children the freedom to play messily helps them develop their imagination and social skills. It boosts their confidence and helps them understand the world around them. That’s a small price to pay for a bit of mess.”

The rules are as follows

1. The messier your baby is in the photo the better. (The challenge is cleaning up!)
2. Post the photo to your blog with The Messy Play by Huggies Wipes challenge. (It can be an old photo or a previous post).
3. Send a link of your blog post featuring your Messy Play photo to @Huggies_UK on Twitter or online.team@Huggies.com to participate.
4. Check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/messyplaybyhuggieswipes/ to see all the blogger submissions and links to their blogs. Submissions will also be shouted out by @Huggies_UK on Twitter.
5. The top 3 messiest entries will receive Huggies® gift packs of Huggies merchandise. (and if the messiest children are mine, you are definitely doing a bad job…)

[I am a Huggies Mum and an independent blogger. My affiliation with Huggies does not change my capacity to blog independently. I have agreed to disclose in my postings when I receive a product, sample or sponsorship from Huggies. In no way am I financially rewarded by Huggies. They sponsored me to go to Cybermummy, not to mention feeding us croissants and looking after our bags! And have also given us a fair few packets of wipes, recently, which is very handy while BLW!

Cybermummy meet and greet

Carly over at Mummy Shoes has had the great idea for us to post a picture and short bio to help recognise people on the day (although I'm rubbish at remembering names so sorry in advance if I get your name wrong)
Name:   Tasha Goddard (occasionally known as Coding Mamma, though I rarely seem to do any coding these days)
Blog:   http://wahm-bam.blogspot.com
Twitter ID:   @TashaGoddard
Height:   5ft 4ish
Hair:   Longish and darkish – getting it cut this morning, so might not be long anymore
Eyes:   Changeable – really, they can be green, brown, grey, blue…
Likes:   Reading, writing and arithmetic

This is me, though I probably won’t be sporting face paint on the day.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Despite having said I would be taking a long break from reviews, when Shastri Rashmi from Penguin emailed to ask if I’d like to review The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, I jumped at the chance. I find it very difficult to turn down a book, plus the literary snob in me gushes at the thought of being contacted by Penguin, a publishing company that I have always associated with quality – and I spend most of my working week in contact with publishers.

More importantly, though, the book sounded like it would be both interesting and a good read…. and it was both.

The book is set in the Mississippi of the 1960s and deals with the relationship between black maids and their white employers. It’s told through the eyes of three women – two black maids, Aibileen and Minny, and a single white woman, Skeeter. These three women really come to life in the book. The dialogue is so real that after reading a chapter or two, my thoughts (and sometimes my speech) were coming out sounding like a black woman from the deep south (should that be the Deep South?).

There is a book inside the book, as well. Skeeter is writing a book about maids in the South and Aibileen and Minny are helping her. Their stories are part of the book and Aibileen is a talented writer in her own right.

The Help brings a glimpse into two worlds that are very alien to me – the world of the domestic, but particularly the domestic descended from slaves and sometimes treated not much better than their ancestors; and the world of the wealthy white women of the South in the 1960s. They were far from the hippy movement and the beatniks, far from the concept of free love, and pretty far from understanding the civil rights movement. These women leave the running of their households and the raising of their children to their black maids, while insisting that these same maids use a separate toilet and never sit down and eat at the same table as them.

But it’s not all black and white. The most awful white woman in the book, whose racism makes you feel sick, is a fantastic mother. Some of the black women have worked for the same family for 30 or 40 years and feel like part of the family, both to them and their employers. It’s interesting to see that it wasn’t all bad, that good things could happen amongst the bad.

I felt a little discomfort at first, because the author (Kathryn Stockett) is white, and a little part of me thought ‘What does she know about it? Does she have the right to write this?’ And, first of all, of course she does. As much any woman has the right to write from a male point of view and vice versa; as much as any adult has the right to write from a child’s point of view; and so on. But, also she grew up in the South and was partially raised by a black maid herself, so she does know that side of the story. And, in her own words:

"I don’t presume to think that I know what it really felt like to be a black woman in Mississippi, especially in the 1960s. I don't think it is something any white woman on the other end of a black woman’s paycheck could ever truly understand. But trying to understand is vital to our humanity.”

