Baby Wearing And The Timid Toddler

Baby Wearing And The Timid Toddler

Have you heard the one about spoiling your children by carrying them too much?

Me too.

I've heard it a lot over the last few years, both overtly and also from people telling me the wisdom of their own parenting approach in very pointed tones as if it might lead to an epiphany where I throw out my slings while bemoaning the fact that my children will never learn to walk. 

I'm still waiting for that particular epiphany, which means I have carried on carrying on; particularly Miss Olive who is by far my most attached child. She does NOT like to be held by anybody who isn't me (or papa bear at a push) and she is not shy about sharing that with the judicious use of NOISE.

In many ways that has been a curse to me, as well as a blessing. 

The hardest thing I do every day is to walk out of the door on my way to work. The blow is softened by the elder children pinned to the bedroom window waving me off, but it’s still heart wrenching to hear Miss Olive wailing at the injustice of being separated from me. 

“I feel the same baby girl” I tell her in my head and wave furiously at the children until I am out of sight.

Conversely, my second favourite moment of the day* is walking back through the door and having three pocket sized zombies tear arsing across the house to launch themselves at my legs. 

Once those first few moments of welcome are over, Miss Olive demands to be picked up and I am more than happy to oblige. Wearing her is a very literal act of connection which is usually sound tracked by the gentle “mpph, mpph” noises that always seem to go along with her getting cosy. 

It benefits us to have that cuddle time in the same way it benefits Alfie to describe his latest project to me at a million miles an hour; or Esme to share her latest “favourite” thing with a goofy smile. And just like those moments, this need to be physically connected is a fleeting moment in Olive’s life.

I was treated to a taste of quite how fleeting at the weekend when Miss Olive and I went to her very first birthday party.

Sitting with another mama, I kept a weather eye on an unusually curious toddler as she bimbled along, taking in the other guests and occasionally checking back in with me in case I had abandoned her. 

She was completely and entirely her own little girl; composed and assured. 

It was the first of many bitter-sweet moments for me; watching my timid little girl finally pulling on her brave boots and plucking up the courage to walk away from me. 

The same child, who hides her head in the crook of my neck when anyone offers their arms, in her own time, and in her own way, took herself on an adventure leaving in her wake a very proud, and slightly dejected mama.

* My favourite moment, should you be interested, is snuggling into a fuzzy little toddler neck as I fall asleep.

Tuesday, 29 July 2014 Comments: 4

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Yoga Poses For Toddlers

Yoga Poses For Toddlers

Wednesday night in our house is couples yoga night – oh yes twenty-something me, this is what your future holds – but don’t go making assumptions, it’s probably one of the funniest evenings of the week.

The funnies come from having found an amazing yogi who sings frickin LION KING songs when she demonstrates positions, but mostly, it comes from my daughter.

Yes, that is Miss Olive getting in on my yoga practice.

She laid her head on me and repeatedly poked her finger up my nose until I was laughing so hard I fell flat on my back and did the flappy hand bee-round-my-head move to get rid of her.

Thursday, 24 July 2014 Comments: 0

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Baking With Small Children

Baking With Small Children

It’s a testament to my optimistic nature, the triumph of imagination over reality, but somehow I forget that baking with a two year old is a really stupid idea. 

It has glimpses of awesome, moments where I wrinkle my nose at the sight of my child stirring resolutely with a spoon as long as her arm, but mostly there is stress, and the ever increasing desire to scream into a tea towel.

Last Sunday, when Keith and Alfie went to a birthday party, I decided to take Esme and Miss Olive shopping for a few essentials and get our bake on.

I had humble aspirations, a quick and easy upside down cake because, well, it’s simple, quick and it’s a taste of my childhood. My romantic heart wants them to become the tastes of my children’s childhoods as well. 

So shopping we went, and it wasn’t until a few aisles in that I remembered that only last week, Esme had plucked a seared pineapple ring out of her burger between her thumb and forefinger and flung it unceremoniously across the table.

