There has been many a day when I have returned from work to find my mother slumped on the sofa, a look of exhaustion and despair etched on her face. “It’s been a difficult day,” she would croak, as Piglet played with his cars around her, in front of Abney and Teal, making cute little…
Category: subsistence parenting
The Maternal Guilt Starts Here
Well actually it started three months ago, when the wee one was born. And there is never a moment when you are truly safe. There’s always something waiting round the corner that could be going wrong. A case in point being the one illustrated below. On Friday I was happily bleating down the phone to…
The Public Badge of Good Motherhood
Argh. I have inadvertently trained Piglet to gaze blankly at the television as if in a hypnotic trance. Unfortunately, this does not only happen during In the Night Garden. This was not supposed to happen. I was supposed to be an earth mother, all joss sticks and babywearing, giving birth blissfully in a bathtub surrounded…
Essential Items for the “Nursery”
I just ate my dinner from start to finish with an angry Piglet sitting in his chair kicking his legs around and shouting at the TV, which I had turned him around to face to try and take his mind off the fact that Mummy was eating and not playing with him. I am a…
Piglet is ten weeks old, and I find myself asking the question, how much TV is too much?
Aha! I don’t want to speak too soon, but I think I may have found the secret of the elusive Bedtime Routine. It is none other than popular children’s television programme In the Night Garden. So far it has helped Piglet settle down to sleep no less than two days running. It is as yet…
Multiple Attempts to Write This Blog All End in Abject Failure
Almost seven weeks in, and I think I’m doing a pretty good job. Piglet is wearing a vest personally designed by one of my friends (i.e. drawn on) at my baby shower, and having a “kick about” on the floor, something that my mother, a.k.a. the “Wind Whisperer,” recommends so that he can “get his…
Subsistence Parenting
Yes I admit it. Guilty as charged. Yes I did put the baby in the car seat to sleep while I had my lunch. And we weren’t in a car. And (voice drops to a barely audible whisper) I didn’t even fasten the straps. Surely God will strike me down with a lightning bolt. Or…