I loved this book and was very sad to leave behind Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter when I finished it. If I had more spare time, I would have read it through in a day or two, rather than the couple of weeks it took fitting it in during breastfeeds. If you’re looking for something to read at the moment, then I would heartily recommend The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.

Disclaimers: I got a copy of the book for free. If you click on any of the links and spend money at Amazon while there, I will receive a percentage of the money you spend..

Spring cleaning

I have just found an understanding and empathy with the whole concept of spring cleaning. Chris had just strimmed the lawn, while I was getting the girls ready for bed and before reading Rosemary her bedtime stories. The kitchen window was open, with the heat floating into the room, bringing with it that loveliest of aromas – freshly cut grass. The kettle was boiling.

And I had a sudden urge to pick up the broom and sweep the floor. I swept the kitchen floor and the dining room floor and what I really wanted to do was continue sweeping through the house. Sweeping away the dust and the dog hairs, the cobwebs, the piles and piles of disorganised junk. I wanted to get a basin of luke warm water and scrub away the stains and the stickiness, wipe away the cup rings and yet more dust. I wanted to get out a duster and polish the windows until they gleamed.

Of course, what I actually did was come upstairs and write about it, instead. So, now you know a little more about me. I can fantasise about cleaning, just not actually do it.

Though, really, I’m here to work. Which seems like all I do these days. Of course, it’s not all I do, but free time is in short supply. There is most certainly no spare hours in the day to go through spring-cleaning the whole house.

Which is a shame, because this weather is really making me yearn for freshness and cleanliness and, well, a lot less stickiness.

 

Do you spring clean? Did you read this and think ‘She swept the kitchen and dining room and had to blog about it? I do that twice a day!’? Do you not have time to hoover, let alone organise and dust the bookshelves? Do you want to come and spring clean (and spring organise) my house for me?

What kind of playdate?

Rosemary had a friend round to play on Friday afternoon, someone who hadn’t been round before. While she was here, I started thinking about all the different kinds of playdates there seem to be and how I was probably building up a collection of favourite children to come to play, depending on the situation.

First of all, there are the friends who bring their mums (and quite often their younger brothers or sisters). For these playdates, I get to drink to tea and have a chat. They can also be quite tiring, because many children of Rosemary’s age tend to get a little bit annoyed when their mums are giving someone else attention and may be noisier, messier or more disobedient. When there’s no mum there, I have more opportunity to  keep an eye on things and persuade them into an occasional tidy-up, as opposed to mess-up session. A playdate with mum and siblings almost always results in more tidying up later on.

There are playdates with friends who have as much energy and as small an attention span as Rosemary. These also result in a big mess, and frequent tears, because they’re running about so much one or other of them inevitably gets hurt in some way. They fly from one activity to another, running up and down the stairs and Wesley tends to go and hide up in the office.

There are playdates where nothing is played with, but the two of them spend the time running around, jumping on each other and shouting ‘Ben 10!’ at the top of their voices. This is great in terms of limited mess, but it’s impossible to leave Eleanor on the floor and it really, really hurts my head. There are also usually a lot of bumps.

Then there are playdates, like Fridays, where the two children play together reasonably quietly and calmly. Where they stick with each activity for at least 10 minutes, if not longer. Where I can leave Eleanor in the room with them and they’ll amuse her and/or keep an eye on her for a few minutes. Where they take turns without any prompting, and need little or no guidance in what to do.

Needless to say, I like the latter ones the best. But I do also really enjoy the accompanied playdates, if I’m not too tired and don’t have too much of a backlog of housework that’s going to a) be very noticeable and b) mean I’m going to have even more tidying to do at the end of the playdate.

I think Rosemary probably prefers those with friends who are similar to her in energy levels and likes and dislikes, despite the frequent meltdowns over sharing and what to play next. Though she enjoys them all, so I don’t think I need to worry too much about encouraging my favourites!

 

What about you? Do you have a preferred playdate type and is it the same as your child(ren)’s? Do you try to have a mix?

How much independent play?

