Miss Manners is IN

I've just read a post by the excellent Mamacita about the dangers of letting the children rule the parents and home, rather than the parents doing their job properly.

One of the commenters asked, as someone who doesn't spend much time with small children, is it reasonable to expect a 4.5yo to eat/chew with their mouth shut.

So, my opinion on the subject is, that they are never too young to start learning good manners and polite behaviour. Just because they may not understand why that behaviour is necessary or the centuries of social conditioning behind them, doesn't mean that they can't be taught to behave a certain way, understanding can come later.

So my 2.5 yo has learned to say please, thank you and you're welcome. He says pardon me when he experiences a gas escape from either end, for the most part he doesn't talk while he's eating and he keeps his mouth shut when he's chewing. At the moment he's learning that we don't snatch, by me making him give something back and try taking it again nicely if he does snatch the first time, and he has to keep doing it until he gets it right.

No, he doesn't always get it right, he has to be reminded of all these things occasionally, and frankly I don't think that is a problem, the fact is that more often than not, he does get it right, and that makes me proud.

Oh, and for the record, seeing someone smacking away at their food with their mouth hanging open physically disgusts me. Seeing a young child doing it I can cope, as long as their parent is working to correct them, however seeing a grown man doing it (one of OH's friends springs to mind) is utterly disgusting and I have very great difficulty eating around people who do that.

Understanding

Before having Ewok, I would always wonder how any mother could leave her child. I'm not talking about ones who gave them up for adoption as soon as they were born, but the ones who had started to raise their children and then suddenly abandoned them with their fathers (or other relatives).

In some cases it is because they really don't care about their kids any more, their own happiness is more important to them, and I'll never understand that.

However, I'm starting to understand that some of them genuinely believe that their children and their fathers will be better off without them, that they are screwing motherhood up so badly that it would be better for all concerned if they just left.

I'm not saying that what they believe is right, in most cases I suspect it's far from it. Just that some days I can see how they end up feeling that way.

25 things

I got tagged for this on Facebook, but I didn't really want this sort of rambling about myself on FB, so I decided to post my response here instead.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

I'm not going to tag anyone with this either, but feel free to do it, and do let me know if you do.

So, here goes:

1. When I was very little I wanted to be a ballerina (like most little girls), sadly nature intended me to be not delicate at all.

2. Through my teens my dream job was to work for ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) as a programmer.

3. I own in the region of 2000 paperbacks, and about 75% of them are Fantasy or Science Fiction.

4. I like reading bodice-rippers, including Mills and Boon.

5. I have one leg slightly longer than the other, enough to cause back problems now, but not enough to have been spotted when I was younger.

6. My favourite colour is purple, with blue a close second, and not bright colours.

7. The book I have probably read the most number of times is The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

8. I have a vampirish smile thanks to missing my two middle teeth on the top. I don't have a huge gap there because I never had them as adult teeth, the baby teeth fell out and nothing grew in their place, so the others 'shuffled up' to fill the gap. This means you can clearly see my K9s when I smile, which is one of the reasons I don't do an open mouth smile for photographs.

9. I am a natural redhead. No, I'm not going to prove it ;-)

10. The only physical activity I ever really enjoyed doing (apart from the obvious) was trampolining. Having a chronic back condition sadly put paid to that many years ago, although I frequently think about trying to do it again, to see how I get on.

11. I have an addictive personality, especially for games. I will very quickly become obsessed with something and spend/waste waaay too much time on it. Fortunately I also have the staying power of an asthmatic snail, so I will eventually lose interest and drift away from most obsessions after a period of time.

12. Some things I will stick with, like stitching.

13. My house is full of stuff I bought for projects, that I never then got around to starting. This is aside from my stitching stash.

14. I love gardens, gardening not so much.

15. My dream home would be one where I could buy a farm, build my dream house right in the middle of the land (complete with octagonal library tower), re-forest the remainder with native trees and try to reintroduce some of our endangered native animals. Unfortunately this would require winning the lottery and then some.

16. I am a southerner by birth but a northerner by blood.

17. I attended educationally, what was at the time, the top secondary school in the country. Shows doesn't it *smirk*

18. I hate doing my taxes and despite all good intentions, will always end up putting it off until the last minute. NOTE: For those not in the UK this one is topical, our taxes have to be filed by the 31st Jan each year, let ye incur a fine, so I've just done mine.

