To do


family & parenting

David Attenborough was allegedly asked once which animal he found most fascinating to observe and replied an infant human. I concur. I was holding a baby yesterday and her mum remarked on how the wee one liked me. I put it down to a combination of experience at mumming and the fact that uncivilised babies […]

22nd January 2013

Age Appropriate


family & parenting

I’ve written before about Spider-boy’s attachments and obsessions when it comes to TV, notably his hearty love for Fireman Sam and later Gigglebiz, which have now also been consigned to the scrap yard for all things too babyish. He is now, with typical four-year-old full immersion, hooked on Horrible Histories and Deadly 60. I think […]

21st May 2012

Technology baby: out of touch


words

All children I know and have ever met have been obsessed with technology. I suspect it is somehow linked to their connection with the future – they are, of course, closer to it than us. Kicking off the edge of the past, as represented by us, floating out further than we can reach to find […]

28th April 2012

Go baby, go: Second first words


words

Newborn is still teasing us with whether his sounds are words. Don’t get me wrong, he has means of communication. He has his vigorous shouting and pointing, an ability to vote with his feet and either stomp off (from any situation he dislikes) or stand up (in his high-chair and change the dynamics of mealtimes). […]

5th February 2012

Independence daze – Part I


family & parenting

So newborn is on the move. He’s off, crawling like a pro. Properly, on all fours, moving forwards and backwards and to the side. My jersey-clad crab, edging round the lounge. That he’s moving isn’t a surprise. Not because I expect my children to be precocious, but because the blessed scamp has been crawling in […]

13th June 2011

Are you looking at me?


family & parenting

The end of the world is on its way. Newborn has worked out his favourite thing in all the world. Beating Sophie, his brother and I on the list is standing. Standing and stamping (whilst clinging to a grown up finger) and being able, all of a sudden, to pick things up, stuff them in […]

1st June 2011

Woah – we’re half way there…


family & parenting

I give too much away about my Dad-rock tendencies in that post title. It almost prompts me to reveal one of my great regrets: that according to fansite sources, Springsteen had planned to play Glory Days at Hyde Park with Bon Jovi but the council pulled the plug on such a noisy late encore. How […]

25th May 2011

Playing Mum


family & parenting

Some days I just can’t shake the feeling that I am somehow playing at being Mum. Playing at being an adult even. It isn’t just the constant improvisation and guesswork intricately knotted into the very fabric of parenting. The negotiations and promises, rewards and gestures, attempts at teaching lessons, endless reassurance and praise, the need […]

11th March 2011

Introductions


birth, babies, bodies, breastfeeding, words

First words are a difficult subject for me, and I don’t mean the first words said by Spider-boy (for the record it was ‘baby’, he’s such a glorious narcissist) or his brother. I mean the first words I said to my children. The first words they heard from me. I really believed, before I had […]

26th January 2011