Eleanor can crawl around on the floor and play on her own for considerable chunks of time. If you put a variety of toys down, she’ll explore them in detail for up to three quarters of an hour at a time.  She likes toys she can chew, toys that make music and toys she can push around. She’s also just discovering toys that she can bang to make a noise. And, if you leave a shoe anywhere in her vicinity, she’ll be your friend for life.

This is, of course, very convenient. It means I can take her upstairs and do a bit of work in the morning, while she crawls around the office floor, playing with her toys and desperately searching for some paper to chew on. It means I can leave her in the living room with Rosemary for a bit, while I load the washing machine or empty the dishwasher. In theory, it means I can sit and catch up with blogging for a bit, though in practice work or housework is taking priority most of the time, as we’re so humungously busy at the moment.

When she does get bored, just 15 minutes or so of attention, be it walking her round the room (she loves to walk and stand), bouncing her on your knee, dancing round the dining room, ticking her, changing her nappy, giving her some milk, etc. and she’ll be able to go back to her independent play, though not for as long. Or she can go in the bouncer or her bouncy chair for a bit (both of which will probably have passed their use-by date soon! She does get frustrated sometimes, if she’s trying to get to something and can’t pull herself up to it, for example, but for the most part, she plays happily, chattering and squealing away.

At the other end of the spectrum, Rosemary has been struggling with independent play recently. When a friend comes round to play, they’ll play imaginatively together for ages, but on her own she is finding it difficult to come up with independent play that she wants to do. She’s getting bored with a lot of her toys, or can’t find them, because the toy corner needs a good sort out.

But mostly, it’s because her default position is in front of the TV. When she gets up in the morning, she asks to watch TV, when she gets home from playgroup/nursery school, she asks to watch TV. And for this I entirely blame myself. She’s always (well, not quite always, of course!) watched TV, but since Eleanor was born, I’ve found myself switching the TV on for Rosemary, so I can get on with sorting Eleanor out, whether that’s changing her nappy, feeding her or just playing with her. Or, indeed, leaving her to play on her own while I catch up on the washing. It’s just easier that way, and I’ve done it far, far too much.

Chris, when he’s on Rosemary and Eleanor duty, tends to have the TV off. He comes up with things for Rosemary to play with, if she’s not thinking of them herself – he’ll get the blocks out or the Happyland people, for example. Or he’ll just leave her until she starts playing independently and imaginatively, which really doesn’t take a huge amount of time after the TV is off. And he usually manages to get a bit of housework done, too. This is what I used to be like and I’m not entirely sure where the laziness has come from – maybe from the constant exhaustion?

Anyway, we are now trying to gradually cut down on the TV, making sure it doesn’t go on the second she comes downstairs or in the front door. Encouraging other play, for example, we made some playdough yesterday, as all the old stuff had dried out ages ago. And we’re trying to encourage watching a DVD or video instead of the TV, so it’s for a finite time and not just vegging in front of the TV. Rosemary is fantastic at independent and imaginative play, given the chance. So we (I, really) need to give her that chance. Even if it means being interrupted while filling the dishwasher or having ten times as many toys to pick up at the end of the day.

 

How are your children at independent play? Do you have one better than the other? Has TV taken over and how have you changed that? Do you think it’s OK for a 7-month-old baby to be spending so much time on independent play?

Tone of voice

Recently I have found myself channelling a new mum friend (let’s call her Judith – as I don’t think I know any actual Judiths), when reacting to unwanted behaviour in Rosemary. Judith always talks very calmly to her children and I have never heard her shout. Of course, for all I know, she screams and swears at them at home, but I don’t think so.

I have always aimed to be a mum who remains calm and talks in a happy voice, just adding a touch of firmness when something is very unwanted. And I think I go through phases of being successful and phases of failing dismally, where I end up shouting, screeching, stomping doors and, oh dear me, swearing. Fortunately, the latter are not too common, though there was a time during the terrible twos when it was probably approaching the norm, rather than the exception.