19. I wanted to call my son Patrick. Wookiee wouldn't hear of it because of Coupling, specifically the episode from series 2 called My Dinner in Hell (youtube link).

20. When I was much younger (still in junior school) I was so desperate to not seem 'boring' that I made up a middle name for myself (I don't actually have one).

21. I have, in the past, seriously considered moving to Canada. It was the thought of missing all my close friends (not my family) that stopped me.

22. Using the criteria; the name of your first pet + the name of the street you first lived in, my porn star name is Muscles Bisley.

23. I have a 'thing' about stationery (especially pens), towels, china and glasses (the drinks kind). This made living just down the road from Denby for 8 years a potentially expensive prospect.

24. I'm afraid of wooden roller coasters. Steel ones, no problem, love them, wooden ones just scare the whassanames out of me. This is based on experience. First The Grand National at Blackpool, and second the Mighty Canadian Minebuster at Canada's Wonderland.

25. I don't particularly like doing these sort of things but I didn't want to disappoint my tagger(s).

Ennervated

Sorry for the lack of posts folks. I have stories to tell, but every time I thought about actually posting one of them I got a big fat 'meh' on.

Things to tell include:

Mouse 1, Wookiee 0
The catflap incident
The tale of the disappointed thief
Baby banana bread

But today i'll tell about last night, when I went in to do Ewok's nighttime nappy change.

You see I have to change his nappy in the night because he piddles that much during the night, that if I don't change it, then he's wet or worse come the morning. The change usually takes place 4-5 hours after he's gone to bed, just before I settle down for the night.

Last night I went in about 4 hours after his bedtime and did my usual check of nappy fullness, only to discover that his pajamas were sodden, as were the bedsheet and the top sheet. On top of all that, dog was slightly damp too, although I think most of that was transference as he was being well cuddled.

I'm certain the source of the water was his sippy cup, which he has in bed with him every night, I'm also almost certain the soaking was self-inflicted. He has this 'thing' he does, where he gets a mouthful of water and then just dribbles it down his front, and keeps going until he empties the cup. He doesn't do it too often these days, but he was doing it yesterday, so I suspect he did it last night before going to sleep. I'm actually quite surprised that he then settled down to sleep so quietly, all damp as he was.

So there I am, needing to change him and the bed completely, and of course he's chosen the night that all his other bedsheets have gone in the wash (were in fact in mid-wash-cycle at the time) and the only clean ones were the ones he'd got all wet. At least there was a single pair of jammies still clean.

I ended up putting one of our sheets on the matress and wrapping it around several times (we only have king size!) and fishing out one of his crib blankets for warmth, it wasn't really big enough to cover him but I suspect he doesn't really use the top sheet much anyway. He woke up while I was changing him, as I had to transfer him to the changing table. Normally I quick-change him in the cot and he rouses enough to co-operate but nothing more. This time he was chatting away to me and quite awake. Fortunately he settled back down again quite happily once I put him back in the, now dry, cot. I had to leave dog with him, I doubt he'd have been so happy to go back to sleep without his beloved dog.

I can't wait for nighttime potty training *sigh*

Costume Party

We've been invited to a costume party in May. The theme of the party is children's programme characters. Given that we are both in our mid-thirties, and most of the other guests are either very late twenties or early to mid thirties means that we're looking at programmes from the late seventies/early eighties.

It's not definite that Ewok is invited, and if he's not then I won't be going either, but so far we've been batting a few ideas around as if he is. So far we've come up with a few ideas, mostly where we all go as characters from the same show or series, which may be really cute, or could just be really sad, not sure which yet.

My first idea for Ewok was Dungeonmaster from the Dungeons and Dragons cartoons, of course then Wookiee would have to be Venger and I would want to be Tiamat, however while Ewok and Wookiees' costumes might not be too tricky (more robes), trying to create one dragons head, let alone five of them, is more than I can manage. Wookiee suggested I go as Sheila (the thief), a much easier costume, but Tiamat is much more 'me' than Sheila.

Wookiee had thought of going as a Mr Man. I suggested either Mr Tall (duh) or Mr Tickle (he has very long arms too), and then thought that Ewok could be Mr Small, but that doesn't leave anything for me, as I refuse to be a Little Miss, little madam maybe (according to my mother) but not a Little Miss.