I pushed the thought to the back of my brain because the front of my brain was busy trying to plot a tightrope path that meant neither child could reach the shelves. 

I had thought that giving Esme the shopping list had saved me from 50% of The Grabby Twins, but either the aisles are narrow or the trolleys are wide because I was caught on the hop at the egg department when Esme announced in a booming voice that eggs were, in fact, her favourite and lunged towards a large display of free rangers on special. 

After that, I was taking no chances.

Unfortunately having found all the other items on our list the niggling thought about Esme and pineapple was the only one left so I grudgingly parked the trolley in front of the display of tinned fruit.

Esme is very much a child who does not like to be second guessed so I knew that this conversation was going to take delicate handling.

“Esme, shall we get some tinned pears for our cake?”

“No, I want pineapple”

“OK sweetheart, but you remember last week, you picked the pineapple out of the burger that daddy made? Maybe peaches would be better for the cake?”

“I want pineapple”

“Esme, you don’t like pineapple. How about mango?”

“I want pineapple”

I admitted defeat and picked up a tin of pineapple. Apparently this was the right decision because according to Esme’s booming voice, pineapple is also her favourite.

Back home, I wrapped Miss Olive on my back and parked Esme in front of the goggle box while I prepared the kitchen. It was a simple cake, possibly the simplest cake ever conceived, but I was aiming for drama free baking and fortune favours the prepared mind just as surely as tired two year olds favour sobbing rage when frustrated.

I laid everything out on the counter, turned on the oven, put the stool in front of the sink, took a deep cleansing breath and called Esme into the kitchen.

What happened after that moment is a blur. 

I know during the next 30 minutes there was measuring, a mushroom cloud of flour, the stealing of cocktail cherries and the delicate negotiation of when Esme was allowed to clean the electric whisk with her tongue.

Somehow, we came out the other side with a well baked, tasty cake, two injury free children and only the merest hint of lost shit on my part.

Apparently in the few days since burger gate, Esme really had rethought her position on pineapple because when we huddled over our still warm slabs, she declared it to be – you guessed it – her favourite and scoffed the lot before passing out in a cake drunk stupor.

Afternoons like these are rare beasts, and they explain why I will forget all about the stupidity of baking with a two year old, and do it all over again next week: Because mama can’t help but push her luck.

Tuesday, 22 July 2014 Comments: 2

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Introspection

Introspection

Today there are more questions than answers: About how I parent, about how I live, about how I work. 

Just ... questions ... and no answers in sight.

So while the world is drawing in a deep, collective breath, I will simply share a blue coloured aeroplane with you: Alfie's latest masterpiece borne of his latest obsession.

And I will tell you about how he camps out in front of the TV every morning, drinking in each detail of the latest Air Crash Investigation. 

That he quietly eats breakfast afterwards, processing the details of what went wrong and how a plane came back down to earth.

And how he goes, full bellied, to his Lego table, or gathers up paper and paint, and recreates his own record of events, quietly and with purpose, until he is sure that he can retell the story with accuracy.

I feel like I am the only person who sees magic in this small gesture of respect, but see it I do.

Thursday, 17 July 2014 Comments: 0

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Is Instagram the Modern Mother’s Little Helper?

Is Instagram the Modern Mother’s Little Helper?

There is a lot to thank social media for when it comes to the raising of children; the support, the information, the near constant photography.

I’ll freely admit it, I’m thankful for the advent of apps like Instagram: For a mama like me, it’s a total game changer when it comes to housework. 

When I was young, if we wanted to share the moment that our babies took their first faltering steps across the lounge floor, we had to stick our heads out of the front door and shout at Peggy across the road to stop hanging out her washing and come see. 

Ahoy there Peggy! ... I'm joking, this is Marilyn and I'm not that old

Ever the dutiful neighbour, Peggy would hurry through the front door, down the hallway and into the lounge locked and loaded to coo at my offspring. 