The thing is, though, at the moment I feel like I’m almost trying to sound exactly like Judith – not just to mimic her calmness and other methods, but to speak in her voice. Mimicry is something I’ve suffered from since I was child, actually. I have offended people on more than one occasion, because I’ve started speaking in their accent and they’ve assumed I’m taking the piss. I’m not. I just naturally take on the accent, register and tone of voice of the people I’m speaking to. It is weird, yes.

But, you know what? Weird though it is, I think it’s actually working. I think I’m (mostly) getting better responses from Rosemary when I’m being Judith, than when I’m being Tasha, because Tasha can get quite annoyed and snappy with her children, whereas Judith doesn’t. Judith gets down to ground level and explains why it’s not possible to scuba diving today; Tasha snaps, ‘Oh for goodness sake! For the billionth time, we canNOT go scuba diving today!’

So, I may just keep doing it. Though I’ll have to be careful that I don’t offend Judith by talking just like her in front of her!

Hmm, though probably Judith wouldn’t have written a blog post while her baby wriggles around the floor trying to reach various objects, in her increasing attempts to start crawling. She would have left that until after they’ve gone to bed.

Do you have any weird (or just normal, but successful) ways of keeping calm in the face of unwanted pre-school or toddler behaviour? Do you have friends who come across as perfect parents and make you wonder what you’re doing wrong? Do you have friends who you thought were perfect, but turned out to quite normal?

Saturday mornings

Saturday mornings are one of my favourite days. Rosemary has a ballet class at the leisure centre at 10am. Sometimes we’re in a bit of a rush – we have to fit in a shower-bath before we leave, as well as getting all three of us (me, Rosemary and Eleanor) dressed and drying our hair, oh yes, and having breakfast and at least two cups of tea (for me) and some milk (Rosemary and Eleanor – though different kinds).

We try to leave by 9am, which gives us a good leisurely walk and plenty of time for Rosemary to get changed when we get there. If we leave before 9.10, we can still make it, but have to walk very quickly.

Part of the ritual is getting a pain-au-chocolat each (not for Eleanor yet) at the Co-op on the way, and eating them while we walk (yes, I know, not the best way to eat).

And we walk along chatting about all sorts of things. Yesterday’s conversations, for example, included talking about the Easter Bunny and Rosemary assuring me that the one we saw at the Rococo Gardens the week before had been a man dressed up as an Easter Bunny, Rosemary telling me about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which Chris is reading to her at bedtime, and explaining the differences between that and the film Willy Wonka. Rosemary told me that caterpillars are baby butterflies and how they build a cocoon and go to sleep in it and when they wake up they’re a butterfly. And lately we’ve had the repetition and repetition and repetition of the question ‘Why?’ I resort to my Gran’s ‘Y is a letter and you should no better.’ after about 10 usually (you have to say it in a Welsh accent, otherwise it doesn’t work).

The walk includes a nice bit through Stratford Park, where we see (and, if we’ve remembered to bring bread, feed) the ducks and see squirrels running up trees and yesterday appreciated the shade brought by the tall trees.

Eleanor usually sleeps for the most of the walk there (and back), but wakes up when we walk into the Leisure Centre. While Rosemary is in her class (45 minutes), Eleanor and I have some time to play. Yesterday, she almost-crawled about on the floor (she moves around by rolling and spinning on her belly at the moment, and she can go very far this way), playing with a couple of her toys, chatted to some of the other mums, tried to pull herself up on a table and ate an apple-flavoured rice cake.

And then we walk home again, after Rosemary gets her sweet (which she almost always discards after a few minutes, because it’s ‘too chewy’ or ‘too sticky’) and have more lovely conversations. She sometimes tells me and shows me what she learnt, and sometimes doesn’t.

Yesterday, we also went to Tesco and got some food for the evening and also a new dress for Rosemary. She helped me find the right salad vegetables and found the Tiger bread and even offered to pick the wine (I thought I’d better make that decision, otherwise we probably would have ended up with something costing £20. While I’m at the till, Rosemary goes and sits with ‘the dogs’ (a guide dog collection point) and waits very patiently.

There’s a wall that Rosemary walks along until she gets to a lamp post and jumps down to me, a point where she stops to hide and I say ‘I can see you, lemon squeeze you.’ Actually, there are another two walls she walks along and jumps down to me and gets a spin. There are many rituals, really, which seem to be very important to young children. If we miss any out for any reason, there are usually tears.