That was as far as we got before the conversation drifted onto other things, so if anyone has any suggestions please do make them. However if you're not UK based it might be worth checking that we got the programme over here.

With these hands

I've been a crafter for many years. Ever since I was a little girl and my grandmother showed me how to dry, paint, and then string together melon seeds to make necklaces and bracelets.

My mother showed my how to do some simple embroidery stitches and I made her a sunglasses case out of felt and floss. I wouldn't be at all surprised if she's still using it.

My first Saturday job was in a local needlecraft shop where I discovered the world of cross stitch and tapestry and spending my pay before I even got it.

I got back into making jewellery in my late 20's, this time with glass and wire, then silver and semi-precious stones. I took some summer classes at the School of Jewellery in Birmingham (UK) in silversmithing, stone setting, gemology and pearl stringing.

About two years ago I went to Canada on holiday and went to a class on fabric dyeing and from that started dyeing and selling my own range of fabrics and threads.

I know many people who craft in one form or another and one thing I've noticed along the way, is that the hands that create the most beautiful things are usually hard worn, coloured, scratched, cut, burned, or shriveled and pruny.

I was looking at my hands just now, which after a hard days dyeing definitely fall into the shriveled and pruny category, with a side order of stained, and thinking that they look awful. Then I looked at all the wonderful colours of fabric and threads that I've created with them, and somehow it doesn't matter any more.

Snippets

Although packs of baby wipes are designed so that when you pull a wipe out, the next wipe is left poking out of the pack, the only time this will happen consistently through the whole pack, is when your offspring has managed to get hold of the just opened pack and is merrily strewing them around the living room in the manner of a demented morris dancer.

* * *
At some point you will decide that cat hair and carpet fluff aren't really unhygenic, and there's no way you are throwing away the best part of a full pack of wipes, and you will stuff them back into the pack instead.

* * *
It really is possible to repack the plastic bag tubing into a nappy bin cartridge, it's not easy, and it certainly doesn't work as well afterwards, but it is possible.

* * *
If your child has a poorly tummy, brown trousers are a must.

* * *
It doesn't matter where they are or how uncomfortable it looks, if they're asleep during the day then leave them be. Any and all attempts to move them somewhere more comfortable will only result in them waking up and wanting to play. Of course this doesn't apply if they're face down in their dinner and in danger of smothering/drowning in it, although if possible get a photo first.

* * *
Before leaving your child alone for more than a couple of minutes, assume they are at least three stages ahead of where you think they are and scan the room with that in mind. Otherwise you're in danger of coming back to find your child sitting on your desk, having opened 20+ windows on your computer because they're actually sitting on the keyboard, the contents of your desk tidy strewn about a 2 foot radius with your child at the epicentre, and them closely examining the single most dangerous thing you have on your desk, such as a pair of scissors or a jigsaw blade (don't ask).

* * *
Move everything back or up beyond their reach, then move it a couple of feet further. A surprising amount of stuff can be dislodged or dragged/knocked closer with a well aimed teddy.

* * *
The biggest sinking feeling you'll ever experience is when you realise that your child has been uncharacteristally quiet for at least the last 20 minutes.

* * *
When you are trying to tell your child off for their latest misdemeanor and they suddely point at something off in the distance and brightly say 'mdurgle googah doody', the correct translation of this is 'Look, the Goodyear Blimp!'

* * *
Babies and toddlers can use the force.

Kaboom!

That folks, is the sound of another exploding nappy *gah*

Ewok is teething again, and this time he's decided to go for a different set of symptoms. Namely a fever and the runs.

Yesterday he went through 3 pairs of shorts and one pair of trousers, fortunately, because of the hot weather, I've only been putting him in shorts and a t-shirt, rather than using bodysuits, otherwise there'd be four of those in the wash too.

He also managed to mess up both his pairs of pajamas (the bottoms anyway) and then when I went to put a wash on, so that he'd have some clean jammies for tonight, I discovered that we'd run out of non-bio washing tablets. I had no idea about this as the laundry is Wookiee's province. So I've had to go and do the weekly shopping on my own, during the day, instead of waiting until this evening, just so I can put a wash on and have it dry in time for Ewok's bedtime.

It was also the sound of the pint glass that I knocked off the worktop earlier, hitting the tiled floor in the kitchen and smashing into little pieces, which then scattered themselves liberally around my bare feet.

<sarcasm>It's been a good day so far</sarcasm>