tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67151871341837804522024-03-05T16:43:36.066-08:00Nursery WhinesA new mum turns off the filter and confesses allNursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-47559333535487960382017-01-25T08:28:00.000-08:002017-01-25T08:30:28.573-08:00Nursery Whines has movedFind us at our new home <a href="https://nurserywhines.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Nurserywhines.wordpress.com</a><br />
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<br />Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-76773912276163021822017-01-19T05:15:00.000-08:002017-01-23T05:15:36.212-08:00War and Peace: A Good Night Reflection<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
Every day is a constant battle.</div>
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"Keep still while I'm trying to get you dressed!"</div>
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"Don't throw your breakfast on the floor!"</div>
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"Hurry up and put your coat on. We've got to go! Now!"</div>
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"Don't snatch! Say sorry! Give it back!"</div>
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"Eat your fruit! No you can't have another biscuit!"</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Don't stand on the chair!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Don't play with the radiator!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Keep out of the bin!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Don't put that in the loo!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I mean it!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Keep still! Don't touch it! Stop doing that! Put it down! Now!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Finish your supper!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Don't splash the water out of the bath! Don't touch the taps! Brush your teeth!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Time for bed! Say, 'Good Night'! No more stories! Lie down! Go to sleep!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I mean it!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Peace at last.</span></div>
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The white flag is raised.</div>
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That innocent little creature sleeping there looks so harmless. It must be friend not foe.</div>
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Why must we be enemies all day? Locked in this constant battle of wills?</div>
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If I could have this day again I'd be on your side. I'd laugh and play and join in the fun. I wouldn't lose my temper.</div>
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I almost want to wake you up right now so we can enjoy this truce together. Almost...</div>
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Good Night little one. Sleep well my love. Get your rest.</div>
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For tomorrow the war will rage on.</div>
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"La, la, la, la", crackles a voice over the baby alarm. My daughter is awake and is performing for an audience of stuffed animals.</div>
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I look at the clock - ten past seven. Well, I can't complain at that alarm call. I steel myself to throw back the covers and roll out of bed, plod downstairs, make coffee and warm milk, before tackling the morning nappy.</div>
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On the radio a reporter is revealing the Bafta nominations. 11 for La La Land, which made the headlines the previous morning for winning big at the Golden Globes.</div>
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The musical about Hollywood from Whiplash's writer/director Damien Chazelle, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone piqued my interest when I first wrote about it being cast back in 2015. But that all seems a world away now.</div>
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For ten years I worked as an entertainment journalist. My life revolved around premieres, parties and opening nights. <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">My calendar year was charted out in awards ceremonies and reality TV series launches. I </span>saw at least three films a week, I watched TV shows weeks before they were broadcast and I could pick and choose which musicians I wanted to hear live and what West End shows I wanted to see open.</div>
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These days I'm lucky to catch up on an old Netflix show in my pyjamas after I have put my daughter to bed.</div>
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But after just over a year away from the red carpet, it still takes me by surprise to be reminded the carousel keeps on turning.</div>
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The day I found out I was pregnant I went to a pre-Bafta party. It was sponsored by a gin company and all the drinks on the bar were themed cocktails. I had to ask the barman if I could just have some elderflower cordial, without the gin.</div>
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I stood at the side of the room, twiddling an enormous goldfishbowl on a stem filled with ice and elderflower cordial, looking hungrily at the platters of food that went by, piled with seafood and rare meat and unpasteurised cheese.</div>
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Nobody knew my secret. But as I watched celebrities arrive and pose for pictures and partygoers take selfies, it was already starting to feel detached from reality.</div>
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Now I live in a new kind of La La Land.</div>
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I still have to make sure I've done my research, dress for the occasion, avoid certain taboo subjects and handle diva-like tantrums. But as a parent my priorities have changed dramatically.</div>
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And when an occasional flashbulb pulls me back from the shadows towards that world, it seems hollow.</div>
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I was always on the other side of the velvet rope. But now I am totally blocked off from it, peering over the heads of the crowd on the other side, wondering what all the commotion is about.</div>
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The escapism of celebrity gossip doesn't even amuse me. I have seen too much of the smoke and mirrors from the side of stage to be taken in by it.</div>
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Even when I was part of the pack, the real interest for me was the challenge of seeing past the paint and polish, to try and find a glimpse of what truly lay beneath.</div>
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Now, in this age where journalism faces so many changes and challenges, where fake news is everywhere and political unrest threatens my child's future, I feel more drawn to writing about real life.</div>
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I don't want to escape reality anymore. I want to grab it and stare it in the face. To shine the spotlight on its problems and try to find a solution.</div>
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It's hard when you have done something for a decade of your life to stand up and admit, out loud, that you don't think it is important anymore.</div>
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But being responsible for another life really puts the hype around awards season into perspective.</div>
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That's not to say I am not interested in speaking to Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.</div>
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I'd like to ask father Ryan about sharing parental duties, Emma about the gender pay gap and both of them about how it feels to live in a country that elected Donald Trump as leader.</div>
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I'm just not that interested in who they will be wearing to The Oscars this year.</div>
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While the spotlight continues to shine on the glitz and glamour that is showbusiness, I make animal noises and play peekaboo.</div>
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The show must go on.</div>
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</a>Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-21025485766030141982017-01-05T16:00:00.000-08:002017-01-09T12:28:07.363-08:00Five Kids' Christmas Presents You Wish You Could Give Back<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
The holidays are over, the decorations have been packed away, the last chocolate coin has been consumed and everyone is plodding back along into their old routine.</div>
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Except everything is not quite back to how it was.</div>
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Over the last 12 days a number of unsolicited items have been smuggled into your home, wrapped in bright paper and sparkly ribbons. You did not have prior knowledge of what these parcels contained, let alone a chance to grant them your approval.</div>
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And now, as the final flurry of wrapping paper has been cleared away, it is beginning to dawn on you that you have been invaded, and it's too late to do anything about it.</div>
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Christmas is a time for giving, and that's all very well and good. But there really should be a rule when buying presents for other people's children - you must ask yourself, "Can you go about your daily life with this being played over and over again in the same room as you?" And if you should even hesitate before answering yes, then DO NOT INFLICT IT ON ME VIA MY CHILD!</div>
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Here are the top toys heading to a charity shop near me before January is out.</div>
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<b>1. The Talking Activity Gadget</b></div>
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On the surface it seems like a great present. A toy that talks to your child so you don't have to.</div>
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But why do they all have such irritating, high-pitched voices? Can your little one really be learning anything as they hit the button that makes it warble the alphabet erratically for the twenty seventh time in a row? And why, oh God why, is there no off switch?</div>
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Fortunately it uses £50 worth of batteries a fortnight, giving you an excuse never to replace them.</div>
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<b>2. The Expensive Collectible</b></div>
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My offspring had been getting through life perfectly happily, blissfully unaware that there was a set of little animals that dress and live like people. That is, people who live in extortionately priced houses with even more ludicrously expensive furniture sold in little sets.</div>
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And then someone gave them one for Christmas and now they want to build the whole town.</div>
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All their birthday and Christmas and Tooth Fairy money forevermore will be squandered on yet another piece of miniature furniture worth more than any of the full size furnishings in our home.</div>
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Until they are introduced to their next fad, and the costly, half-complete collection is left to gather dust with the rest of them.</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>3. The Christmas-themed Cuddly Toy</b></span></div>
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As if we didn't already have more stuffed animals than a dodgy fairground attraction, the last thing we needed was another to add to the pile of neglected not-favourites that must bow down before her beloved bunny.</div>
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But of all the forgotten cuddly toys, the one with the red Christmas hat stitched to its head is the one I feel most sorry for.</div>
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It's almost as though it knew from the outset that its days were numbered.</div>
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A favourite teddy is for life, but a Christmas teddy only gets cuddled for a few seconds after the paper has been torn off, before it is quickly cast aside to make way for the next present.</div>
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It may get stuffed in the box with all the others, a few chocolatey finger-prints on its white fur indicating that it knew real love for about 30 seconds, but its red and white costume marks it out as the little toy that everyone forgot.</div>
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<b>4. The Giant Floor Puzzle</b></div>
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We all had a present like this under our tree. The really big, extravagant one that takes up loads of room and has loads of parts. And requires loads of concentration to play.</div>
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It was really exciting when it first got opened. There were exclamations of joy and everyone started joining in and playing together.</div>
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But then they got distracted by food or television, or another present and it got left strewn all over the floor.</div>
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It gets in the way, it's a nightmare to hoover around, bits soon get lost and it rarely ever gets completed even once.</div>
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If it made a noise it would be top of the list.</div>
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<b>5. The New Favourite Book</b></div>