It’s quite tiring, though not as tiring as Chris and Rosemary’s Sunday swimming outing to the Leisure Centre, but it’s really good fun.

Do you have any special days? Do your children have rituals on the school run or regular outings that cannot be deviated from? What do you talk about on your walks with your children? How long can you keep up with answering ‘Why?’

Always here

This is only my second go at Josie’s Writing Workshop. It seems that she always moves me to write about death and people who are gone. So far, anyway. Maybe next week it will be flowers and chocolate and fairy tales. (Please? I’d like to write one without crying bucketfuls.)

My Gran believes in Heaven. She believes Papa is in heaven, with my Grandad. She believes that he’s looking down on us. She talks to him. She believes she’ll be joining him some time soon.

I wish I believed that. I wish I knew that, one day, I would see him again. And not just him, but all the people I have lost, over the years. And the animals I’ve lost. And the babies I’ve lost. Sometimes I imagine Papa arriving somewhere and bumping into those children I’ve lost. One of whom is somehow now grown. The others who are still young, though not as young as Rosemary and Eleanor. I imagine him taking them under his wing. Having a beer and going out dancing with the older one, as he no doubt would have done the second she (or he) was 18. And I imagine him watching the rugby with his dad. And now and then having a peek to see what we’re up to down here, over here, up here, wherever it is.

But mostly I know that he’s not up there, down there, or anywhere really.

But he is still here. He is here, in our hearts, in our photos, in our videos, and in our memories. He is here in the stories that we tell our children, our friends, our readers. He is here, with all the people he ever touched, and boy were there many. He is here with his family, with his friends, with his drinking pals, with the blokes he used to work with fixing up old buildings, with the many lost souls he was wont to collect. He is here, with his granddaughters, even the one who never got to meet him.

Just as Miffy is always here with me, though I never knew him in this life. I only ever knew the memories of him, but he is still a huge part of my life. Miffy, who was so anti-smoking that he banned matches in the house, so that my mum had to carry a burning twist of newspaper from the boiler to the fires around the house, to light them. Miffy, who insisted on quiet at the dining table so that he could read. Miffy, who bought almost every new Penguin that came out each month. And read them all.

Just as Mary is always there with Eva, even though she never knew her. Mary, who loved jazz, dated Joss Ackland and wore high heels and perfume. Mary, who worked in an estate agent. Mary, who drove a red mini and knocked a motorbike rider off his bike when going round a roundabout. Mary, who travelled to America to visit her brother on the QE2 and wrote and illustrated an amazing book about the journey.

And so will Papa always be here.

Papa, who had done a little too much wetting of the baby’s head when he went to register my name, so that I was called Natasha instead of Tasha. Papa, who painted clouds on my bedroom wall in our first house – clouds that are apparently still there. Papa, who went and did the shopping every day at the local market when we lived in Spain, struggling with the language. Papa, who cooked the most delicious meals. Papa, who helped nurse his mother-in-law through her last few cancer-ridden months. Papa, who drove to Bristol and back every night to take Mama her special raw-food salad when she was in hospital waiting for months for Eva to be born. Papa, who held the tiniest Eva in his hand and watched her grow from a few pounds into a wonderful woman. Papa, who drove to Weston-Super-Mare, got drunk and slept in the car and then lost his licence, when he found out his wife had been unfaithful. Papa, who looked after Eva on his own for a few months. Papa, who took his wife back and forgave her. Papa, who took an overdose of pills because his wife wanted to keep seeing her boyfriend. Papa, who survived and stayed and gave up drinking. For a while. Papa, who tried so hard to help his wife through her years of hypermania. Only to be kicked out and served with divorce papers. Papa, who still looked after her, when she would let him. Papa, who slowly let her back into his life, as she got better. Papa, who would dance the hours away to live music in the Vic. Papa, who would take me to the Albert and do the quiz with me. Papa, who held my hand and rolled my cigarette (far too fat), when I came out of hospital having lost my third baby, and a fallopian tube. Papa, who stood up and talked for me at my wedding, despite being incredibly nervous and shy about it. Papa, who took Wesley for long walks and dogsat for us when we went away. Papa who loved our dog like his own. Papa, who built our kitchen, laid our floorboards, painted much of our house and found friends to do what he couldn’t do for free or at incredibly knock-down prices. Papa, who plastered the walls when he’d had a few beers and left some of them quite uneven. Papa, who stayed home with dog while his granddaughter was being born and came to visit in the morning, bringing me a Guardian a novel about Cryptic crosswords and a huge cuddle for his daughter who was desperate to hold her baby, but had to wait. Papa, who took Rosemary to Stratford Park and got chased by a swan while I did some work after I cried at not having enough time. Papa, who spent far too much time in and out of hospital during his last year. Papa, who had to lose his dignity and let his daughters wipe his bum and feed him medicine. Papa, who, despite being so ill himself, got up, walked into town and bought a condolences card when Chris’ Nanny died, to make sure we got it before we left. Papa, who went and had a stroke while we were in Scotland at her funeral. Papa, who died before I got home to see him again.

