Archive for the ‘parenthood’ Category
December 17, 2007 | parenthood
…do children think that 5 am is a suitable time to wake up for the day?
November 17, 2007 | parenthood
We’d been out a bit too late, and I’d given Lizi’s baby a bit too much attention, and therefore we were having a grumpy evening. Even In the Night Garden, the intravenous morphine of TV shows, didn’t really hold the Fecklet’s attention. He was tired, he was cranky, he didn’t feel like drinking milk or playing and he didn’t even fancy walking to the bathroom. He sat himself down on the bathroom floor, complained while I undressed him, and prepared himself for a good long whinge while I drew his bath.
And then…he spotted the pair of socks he’d left in the bathroom earlier, and forgotten about.
Joy. Bliss. One sock in each hand, to wave around and shout at. Even better, he was naked so he got to feel the slight breeze the socks made as they whooshed through the air. And then he discovered that when he brought socks into the bath, they got all lovely and wet and he could suck water out of them. He sucked one, and then the other, and then the first one again. Sock-flavoured bath water…nectar of the gods.
The happiness was so long-lasting that he didn’t even protest when I put on his pyjamas, and he went straight off to sleep, no doubt dreaming of socks.
In my opinion, this is proof that babies have some sort of hormones that make them feel as if they are on major drugs.
November 16, 2007 | parenthood
Gave Fecklet a haircut yesterday because his hair was getting in his eyes. It was a terrifying experience. The scissors were so sharp, his eyes were so near, his skin was so tender, his hair was so fine.
Now he has a fringe that looks suspiciously like a helmet.
November 12, 2007 | parenthood
I’ve been in the UK for about fifteen years now, and I’d thought I’d finished discovering those mildly amusing differences in language between American English and British English. In the first few years I learned about sidewalks and pavements, trunks and boots, suspenders and braces, and of course the endlessly-hilarious pants and trousers.
Then I started being a professional writer and I learned about the differences between fit and fitted, snuck and sneaked, and the more subtle fix and make.
I thought I was comfortably bi-lingual in English.
Now I am a mother and I am learning a whole new world of differences. There’s diapers and nappies, of course, and also strollers and pushchairs, pacifiers and dummies (though I don’t use those, Fecklet sucks his thumb), crib and cot, to burp and to wind.
But there’s more than that. Did you know that the tune to “Baa baa black sheep” is slightly different in each country? Did you know that the Americans do “The Hokey Pokey” and the English do the “Hokey Cokey,” and the English leave out the reflexive pronoun in “turn yourself around”? Did you know that even “Eensy Weensy Spider” has different words and a whole new line at the end?
I am endlessly disoriented.
November 1, 2007 | parenthood
So I tell Anna that the Fecklet’s going to be a ghost for Hallowe’en, and she says, “You should teach him to say ‘Boo!’”
Good idea. I start right away.
“Say ‘Boo’!”
He grins. “Da!”
“No, ‘Boo’!”
“Da!”
“No sweetie, say ‘Boo’!”
“DA!”
“Boo!”
“DA!” (with total conviction that we are having a meaningful conversation)
“Boo!”
“DA!!!” (wanders off to find a sock)
October 11, 2007 | courses, parenthood
Well, I am off to Oxford tonight to give my seminar on writing sex scenes. I’ve got chocolate and strawberries (strawberries in October?!!?) and am looking forward to a fun evening.
Fecklet is obsessed with socks. He loves to pull off his own socks and has started trying to do the same to other children. Mostly, he loves to hold socks, chew on them, and take them on a crawling and cruising tour around the room.
This morning I gave him half a dozen socks and he was in a frenzy of sock-induced happiness. He lifted the socks, threw the socks, put the socks down, moved the socks around, chewed on the socks, bunched the socks into a big pile, looked intently at the socks…bliss.
September 17, 2007 | courses, parenthood
So now that my friends have told me it’s perfectly okay to be a stalker, I’m off for a few days to lead a course on Writing Commerical Women’s Fiction in Stroud. This course is a little different from the one I did last month with Kate Walker; it’s more generally about writing women’s fiction than writing romance, you use the participants’ work as examples and exercises, and I’m teaching most of it alone! Yikes!
It should be good, though…the participants are very talented and I’m looking forward to meeting them.
Fecklet is being looked after by his father for three days. I think they will have a great time, but I’m anticipating coming home to a happy baby and a weary man. My husband has never been the 24-hour single parent before.
Meanwhile, Fecklet has discovered a packet of sanitary towels and is scattering them all over the dining room in a jolly fashion.
See you all on Wednesday.
September 8, 2007 | parenthood
He is eight and a half months old.
1. The mischievous look he gets when he rips off his bib mid-breakfast and then deliberately drops his toast on the floor.
2. Watching him commando crawl over the floor. He prefers to slither around on his belly, rather than actually crawling.
3. Baby kisses. Big, sloppy, drooly ones.
4. The way he hoots like a monkey when he sees something that gets him excited.
5. Playing “eensy-weensy spider”.
6. His single-minded concentration when he is, for example, trying to eat the nose off his teddy bear.
7. Those fifteen minutes in the morning when he lies in his cot talking to himself, singing and playing.
8. The unashamed greed with which he eats.
9. Baby hugs. Usually involving hair pulling.
10. How proud he is of himself when he pulls himself up to his feet using a piece of furniture.
August 30, 2007 | parenthood
So Dave and I had this horrendous and very fast-acting stomach bug on Sunday but the Fecklet showed no symptoms and was all cheerful and happy even when his parents had to take turns to run and puke. Tuesday he was still feeling well, so I took him to the child minder for the afternoon so I could write. Then, yesterday (Wed), the child minder tells me her daughter has come down with the bug. I also find out that one of the people the Fecklet was playing with at the Festival on Saturday has come down with it, too.
So essentially the Fecklet is fine while all around him people are dropping like flies.
Have I got a disease-carrying baby? Or is my friend Jenny right and the Fecklet (whom she calls Dr X) is actually an evil genius and this is his first step to taking over the world?
August 13, 2007 | parenthood
My baby has started to be obsessed with playing with stray hairs he finds on the floor on his ramblings. He picks them up, stares at them intently, strokes them, holds them up to see how long they are, passes them from hand to hand. He ate some yesterday–I know because I found them in his nappy. Babies are weird.
I should also perhaps clean more.
July 12, 2007 | about me, parenthood
My writing goal every day is 1000 words, squeezed in while the baby is sleeping or when he’s at the child minder’s (or with his dad, when his dad is at home, which he isn’t this week). Sometimes I have to stay up late to get them done; sometimes I finish that much while the Fecklet has his morning nap and I can therefore watch TV or read in the evening.
Today the baby only napped for twenty minutes in the morning. He wanted to play, full of energy: he discovered the waste paper bin, tipped it over, emptied it, and chased it all over the floor. In the afternoon we had to run errands. Got back in time for tea and for playing and bath; then, unusually, he didn’t settle down to sleep at bedtime but instead cried for an hour, needed cuddles, needed singing, needed Calpol. He’s teething and has the tail-end of a cold, and this has made his eczema flare up, too.
Energy, teething, virus, skin: I’m exhausted and have managed 396 words. I’m calling it good and going to bed.
July 9, 2007 | parenthood
Someone’s discovered the joy of reading.
Or, more likely, the joy of pulling the books off the shelves, drooling on them, and chewing their corners.