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It seemed such an endearing story the first time they settled down on your lap to read it. The flaps were so brand new you had to help rip the perforations in the card to open them, and you were genuinely interested in how it ended.</div>
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But since Christmas morning you have read it over, and over, and over, and over again.</div>
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They may not be able to read yet, but by golly they can remember every word. And if you try and skip out even half a sentence they'll call you out on it.</div>
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"Why don't we read Dear Zoo tonight? You used to love that." But oh no, it has to be that new Christmas book again.</div>
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What a shame it seems to have disappeared...</div>
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<b><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Have a very Happy Christmas.</span></b></br />
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<b><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">We'll be back in the New Year.</span></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGbDUZYdpR2XrzkgVRIX8vFAKd9Uk8eJvLHCTQ2UDCnqZd17qUsQD8XoUFQZjRdRWTPePNgAyfQIkXF4qMzfktNazVNIDSDchDYNHpivK5GkEVujcn0SXx29UiWeBSgikeOsj_E6YEC_Q/s1600/IMG_1192.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGbDUZYdpR2XrzkgVRIX8vFAKd9Uk8eJvLHCTQ2UDCnqZd17qUsQD8XoUFQZjRdRWTPePNgAyfQIkXF4qMzfktNazVNIDSDchDYNHpivK5GkEVujcn0SXx29UiWeBSgikeOsj_E6YEC_Q/s320/IMG_1192.JPG" width="230" /></a></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.harrietlloyd.com/" target="_blank">Pictures courtesy of award-nominated artist Harriet Lloyd</a></i></div>
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<br />Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-51196340711973392442016-12-20T23:00:00.000-08:002016-12-21T00:47:16.076-08:00Review Of The Year 2016<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
It's certainly been a year of change.</div>
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What with Brexit and Trump's terrifying take over. The demise of so many great artists including Bowie, Prince and Victoria Wood. Not to mention the crumbling of The Great British Bake Off.</div>
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And amongst all this global unrest, Nursery Whines has experienced many changes in our little bubble too.</div>
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We moved out of the heart of London to the very outskirts, and went from pushing a pram round art galleries to sitting on mats in church halls with a mug of Nescafé, all in a bid to get out of the house and find some adult company. The latter is much more welcoming.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/town-mouse-moves-to-suburbia.html" target="_blank">Town Mouse Moves To Suburbia</a></span></i><br />
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In 2016 I found my wardrobe had become a capsule of stripes and leggings.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/shell-be-wearing-striped-pyjamas.html" target="_blank">She'll Be Wearing Striped Pyjamas</a></span></i><br />
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And then I embarked on a conscious effort to... make an effort.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/strike-pose.html" target="_blank">Strike A Pose</a></span></i><br />
<i><br /></i></div>
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We began the year making strides with the Baby Bjorn, only for it to go horribly wrong when I took a tumble.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/a-burden-of-guilt.html" target="_blank">Burden Of Guilt</a></span></i><br />
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I'm a pushchair pro now though. I can even steer one-handed and drink coffee at the same time.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/pokepram-go.html" target="_blank">Pokepram Go</a></span></i><br />
<i><br /></i></div>
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2016 has seen my daughter move into her own room and learn to sleep through the night.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/frozen.html" target="_blank">Frozen</a></span></i><br />
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And move back into our bed.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/love-actually-nauseating-but-true.html" target="_blank">Love Actually: Nauseating But True</a></span></i><br />
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I've gone from breastfeeding to weaning.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/six-baby-weaning-foods-that-are-messier.html" target="_blank">Six Baby Weaning Foods That Are Messier Than You Might Think</a></span></i><br />
<i><br /></i></div>
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And reclaimed my body. Well, what's left of it.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/bouncing-back.html" target="_blank">Bouncing Back</a></span></i><br />
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I've found parenting can be lonely.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/the-omen.html" target="_blank">The Omen</a></span></i><br />
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Parenting can be competitive.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/baby-top-trumps.html" target="_blank">Baby Top Trumps</a></span></i><br />
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And parenting can be overwhelming.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/7-cult-films-i-feel-i-have-been-living.html" target="_blank">7 Cult Films I Feel I Have Been Living In Since Becoming A Parent</a></span></i><br />
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Keeping a child fed and changed is one thing, but keeping them entertained is where the real challenge lies.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/12-favourite-baby-toys-tried-and-tested.html" target="_blank">12 Favourite Baby Toys Tried And Tested By An Expert</a></span></i><br />
</i></div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/dishing-dirt-on-messy-play.html" target="_blank">Dishing The Dirt On Messy Play</a></span></i><br />
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And sometimes you will do anything just to get out of the house.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/parklife-homage.html" target="_blank">Parklife: An Homage</a></span></i><br />
<i><br /></i></div>
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Over the past year I've come to realise that as well as being a mother I am still me.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/nothing-left-to-lose.html" target="_blank">Nothing Left To Lose</a></span></i><br />
<i><br /></i></div>
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And I've learned to let go sometimes. Even if my daughter hasn't.</div>
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<i><span style="color: orange;"><a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/please-release-me-separation-anxiety.html" target="_blank">Please Release Me: A Separation Anxiety Parody</a></span></i><br />
<i><br /></i></div>
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Perhaps the second biggest change for me in 2016, after parenthood, was that I started my blog. I have learned a lot about the blogging world - about link-ups and self-promotion and awards and conventions. The pressure to 'go self-hosted' and the burden of blogmin.</div>
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I have discovered some wonderful people and some fabulous blogs and they have helped me feel less out of my depth at this crazy new job that is parenting.</div>
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So, as one year comes to a close and a new one begins, with my daughter and I heading towards an ominous list of milestones, I am glad that I have the mummy blogger world for support and reassurance.</div>
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May 2017 bring you all you reach for.</div>
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Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-85404529763699295002016-12-14T07:25:00.001-08:002017-01-09T00:41:13.599-08:00Love Actually: Nauseating But True<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
It's 5am and I am sitting in a cold bath surrounded by plastic ducks singing Baa Baa Black Sheep.</div>
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I am suddenly overcome by an out of body experience as I find myself looking down at the naked, shivering, bleary-eyed woman with a child between her legs.</div>
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How did I end up here?</div>
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Rewind seven hours and a strange noise alerted me to the fact my daughter had just vomited up most of her supper in her cot and appeared to have gone back to sleep, lying in the putrid lumps.</div>
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That vomiting bug that has been going round had clearly struck.</div>
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I scraped chunks of cheesy baked potato and tomato off the blanket lining her cot and stripped it down before lying her on a clean towel.</div>
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Ten minutes later it happened again.</div>
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Hours later, as I awoke from a doze sitting awkwardly in a chair, my feet freezing, my bladder achingly full, covered in foul-smelling stains, with a hot, sticky little body curled up and snoring into my stiff neck, I thought to myself:</div>
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Richard Curtis - you were wrong actually. This is love.</div>
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Love is not big, overblown romantic gestures like standing outside someone's front door in the snow holding up signs that say you've (rather creepily) been secretly obsessed with them for ages.</div>
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Love is staying awake all night to rub someone's back and hold out your hand to catch their vomit and promise them they will feel better soon.</div>
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Love is not dashing to the airport to tell someone you think they're a bit of alright.</div>
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Love is managing to keep your temper when that someone wakes up at 5am and decides they are feeling much better and wants to sing Baa Baa Black Sheep and pat your face.</div>
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Love is not standing in the pouring rain until your shirt goes see-through while you tell someone you don't want to marry with them.</div>
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Love is, when you have got all hosed off and into fresh pyjamas and finally calmed that someone back down and convinced them it is still bedtime, not minding that the only place they want to sleep is lying on top of you with their head pressed into your oesophagus.</div>
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Love is not turning up at a press conference to tell some Hollywood star you want them to shack up with you in your zillion pound property in Notting Hill.</div>
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Love is cancelling your plans to see your friend before Christmas and staying at home all day because it would not be fair to drag a sick child across London. Even if they have stopped throwing up and they want to play the same annoying game over and over and over again.</div>
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All the rest is just romance. Parenting is real life, actually.</div>
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</a>Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-8180381997300341392016-12-08T06:23:00.000-08:002016-12-15T00:31:17.858-08:00Please Release Me: A Separation Anxiety Parody<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
Separation Anxiety. It really is a bind.</div>
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Up until four weeks ago my 13-month-old daughter had become really independent. She was always crawling off without me and would happily stay with total strangers while I popped out of the supermarket queue to dash back for the milk I'd forgotten.</div>
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Now I am struggling to leave her with her father for 10 minutes while I jump in the bath.</div>
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If I'm in the room with her it's fine - she'll ignore me and get on with playing on her own or with someone else. But if she looks round and realises I've popped to the loo - boom! All hell breaks loose.</div>
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So I find myself borrowing the ballad of a famous crooner, Engelbert Humperdinck, as I her sing her this plea to soothe her.</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Please release me, let me go<br />It's not that I don't love you anymore<br />To waste our lives would be a sin<br />Do you really want to watch me pee again?<br /><br />I just have to pop to the loo my dear<br />And yet you always want me </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">near</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I've crossed my legs for far too long</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">My darling, my pelvic floor is not that strong<br /><br />Please release me, don't you know -<br />I'll soon be back to be the one who tells you, 'No!'<br />Is leaving you with Daddy such a sin?<br />I just need to hoover and put out the bins<br /><br />Please release me can't you see<br />You're missing playtime when you cling to me<br />Pulling my hair out just brings me pain<br />So release me and let me live again</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br />I need the loo...<br />Let me gooooooooooo!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><i>What are your experiences of Separation Anxiety? Please tell me it IS a phase?!</i></span></div>