And so Papa will always be here.

And that’s what I believe happens when you die. And that’s what I tell Rosemary. And that’s why I tell her things about her granddad. Happy memories. Sad memories. Funny memories. Memories that, though they are not hers, she will share with her children one day.

So that Papa will always be here.

Reading matters

We need to move. No, not to get into the best school – though ask me again tomorrow, on Allocation Day; I may have changed my mind. Not for work – we work from home; and our office is one of the nicest rooms in the house. Not to downsize – can’t imagine we would ever manage that; clutter is our lifeblood (OK, mine).

No, we need to move because Rosemary has almost worked her way through all the books in the library. The children’s ones, of course – she’s not started on Jane Eyre and Great Expectations yet.

She’s not reading them herself, I should add. This is not an ‘Isn’t my kid a genius?’ post. (Though, obviously she is and I don’t even need to mention it because it’s obvious. Right?) She gets read them. She is showing an interest in the words, now, and recognising some words and lots of letters. But reading herself is still a way off, I would think.

She gets 15-20 books out each visit to the library and there’s usually a couple of visits a week. And she remembers them. We’ll pick up a book in the library and she’ll remember that she’s read it already. Not last week, but a few months ago. (She certainly has Chris’ memory, not mine!) And she seems to have a strange aversion to getting a book out more than once, though we can sometimes persuade her.

So, yes, we need to move. To a different library catchment area. Or maybe go on a library crawl. We could probably manage three in a day, if there was no nursery school or playgroup..

They are mostly read to her at bedtime. She has a shortish book with me and Eleanor, then Chris takes over while I go and feed Eleanor and get her to sleep. He reads anything between three and eight books, depending on length, time and mood (both his and Rosemary’s, probably!).

I sometimes read some with her in the morning, between ‘shower bath’ and school run and while feeding Eleanor. And we often read quite a few when a new lot has just been borrowed. But the majority of the reading is at bedtime.

So, we’re wondering whether this is about normal? Is it not enough? I won’t ask if it’s too much, because I honestly don’t believe there could ever be too much reading! Should we be spreading the books out throughout the day? Should we be varying the types of books a bit? (Most of them are from the early readers section. And, don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’re much better than the Peter and Jane books we learnt to read with!) Or is it all just personal choice – ours and hers?

And out of interest, what are your children’s reading habits, whether they’re reading themselves or not? Do you use the library a lot? We’re fascinated by all things reading-related.

Commenting system removed

Back to normal service.

I've removed it, as I didn't like it. Too slow to load up, I couldn't reply from my phone, and got weird errors. Have no problem with it on other blogs, just not for me.

Thank you for testing it out for me, people! And sorry to mess you around. I may try out Intense Debate, but might just stick with the normal thing - let me know if you have any special preferences.

Testing new comment system

Feel free to say 'Hi', so I can check that the new comment system works.

I've removed it, as I didn't like it. Too slow to load up, I couldn't reply from my phone, and got weird errors.

Thank you for testing it out for me, people!

