Thank you

My many thanks to those who attended Ruby's baptism. I know this is not how most of my friends spend their weekends :-) so it was really nice to see her community out to support her.

Also, I'd like to thank you all for the lovely presents. I managed to lose track of who gave her what so I shall just extend a general round of gratitude.

Hypotonia and Pearl

I realised today that I am in the interesting position of being able to compare Pearl when she is well (a month ago) and not well (now). Her hypotonia doesn't compare to real illness, of course - every time I go to the State Child Development Centre I see some child with a terrible, debilitating condition and I am so grateful that Pearl is relatively so well.

Nonetheless I can see how much easier it is when Pearl is well. I'm not talking about having a cold or whatever, I mean the difference when her muscles aren't aching and support her properly.

When she has a bad patch of hypotonia she whines constantly, about everything, she complains about her sore muscles, she cries when she is picked up because the pressure hurts her, she falls over all the time and then she cries because she has no reserves of strength left.

When she has a good run with the hypotonia she occasionally falls over, the way most three year olds do, she occasionally has crying fits and she sometimes is unreasonable. She is, in short, the sort of child who is described in parenting books, the kind of child that the techniques experts suggest actually work on.

Taking care of her when she is well is so incredibly much easier.

I had a sudden realisation today that this is part of the reason that I find parenting such heavy weather sometimes.

Bloody toilet training

I remember the first few times I tried tying a reef knot. I went 'left over right and under, then right over left and under' and then I had two strands of loosely interwoven string that fell apart. It was only when I realised that part of what I needed to do was missing from the instructions that I managed to tie the knot - 'left over right and under THEN TIE A KNOT, right over left and under AND TIE A KNOT'.

This is how I feel about toilet training. Surely the books of instruction are missing some vital piece of information.

How do you get a child to go to the potty when they refuse to accept the bribe, run away from the potty, poo in their pants and won't tell you, try to hide rather than go?

In fact, the only way out of this impasse that I see is to stop (again) and to try again in another month (for the fourth time).

Also, all this codswallop that that parenting books are full of - it can take as little as 24 hours, you and your child can work together to master a new skill - bollocks all, I say. This is clearly like the lies about solid food (your child will like it if you persevere - no, as it turned out, not until your child has a mature swallowing reflex), the lies about breast feeding (a natural reflex - nonsense, she went blue with choking the first time she was fed), the lies about walking (at their own pace - or else there is actually something wrong with her), the lies about sleeping through the night (still not there), the lies about eating food (it takes an average of 14 times for a child to eat new foods, unless, in actuality, the average for your individual child is say 100 times).

Plain packaged sexism

I approve of the move to put cigarettes in plain packaging - I see it is based on some evidence that this will be a useful public health measure.

The campaign against this move does not, however, receive the EMMA seal of approval.

What is sexist about this advertising?



Why is it that it must be framed as a nanny state issue? It's really about mollycoddling. Dare I raise the phrase pussy whipped?

What all these ideas have in common is that it is unnatural and disorderly and just plain wrong for women to be telling people (men) how to live their lives.