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When I was born, the midwife handed me to my parents - their first born - and said, "It's a girl! What are you going to call her?"</div>
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"Counceletta," they replied.</div>
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"What?!", exclaimed the midwife. "You can't call a child that! I am not giving you your baby until you change your mind."</div>
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This is the tale I have grown up being told and eventually begun to relate myself.</div>
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I am sure she was joking. But they did change their minds and I am not called Counceletta.</div>
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Only, they did still give me an unusual name.</div>
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Whenever I am introduced to people, have to give my name, or hand over identification documents, it is almost always commented on.</div>
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I have never had to follow up my name with an initial or precede it with an adjective to distinguish me from the others.</div>
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At junior school I was a little bit resentful of my name. I don't remember ever really wanting to be called something else. But I sometimes wished it didn't invite so much attention, unfortunate rhyming attempts and, well, name-calling.</div>
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But by the time I was 11 I had learned to fully embrace my name. Although I mostly chose to shorten it, I was no longer embarrassed of it, in any of its forms.</div>
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I even went as far as to tell my parents that I had decided our surname was incredibly dull and that the moment I turned 18 I fully intended to change mine to 'Rainbow'. </div>
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I honestly was not as obnoxious a child as that might make me sound. But I hope it serves to illustrate that I was no wallflower.</div>
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I was not the star of the school plays, the head girl, the queen bee of the cool kids or the class hotty. But I am relatively confident and outgoing, and I believe I owe part of that to my name.</div>
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I suppose it is something I feel I have to live up to.</div>
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And so when it came to choosing a name for my daughter, it was important that I pass that challenge on to her.</div>
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By contrast, her father hates his name. He thinks it is boring and overused and has bad associations.</div>
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It is a name often given to the 'regular guy' in TV adverts, and always pops up in reality shows.</div>
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So it was really important for him that we give our child a name that was unique and interesting.</div>
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At the same time, we did not want to brand our daughter for life with a name that says, "My parents are pretentious bores and I will pay the price for their attempt to be 'quirky' for the rest of my life."</div>
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It is an extremely tightly-run gauntlet between picking a name that makes you stand out from the crowd, yet still holds gravitas.</div>
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We chose a traditional Edwardian name that has fallen out of fashion, which we think is pretty, elegant, and just unusual enough to be character-building.</div>
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It was to our horror that we realised Edwardian girls' names are having a revival, and so our attempt to be different could easily have backfired. But we have been relieved to see that our daughter's name has been absent from every Top 100 Baby Names list so far. And she has two middle names as back up...</div>
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I am not trying to do down the Williams and Kates of this world. Nor the Olivers and Olivias - as the <a href="http://www.babycentre.co.uk/most-popular-baby-name-trends-of-2016" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Top Baby Names of 2016</a> turned out to be.</div>
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They have all got just as much chance of turning out to be brilliant and changing the world if they want to, and some of them will.</div>
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But having worked hard to be more than just an unusual name, I believe I am giving my daughter a good start in life.</div>
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And if she is a wallflower... she will still smell just as sweet.</div>
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</a>Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-50105628215965754722016-11-23T14:04:00.001-08:002016-11-28T03:21:41.495-08:00Seven Skills I Wish My Baby Would Hurry Up And Learn<div>
Fans of the hit TV series Mad Men may remember that when Don Draper's children were young - only about five or six - he had already trained them to mix cocktails. He and Betty would sit on the sofa looking hungover, yet fabulous, and the kids would whip up an Old Fashioned, like it was some kind of game.</div>
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Now I'm not saying the only reason I had a child of my own was to become my personal valet. But it certainly seemed to me like a perfectly harmless way of keeping them occupied, whilst also putting them to good use.</div>
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We have been so focused on our daughter reaching such minor milestones as walking, and talking, we have been missing the bigger picture.</div>
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Here are the tasks I will really be happy to see her capable of.</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>::Dressing Herself</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It's enough effort to put together a reasonably clean and coordinated outfit for myself every day. Then I have to do it all over again for her as well.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Once she's old enough to choose what she wants to wear and put it on herself, she can legitimately go out dressed in a swimming costume, ballet tutu, pyjama-top-she-has-grown-out-of-with-a-hole-in-it, wellies and a tea cosy on her head, and I can just blame her... Rather than admit everything else was in the wash.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>::Using The Roundabout</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Why does the roundabout have to be her favourite thing at the park? (Well, after the swings, but there's always a queue, isn't there?) And why does it not seem to make her dizzy in the slightest?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I hate braving the merry-go-round with her on my lap. Going round is not merry, it is nauseating.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So the sooner she learns to hold on to that thing on her own, the better.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>::Handicrafts</b></span></div>
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I am not artistically gifted. When I try to do homemade, it just looks shabby and halfhearted. But when children do handicrafts; wonky becomes cute and mistakes are just adorable.</div>
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All she needs to do is focus on colouring a bit harder, rather than eating crayons, and I can get her to scribble red and green all over a piece of card, shower it with glitter, then cut it up into gift tag sized pieces and my Christmas wrapping is sorted.</div>
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<b>::Making Her Own Breakfast</b></div>
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Oh for the day that I can just leave out a Weetabix in a bowl and some long life milk on the kitchen table before I go to bed. Then come the morning just roll over and enjoy the lie in...</div>
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<b>::Being A Public Voice Of Conscience</b></div>
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'Kids say the funniest things', as the saying goes. Not so funny when they're shouting, "Mummy, why are you wearing your pyjamas under your coat?", at the top of their voice in the supermarket. Or, "Mummy, look! That woman is REALLY old!"</div>
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But wouldn't it be brilliant if you could train them to publicly shame people who are doing you a disservice?</div>
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"Mummy, why doesn't that woman move her buggy so we can fit in the bus? We've been waiting for hours in the rain and there is clearly room for us too?"</div>
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"Mummy, look! That man has pushed in front of us in the queue!"</div>
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"Mummy, do you think the Pret people will choose you to get a free coffee today?"</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>::Basic Household Chores</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">As I stood hunched over in my front garden at the weekend, scraping up rotting dead leaves, suddenly aware that my builder's bum was on full view to the entire street, I couldn't help wondering... At just what age is it appropriate to start offering your offspring the chance to earn pocket money in exchange for doing odd jobs?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Just a bit of light housework - dusting, sweeping, sponging avacado stains out of the carpet.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Is 13 months a bit too young?</span></div>
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</a>Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-58112991769252727242016-11-17T07:46:00.001-08:002016-12-13T04:21:12.291-08:00Baby Top Trumps<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
All parents are competitive when it comes to their children. Even those that would like to think of themselves as laid back - deep down they know their child is best and they're just smiling smugly about it on the inside.</div>
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Hanging out with other parents, talk naturally tends to revolve around your children. As much as this is about bonding and making relatable conversation, there is often a friendly undertone of one-upmanship. From how early your child learned to sit up/crawl/walk/recite Shakespeare, to their incredibly varied diet and excellent nap regime.</div>
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Even bad behaviour gets competitive.</div>
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Have a moan about how your child just won't stop trying to climb the furniture, and it is inevitable that you friend's offspring recently scaled a bookcase all the way to the ceiling. If I had a penny for every time I heard the phrase, "Oh, she/he does that too", I would be able to afford to dress my daughter in Bon Point.</div>
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So why don't we stop suppressing our inner competitive parent and make things interesting?</div>
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Everyone remembers Top Trumps - the data rating card game that is so simple and so versatile.</div>
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I'm proposing we play Top Trumps with our children in order to find some fun amongst all the hard work and effort that goes into parenting. And, at the same time, take back the name that has now become synonymous with the brink of disaster, and remember trump can also mean something good. (Or flatulence).</div>
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So here is my Baby Top Trump card. What's your winning category?</div>
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<b>::Birth</b></div>
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How much of a hard time did the little critter give you on their grand entrance to the world?</div>
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I won't go into gory details but I'm scoring a high average for this one, I reckon.</div>
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<b>75/100</b></div>
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<b>::Sleep Deprivation</b></div>
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We all know parenting street cred is about how little sleep you have, not how much.</div>
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My daughter lets me down on this front, although she is terrible at napping, allowing me almost no time to myself, so I scraped back some points.</div>
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<b>30/100</b></div>
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<b>::Mobility</b></div>
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Here comes the science bit. The average age a child walks is between nine and 12 months. Start at 60 and add 10 for every month before nine months that your child learned to walk, or minus 10 for every month after 12. (For crawlers the average is seven to 10 months and sitters it's four to seven months.)</div>
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<b>60/100</b></div>
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<b>::Eating Habits</b></div>
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Does your baby just love to eat everything you do, or are you having to prepare separate plates of mush for every meal only to scrape it all off the walls afterwards?</div>
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Touch wood, I have a human dustbin on my hands right now, so I'm scoring big for this one.</div>
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<b>90/100</b></div>