Adelaide

This is my first attempt at Josie’s Writing Workshop, though I think about doing it almost every week. In fact, this one combines a prompt from this week (1 Tell me about someone from you past who you lost touch with and who you often think about.) with one from last week (4 Imagine there is another ‘you’, living in a parallel universe.).

 

You were 21 in August, not long after Rosemary turned 3. What did you do? Did you have a big party with all your university friends? Did you have a quiet dinner with your mum and your dad and your half brothers and sisters and your grandmothers, raising a glass to your grandfathers, no longer with us? Were you stuck at home with a crying baby, trying to finish an Open University assignment? Did you spend it in the arms of someone you love? Did I call you to say Happy Birthday? Did I bring you gifts and make you cards?

Was I a good mum to you? Did I cuddle you when you cried and show you what it means to love? Or did I leave you with your grandparents while I went out to have fun and get an education? Or did I manage to do both? Did you come to university with me? Did I read you bedtime stories, then hit the books? Were we on our own? Did I shout at you too much? Was I your friend? Did I help you with your GCSE choices? Did I tell all about contraception and how it doesn’t always work? Did I tell you to never have sex until you had finished your education, just in case? Did you listen? Or did I tell you to live your life as you saw fit and to love when it was your time and make your own decisions? Did I teach you to be strong and stand up for yourself? To always know what you want and what you should do? To never allow yourself to be subsumed by another’s wishes and desires. And to never make a life or death decision after getting yourself drunk on half a bottle of Malibu?

Did you come to my wedding? Did you come to meet your sisters after their births? Or were you maybe even at their births? Do you come to their birthdays and shower them with love and gifts?

Are you happy? Were you happy? And what about the me in that universe? Is she happy? Was she happy? Does that even matter?

 

Dear Adelaide, I will never forget you and I wish I could have got to know you, like I am getting to know my little girls. I hope that there is a universe out there where you got to know and to love life. And I’m sorry.

How to avoid the temptation to clone

My sister (Eva) and I took the girls to the circus last weekend. I spent much of my time oohing, ahing and taking the names of various deities in vain. Some of the acrobatics was absolutely stunning. There were three male acrobats climbing on top of each other’s heads, doing somersaults in the air, doing somersaults round and over each other and many more things that I can’t describe. There was a woman climbing up into the big top on a sheet of what looked like pretty flimsy material, and swinging there and doing all kinds of astonishing manoeuvres with it. There was a woman hanging from a rope by her hair. Yes, her hair. Ow! There was a woman who was able to dislocate her back in order to bend over backwards. All the way. Ow, again!

I spent the whole time in awe at the acrobatics. Rosemary spent the whole time in awe at the ballet. She loved the ballerinas. Sometimes the ballet and the acrobatics coincided. Other times it was all about the acrobatics and Rosemary lost concentration and started messing about with the seats in front or trying to chat to the boy behind. Other times it was all about the ballet and I lost concentration and chattered (quietly to Eleanor). Eva and I kept saying to Rosemary ‘Look at them, Rosemary. You keep missing it. Didn’t you see what he just did?’ But she wasn’t really interested in the acrobats.

And I mourned for my dreams of taking a gymnast daughter to the Olympics. I realised that I probably wouldn’t get to watch my daughter live out my dreams. Because I used to be a gymnast. I went to circus school. I was at the top of a human pyramid. I did somersaults over people – or human juggling as we called it. I was going to be an Olympic gymnast. Until we moved to Spain and I didn’t do any gymnastics for a year. Then came home and had fear. I couldn’t do a simple backflip over the horse. Because I was afraid I would fall. And that was it for me.

So I had pinned my hopes out living this out vicariously. But this is sadly not to be. Unless Eleanor pulls through, of course. And judging by her excited wriggling at the circus. During the acrobatics. I might be in luck.

Of course, all I really want for my girls is for them to find their own way and place within the world, to have the confidence to follow their dreams and the wherewithall to know how to go about it. And I will be proud of them and love them no matter which direction they run off in. But it would be a pleasant bonus if it were somewhere in the vicinity of an Olympic podium or, you know, outer space.

(It's not just me, is it? Oh. Never mind, then. Pretend you never read this.)