A few minutes later, having run through the time honoured script of confirming my child to be vastly talented, we'd move to the kitchen to sit down for a well earned cup of tea and a catch up on some neighbourhood gossip. 

Several cups later, Peggy would tell me to look at the time, make a trip to the toilet, and head back across the street to get dinner on. 

Put simply, in order to share that one special toddling moment, I would have had to clean a total of four rooms.

Today, thanks to social media, I have to shove the mess clear of about 12 square feet.

If you don’t think that’s a big deal you are welcome to visit my house one evening. 

My children will happily demonstrate that the real definition of the word “mess” hovers somewhere between “it would be quicker to bulldoze the house and start again” and “total fucking Armageddon”.

If Peggy came over today wanting a cuppa and a catch-up, she wouldn't want to use my toilet, because I can guarantee in the five minutes since I last cleaned the floor, one of the children will have created a puddle of pee. 

I would be forced to casually joke to Peggy that if there’s no visible puddle then it has probably already soaked into her sock; or explain away one of those "extra special" puddles that have been aimed at the back wall so that it pools unseen under the collection of potties and slowly stinks the house out until I go postal with a bottle of Dettol and rubber gloves.

After the trauma of her visit to the toilet, poor Peggy would probably need to have a lie down to recover. Good luck finding a bed Peggy, if you’re desperate, just head towards a pile of washing and start digging.

All of this is entirely hypothetical, of course, because Peggy would have taken one look at the utter massacre of my kitchen and politely declined any offer of a drink just in case her vaccines were out of date.

In fact, Peggy would have walked through the door, turned on her heel and fled. 

The next time I called for her, Peggy would have dived to the floor and commando crawled towards the back of the house so I wouldn't be able to see her as I peered through the window. 

And what would become of the baby? Pity the poor baby without an audience for her waddling.

All of those disasters have been averted because I can capture and remotely share the talents of my offspring. 

Peggy doesn't need to see the embarrassing reality of my bathroom, nor does she have to risk communicable disease from a mug. Best of all, Peggy is free to live her life thinking we are the sort of family who put their clothes away in the wardrobe. 

All of those are wondrous things.

Just as long as we all remember, nobody’s life looks as good as their Instagram account.

Tuesday, 15 July 2014 Comments: 2

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The Carpet Picnic (with Sweetcorn Fritters)

The Carpet Picnic (with Sweetcorn Fritters)

Once you have moved to a country that boasts outdoor living, it is really hard to admit that for a few months of the year, the living is best kept inside, where there are fires and a distinct lack of Antarctic winds.

The children, being 50% mule and 50% whirling dervish, are even more reluctant to give up on the idea of eating at the beach. That is, right up until the point where we are eating on the beach and they realise that we weren’t lying about the Antarctic winds.

And so it came to pass, after several abortive attempts to soldier through a winter beach picnic that we introduced our children to The Carpet Picnic.

Spontaneous, chaotic, and messy as hell, we are creating an awesome new family tradition filled with serve yourself noms in the form of Sweetcorn Fritters.

If you haven’t come across these before I seriously suggest you give them a try. They are about as easy and as tasty as picnic food can get and as you can see, mama can’t even get a photo before there are sticky little fingers attacking from all sides.

Sweetcorn Fritters

100g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1 egg
150ml milk
198g can sweetcorn

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Make a well in the centre, add an egg and gradually beat in milk to form a smooth batter.

Drain a can of sweetcorn, pat dry, then add to the batter mix.

Add some oil to a frying pan. Once hot, fry spoonfuls of mixture for about 2 mins each side until golden and crisp on each side.

Thursday, 10 July 2014 Comments: 5

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Making Sense Of Co-Sleeping Advice

Making Sense Of Co-Sleeping Advice

Blue Co-Sleeping by Gioia Albano 2011

As parents, we have never been under more pressure to protect our children from risk. 

From the time we get pregnant, we are given advice by medical professionals, websites, friends, family and sometimes complete bloody strangers all of whom want us to believe that if we follow their advice, we can guarantee that our children will avoid harm.