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<b>::Misbehaviour</b></div>
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Because you need some good, "Such A Little Terror" anecdotes for your repertoire and perfectly behaved children are just boring.</div>
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Mine can be pretty naughty, throws terrible tantrums and just loves defying the word no.</div>
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<b>80/100</b></div>
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<b>::Cleanliness</b></div>
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The only people who are going to score 100 in this category are those with a child whose nappy has never leaked, who has never covered themselves in food stains and dirt and never had a runny nose in public.</div>
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If you have this child - can we do swapsies?</div>
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<b>30/100</b></div>
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<b>::Cuteness</b></div>
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Now I'm obviously not suggesting we directly compare our children's looks or loveability. We'd all have a Top Trump on our hands then, wouldn't we?</div>
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This category is for rating how good your child is in public, how well they perform their latest tricks in front of an audience and how nicely they play with other children.</div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<b>80/100</b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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</a>Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-31636363968294959632016-11-10T05:15:00.000-08:002016-11-14T12:59:07.817-08:00Warning - Feeling Purple<span style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">I feel officially old.</span><br />
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This week I turned 35.</div>
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If I were to have another baby now I would be deemed a "geriatric pregnancy".</div>
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In market research terms I have left the 25-34 category and am now grouped with the 35-54s.</div>
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The newly elected President of the United States of America, Donald J Trump, has advised the world's male population that I have reached the age when they should, "check out" of a woman.</div>
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I am no longer one of the footloose and fancy-free, bright young things, who can do what they want, when they want. I am one of the sober, stressed-out, squeezed middle, who has responsibilities to consider and duties to carry out.</div>
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The other day in the supermarket I found myself standing behind a woman wearing striped knee-high socks, a bright patterned cardigan layered over a clashing patterned dress and a decorative hat. I could tell from behind that she was not a youngster, but when she turned her head I could see she was at least 60.</div>
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I was reminded of Jenny Joseph's poem Warning. "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple. With a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me."</div>
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I have always loved that poem. But I found myself thinking it won't be long before my daughter will reach an age at which she would be mortified if I took her to school wearing striped knee-high socks.</div>
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So I am old. But not old enough to wear purple and spend all my pension on brandy.</div>
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I can't have a midlife crisis and buy a motorbike.</div>
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I have to eat healthy cereal for breakfast, sitting up straight at the table, so as to set a good example to my daughter.</div>
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When I was a child I always wondered why my mother asked for such boring things for her birthday. A dishwasher, a sit-down iron, a Magimix. Why did she always ask for household gadgets and not treats for herself?</div>
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But now I realise these presents made her life easier and so they probably did bring her some small joy in that way.</div>
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And this year I asked for a Magimix for my birthday, to help me cook better and quicker meals.</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Is this growing up? Is this what I have been waiting for all these years?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I spent my teens racing into adulthood and now I wish I had slowed down.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I want to watch breakfast telly in my pyjamas and eat chocolate biscuits in milk for breakfast and paint my toe nails and spend hours on the phone to my friends.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But I have to get up and get my daughter dressed and fed and try and remember to label the toys we play with so that she learns some words other than, "This."</span></div>
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I am one of the Grown Ups now, and I have to put in my years of being the sensible one before I can become a bright old thing.</div>
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Then, once I've paid my dues, I can go back to eating toast with butter three inches thick, going to the cinema in the middle of the day and spending all my money on eccentric outfits from charity shops.</div>
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But perhaps I ought to practice a little now. So that my daughter isn't too shocked, when I become old and start to wear purple.</div>
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</a>Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-77063695843985426772016-11-04T02:56:00.000-07:002016-11-07T04:21:40.670-08:00Someone Like Me - Thank You<span style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">This week global singing sensation Adele confessed she gives herself one afternoon a week away from her child, just to put herself first.</span><br />
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She said she found it helped her combat her postnatal depression and that it makes her feel better than if she gave up all her time to parenting.</div>
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I'd like to say thank you to Adele. She doesn't speak much about her private life and it feels to good to hear someone as famous as her admit that being a parent is not all cuddles and cuteness.</div>
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I met an old school friend, who doesn't have children of her own, at a party recently and she asked me how I was finding, "Motherhood".</div>
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"I am enjoying it," I replied, "but it can be a bit more lonely than I expected."</div>
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"Lonely?!", she exclaimed. And immediately turned to another friend of ours, who also has children, and asked, "Do you find it lonely?", as though I had just said something quite unfathomable which she was unable to comprehend.</div>
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Not many people say it out loud when you ask them about parenthood. I suppose it makes sense that they would focus on the positives, but among the tiredness and the mess and the chaos, it can be one of those things that sneaks up on you and hits you hard.</div>
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At home all day with a person who demands everything from you, but can offer very little conversation in return... every now and then I have a day where I feel like the princess trapped in the tower and my daughter is the wicked witch.</div>
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So this week I am also saying thank you to my family. When Him Indoors had to go on a business trip to Bristol and said I could stay in the hotel too, they babysat.</div>
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When the waitress at the restaurant brought our bottle of fizz to the table she asked if it was a special occasion. "It's the first night we have left our daughter overnight," I told her. "She's one."</div>
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We didn't stay out that late but we did go on to a bar and posed for silly photos and ate cheesy chips.</div>
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I wasn't glad to be free of my daughter, but, because I knew she was safe and we would see her soon, I found I didn't really miss her that much.</div>
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For the first time I forgot the duty of being a parent. I thought of my daughter not as a dependent, but as a person who, actually, I quite enjoy spending time with.</div>
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And I realised that becoming a mother has not changed me. I am still myself, just with a parental responsibility.</div>
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In the morning He went off to his meeting and I had a lie in and a long shower.</div>
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I went for a walk around the harbour in the morning mist and just enjoyed being able to walk at my own pace and take notice of my surroundings.</div>
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I went to a cafe and drank hot coffee and ate breakfast slowly and read a whole chapter-and-a-half of the book I began when I was still pregnant.</div>
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When I passed people pushing buggies I smiled at them. I felt like I had a secret. I was a parent and nobody knew, because I am still a person too.</div>
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And when I saw my daughter later that morning and gave her a kiss I definitely appreciated her even more.</div>
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I may not have the luxury of being able to leave my daughter once a week. But every week I make time to write down my own thoughts, just to remind myself that I still have them.</div>
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My child means everything to me. But she is not everything in my life. And it doesn't make me any less of a parent to say that.</div>
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</a></div>Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-81962125294336218762016-10-26T14:00:00.000-07:002016-11-07T13:12:28.702-08:00Bouncing Back<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
I have found myself feeling a little deflated of late. Literally.</div>
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One year of being milked has left my bust a lacklustre reminder of what it used to be.</div>
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It's not as though I was ever a particularly garish flaunter of my décolletage, but I had an ample bosom which, mostly thanks to finding the right bra, I had come to embrace.</div>
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We've had our ups and downs over the years.</div>
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When I was 12 and all the coolest girls in my class had been bought their first bra, I hated my pathetic gnat bites for not warranting anything more than a lacy crop top.</div>
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Then the buds sprouted and they were off, blossoming into pert little breasts that I didn't appreciate at the time, but I now remember fondly. Just the right size to stand proudly, but alone and unsupported.</div>
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Oh, how I took for granted the luxury of being able to wear strapless and backless dresses with no supportive undergarments to pull them into place.</div>
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I inherited a generous cup size from my foremothers and if anything they soon became a little larger than I considered to be ideal.</div>
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I wasn't like poor Jemma G in my class, who was a double G and really into gymnastics, and had to wear two sports bras in a desperate bid to pin them down.</div>
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But as a teenager, when Calvin Klein underwear was my 'Must Have' and I spent all my waitressing wages on a designer bra, the largest size available didn't really contain them.</div>
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It took me until my early twenties to fully understand the value of a good over-shoulder boulder holder.</div>
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I happily used my student discount to buy cheap, brightly coloured, sometimes cartoon-print, bras from Topshop, not really aware of my true measurements and still under the misapprehension that the aim of a brassiere was to force them together, rather than lift and separate.</div>
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Then once I got my first real job and had a bit more to spend, along with a wiser head on my chest, I discovered expensive lingerie.</div>
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I visited <a href="https://www.rigbyandpeller.co.uk/" target="_blank">Rigby & Peller</a>, Royal Warrant holder and therefore, one assumes, official bra-makers to The Queen.</div>
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For my first fitting I was shown into a cushioned booth, given a silk dressing gown and told to strip down to the waist. A rather stern and matronly woman then came in and asked me to open the dressing gown. There was none of this faffing about with generic measuring guides like you get at a certain well known high street store that has always let me down on the bra front. She just measured the circumference under my bust and then scrutinised my bosoms, before declaring me a 32F and returning with a selection of bras for me to choose.</div>
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For the first time ever I discovered what a properly fitting bra felt like... and it was quite magical. Like two gloved hands were holding my breasts comfortably in place.</div>
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From that day forth I was a convert, and while they didn't come cheap, Rigby & Peller became my official bra-makers too.</div>
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So imagine my dismay when I got pregnant and discovered they don't do maternity or nursing bras! At first I couldn't believe it. I mean, The Queen has had four children. But then she probably had a wet nurse.</div>
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I was back at the aforementioned high street store, trying on nursing bras, which have no underwire, and asking the assistant, "It doesn't really feel like it's giving me any support - is that's how it's supposed to feel?" To which they couldn't really give me an answer.</div>
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I had to assume that as you're going to be flapping them out all the time, a nursing bra doesn't really do much but hold breast pads in place in case of leakages.</div>
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And now I have fully weaned my child and none of my structurally-engineered undergarments fit me anymore. They just hang there limp and pathetic inside the cups.</div>
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Where once I had two plump melons, I now have two overripe donut peaches - flat, with rather wrinkled skin.</div>
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I have considered trying to reinstate them to their former glory. Plastic surgery is not an option I would really consider, so perhaps, if I just ate masses of high-fat food I might gain weight in the right place?</div>
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I may have to save up my pennies for another visit to Rigby & Peller and be fitted for a downsized structure to suit my new assets.</div>
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But most importantly, I just need to learn to accept my breasts for what they are. Not those of a pre-Raphaelite goddess, but those of a thirty-something mother.</div>
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There - that felt good to get off my chest.</div>
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</a></div>Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-7610760568499778182016-10-21T01:26:00.000-07:002016-10-26T13:57:29.032-07:00Why my baby NEEDS to be wrapped up in cotton wool<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">
When my daughter was born you couldn't see there was anything different about her. Everything seemed present and correct and all in the right places.</div>
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But then I was the same when I came into the world.</div>
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So it was impossible to tell if I had passed on the cursèd gene.</div>
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However, one year into her life and it is has become clear that my daughter has inherited my affliction. Two left feet.</div>
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And now the evidence is staring me in the face whenever she smiles at me... with half her front tooth missing.</div>
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To a parent, their child will always look perfect. But they truly are closer to perfection at the start of their life. Their skin so smooth and unmarked. Their teeth so pearly white.</div>
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Fresh out of the box, they are so shiny and new and untarnished.</div>
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Looking down at the battleground that is my body all I can think is, "The poor little little mite doesn't stand a chance."</div>
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My knees are covered in the scars of trips and falls spanning three decades. My hips are littered with bruises from the numerous times I have bumped into doors, chairs and the pushchair over the past week. My hands are branded with burns from various mishaps with the oven or potato peeler.</div>
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My daughter's knees are always bruised now, the result of crawling doggedly over anything that gets in her way - from wooden blocks with sharp corners, to gravel and stones. Her forehead and nose often tell a tale of bumps into tables or tumbles over piles of toys.</div>
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As if it wasn't bad enough that her own mother is prone to clonking her head on the odd doorframe if we have to dash for a nappy-change, she is just as prone to clonking herself in the face with her cup or a book.</div>
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We've already been through the <a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/a-burden-of-guilt.html" target="_blank">trauma of the A&E dash after I tripped over in the street while wearing her in the baby-carrier</a>, and narrowly avoided crushing her beneath me. She escaped with a grazed face, while I bear fresh physical scars on my knees and raw emotional scars that prevented me ever using the sling again.<br />
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Together, we are a recipe for disaster. As Bath Time after a long, tiring, First Birthday weekend proved.</div>
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Having spent the day tidying up the house, playing with her new toys and eating leftover cake, we were both feeling shattered.</div>
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She didn't want her hair dried, but she did want to stand up against the side of the bath. So, for an easy life, I let her, while I hurried to dry her hair and get her pyjamas on so we could all go to bed.</div>
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But she really didn't want her hair dried, and she suddenly pulled her head away from me with all her might.</div>
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There was the most almighty bang, which echoed through the bathroom and shook me to the core.</div>
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I grabbed her and pulled her close to me, at the same time desperately trying to peer at her and work out where she was hurt.</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Her face contorted in agony and that terrifying silence before her first shriek of pain seemed to last for an eternity.</span></div>
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I could see no blood. I could see no obvious bump.</div>
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Then there in her wide open mouth, on her outstretched tongue, I saw it - glinting like a gemstone, a bright white shard of tooth that appeared, to me, to be monumental in size. </div>
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And then she started to howl.</div>
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Her cries didn't last that long. And within minutes she was all smiles again, tears still trickling down her cheeks.</div>
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The next morning I rushed her off to the dentist.</div>
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As I unfolded the sandwich bag in which I had kept the lost fragment of tooth, it suddenly seemed a lot smaller than I remembered.</div>
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"I'm not sure I can do anything with that," sighed the dentist.</div>
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The verdict is that the point is very sharp. But as my daughter went from smiling and waving, to screaming as soon as the dentist put her white gloves on (an irrational phobia in action), there is no point risking further injury by pinning her down and trying to file it off.</div>
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And eventually her milk tooth will fall out and she'll grow a new one.</div>
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The night it happened I lay awake, wracked with guilt and What Ifs and If Onlys.</div>
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But I've stopped beating myself up over it now. We've both got enough bumps and bruises already.</div>
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Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-15051984942142657242016-10-11T17:00:00.000-07:002016-10-17T08:18:54.108-07:00One Year Ago...<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
A year ago today I ate toast with butter and jam for breakfast, and drank my first cup of caffeinated coffee in almost ten months. The toast was cold and a bit soggy, and the coffee was only instant and also pretty tepid, but I was so hungry and grateful for them that I didn't care.</div>
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I was lying in bed in a cramped, curtained cubicle, hooked up to a bleeping machine that I'm still not sure quite what was meant to be monitoring.</div>
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It was around 6am and I had been awake for well over 24 hours.</div>
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Blinking under the throbbing strip-lights I had just begun to realise I had a headache among all the other different parts of me that were hurting.</div>
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In a little Perspex box on wheels next to me lay a sleeping baby. My baby.</div>
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I knew I should try to get some rest but all I could do was stare.</div>
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After about an hour they unhooked me from the machine and a nurse told me I could have a shower while they kept my baby at the nurses' station.</div>
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That hot water felt so good, but the shower didn't feel quite the same as usual. When I closed my eyes and tipped my head back and let the water gush over me, I still wasn't able to completely let go of reality.</div>
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Part of me was still attached. Not to the physical world, but to another life, lying in that box out in the corridor.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Since that day I have never been able to find a feeling of total detachment again.</div>
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<br /></div>
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A year ago today I created a new life in another person.</div>
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<br /></div>
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When she is tired I can't feel rested. When she is upset I feel her pain. When she laughs I can't help smiling. And when we are apart I feel like a part of me has been left behind.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Over these twelve months I have occasionally felt lonely, but I haven't ever felt alone.</div>
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<br /></div>
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My thoughts are never fully mine, for a part of my mind is always with her.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I see dangers and mistakes all around her and I want to make her world a perfect place.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I see hopes and dreams dangling just out of reach and I want to lift her up so she can grasp them all.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">For a while I wondered if I had lost a part of my old self, but I have come to realise I have gained a new side that has changed me forever.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
A year ago today I learned how it feels to love your child - a love so powerful you would do anything to protect them, anything to make them happy, anything to put their life before your own.</div>
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<br /></div>
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A year ago today I stopped being the centre of my own universe.</div>
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<br /></div>
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A year ago today I became a mother. And I know I won't ever be able to completely let go.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<b><i>Happy Birthday M.</i></b></div>
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</a></div>Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-40752439318908969522016-10-06T10:27:00.001-07:002016-10-10T13:28:06.458-07:00Are These Symptoms Of Madness Or Motherhood?<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">There are certain things I was prepared for when I decided to have a child; sleepless nights, changing dirty nappies, playing repetitive games, even having no time to myself.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But some things have taken me by surprise. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I am often hit by sudden out of body experiences - for instance, as I walk down the supermarket aisle, talking aloud to myself, "Now, what do we need to buy? Ah, yes, bread!" Looking down on myself I think, "Who is that person? What is she doing? Is she actually insane?!"</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">My daughter will be one next week and I have been looking back at the past year and how I have changed.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<div>
I realised I have developed some new habits, which a year ago would have made me think I was mad, but that I have now come to accept as just part of my life.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">::Making Up Songs About Household Chores</b></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">My baby is bored/tired/hungry and is making her feelings known. But I still have to wait for the pasta to boil/empty the bins/finish taking the washing off the line.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In a bid to buy myself those extra few much needed minutes I try singing distractedly. "Mummy's making the food, Please don't be rude. I just need a bit more time, You won't get any lunch if you whine."</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>::Going To The Loo With An Audience</b></span></div>