The script is simple: Medicalise and monitor ... and your child will be safe.

It's a seductive promise that taps into our deepest fears as human beings and parents. 

Unfortunately, it’s not a promise that delivers. 

The Lancet reported in May that the UK has one of the highest child mortality rates in Western Europe. 

I would imagine news like that made an impact at the Department of Health. 

The cynic in me wonders if it might have been the sort of impact that would lead to some dramatic child saving type news just two months later.

Such as the recent news that, co-sleeping leads to greater risk of SIDS.*

As a parent that is a simple, and terrifying message.

It’s the kind of terrifying news I would expect healthcare professionals and their advisers at the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) to be all over like a donkey on a waffle. 

So have NICE stepped in to provide healthcare workers with some simple guidelines on how to co-sleep safely?

Well, no.

Having read through their draft recommendations, there are a few things that seem to have been lost in translation: 

• When NICE talk about co-sleeping, they are talking about sleeping in a bed OR a sofa OR a chair. The latter two are known to be bad co-sleeping practice in contrast with the much safer practice of sharing a bed. 

• The studies that NICE discuss include results for deaths that occurred when a parent was under the influence of drugs and alcohol or a smoker. These are all known co-sleeping risks and are vastly different from sharing a bed with a sober parent. 

• The new guidelines are based on 12 studies, all of which NICE rate as being of Poor Quality. 

• The new recommendations state that “the evidence does not allow us to say that co-sleeping causes SIDS”. 

• NICE declare that they made this review because they were requested to do so by the Department of Health. 

So how should we receive the proposed guidelines? 

I think a slow hand clap is in order.

First let me say that I am absolutely in favour of parents being given evidence based advice that helps them to make decisions.

For my money, this apologetic set of draft guidelines is neither: In fact, they sit somewhere between “non-committal” and “politician on Newsnight”. 

They might make for some exciting headlines, but nothing in these news guidelines will help parents make informed choice or to guide midwives and health visitors in having a sensible discussion with new parents.

I have fallen asleep 1,698 times since I became a mother, and each night my last conscious thought is to pray that the spectre of SIDS stays away from our door. 

For 956 of those days I have been a co-sleeping parent and while I found that it soothed my fears to have my babies asleep by my side, the lack of consistent safety advice has bothered me.

If you are in a similar position, and feel that co-sleeping is something you want to do, but are surrounded by hysteria, I'm afraid the new guidelines from NICE aren't going to help. 

After a lot of searching, I would like to offer you an alternative: This article is filled with well referenced and comprehensive advice.

I offer it to you as a parent looking to co-sleep. 

I offer it to any healthcare practitioner who is unsure of how to talk about co-sleeping. 

Mostly though, I would like to offer it to NICE, who - despite having produced 77 pages of document - are no closer to helping parents co-sleep safely.

* SIDS accounts for approximately 250 of the 3,984 children who die in the UK each year.

Tuesday, 8 July 2014 Comments: 5

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The World of High End Babywearing

The World of High End Babywearing

Have you ever been smitten by something that made no sense?

The kind of smitten where you see something and every logical thought you have says that it’s not a good fit for you, not a good use of money, and yet .... and yet. 

That was my relationship with a woven wrap I first saw about a year ago. It was a one off, never to be produced, money can’t buy, thanks anyway, move along please.

My heart would flutter every time I saw a photo: A teaser here, a glimpse there, and suddenly there was a rumour that a handful would be made. 

A handful! 

To go around all the people who had fallen in love with it just like me. The chances of scoring one (because of course it’s entirely normal to about wraps in the same vocabulary as drugs) were slim to none.

I kept a little seed of hope in my heart though; enough to make me set my alarm and crawl out of bed in the early hours of the morning. Enough to sit shivering in the dark, in front of my laptop, waiting to see if I might be fast enough to buy one of these unicorns. 

I had even recruited a stranger to help me, a stalking buddy, but as fast as we were, others were faster and we both came away empty handed.