<div>
Life really is a cabaret these days, as I am always trying to distract a mischievous child from household hazards she shouldn't be playing with, whilst also avoiding a tantrum.</div>
<div>
Hence any bathroom break means taking her with me and keeping up the performance from my porcelain throne.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>::Hiding In My Own Home</b></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A rustle goes up from the corner of the room. She is waking up! But if she doesn't realise I'm here she might go back to sleep...</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So I drop to the floor or duck behind the door and hold my breath, pretending I am some sort of spy on a covert operation, before commando crawling or creeping away.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A futile exercise, as she never falls for it.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<b>::Clandestine Eating</b></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I don't want to share my cheese on toast! I haven't eaten since breakfast, I've been on my feet all day, and I am starving.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But if she sees me eating it, she'll want some too. Even though she's already had her own, lovingly cut into fingers, followed by two bananas.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So I hide it on the kitchen counter and duck in to sneak a bit when she isn't looking.</span></div>
<div>
It's the same ritual for chocolate biscuits.</div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<b>::Making Animal Noises In Public</b></div>
<div>
Will I spend the rest of my life pointing at every animal I see and shouting out their associated sound? </div>
<div>
"Look! Quack quack! Miaow! Woof woof!"</div>
<div>
I am officially barking.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>::Checking Vital Signals</b></div>
<div>
"The baby alarm is very quiet tonight. I'll just turn the volume up a notch and press it to me ear. Hmm, that could be breathing, or it could just be the radio crackle.</div>
<div>
"I'll just pop into the nursery and check everything's okay.</div>
<div>
"Aah, she's totally out for the count.</div>
<div>
"Hang on, is that her chest rising? I think it is. I'm not sure... I'll just pop my finger under her nose to see if I can feel her breath.</div>
<div>
"Oh, that's disturbed her! Phew! She's definitely alive.</div>
<div>
"Quick, I'd better run before she wakes up!"</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>::Gazing Gormlessly</b></div>
</div>
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But I secretly quite like sneaking into her bedroom and watching her sleeping.</div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
I quite often find myself just sitting and staring at her with a silly, big grin on my face.</div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
Because as much as she drives me round the twist, I'm mad about her.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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</a></div>Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-26026027592057890532016-09-27T22:30:00.000-07:002016-10-06T10:32:40.046-07:00What Is My Technolegacy To My Child?<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
Whenever my daughter gets a chance to rifle through my handbag she systematically pulls everything out until she finds my phone.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Although we do FaceTime family on the iPad, she has never even been shown pictures on a phone, so - at 11 months - she doesn't know what they do. </span>The screen is blank, but she stares at it in fascination and jabs at it with her fingers.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
These little black boxes are a mystery to her, but they are also her biggest contender for our attention.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
I am consumed by guilt whenever I realise that she is whining because I have been distracted by my phone.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
I thought I was being a good parent by not letting her have screentime. But digital devices have been omnipresent in her life since before she was born, and I sent pictures of my scans to my family.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
So what effect is technology having on her?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
I was 14 when the Internet arrived in my school.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
Every lunchtime hoards of teenage girls queued up in the library for their turn on the computers, so they could use chatrooms to talk to strangers. The school cottoned on relatively quickly and blocked chatrooms, but we just found 'forums' instead.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
For months my friend and I shared our romantic woes and aspirations and sought dating advice from a 'friend' we had made who told us his name was Jack, he was in his 30s and he lived in America.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
We could have been talking to anyone. It could well have been a 14-year-old girl in another school we chatted to that whole time. But a more sinister thought is that it was a man in his 30s.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
I am now a carer for a vulnerable young girl who will soon be using the Internet herself.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
In those days it took hours to share a photo and video was not even a possibility.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Some people believe that every time their picture is taken they lose a piece of their soul. There may be some truth to that if every time I see me daughter learn to do something for the first time, I reach for the camera and watch it through a lens, rather than living that moment with her.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
Today, each stage of my daughter's life has been documented in pictures and videos and stored in a cloud somewhere. When she is old enough to want to see them there could well be too many for to have time to look at.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
But I do not share them on social media. I do not feel I have the right to give away any pieces of her soul so carelessly.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
Social media came into my life just after I finished being a student. I had a MySpace page and shortly after that a Facebook account.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
At first it seemed a great way to keep in touch and track down old friends.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
But as a young woman in her twenties who still cared so much what other people thought, it felt hard comparing myself to peers who seemed more successful, more attractive, happier even, than me.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
I eventually realised that I had more 'Friends' on Facebook than I had ever had real friends. And that scrolling through all those updates and photos usually left me feeling alone, not connected.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
I can't help worrying what it will be like for my daughter growing up with social media right from the beginning of that time in life when you start to compare yourself to other people.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
I want to do everything I can to protect her. But equally I don't want her to be left out or left behind in this ever updating digital world.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
Now a recent report on the increase of childhood cancer rates cites radiation from mobile phones as a possible cause, and I have a new concern to add to my list.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
Technology is a fact of life now. I have to help my daughter use it in all the right ways that will make her life easier and better.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
But I also want to teach her that there is a real world too. And sometimes the only way to be switched on to it, is to turn off technology.</div>
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<br /></div>
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</a></div>Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-29527983869995726972016-09-20T22:30:00.000-07:002016-09-26T00:41:47.239-07:00Pokepram Go<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
I was pushing my buggy across the road today behind a woman of pensionable age.</div>
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She spotted a friend on the other side and slowed down to say hello, so I started to turn down the street to avoid crashing into them.</div>
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But just as I turned, she stepped in the same direction and I clipped the very edge of the back of her enormous, padded orthopaedic trainers, ever so slightly.</div>
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As soon as it happened I stopped, gasped and began gushing my apologies.</div>
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I'd only got as far as, "I am SO sorry! I ...", when she flashed a look of daggers - all rage, no pain - that left me feeling far more maimed than she appeared, and snapped, "Yes, okay. It's just I've got a bad foot." And she turned and carried on chatting to her pal.</div>
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"Oh, forgive me! You see, I regularly go about trying to mow down old ladies with a pushchair. But if I'd known you had a bad foot I would have steered clear and chosen another victim."</div>
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<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
So in honour of that very kind and empathetic old dear, I am launching a new app - Pokepram Go (Kickstarter campaign to follow shortly).</div>
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It is a virtual game played in the real world, whereby you score points for running into people with your pram or buggy.</div>
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Here are the top Pokepram Point Scorers:</div>
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::Little old ladies - 500 points</div>
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::Little old ladies with bad feet - 1000 points</div>
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::Business people who don't hold doors open or even bother to offer helping with steps because their job is clearly much more important than yours - 500 points</div>
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::People who walk really slowly because they are using their phones and keep slowing down, making it near impossible not to run into them - 100 points</div>
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::Parents who do not make space for a second buggy on buses (Come one, we know you can sometimes fit three at a push!) - 800 points</div>
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::Teenagers who crowd together on the pavement and pretend not to notice you trying to get by - 500 points</div>
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::People who block the whole aisle in supermarkets with their trolley - 800 points</div>
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::Shoppers who look irritated with you for even daring to try and push a buggy around a clothes shop - 1000 points</div>
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::Bus drivers who wait at stops and then drive off just as they see you running towards them, pushing your pram with one hand, while desperately trying to flag them down with the other - 1,000,000 points</div>
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Did I miss any?</div>
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<i>Buggies at the ready parents. Got to catch 'em all!</i></div>
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</a></div>Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-13601663931231307142016-09-13T22:30:00.000-07:002016-09-20T01:06:10.593-07:00Strike A Pose<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">
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It's London Fashion Week again and I couldn't feel more on the wrong side of the velvet rope if I tried.</div>
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Last time Kimye, Anna Wintour et al rolled into town I was <a href="http://nurserywhines.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/shell-be-wearing-striped-pyjamas.html" target="_blank">imprisoned in a uniform of striped nursing wear.</a></div>
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Now, seven months on, my solid-munching daughter has dropped her lunchtime feed, and yet I seem unable to break free.</div>
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I went to a friend's birthday party at the weekend. She had a seven-week-old baby but had refused to let it steal her style - choosing to wear a glamorous dress with a sweeping floral cape at the front.</div>
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When it was time to breastfeed her daughter she excused herself, confessing she was going to have to go and strip off in the other room in order to access her mammary glands.</div>
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I, on the other hand, was wearing a red t-shirt dress with flaps at the front, in order that my 11-month-old daughter could dive in and help herself whenever she fancied it. And she wouldn't even need feeding until bedtime.</div>
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Somewhere during pregnancy I lost my style. And I still haven't got it back.</div>
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I don't mean that I was ever a particularly stylish or fashionista type of dresser. But I had clothes I liked and I wore them because they made me feel confident and I felt they expressed a bit of my personality.</div>
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But as the bump grew larger I began wearing bigger and bigger shapeless tents, before eventually abandoning dresses altogether, in favour of smocks and maternity leggings.</div>
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And that was it. The leggings enveloped me and I have been trapped ever since.</div>
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Leggings and stripy t-shirts with flaps in, leggings and oversize shirts, leggings and smocks.</div>
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Summer has seen me dig out a few dresses, but only ones that have easy-to-tear-open buttons at the front and are light enough to wear a vest underneath.</div>
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And since they end up covered in food and snot and I-don't-even-want-to-think-about-what-else, it seemed a waste of time to wear anything I actually like.</div>
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But as I stood there at the party in my wrong-kind-of-flapper-girl dress, I thought to myself, "I don't have to conform to the mother uniform anymore!"</div>
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I'll admit, it's a hell of a lot easier to wake up and pull on leggings every day. And some mornings I just don't have time to think about what would look good.</div>
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But still, I take the time to make sure my daughter's outfits are reasonably coordinated and attractive. So why not me?</div>
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I'm not saying I'm going to be Frow-ready every day. If you see me at the checkout in Lidl and I'm still wearing leggings, don't judge me.</div>
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But perhaps I'll dig out a nice dress next time I have somewhere to go.</div>
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If I'm going to end up covered in food and snot, then I might as well do it in style.</div>
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Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-42752626587297197552016-09-06T23:00:00.000-07:002016-09-14T11:37:10.431-07:007 Cult Films I Feel I Have Been Living In Since Becoming A Parent<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<b>::Freaky Friday</b></div>
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<i>1976, starring Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris and remade in 2003 with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan. Teenage daughter and mother wake up to find they have swapped bodies and after a day in each other's shoes learn to understand each other.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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One night I went to bed a wreckless young person with no responsibilities and my whole life ahead of me.</div>
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Next thing I knew I woke up and I have a child to look after and a house to clean and the weight of the world on my shoulders.</div>
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I feel like I have been thrown in at the deep end with no proper training or preparation and I'm having to make it all up as I go along in a desperate bid for survival.</div>
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Except there is no youthful body for me to swap back into, even if I could work out what magic spell would get me there. And all I really want is my mummy.</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>::Three Men And A Baby</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><i>1987, starring Tom Selleck, Steve Guetenberg and Ted Danson. Three carefree, successful flatmates find a baby left on their doorstep. Hilarity and chaos ensues as they attempt to get to grips with caring for an infant but can't help growing to love her.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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I don't share their hairy chests or incredible Manhattan real estate, but so many times in the last year I have felt just like Tom, Steve and Ted. Whether it's getting pee-ed on, watching helplessly as my home is invaded by baby equipment, reading gruesome news reports from the paper in a cooing voice in an attempt to sooth, nodding off as she feeds or just generally feeling like this is really hard work that I wasn't in the least bit prepared for.</div>
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If only they popped round every now and again to sing her to sleep, Barbershop style.</div>
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<b>::Baby Boom</b></div>
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<i>1987, starring Diane Keaton. High-powered New York business woman is left orphaned baby by distant relative. She is forced to move to the country to start a new life, launches her own baby food brand and realises she wants more from life than a corner office.</i></div>
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If you have seen this movie you may remember a scene where Diane Keaton just can't take life as a lonely, exhausted mother and homeowner in the sticks any more and loses it - shrieking, crying, tearing her hair out and passing out, flat on her back, cartoon style. This replays in my head on a daily basis.</div>
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I don't want a corner office, I don't want to be asked out by a handsome and charming vet, but I do want to find a successful business venture to channel my creativity into and give me a sense of purpose in life. And I would quite like to have a mini-breakdown, just once, and let it all out.</div>
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<b>::The Sound Of Music</b></div>
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<i>1965 starring Julie Andrews. A young nun struggling to fit in at the convent is sent to try a new vocation as a nanny to seven children. She finds that pretty difficult too but attempts to make life fun with lots of games and singing. And then she ends up marrying their father and they all escape from the Nazis.</i></div>
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I like to sing and I seem to spend all day serenading my baby. But I'm certainly no Mary Poppins, as I am not Practically Perfect in any way and I don't have any magic tricks up my sleeve. So Dame Julie's other childcare film seems to resonate a lot more.</div>
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I do enjoy going swimming and to Messy Play with my daughter and generally joining in with her games. I'd love to be able to yodel and sew clothes out of curtains and dance around fountains.</div>
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And when I look into her big wide eyes and see that she loves me back, I do think, somewhere in her youth and childhood, I must be doing something good.</div>
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<b>::Home Alone</b></div>
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<i>1990, starring Macaulay Culkin. An eight-year-old boy is left behind when his family go on holiday for Christmas and at first he is delighted, but then he starts to miss his family. Meanwhile, two burglars are targeting the neighbourhood so he must defend his home.</i></div>
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At first it was great having the house to myself. I could stay in my pyjamas all day if I fancied, watch what I wanted on Netflix and eat junk food. That quickly got boring and I all I want is some company and a cuddle. </div>
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But if Kevin McCallister taught me anything, it is to man-up, do the laundry, tidy the house and get a nutritious meal on the table.</div>
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And instead of a bad guy with missing teeth trying to invade my home, I have a bad baby with growing teeth trying to destroy it from the inside who I must fend off... without the bricks and kerosene.</div>
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<b>::Gremlins</b></div>
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<i>1984, starring Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates. A boy is given a cute little furry creature as a pet, but after not sticking to its strict care regime it turns into a terrifying, uncontrollable monster.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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I signed up to take care of an adorable and helpless little creature with big, blinking eyes and a sweet little mewl, who was so cute and cuddly.</div>
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Now I have a torturous, screeching, fanged monster on my hands who I can't control.</div>
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<b>::Dirty Dancing</b></div>
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<i>1987, starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. Coming of age romance with some smooth moves, a fantastic soundtrack and some unforgettable lines.</i></div>
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Because, "Nobody puts Baby in the corner." As if she'd ever let me forget it!</div>
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Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-72408175932422336732016-09-01T12:49:00.000-07:002016-09-05T01:09:24.229-07:00Don't Fence Me In<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
"NO!", I shout for what feels like the hundredth time in the last five minutes.</div>
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My daughter has veered away from the oven door, which she had been intent on trying to press her face up against as she admired her own reflection. But she is now charging straight towards the bin with the speed and look of lust of Usain Bolt heading towards a scantily-clad model.</div>
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She stops for a moment in surprise, she clearly thought she hadn't been rumbled, and then a cheeky grin creeps across her face as she begins waggling her finger at me and shaking her head.</div>
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Her, "No, no, no", gesture is just a meaningless taunt however, as she promptly continues towards the kitchen bin and attempts to dive into it.</div>
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Since she became mobile I am fighting a running battle to keep her out of harm's way. And I am losing.</div>
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I have not yet got round to properly 'Baby-Proofing' my home. But I am starting to wonder if there is any point. What does 'Baby-Proof' really mean?</div>
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I see danger everywhere. Obviously, I can cover the plug sockets to stop her electrocuting herself and fit a stair-gate to stop her plunging headfirst to the bottom.</div>
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But how do I stop her slipping and smashing her teeth on the stone floor of the kitchen, or climbing into the washing machine and setting it to spin?</div>
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And the trouble is she is able to find danger where I never even imagined it could be.</div>
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I thought I had come up with a solution - prison.</div>
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The Royale Converta 3-in-1 Play-Pen Gate is basically six stair-gates joined together, and can either form a cage or be attached to walls to trap your baby behind bars, whilst, hopefully, keeping danger out.</div>
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But she has realised the restriction of life on the inside and has started throwing horrendous tantrums whenever she is sent to jail, and her anything-but-silent protests are more than I can bear for more than a few minutes.</div>
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So I let her roam around behind me while I try to make her meals, turning my head as often as I can without slicing off my fingers or searing my palms, to check what home hazards she has identified next.</div>
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If I am lucky she will just have just found the bottle of hand sanitiser I had forgotten was even in my handbag, and hasn't worked out how to get the lid open.</div>
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She seems to have relented tugging on the tablecloth that I have pinned in place with bulldog clips, but I'm sure she won't have given up for good.</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The radiators hold a particular allure for her, with knobs to twiddle, pipes to bash and casing to try and prise open. But while they are currently relatively harmless, they will soon be potential burn inflictors and so I have tried to convince her that they are out of bounds.</span></div>
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After I chased her away from the oven and the bin, she crawled up to the radiator, stopped and waggled her, "No, no, no", finger at it.</div>
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I may have won the battle, but I fear this war has only just begun.</div>
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Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-1947339670984192562016-08-23T22:39:00.000-07:002016-08-28T23:14:44.504-07:00Dishing The Dirt On Messy Play<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
Messy Play is one of those things that you could not even have fathomed before you become a parent.</div>
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We first heard about one at our local library when my daughter was only about six weeks old and still sleeping through most of the singing and play sessions I lugged her along to. But even then I thought to myself, "I can't wait until she is old enough to go to that!"</div>
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The idea of Messy Play is that you do things with your kids that you would never dream of doing at home.</div>