My heart was heavy. 

I told myself it wasn't important, I was blessed to have some beautiful wraps and you can carry your baby in anything, the fabric doesn't matter.

I added my name to the list of people “In Search of Klee”, not quite able to let go. 

I consoled myself with logic, it was too thick, too beastly, too much wrap for me. It was a good thing I hadn't bought one. It was a waste of money.

Months later I received a message: I have a Klee if you would like it?

Would I like it? 

What about logic? What if it’s too much wrap for me? What if I hate it? What if it’s a scam? Think of the other things I could do with the money.

I took the chance anyway.

There were weeks of waiting, of checking on-line tracking and muttering angrily that it shouldn't take 5 DAYS FOR A PARCEL TO TRAVEL 300 MILES. 

And one day there was a box outside my door. 

I ripped open the packaging and there it was, luminous in my hands, heavy, solid and utterly defying logic. 

It had precisely none of the characteristics I thought I wanted in a wrap and yet as soon as I used it to tie Miss Olive to my chest, it felt utterly and completely ... right.

Babywearing is something you DO, not something you BUY 

So why the obsession with these beautiful pieces of cloth?

My poetic soul tells me that just like the tying together of hands during a wedding ceremony, we yearn for beauty to bind us to our babies; our precious, beloved babies. 

If you think of it like that, is it surprising that we look for cloth that articulates who we are and how we feel?

There is a film being made exploring the appeal of those rare wraps woven from unicorn eyelashes and pixie farts and costing as much as my first car. It will, no doubt, try to apply logic to something that most normal people will not see as logical. 

Let’s be honest, it will try to apply logic when most people think you have lost your damn mind.

I used to be one of those people. 

But I'm all about the learning, and if years of overpriced Valentines roses have taught me anything, it’s that there is rarely any logic to how we demonstrate our love. 

Thursday, 3 July 2014 Comments: 4

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You Can't Pick Which Example They Follow

You Can't Pick Which Example They Follow

I'm no stranger to the power of imitation.

My children have a near perfect grasp of several swear words: I won’t insult your intelligence, it’s because we swear in front of them.

We like to think that, being adults, we’re somehow more discerning or entitled; but really, we just swear. 

Unlike me and their father, my children are unapologetic about swearing and delight in letting loose in near perfect context and preferably in front of an audience.

They are rare and blessed moments when our beach walk is punctuated by the dulcet tones of my daughter shouting “FOR FUCK’S SAKE HARRY!!”

Better still are the supermarket trips where Alfie stands up in the trolley (he’s not supposed to be riding in) to exclaim “BOLLOCKS!!” like some pint sized drunk arguing with some unseen adversary.

Rare moments indeed ... rare, rare, rare.

But there are other moments of imitation that whisper quietly in my ear "you don't completely suck at this".

Moments when I turn to see why my daughter has gone quiet to see her chilling on the sofa watching a cartoon and feeding her baby.

There is a famous story in breastfeeding circles about a gorilla at an Ohio zoo who was taught to nurse her baby by the local La Leche League group. 

I love that story to the point of sentimental tears because in a cynical world, it represents the difference that can be made by just .... being there.

When I asked Esme if she was feeding her baby, she flicked me a withering glance and nodded before turning back to her programme.

Her reaction made it clear that mine was the stupidest question she had ever heard; because what else would she be doing with a baby?

And that means I've succeeded in passing on something much more important that a robust grasp of Anglo-Saxon.

I have created an environment where nursing a baby is completely normal.

Despite living in a world of multi-billion dollar formula advertising campaigns, despite using an SNS, despite the near constant sexualisation of women’s breasts, my daughter, aged 2, knows her body is made to nourish her baby.

Regardless of where her parenting journey takes her - or if she takes a parenting journey at all - she will carry with her the deeply ingrained knowledge that her body is made to grow and nourish.

And how to make sailors blush while she's doing it.

Tuesday, 1 July 2014 Comments: 2

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