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This can be because you don't have the space or the resources. But the main reason you don't do it at home is because it would take the rest of the week to clear up afterwards - and there would be bound to be stains and remains that never truly went away.</div>
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We've been to our share of Messy Plays in children's centres and libraries now.</div>
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And the truth is, the majority of them have been a little disappointing. Well, for me, anyway.</div>
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That first time I heard tell of Messy Play, I envisioned an entire room taped with bin liners, floor to ceiling, with buckets of paint everywhere, slippy slides dripping with cooked spaghetti and paddling pools full of jelly, where children - also wearing bin liners in my filthy fantasy - sloshed and splashed and slid about and had to be hosed down afterwards.</div>
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The reality is pretty much the same set up as a regular play session, but with a bit of paint or play dough on a table (Come one, that's just craft), a water table with some bubbles in and a few bath toys, and maybe a token tray of Rice Krispies with some spoons and cups.</div>
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The children still have fun of course, and just being able to paint some handprints and splash some water and not get it all over your living room is a lot to be grateful for.</div>
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But the staff hover uneasily over you with a broom and a roll of paper towel, and a pained look in their eyes that says, "I have to clean all this up after you've all gone home." And it all just feels a bit half-hearted.</div>
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Then the amazing Andrea moved to our local children's centre and it was like we had struck oil.</div>
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She filled paddling pools with cooked spaghetti and sandpits with flour and coloured water and actively encouraged the children to get in and roll around.</div>
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She added glitter and shaving foam to the water table and she covered another with cottonwool balls and paint.</div>
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Watching the children splashing about in the cottonwool goop she commented, "I really wanted to get them to throw it at the wall, but I don't think the janitor would ever forgive me."</div>
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I am sure this is some parents idea of a nightmare.</div>
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At bath time when we got home I found the folds of my daughter's skirt were stuck together with a wodge of purple dough, and there was glitter in her nappy.</div>
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Last week it was particularly hot and we arrived at Messy Play to be told by Andrea, "There are beans outside."</div>
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For a second a tray of dry beans popped into my head, but almost instantly I knew what she meant.</div>
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"Shall we just get naked?" I asked, as I rubbed suncream into my daughters arms.</div>
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A minute later she was wallowing gloriously in a bath of baked beans, wearing nothing but a sun hat and a nappy.</div>
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Nearby one of her little friends was rolling around in a pool of baby oil and blue paint.</div>
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As wholly inappropriate as it may be, I couldn't help the tune of Christina Aguilera's Dirrty coming into my head - the perfect soundtrack as I watched my daughter writhe around in baked beans, blue paint flecked across her face.</div>
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Andrea quickly added warm water to her rubber duck pool and put out piles of towels, helping to wrap up the oiled-up, blue babies before they slipped through their mother's arms.</div>
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We always think carefully about what not to wear when we know we are going to Messy Play now. I just need to start packing my own change of clothes as well....</div>
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<i>This post is dedicated to Andrea, the dirtiest person we know.</i></div>
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Nursery Whineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09541053567002627874noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6715187134183780452.post-21058490396398016442016-08-18T06:49:00.004-07:002016-08-28T23:12:39.208-07:00Olympics 2016: Alternative Medals For Parents<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
I must confess, I tire of Olympics coverage pretty quickly.</div>
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Okay, so Laura Trott can cycle really fast, Simone Biles can smile and do backflips at the same time and Usain Bolt is apparently, 'immortal'.</div>
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But these sports men and women have been training for years. They devote their lives to crossing that finishing line first, clinching that medal and title for themselves and basking in the glory.</div>
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I'm by no means saying what they do is easy, but I object to them being called heroes.</div>
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True heroes, in my eyes, devote their lives to improving other people's. They are doctors and nurses, firefighters, teachers and humanitarian aid workers. Where are their medals?</div>
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Anyway, before I get stuck on my high horse, let me climb back down to my usual base level.</div>
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If pushing yourself to your physical and mental limit, devoting every moment of your time to achieving your goal and trying to be the best in the world at something deserves a medal, then there needs to be a Parenting Olympics.</div>
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Here are some categories I am ready to compete in. But never mind a medal, I'll be happy with just being recognised for taking part.</div>
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<b>Baby weightlifting</b></div>
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My back is done in and my biceps more bulging than a very wet nappy. Carrying a small child takes its toll, and lowering a sleeping one into bed is an art form.</div>
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<b>Long distance buggy pushing</b></div>
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Pounding up and down hill, navigating busy pavements and bumpy paths and weaving around supermarket aisles - an elite buggy pusher must train hard to be in peak physical fitness and hone their control and steering skills to be the best on the track.</div>
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<b>Nappy changing gymnastics</b></div>
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It may be the baby who does all the backflips and lunges during this sport, but chasing after a child with a dirty nappy hanging half off or trying to finish fastening a fresh one onto a disappearing charge require some pretty deft moves yourself.</div>
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<b>Household chore rugby</b></div>
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Whether it's trying to tidy up the sitting room with a wriggling tot on your hip or attempting to fix your own lunch with a suckling baby balanced on your breast, you need the agility of a rugby fly half and the strength of an entire scrum.</div>
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<b>Toy hurdling</b></div>
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The supermarket delivery man is knocking and you have to answer before he stuffs his, 'Sorry we missed you', slip through the letterbox and races off to his next slot. But there are a pile of building blocks, numerous That's Not My... books, a stuffed lion and a baby walker between you and the front door. Can you vault them all and make it the finish line without a fall?</div>
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<b>Baby dressage</b></div>
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Some may question whether this is actually a sport, but grooming your baby, dressing them up and then demonstrating their dexterity and obedience in front of a critical audience - we are all going for gold every day.</div>
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This week I took a big bag of toys to the charity shop. They were all items that we had been given second hand that made annoying noises - some of which didn't even have an off switch - and if my daughter had ever given them a second glance, she had lost interest pretty fast. Something tells me those particular toys will never have a home for life.</div>
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A study in 2010 found the average child owned 238 toys but only played with a core favourite 12 on a daily basis.</div>
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This led me to ponder my ten-month-old daughter's favourite toys.</div>
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So here they are, in no particular order (her preferences vary anyway). Tried and tested by an expert - if you count a baby as an authority on what they like to play with.</div>
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<b>1. My hair</b></div>
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Easily accessible, portable, good to chew on and great fun to yank and maul into a bird's nest. She never seems to lose interest in my hair. Except occasionally when she moves on to trying to poke at my eyeballs.</div>
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<b>2. Glasses</b></div>
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Those on people's faces, but also sunglasses that have been left unattended and just out of reach. She relishes the challenge of getting hold of them and can then find opening the arms and trying to snap them off fascinating for ages. She has a toy pair of giant red glasses, but for some reason they don't hold the same appeal.</div>
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<b>3. A plastic bottle</b></div>
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Her first significant crawl was made across the floor in pursuit of my water bottle. Give her a room full of toys and she will almost always head straight for the bottle. The ridged lids apparently give her more comfort than any of her teething toys.</div>
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<b>4. The doorstop</b></div>
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The filthy, old, wooden doorstop that was wedging open our kitchen door when we moved in. No amount of scrubbing it with antibacterial wash will ever get it looking truly clean, and yet she'd rather put that in her mouth then any of the other toys I set out on the floor in a bid to tempt her. Time to buy a new doorstop...</div>
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<b>5. My handbag</b></div>
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Whether it's just a yank on the strap or a full root through and unpack, my handbag is a bottomless pit of entertainment as far as she is concerned. Except for the toys in it - they are always the first things to be cast aside as she dives in for a pen or my wallet.</div>
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<b>6. The bath plug</b></div>
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It doesn't matter how full the bath is of bright plastic ducks and buckets and bubbles, the plug is always there glistening at the bottom, drawing her towards it.</div>
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<b>7. The Sudocream tub</b></div>
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You haven't lived until you've played Sudo Bongos.</div>
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<b>8. The Lidl special offers leaflet</b></div>
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She loves to read, any book or paper will do. But the Lidl leaflet offers a special source of intrigue. She likes to peruse it slowly and in detail, perhaps planning next week's shop? Before shredding it up into a million pieces.</div>
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<b>9. Mobile phone or tablet</b></div>
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Not to watch videos of Peppa Pig but just to gaze at, grab hold of and drool on. It is her biggest contender for our attention and so she is understandably enthralled.</div>
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<b>10. A packet of wet wipes</b></div>
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She hates having her face wiped and will whine as soon as she sees me reach for the packet. But in her own hands it's another matter. It comes in as a handy distraction technique for stopping her grabbing my hair or rolling away while she has her nappy changed.</div>
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<b>11. Socks</b></div>
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The answer to that age old question of, 'Why is there always an odd sock in the laundry basket?', is so obvious. My daughter threw one off somewhere between the bus stop and our front door.</div>
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<b>12. Stones</b></div>
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No stone is too big, too small, too dirty or too far away. What at first seems a great free and readily available way of keeping her occupied as she rakes them up, throws them, piles them or rolls them, always backfires when she eventually puts one in her mouth. And the more she is told, 'No', the more tasty they become.</div>
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<i>What is your child's favourite thing to play with?</i></div>
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